Come take my hand for a walk

Apologies in advance, what follows isn't a short story but a series of observations.

Blossom adorns the pavement like confetti thrown at a newly wed couple. Upon parked cars the rain drops from an earlier brief shower glisten giving them the appearance of having built up a hearty sweat following a good workout at the gym. A series of lights sunk into the grass of a front lawn could act as a landing strip on a runway if the drive next to it wasn't so short. Despite it being evening on Easter Monday a Tesco delivery van is on an estate working. It croaks like a giant bullfrog as it reverses back around a corner. 

A couple cross the road conversing in a language I don't recognise. Another couple enter a house, the woman looks like she's smuggling two pillows under her long skirt. She laughs at something he said but it appears more out of politeness than because of genuine amusement. 

A lad walks towards me carrying his dinner in a white plastic takeaway bag, the faint aroma of his cooked meal follows him down the road. His hair is thick and cut into a basin. It reminds me of a type of dog, though the breed of which I know not what. 

The quiet of the night is broken by the sound of a snail shell crunching under my foot. It wasn't deliberate on my part, I simply wasn't aware of its presence under my foot until the sound of its demise. I try to recompense myself with the fact it would have had its head smashed in by a bird come the morning anyway and eaten for breakfast. The end comes for us all at some stage. 

The cool night air grips loosely at my hands and around the back of my neck like a most unwelcome guest. 

The silence is broken again first by a moorhen or maybe a coot, then by an electric car making the sound you'd associate with flying saucers in 1970s B movies and finally by a Muntjac barking. Then more cars, one to the side of me makes a poor gear change, an ambulance not on call makes a low roar like a wounded animal. 

Another car breaking the speed limit, its driver in darkness but clearly enamoured by their own sense of importance. Turn left into a darkened alley. Crunch, another snail meets its demise, I'm turning into a serial killer. A man walks towards me, the reflective panels on his orange donkey jacket reflect from the street light behind me and the cherry on his lit cigarette burns bright red like a miniature beacon.  

In a garden fairy lights are wrapped around a bush and up around a railing leading up to the front door arranged haphazardly like they've been vomited into place. A man's face is illuminated by the light of his mobile phone. He's so pale he could be mistaken for a vampire if such things truly existed. 

A woman wears a bright yellow anorak and a blue and white horizontal striped sailors shirt. She's about 45 minutes from the nearest shoreline by car. With her a man in a hat and long coat with a dog on a lead. It's too dark to see finer details of his attire but it screams wax jacket and the countryside is 40 minutes by foot.

 

A couple buzz into an apartment complex. A recorded message announces in a female voice - the door is open please close the door behind you. It's much nicer than when I was a kid being shouted at by my mother to close the door before you let all the bloody heat out. 

A works yard is illuminated highlighting a digger, a cement mixer and a couple of other types of vehicles like an odd modern art exhibition. 

A man in his 60s walks a sheep dog wearing a jumper of brown horizontal stripes that perfectly suits his age. Another man in a long coat and glasses walks a dog up a hill, his breath escaping into the cool night air like little vanishing clouds. 

Into town and the bells ring to warn that the chimes for 10 o'clock are coming. Then they ring one through ten. I'm about a minute behind where I was last night in terms of distance walked but still more reliable than a British rail time table. A group of half a dozen or more are stood outside a closed shop laughing. They look like the definition of the phone call where no one wants to be the person to hang up first. A worker throws a rubbish bag into one of two massive industrial bins both overflowing where they've not been emptied over the Easter weekend. The bin men are going to have fun moving those come the morning without being buried in a mini avalanche of waste. 

In the pain of glass above a front door the shadows of a bat and a spider. Most likely Halloween decorations that have never been taken down but maybe that's their idea of Easter instead of lambs, eggs and chicks. 

From behind a row of houses a loud rumbling noise can be heard and then it stops as quickly as it began. Logic decrees it's the exhaust from a car but as I can't see it maybe it's from the stomach of a giant, starving hungry and ready to snatch children out of their beds and eat them for his supper.

Through the space under a window blind the shape of an ample woman in a blue dress with white polka dots, the type of body shape and dress you'd have found at the seaside painted years ago with a cut out hole to put your head through and have a novelty photo taken with. 

The African grey parrot is sat upon the top of its cage once more but quiet tonight, for now at least anyway. 

The flowers in front of the church full of subliminal messages, forget me not's one side and dead daffodils the other highly unlikely to rise from the dead, well not this spring at any rate. The public house is empty of patrons once more, just a lone barman trying to look busy behind the bar. 

Two lads walk through the bus shelter, one looks like he's wearing trousers in the style of kids' pajamas, white with black speckles. In the words of OMC - How bizarre. 

Glass bottles smash as they're poured into a bin. Someone's at least done some business today. Another snail gone. You wouldn't want my karma for the rest of the week. Damn the earlier rain and the damp air. Street lights illuminate a large snail. Hurrah one I've not put to its doom.

Behind a closed door the muffled screams of a woman, a few steps further a low rumble like thunder and behind another door a man shouts 'come on mother fucker' as a woman now fully screams. I'm not sure what film is being shown at the cinema but it sounds violent. 

The bright light from a window illuminates the panels of a sloped garage below giving it an eerie feel and I'm wishing I'd not heard the screams from the cinema two or three minutes before. A blue and white Mini stops to let me cross the road. A reminder people can still be nice in this country. 

 

My old local in complete darkness at 2232 hours. Appears that it didn't even bother to open, which wouldn't have happened in my day. A teenage boy and girl walk towards me, she's got a fluffy hood up that's illuminated by the street lights behind giving her the appearance of an Eskimo. 

More sweating cars, maybe some are actually covered in dew and not rain drops after all, my mistake. Top house lights switched on and bottom ones go out, there's a shadow of a man at a front door. A dog barks in the distance, that'll please the neighbours. Different houses, differing routines, lights on downstairs only, some up and some off altogether sensibly tucked up in bed, back to work for us all in the morning. The sound of water going down a drain outside a house, teeth cleaned bladder emptied. Bedroom lights go out, nighty night sleep tight don't let the bedbugs bite. A bird twitters prettily, I wasn't expecting that at this hour of the night. I'm thrown into darkness and my other senses start to compensate, the volume of my hearing heightened, the keys in my left pocket jangling excitedly ready to unlock the door and get back inside the warmth of my house.