Springstein and the Burning Bush

I decided one evening, when my eyes could not settle to read and my hands were too hasty for guitar playing, to walk out to the Heath to keep from going stir-crazy. I often take myself out for these walks, though sometimes I just do a circuit of my local graveyard and return home within an hour of leaving. It was when passing through that graveyard on my way up the long hill towards Hampstead Heath, with wind beating my coat and face with tiny specks of rain, that I was joined by a mysterious traveller.

At first it seemed as though my shadow had just got bigger and more three-dimensional, but when it dawned on me that it had also got a bottle of whisky in its hand and an acoustic guitar hanging behind its back, I realised it was not my shadow at all, but was in fact my old friend Bruce Springstein, whom had visited me some time ago. This realisation was accompanied by an itching sensation under my hat, where the thorns of a rosebush had once torn the skin. Pushing this memory aside, I decided to strike up a conversation.

I must have said something like "Bruce! its been a long time. You look well." when he handed me the whisky and cracked an honest smile, his white teeth finally shattering the illusion, still troubling me, that he was in fact my shadow.

I waited for his response, beyond the communalisation of the whisky, but none was forthcoming. We left the graveyard and started the long trek up West End Lane, crossing a broad A-road and continuing up and up under the lights of the quiet, affluent streets of Hampstead proper.

Bruce was still smiling half-an-hour later at the top of the hill, though he had not uttered a sound. The itching beneath my hat had intensified considerably, but I dared not scratch it out of worry that I might remind Bruce of our last encounter. Instead, I had basked in the robust humanity of his company and taken heart from the bonhomie that one establishes through the sharing of a walk and a bottle.

By the time we reached Hampstead Church, which sits at the top of the hill with its heavy black iron gates, ancient tombs and Gothic architecture, I had accepted Bruce's silence as being one of a man who feels comfortable with the company he has chosen. Perhaps I had even begun to feel as though words would detract from our indisputable bond. Nevertheless, I chose the lit path through this, the second graveyard of my walk, rather than the longer, darker, more atmospheric jaunt down the hill and back up through graves that jut at crazed angles.

I had hoped he wouldn't notice this choice at all, lest he take offence; after all this was the natural path and the other I have only taken once or twice by way of exploration. I looked to him to hand him back the bottle and was shocked to see he had gone. Pausing, I looked around me and could see nothing of him. He had disappeared without a sound, as mysteriously as he had arrived.

After waiting two or three minutes, I shrugged internally and continued on the way to the Heath, glad for the whisky and that the itching under my hat had subsided. Bruce, I thought, must have reached his destination and, not wanting to break the spell between us, had left me with his whisky and his continued silence. His actions seemed to me to be sublime and I walked with a visible skip in my step down the high street, through a little more suburbia and out onto the heathland with its bracing winds and tall grasses. I crossed over the heathland to the treeline beyond.

There is a path I like to follow in the night on Hampstead Heath, where the trees are so thick that it can be almost pitch black; it is a very broad path and there are no low branches to walk into. This particular night the glow of ten million city lights reflecting off the clouds was only slightly in evidence on my path, so much so that I could see my hands before my face but not the ground beneath my feet. The rustling of the summer leaves sometimes sounded like running water, sometimes like a slow giants footsteps, as I passed deeper into the sparse and trampled forest of Hampstead Heath, thinking what to do about a girl (as I always seem to be).

It was then a fire torch come to life by the side of my path, ten foot away from me. By the light of the torch I could see Bruce again, but much changed from the easy going (if reticent) friend of earlier. His face was made up in Native American warpaint, his torso was bare and bleeding from slices made by a knife that I could see tucked into the vine rope tied around his waste. This vine formed a make-shift belt for truss made of what looked like old plastic bags from Sainsbury's. In his right hand was a large bottle of clear liquid; in his left a shaman's stick, capped by the head of Robin Redbreast.

He threw the bottle against a tree and its contents showered evenly over a bush at its base. He began to jab at my ribs with his shaman stick, so I offered him the whisky out of panic. He was pacified momentarily, pouring the whisky into his mouth calmly, before spitting it out onto the bush and letting out a bloodcurdling howl of defiance. I was petrified as he raised his torch and thought that I was going to die by the same hands that wrote Atlantic City; "Everything dies baby/that's a fact/you know that everything that dies/someday comes back" he recited hypnotically, as though reading my mind.

The torch came down, but it was the bush that exploded into a fireball; not I. The thick smell of paraffin invaded the air powerfully, but as soon as the fire had come it was gone, leaving only smouldering twigs and a more intense darkness in its wake.

I turned and ran as hard as I could out from the forest, over the grasses, up the high street, past the church; I ran all the way down the long hill, avoiding the graveyards on the way and didn't stop running until I was safe in my room, choosing to leave the light off and staying away from the window. That night, huddled next to my bed shivering from the run and from the cold, I could hear the wind carrying the sound of the full E-Street band, fronted by the one and only Boss, playing "Hungry Heart" until the sun touched the walls of my room.

Trailor

The problem of attempting to write something of interest or worth is one that has faced me for over a month now. I cannot begin to describe the dread with which I now tap these keys. You will not be surprised to know I have already deleted several paragraphs of low-grade musing and will probably delete several more before I am through with this.

What I have lacked is an idea, you see, of what exactly it is I want to say. The mountain smoulders nicely but it needs some company. Ace got a little close to the bone and eventually had to go - self-parody only being fun when you know, deep down, that there is more to you than some charicature with a ridiculous name. The town of Trouble now knows better than to go messing with any freshly risen mountains, thanks to clowns, acrobats and a ringmaster intent on world domination teaching it differently. What can fill this void? Can I avoid merely re-hashing old ideas; refrying yesterday's gumbo? Surely I have creative verve enough to improve on this thoroughly average collection of tipples?