Strolling before the city became shiny (2)

Or perhaps he almost lost control and almost ploughed into me.
Hitting an undulation in the tarmac, it seemed his attempt at turning the car followed the road perfectly – just as if his wheels were on tracks. Maybe there never was any danger? I mused on this as I walked on.
Rounding the pavement, the road snaked back about the rear of the tower. I crossed over to get a better view and the wind howled in my brain. The block, more impressive it now seemed, was desolate. Work on the higher levels had apparently ceased, perhaps due to the gale.
Old Hall Street itself was scarcely populated and as I watched the ramparts of the half finished tower, plastic bags floated mockingly in the breeze – like some Scooby-Doo ghost that would later be inevitably unmasked.
Two skate-punks scraped around a side street. An infamous city apparition, they quickly vanished. Their gothy apparitions fading, like their short-sleeve shirts.
There are side streets. So many side streets in the city. Places people barely seem to go. They’re not out of bounds. It’s not like you’d get stabbed for going into the wrong street.
People just ignore them, they either don’t notice they are there or they don’t care.
I noticed them only six months ago. This was about the time of my awakening. A time when I noticed a world I had ignored before, just like everyone else still seemed to be doing. It was about this time that I first needed to see my own blood.
So the side streets, yes. Essential, visit every quiet city centre street in Liverpool. So much more interesting than the beaten track. Side streets off Old Hall Street can lead to views of abandoned old Liverpool. Broken glass gives way to warehouses; dark, dusty, haunted by bustling dreams of life.
That life, that real life, now gone - all but for the tattered cobwebs and splintered floorboards that we can’t even touch anymore.
Someone touched them though, so imagine them. Stand in the street, quiet, no traffic, no access to anywhere, except the past. Anywhere you can get away from the people and see the true heart of the city then do so.
The people are now merely blood cells, pumping further and further from the heart that once sent them forth. But we’ve got to get back to the heart.

“This dream represented my situation at the time. I can still see the greyish-yellow raincoats, glistening with the wetness of the rain. Everything was extremely unpleasant, black and opaque - just as I felt then.
But I had had a vision of unearthly beauty, and that was why I was able to live at all. Liverpool is the ‘pool of life’. The ‘liver’, according to an old view, is the seat of life - that which ‘makes to live’.” - Carl Gustav Jung

Strolling before the city became shiny (1)

I passed several women with umbrellas as I left the building. They had thought ahead this morning and heeded the weatherman’s threat of rain, although the rain had not come, thus far.
No rain, but wind. A strong gust that rattled the teeth and singed the ears but, if wrapped in a half-decent coat, wouldn’t cut through the bones. I braced myself and gazed toward the water, visible at the bottom of the street, over the carriageway and beyond. Not too busy, the ferry was in view and a ship was moored on the far bank of the river.
I continued on down the hill, the pavement not too cracked as I advanced towards the on-coming traffic. A one way street with a church on the left, a hotel at the bottom shaped like a steam iron and two red post boxes. There was so much more to the street, but on this journey little more was noticed.
The post boxes were salient as I had twice trekked to more far flung pillars to deposit mail in the last few weeks. Had these two beauties sprung up over night? I realised I was far less observant at street level than I was with the skyline above. I was angry with myself, angry for noticing and, then again, for not noticing. I imagined kicking the post boxes and then moved on.
I was walking for the sake of it. I had never before rounded the front of the Atlantic Tower Hotel and travelled against the flow of Albert Dock bound traffic. I did it today. Maybe I’d been missing out on something amazing? I doubted it almost completely, but intuitively realised it was worth doing. Experience is everything to a man, to this man at least.
Surprised as I was to learn that one of the road tunnels under the River Mersey exited beneath the body of the hotel, I almost walked out into tunnel traffic. At first the tunnel appeared to me a mouth, a wondrous cavern into the depths of the city and later the planet. Yet it became immediately unwelcoming as it spat uncomfortable vehicles towards me.
The stream was not continuous. Indeed, for small periods, the mouth lay empty and invited my consideration to walk inside, arms ready to embrace whatever I should find within. Of course, I expected to be embracing a warm bonnet if I should venture into this particular Aladdin’s Cave. The experience gained would likely be my last.
This degree of empirical data was, I felt, at this time unnecessary and I had seen the likely results in an UNKLE video on MTV2 recently.
I instead waited for a safe opportunity to cross the forked-tongue-road that allowed traffic out onto the main carriageway. My legs skipped across the tarmac with some urgency.
Ahead lay the near side of a new development. To be the tallest building on the Liverpool skyline, I needed to see the façade from beneath. A tune, recognisable as coming from the obtuse stable of DJ Paul Oakenfold, was annoying my mind – some fool had it blaring from their car-stereo. These sensual beats, along with a Holsten Pills billboard, distracted me sufficiently from the fact I was already standing beneath the new tower. I looked up and it seemed small.
Unimpressed as I, perhaps, some joker in an Audi lost control and ploughed into me.