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I sat facing the counter of the café, gripping a white mug of earl grey- attempting to pull my gaze downward towards those audible around me, early on a Saturday evening. My gaze bore a hole in the suspended sign, listing the various teas on offer. Once adjusted to the confines of the space, my lowered gaze alighted upon the two coloured pencils held in the left hand of a gentleman sitting opposite. The motions of his other hand revealed itself to be drawing in a sketchbook. Faint round shapes of varying sizes were vaguely discernable under the lights, like a constellation of moons ever so lightly traced upon the stark pages of the sketchbook. Through glasses blacked rimmed, occasionally his gaze would lift in search of a answer. A flicker of impatience revealed for a moment in a grimace. Two more coloured pencils-added to the others held in the left hand. I gaze around the room, at the counter I watch the suffusion of emotions on display in the staff and customers. The staff, constricted by the bonds of routine, by the need for self conservation, let flicker now and again in their features a play of thoughts. A frown flickers pass like a figure glimpsed in a flame. The customers, atleast temporally freed from the constraints evident in those serving behind the counter, give themselves more willingly. A man changes his mind, returning to the cold drinks fridge he passes a woman. Eye contact, a smile lingers whilst she orders a coffee and whilst waiting for her coffee, stationed to the right of the till, the evening suddenly illuminated with expectation, she waits. The man opposite, continues in the sketchbook- ever so lightly working with his coloured pencils.
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A mannequin is gripped by the shoulders as if a shoplifter, jacket unzipped and deprived of her hands, jacket summoned-a lady awaits standing before a large circular mirror. The mannequin, jacketless stands posed in a position to take off in flight.
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Opposite- sat a couple on the tube. In a white shirt decorated with a grid of thin vertical and horizontal blue lines a man sits, with shirt buttons straining against the inevitable. Resting on his knees, at the ends of two great hairy arms extended from shirt sleeves, two hands locked together, one holding the index and fore-fingers of the other. The head sits on the shoulders like a moai statue on the earth. Large dark passive eyes peer out over purplish hills. I avert my eyes when they start they’re slow journey to meet my own gaze. He raised a paw to softly stop the large rucksack of a tourist encroaching any further. Beside him to the left, what might be his wife, or sister. She has a black curly hair down to the shoulders, thick eyebrows and unreadable small brown eyes. Seeing a infant defiantly sitting in the centre of the carriage at her feet, with chubby legs immobile astride, her whole demeanour becomes that of a motherly little girl.
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Saturday 19 November 2011
Wednesday 16 November 2011
Sunday 6 November 2011
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