As I knelt, sinking down with the concrete of dismay and despair setting around my lower limbs, the once proud resplendent dome looked like a forgotten ornament amidst an overgrown garden of high rises.
I called to mind the time, many years previously, when I had been going through the stealthy skirmish of flat-hunting in London. My search for affordable accommodation had taken me hithering and thithering across the city, meeting with dilettante landlords who addressed me with gurning apologies that “you’re too late, it’s just been let” or “someone just out-bid you”.
As I walked home from work each day I passed by flanks and rows of high rises being hoisted up at the structural armpits by cranes; the billboards promising ‘luxury apartments’ in fonts that screamed elegance and exclusivity. Woe is me, I was wont to think, apartments everywhere and yet not one within budgetary reach.
Then one evening, I passed by a Big Yellow Self-Storage depot. Taking the semantics literally, I entered and asked to be shown the full suite of facilities, mortuary tray compartments in which to recline for indefinite periods. I decided there and then that this was the best way for me to continue living in the city on my limited budget.
From that day on I went into a prolonged hibernation inside one of these units, in a sense cryogenically frozen inside a capsule of my own resourceful personal financing.
Something must have gone awry though, for I awoke sometime earlier than planned. I was left to stagger hazily into a daylight that frittered in fragmented beams through the ranks of neatly aligned high rises that stood in perfect formation as though part of some vast rally for an architectural dictator that had yet to appear.
Ambling along the Southbank, I pivoted north across Millennium Bridge and took in the phalanx of towering structures that assumed the dubious form of their allotted moniker – the Cucumber, the Desk Tidy, the Dehumidifier.
As I drew nearer I could make out the familiar bulb of St. Paul’s now fighting for breathing space around the legs of these taller adults; now a meagre Duomo intimidated by its many tall campaniles.
With mounting incredulity I could discern a hoarding wrapped around the cathedral base that pronounced ‘Fine living in reverent tranquility – Inquire today!’
“You finally did it!” I bawled in disgust, pounding my fists against the pavement. “You fools! Damn you all to hell...!!”
No comments:
Post a Comment