Travel and Place Pieces

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A Night in Marrakech

April 2016

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Navigating another set of souks, I think I am getting a grip on what Moroccan cities are. This is just like Fes, but with the addition of motorcycles vying for a gap in amongst the crowds in the impossibly narrow streets. But the passage ends suddenly and we find ourselves standing before multitudes of people swarming within a large open square. A haze of red smoke hangs above tents in the distance, rising endlessly into the black sky. The warm night air is heavy with indistinct noise, until I tune into one of the competing sounds muffled by the audience surrounding them: a group playing traditional drums; a magician; a ringleader of a mock fight; a crossdresser dancing. A man on a loudspeaker raves to a sea of people sitting on the stretch of concrete outside a grand police station. They are packed in like caged hens in a protest of some kind.

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I can feel the excitement in the air, so tangible I think I could reach out and grab it. This air also carries a barrage of scents, some familiar like the acrid burn of horse piss. Others much more unfamiliar and rousing; the smell of strange fruits and bouquets of herbs. Kids strain against their parents’ hands, their eyes clear and wide. They have a burning desire to absorb everything, just as I do.

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Joining one group I watch as a man stalks around his ring gesturing grandiosely. I feel if I strain hard enough I will begin to understand what is happening, but I can’t quite get past the veil of a foreign tongue. We drift from circle to circle, ducking and weaving, trying to peer into the centres and piece together a story.

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I see a performer through my camera; he sees an opportunity. He holds out his hat wordlessly asking for money. Jake hands him a single dirham, worth about 13 cents. Tilting his head and bearing an exaggerated frown, the man squints to see the little coin in the weak light of his lamps. He gives the coin back, gesturing for more. I reach into my pocket and find two coins worth a quarter of the first. We swap the same coins back and forth as I declare with mirth and similarly wide gestures.

 

“It’s all we’ve got! Which do you want?”

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The crowd laughs with us, cheering us along. My gaze meets the shy brown eyes of the girl laughing beside me. I have a great wish to speak with her to share some mundane conversation about the scene we are both part of. But I know that she understands the role I have been playing, as surely as I understood the performer’s act.

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We gradually manoeuvre through the streams of people towards the rising steam, which forms a beacon for hungry foreigners. Moving through the little stalls, opportunistic sellers call out to us, guessing our language.

 

“Come look at this menu. We have everything, it’s wonderful.”

 

“La shukran,” is our well-practiced response.

 

“Maybe later? Remember stall number 107, go to heaven!”

 

Another stall worker tries a different tack. “Guaranteed no diarrhoea for 5 years!”

 

We rush past trying to look purposeful, quickly scanning to find something that catches our eye among the long rows.

 

“It’s the same shit everywhere mate,” a slightly less convincing seller argues, spreading his arms across our path.

 

But it’s not.

 

Just a couple of hours from England, our frozen island home, and I am overjoyed to be reassured that the world has not been rolled into one monotonous stretch of sameness. It is wonderful to learn so much yet in some ways still understand so little. I always travel to be lost.

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As soon as we choose a queue the rhyming sellers leave us alone. We are ushered through a teeny gap to the end of a packed bench. Within moments we are devouring steaming meat from huge vats, with bread as our cutlery. From our little perch, we watch the cooks scurry about their camp kitchen, answering requests from all around them. The men in the stall behind us start singing in their latest attempt to attract customers.

 

“Swing lowww, sweet chariottt.”

 

Their voices will not travel far in a place like this.

 

My eating space is tucked up against a woman in a burka. She lifts her veil, just enough to slip her water bottle beneath its folds. I wonder if she is anywhere near as curious about me as I am about her and her world. I neither want to stare nor ignore her. I feel like her eyes are smiling at me.

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See more travel writing on my blog

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Scene exercises. March 2016

 

A Night-time Run (senses)

 

I zip my faded old hoodie right up, until I feel its pressure on my neck, creating a thin barrier against the night’s piercing chill. I begin my steady jog through town. The barrage of sound from cars passing is muffled by the rustling of my hood against my ears and the rhythmic slap of my shoes landing heavily on the wet pavement. My chest and throat constrict, retreating from the cold.

 

I head out of town, the lights behind me leave me facing a wall of darkness as my eyes strain to adjust. The thin white glow of the road paint becomes my guide. Shades of grey begin to emerge, but they will soon be drowned in black again. Lights from a passing car force me to squint through my eyelashes, creating dazzling stars on a starless night, before plunging me back into darkness. I run through a tunnel of trees, looking up at spindly dormant branches forming cobwebs against the sky.

 

For a split second I feel that familiar lurch of fear, as a group of boys veer towards me on a cloud of cigarette smoke. My hand clenches around the cool metal of my torch, clinging to its reassuring weight. But then I am safe back in town on the home stretch. The rush of exhilaration is short-lived as the distance drags on.

 

Just behind the wind I can hear the chiming of the campanologists’ weekly practice. The traditional symbol of joyous celebration has become the monotonous anthem of my weekly torture. De de de da dum dum dum… on on on I run run run.

 

I collapse onto a bench and at last enjoy breathing in the fresh air after a stuffy day indoors. I look forward to another six days of neglecting my body until I am forced to repeat my weekly ritual.

 

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A Teenage Girl (drama)

 

A teenage girl in an unkempt school uniform stood for a moment before the large glass doors. She took a deep breath and pushed through, out of the sunshine and into the harshly-lit corridor. She was immediately hit with the familiar waft of acrid antiseptic and floor cleaner. She winced, but only paused momentarily before putting her head down and slowly pushing on. Hospital staff in perfectly creased uniforms surged past her. They did not notice her despite the loud squeaking of her rubber soles on the highly-polished floors. She was a rock in a stream; a flow of busy nurses parted briefly around her before continuing down the centre of the corridor.

 

Again the girl paused and stood with her hand lightly resting on the ward door. Her eyebrows furrowed as she took several deep breathes. And then with a determined push, she entered the ward with a bright face painted on.

 

“Hi Dad, how are you feeling?”

 

A skeletal shape lay still on clinically-white sheets, anchored to a number of machines by a labyrinth of tubes. He slowly shifted and turned towards her.

 

“Ah, my girl.”

 

His whole body convulsed as he coughed, the exertion showing on his worn, yellowed face. He gently slid out his shaky hand to hold his daughters’ as she sat beside him.

 

“I’m going away today, Sarah. It’s time.”

 

“No! You can’t, I’m not ready.”

 

The girl’s thin veil cracked as her eyes welled.

 

“Please...”

 

“I love you, Sarah.”

 

Suddenly the ward was full of activity as the heart monitor filled the room with its whine. The girl was ushered back; she was invisible again. She stood frozen in the corner only catching glimpses of her father’s empty face, buried within the flurry of the medical staff barking orders to one another.

 

But she knew he was gone.

 

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Swimming Reverie (no planning)

 

Crystal clear water is one of the most inviting things in the world to me. Scrap that. Make that any water that is remotely swimmable. When I am landlocked through the long English winters I feel a distant ache in my spirit; I am incomplete. Nothing makes me feel so free, even in water that is far from boundless. That moment when I am first brave enough to take a deep breath and dive under the freezing surface, my heart explodes. I would, and almost have, swim in nearly anything. The wilder the better. People fret about wild animals, but I know the chances are slim—and unlike in many other circumstances, my subconscious believes my logic. And besides, that slight thrill of danger, of the power of waves or waterfalls, is such an essential part of the experience. People say I’m mad. I’ve swam in the Scottish Highlands in late autumn, in puddles on an ex-nuclear site and fully clothed in the middle of the night. Perhaps I am, but sanity is over-rated. Sanity is the constraint of our natural desires. What can compare to floating naked on your back with the wide night sky above you. The weight of your limbs, and the world, just dissipates as the water bears the load.

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