It is a purple night. The coniferous trees are tapering to the sky in dangerous sharpening of tools. The canopied ones look like fleshy scythes. Kenilworth Castle is a mound of black. We walk down to Abbey Fields Park. Two parapet walls on either side mark the entry to the parking lot. There are other cars in there, others beside our Vauxhall. The lake in the morning was a spread out piece of cake. Now, it roused in memories of dead men waking up. We inevitably spoke about being followed. Being slit open under trees with so much agonizing life.
We were almost at the other end. We walked the walk talking churches and spirituality. In a corner, where the fields ended, were remains of a light. I couldn’t see the source of it, but tell, that light had been there. Perhaps someone had shot out a beam from a torch I suggested. As if I’d really seen the beam of light, my eyes drew out dust particles rising. Beside me, just to intensify the moment, he spoke about the day and night. He said he didn’t understand why our eyes let these things which were so familiar assume such shapes in the dark.
I couldn’t see anything but the blackness there. Fifteen feet away, in between two low lying walls cornering a wide path- the other end of Abbey Fields. But the purple night soon gave it away. In our heads, we knew it wasn’t nothing there. An outline of a thing. Not just an outline, something in there. I may have courage to venture into Abbey fields at night, but I cannot do this anymore, I said. Not a step further. I suggested we go back. The trees around were beginning to personify moving human beings and the lake could feed on our blood. Right then, the Jaguar came to life. It pranced into his sleeping mind. A fucking car, he said. And when he laughed I could hear him shake off all the fright that piece of unknown had given him. I still stood looking. Not any fucking car, he corrected himself.
From fifteen feet away, the grass was crushed by its weight. The tyres looked like abandoned barrels, lying dead. But upon eye squinting scrutiny, the colour black of its skin was a shade darker than the night. It was still for all the metaphors it brought alive in my mind. He was already near it. Touching it, looking at himself in the tinted glasses and beckoning me forward. Like silver lightening, the grill came to life. Beneath it, letters and numbers and a blue patch of colour. Leading to the length of it were snake like trails. Through the glass I could see nothing. I kept thinking of it as a box of black. It was an animal in the night. It didn’t have the leaper on its hood and still looked about to leap, in impatience.
When I went closer, it felt tamer. It felt quieter. When I touched it, its insanity vanished. I stood there petting it, at the grills, putting my pinky onto the jaguar carved above the grill. I told him I couldn’t believe it was so long. From the front glass, I looked in to see a box of tissue, a perfume bottle, and surprisingly a baby seat. Everything was covered in beige leather and the baby seat was a mass of cheap black fittings. There was nothing else in there that I could use to talk about the owner. He kept checking for access to keys. I walked to the behind of the car and took one final look inside. I could see the complex buttons of the stereo and no visible gear. The steering wheel bore another face of the Jaguar, it glinted in my eyes.
The walk back to the Vauxhall through the hanging trees of Abbey Fields choked me. The Jaguar crept in our minds, so slowly behind us, maybe just a baby held tight in the baby seat and all its automatic controls trying to mow us down.
(avrina)
Location: Abbey Fields, Kenilworth, England.
avrinajos.net 