HARRY’S FAST TRACK, AMELIA’S WEDDING AND A NEW BEGINNING

There once was a snail named Harry. Harry moved across the terrain in a stream of mucous. In this respect he was somehow mid-way between being a creature of the land and a creature of the great rivers that span our continents. The river that Harry travelled along was a river of his own making. He laid the tracks for it and only just in time for in truth he was only ever a moment behind it.


These mucous glands were working to their full extent and any interruption could send Harry falling head over heels into the unknown future of an arid and ship-wrecked land. For Harry knew the importance of not over-stepping ones’ faculties. Something that his great grand-mother had reminded him of on her death-bed in the gentle spring showers of two years past but even these could nor reinstate her withering away. For as Harry knew everyone’s time must come. So Harry was speeding yet even now he daren’t go as fast as he had once maintained as his life-force through the territories of the world. A world which once touched bloomed with the golden glitter of his passing through, as the sun toasted his moist tracks rather like the frozen Ink on a page and yet the meaning continues evermore even when the pen-scratcher is some place else or even not at all.


But now on this particular sunny afternoon, a day when going down-hill was, as far as energy is concerned, rather like going up-hill, Harry met a couple of old class-mates from long ago; Jason and Amelia. Harry had always had a crush on Amelia but he was shy. He had spent most of his school days wedged between walls and cupboards, sneaking glances at Amelia and she had never had an inkling. Once but not only once he had been found stuck like a blob of blu-tak between the pieces of furniture which hid him and it was necessary for him to be hosed down and prized free and what could be more shameful than that in the snail community? Yet by this time Amelia had long since parted to join her lover of long-standing, none other than that wide-boy, Jason and she was never any the wiser as to the causes of Harry’s discomfort and shame amongst the snail community.


Well might Harry sigh long and deep. For this shame had set the pace of his life and even now Harry was still trying to prove himself along his endless rivers.


So of course when Jason, his school tormentor, the thief of the only kindred spirit that he had ever ventured to seek out of the great unknown that we call the world suggested a race, how could he refuse? Caught in this feeling of inferiority he had to take the bait. This, Jason knew.


“On your marks, get set…” and over the mark they flew, up, up and up and down, down, up a little, down some more. Horizontal for some time. And then tumble on they did go until they no more knew what was up and what was down than a sweeper knows from what angle will the next piece of dust come from. So then to land smack down there on some kind of foreign terrain where colourful eyes shone out from the odd body and music which somehow seemed to be locked into a single note fell like dust from a burnt out fire, still warm but lost.


The snails were feeling dry so they spat around and the loser was the one who failed to get hit. This game sent them flying hither and thither over the rough terrain as they tried, for the sake of their own survival; to catch the wide shots that each threw to one another. But soon they grew tired of one another’s exhausting company. They begun to feel out of touch and craved the nearness of their loved one, Amelia who seemed to be nowhere in site. And so realising this they sighed for they realised too that all their endeavours were going unnoticed and so suddenly their whole manner of relating seemed to be somehow pointless.


No, Amelia had long since gone underground. For the earth was getting too hot for snails and so she resided now down in the disused subway tunnels in the capital city which had been her place of birth and which now, friendless and single, was where she had now returned. For Jason and Harry so it seemed were out the picture. But not so fast. For these distant space-hoppers had accidentally stumbled upon an old microphone which had popped up upon a rock and was churning out the hum of a musical note that seemed to exist without going anywhere. Not so the crackle of those grating and wrenching lamentations of those two snails, once so distant in time and space now closer than ever before. And their voices now harmonised to give impact and depth where apart they would have been insubstantial. Amelia was captivated by the sound that now touched her from such distant parts. This was a unification that brought tears to the eyes and made vibrant and fluid down below the earth’s crust where above was all dry and untogether.


Amelia swelled like a soon-to-be-mother and all the toads came out to croak their applause and silently she applauded her secret joy. And the pigeons fluttered their wings between the weeping arches as glints of light shone through from above. Then stood up the great mime artist; a spider named Spider. He weaved his multiple limbs to and fro and swung his head most convincingly until Amelia, assured that the voice she heard was his fell madly in love. The two were married. The hidden microphone fuelled by the slugs in outer space was never discovered and so the marriage turned out to be abundant and highly successful.