Only after a period of recovery

Maybe I had been sitting still for too long again, or maybe it was my argument with Hollis at the last festival planning meeting, but whatever the reason, I decided to drop the plans I had made for the week and take a solo trip down to the yellow square.

The yellow square is a ceramic tile set into the wall of an abandoned dwelling at the edge of the village. The square faces the marshland.

Nobody goes to the yellow tile without first getting the idea to go there.

You get the idea to go there as an image in your mind of the sun hitting the yellow glaze, and a blue sky all around, and – in every single case – the shadow of a heavy set man cast into the bricks to the left of the tile.

I don’t know why the dwelling is empty after all this time, but nobody has tried to allocate it. As far as I know, it has never even been requested or mentioned in allocation meetings.

We only talk about it as a place we might go or a place someone has been for the weekend. I saw the shadow shape, someone will say, and so of course I went.

Usually the tile and the shadow of the heavy set man appear in your mind after a period of enforced inactivity.

Matilda went there, for example, after the fracture in her wrist had taken all those months to heal. She went alone, but some of us visited. We took her bacon as she requested, from the deli section of the shop. Someone gave her a tincture made from dried halopeter skin, which you can apparently turn into a tea. I don’t go near such things, but Matilda was grateful.

I usually go in a group. Me and whoever I am with when the yellow square appears in my mind. June likes it there. Jason too, and Jackie.

All the J’s!

Jason thinks the letter J connection is more than a coincidence, by the way.

I was incredulous, but the way Jason talks about these things is compelling. He speaks with such a relaxed conviction – by which I mean he is unshakable in his belief that we don’t yet know anything at all, and so every idea is up for grabs, and worth considering with full vigour.

Jason said that maybe there are more ways of being connected to places and ways of forming connections than we realise.

In the case of the J’s who love the yellow tile – or more specifically, feel the urge to go there at the same time as me - he said it could be connected to a shared impetus that comes from the hearing or saying of your own name when it begins with J.

Think of it! he told me. Your initial is the first sound you hear when someone says your name. You are at the very start of being formed in that moment, the potential shape of you corresponding with the shape of the mouth about to say who you are. You start to materialise with a certain energy and momentum based on how the letter is approached.

And remember, he said, it’s not just in the power of others to do this. When you say your own name, you must approach that letter. You learn a run up, you cause a specific emition of kinetic energy.

Over time, like little medieval feet on stone steps, you cause wear, you fractionaly cause momentum in the same direction. You shape the overall structure of where you are in the world, and your pathway through it changes, becomes habitual.

Jason held me by the shoulder when he continued. Yes! We might not know the exact way that me, Jason, Jackie and June have come to be this way in love with the yellow ceramic square, but why not? Why not consider the shape of the letter of our name?

And not just us. Think of the Wendys and Williams and Walters who are blown and scattered into the dandelion mile, they may be going there for the same reason, under the same impulse, because always people have had to take half a breath before engaging with the W. It makes them feel airy, maybe.

Maybe Jason, I said. For no reason at all, after that long conversation about the initials of our names, we spent the rest of the evening without our tops on.

I’m digressing.

The yellow square is the reason for making the journey, but it’s not the whole destination.

Often we go expecting to sleep over in the disused dwelling that bears the yellow tile on its outer wall.

When we do go inside, it’s only a few minutes to get the dwelling nice and cosy. It’s a classic village dwelling. A living space, a stove, a table, a bathroom, a bedroom, area.

There’s a sofa which has the damp of the woods in it, but is mostly clean. You light a few candles, maybe even a modest fire in the stove under the chimney. It is clear enough for a small flame. Before long, you have a fine place to be.

Once you’re set up, you can go out and feel the shape of the yellow square as much as you like. Then come back in and think about what the square has offered you.

Once I had decided to go, after so long just sitting in my dwelling, everything became suddenly very urgent. I left home in a rush, and walked quite quickly out towards the wall, speeding up as I passed the shop, and the dwellings of my friends. For some reason, I was determined to go to the yellow square alone on this occassion.

Even seeing another person, now that I had decided to spend time alone with the square, became unthinkable.

A little way along the path, after I had passed the shop I stopped. I realised I had no supplies. How long was I going for?

Did I want to take a drink and a snack to the yellow square? It can be nice to stay for a while in the empty dwelling.

Yes, I decided I would go back to the shop and get something to eat, maybe a few cakes – the kind that they get in the shop are actually exceedingly good, if you see what I mean.

But then as I approached the shop, I felt a wave of fear that someone would ask me what I was up to, and then ask to join. What if Jason was in there? He does go there at around this time, I remembered, he buys tinned corned beef at this time, quite regularly, to make hash.

I wouldn’t have been able to say no to Jason, but I would have really resented him being there.

As I approached the shop, I felt that my whole visit to the yellow square was at risk.

I saw shadows in the yellow lights. I saw the orange card explosion with a special offer for my preferred cakes.

There was Jason! chatting with the shop worker, who on this night was Samantha. Jason and Samantha both have similar coloured hair. This was my last thought as I scampered past, and broke into a fast jog all the way back to my dwelling.

At home, I rummaged through the cupboards and the cool storage area in the larder. I took some white cheese, some butter, the toe end of the bread, some roasted parsnip skins with salt. The last of the puff-ball mushroom curry which was in Tupperware still. I stirred in some lime chutney.

 I took two bottles of homemade drink, and then I left.

And now I am here, looking at the yellow square. It has been several hours, the sun has gone, and so has the yellow, it looks dark green in the moonlight.

I say the first letter of my sisters name. And the first letter of my brother’s name. I think of the shapes they have made in the world, and I wish I could see them again.

Something moves behind me. I turn and see several rats dancing through the grass. Country rats, bickering and scratching their way to the waters that are beyond the boundary of the village.