left and right

we've moved house, and so we walk a different way to uni. initially this seems like a shitty prospect, because the avenues has a great name, and echoes a riptide down either end - if you're going into uni, you walk on the left. if you're going home, you walk on the right. and this is almost a constant flow. the flow is only disrupted by the early morning (when everyone cycles in line towards the entrance, no matter the side) and the late late night (when it doesn't matter the side, and the middle works too, with regular gaps to lay on the left, or the right, and look through the branches to the stars).

but this way is better. the short burst of traffic makes you all the more aware when you break from it, physically veering off to the left. no, wait - this way is better than that, when i am walking in at 6pm, at this time of year. after the veer, the hospital garden lights are already on, but you're walking straight towards the sun. the sun is leaning down and aiming through the gaps and straight into your eyes, and it's all bathed in an haze that doesn't actually seem to push a colour, but just makes everything less clear. blurs silhouettes, and even familiar noises spring around your head instead of interrupting from the front.

but the best thing is after the traffic lights. when you're walking down, and the path slowly turns into dirt. you're kind of aware that it's going to happen, because there's been this endless graveyard on your left, but you don't even notice until you're in the midst of it, ducking under dripping branches and crunching beech nuts underfoot. you start to get protected and covered, even when you're right next to the road. you're squelching and dripping, and everyone is on the other side, on the black spotted concrete, with the curved curb.

occasionally you meet someone walking the other way. and there's this unwritten excitement, that the path is secret, but you're sharing it with someone. they come past, and you don't even have to look at them. you can tell even from looking down, from the corner of their shoe, that they're smiling. it's like, hey, hey - we've found the secret path. we've found the secret path, and they don't even know about it even thought they can see it! they can see it - they're only on the other side of the road! they're right there, and they don't even know! we have the mud, and the crunch and the rotting vegetation, and we have the perpetual graveyard.

Frog Eyes - The Fruit That Fell From The Tree