departures

I was due to take the boat. I told her I had to go; I would be late otherwise and stuck here, I needed to be back.

I dreaded having to go through the customs bit, I always got stopped and sometimes would miss the boat because of this. I looked for my watch but I didn't have any. It was nice where I was, though, at the top of the hill. It had changed. On the way down on the old dry brook bank, there were now stairways, water features, escalators going down in different directions and the walk down the hill towards the port became a sort of shopping centre with artisan's workshops and many nooks and crannies. You had to go through many of these on your way down. It felt like it could be very easy to get lost but somehow I managed to make it down to the port. I queued for ages, looking at the dark green water in the lock where the boat was held, its open upper deck, the people milling around and getting on board. People were still coming out from the underground connection tunnel, which also led to the dilapidated alleys at the back of the bottom of the shopping centre down the mountain. Nice trees in them, lots of litter around and the feeling that something (or, rather, something) lurked behind the corners. Go back to the port, which is not really such but just a dock with the one ship in it, enclosed for now in a dock, frothing brown waters rocking it, people in uniform walking on the deck with clipboards, noises of machinery coming from unseen places. Where is my passport, where are my keys… I steel myself and walk towards the starkly lit complex of perspex cabins...