Speedwrite 1

Please note: This is a writing exercise. To understand the nature of the exercise, please read this entry first.

(The setting, 10 minutes)

In the old neighbourhood there are tenements that take up blocks and blocks of inner-city suburbia, surrounded by the towers of the city that sprawls out around them. The roads are like threads of spider-web on which the buildings are caught; some recent catches, shining with glass and chrome finishing; others like dried out husks, many with windows smashed.
Its spring and the sky is a cold blue with a warm sun. The humidity wont pick up for another month yet, and the general populace is clad in the strange transitory fashion of cool and warmth. School-children in winter uniforms, their sweaters tied around their waists or stuffed into their already overloaded backpacks, youths with lightly toned long-sleeve shirts, men and women taking their cold weather clothing back to only a few layers, many people with folded umbrellas ready against the spring rain.

(The protagonist, 10 minutes)

Catherine walks through the streets of the spider-web at a steady pace. She has a destination but is not directing herself towards it. The old neighbourhood is a strange combination of startlingly familiar sights and totally foreign ones, giving her a disorienting feeling of discovering a totally new environment while not truly being home.
Its been years.
With every familiar building that she passes, a face or a name comes to the forefront of her memory; some with fondness, some with resentment, many with only the vaguest of recollections. Each encounter in turn makes her feel alternatively old and young for her thirty-five years, yet each memory seems to grow more and more distant, set in a past that feels so long ago that it almost might not be hers. She reflects on her history away from this place; has her life been better? Worse? What would it have been like if she stayed here?
Catherine herself wears simple clothing, leaving the style of her new home behind for fear of standing out. Usually a fashion-conscious woman, she had picked out several configurations and stared at them for an hour, eventually discarding them all and selecting the most nondescript items she could find.
She feels like a ghost.

(The moment, 10 minutes)

Its been hours, and the sun is now at its zenith. At the outskirts of the neighbourhood, the office-workers of the towers begin to pour out in search of lunch. Catherine stands in a small crowd of professionals on a corner waiting for the lights to change while the mid-day city jam lurches forward on the road. In the back of cabs, more professionals speak on mobile phones or tap at PDAs, gesturing with their arms or holding their heads in their hands, the drivers looking out at the traffic, tired and bored. The lights finally change and above the chatter of the crowd the electronic crossing alerts sound briefly before cutting out from lack of maintenance. She moves with the crowd and their natural urban flow, weaving in and out of the vehicles left stranded across the pedestrian lines.
In the middle of the road, Catherine makes eye-contact with a young woman in the back of an old silver Mercedes. She wears a neutral face that is difficult to decipher; boredom, longing, even optimism could be hiding there. It makes Catherine stop before the curved glass, and she realises her reflection has appeared on its surface; a curving distortion of her head and torso set against a sparkling mid-city tower and blue cloudless sky. The image of her reflection and the young womans face combine.
Catherine wonders what the young woman sees from inside the car.

(The conclusion, 15 minutes)

There is only one district Catherine is yet to traverse, and this is where her destination lies. It has not been trepidation that has caused her to hesitate, in fact the nature of what she feels is farther from hesitation than perhaps acclimatization. She has spent a lifetime away from these streets, and only half of what she remembers remains. Somehow the changing face of the neighbourhood seems to have itself evolved the very memories in her mind. Some elude her now, while others are reflected upon in a form much changed from when they were written to her memory. As she begins to move into more and more familiar territory, the barrage of her recollections almost becomes overwhelming. Every little feature of every building, every street-side bench and traffic-light, every phone-booth, every store and tenement triggers a memory. Even the buildings which have totally changed or been replaced trigger thoughts on what was there and the memories that were anchored to those places.
She begins to walk faster, heading directly for her destination, until it appears there before her, as if emerging from a collage of countless shapes and colours. There across the road is the building she needs to enter.
Catherine?
She turns.
Catherine you made it
The face before her is just like the neighbourhood so familiar, yet so changed.
Are you alright?
She stares.
Yes sorry. No Im fine.
I didnt know whether youd come.
No I, I should have told you.
A pause.
I guess I didnt know if I was coming or not.
But youre here now.
Catherine nods.
You look wonderful.
Once again she stares.
Really?
Yes, really. Truly, I mean it.
Thank you.
They look at each-other, taking their time.
Are you ready?
Catherine looks across the road, then feels a hand take her own and squeeze gently.
Yes.
She inhales deeply, exhales.
Yes I am.