....I climb the block, this urban symphony ringing in my ears. I can hear a television as I pass by a scuffed, peeling door. Day-time t.v., something inane, muffled by the walls, is streaming from the box. Some little portion of escapism for whoever lives in there to wallow in. Programming for the elderly, the lonely and people with nothing better to do. A laugh. Low and guttural it hangs in the static air till it's abruptly shattered by a jagged, hacking coughing fit. A few wheezes then back to the fuzzy noise of the television playing on, filling a hole where silence should be.
it's silence that some of these people are hiding from though, because when it's silent you know you're alone, when it's silent there's nothing to fill those long aching gaps but your own thoughts, thoughts you want to avoid and put off till another day.
the baby is still bawling above me, a shout comes, a garbled high pitched wail, taut with stress and frustration.
more steps to climb. I could have gone in the lift but the prospect of such oppressive claustrophobia was worth avoiding. There are strange smells in that lift. Smells that you can't quite put your finger on what they are, only you know it's not nice. It's always good reading the graffiti in there though. It gets like a sort of down-market soap opera sometimes. I'm following the plight of J.T. at the moment. Apparently she first fancied K.R. but then K.R. went off with T.L. (who 'is a slag') and so those tenderly written initials were scribbled out and her affections turned to M.J.. Well it seems she 'hearts' M.J. '4eva' and they seem to be going strong, but for the interfering hand of, wait for it, T.L.! Who has launched a hate campaign and daubed all sorts of slanderous accusations about the walls. It seems J.T. is a 'dog' and a 'pussy' she is 'gonna get it big time' from T.L. and her gang (K.D., M.F. and S.T.)'coz she is a ho'. I don't know if she's got it yet but I await the next installment with baited breath! It's like Mills and Boon of the tower block jet set on those walls it really is!
Anyway, that lift is far too gory a prospect today so the stairs it must be.
I'm level with the wailing baby now, it's not alone, the sound of small children whineing is being drowned out by it's cries and outside the door lie a little row of muddy, misshapen trainers.