A
procession of people passes down the street; those part of it,
accompanying the floats and the horse-drawn carriages, dance and
cheer, while those looking on politely clap and snap pictures, their
camera phones held aloft on sticks, like sceptres. There's more of
them – onlookers and cameras – than they are in the entire
procession; a vast sea of them swims around the market's clock tower,
or stretches back and pushes itself against shop fronts and then
spills out onto the roads. Unusually there's no police in attendance
policing the gathering crowds. No off-duty officers in the carnival
spirit and none on police business and deadly serious in going about
it. Law and the enforcement of it has been abandoned, unless the
powers that be are watching from a 'High Castle': from a basement
bunker with a bank of screens fed by CCTV images.
Most
of the onlookers have not given a thought to that however – the
lack of police or the possibility of being policed from afar - their
energies are concentrated on the sights passing before their very
eyes and the sounds penetrating their very ears, in spite of the fact
that this procession could not be described as fantastical. Nor does
it have pomp or ceremony or any religiosity of a definable nature.
Nobody
in the crowd seems to have any idea what this procession signifies -
the procession itself gives little away – and yet a lot of them
turn to their neighbours and exclaim 'What luck!' as if it's some
rare event that only happens after so many cycles of the moon, and
which when it occurs never passes through here, not through this
market town, the smallest in the borough.
It's
a drab affair in terms of colour. The costumes are of the commonest
kind from a bygone era. Those on foot are mostly in sack and cloth,
while those in carriages have powdered wigs, powdered faces and
beauty spots, and either shrink back into the shadows away from the
gaze of the crowd or wave dainty handkerchiefs at them with an
expression of delight or bemusement on their faces: what are those
devices being held towards them?
Men
with brooms and women with baskets containing fruit dance alongside;
the men make a show of sweeping the road though it's not what they're
used to as these roads produce little dust and the woman hand fruit,
past-its-best, out. The crowd cheer the exaggerated pantomime of the
sweeper but are unsure what to do with the accepted fruit: Is it to
be thrown? Are they meant to splatter the ragged unfortunates or a
coach? Perhaps, given more time, a signal will come and a fight, all
in good fun, will break out.
The
British have grown unused to rushing in and playing fools, unless a
genuine fool, dressed clearly as a fool, beseeches them to, or a
person playing Cupid with make-believe wings fires a make-believe
arrow from a make-believe bow into the air or at another performer.
As of yet no fool or Cupid has appeared. So, the crowd, collectively,
holds its breath, waiting, clutching their overripe apples and pears,
and then releases it, distracted, as a group of rambling men come
into view, who are wearing birdcages under their boaters, in which,
when brought closer can be seen either a pair of live songbirds,
hopping about on perches and too overcome to sing, or clockwork doves
in hand-stitched habits – the male, a priest, and the female, a
nun- conversing with each other.
Next
come the floats though they're really dust-sheeted carts on rickety
wheels and so don't really float along at all and are somewhat
perilous for those also draped with sheets riding atop them due to
their tendency to tilt when pulled by a team of men and not oxen.
These sheet-clad and wreath-headed actors then struggle to hold their
postures, one seeming to praise the sky, one seeming to be making a
speech, one doing something dramatic with his hands and another
kneeling, almost pleading, beside him. It's not very edifying. And
none have any weapons or props of any description.
They
rattle on, through and out of town. The crowd disperses, with their
apples and pears, with nobody any the wiser.
Picture credit: The Therapeutist, 1937, Rene Magritte (source: WikiArt).
Inspired by Goethe's Italian Journey (1786-1788).
This post was penned in 2019.
