Where to begin
By Millie Cerys
Once you start paying attention to little things, you see them continuously. They become ever more present until they are all you can see. It’s like life is laughing at you. Like you didn’t pay enough attention before, so it’s only right to be confronted with them for the rest of time. My fixation was weirdly specific: people walking without looking around them, just passing through somewhere, instead of taking things in. One single goal in mind, transporting themselves from one place to the next. Obligation to obligation.
There is a hill, so picturesque when you see it at first, yet so ordinary after time passes. For many it is just a means of getting from one part of town to the other. People walk briskly in the winter, probably wondering how they were running so late. And then trying to hurry up. But then there were those few who stood and gazed and wondered. I always liked to look for fellow wonderers.
CREDIT: Steve Hodson of Inky Finger Emporium
When you met, it was like an understanding passed between you. Like you were a minority that recognised each other, but which somehow wasn’t recognisable to others streaming past. You would briefly glance at each other, but never talk. You would look away and smile. Whether it was to yourself or to the other was never clear.
The hill became my favourite place to be, it was a place to observe. I also turned into the object of observation. I liked the feeling of being observed by sound, by the wind and the movement it brought, by the changing of the light and how shadows changed, and you were part of it all. Suddenly the world felt like a comforting place. Nothing mattered. You were just there, one with the hill and your surroundings. It was as if this expanse of grass was trying to make a statement to the rest of town, protruding ever upwards, rising above.
You were never totally alone. There would always be that one passer-by, sometimes nodding politely, but more often than not just walking in silence with that single goal in mind. Sometimes I wished I could scream. Where are you going? Do you see me? Maybe I was just another person who happened to be at the same spot at the same time, merging into the background.
Standing and gazing and wondering never went totally unnoticed though. Older men looked at me for just a second too long. “Are you alright, love?”, accompanied by a questioning look. I had taught myself to nod and smile in a brisk yet polite manner as a response. That was least likely to cause upheaval. But internally I was annoyed, especially with that ‘love’ part on the end. I know some find it affectionate. There was a time I did.
At some point I changed; I don’t know when exactly. I believe you never truly see change until it’s passed. Like a thick pack of snow that you never thought would stick to the ground when it was just a few snowflakes falling from the air. But then suddenly it does, and the snow is there and it’s cold. I felt like there was no point anymore in simply gazing around me. It wouldn’t bring me anywhere in life. I was an adult, I had to be successful and achieve stuff. What that entailed I didn’t know.
I outgrew the shoes I wore to wander; they became scruffy and old. I turned into a passer-by, someone who didn’t have time for contemplation anymore. I forced myself to think about other things instead, like that I should really have left for work ten minutes earlier, or that I needed to pick up some butter from the shop on the way back home. Mental notes.
And so, I walked over the hill, back and forth and back again. My mind filled with work, with things long forgotten, with missing butter from my fridge. Were there people around me? I don’t remember. I just remember the practicality of getting from one place to the next. The hill revealed itself for what it was: simply a hill. Sometimes my old train of thought came back. I dismissed myself and my old ways, as I told myself I used to be so nosey. Somebody lost, with too much time on their hands, and too many thoughts in their head.
On a particular rush home, I noticed there were more people than usual to pass. Then I realised they were doing something out of the ordinary. They weren’t moving. They didn’t seem to be on their way anywhere. They were merely standing and looking at the light of the setting sun and the different colours in the sky. it was some kind of collective introspective moment.
Something tugged at me, something I couldn’t quite understand. I looked down at my feet and realised they could either keep walking, on the path they had set out to repeat efficiently, or they could turn around. They could pause.
I heard a child scream, “Mummy, red sky at night!”. Before I knew it, I was part of the crowd and answered with “shepherd’s delight”, followed by a knowing smile. The child was already off, however, fascinated by a seagull nearby.
I continued to stand next to the child’s mother. She looked like she was in her mid-twenties, only a few years older than I was. She seemed exhausted, yet there was something about her that radiated fulfilment. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”, she said, whilst nodding at the sky. “I try to walk here as often as I can. It takes my mind off things.”
The woman’s words stuck in my mind. When I walked over the hill, I started looking around me again. I smiled about how it seemed you were just climbing and climbing, until suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, the view of so much blue appeared. Sea and sky. I remembered how it was this spot that drew me to this town, with so many snippets of memories of just being and existing, of feeling at peace.
I started to talk to more people about the place that used to feel like it was only mine to observe, a weirdly intimate feeling compared to the vast open space. It turned out other people had similar experiences. Even though we all get drawn into the ways of life and the haste it brings, we all share the ability to take a moment and look around us: for the fluster of the world to briefly stop. The hill belongs to us all.
• This is a fictional short story about a hill. However, there is a familiar hill right where we live, which may have odd similarities with the hill in this story. If you are from Hastings, you probably know the exact hill I’m talking about and have walked over it yourself too. You might have even seen me, scribbling away.
Unusually, this edition, we’re sharing a short story instead of the non-fiction we normally feature. Millie Cerys is an 18-year-old on a gap year from Holland but whose mother came from Hastings.
We are pleased to feature an illustration by Steve Hodson of Inky Finger Emporium to accompany the story.
If you are interested in writing a feature send a proposal to [email protected]
and if interested in contributing stories or poems, contact Pete Donohue on [email protected]
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