weewilkie

By weewilkie

Guernica peeling on the dreich Glasgow streets

Monday to Wednesday I work in the East End of the city. It involves a long bus ride, but I don't mind.
Well, I don't mind except when there is a day like today and the sky turns dreich and hoses the streets for the whole day. The buses run late, there are twice the number of people on each bus, the windows have steamed up, everyone is wet and starting to steam as the bus sloshes its slow start stop progress through the streets, emptying puddle-waves onto unsuspecting pedestrians.
I was starting to wane a bit when suddenly, just where the streets were becoming dilapidated, Picasso's Guernica appeared on an old run down building through a clearing in the window's condensation my hand had made. Was I seeing right?

So, after work (still lowping it down), I decided to get off near it and see and sure enough it was a replica of the cubist masterpiece. People passed by, heads down, eyes straight ahead or - indeed- deep inside their phones. There seemed something apt that the mural was past its best and peeling in parts. It somehow fitted the theme of war, of disintegration and chaos. Time and weather had added their own touches to the mural.
Back on the bus and suddenly feeling enlivened I sat down and looked out the window as the bus moved off. The puddles were now effervescent, surface sparkling with fizz. The steamy windows refracted beautiful abstracts of different coloured light as we headed through the city traffic. I could hear the shoreline with every puddle that peeled onto the pavement.

At a couple of stops along a big slovenly dressed guy got on. He dumped himself into the seat behind me. I could hear his heavy breath, the bull from the mural came to mind. Then suddenly (and very loudly) he said in a gruff guttural voice that I felt on the back of my neck...
"I've just remembered something!!!!"
......then a pause, a beat where I realised (prayed to God!) he was talking to someone on his mobile....
"Macaroni pies!!"
Then nothing more. He either hung up, or finished that enigmatic thought of his out loud and now was happy to snort like a bull again.
Oh the Art in these city streets as we make our way through the day! I got off before him, leaving Picasso's bull snorting for his macaroni pies; the Guernica mural waiting for me when I next pass it Monday morning.

Onwards!

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