I jumped, pushing against the cold St Kilda pavement and landing hard, as if stomping could stop time and change the trajectory of my life. In that cool Winter time between times, alone on that long road, I thumped the ancient earth to nudge its orbit. I stamped to shake both worlds, and wake life from its stubborn steadfast march. But time would not be changed.
A decade further down I drift on a dripping path in a botanical dreamscape, drawn by almost memory. Turn right here, I think, not left. Now right again. Beyond this bend perhaps, and... there! My fairytale Victorian cottage dream, made real. Intense with detail I thought all infant fantasy - the dark eaves, the gabled roof, ivy hung brick walls, ornate iron fence and little gate, the painted hardwood door with bold brass knocker, the deep green garden. A nightmare refuge from Peter's awful wolf, it resolves and shrinks solid there before me. Mystery and dark melody draw back with the mist and I stand gentle beneath the rain, a new innocent.
In another time a clear eyed boy of four with a bright red boat had followed the path with his young mother to the pond nearby and launched his precious toy. Watched helplessly, it made joyful passage into a drainage pipe and was lost. The mother softened tragedy with tale of how the happy boat would in the end reach the wild wide sea, where all boats longed to go.
