Less than half a mile to the West, the Queen sleeps snugly in her bed. As dawn breaks, the treeline sways beneath a rushing sky. Green and white striped deckchairs lay stacked, chained firmly to the ground. Leaves dance in formation across the foot-worn grass tossed and jostled by a fickle wind. Blown hard against a bush is a cardboard sheet with traces of a vaguely life-size human form imprinted upon it.
A crow, seemingly the first to rise, pulls a McDonald’s bag from a near to overflowing bin. Ripping the paper with great ease, the bird discards the soggy bun. All it wants is the burger meat. Scanning left to right with beady eyes, it takes the morsel in its beak and flies up high up into a tree.
Below, amongst the bushes, broken branches, torn blue packets, Extra Safe. Small brown capsules, amyl nitrate. Old school ravers sent from Heaven. Tinsel, feathers, dressed as angels, caught together in full flight.
Cigarette ends congregate beneath the benches beyond the reach of keepers’ brooms. White filters, lipstick-stained, mock cork – gold bands, cardboard roaches, extra slims – smoked right out, stubbed and twisted, left to burn – and some with still a puff or two to smoke.
An empty wallet tossed, abandoned. A young man wanders phone-less, card-less, surrendered to a Romanian camper, out of fear, without a fight.