Paul Andrew Sneddon

Moments

This is the companion to ‘Shelter.’
Music breaks the silence.

I sit for a while and just listen to the music,

They are playing a blues in A. Bobby points to another guitar
and to me. I pick up and put the guitar strap over my shoulder.I touch the strings; it’s mic’d up. Through a little distortion
pedal.

I’ll be where the music is playing.

This is no game.

No joke.

Fuck that.

Buried beneath the city,
Buried beneath the ground.
Buried inside us.

The world steals.
Dignity.
Hope.

Life.

Fuck that.
Fuck off.
Fuck you.
Fuck.
Fuck.

Bobby nods at me, and I play that guitar with every ounce of life that I ever had.

I run up from the G on the E string, up to the high string… I feel
them… the strings… every note.

We’re in a moment.

The world stops.

The noise stops.

And we are alive.

I hit the strings till my ﬁngers bleed.

I remember the little room where I ﬁrst picked up a guitar.

Nights alone.
Playing.

John Lee Hooker
Springsteen
Steve Earle
Rancid

To here:

Life.
Love.
Connection.

I nod at Bobby, and I play the chords as he takes a turn, and he
can really play. A blizzard of notes and then nothing but soulful,
bluesy bends.

Then Rachel comes back in.

We can take a place.
A moment.
These guitars,
And make a place of our own.

The little crowd cheers. Someone shouts from the bar.

“Here, yous can fucking play!”

I thank Bobby and Rachel.

They invite me down to the open mic and I of course say I
will be there. I get back to my seat and for a moment I just
breathe.

I ﬁnish my drink and walk outside.

It’s fucking raining.

Of course it is.

Shelter

A coffee.
Rain on the roof.
A quiet moment by the sea.

I sit in the shelter with my coffee.

Black.

The rain is my company as it is falling steadily on the shelter
roof. I can see one guy walking out on the beach with a dog
running loops around them, but there is no one else here.
You come down here in the summer, and you can hardly move.
BBQ and music, ice cream and slushes. Barely an uncovered
piece of sand. So many Glaswegian accents it reminds me of
home.

No one’s taking the BBQ to the beach today. The coffee is
decent, but it used to be good and half the price. The lassie at
the cafe had even written my name on the side and passed it to
me with a smile.

I half expected it to say ‘Prick’ on the side, but it just said

Ed.

She was cheery; I’m probably the ﬁrst customer that she
has had for an hour or two.

The pace of life is a wee bit different.

It’s got that seaside town vibe, but you don’t have to look
too hard to see people carving out a life. It’s not exactly a job
hotspot, you know. I look out across the water. I think about the
people who have been and gone.

Old school friends, neighbours. Christ, some of them barely had
a chance.

Danny splitting his last cigarettes with me on the walk up
the road. Or the two of us sitting up on the wall by the graveyard,
drinking vodka and singing old Tom Waits songs. Hit by a
fucking car stumbling up the road after a night out.
We got the call the next morning. I was holding my son, 3
months old when my brother called.

Danny’s gone.

I didn’t understand.

All here and gone. Too soon. Too fast.

Who am I to sit here and squander what some have lost. A
couple walk by and offer a little smile.

“That’s a cracking dog you’ve got,” I say.

“He is a cheeky wee rascal,” says the woman.

“I bet.”

I look back out. I wonder how far you’d get on a boat out
there; the water doesn’t look too rough. Sounds easy until you
realise you’d probably wash up on Arran or the Mull of Kintyre,
or Ireland. And then what?

Well, maybe a pint.

But I don’t want to run.

As I’ve got older, I ﬁnd myself sitting up, crying in the wee
hours alone on the couch. Not full-blown waterworks, you
understand, but just enough.

I remember one of my ﬁrst girlfriends when I was just a wee
guy. 11 years old. I heard she passed. I couldn’t stop thinking
about it.

I hadn’t seen her for years.

I don’t doubt that I’m a fool.

I’m a romantic.

I still believe in life, love, music, and how a song, a lyric can
change your world. I’ve crashed and burned a few times, but I
swear I’m going to break this grey.

Maybe that doesn’t mean much.

Maybe no one gives a fuck.

But it means something to me.
Here.
Now.

In this shelter.

21st Century Revival

I was playing guitar earlier, trying to finish a song I’d been writing. Got the notebook open. Chords written down. Something not quite working.

Frustrated.
Breathe out.
Take a break.

Sitting on the couch.

Switch on the TV.
Flicking through videos.
Can’t settle.
The talking heads, the influencers and the product placements, the endless twenty-first-century noise.

Too much.

The screen goes blank and then there they are.
Jeff Tweedy and his band appear on the TV. Alll of a sudden and without warning.

Guitar, mics.
The band look at each other.

The beat hits. The bass.

The song hits me, wakes me up.
Before I realise it, I’m moving around the living room, shouting to the missus,

“Have you heard this song?”

She’s laughing at my best moves. We’re dancing close. The guitar hits, and we’re jumping around like we don’t care if anyone is watching.

She says, “What’s that one called?”
“Lou Reed Was My Babysitter.”

I hit play again. Jeff Tweedy and his band appear on the TV. I feel better already.

I Am Here

Run my hands through the earth,
The dirt between my fingers,
The rain finally stops falling,
The wind drifting through the trees.

My voice travelling across the valley,
My feet planted in the ground.

My coat smells like vape,
The rush of the city,
Running in my veins,
People rushing,
traffic,
noise,
shouting,
anger,
hands,
grabbing,
reaching.

Stop.

Open my eyes.

Breathe in,
The trees swaying in the breeze.
Breathe out,
The river winding through the valley.
Breathe in,
The birds singing.
Breathe out.

I yell across the valley:

“I am here!
I am alive!”

I look up to the open sky.
Let the healing begin.

The Subway Loops

Tumble out of the 9 to 5.

Time to kill, but where to go?

The pub holds promise, but I need to stay sober. If I can.

The underground just keeps going. Loops. All day long. For the price of one ticket.

Got time to kill. A cold winter day. It keeps you warm. No ticket inspector. Just one ticket on, one ticket off.

People, faces, quiet, loud. All day long you see them, looking awkwardly at the adverts, avoiding eye contact. It’s okay, I don’t mind. Ride on, ride on. I’ve got some soul on the headphones. I’m not alone. Mavis Staples, “We’re Going to Make It.”

Or the library. Heat and all those books. Good company when you’ve got nowhere to go. A mind revolution, walls broken down, different lives, different perspectives. Changed, alive, brain firing.

Or the nights the library is closed and you can’t find peace. When you’re too tired for books.

Then it’s music and walking and burning a hole in the soles of your shoes. It’s city streets, dreams, hopes, angels in the cracks of the pavement, the river bridge, smoking a joint in the car park.

With an old friend, or a new friend.

Then through the crowds, all these people with places to go. Just keep moving.

Check the clock. 8pm.

Into the venue, grab a beer. Familiar faces. Smiles and warmth.

”You playing a song tonight?”

“Johnny 99.”

Or maybe one of my own.

Light. Friends. New songs.

A little slice of soul.

Grace.

On a cold winter’s night.