Up North, Up Then.

......like.....

There’s a town up north, and a long time ago.

Two young men are standing at one end of the Victorian shopping arcade; they are skinny the way only young men can be.

The two young men know a lot more about some things than other people their age care to, and one of them doesn’t know things about himself yet that he will only discover a few years later.

Life is a complicated composition sometimes.

On one side of the Arcade – it deserves a capital letter – stands an old man who knows more about just about everything that these two young men think they know and as i write he is putting them to rights about some of them.

In a moment the elder of the two young men – even youth has age – will open his suitcase and start juggling.

At that moment the Old Man – he deserves capitals – will step back and realise that all of them know quite a lot about some things.

And they will become friends for an instant.

A small Northern moment a long time ago.

After which the two young men will say goodbye and drive further north to a place that has seen a lot of what they and their friend know a bit about in comparison - to the town – and find that very little remains of it.

They will sit in an empty Indian restaurant and eat a very average curry.

Then they will go to The Circus – it deserves capitals – where much of all these things took place.

formerly published in The Archives.