When I walk trough the lands of Middlesex, where Wembley lies, I find a name of one of the streets that recalls me the time, a couple of centuries ago, when the people of England saw for the first time the Second Clock or Big Ben. By it’s name of secret music I can easily imagine the colours of it’s surroundings and the reach of it’s sight, so far from the city but so near to the clouds, a place of a keen smell of grass and quiet sounds of water. Maybe in another time the Englishmen could see the tower with the clock -elevating itself from the misty ground to the uneasy haze-, while chilling out over the rocks that I imagine stand along a shallowed river and among the pale bushes of a virgin land, and wondering about the mystery of that new tower with a clock on the head; just a dozen brick houses with it’s burning chimneys surround the rest of the environment, so as to show a painting of a long-a-go place. And the entire picture belongs to the first town-people of Wembley. But it is no more a plain of grass and bushes, nor the site of a flowing river; maybe in another time it was just the Wellspring Crescent I cross when I take the train, the Wellspring Crescent I know -between small buildings of apartments and rubbish bins-, only a dusty street that leaded to the City of London, a path of lonely memories that everybody sees but only I know.
There is another place without name that stands between three roads in the middle of the city and shows a picture of the eternity itself. It is a triangle, like a pedestrian step to cross the streets, that’s stuck among the red buses and cabs and people -the movement of the dead-, and has no special importance but a sight through the street in front. To my right and left is Oxford Street; behind me are the lights of Piccadilly Circus. With his sword trusted in his own altar and his missing hand behind the cap, the General Nelson Trafalgar stands backwards with his eyes striking north, lonely among the greyish clouds that are the sky of his own warlike glory. In front of him, a little bit further from my eyes, rises the uppermost tower of the Houses of Parliament, always misty because of the broad river next to it, adorned by the last leaves of the trees that couldn’t reach it’s height. Crowd and noisy traffic spread all over the paint, moving at London’s own musical rhythm, the shapeless mass immersed in a never ending dance, unaware of the short moment that are their lives while crossing through a place that’s been the same through the ages of men -his state of existence-, the London of the builders of the Houses of Parliament, or that one defended by the army of the lonesome General without hand.
I walk further, wandering alone, while asking myself about the bridge I’m up to cross. Where’s Arthur and His Noble Knights? Where are the city walls of his Empire? And thou arst dead as young and fair! Where leads the bridge in front? South or West I cannot tell. There lies the Cathedral, not so far away. A step inside and feel the river underneath flowing incessantly, carrying the boats and slashing the city in two parts. A metallic label describes me the sight in front, as to say I cannot do it by myself; how can a man, just a man, tell what he sees if he’s crushed suddenly by the meanings of his life? How come that the sight in front reveals him the place he’s been looking for during his dreams at night and his walks alone? The picture of the city from inside, but also from the outside. The spot in the middle of the bridge shows him a city all abroad it’s extension, with it’s chimneys and towers and marbles, it’s trees and roads; it shows the Houses of Parliament and the Westminster Abbey, the London’s Eyes and the Cathedral; it not also shows him the City crossed by it’s river but the feeling he was looking for when he came to the place of the Noble Knights. Cloudy sky pierced by shy sunshine lines. The wind blows, and it’s cold. There’s now a tourist boat moving slowly, passing by without being noticed by the mysteries under the river. What’s in the end of the bridge? A place I didn’t met before, did I, Morpheus? Stepping trough the valley of life with London surrounding me, walking south to nowhere, I find a place of no uncommon order, never a site nobody’s been before nor the paths of my own dreams; from the outside I see dark windows, tables and seats, a golden shield with a name on it. For the very wise cannot see all ends… It’s a pub.
