Wrinkled dreams

There is something incredibly beautiful about crooked, derelict buildings; criss-cross wrinkles running down their length, faded memories staining them in a patchwork of their once magnificent colour. They stand tall, held together only by the stories they’ve helped weave together over the sunburnt years.

If you drown out the self-absorbed din of today, you’ll hear yesterday come alive. Like a grandmother sitting in her favourite rocking chair, a fire by her side and the little ones around her, these old buildings will tell you fantastical stories of a time long gone by; of brutal wars and bright red romances; of wild drunken parties and night long wakes; of the dark bruises behind shut doors; of the warm glow of newly weds melting into one; of the sorrows of losing one of their own and the magic of meeting new faces.

The toothless windows nod in agreement, as do the balconies and street lamps; together they’ve seen fashion come and go and come back again; any clothes line here can dress you up for a big date, better then the best. Arthritis has set in. Some show signs of pneumonia, even tooth decay and kidney failure. But they refuse to give up. Unlike some others, they refuse to retire in the comfort of an old age home. They refuse to get any kind of a body job, proud of the shape they’ve turned into; proud of their cracks and their patches. The loose bricks smile proudly atop the strong, rigid frame.

The once chirpy terrace though has a bag of complaints. It remembers a time when its doors opened to young lovers, soaked in poetry on star-lit nights. Today it is a nest of creepy crawly wires, like thick aged blue-green veins, sticking out from beneath wilting skin. If you move them around, you might still spy a J heart M and an A heart G, dying under the heavy weight. Where bright flowers once stood, today antennas and a satellite dish stand; a sign of the changing times, I guess.

'Yes,' they all agree, wisps of their white hair making puffy clouds in the sky, ‘the times change; the characters change, but the stories, they remain the same. We just sit here on the kerb and watch them replay.’