Winter by Ali Smith

Author:Ali Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2018-01-09T00:00:00+00:00

April:

it is a Wednesday lunchtime, balmy for winter, chilly for spring.

On the concourse in King’s Cross Station in London there are two huge Sky News JCDecaux Transvision screens at either end of the departures boards and the screens are promising today’s upcoming news headlines after the advertising.

The first headline today in the 20 second news round-up after the 20 seconds of advertising says that there is now 80% more plastic in the earth’s seas and on its shores than estimated, and that this is three times as much plastic as was formerly thought.

The next headline says that there’s an attack taking place on MPs by MPs of the same party who don’t agree with them.

The next headline says that a poll has found that citizens of this country oppose a unilateral guarantee for the citizens who live here and who are originally from a lot of other countries to be able to stay here with full rights of residents after a certain date.

Panic. Attack. Exclude.

That’s the news part over.

Next on the screen there’s an advert for a soft drink, an image of happy looking people drinking it, then an image of a bottle in sunlight, beaded with condensation.

Up on the balcony a man is standing with a hawk on his arm, a working bird he sends back and fore across the station to stop pigeons from thinking they can come in here for scavenging or roosting.

But a buddleia is growing in the wall up next to the roof above the old platforms. It is bright purple against the brickwork.

Buddleia is tenacious.

After the Second World War, when so many of the cities were in ruins, buddleia was one of the most common plants to take hold in the wreckage. The ruins filled with it here and all over Europe.

Art in nature.

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