It’s light.
A jagged patch of blue hung cut from the curtain of darkness around Lou’s head. He squinted at the blue, and a cloud moved across it from edge to edge. Then Lou thought:
It’s quiet.
It was true. The silence was clear as water.
It’s wet.
It was wet almost everywhere. Lou’s arms made sploshing sounds in the space above his chest. His limbs and torso could have been blocks of wood for all Lou knew; the only part he could still feel was his middle. Lou imagined he was an apple core buried in the snow.
Then came the thought:
Deirdre!
With numb fingers he pulled at his pocket, arching his back to push his chest up out of the water.
No, no, no.
Lou got hold of the bundle of fur and brought it out of his pocket and lifted it as high as he could. But before there was time for anything more, he heard a voice.
‘Look at the state of St. Margaret’s.’
It sounded close. Maybe the owner of the voice could help Lou get out from wherever he was. Lou thought, I should shout. The trouble was he couldn’t think of what to say.
Anything would do.
Lou couldn’t remember the last time he’d said anything to anyone which wasn’t, ‘Spare any change?’ That was the combination of sounds he made every time he saw a coat flash past on the high street each day. He made the sounds because he needed the money to buy cider and sandwiches. Lou had forgotten how to use the other words. Sometimes somebody or other would stop and say things to him as he sat in his usual spot. The police came sometimes to move him on, and once a group of Christians tried to introduce him to Jesus. They stopped coming back when they realised he didn’t understand the words they said.
Lou heard a succession of sloshing sounds, which must have been the footsteps of the owner of the voice carrying him away. Now or never. He took a deep breath.
‘SPARE ANY CHANGE’, he shouted, aiming upwards at the hole in the ceiling.
The footsteps stopped sloshing. Lou thought he should shout again.
‘Spare any change?’
Lou’s voice was thick and muddy, like he was ill. This was because he probably was ill, but also because he had realised that the bundle of fur he’d pulled out from his pocket was wet and cold and still.
M20COLLECTIVE 
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