1000 words about cranes

I don't write enough. And I'm spending the weekend trying not to do any work (more difficult than it sounds). So I've challenged myself to write 1000 words (just long enough to be called a short story). Here they are. Raw, but 1000 of them (yep, I've counted).

It’s not that old people aren’t sexual. It’s not that we don’t think about it, wouldn’t do it if we got the chance. It’s just that the chance doesn’t happen very often these days. I watch, envious, as two girls stride out, all black leggings and perfume and barely-contained want, giggling excitedly towards an evening with a hint of a promise of a romp. The romp passes me, grinning, glancing quickly at their bodies, certain in the knowledge that they’re not the first two blondes he could have if he wanted tonight. Pan. The original boy who never grew old, still lust and intoxicating fumes wrapped in tight leather trousers. Tonight he’s wearing a devil costume topped with silk-smooth skin and tight black curls (the horns, incidentally, aren’t fake). "Wotcha, Nerys", he grins impishly, "how’s tricks?" Bastard. He knows I’m off to work now, and whilst he’s shagging the nights away I’ll be working my threadbare arse off to make Sunday morning just right for his coffee and fucktoy before the next week begins. What? Didn’t you know that old people swear too? You have so much to learn young whippersnapper. Starting with…
Okay, so I’ve just let it out of the bag about the Arcadian gods. You might have guessed that they were still around (clue: convenient hurricanes, volcanoes and other "acts of nature" every time the humans start getting bored). But I bet you’ve never thought about the others. The wood-nymphs, the satyrs (not to be confused with satire. Not ever), the mythical bores. I’ll spare you the history lesson, the human geography, the demographics. Just answer me this: where do most people live, and what are the principal structures in those places?

The answer is cities. We’re still here, we still hang around making things work for the humans, but they’ve modernised. And so have we. Forget the wood and water nymphs flitting around the countryside waiting for unwary travellers to spot them frolicking in the nude. We’re older now. More crabby. Clothes-wearing. And invisible. Not invisible in the I can’t see you in mirrors, look there’s a person-shaped space on the dancefloor kind of way. Just invisible like older women, invisible because nobody notices us. But if you look, you can see us, you can see who we are. Example? crane nymphs like me. There aren’t many of us around, but we’re easy to spot: those old ladies whose souls haven’t left their bodies yet, the ones with bright blue eyes that pierce through yours to see you exactly as you are, with no cover, no artifice left within those withered old bones. Then there are towerblock nymphs – the original oak nymphs, still hanging on to the largest structures around. Tall, elegant, perfect grey hair, usually on the arm of some captain of industry who mysteriously hasn’t swapped them for a string of younger spouses. The road nymphs (ex rivers and streams), now responsible for trafficcones, gyratory systems and one-way streets. And so on. And we’ve all left Greece for the new empires, new temples, new capitals. The satyrs still drink lots and dance a bit, but they’re all disguised as city middle management now, and the nymph-chasing is a little more viagra-enhanced these days.

Ah yes, even amongst the gods there is sexism afoot. Although perhaps not sex. But back to myself. Have you ever wondered why there are always cranes above a city, even when they don’t seem to have a purpose in life. Well they do. Sure, they lift things and move stuff and make nice with the building trade, but that’s not why they’re really there. I have another question for you: have you noticed how time speeds up in cities? That 5 minutes waiting for an underground train can be forever, but 5 minutes waiting for a country bus is nothing? Or that weekends are somehow slower there. That the effect isn’t geographically uniform?

I cover Shoreditch West. I’m nearly there now. Shuffle awkwardly past the overflowing pubs – head up, chest up, look straight ahead. Sex. It was once all about sex. Breeding the elite - heroes and beauties - with gods, or sending mortals mad with our whims, our desires. But not now. We could, yes. Seduce, entice, make one of those pub-hounds believe we are beautiful, young, special enough to twist their minds with lust. But only for a short while. Unless. Off skywards to the office I go. To spend my once-lustful Saturday nights carefully adjusting and readjusting the tips of the cranes, to forge my last link between the old gods and men, to move time itself for the new god to flourish. Because there are new gods now. Money, influence, youth: all have their pulls and their terrors, just as Jove and Artemis once. And the cranes are the key, slowing and speeding time, matching its flux to the places it most pleases these gods. Stretching it weekdays in the city to let more money flood in by the hour; compressing it at weekends when there’s no-one around. Of course there are leakages – even the gods can’t be perfect now – but we cover those too, balancing the rapid ageing of bankers against extreme youth in the boroughs nearby. Like Shoreditch – the place where Pan will probably wake up; full of beautiful young things in fashionably-old clothes, partying all night and waking at noon. But he’s working too, keeping the artifice, hiding the line between fast and slow. Why else would the pubs be full and the cocaine lines flowing, but to keep everyone from noticing the change as the cranes stretch out time? I stop, partway up my skyward-pointing crane, and realise that at last I am bored. Tonight the time in Shoreditch will stretch out. The drunken lads will become bored too. And I will wake with one bedazzled, for one glorious Sunday morning nymph-struck and mine, just as we once were in the groves before the new gods came and changed out our ways.