Free Girl Meets Boy: The Myth of Iphis (Myths) by Ali Smith

hit home, we were the tail of a fish were the reek of a cat were the beak of a bird were the feather that mastered gravity were high above every landscape then down deep in the purple haze of the heather were roamin in a gloamin in a brash unending Scottish piece of perfect jigging reeling reel can we really keep this up? this fast? this high? this happy? round again? another notch higher? heuch! the perfect jigsaw fit of one into the curve of another as if a hill top into sky, was that a thistle? was I nothing but grass, a patch of coarse grasses? was that incredible colour coming out of me? the shining heads of – what? buttercups? because the scent of them, farmy and delicate, came into my head and out of my eyes, my ears, out of my mouth, out of my nose, I was scent that could see, I was eyes that could taste, I loved butter. I loved everything. Hold everything under my chin! I was all my open senses held together on the head of a pin, and was it an angel who knew how to use hands like that, as wings?
    We were all that, in the space of about ten minutes. Phew. A bird, a song, the insides of a mouth, a fox, an earth, all the elements, minerals, a water feature, a stone, a snake, a tree, some thistles, several flowers, arrows, both genders, a whole new gender, no gender at all and God knows how many other things including a couple of fighting stags.
    I got up to get us a drink of water and as I stood in the kitchen in the early morning light, running the water out of the tap, I looked out at the hills at the back of the town, at the trees on the hills, at the bushes in the garden, at the birds, at the brand new leaves on a branch, at a cat on a fence, at the bits of wood that made the fence, and I wondered if everything I saw, if maybe every landscape we casually glanced at, was the outcome of an ecstasy we didn’t even know was happening, a love-act moving at a speed slow and steady enough for us to be deceived into thinking it was just everyday reality.
    Then I wondered why on earth would anyone ever stand in the world as if standing in the cornucopic middle of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon but inside a tiny white-painted rectangle about the size of a single space in a car park, refusing to come out of it, and all round her or him the whole world, beautiful, various, waiting?

(It is really English down here in England.)
    First class all the way. I was the only person in Carriage J when we set off. Me! A whole train carriage to myself! I am doing all right
    (and that train getting more and more English the further south we came. The serving staff doing the coffee changed into English people at Newcastle. And the conductor’s voice on the speakers changed into English at Newcastle too and then it was like being on a totally different train though I hadn’t even moved in my seat, and the people getting on and sitting in the other seats round me all really Englishy and by the time we’d got to York it was like a different)
    OUCH. Oh sorry!
    (People in England just walk into you and they don’t even apologise.)
    (And there are so many, so many! People here go on and on for miles and miles and miles.)
    (Where’s my phone?)
    Menu. Contacts. Select. Dad. Call.
    (God, it is so busy here with the people and the noise and the traffic I can hardly hear the)
    Answerphone.
    (He never answers it when he sees my name come up.)
    Hi Dad, it’s me. It’s Thursday, it’s a quarter to five. Just leaving you another to tell you I’m not in first class on the train any more, I’m in that, eh, Leicester Square, God it’s really sunny down here, it’s a bit too warm, I’ve got half an hour between very important business meetings so was just calling to say hi. Eh, right, well, I’ll give you a wee call when I’m out of my meetings, so bye for now. Bye now. Bye.
    End call.
    Menu. Contacts. Select. Paul. Call.
    Answerphone.
    (Damn.)
    Oh hi Paul, it’s just me, it’s just eh Imogen. It’s Thursday, it’s about a quarter to