Caledonia Calling

Caledonia Calling

When the wall went up, it was more than just biscuit tin scenery that was lost. Of course we missed the fields, the rivers, the forests; the fits of heather blushing over hillsides like a five o’clock shadow, cast on the face of God himself. But other things would be missed too, and with far less blasphemy.

Missed would be the small round men filling up public house corners, sipping murky waters over recycled conversations. The dwindling light of their lives extinguished in pints as the lord of the land calls last orders: time gentlemen, please.

Missed would be the collective flash of pure white light as armies of milk-bottled torsos confront the summer sky. Marching blindly behind squinting eyes to solar powered chants: TAPS AFF, TAPS AFF, TAPS AFF! Sure, it’s all bangers, burgers and buns today, but it'll be lobster for leftovers tomorrow.

Missed would be the late-night chip-shop interrogations from varnished men with Italian surnames, wrapped in chewing gum coloured aprons and shovelling packets of death into greaseproof bags. Their banter seems flippant, but draws invisible lines down the spine of the country with ultimatums of vinegar or sauce.

Missed would be the girls with asbestos legs, out painting the town red while their lips turn blue. Teeth may chatter, but goose-bumped limbs are quickly smoothed by cheeky swigs from store brand vodka masquerading as Irn Bru. The Ready Brek glow is upon them, bodies comfortably numb as they feel all eyes turn; cat-walking catcalls until keys bite front doors and bare feet are wiped clean on the doormat.

All those things would be missed, yes of course; but we never thought they’d be lost.

It’s always conquest or catastrophe. Whatever mediocracy lies within the theological sandwich of Heaven and Hell doesn’t interest us; the filler is just that. Catching stars or eating dirt are the only options on the menu. A stubborn trait, perhaps, but how many “me’s” can you find in mediocrity? Only one…

But it won’t be me, said each of us.

Unlike the vote, the wall had made national identity tangible. No longer was it something that only lurked behind drunken burps of raw emotion. Now it could be held, played with, juggled and passed around like a screaming new-born; nappy full of regret and a face only a motherland could love. An identity withheld from those standing on the other side of the concrete divide. Us… we wretched, Saxonised souls that got left behind when the first drops of revolution fell, refusing to answer when Caledonia hailed us back to the Arc for shelter.

Caledonia was calling, but I could not hear her.

Instead I just watched as the world started folding; flipping and twisting itself through intricate creases and scores by the score, dividing to make less than the sum of its parts, dividing to make less but somehow now more. More hate, more fear, more fuel to the fire that burned books on tall pyres; slender majorities building thick, bricked walls to keep the evil in or kick the evil out. They say their hands have been forced, their backs pressed against those same walls, but all I see are backs turned and dusted hands showing the door.

It’s not you it’s us; say the political consensus that cut ties by committee, just because feet were not planted on native soil. I still love you, they say, but I’m not in love with you because you’ve not been in me for years and I don’t recognise your touch, I don’t understand your talk, your watered-down words are barbed with inflictions that break skin every time you open your mouth.

You left us; did you really think we wouldn’t change the locks?

So it’s over, so long, and thanks for all the fish. It seems everything made in Scotland gets battered, including my heart. The universal sting of rejection pricks and picks apart the flimsy façade of I never loved you anyway.

Salty tears carving streaks down freshly flushed cheeks, double-barrelled blood shotgun eyes rung dry, the blissful haze of early morning amnesia, evaporating as you turn to find the bed empty and cold. Their smell still stains the pillow, senses mocked by phantom limb twitches that haunt all four chambers of your heart. Nostalgic flashbacks projected through rose-tinted lenses paint poetic pictures of fiction; harsh edges soften as hard facts all fall to the cutting room floor.

Encore, we cry, encore.

Time heals all…

But it’s been so long since we spoke, I doubt I’d even recognise her call.