Essex Manna
Leaning out of the bedroom window watching night's last moments being queried by the early hesitancy of morning, the tentative groaning baleful reluctant day still hesitated behind its blanket of dirty purple-grey.
The first subdued tweetings had barely been answered. A glint of pale light delicately peeped between the curtained houses whilst a whisper of wind twisted its way through the autumn leaves of the silhouetted trees. The soft and shimmering mist slowly started dissolving as dawn's soft clarity erased the few still-lingering and still-mysterious shadows.
"SPLUTT - SPLOBBER - KRUNK-CHUNK - BLRONK..... BLOODLE-OODLE-RUDDLE-GRURDLE..... GRYNK-GRUNCH - GRANK..... KLOWDEL-OWDEL-ROWDEL-GROWDEL....."
Dirty noisy truck, pugnacious and ugly, like some clumsy broken-down escapee from a Robert Crumb cartoon, it emerged from a wrinkle in a previously unnoticed fold of reality, farting its way up the street, belching and burping, dribbling oil from its axles and emitting clouds of blue smoke from its dangling exhaust. Obliviously unaware and with no hint of malevolence, it coughed and stuttered and graunched its shameless way past, shattering the sleepy peace into clanging shards of dissonance.
It was a bread van! And on the roof, above its cargo of bleached flour and carefully selected chemicals, this monstrous mechanical behemoth cheekily sported a large unwashed jaunty red and white sign - "MOTHER'S PRIDE".
- Weed (November 1991)
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