Spiral staircases 

Whenever I go up a spiral staircase, I feel my senses become more acute - I'm aware that I'm leaving the world where you can see what is in front of you -

Stepping onto a spiral staircase, I have no idea what is beyond the curve of the stairs, or what awaits me at the end of my passage - my imagination conjures a whole gang of possibilities - it seems as if the membrane of the world is dissolving around me -

I have climbed up stone spiral staircases in church or cathedral towers - as a boy, I scampered up damp stones in Norman castles -

I can remember moving upwards, counter clockwise - the tapered stone steps beneath my feet  would be worn and uneven - I would trace my fingers over the cool dark stone of the curving walls, feeling fissures or carvings - I would then emerge, dazzled with bright sunlight, looking down upon the tangled alleyways and squares of a southern city, or, perhaps, shivering from the wind, look down upon rainswept fields around a sad graveyard -

Recently, I took a tube to Russell Square - I was going to see Jay in his eyrie in the Institute - one of the two lifts was out of order - a crowd milled at the lift gates - I climbed upwards, up a spiral staircase of broad steps - I felt that I was entering Greeneland - the man on the step in front of me, carrying a suitcase, became a tired gun runner - the young woman below me, with her headphones and hipster clothes, became the mistress of a burnt out academic - the journey upwards seemed to take an age - I felt that I was moving upwards through layers of time -

When I emerged, onto the street, I turned to look at the red tiled facade of the tube station - my fellow climbers shrank back into being their normal selves - I walked across Russell Square, under the plane trees - the sky was full of low cloud -