I walk. I walk and I walk and I walk. From the airport runways to the heart of the city centre, Manchester is one of the best places for any keen hiker to explore on foot. There are mile after mile of roads in Manchester, I estimate there is enough tarmac for a single road to run along the entire coast of England. And on the side of these roads, more often than not, is the pavement. For where would we be without pavements? Perhaps the unsung hero of Manchester, its pavements are walked on daily by its entire population and on which lost items can be found, promises can be made and even a few secrets kept. Anything can happen on these mysterious walkways, five and a half feet wide and infinite in length. In Los Angeles there is a pavement with the hands of famous celebrities embedded into it. In Manchester the pavement is covered in the bloody handprints of gunshot victims. I went to see what kind of pavements I could encounter on a standard day of exploration.
Before long I found myself stranded on the embankment of the M62, the traffic rushing past me on both sides. The air around me moved quickly, filled with the smell of diesel and rain water. I shut my eyes and found myself in a
death dream
falling forward, clutching at my left eye. It had gone cold. Stumbling blindly I reach a concrete bridge and begin to scale it with my fingertips.
"Gone gone samba, rolled rick potassiums and inobstruble magnificents." I mumble to myself. A sacred mantra I had picked up from the last necromancer in Berlin. Eventually I managed to pull myself upward to near safety and began the long walk home, pulling fragments of teeth from out of my tongue, musing, simply musing on the bare bone facts of life. What if instead of people we were pavements? I know, I know, it sounds crazy, I know. Okay? But just hear me out here~
~ quantum physics ~
~ I hope that adequately stated my point, but though even irregarding the fact that the pavements were a source of trouble in our lives, it is possible to empathise with architecture at at least an atomic level.
