George and the Concrete Jungle

Art by Owen White

George lay there, staring up, and as though staring into a mirror, he couldn’t help but realise they replicated his rare moment of stillness and stared straight back. Locked into a staring contest with those above him, moments flew by soundtracked only by the occasional wind - a far cry from the constant passing traffic that he had grown used to.

He had lived in the city for five years by this point, and with each day that passed, he felt himself becoming a slave to its rhythm, the same rhythm that was part of the appeal of moving in the first place. The hustle and bustle that was initially seductive now felt chaotic, inescapable. He used to dance along to the rhythm but now felt too tired. With each day that passed, he just ebbed and flowed, letting the overwhelming power of the city’s flow wash over him and dictate his every move. He had lost all sense of himself. Was he the same George that he was when he moved? He couldn’t quite recall. If it was indeed a mirror that he was staring up into, he wouldn’t recognise himself. His eyes bagged. His hair greyed. His face gaunt. The city had eaten him up, and if it had indeed spat him back out there was no one else on planet earth that would pick him back up looking like this.

This was what he found refreshing about this night. Though he knew they were always there really, as his head hit the grass that night in the middle of that park - his jaw dropped with amazement, his eyes widened in awe of the star-lit sky above him.

Five years it must have been since he’d gazed upon a night sky like this. Not since he’d moved to the city. Why was that? He wondered. Was it the high rises and the light pollution obscuring his view? Was it that his eyes had been too occupied in search of the next place to drink every night that he had lived here? Or was it that here, Finsbury Park of all places, laying alone for what felt like the first time in forever, was the moment that he finally took the opportunity to breathe?

In through the nose, out through the mouth, as simple as that. With the simple repetition of these two actions, coupled with the stars staring down at him, he was able to relax. It was not something that came naturally to him, relaxation. He’d had a bath in his apartment for the duration of his time here but refused to use it because he found it impossible to switch off. His mind constantly raced with any number of pointless thoughts at any given moment ranging from questions about fishing laws to trying to remember the name of the bassist from The Charlatans.

Traditionally, under the cover of darkness, with a slight sharpness to the chill in the air - he would have felt far too concerned about the imminent threat of anyone else around him to unwind in the middle of the park of all places. But, seduced by the stars above him, he found his mind able to tune out from the intensity of his own brain and focus on the sheer beauty of the universe that we were a part of.

Paled into insignificance by the great beyond, he worried not of what would happen if someone were to approach him with a knife now because he had accepted to himself that ultimately it didn’t matter. He didn’t matter. None of it mattered. The stress. The money. The work-life balance. The pension. The good rates on a savings account. None of it mattered.

In Finsbury Park of all places. In the realisation of knowing that he didn’t matter. In this situation of all situations, he did the unthinkable: he found peace.

Exactly what he would do with this newfound sense of liberation from the constraints of day-to-day life he wasn’t sure, but lying here and enjoying the intense beauty of the eyes that were staring down at him wasn’t a bad start. He locked eyes with the sky above with an undying affection that he hadn’t managed to muster up since the end of his last relationship. He rarely looked anyone in the eyes anymore. He wasn’t exactly sure why that was.

Certainly, in some instances, there was the idea in his mind that eye contact was enough to give someone the added encouragement to mug you, but that wasn’t the case with everyone with whom he avoided locking eyes. His boss for example. He was completely sure that in this case, he was under no immediate threat of being mugged - namely because he had far fewer goods worthy of mugging in comparison. Yet, since that last bout of heartbreak, he had been rendered incapable of maintaining eye contact with even the sweetest child. Was it that eye contact reminded him of her? Of intimacy? Of the fact that he was now alone?

This logic didn’t quite make sense to him. If anything, the beauty of the stars should be the association with those eyes he used to stare lovingly into, not the cocaine-fuelled bloodshot eyes of his boss.

He realised, in this moment, trying to decipher the logic that his newfound peace had dissipated, replaced by his usual racing thoughts. But for those few seconds, he had found blissful resolve in the beauty of nature.

In his final moments gazing upon the stars, he realised it wasn’t the aesthetics that kept his attention, nor was it the surrendering beauty of those blue eyes that made him capable of locking into contact with them. While both were breathtaking to him, it was something else entirely that freed him of the anxiety of eye contact: the knowledge that those eyes with which his own were joined were not trying to weigh him up or figure him out, but simply looking back upon him: free of judgement.

Owen White was an illustrator and artist from the North West based in Leeds. Check out his work.