Like the delicate sound of a Swiss watch ticking, Ruby’s claws were tip-tapping along the pavement. It was too late to be out, the cold was surprisingly sharp, ravaging my nostrils, and Ruby was pulling at the lead to get home, back into the warm.

I yanked her out of the road as a car slewed wildly around the corner, its main beams exploding in my eyes.

Ruby slowed, stopped, and I nearly tripped over her, my eyes still adjusting to the dark again. Her tail had dropped to horizontal, the fur along her spine was peaked into a ridge, like iron filings on a magnet. She was staring at something.

Ahead, in the gloom was a cubic shape, sat in the middle of the road. I approached it, Ruby didn’t. She let her lead become taut, requiring a drag along.

It was a small chest freezer, the colour of off milk, rusted at the corners, used, and filthy. Emerging from the back was a cable, its plug smashed, its brass pins still attached to the wires, and a mangled fuse holder. Ruby had sat, and was gently vibrating, her mouth slightly open.

I pushed the unit with my foot, it seemed solid, certainly not empty. As I moved to open the lid, Ruby stood up. The lid was locked somehow, it wouldn’t budge. I pulled Ruby to me, back into the road, her back legs dragging.

On the far side of the lid was a latch, for an absent padlock. I unclasped it and tried again. It was stuck firm. I let Ruby’s lead slide down my wrist and gave it both hands.

The lid snapped open and flew upwards, one of its hinges broke and the lid flopped to the side, stricken. A sour stench puffed past me; the nearest streetlights flickered. I felt the cold frisk me and now, my neck hairs bristled.

The seal was a sickly rust colour, decades of grime had glued it shut. The freezer was full of ice, almost to the brim, a pristine white, frost-covered block.

Ruby pulled at her lead again. Her tail down, her spine fur rippling. I swept my hand across the surface of the ice, as if clearing snow from a windscreen. Beneath, it was a cloudy white, opaque, no way to see what was entombed within.

Ruby began to whine and jump against her lead, her breath ragged. Despite trying, the lid would not be shut, so I left it. As she dragged me away, I could sense the thing behind me, in the small of my back, as if it was watching, until I turned the corner for home, wondering what I had set free.

Most mornings, especially the beautiful ones,
there is a moment, a stillness.
As the horizon blooms ahead of the rising sun,
the world seems to hush.

On nature’s inhale, birds take to the air,
rushing from their roosts in the trees
to their work in the sky.
Criss-crossing the brightening dawn,
they trace a web of myriad intentions.

A minute of sleepy hurriedness
before the flashing amber light of daybreak.

Then, the sky melts to blue,
the world moves again.

They are gone.

One of the best things about swimming early in the morning is the things I see that I would have missed if I’d been elsewhere. This poem is about one such moment. One I have witnessed often enough to know it is a real and daily event.

Having written some diabolical poetry in my life, I am on a slow mission to improve. I know it is a subjective and truly individual thing; how it sounds in the minds of readers. So, my goal is poetry that I like the sound of and, that satisfies me. If others like it too, excellent.

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I wrote this many years ago, whilst immersed in a dense period of writing, one of several; too few. I’d been into screenplays for a while, having been on several training courses and seminars in the late nineties and early noughties. The format suited my visual mind, and the show, not tell, was challenging.

I was spending the occasional weekend in Eastbourne at the time and, as most visitors do, spent time at Beachy Head, which was then, and still is, a suicide attempt hotspot. Attempts, I presume, that are often successful, given the height.

I had the image of these poor people littered around the landscape below, and this rather dark story slowly emerged. An unkind purgatory for them, until nature brings emancipation.

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Scattered By Matthew Jones

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Somewhere, there's a continuation of this story, but that’s for another day.