Hitcher

Abstract Thursday:  Hitcher

"I'd been tired, under
the weather, but the ansaphone kept screaming:
One more sick-note, mister, and you're finished. Fired.
I thumbed a lift to where the car was parked.
A Vauxhall Astra. It was hired.


I picked him up in Leeds.
He was following the sun from west to east
with just a toothbrush and the good earth for a bed. The truth,
he said, was blowin' in the wind,
or round the next bend.


I let him have it
on the top road out of Harrogate - once
with the head, then six times with the krooklok
in the face - and didn't even swerve.
I dropped it into third


and leant across
to let him out, and saw him in the mirror
bouncing off the kerb, then disappearing down the verge.
We were the same age, give or take a week.
He'd said he liked the breeze


to run its fingers
through his hair. It was twelve noon.
The outlook for the day was moderate to fair.
Stitch that, I remember thinking,
you can walk from there. "

Simon Armitage - Hitcher


I've not had Simon Armitage's sort of a day, thank goodness; but on looking at this shot I realised that my subject matter had a tiny little extra yellow hitcher on board.  I could not see this chap with the naked eye, even with my reading specs.  But macro lenses and large screens are wonderful for revealing all sorts of life going on at the tiny level that we are barely aware of.  I suspect that the owner of this discarded feather was well pleased to be rid of it, and with it the potentially itchy little yellow chap. Not unlike Mr Armitage and his irritating hippy?.....

For a change, this shot is straight out of the camera, and hasn't been anywhere near the Affinity Photo fartnarkling software with which most of my abstracts are created.