Had a full blown freak out that the Butter Mouse was a mere street performer, and nothing more. That these visions were nothing more than my misfiring neutrons. I referenced my card against the chart, hoping that significance would stitch together in front of my eyes. But they were words in a book written in dead ink.
I searched for an absolute correct order, some kind of incantation to bring these words to life. I formed a hundred different sentences. Scrawled them down on index cards, and scattered them around my room. But if this was the key to creativity, the lock refused to budge.
With no luck forthcoming I decided to complete my mission, and took a despondent trip to Waterloo Street. It is one of the smaller streets in the back of Clifton towards the bridge. A strip of cobbles still runs near the pavement, and my childhood Scout hut still runs classes and camping trips.
Although everything was shut, the students are back, and even this late at night groups wandered the roads. Some thought my suit was fancy dress, or the result o a date. Laughs and wolf whistles followed me en route. I fended them off with a wave, and got to my destination at exactly one in the morning.
The reason I came here is because this is where the Troubadour Club was back in the sixties and seventies. At the time it was one of the most important folk clubs in the UK, if not the world. It is one of the reasons why Clifton Village is called Clifton Village, to mimic Greenwich Village in New York. It is a strip of wall now, but this spot made Clifton one of the cultural capitals of Bristol.
Did this happen because of the forces at work here? Is this why the Butter Mouse was drawn to this place? My hypothesis was that since this was such a significant place, I could see if this was a well spot, like an oil pipe into the ground.
I put my ear to the wall.
There was no hesitation. The sound of pipes and guitars pooled out like a seashell containing the sea, muffled by the brickwork. The lights of the building were off, but voices echo alongside the tunes. The noise roared all around me, a wave of music drowning out everything else.
And with that my story idea emerged. The plot grew all the way home, and the first draft appeared in full before bed.
No doubt. The Butter Mouse and his tasks are a source of power that goes far beyond the theatrical.
Flash fiction follows next week.
