'Flats' is a binural beat poem about a way of life. 

Chapter seven -  in which Connor, Eimear and Sergei begin reading the old man's notebooks.

A short, supporting binural beat poem

Mould is a part of the story. 

Some musical atmosphere for our story.

And if anybody tells you you can pet the tigers. No, those tigers are drugged.

A fire elsewhere

Rivers are the reasons cities get to exist and Connor believed you find the life and character of any city down by the river. A city without a river was a city with no life. At the river’s bank the horizon is narrow and that is as it should be. Big skies in an urban environment should make you very uncomfortable; they signal the proximity of grand houses, palaces, government buildings, banks, the offices of strange corporations and all that is moneyed, disconnected from life and oppressive. They like things flat, manicured and on too large a scale near palaces and the homes of dictators.

European cities in particular need to be seen from the river. An American film can introduce a city with a shot that sweeps down from the sky in a helicopter but cities in Europe need to be seen from the docks and the quays like you see them in German movies from the 1970s.

No city has ever looked better, or been better seen, than Hamburg in ‘Der Americkanische Freund’ that masterpiece by Wim Wenders. Dim light creeping down narrow, cobblestone streets; the day never quite fully illuminated before the light falls again at dusk, dusk that comes always early to a city; the great weight of history and generations of lives lived and passed, a city full of people on the verge of stating with conviction: “I would rather not..” but remaining constant for all that.

When he was younger, in his late teens and early twenties, particularly when he was drunk or frustrated; and once he was old enough to be able to legally buy drink whenever he could afford it the two things basically always came together, he walked the short distance to the quays, drawn down by the river. He would stand at the little wall and look down slowly to what lay below.

“Down to the water my creeping eyes recoil”. “Down to the ground my creeping eyes recoil.” The sentence repeated over and over in his head-

“Down from the buildings”.

“Down from the people.”

“Down from myself.”

Down.

The end of Chapter 3