Small in the City

Warmly wrapped against the winter chills, a small child leaves the tram and begins walking. ‘I know what it’s like to be small in the city,’ says the narrator and goes on to talk of the noisy, bustling, at times scary environment he’s entered.
As he continues walking we realise that the child is addressing a special someone. Furthermore, rather than sounding scared, he offers advice on how best to navigate the landscape: ‘alleys can be good shortcuts’, steer clear of big dogs … ‘the fishmongers down the street are nice. They would probably give you a fish if you asked.’
All the while the snow swirls ever faster around as the child stops several times to put up posters. He enters the park and walks towards a bench, stops again and then we see and we understand …
“Your bowl is full and your blanket is warm … you could just come back,” he tells the absent feline as he starts making his way back towards home …
Awesomely beautiful, intensely moving and oh so brilliantly done, this remarkable book opens you to the raw emotions of the searcher. There is so much to take in, in Smith’s superbly observed city scenes; blurred images viewed through the tram’s misted windows, the street scene jumbled into confusion by the mirrored windows of an office block, tall linear buildings towering skywards amid a tangle of cables and street lights, while close ups of the snow covered boughs of street trees and the blizzard of falling snow reminded me somewhat of a Hockney landscape.