Field Study's Man in E11 is rescued from the jaws of Reynardine

Where has Field Study's Man in E11 been since 3rd November? 14 lost days! I found him drifting between the newly formed islands - Utopias 1, 2 and 3 - in the firmament of, The Polytunnel of Love Supreme. He was in a microscopically wretched state, rag and bone, his clothes as chewed and ragged as the allotment's polythene firmament. When I addressed him as, Field Study's Man in E11, he seemed confused and uttered a name, Will Farnaby, repeatedly, as if I was subjecting him to an interrogation. When I soothed his fevered brow he assumed another name, that of, Robert Maitland. Island and Concrete Island had merged deliriously in the lost days of early November. I had to employ some more subtle techniques by which to coax or elicit a more lucid account of the early days of November 2013. By an elaborate combination of winks, twitches, eye movements and linguistic ploys, I programmed him to tell me a story I wanted to hear. The story is called, 'Downcanal'. 

In 'Downcanal', a field student is swept down a drain during a rainstorm into the Lea Navigation and Canal. He is immersed in the historical substances of the Lea Valley, which accumulate as a mind bending alluvial mud in a stretch of the Lea, known as, Bow Creek. He becomes stuck in the mud and devolves into an organism with gills. Curiously he begins to resemble an elderly James Mason (with gills), just his head sticking up above the low tide mud, in an affected sort of theatrical Beckettian style. He tries to attract the attention of harmlessly sentimental psychogeographers on field trips aimed at making connections between the East India Docks and the surrounds of David Rodinsky's room. At low tide, in the twilight, in a particular phase of the lunar cycle, a howl of 'this is the London nobody knows', might be heard by those with open ears loitering in the drink pits and crystal methylated piss dens of Three Mills.

As a consequence of a return to evolution, 'James' found himself liberated from the mud and incarnated in the form of a luminous hybrid perch-bream. He devoured all the nourishing scraps of heritage memorabilia, the flotsam and jetsam of sentimental drifts into the liminal zones of London's fictive tributaries. Psycho-anglers took to crudely assembled rafts to pursue the glowing leviathan lurking in the brackish waters of Bugsby's Reach. Many did not get away from the chomping Leamouth of this monstrously fishy story - except the one who plucked maggots from the rotting corpse of his (lack of) imagination and used them to feed the favourite swim of 'James the lambent perch-bream'. Adrift on a raft constructed with spent spray paint cans (bound together with shredded carrier bags), the psycho-angler nervously lowered the choicest most juicy and flourescent of his spam fed maggots into the ominously glowing depths. 'James' took the bait, bit on the maggot, was hooked and what ensued can only be described as the most uneventful lack-lustre plays - a sort of Pinter/Beckett hybrid suffering from blog writer's blog block - unworthy of any recollection or recount more than, he caught the fish, took it home and ate it.

It dawned on Julian Beere (hey, that's me! Oh no it isn't! Oh yes it is!) that he was the psycho-angler in this panto' of a recreation myth. JB half-baked and ate the fish. JB took the bones and skin to the allotment wormery/compost bin. Reynardine raided the bin, ate the remains of the fish and then chewed on the polythene of the polytunnel. Field Study's Man in E11 was reincarnated as the sole surviving particle (of the field student of 3rd November) in a belch of the wayward fox. 

That is how we found each other - a pin prick of light on my retina - a minuscule flare via a tooth prick of a fox bite on and in a distressed sheet of polythene.

      The Jaws of Reynardine was Here