he sits there, waiting. waiting.
on the corner of 25th and 8, his overcoat well-worn with the wisdom
of yesterday’s scraps and today’s dew.
guitar in hand – out of tune – strumming along to a song only
he remembers.
silhouettes pass him by, flashes of the rainbow, desaturated in
the rain-sent gloom.
and he sits there, waiting. waiting. waiting on the world to change.
“Did you ever feel like time is standing still?”, she said, as the constellations gathered in silent contemplation.
“Did I ever?”, he replied.
“Life is a constant rush from one point to the other, achievements that don’t matter, the susurrous bubble of opinions, the friends that aren’t”, she mused, crumpling her face into a wistful frown.
She continued, “Sometimes I just wish I could stay here and watch the stars all the night, and feel time grind to a halt, just stay amazed at the beauty of creation.”
“Why not?”, he replied.
She was silent, and for a moment, time stopped. Then the world returned, and the magic was lost.
..
“Did you ever feel like time is standing still?”, she said, as the constellations gathered in silent contemplation.
“Did I ever?”, he replied.
“Life is a constant rush from one point to the other, achievements that don’t matter, the susurrous bubble of opinions, the friends that aren’t”, she mused, crumpling her face into a wistful frown.
She continued, “Sometimes I just wish I could stay here and watch the stars all the night, and feel time grind to a halt, just stay amazed at the beauty of creation.”
“Why do you need to?” he replied.
“The whiff of a rose in a flower stall on a spring morning on the first day of work, the ephemeral smile of that special girl, the morning sun’s rays that filter through a window and illuminate a little patch of tired floor with the radiance of rebirth.”
“The beauty of creation is in all these things and more!”, he exclaimed.
“Maybe I’ve just been too tired to see these things”, she replied.
“Maybe.”
She was silent, and for a moment, time stopped. Then the world returned, and the magic was lost.
full of questions it began and full of questions it ended.
caring not for chronology, in allegory it meandered.
when all was said and done, it was like a magician’s mechanisms revealed,
and that sense of wonder never
returned.
That night, in our darkened bedroom, I lay beside Kumiko, staring at the ceiling and asking myself just how much I really knew about this woman. The clock said 2:00 a.m. She was sound asleep. In the dark, I thought about blue tissues and patterned toilet paper and beef and green peppers. I had lived with her all this time, unaware how much she hated those things. In themselves they were trivial. Stupid. Something to laugh off, not make a big issue out of. We’d had a little tiff and would have forgotten about it in a couple of days.
But this was different. It was bothering me in a strange new way, digging at me like a little fish bone caught in the throat. Maybe — just maybe — it was more crucial than it had seemed. Maybe this was it: the fatal blow. Or maybe it was just the beginning of what would be the fatal blow. I might be standing in the entrance of something big, and inside lay a world that belong to Kumiko alone, a vast world that I had never known. I saw it as a big, dark room. I was standing there holding a cigarette lighter, its tiny flame showing me only the smallest part of the room.
Would I ever see the rest? Or would I grow old and die without ever really knowing her? If that was all that lay in store for me, then what was the point of this married life I was leading? What was the point of my life at all if I was spending it in bed with an unknown companion?
Extract from The Wind-Up Bird Chonicle , Haruki Murakami
We live our lives in bubbles of solitude, living, loving and dying without truly knowing the people that we spend our days around and with. Our lives, long since bleached, beg for life.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
has it?
Work in this band responds sensitively, perceptively and personally to the question set; is often subtle, concise and sophisticated, with a style that is fluent and gives economic expression to complex ideas; at the upper end this work may be elegant and allusive
Allusive, yes. But it’s not just the writing.
The daily dichotomy of thought and action ensnares me between the now and the everlasting. These ropes that bind were cut two millenia ago, why, mind, hide what the heart doth know? We profess love for something greater, far greater than our mortal transgressions, why doubt the timeless, and in doubting regress?
Perdition catch my soul,
But I do love thee;
And when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.
As a child, I dreamt of escaping the mediocrity of normal life into the fantastic worlds of Brian Jacques’ Redwall, Terry Patchett’s Discworld and Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Of the lattermost, who hasn’t hurled themselves at the floor in an attempt to fly? Admit it!
Worlds which are not bounded by the laws of physics – but instead by the imagination – have always fascinated me, and continue to do so. Neil Gaiman’s works usually start off in the solid realm of Reality, but end up Somewhere between Reality and Fantasy. To craft infinite worlds between the permutation of 26 letters and an assortment of punctuation is truly a skill to be admired and feared. Neil Gaiman’s “The Graveyard Book” details the story of a boy who is adopted by the “occupants” of a graveyard, a homage to The Jungle Book, a tale of a boy adopted by the animals in a jungle. I picked it up, and two hours passed hence. When I put it down at its conclusion, it was like leaving my best friend behind as I left on a jet plane. And though I might return and visit, and reminisce about love lost and gained, it would never be the same.
carthage . black war . dungan revolt . vendée . herero . namaqua . irish famine . circassian . assyrian . armenian . holocaust . guatemala . rwanda . sadaam . burundi .
but, my God is mighty to save.
fragme/ntsofme/mories 