In Summer
Soundtrack to this piece:
…repairmen have blocked off the street in order to rejuvenate the road, it gets like that after a while, as though stones are stolen out of the ground, or the ley lines and gravity and the tectonic plates heave, the great pressure that is relieved here and there by plumes of dust or grunts and groans from inside of the earth or great cracks in the infrastructure or underground, how each step pushes down a decimetre of force upon each stone compacting unto the core and the equal and opposite response is a subtle shift in the overall integrity of the mantle itself (we’re talking eons here, Neanderthals running barefoot hunting game through to a man in a suit with leather shoes stepping hard on the highest surface ever to be uncovered above water) an echo that takes thousands of years to reply – the slowest reverberation through dense matter with a memory of millennia forces, here and there, the fist sized stones that make up this “old” cobblestone street to sit up a little out of their place so that cars and bikes and people who trip edge her a little more this way and that, time after time nanometre by nanometre until she is sitting well out of place, like a child who has not seen an orthodontist because her parents prefer her to have “character” because they too are enamoured by streets such as this, in Paris or Lisbon or Rome, and when the tooth/stone is completely pushed out of position until it becomes a hazard then it takes much more abuse, the wheels of the car hit her with great force, human beings actively kick her and try to stamp her back down into her original position, school children ridicule and tease the poor girl who can’t help that her parents have decided for her that her incisors are beautiful where they sit high above the tooth line jutting out from her gums, a vampiric parody that she has to force her lips over and not ever smile or laugh too strongly so instead when supressing her natural reactions feel the sharp things dig into her upper inside lip/cheek – an instant physical response to the pain of suppression which she, at twelve, finds difficult to explain in a persuasive way to her parents who, drinking their wine and smoking their cigarettes continuously tell her that she will thank them when she is older and has character and looks different and unique because that is what is missing in this world of the generic form, they explain, the conformity of beauty into one ugly version we all must try and force ourselves into, until the cobblestone becomes dislodged and sits outside of its place, the gaping hole left over filling with smaller rocks, dirt and debris, the other stones sighing and gently falling closer together, the pain relieved, the earth spitting out in that one focal point of pressure that was building up and found an outlet, that stone compressed up and then run over and over until finally it dislodges, this natural progression (the parents say is beauty) will, over time and with enough repetitions, call into action these men who have been trained in the traditional art of cobblestone repair, they have a cart with hundreds of identically shaped stones and they close one street that has heaved too many teeth making the road ugly and less-pleasurable to navigate so they block it off and set to work, massaging and shaping and refitting the stones/teeth back in place manually by hand, stone by stone, a process which greatly delights the parents because they tell their child “look, see, some traditions last, they could just pour bitumen over this but they don’t, look” they say to their daughter who couldn’t care less about this (although she does appreciate the point they are making) but because they have coupled together two things into one, namely that she cannot get braces or corrective orthodontic work because her parents enjoy nostalgia and the pre-modern architecture seems askew, and so within a day or two the workmen finish up, open the street and move on to their next project a block or two away, and so on and so forth until they die (and in dreams they pass the technique for repairing the stones of their city on to their children as their fathers passed it one to them (multi-layered dream), this tradition that is only alive because the city is invested in and finds some identity with maintaining these incongruent, costly and charming cobblestones which aims to maintain the sense of pride citizens can feel in their city and identity that yes, although we are struggling and we have many challenges, we have not fully succumbed to the scent of death emerging from our sewers and infecting our hearts, although affected we are, enough to maintain something of beauty (her parent are quite excited right now watching this documentary) we hope outlives us)…just like how you left your cigarette on that Greek island and some part of you thought “well that’s my mark this will be here long after I die” – an agreement between your knowing what is wrong environmentally and laziness, born into the Earth, dinosaur pride (museums gave you that idea), until you, upon walking back to the boat that will take you back to your foreigner’s room you saw countless other butts left thoughtlessly so your act, although in spirit correct (DNA permeates the living world but it doesn’t last very long without the animation given by life, that is, the ‘process of living’ which is called life, such that when left alone the ‘life’ within saliva dies fast, the remaining fibrous tissue of the chemical filter of the cigarette is a blind numb dumb configuration of elements that already exists so you, or the part of ‘you’ that was once soaked into this butt is vanished, no future excavating archaeologist would raise an iota of understating upon discovering your cigarette butt other than to say, these underdeveloped Neanderthals smoked here) you realise is devoid of anything other than a wish, now looking deeper inside, that there is some way you should contribute to the world that would last, and the fact that that thought crossed your mind as we are sure these hundreds of other cigarette butt tossers may not have had, they most likely simply flicked their butt away, an act which you, in having considered your littering at least makes you, what, better than them? go on and say it, that you feel that you have a greater purpose and by your choices have an impact, is the crucial point, the moment which you, sitting now next to someone who is aggressively sunburnt and is covering themselves with a wet towel that smells faintly of sparkling wine and swaying along with the undulation of the small boat that will take them ‘home’, have the sinking feeling that life has not been lived with the right purpose sitting with a dozen or so other tourists who have had a marvellous time swimming in an environment that is novel yet is, we all must acknowledge, the land from which the basis of civilisation has been formed, the thinker looks to his feet, toes poking out of a sandal, ridiculous…great plumes of smoke vent in straight lines upwards from the hearths of humans who celebrate more often than they commiserate, this society wild with motorbikes revving and fireworks launching out into every direction, on the ground chaos with burnt meat offerings as carnival for the reappropriation of native lands, look here we fold the pastry over the fowl, it’s called ‘dressed in silver’ but it doesn’t translate properly, if you want to taste heaven they keep saying in their dialect then you take a piece of dirt in your hand and rub your hands together, and we partake see now their eyes roll back in their heads and the world changes, it is a different place, surrounded by those in their element, alive flowing and free, playing with the fire like it is their child, figures grow and change in the orange hued light, the dust has creatures within her, the trees themselves at their base have small huddled bodies that communicate with their gaze – you are told something there is no doubt (of course you imagine you ‘made it up’ but you know, you know), visions impossible to photograph which is why museums fail at capturing (colonial word/concept/aggression/vernacular) the essence (soul/core/truth) of indigenous culture…
