Suspicious records indicate there's a better life

Ethan Switch - Sunday, 11 July 2010 - 05:13:29 - print it raw

Pause on Main Street in the Downtown area and witness the haunch of an elderly gent waiting for the bus that is yet to arrive. This is human, aged, on the sidelines waiting for death to take the contents of his wallet with a wry smile. Slouching is what the hopeless does. And boy howdy, that's some slouching thar, pardnur.

enough with the commentary

Rewind to yesterday. Sunny with a high chance of tomorrow and diminishing returns. Crossing the daily threshold of pain marks getting the slippers to shuffle out of bed, joints creaky as the joists are dry. Growing old grinds you down and weathers the face, seasons of change writ large across, wrinkling the brow of the specimen.

Fast forward to next week when the emptiness sinks in, no more come the calls from his supposed daughter. But never mind that, we're in the here and now and wasting it all away to smell the stone roses. The raw ecumenical truth is that there is nothing beyond in-fighting and second-guessing the hours ahead. You'll have enough churches, steeples, mosques, temples and shrines to ignore when you're bargaining for those years at the end of your life.

Playing it up for the afternoon, the wind sweeps through, kicking up the silt and dust of the road. Our subject's demeanour makes you inversely want to look up at the sun and feel its warmth glowing on your skull and glassy jaw. The old man's photic sneeze reflex is nil, nostrils caulked up with putty years ago after an incident with his alleged grandson. No more presents little one.

Stop with the disconnect. The municipality has not even signed up its roads for public transport. So what is this old man waiting for?

Melancholy is a hit parade, skip.