Blinded by obsolescence, stuck between yesterday and not quite ready for today. There in the twilight that exists in the headaches of many and in the dreams of the comatose. A treasure lies in the Fresh Kills Landfill.
She stands there, by the lake and washing of the trees in the hanging stream. She's old, quite, and never once, not ever, do we know her age. How old? Never you mind. She's seen more of her friends and family die than you or I. And she will see us pass into the ether and to the other side before we ever come close to her age. Ever escaping and reaching into the möbius as it is.
She is old. There's nothing left beyond that.
But, beyond that, beyond her little house, a little ramshackle of tin and thatching. No. Not beyond, behind. Behind the little thatched domicile she calls home there lies her sister. Her twin. Born a week apart, they share everything. Everything save for their DNA, their skin colour and their parents. Still, her twin. Her sister.
Walk across the duckboards and keep your balance as you pass the hut. You're only a tilt away from finding how good the smell of manure is warming up in the sun. Take your step. One at a time. One by one until you find yourself staring at her non-sister non-twin.
Yes, it is a corpse. A living corpse no less. It's nothing, really. Nothing.
mouldy blues and you
Kneel down softly (the dead can hear too you know) and pick up that oddly pared fruit (which isn't a pear).
In your hands you will feel a cold, a chilling, in your left knee. As you bite into the soft and mouldy flesh of this papaya, one of two things will happen.
But you can't read about it.
Written on Thursday, 26 November 2009