aparture
A large concrete bollard stands in the middle of the pavement, just between the area where expectant travellers arrive and make their way into the maze, and the line of lostness, waiting for the taxi line to snake through into the streets of the city beyond. The station, on stilts above, is shrouded in glass, next to the warm plinths and semicircular shapes keeping the bricks and mortar alive, standing, awake. Life hums and buzzes in dark drones.
A similar setup is found at many locations throughout the country. From the arched rooves of grandeur, to the flat slates channeling raindrops to slip and trip from the slimy surfaces. From arrival to destination, and further into the hills, the valleys, the beaches, the fields, the suburbs and every building, the bricks of which are glued and cemented by the thoughts and the minds of inhabitants.
Taking a walk down the paved central walkway, the rain collects in pools; never draining, always providing a glistening sheen to the area. The water motions for you to step closer, to lean toward the land, it has heard all that might have happened, or might happen and has happened to other people. Not you. Never you. But other people. It knows.
It has learnt from the never-dry land that humans are complex. In all the years it sits and listens to the bustling movements of those around it, it knows. From the constant patter of feet, from the whispered welcomes and hasty departures, from the laughter, from the lonely and lost looks, from the tears.
Water listens as it passes through bodies, transferring and transcending substances, propagating waves. It listens to the thoughts which never get a chance to live. It can hear dreams, yet it denies all knowledge of the existence of others. Its inference knows no bounds - just one drop and it can tell the mood, the feeling, the reason. Yet can it provide the answer?
I would ask it the perpetual question, yet it will reply with the perpetual sullen nod. To ask, to query, to define something as undefinable as the night sky full of darkness would disrupt. Would injure. Would disturb. Water knows that humankind like to label things, give things a name, yet water flows from steaming geysers into seas, to vast icerivers. It washes away the labels, until all become equal under its presence. It washed away the smiles from our faces and turned them into a glacier, slipping its way down the mountainface so slowly that the silence left behind sings with emptiness, rejoices in its quiet breath of life. The answer to my question is that I need to take action. But I cannot. For the sake of many others’ happiness, the answer is no; to do nothing, to stay in the harbour instead of pushing the rowing boat onto the waters.
I must keep this perpetual resolve. Must not adhere to rules, to guides, to information passed from beyond to by the by of today, to nod a good-bye to the past and to keep the future under lock and key. A secret. Kept.
Until zeroth hours exist. Until butterflies carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders pass, and we are left with anything and nothing but time and space. Two things which mean nothing if not intercepted by the concrete bollards, defining areas, keeping the sections defined. The same things which seek to define these people, are the things which drive them apart.
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