Saturday, 29 August 2015

Adventures of a blue upright vacuum cleaner

A window. First floor. The man glimpses outside. Downwards. Grass. Just grass. It needs cutting. Concrete path. Pebble finished precast concrete garage panels. Cloudy. The man looks out, again. This time, an upright vacuum cleaner is standing on the grass. Flanking the concrete path. A blue machine.Proud. Settling its thingness on that afternoon. He watches.

He misses an eyelid. He watches again. It is no longer there. It has disappeared. Silently. Completely.

The man wonders.

The internet of things.

Friday, 28 August 2015

Musician's wake

The faint notes of a violin concerto were still permeating his consciousness when the man woke up, the sun shining on his face that morning. He remembered it as a Max Bruch work, or was it by Mozart? The Bruch piece has been a favourite of his for a long time. Why was he playing it, literally playing the violin part, when he is incapable of performing on any instrument? The solitary street accordionist, most probably a Kurdish busker, performing in a busy city street at midday, had stuck in his memory. Flashes of his childhood, of street musicians in another time, another era, another place, drops of memory taking over his eyes on that afternoon.

A smile on his lips.

Wednesday, 26 August 2015

Untitled 1

I hope that she will not be disturbed, after all these years.

Thursday, 20 August 2015

Silent farewell

1976. The man is in a long distance coach. Destination? The international airport, two hours away. It is early in the morning, he is still yawning. Suddenly, a flash of gold and blue on the outer area of his vision caught his attention. She was there, in her blue school uniform, her blonde long hair lighting up her standard attire, probably in her way to her school, the German College in Valparaíso. She was very young, much younger than he was. The man had shied away from befriending her because of that. He was afraid to break her, her delicate features, her school successes, of which he had had glimpses. 

Sometimes, coming back from university, he would share a bus with her, and her friends, too. Always at a distance, titillating near the point of collapsing, like a tremor urging to be released as an earthquake which would had ripened his heart out of his chest, laid bare for her to see it.

That morning, he whispered a silent farewell.

So many years have flown away, yet she is still in his heart. Especially, in the silence of the night.

At night, there is always a light on in his bedroom.

Sunday, 16 August 2015

Invention and reality

Inventing, he had created the principle of reality.

Umberto Eco

Tuesday, 4 August 2015

Creating the world

"God created the world by speaking. He didn't send a telegram."

Umberto Eco

Or by posting on Facebook, I add.