Thus, here I go now through the streets of some unknown city, opening my way through the masses, and so, this is, between all these walkers, there are many kind of t-shirts with funny lettering sayings things like “Just do it or die”; “Good girls go to heaven Bad girls go to anywhere”; “Sometimes pretending to be normal”; “I'm not rude I'm just saying what everybody is thinking”; “Not perfect, just limited edition”; “Warning! explicit contention”; “Stop following me!”; “Blink if you want me”; “Obey!”; “Too much self control”; “Etc!” and so on. And thus, as they pass by, on both sides, hurrying up, I’m actually studying their faces, analyzing their pretension, but, let’s go for some description, fast-forward. This is, between others, I see men in suits with ties strangling their necks, walking fast. Women with bouncy hair and purses under the arm also walking fast. Anonymous people carrying bags and stuff, not walking so fast. Groups of teenagers advancing together, pushing each others and messing with the people around. Many tourists also, some of them pulling suitcases. Suitcases pulling them. Plus, some individuals waiting in corners, munching, chatting, yawning, some talking on their phones… and me here, looking at them and thinking, “Should I also get one of these phones in order to integrate myself in this society?”; and as it goes, “No no”, tells me a shoe-shiner in a corner, “first you should get a proper job, then a proper house, then some kind of wife, some kind of paramour, and then just then, who know… you may get a phone, so you can collect friends, girlfriends, get abstract jobs, waste your time with absurd idiocies, etc.” And I smile, as he says those things, but, when he starts to touch my shoes, I run away from him, and there I go again, advancing in between the masses, and, as I go through, I actually see people getting inside shops, getting out of shops, some crossing the road, getting inside taxis, some walking in all fours, others stopped on the sidewalk, like this guy here, seated on the floor with a bunch of pots in front of him, and, in front of each of those pots there are actually some kind of signs saying “All-Kohol; Chance; Change; Future, Protools; Etc”, thus, as I pass by, I pick a couple of small stones from my pockets and throw them into some of those pots, this without actually looking at what is written there, I mean, just throwing it randomly. And then, as I keep advancing, I come to watch the many showcases, many sort of gadgets, stuff for tourists, clothes accessories, telephone accessories, traveling accessories, information accessories, food accessories, love accessories, sports accessories, power accessories, lux accessories, accessories related with idols, accessories related with idiots, accessories related with ambition, accessories related with the sexuality of world famous people, etc. And, as I keep walking between the masses, I look at them, but they, well, they do not look very interested in me, so, I can study their faces. I watch their moves. I analyze their style and pretension. Fast-forward. What I see now is men and a woman looking indiscreetly at each other. Some with bulgy eyes or normal eyes or little ragged eyes. Sportive people looking at their phones. Plump ladies carrying plastic bags. Girls with tight shirts, showing up the bump of the breasts, some proud of themselves, some with indignation in their expressions. Male and female teenagers with strange decorative elements attached to their clothes, hands in their pockets, some staring at shop windows, at the floor… and me, here I’m, seated on this bench, watching people passing by, more precisely, watching their shoes, watching their way of walking, their gait, and by watching their gaits, guessing their personality, this is, sometimes a manly gait, sometimes a wacky one, sometimes a calm one, confused, walking around, or just curious, walking slowly but not too slowly, plus, other kind of gaits, like, premature, attentive, or, disintegrated, sleepwalking, tired, greedy, sly, self-centered, etc… And as I pass all this people, at some point, I’m actually entering this fast-food restaurant, this is, now passing on the side of this fat woman giving ice cream to her lap dog, and then, watching the placards on the wall, watching these sheets with numbers and rankings and statistics… and so, just to let you know, it says here that this Mac brand is able to of making about two hundred hamburgers a second worldwide, and, every ten hours a new store of the group is inaugurated somewhere in the world, and, its employees are actually coming from a really wide range of backgrounds, just like the meat chosen to make their burgers… and in the meanwhile, as I make my way out, still thinking about... I’m getting trapped by this two big guys coming in at the same time and... then on the opposite side of the road, I’m already directly entering the renowned "Stratbrucks", this is, it says here that this is the largest coffee shop in the universe, and, as I look around, half of the customers are actually staring at laptops installed on their tables, just on the side of their big coffee cups, and the other half of them is actually starting at their mobile phones, so, no one is in fact eating or drinking, and the background music is also disgusting, this is, some kind of ill-ambient/alt-pop-rock thing, music for meditations, some brown sugar for the brain, this is, apparently, music suitable to make you enter the field of artificial intelligence, but... it’s so hot here, I mean, the heating system is unbearable, so, as it goes, I can’t stay here no more, thus, there I go, already doing my way out, and, as I’m actually passing through the door, I mean, this time I collide with this guy wearing some kind of strange glasses with compound lens, and, I know, by now I’m being photographed from top to bottom and he's going to edit a film about me right here, inside this place that sells organic coffee brought from a special list of under-developed countries, this is, the poorest countries in the world, that this coffee-house brand is pretending to help, by buying their coffee. And in the meanwhile, there I go again walking through the city, say, I leave this central areas I go through some middle glass neighborhoods with unclassified buildings displaying small yards on the front, and so, as I go through, I come to pass in front of some travel agencies with tiny sunshades on the windows, and then I'm just going down into the subway entrance. This is, I go through the halls, I watch the publicity on the walls, I read the signs on the advertisements and I choose a direction, randomly. And then, I’m already aboard some metro carriage, being squeezed against the masses, this is, I try to accommodate myself, even so, everybody is touching everybody in silence here. And, right now, as I look at some of them, what I see, is dull expressions; promiscuity; weary looks, etc. And then, after getting out at some station, I change lines and I enter another carriage going in a different direction. Randomly. Following a natural order of the things. Say. I watch people and their autism or small eccentricities. This is, some of them actually playing with their gadgets, other looking at their feet, others reading self-motivation books like “The meaning of everything in the cosmos, for dummies”. And, well, after a while of watching this, my curiosity is gone, my eyes are getting tired, my nervous system is being lulled, saliva is coming out through the corners of the mouth, and there I go. already entering in that recurrent dream of mine. Say, a dream where I see myself advancing through some kind of desert, actually treading on the top of some kind of dune, and, well, as I advance, with my eyes turned upwards, I'm having this impression that the sky is actually coming down, I mean, descending, apparently falling over my head and, all in a sudden, I actually come to see some sort of blinking numbers and letters becoming blurred faces with pointy teeth in the middle of that descending clouds, and then, these numbers and letters are also running, toppling over, changing its form, and, as it goes, I'm actually incorporating these blinking faces coming down, and... as they come, I'm already being sucked by this sort of magnetic sky, this is, my body and existence now being choked by the jobber / agitate of numbers, asterisks and their nonsense… and, as this happens, in a while, I have flashing electricity running through my veins, meat and bones… and, as I’m actually being engulfed by this sort of meta-mathematical sky, I’m even going through some tunnels, this is, tunnels with halls covered with some kind of analogue microchips and optical fiber intersections, and, as this happens, I actually see myself going through some big cogwheel rooms with hammers and spades, this is, I pass all that shit, and then, I just wake up with a big clash, and thus, somehow, as I wake up, the driver from this supposed train is actually here on my side patting on my shoulder, saying that we have actually reached the end of the line. And so, as I get aware of the situation, there I go, already leaving this carriage and the tunnels of the metro, this is, already coming back to the surface, returning to the light, and so, in the meanwhile I’m already walking along the clean streets of some kind rich suburb with huge villas and private condominiums, stupidly called congos by some, and thus, as I advance, actually walking under some sort of trees aligned on the sidewalk, after a while, I arrive at this construction site, and well, by some reason, here I stop, this is, here I stay, under these trees, watching the man working over there, still far away from here, I mean, the men working on that sort of building. This is, from here I actually envision men carrying materials from place to place, men operating noisy machines, men yelling to each other. And so, I may say that, I’m liking what I’m actually seeing, I don't know why, but, I like all this scenarium, and so, in the meanwhile, I’m even approaching more and more the rusty fence, this is, I’m now watching men moving tools-objects from place to places, men operating machinery, men yelling at each other, etc. And well, as I stay here, soon they are actually getting aware of my presence, and then, despite the distance, I can already hear some making hot comments about my persona... this is, some are actually calling me a bugger, a snoop, a plainclothes, this while others are actually making signals, like, telling me to leave, but, there I stay, and so, in the meanwhile, someone is already coming down, this is, approaching the rusty fence where I’m stoped, more precisely, coming to ask me what I want from there… and, well, as it goes I just say that I'm looking for work, this is, in fact, I just tell him that I can do a bit of everything, and, “I'm very motivated, I mean, I can start at anytime, and, I also don't mind about shifts and stuff...” And so, as I say this, this guy actually wearing pants stained with wet cement and some kind of plastic helmet on his head, smiles a bit, and then, just says “but... you don't have the right shoes”, and me, “it doesn't matter!” I say, “I can actually work barefoot!”, and as I say this, he even let out some kind of laugh, and so, still smiling, he’s already advancing to the rusty fence in between us, he lifts it, and then, he just orders me to pass under it, which I do in a jiffy. And so, in the meanwhile up the slope we go, this is, at this point already approaching all these men working around a manual concrete-mixer. This is, they are five, or six or seven; with hoes in their hands, mixing the heap of sand with the portion of cement; others pouring water inside the mixer; others filling buckets of ready made concrete; others approaching with wheelbarrows, bringing more sacks of cement, opening it with a jerk and pouring the content by my barefoot already asking “What is this kid doing here?”; “He wants to work” the foreman says. “Bring him a pair of boots!” he orders, and soon the servant is already bringing me the aforementioned. “You will be a porter” he says while pointing to the buckets full of cement on our front, and at the same time, pointing to a certain part of the building “you see that garage door… you have to go through it, cross to the rear part of the building, go up the aluminium staircase, and there, on the first floor, the bricklayer will tell you how he wants it, if more smooth or more rough, or more creamy, and you, as you come back here with the empty buckets, you must inform use about his choice, understood?”; Totally!”; “So, hands on”, he says, still smiling, some kind of tricky smile, but, that’s ok. And there I go, carrying buckets of concrete up and down, listening to the men's jocular comments, making it faster, this is, with my new pair of boots, I can almost fly up and down. And, as it goes, at some point, they even tell me to slow down. And the bricklayer there on the first floor is also a nice guy, he do not make any questions, this is, the one that should make the questions here is me, and so, sometimes he wants it more smooth, sometimes more rough, I'm the messenger here, and the wall is growing, this is, I'm contributing for the creation of something real, a big house, a big building is rising... I still do not know the purpose it will be used for, but, it’s ok. Therefore, now, I’m going to talk about the men working with me, their kind of humour, their morality, what we can learn from them, etc. Thus, the one operating the concrete-mixer downstairs, here he comes, already telling me a story about a rich politician that after a scandal went away to another country where became some kind of porno actor, and later, he would even found a new religion based on the believe that we all came from outer-space etc... there are some giggling and then, the guys holding the hoes around the mixer, in a while, all begin to talk about religion, love and sex, and women generally, mixing the subjects in a silly order, this is, a plump one here on my side, is already telling some confidences about his wife, more precisely, at the moment he is actually informing us that she… she used to sell fish around, in the streets, well, it looks that she was some kind of peddler, “but now, she doesn't do anything, no more…” he says, “I have to do everything at home… cooking, washing, cleaning, shopping, pay the bills, and while I work, she is out hunting flies... watching soap-operas in the hair-dresser, or in the kitchen, making desserts all night... but on Sundays, we still go to the church together…” he says, and as he says this things, the boys around, with the hoes, they just laugh and laugh… and then, one of them even start to talk about a certain butcher that have its shop in the back of the so said church, and other is even comparing the quality of the meat attending the church and the quality the meet attending the so-said butchery… and so, as it goes, my buckets are filled up, and there I go, running through the garage, passing to the rear part of the building, going up the aluminum stars, and then, delivering my parcel just on the side of the bricklayer working on something on that wall, this is, he doesn't talk much, I mean, now, he is just concentrated on the plumb bob thing, but his assistant, the kid, turns to me smiling, he also have something to say, this is, he also wants to prove some kind of smartness, and just now, there he goes, already beginning some kind of speech about chickens, eggs and gold shops... something like that, and then, relating these things with the conversation downstairs, about that church, that priest, that butchery on the surroundings, its owner, its clients, etc. And so, downstairs I go again to pick some more buckets of concrete, and upstairs I come again, and as I come back the kid just continues his story, now mixing the gold shop owner with the butchery with the church, and then as I go down they continue too, now mixing the church with the cemetery with the casino with whoreshouse, etc, etc. And, as it goes, at some point, I get tired of this kind of humor, of all their salacity, and so, in the meanwhile I actually depart from here, this is, I run through the streets, following random directions, and at some point, I actually come to see myself in front of this cemetery entrance. And so, after entering, there I go, along these narrow streets lined with graves on both sides, small chapels… and as I go by, I actually read some inscriptions here and there, this is, I pay attention to a couple of angels with broken wings and then, I even notice some blurred photographs of people with haircuts from other times, and then, walking faster, I quickly come to the botthom of this place, I mean, the part where there are no more graves, just a green space, and so, it is here, under some kind of tree with pinkish flowering, that I come to meet a certain guy, here staying with a toothpick in his mouth and some sort of battery-powered radio at his side, in fact reading some kind of book, this is, “The Palm Wine Drunkard”, that’s what I actually read on the cover, and so, as I’m arriving here, “what is it about” I’m already asking, and he, “wait a bit...” he just says, “I’m about to finish it…I mean, I will tell you very soon, just wait a bit” and so, as he says this sentence, here I sit, over some logs, under this pinkish tree, actually surrounded by some sort of junk, now looking up, at the tree branches, its flowers, and also, the birds leaping around though its branches, and then, at the sky, at the rays formed in the middle of the clouds, and then, soon, the guy just breaths out and lay down the book, already saying, “its finished, its finishes… I mean, its a great story, I will make a detailed resume to you… just because… you came in the right time” he adds, and then, here he goes, passing the tongue through his lips “so, the story is supposedly passed in Africa, and, as a start, the first-person narrator introduces himself as the eldest of eight children and… as one who has been a palm-wine “drunkard” since when he was ten years old… and, his father, who is the richest man in town, at some point, decides to give him a farm containing about five hundred palm-trees, and also engage a tapster to tap palm wine for his son all day.. and thus… this guy… the narrator… after having spent fifteen years drinking palm-wine with his friends, his father dies, and, six months later, his tapster falls from a palm tree where he was tapping and also dies. Thus, this guy, the narrator, unable to tap his own palm wine and is forced to drink water… then, having heard old people saying that those who die do not go directly to heaven but are still to be found somewhere in the world, he decides to leave his hometown and go in the search of his palm-wine tapster… and thus, after seven months of wandering, he encounters an old man who actually, is some kind of god… and, as the narrator introduces himself as the “father of the gods who could do anything in the world”, this old man says that he will tell him where his tapster may be… this is, he will tell if he could find a certain blacksmith and bring back some thing the old man told the blacksmith to make for him… and thus… then, at some point, the narrator assumes the form of a bird and listens to the old man talking to his wife… so, this way, he gets to know that the object the old man wants from the blacksmith is a bell, and… there he goes to fetch this thing from the blacksmith… and, as it goes, the old man sets the narrator another task, giving him a net and telling him to bring back Death in it…”; “Death?” I ask. “Yes, Death as a person” he says, and then he continues “so, the narrator finds the Death’s house and sleeps there, but he sleeps under the bed rather than on it, so when Death comes in the night to club him, Death gives blows on the bed, but the narrator is unharmed. Further… the next day, the narrator digs a pit for Death and stretches the net over it… Having tricked Death into falling inside the pit, he wraps the net around him and takes him to the old man… and so, the old man would panic, particularly when Death escapes from the net. And, as this happens, he and all the other inhabitants of the town run away, so… there is no one left to tell the narrator anything about his palm-wine tapster… Therefore, the narrator starts on his travels again, and… as it goes, less than five months later, he comes to another town, where the head man says that he knows where the tapster may be and he will tell it to the narrator if he can help him to recover his just captured daughter... And so, now the story is… the head man’s daughter had been at the town market when she had seen a fine gentleman beautifully dressed… and… despite having been warned not to do so, she followed him somewhere, and, it happened that… as he goes away from the market, he goes across an endless forest, and then, as he goes through it… he returns the various parts of his body to the original owners who had rented them out to him… thus, he returns his feet, he returned his belly, he returned his ribs, his chest, and then he becomes some sort of creature with only a head, arms, and a neck. And thus, then, disgusted, this lady tries to leave this forest and return to her father, but… this sort of creature with only arms, neck and head, creature prevents her from doing so… and so, as it goes, after having returned his arms, neck and skin, the gentleman was nothing more but a skull… so now, the skull brings this lady to his home… his home that is nothing more than a hole in the ground in which other skulls are also living… and, once inside, he ties a cowrie around her neck, preventing her from speaking… and this cowrie would raise an alarm whenever the lady tried to escape… and the other skulls would prevent her from leaving… so, as the narrator hears this story, he agrees to find where this lady is, and while saying so, he drinks forty kegs of the head man’s palm wine… and thus, the next morning, he goes to the same market where the lady was lost… and once there, he sees this same fine gentleman from the story he have just heard, and so, as it goes, then, as the gentleman leaves the market, the narrator follows him, changing himself into the form of a lizard so that he will not be see, and… after observing this gentleman, again, return all the parts from his body, as said before, the narrator follows this skull that is no more a man into his house… where he will find the so-said lady... and so, when the skull goes out, the narrator changes into a man again so that he can talk to her… but, as soon as the lady stands up, the cowrie round her neck sounds an alarm, and in a while all the skulls around come by, capture the narrator and also tie a cowrie around his neck… but, as this happens, he changes himself into air and manages to escape with the lady, changing her into a kitten and himself into a bird. Thus, this way, he brings her home, but the cowrie around her neck is still making a terrible noise, which prevents her from talking or eating… and, when the cowrie is finally removed from her neck, the lady remains unable to speak or eat… And so, as the narrator returns to the forest he sees the skull again, and, at this point, he is actually putting some sort of spell on some leaves, saying that unless the lady eats them, she will remain in the power of the cowrie forever... and so, the narrator brings the leaves back home, the lady eats them and is finally released… and, as this happens, her grateful parents give her to the narrator in marriage… and, as it goes, the narrator stays with her and her parents for about three and a half years, until that then… at the end of this time, he notices that his wife’s thumb is swollen, and, all of a sudden, a male child bursts out of it, and, within an hour, the boy is three feet tall and can speak with perfect clarity. So… he tells them that his name is Zurrjir, and he drinks all the palm-wine and eats all the food in the house, fighting and beating anyone who attempts to stop him. This is… the child is stronger than anyone in the town and begins to create havoc, burning people’s houses etc. And, as it goes, the townspeople appeal to the narrator, this is, the child’s father, and he, well, he decides to burn him… so, yes, he burns his own child to death in the family home while he is asleep... and then, he get ready to leave home again and go in search of his tapster again… but in the meanwhile, the narrator’s wife kinda scratches the ashes of their burned house with a stick and from there she conjures up a half-bodied baby, which accompanies them on the journey against their will… so, as it goes… the half-bodied baby will eat all their food and terrify all the villagers they meet on their journey, making them outcasts wherever they go…” he says, and then, there I go, already leaving this place.
No comments:
Post a Comment