A Patch of Sky

Pain, mild, moderate or severe, has a curious way of blotting out thoughts, actions, past or present; of displacing information, the essential, the researched, the trivial; of blurring recollections, the new, the aged; of fogging the brain; of revealing traits usually self-contained. It lets in however dark fears and vague surmises; reduces the body to a malfunctioning machine; and turns the outside into an even more scary and 'utterly alien place.' All that remains is a patch of sky framed by four windows.

Picture credit: Sky Study, c. 1869, Edgar Degas (source: WikiArt)

Quote from The Rings of Saturn (I) by W. G. Sebald.

From journal, September 2023.

Cuba

Death of a salesman, Miller. Death from a salesman, Greene. Cuba is Cuba is Cuba, Stein (imitated by Greene). Havana, our man in. Wormold, Jim. A vacuum cleaner salesman, 'anxious, crisscrossed [with worry] and fortyish', in a city of power cuts. People stand or sit, die or leave; invent, experiment, drink. Reality is not faced. The journey once commenced must be finished alone. Anything is possible and nothing is unimportant. A footnote.

Picture credit: Small Stores, Cuba, January 1981, Martha Rosler (source: WikiArt).

See Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene.

From journal, August 2023.

Desert World

Man, a few domestic animals. A desert world – concrete, plastic – peopled mostly by robots. It has replaced the poisonous forest, and destroyed, too, the land born of rocks, of harsh extremes. Every life these supported killed. The house Jack built spread disease. Now, even Jack is dead. Though pages still lie unread, waiting to be misinterpreted. Unless … perhaps … A.I. allows Nature its own methods.

Picture credit: Desert Tram, 1997, Jacek Yerka (source: WikiArt).

Written August 2023.