I did say, pay attention, but you threw a scatter of gravel,
fragments of smashed beer bottles sparkling into the dust, as if to say, why
say one thing when you can, with consummate ease, say twenty three?
So it was me who was left to examine the entrails of the
sacrificial beast (I thought we has at least reached the evolutionary heights
of the I Ching, but apparently not). A Swiss army knife abandoned next to the
splatters of vomit – yes it would make me vomit too – and hanging from the arching branch of a sycamore, a grinning mask, ears pricked, eyes alight
with horror, lips drawn back to expose razor sharp teeth. I entertained a
momentary video clip of you rushing off to get your tetanus jab – did you get
bitten? The spilt guts in the middle of the path – one of those paths that
always lead through the woods and twisting in bewilderment to the older parts
of the forest – and I squatted down to examine the viscera, trusting that they
hadn’t got there first and disturbed the mess.
It was an easy read, a real page-turner: violent destruction
followed by a slow and painful recreation, but much more difficult to apply to
the banal details of my everyday life. What was it that I had to leave behind,
intone the litany of the last rites, bury deep, cross myself and move on
towards the brightness of the city, to discover the bejewelled cathedral, speak
to the old monk – if he is still alive, God willing – the old monk who has the
key to the door of the room wherein lies the book I’ve long been promised.
If the night has swallowed him up then I will have to take
to the narrow maze of streets, the unmapped parts of the city where outsiders
rarely survive.