Vessels

Public domain

Before people worked in offices in the city, all of humanity was tied to the land. Once the beasts of burden were harnessed, humanity started to escape the limits of their own frailty. Across four millennia; the horse pulled the cart, the ox ploughed the field, and the donkey carried a messiah or two. The cereal crops harvested by these agricultural humans could both sustain the farmers and their animals. The humans ate the grain and the animals (both the working ones, and the unemployed ones bred for meat) ate the stalk.

Celebrate

Ah, two years of blogging. Unlike last year's frantic pace, I've slowed down quite a bit this year. Maybe I've cleared a backlog of thoughts or maybe being unemployed just wasn't much to write about. As I said earlier:

Ëçë wëb-sögnäh eþ satewai jaami to alirazdlis.
This blog is as much for me as for whoever reads it.

There's plenty of stories about being a postman, I just haven't got round to writing about it all. Who doesn't want to hear about psychotic dogs, urine-soaked stairwells, and the passionate hate for people and their mail that develops within no time at all?

Pruitt Igoe

Kim Noble (Patricia) - Golden Stretch, 2005

Marching ants scurry to work. Blind ants drowned by rising water and squashed by falling rocks.

Too fragile. Drop it and feel relief. Wound tighter, moving faster, the tension unbearable. Hand-held. Quivering and losing balance. Oh, the fall. I say, you sir, would you please catch us? Pogo till your neck snaps. Cause when the sun goes down...

The Grid

M8 Light Trails, _Gee_, 2006

Man walking South. Man walking North. Walkmen watching watch-hands marching.

Timetables, schedules, cycles, oscillations, repeating life pulsations, looping, circadian rhythms.

Arcing across the roof, bending our necks to follow it. Up, down. Work, sleep. Alarm clock violation. Free running from imposition, announcers detailing. Catch the train, the programme. Some sleep never caught under fluorescent light strips.

Rain Down On All Those Days You're Not Around

throbber85, Home at Last, 2007

High flats keek above low clouds. Metallic screeches emanate from the ocean terminal. Three cranes standing in a row, arms saluting the river. The ambient pulse of traffic and the hiss of drizzle. The cold air soothing sunburn upon exiting the airport. A tanker leans against the flow, a tug strolls past bound in its proud posture. A disused dock does overtime and a thousand call centres cluster around it.

What's missing when you leave? Can't stand the ground further inland. Dreaming of somewhere else even though you'd be miserable not being here being miserable. Being cold isn't a feeling. For some reason, being here is. When the river opens up, you do too.

Extrinsic 7: Someone, Somewhere in Summertime

Yesterday I went parasailing on the boat trip. Was all right, not really a raving review. I've burnt my knees quite red since I forgot to grease-up with Factor 50. As ever, one was enjoying the imagined company of young ladies. There was a girl I thought was German reading her book. I could have serenaded her with a bit of "Ich, Ich bin dann König!/Und du, du Könnigen!" Need I mention any interaction was exclusively in my head? She was as English as the rest of them anyway.

Extrinsic 6: He-La-Hu

Clyfford Still, 1957-D No. 1, 1957

So five minutes ago all hell breaks loose. I've not got my glasses on, people are rushing out of their seats screaming - hysterical women over-reacting. I hear a bang (or something like it), and you can draw your own conclusions from which I had to make my own conclusions in zero to instant, self-preservation kicking into action.

Media exposure to the self-destruction of humanity invokes predetermined scenarios. And half-way through this, I'm informed the two English drunkards are thumping each other again. In the past two days there's been a big increase in the number of people at the hotel what with the English holidays fraying the seams. Unlimited alcohol is a great idea. You can't take the English anywhere.

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