A pleasant, neatly bearded mensch carrying two umbrellas, practically, for identification, one umbrella for him, the other for the umbrella — welcome, he says loud enough that you suspect a microphone, you have to, whether clipped to a lapel or to the clasped brim of his hat; a prophet might be lodged in his mouth. Hope everyone’s rested up from their flights, keep it light: O there’s so much to do today, so very much. I think we’ll begin with a bit of history, how’s that sound? Can everyone hear me? Raise your hands. Or not. Everyone can. Great, he says, now in the year…I step aside, allowing them to pass. To limit, to make shadowed scarce the hated half of me, the symbolic half, the witness half, the kalb halb, the part of me that’s past, that’s of the past, that is: a symbol to history, here a witness to history all over again. Not being commented upon, but being created. In black & white, I mean, in black and white and in red. Now, the Guide guides, if you’ll just follow me. Right this way. A rainbow fallen, becoming streeted into a Square’s inmost circling, bleached of its colors, graysullied, trampled: I’m talking registrations and transports, this stuff happening again, we’re talking monomaniacally all over again, by the book, same as before. That’s right, the Guide approves, that’s right. Approve this! To follow is to lead from the rear. To lead is to follow from the front. What we’re saying is — there’s no way out. There’s no solution ineradicably final, not even that of death, inexistence, which itself is actually existence finally secured, rooted, made fundament, delimited totally — at least, that’s what many now hold. They say — stay in the middle, you’ll survive. They mean — don’t lead, don’t follow, just be, good advice. Now, to the left, the Guide says to those gathered, the guided and guiding, to the left and so left they go left, then go right, which is east, as is left. And a square’s darkened empty, the Square is, save for a bird alight atop a church, the Church, a bird up on high — it might merely be stone.
At home in the past — these days, who isn’t?
Hanna schlepping through the door and leaving her keys hanging from the lock their psalm, she’s rushing her perishables into the fridge: that that goes to spoil, its propensity for turning, only a matter of time to expiring’s sour, the date best sold by, the date best used to consume by, who knows the moon, it’s always better to be careful, there’re too many warnings, a wane of time, not enough: then, arranging it all in the fridge in the kitchen, which room’s existence she often calls the Kitschen and then laughs to herself a slight snort, with her hand over her mouth smelling of armpit and onion, it’s her humor, her house. Here in this Kitschen, then, amid the kitsch of the kitchen, she’s perpetually at home, eternity and its preservatived roof, vacuumsealed. The bread the flesh of potassium sorbate, broken on the ziplock track of her tongue. Here, she’s always been here, even when she’s been out rushing her errands all over the place, overscheduled, hectic, in two places at once at the third, though who’s complaining — her, too. Here, she always returns here, always preparing (shopping for, cooking, cleaning) that meal neverending, our interminable, immovable feast; such course after courses amply couponed, savingsclubbed, dish after dish after this new recipe I just thought I’d try out.
Never one to waste, she cleans even as she’s still cooking, but no, it’s never sufficient…no sponge could have enough capacity, no wrungout rag; the mess always wins — it’s that that’s eternal, that’s what she knows from…
