I was standing facing a 6-meter-wide paved road. Connecting the road and the door behind me was a footpath in gravel, maybe 4 meters long. To the left I could see the road lead straight into a mass of buildings, all built in red brick. The roofing seemed to be old, but sturdy, as if the brownish black ceramic tiles were receiving regular maintenance. Along the walls of the houses appeared several posters in different colours depicting people adorned in all sorts of clothes, accompanied with slogans which appeared to make statements about the world. I was only able to make out a some of the words and letters on the two closest posters
“O…nizing is a ….. to be …rved for ……tizens pertai….. to the LOCAL mun…..”
and
“Favo.. coopo…. before defiance, the …. is …. UNITES”
It appeared curious. I wanted to go closer, however I got the distinct sense that doing so would make me even less certain of my own identity. As far as I had gathered, I was somewhat homeless, completely alone, scared of interaction and generally impoverished in all but my newly acquired garments. I could hear sounds of traffic, and the faint hum of people communicating. The red brick houses made sure that they were completely out of sight. My eyes rested on the road; it had patches of moss and grass protruding from cracks that ran both across and along the old pavement. It had not received nearly as much attention as the roofing of the red brick houses.
Branching away from the footpath on the right was another path laid in flat stones, which curled along the side of the building I had just left and in between thick foliage and further into what appeared to be a forest. The path matched the descriptions from the receptionist.
Turning from the posters and towards the forest I felt all ambient sounds fade. Glancing over my shoulder I saw the posters changing while my feet pulled me further into the woods.
There was not a single sound once I entered the woods, apart from my own thumping steps as I followed the winding stone path. There was no wind or animal sounds, and in some ways the whole forest felt constructed. Natural in every sense I could recall of the word – but constructed. A feeling of detachment welled up in me. Every breath felt halved, as if I was rationing oxygen. After 5 minutes of walking, the path came to a clearing, circular with a radius of roughly 7 meters, through which the sun could shine. Slightly off centre was a tree stump – presenting itself as a perfect seat to catch a breath. I remembered that the bench in the park should have been close by, provided I had walked the right way, however I felt I couldn’t take another step before sitting down, so I did, and looked as deep into the forest as I could manage.
The shadows formed a silhouette of a man, probably 60 meters away. The silhouette was standing and frantically waving its arms around. Maybe 189 centimetres tall, and with what I would describe as an average build, possibly with a slight beer belly. The frantic waving didn’t seem to be for me but rather directed towards strands of hair on its head – which were being torn out in tufts. Its pitch-black figure was formed of shadows, but small movements in its shape, in its knees, conveyed its humanity. The use of musculature to counteract the weight of flinging arms. It looked as if the figure was struggling to stand. The movements which had seemed frantic at first, upon further study appeared increasingly mechanical, like some form of dance. With some imagination I could even see the tufts of hair, which had been ripped out, float towards the earth like dead leaves. It was captivating. The figure let his right hand be lifted from in front of his body along the middle of his stomach, chest, then face – the hand would then do a violent jerking motion, ripping out a tuft of hair. The hand would then shoot out in a straight line upwards to the side, forming a 120-degree angle between its arm and oblique, to a point slightly above his head, letting the tuft go. The silhouette then let its right-hand fall again to repeat the motion. Its left hand simply moved from the same straight position back to its head for another tuft of hair, stopping after 3-5 iterations to wave around for a couple of seconds, then returning to the scalp for more. The hands went in and out of sync. After a while of staring I began to wonder were all the hair came from.
“There will never be another bomb.” The memory of a single sentence broke the silence, and my focus on the silhouette waned. I was pulled back into the world by this man’s voice, a Scholar. The voice had been authoritative, yet with a soothing tone informed by knowledge and reflection. As if this truth transcended those which you would otherwise hear in a day. While not being constant truth, because nothing really is, it seemed somewhat more salient. My own mind had no ability to arrive at such truth, at least I would think so. The Scholar had been a man in his early forties, a balding head with his hair cut within millimetres of its life, white skin with protrusions of redness, likely brought on by stress. A short man, dedicated to his craft – as if nothing else could matter. I was unsure whether his detachment from worldly matters was brought on by himself, or the people he had met in his life. In any case, it was clear that he was holding on to his brain as the only thing left worth sustaining, and the world as something which ought to be understood. I remember thinking that it had been a worthwhile investment. A question crept out from the darker corners of my head;
“If a mind’s only real purpose is to think – what is the point of a lesser mind?” A stupid thought – yes, completely moronic. Minds are not all the same, and they cannot be measured against one another – one mind might be slightly better adapted to a given situation, however in time the situation could change.
“A strong defence” I thought to myself. I was now breathing steady, and my eyes found no more shadows in the woods. I stood up from the stump, and walked out of the clearing, into the woods again. It smelled like rot and salt – the smell of the sea.
Staten Morbid 