I saw the vast expanse of the fields and the golden hue of the horizon. Birds flitting from earth to bush to branch to tree. As they made sound the fields reflected their dark noisy altercation and excitement. Then there were butterflies in flowers struggling for a piece of nectar with noisy houseflies and attentive lizards.
There was a bit of wind too, and I felt it softly nudge the feet of the rotting dog laying by a split mango and its tree. Dark Humour; shadowy figures stalked the premises, frequently thrusting their sharp fronts into the flesh. As they moved their heads bobbed, as though nodding to the easily welcoming sunbeams and fresh atmosphere.
The wind, floating, led a scurry of brown leaves past my gaze, as though on an excursion to some undetermined place. Then, like a maestro, he coaxed them into an elaborate, gracefully erratic display of whistling song and dance, first spinning wildly, then slowly transiting into a spiral, in a small circle, then bit by bit with more and more passion, swirling and swirling into wider and wider arc, before finally going out of control and crashing against the glass tinklers of the mouldy windchime hanging on the door of an oak cottage.
They looked up from their preoccupation in response into the distance, as though in fervent anticipation, before reaching down to pull off another morsel of fur and skin.
I saw the glimmering sun cast the tree's shadow on this house. Perhaps this was a trick to hide the intricate boreworm holes in the walls of the countenance, if you painted the house black then you wouldn't see the holes at all. Presently the door frame creaked under the restless pull of the windchime.
The windows were drawn wide in the open direction of the rising sun, who of course threw the mango tree's dark shadow into the house, and on the door lay a faithfully dusted but rotten wooden knocker. Two chairs sat at the front of the house, with the one on the right consistently clean and dusted, while the other grew yellow stains on its pink surface.
I saw a stir and a groan. Followed by a aching creak of a bed frame. Some feeble shuffling of feet and halted movements. In a moment there was the clinking of glass, the clatter of spoons, the rattling of tin pans - unmistakable sounds of breakfast. A long drawn-out and almost-grating painful drag of wood against wood, then all was silent again, for about 10 stanzas, before I felt the quivering lips and chattering plastic teeth.
Time could have passed quietly as the sun began to take a less compromising position in the blue sky. A nudge, a push - and the gentle tinkling of the glass chimes informed the opening of the door. I saw a further shuffling of feet, followed by a prudent step on the porch, as though in half-hesitation, before, shifting the weight a little, slowly brings decisive pressure onto the gnawing porch, followed by movement by the other foot, with the same intricate decision-making process, thereby moves down from the house.
The wind moves the shawl into flowing fluid motion as it unwraps itself from the pale and botched skin of the neck and flies disappear into the distance, while startled hands try claw at the last remnants of red woollen fabric.
I heard the shuffling of painful feet again, rustling the dead leaves by the house. Making its way slowly. But I could feel strong determination. For neither distracted nor divergent progress was made in an authoritative direction. Slowly but surely, I saw progress, and progress it was directed behind the cottage.
By now the sun had reached the height of its ascent, and its glimmer had turned into a strong glare down on the house. I saw a shadow thus formed on the sandy ground - weak in constituent structure and lacking credible support. Slowly in aching movements it began to stretch out horizontally left and right, like wings that do not have much width nor span to speak of flight. Where the shadow stretched furthest, an pebble was dropped at both ends, and they fell, giving up much of their imbued potential into the soft ground of the sand.
For a while there was silence, much withheld from the persistent glare of the sun. A glint, though, as the sand absorbed moisture into its dry crevices. The drops had navigated their way through complex and meandering ridges and rugged contours and parched facial features before dangling at the edge, at the mercy of motion, how slight and feeble.
I heard shuffling of feet again. On the sand, I heard the feet shuffle forth, hesitate, then shuffle back again. Another prolonged wait, followed by another round of shuffling feet. Another prolonged shuffling feet, another round of waiting. I saw a lines being drawn out of the sand thus, one interconnecting the other in an obvious but not very sharp pattern, sometimes the lines were a bit crooked, sometimes they veered off a straight line, most times they were not even straight to start with. I held the blazing sun from moving away from the shuffling of feet so that I could see clearly what was actually being formed; lo and behold, gradually and determined, a rectangle was formed.
In a while there was silence, the sand now left alone and undisturbed, and the house that had been quiet now livened with activity again. The same shuffling, and the dropping of pebbles, on wooden boards, the long wait, and then prolonged shuffling again. Same old same old. All same. No clinking of glasses or metal clatter. Only the annoying tinkling of the windchime at the door.
One of the birds had flown to the back of the house in search of seeds. When it had found one, it cawed out loud, and was soon joined by another. Then another, then another. Soon the back of the house filled with incessant cawing, and pecking on the sand.
A fearful choked cry rang out from the house, and like the urgency and haste of spreading heat, hurried steps and desperate shuffling, in startled fury and anguished passions like the sudden raising of hellfire on the back of the neck and then the pinpricks and needles on the spine, all in mournful anger and aimless despair and desperate rage - chasing away those pitiful birds.
Well the rectangle earlier outlined is indeed in a mess now. Still there should be no reason to scare the poor birds away. I watched as the same process of shuffling, stone-dropping, waiting and even more shuffling and drawing persisted. Somehow I'd wish the wind would just blow everything away.
When the task was finally done, I observed the rectangle in the sand and saw that it was perhaps around the size of a sleeping bed. The kind that furnished certain rooms in most houses. It would be weird though, to think that a bed would be constructed on this very spot behind the house wouldn't it?
~~~~
The sun sets.
Marlene Dumas, Measuring your own grave
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