Respect to BC...
Giovanni Srhume has been walking in light suits through sunny plazas for years now. He is not, however, afraid to do some digging in the dark places, or hole-up in a boat until the heat dies down. This arrived a few days ago on hotel stationary - the Ritz, as usual.
It became clear that the Movement had reached a truly heady state of fanaticism when they announced the abolition of their own secret police. This morning the busy street fell silent as the movement’s speaker emerged onto its second story veranda. Located just off the main plaza, the veranda often doubles as a stage for the movement’s theatrics, and such announcements have puzzled and thrilled. Indeed, rumors run contrary to each other as to whether one person or several serve as the face of the movement, as on some days a face bulges and fumes and throws looks to the sky as its round body paces back and forth across the veranda’s length like a caged tiger, puncturing sentences with out-and-out growlings, while on others, like today, the speaker is of a different sort. Indeed I looked up from my café table as the glass-paneled doors swung open and he emerged, arms raised in silent triumph. Looking out over the rooftops, head beaming that empty radiance of a bulb powered by some distant source, he spoke the good news of the Movement’s most recent accord. The street was silent; it spoke in its dozens of faces.
We are of course at a moment where the Movement cannot be ignored. Its moving. Its headquarters, though not yet on the main plaza, seem to change location as evenly as a calendar moves from one square to the next. Thus faced, citizens can only take one line or the other because, even though it was ordained only a few months ago, the movement seems guaranteed victory in the fall.
But how many heads have been seen walking presently in the morning and then spiked to the past by that morning’s passing?
Many.
This exactly is what astounded passerby.
For had the Movement already achieved complete unification, if it had exiled all old enemies and begun systematically murdering new ones, then the putting aside of the police could have been understood. It would have been in line with the recognized fanaticism of the Movement as a peacetime gesture, one perhaps overdone, a rude leaving of the farm door open as if no wild critter would ever trespass again. It would have been an indication of an excess of belief in oneself, but one justified, at the very least, by one’s power to justify that same self’s wants.
Therefore the preemptive nature of this declaration can only signify the ravings of fiends. To stand in the middle of the arena, 360 for the looking, and close the eyes that look towards the shadows shows a thinking that thinks of no need to leave the head. What plans are these, that might succeed, and what kind of world might they bring about? This is the worry of a world without secret police, which nearly every citizen, confiding, leaning into you, lowering chins, would admit to be necessary.
Then again, perhaps the declaration would have seemed more salient had this time been the first. Sadly it’s almost every day that the man bursts out, eyes shining, declaring the structure more solid if its weaknesses are never investigated. What crumbles a foundation quicker than hands scrape-scraping away in search of a crack? What brings sleeplessness more inescapably than the searching for sleep? If only the shining face were made of more than light, if only residence could be taken up in that glass house, if only he and everyone else didn’t wake up grey mornings with the secret police at our bedsides, intoning dossiers as the day’s mood is struck.
It became clear that the Movement had reached a truly heady state of fanaticism when they announced the abolition of their own secret police. This morning the busy street fell silent as the movement’s speaker emerged onto its second story veranda. Located just off the main plaza, the veranda often doubles as a stage for the movement’s theatrics, and such announcements have puzzled and thrilled. Indeed, rumors run contrary to each other as to whether one person or several serve as the face of the movement, as on some days a face bulges and fumes and throws looks to the sky as its round body paces back and forth across the veranda’s length like a caged tiger, puncturing sentences with out-and-out growlings, while on others, like today, the speaker is of a different sort. Indeed I looked up from my café table as the glass-paneled doors swung open and he emerged, arms raised in silent triumph. Looking out over the rooftops, head beaming that empty radiance of a bulb powered by some distant source, he spoke the good news of the Movement’s most recent accord. The street was silent; it spoke in its dozens of faces.
We are of course at a moment where the Movement cannot be ignored. Its moving. Its headquarters, though not yet on the main plaza, seem to change location as evenly as a calendar moves from one square to the next. Thus faced, citizens can only take one line or the other because, even though it was ordained only a few months ago, the movement seems guaranteed victory in the fall.
But how many heads have been seen walking presently in the morning and then spiked to the past by that morning’s passing?
Many.
This exactly is what astounded passerby.
For had the Movement already achieved complete unification, if it had exiled all old enemies and begun systematically murdering new ones, then the putting aside of the police could have been understood. It would have been in line with the recognized fanaticism of the Movement as a peacetime gesture, one perhaps overdone, a rude leaving of the farm door open as if no wild critter would ever trespass again. It would have been an indication of an excess of belief in oneself, but one justified, at the very least, by one’s power to justify that same self’s wants.
Therefore the preemptive nature of this declaration can only signify the ravings of fiends. To stand in the middle of the arena, 360 for the looking, and close the eyes that look towards the shadows shows a thinking that thinks of no need to leave the head. What plans are these, that might succeed, and what kind of world might they bring about? This is the worry of a world without secret police, which nearly every citizen, confiding, leaning into you, lowering chins, would admit to be necessary.
Then again, perhaps the declaration would have seemed more salient had this time been the first. Sadly it’s almost every day that the man bursts out, eyes shining, declaring the structure more solid if its weaknesses are never investigated. What crumbles a foundation quicker than hands scrape-scraping away in search of a crack? What brings sleeplessness more inescapably than the searching for sleep? If only the shining face were made of more than light, if only residence could be taken up in that glass house, if only he and everyone else didn’t wake up grey mornings with the secret police at our bedsides, intoning dossiers as the day’s mood is struck.
posted by M.N.V.L. Local 1430 at 3:58 PM
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