Appearances

When I drove home by myself for the first time in my life and daylight faded and the road before me became a play of floating lights, I wasn’t sure if my eyes were to blame (I was trying out new lenses) or if I had never paid attention to how dark the darkness gets. Had I failed to notice that of other cars, you can only see their gear- and headlights, disembodied like pairs of eyes in a cartoon closet? On second sight, even those lights lacked stability (flickering, double-imposed), which seemed to get worse over time. My vision deteriorated as panic gripped me. I made sudden, rash decisions, changing lanes at the wrong time. Loud honking on various sides reminded me of the world of things that was hidden behind these appearances. But even in my panic things seemed unreal. Concreteness only returned when I stopped at a petrol station. I took a deep breath. Petrol and cow dung. The trucks lay asleep on the parking lot. The petrol station shone brightly, but it was closed. On the road I had temporarily escaped, a cone of light came by, followed by a car. I stared at a line of trees behind the road, all standing still, before fields and fields that were just lying there, not moving at all.

© 2009–2024, Martijn Wallage