online: 17 may 2004

(designed to be read with the window set to two-thirds of the screen width)



17 may 2004 life as it should be


20:14 Misty, calm, pale blue sky, a few planes quietly returning to Heath Row, people picnicking, summer clothes, a few birds... and vegetation everywhere. A moment to enjoy for the absence of events, for its peacefulness and lack of constraints, no compulsions in sight, just contentedness. This is life as it should be for everyone, the 18th century dream realised, for a few, just before the modern world, as it was, begins to collapse as exploited nature and subjected people react to destroy the illusion.

A small child bends down to pick up some tiny object and then runs to catch up the two women she is with. One picks her up. An ant moves across the flagstone on which my left foot is resting, my right foot is not touching the ground as my right leg is crossed over the left one, a man in blue and a woman in red stand up and kiss and walk away, a large spider runs quickly across the flagstones, this is the world as it is here this evening, could it possibly be otherwise? I suspect it soon will be, but for-the-moment it's surely good to enjoy it as it is, an outcome of so many ages of evolution and history, of progress that's seen now as exploitation.

And now, at the station, with a dozen people waiting, someone's phone is playing a tune, there's a new graffiti on the wall, two people are talking effortlessly to others who are somewhere else, a half-empty freight train goes by with the deep sounds of concentrated and misdirected power and loud screeches of metal on metal. A frightening contrast with all that surrounds the railway.



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