...i look up and see a kestrel (or some other kind of hawk-bird) and several insects moving about, but i am blind to whatever airborne foods the insects are perhaps eating... The trees before me are in full leaf now and are bright green in the sunlight. I see a white butterfly moving irregularly along the hill crest below... and for the moment there are no people here, just me and the grasses, trees, clouds, insects and birds, all of us attracted by the sun, and fed by it, directly or indirectly in this seemingly balanced environment...
...as i wrote of this scene a grey helicopter flew into it and out before i could complete the last sentence.
...and now i look down and see a cigarette packet on which is printed
Smoking killsin large letters. On the back of the packet is printed
Smoking is highly addictive, don't start.Also on the back of the pack is
UK DUTY PAID
FOR ADULT USE ONLYWho is writing to whom in these ominous or dutiful messages? On the side of the pack is written
10mg Tar, 0.8mg Nicotine, 10mg Carbon Monoxide.And in very small print inside the packet i can just read this message:
THESE CIGARETTES SHOULD REACH YOU IN PERFECT CONDITION. IF YOU ARE NOT TOTALLY SATISFIED, RETURN THE PACK AND ITS CONTAINER TO: MAYFAIR, P O BOX 371, WEYBRIDGE KT13 6ZW
Another grey helicopter flies over - it could be the same one returning from somewhere nearby.
and now i can hear shouting from the northwest and from the southeast and i guess that there are schoolchildren learning out of doors without books and with some sense of freedom, or belligerence... (and i remember being made to learn that 'bellum' is the Latin for war)...
This natural scene, these industrial intrusions, this writing of moments and events, and this public medium through which these words become readable anywhere... is this it, an answer to many questions (or a reason not to ask them)...?
...as i walked slowly back, through woodland, pausing to look at tiny insects crawling over leaves and branches - and moving through the sunlit spaces between trees - and then stopping to watch a brown/blue butterfly moving from one plant to another - i felt reluctant to go...
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© 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 john chris jonesIf you wish to reproduce any of this text commercially please send a copyright permission request to jcj at publicwriting.net