Fire
Sparks and stars. Pink flares and fireworks. Is this a dream? Lights moved between the stars, and then violent pink fireworks roared demonically overhead for what felt like hours. They sounded like the screams of big animals, behemoths – like elephants. And when he opened his eyes there was just the comforting crackle of burning wood, the hiss of wet wood on flame, and the warm blanket of smoke. His head ached, and his body burned, but he felt if he moved he might awaken himself into a more acute awareness, and he wanted to sink deeper into the soft passing away of existence. No, rather slumber than having to face the world and all its pain (including his own). So he courted sleep, and he was not far from it. He drifted on that periphery of consciousness, like a child skipping on the edge of a cliff.
There was no day or night, just oblivion, and inexplicable lights. Pain came in waves, the sleep drug grew stronger, deadening each successive wave.
Perhaps they were helicopters, or satellites, or missiles at various times of the day.
…perhaps they were drawings or some television program…
…perhaps it was something from a radio…
…or words of the passenger next to him…
…is that you, God…calling me…
…but I don’t believe in you…any more…
But the sky was alive with lights, and the curtains of smoke only made the illusions more mystifying. When at last his eyelids opened and dark pieces of chocolaty Earth fell from his lashes, onto his nose, he thought he was looking at an eclipse. Had God turned the day to night? His fingers twitched in the mud. Instead of an elaborate eclipse, it was thick smoke still pushing itself hard against the sun. It was also sweeping over him, urging him to cough and stinging his eyes. It was this squeeze on his lungs that drove him from the comfort of a sleep that would have undoubtedly become a permanent state if he had been able to remain there.
He knew himself to be incredibly weak. It took a great deal of strength to merely turn his body, to lift a hand to shield his mouth. His body screamed as blood that had not circulated for hours, now drove sharp pins and needles into incisions and scalded flesh. Around him was the ash of burnt bark. He climbed over fire hardened mud, emerging slowly out of his shallow grave. Hugh’s hands broke the soft ash that had once been powerful and muscular tree trunks.
From the top of the grave he saw the smoking landscape sweeping around him. Yellow flowers of flame were dancing with delight on a dry branch that had somehow been spared by the first firestorm. Lightning cracked, he hobbled in a pathetic attempt at a reaction. He realized that pregnant black cloud columns still remained, hovering behind the long gone typhoon like governors meant to maintain the status quo.
He coughed, and felt his ribs stab with pain. Blood began to ooze from the side of his head once more, and from a coin sized hole under his ribcage.
His throat felt dry. His nose was filled with snot.
He stumbled with the smoke; sometimes singeing the soles of his feet on a glowing coal. After two hours of moving slowly with the curtains he found the curtains opening to a yellow sea. It had a petroleum glow about it. The gray drapes allowed sick veils of golden sun to filter through. The beach smelled of rotten fish. Their silver bodies lay everywhere. The white beach sand was all black; covered now by what seemed like thick layers of waterlogged sawdust, wood pellets, bark and small branches. Here and there a solitary tree. Here and there a dead body. Sometimes an arm. Sometimes a chair. Here and there dead birds, a goat, a car tire.
He walked along the beach for a long time before he realized what he was doing. He just wanted to find another survivor. He noticed a few birds, seagulls, feasting on the dead fish. He saw an octopus scavenging in the shallow water; it bulged, swapped colors and skulked away when it sensed him.
He did not see any other person.
Silky blonde hair on one side of his head had turned into a burnt crust of hardened blood. It was banging painfully against his head while he walked, so he held a hand to hold it in place.
He realized the shirt had been torn and burnt off his back, that he’d lost his shoes and his watch. In his pocket he still had his iPod and a credit card, but that was all.
He stood for a long time in one place, and finally, registering the seagulls again, knelt unsteadily and fingered the water at his ankles for a fish. The waves heaved the silver bodies about. He glanced at the fish in his hand. It showed no signs of physical injury. He made small grimace, bit into its side, and was surprised at how rough it was, and filled with bones. He ate two small fingers of flesh, then picked up another fish. This one was rotten. He tossed it aside, and gasped. He was suffering an emotional attack, and shock. He struggled to breathe. Pinched his eyes shut. Opened them, rubbed them, opened them again, pinched them shut again.
Could this be real?
More than four hours later, he was standing exhausted from the walk, in Puerto Princesa, or what was left of it. He’d walked by the airport, one of the few buildings left standing, except that it had been destroyed by a terrible fire. A Boeing had been thrown across the runway and speared its wing into the building before exploding.
The rest of the town had been leveled, with barely an erect wall in sight. He thought he was near Mendoza Park (except place names didn’t seem to matter any more). He encountered a few small children here. These followed him for a while, until they saw the gaping wound under his ribs and realized he was far worse off than they were.
He spent some time scratching between building debris, and finally found what he was looking for. He pulled out a scissors, and sliced off the painful wad of black gluey hair. He tried to cut the rest as well, but lifting his arm hurt too much. He was about to toss the scissors away, then thought better of it and stuffed the scissor into his back pocket.
He found some shoes in the debris, and a pile of Nike shirts. The shoes were too big, but he couldn’t find anything else worth wearing. Then a shirt. He didn’t care about colors, he pulled the first one he could find out from under some bricks and metal poles.
‘Just do it’, it said in unusually small and modest letters on the back.
“Do what?” he murmured to himself. He was about to step away when his eye could the strap of a daypack. He pulled it, but it was broken. He searched for another one, but it was even more damaged.
He found a shattered ATM and fished into the broken metal canister under the faceplate. He stuffed some money into a plastic bag lying nearby. Dead bodies everywhere. Some of these people had survived, they must have, but there had been no one to rescue them. Why had the government not sent a team to rescue them? Did they have better things to do?
It was warm even as it rained. He opened his mouth and licked his lips and chin. He found tins and broken fruit from demolished roadside stalls. He opened a can of coke, and put two more in his bag. A few steps further he found bottles of water, picked one up and threw out the one coke can. For some reason he stayed close to the road. It felt as though it might take him somewhere, anywhere, as long as he could move beyond all this.
Under his eyes it was wet and cool. He pawed his cheeks a little while he walked. He didn’t understand. His fingertips were wet, and not with blood, with water. Through his fatigue he imagined that it was raining again, except for once it wasn’t. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. Not tears of sadness, tears of strain, but in his mind, he was walking in salty rain.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
SA Cycling ‘too white’
While there is transformation in almost every other sport, it is notably absent in cycling
At the South African Cycling Championships held in Bloemfontein earlier this month, it was obvious that cycling has advanced a great deal over the past few years. Many riders are now producing performances that match international standards. One vital aspect of this sport that has broken away, to judge from the all white competitors, is that Cycling South Africa seems to have forgotten to address transformation.
While mainstream sports like Springbok rugby and the Proteas have gone to great lengths to accommodate more representative teams, and even other sports like hockey are adjusting to these imperatives, cycling has until now been completely overlooked.
It’s important to bear in mind that during the Olympics of 2000, even though the men’s hockey side qualified, they were not allowed to participate because the team lacked appropriate representation. In the same way, the cycling team for Beijing has not been selected, and one fears that if transformation isn’t implemented in some drastic fashion very soon, there will be no cycling team headed for the Olympics. This would naturally be a sad day both for the cyclists involved, and the South Africans supporting them.
The goal is to have teams (whether swimming, playing hockey or cycling) that are based on at least a 50/50 representation. South African cycling has a tough road ahead to meet these goals, as it appears, just from a cursory inspection of the hundreds of riders at the 2007 South African Championships, there was a mere handful of black riders. This proportion will have to increase something like 10 fold within the following few months.
Khaya Majeke*, manager of the South African Sport Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) is very serious about this; he has suggested that if sports show a lack of transformation, people should be found “on the streets, or in Alexandra. SASCOC,” Majeke said, “will insure demographic representation [in sports].”
The present Olympic team comprises 45 white and 28 black athletes. However SASCOC was irritated by the comparison made between the South African and Australian Olympic teams of 2004. South Africa managed just 9 medals in 2004 (with a budget of R60 million), while Australia harvested 49 medals (with a budget of R120 million). SASCOC said it preferred to make comparisons against other African countries.
Majeke has made it clear that the first step to dictate team composition will be based in setting criteria and authorizing an agreement to this effect by the Presidents of respective Sport Federations, and pending their approval. Mr Cedric Frolick, an ANC MP has demanded that those sports that do not conform to these prescriptions be identified.
*Translated and adapted from Gert Coetzee’s ‘Spanne se ‘kleur’: Druk al hoe groter’, Volksblad, 20 June 2007
Top 3 Story
My Tri-Nations story sent to Ohmynews has made the top 3 (most popular stories for the week.) My story in reporter (about The Hub) also made the top 3 recently.
I think Ohmynews, based in Korea, has a disproportionately large audience of expat Aussies, Kiwis and South Africans. My hit counter for these stories is already well over the 1000 mark. So going to keep sending them rugby stories.
There's also a Fietstoer Photo on reporter.co.za today. To see it, go here:
https://www.reporter.co.za/community/Default.aspx?Page=RP21P64967
I think Ohmynews, based in Korea, has a disproportionately large audience of expat Aussies, Kiwis and South Africans. My hit counter for these stories is already well over the 1000 mark. So going to keep sending them rugby stories.
There's also a Fietstoer Photo on reporter.co.za today. To see it, go here:
https://www.reporter.co.za/community/Default.aspx?Page=RP21P64967
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Christ's Ventriloquist
From medipredict.com
The first-ever legal/forensic exegesis of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, and an associated legal/forensic analysis of the four canonical Gospels, finds that Christianity started in or around the year 49 CE in Antioch (present-day Antakya, Turkey) as a direct consequence of a personal conflict which had arisen, over 17 years, between Paul and the leader of this (at that time) Jewish sect, which Jesus had begun.
The sect’s leader was not Peter, as the Christian myth asserts, but was instead Jesus’s brother James. Peter was and remained a follower of James, and he died (as did the rest of the sect) as a member of this Jewish sect, not as a Christian — not as a member of the group which Paul started on this occasion. Jesus’s sect soon itself expired. What is today known as Christianity started with Paul, and was then developed by his followers, who wrote the canonical Gospels and the rest of the New Testament. The religion of the New Testament has nothing to do with the person of the historical Jesus: The NT was written and assembled to fulfill Paul’s Roman agenda, not Jesus’s Jewish one. This is shown to explain the entire myth.
Paul turned Jesus's corpse into his dummy, and thus became the voice of "Christ."
Cho Seung-hui used Facebook, so I think reading about it on the news made me wonder what it was all about. It's fairly mainstream among US students.
I registered some time ago but didn't really get it. Now I do. Facebook is really like a coffee lounge. You and your friends get to meet each other and listen in on the latest stuff. See, you post short messages and your friends can see what's happening in your life. It's like blogging made easier; I suppose it's for people who don't have the time, or initiative to blog every day. You can get away with just a short message every now and then.
Like MXIT I believe it is one of those technologies that are here to stay.
I currently have 14 friends on Facebook, and if you're reading (not stalking) my Blog, why not join too.
Just go to www.facebook.com
"All Black Match Is World Cup Final"
Assistant coach says the Springboks treating All Black match as World Cup Final
Backline coach Allister Coetzee gave a media conference recently, and stated very clearly just how seriously the Springbok camp were approaching their next Tri-Nations game against the All Blacks.
Interestingly, when the All Blacks won the Tri-Nations in 1999 and 2003, they were unable to win the World Cup. It’s possibly a faulty psychology that good form in the Tri-Nations will necessarily have any bearing on who will be world champions in September this year. The reason being that the war of attrition strips the teams that work too hard in the lead up to the World Cup, and South Africa are already feeling this through the loss of crucial players like captain John Smit and Brian Habana.
Cotzee said that the Boks aim to ‘crack’ their opponents using tactics to apply maximum pressure. He said that this was done successfully against the Australian star Stephen Larkham. “If you look at Frans Steyn's first drop goal,” Coetzee said, “that came from Larkham missing touch because of the pressure placed on him by Ruan Pienaar."
The Boks will have their work cut out for them in talented Kiwi flyhalf Dan Carter. Their intention is once again to apply pressure in the first phase scrums and lineouts. But the All Blacks present a skilled athletic outfit in a class of their own, and the Boks will have to raise their game to an almost error free level.
Coetzee made an interesting point that the 3 matches prior to the Tri-Nations, their battle against Australia last weekend and the upcoming ‘Championship’ present “a dress rehearsal for us in terms of what is required to win the World Cup. You have to win a sequence of games and then win a final against the world's best. That is what the World Cup is all about so, yes, this game has all the relevance of a final for us."
An area that has been highlighted in the previous game is the Boks tendency to kick away possession. Butch James will have to have an extra ace or too up his sleeve, as the All Blacks will punish the Boks more decisively than the Wallabies did for clumsy tactics.
And while the Boks are marking Dan Carter, it’s likely that the All Blacks will be on young Frans Steyn’s trail. Even if he is marked, the Boks have other kickers on standby, suck as Percy Montgomery and Derek Hougaard. Both have made stabs at drop goals, but with less success than Steyn thus far.
Whatever happens, Saturday’s match is likely to sizzle with exciting play from both sides.
Movie Review: Babel
A gritty flick about the fragility of human life just beyond our comfort zones
Director: Alejandro González Inárritu
Starring: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett
Script: Guillermo Arriaga
This flick is something like watching specific motorists on an expressway. At first it’s a bizarre thing to do, a strange selection of mostly unknown characters, and a bizarre place to be, until you realize each is heading towards their own private car wreck. It is frightening just how easily lives that may seem so safe and secure, can completely unravel. The lives in Babel have almost nothing in common, except of course the Expressway in this metaphor. In the movie, you’ll see how the characters are related and why.
This is an unconventional flick, just as the title suggests. Yes, it does have a golden thread linking Japan to the desert of Northern Africa, to Mexico and San Diego, but this cohesiveness, while sensible, isn’t essential. Each of the 4 stories are powerful stories on their own, and sewn together for an elaborate Cautionary Tale on how easily the easy lives we know in the West can be torn asunder.
What I enjoyed about Babel were the far flung settings, and the gritty reality. There is something tremendously disconcerting for Westerners to see themselves made so helpless and in fact terrified, to simply be in the sterile and hard environment other people live in every single day. The director places some of his main characters in the desert, where they fuss about wanting a Diet Coke, and argue about the purity of ice cubes clinking around in their cokes when they do arrive. Western values are shown in stark contrast to the absolute destitution that surrounds them, where people scratch a living among rocks and houses made with mud. The locals are about as poor as people can be; they trade in the carcasses of goats, and yet open their homes to complete strangers, wanting nothing in exchange.
It is interesting to see that after the ‘American woman’ – Susan – (played by Cate Blanchett) is shot, the local police race over the mountains in a convoy of police vehicles, while the poor woman practically bleeds to death because there are no ambulances available. Susan’s husband Richard (played by an understated and graying Brad Pitt) is desperate but helpless to get her to safety. Perhaps someone could have conveyed to the overeager police force that instead of hunting possible human perpetrators, instead of beating out confessions from innocent civilians, they might first try to save the life that is at stake. The Mexican maid who says she has worked for 16 years in America, faces a similarly crazy legal conundrum. So this flick stabs a finger at human sensibilities, in particular, at the absurdities behind our laws and punishments, and especially at our lack of humanity and common sense towards our fellow human beings.
In the end, one errant bullet creates a crack in the eggshell of safety that protects human beings from each other, and through that crack the monsters that lie within emerge to wreck what is left of the vulnerable yolk that is meant to connect us to each other. The director could have made this a much more tragic movie than it is. But yes, human weakness is exposed here on a disturbing scale.
The metaphor covers full circle when a prosecuting officer, whose job is to pursue the mere serial number of a weapon and apparently nothing else, encounters a naked, deaf girl in an apartment. He sees her first reflected in the glass of the apartment, and then he sees her more clearly. He is called to respond, but he is frozen; his portfolio prevents him from doing so. The Japanese girl is desperate for warmth and affection, yet the officer remains cold, and locked in his mandate and his uniform, impotent to her silent cry for solace and comfort, but somehow aware of his own impotence, and also his own yearning for the same.
It is a moving image, the young naked female form, hovering in the space high above the city, the same spot where her own mother jumped to her death. The question is put before us: will we reach out to one another in time to save ourselves and those around us?
Gem Squash Fractions: 72 4-1 -3 20
Frik whipped me last night, but not quite 6-0. I held him in the first game to 9-4, but he proved his mettle by winning the next game 9-1. The third and fourth proved to be an advance along the learning curve for me. At one stage I was 5-0 ahead. It was a very tough series of games, both us hitting the ball often at maximum power (think of the ball hitting one wall and flying horizontally back to the hit glass).
I managed to scrape through to win the last game, 9-6. The only reason I won is I think he was really tired. Both our shirts were sopping wet.
Went to watch Babel afterwards. Interesting movie.
Today oil is $72.04. That's high for this early in the US driving season. Need to get some savings together and put it into oil stocks like SASOL. But then there is always next year, and the year after that, and the year after that...
The rest of the numbers are today's morning temperature (in Celcius) and the date. 5 days to payday.
I managed to scrape through to win the last game, 9-6. The only reason I won is I think he was really tired. Both our shirts were sopping wet.
Went to watch Babel afterwards. Interesting movie.
Today oil is $72.04. That's high for this early in the US driving season. Need to get some savings together and put it into oil stocks like SASOL. But then there is always next year, and the year after that, and the year after that...
The rest of the numbers are today's morning temperature (in Celcius) and the date. 5 days to payday.
The Holiday, Chapter 6
Six
Breach
The sky broiled with the leading edge of a giant arc that was sweeping across the Sulu Sea. Although only a few drops of rain blew occasional bullets against his face, it was still very warm. He was not certain what to do. His guidebook specifically said that Palawan was not in harms way. The track beaten by typhoons every season, the guidebook assured, was a great distance to the south and east of Palawan.
Impulsively he waved at a motor scooter, and was comforted by the young man’s big white smile.
“Where you wan go?”
Hugh felt somewhat embarrassed. The locals must despise the tourists, must think for all their money, they are lazy and stupid and greedy for pleasure. He winced, and said softly: “The beach.”
“Oh, White Beach?”
“Huh? It’s called ‘Whites Beach’?”
The man laughed. “No, just White. It’s no far. Just one point five.”
Encouraged by the man’s can do attitude, he got in and they pulled away.
“You not stay long on White Beach okay,” the man said over the roar of the engine and the wind.
“Why?”
The man waved at the maddening forest around them. Hugh made eye contact, showed the thumbs up. He liked this guy. He had some grit.
But Hugh felt inwardly confused. Why? Why had he decided to this? He didn’t know what it was. He just didn’t feel clear about where he was, and he wanted the open space of a beach to see over the forest, to get his bearings. And perhaps seeing this storm, seeing the waves, he’d get a feel for what to do because he hadn’t planned on staying in Puerto that night. He’d wanted to go to Sabang on the South China Sea side of the long Palawan dagger, and now he wanted a headsup if that was feasible. But he wanted to see for himself. It was a rare mistake.
The 1.5km felt like 10km. The motor scooter was struggling through mud, and then thick dune sand. On both sides the jungle had been violently slashed and driven back by machete blades. The dense jungle sheltered them from the strong winds, more than both passengers had expected.
The forest cleared, revealing the cool blue of the South China Sea. It swelled like a cleavage subtly into view, and for a moment Hugh was stunned by the sheer color of the vast gently undulating expanse. The water seemed to glow like a tropical drink set on the counter of a backlit bar. There were some huge blackening cumulonimbus in the background, but he thought he’d seen worse storms in continental South Africa. What he didn’t expect was this sea. It was as calm as a swimming pool, sometimes flattenening into a shimmer of faint corrugations. The wind was behind them. The storm, he should have guessed, was approaching from the other side, towards the Turtle and Honda Bays on the Eastern shoreline, and of course, towards Puerto Princesa Bay.
“Do you think the storm will come here?”
“I think so. But there is time for a swim.”
Hugh hadn’t thought of that, but the idea suddenly appealed. He walked over the warm wet sand, dropping his clothes on a wooden bench under a beach shelter constructed from driftwood sticks.
The water was very warm. He sank into it, feeling conscious of his absurdly white skin and bulging stomach, but trying to enjoy it all the same. Startled fish skipped clear of the water. He felt something brush by his calf.
“Wow,” he murmured, “these waters are just full of life.”
He submerged again, swimming underwater, enjoying the soft salty water against his skin.
He came up, his warm body shining and soapy, and looked back at the beach. The motor scooter was throbbing. It was a surprisingly loud sound, but he guessed the flat beach and calm water amplified it a great deal more than normal. He waved back at the solitary figure on the beach. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a series of lightning bolts zap down at the sea. He was horrified to see that the electric spark had illuminated mighty pitch back silhouettes behind the closest storm. A warm gust pushed past him. As he walked knee deep across the broad white sandbank to the narrow platinum band of wet strand, the motor scooter bellowed to life. Suddenly he noticed the tops of the palm trees. It was not the palms, but the dark soup of airborne debris behind them, and the growing moan, that kicked his feet into an electrified run. Now the man was waving, and he’d turned on the headlight.
The man’s eyes were wild. He’d almost pulled away before Hugh reached him. The engine roared as they went back through the deep sand, and they nearly skidded over the mud into a series of bamboo spears poking out of the side of the cleared jungle. Once on the even dirt road, they found themselves entirely alone. They sped as fast as the motor would go over the lonely windswept road towards Puerta Princesa. The motor scooter was being buffeted violently by wind now, and dismembered leaves and branches were now flying across the road, the hands of trees gesticulating frantically. A large leaf slapped Hugh on the cheek. He pulled at it and the wind tore its soft leafy flesh to pieces. The large fan of a palm tree flew end over end, the fan brushed red cuts over their faces as it passed.
The dirt road seemed to be on fire, as milky white dust was torn off the surface. Then the rain whipped at them, and the world turned into a dark, roiling mass. It was in that moment that they suffered a terrific concussion: something very big, like an oversized pool cue, hit them from the side. Two men and their machine shot off the road and landed in the jungle. One man split like shattered watermelon, the machine lost its voice in a lung bursting bang that ripped it into a grenade of sharp greasy chunks of serrated metal. The other person landed deeper between the trees, a small fountain spraying out of the side of his head (above his ear). Although unconscious, he traveled smoothly down a muddy path created by forest animals, and skidded one third of the way into a sort of burrow.
While he slept through the eviscerating nightmare, the jungle that kept him was carved and slit into hammers and spears, and for several hours, it was as though the wind turned itself into Machete; slicing and hurling javelins and spending its fury on rock and man and plant alike. Even silver fish that jumped out of the churning waters were diced by ferocious clouds of black and swarming debris.
And in time the black blood oozing out of his skull, and the black mud in which he lay were indistinguishable.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Go The Extra Mile
For one year, James MacKinnon and co-author Elisa Smith abstained from foods grown outside of a 100 mile radius of their Vancouver home. To link to an audio interview with the authorts, click on the title of this post.
J-Day & The Memory Channel
J beat me 2 - 0 in squash yesterday. Ja she whipped my butt, but it has to be said, I made a storming comeback, winning the next three games, so total score: 3 - 2.
I think the lower backache is caused by squash (all that bending down to pick up the ball).
Saw Hannes in the gym. He was like: "Hey Sunblock, howz it going?" Quite funny. Says he sold CJ a scarbon Silverback, which he used in the Argus (for R17 000).
Am playing Frik tonight, so I will probably wake up tomorrow paralyzed from the waist up.
My assessment on friday went well (for Medical Writer). I managed to do a typing test in 43.5 word per minute. May sound slow, but it included pthe insertion of a few superscript characters. I also made 2 errors in the 218 words, one was a small letter instead of a capital, and the other was the failure to insert a space.
After squash yesterday J and I met a woman who worked with my grandmother and used to play with my cousins. It's sort've crazy meeting someone who knew my mom's side of the family so well so soon after my being exposed to so much family album footage after the past few days.
Five
Holiday
The warm wind burned the pixie tips of already slightly sun burnt ears. He pressed the two white buds into his ears, and pressed PLAY on the shuffle. For the first time ever, he turned the volume up until it hurt. He knew what was coming. He knew it.
He looked up into the sky, as though perhaps the sky would change its mind at the last moment.
It was imminent now; he felt it approaching.
He walked down the steps wondering if he would ever fly again, wondering if the thought itself was absurd paranoia, but even so, he was somewhat amused that instead of appreciating this last flight, he had slept through almost all of it, even missed breakfast.
Another step, like the last tick of a clock. When the moment came, he recognized it immediately. It was as though the sparking atom had communicated itself across the Gulfs of the entire world, on a cellular basis, passing this consciousness on beyond the Sulu Sea, swarming through the islands of life in every other hemisphere.
It was dizzying for him, as usual, being more sensitive than the average human being to the subliminal. What could he say to this young woman in her red headscarf, walking beside him?
He still had the chemical residue in his brain of a dream on the plane, and he was still making sense of that, putting words to colors, while walking over the glowing cement. The train of passengers moved slowly towards the small airport terminal on the island. But even from a distance, it was obvious that tourists had been instantly transformed into refugees. And so very smoothly, with his mind’s eye turned inward, still piecing together the dream, his hand slipped into his unslung backpack, and around the hard body of his camera.
His slow motion walk carried him to the shade, and the growing circus of suddenly desperate human beings. His hands were assembling a lense and filter (for the sun, and dappled light).
He pressed the ‘on’ button.
It was so deathly silent among the gathering hordes that he was able to hear the soft electronic squeal of the battery loading up.
It was a moment repeated at airports all over the world. People frozen in their shoes, cellphone in hand, attempting to communicate with family, with friends, to gather more information, to make arrangements. But none of these people had a signal. And that confirmed the icy new reality. People stood helpless and silent and suddenly the moment manifested on all at the same time. Wasn’t it as if the atmosphere itself had sucked up all the errant signals and waves and in a blinding flash of furious anger, exploded a shearing white light back at us that melted our golden city, turning to dust a city of blood.
Hugh could feel their thoughts. You could cut it with a knife. He thought this unspoken conventional wisdom was a typical response to the inexplicable: to blame God for man’s mad deeds.
If it had been any other international airport the answers would have been more obvious, television screens would have been lit up with CNN. And shortly thereafter the status of every flight in the world would change from DELAYED to CANCELLED.
The peculiar silence here came from shock and awe.
He felt the skin on his arms prick as he lifted his camera.
Realities were fused, one by one, into the digital memory of the chip.
While clicking one electric memory after another, the dream unraveled itself softly. It went like this:
You arrive at an expensive restaurant you have always meant to visit, and somehow imagine the people around you that you have imagined, suddenly becoming real human beings, just as you yourself become real to them. Can Rome and Paris continue to exist without our being there? What about other places we pass through like zoos, prisons, schools, offices and airports? When we die is it any different? Do we live under the assumption that nothing can exist without our being conscious of it? Do we think our consciousness prevents us from being able to die? Does the world need one person’s consciousness to exist? And when we die, will the world need us to imagine it into existence, and will the world want to imagine life again for us on some other world like this one?
Just then the music from his iPod transitioned from Enya’s Orinoco Flow to Green Day’s Holiday.
He put the buds in his pocket, but could still hear a soft bleating coming from his pocket. He moved among them, watching their faces, and the bags, the burdens they would be carrying with them.
A solitary figure at the head of a dense queue put down the big plastic receiver of an old, creamy white telephone. He went to a board and pushed a mechanical handle that flapped metal plates into place on a modest overhead board. Metal pushing against metal, to produce a loud, demonic, jarring noise. It took Puerto Princesa airport little more than half an hour to do what every other airport in the world had done.
ALL FLIGHTS CANCELLED
UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
Hugh led the mobs of people out of the building. He noticed military vehicles arriving, and 4x4 police vans, many of them, lights flashing, sirens blaring. Motor scooters were being fought over, so he decided to walk. Shouts, screams, shots, and he put the white buds back into his ears:
“…this is the dawning of the rest of our lives…”
He noticed cars rushing in the direction of the airport he was walking away from. He noticed the people in the cars had panicked eyes, and did not even notice him. Not long after that, the road was gridlocked with traffic, with some motor scooters moving between the paralyzed traffic.
It was a long walk, long enough for the weather to change. Gusts tore at his shirt. He wondered about the bags he had abandoned at the airport. Was there anything he would need? Perhaps his ACG shoes. The rest was just clothes, and he was prepared to do without those. The notebook? Perhaps now was a good time to begin to learn how to live without computers.
The warm wind pushed him. One more thing before I let go of that as well…
Further along the road he found a man with a bandanna around his head, wearing a Harley Davidson shirt, and sporting plenty of tattoos, stuffing his grinding jaw with what looked like a cheeseburger.
“Hey man,” he said in a lazy Texas drawl, “it’s just a hurricane.”
Hugh glanced up, nodded to him, turned around and took two steps backwards looking at the road behind him, and then with a last sidelong glance at the American, went on along Rizal Avenue.
As the hard rain began to fall he stepped into the internet café, and placed his Lonely Planet on the counter, brushing the rain wet cover with a leftover paper napkin.
“Is the internet working here?”
“Sure. It’s cable so it’s working just fine.”
“Can I have half an hour?”
“You can have all the time you want…”
“Can I have a coffee, and an extra napkin?”
“Anything you say buddy boy.”
He was the only person in the café for the first 10 minutes, but by the time the mob arrived, Hugh van Lewen was completely hypnotized by what he was reading.
A hydrogen bomb had been detonated over Jerusalem in the early afternoon; 14:43 local time. What was peculiar was that that was all CNN knew. For several hours now no one had updated the news at CNN. Through Google he tracked the information at source, finding bloggers and citizen journalists close or practically in situ. There was a grainy photograph taken from a redirected flight bound for Tel Aviv. There had been a lot of reaction.
Peculiarly the only streaming footage shown was of Lahore, also devastated. New York and London…still there. Every click of the mouse now took on a chilling significance. Another Google search, and a completely new set of results:
Google: blogs nuclear destroyed
Tehran joined a host of Middle Eastern cities.
The crowd outside were banging on the windows, an Irish female was conveying – shouting – the news as her boyfriend conveyed it to her. Her voice began to break.
The mayhem outside finally woke Hugh out of his reverie. He thought this next instruction tapped into the black keyboard would be the last time he’d ever use a computer, anywhere, ever.
He typed in the Google search box: Philippines typhoon tracker
He studied the information and then clicked on an image.
‘..unusual track…hard to predict…record intensity…gusts up to 340 km/h…’
When he stepped outside he stepped into another world.
The warm wind burned the pixie tips of already slightly sun burnt ears. He pressed the two white buds into his ears, and pressed PLAY on the shuffle. For the first time ever, he turned the volume up until it hurt. He knew what was coming. He knew it.
He looked up into the sky, as though perhaps the sky would change its mind at the last moment.
It was imminent now; he felt it approaching.
He walked down the steps wondering if he would ever fly again, wondering if the thought itself was absurd paranoia, but even so, he was somewhat amused that instead of appreciating this last flight, he had slept through almost all of it, even missed breakfast.
Another step, like the last tick of a clock. When the moment came, he recognized it immediately. It was as though the sparking atom had communicated itself across the Gulfs of the entire world, on a cellular basis, passing this consciousness on beyond the Sulu Sea, swarming through the islands of life in every other hemisphere.
It was dizzying for him, as usual, being more sensitive than the average human being to the subliminal. What could he say to this young woman in her red headscarf, walking beside him?
He still had the chemical residue in his brain of a dream on the plane, and he was still making sense of that, putting words to colors, while walking over the glowing cement. The train of passengers moved slowly towards the small airport terminal on the island. But even from a distance, it was obvious that tourists had been instantly transformed into refugees. And so very smoothly, with his mind’s eye turned inward, still piecing together the dream, his hand slipped into his unslung backpack, and around the hard body of his camera.
His slow motion walk carried him to the shade, and the growing circus of suddenly desperate human beings. His hands were assembling a lense and filter (for the sun, and dappled light).
He pressed the ‘on’ button.
It was so deathly silent among the gathering hordes that he was able to hear the soft electronic squeal of the battery loading up.
It was a moment repeated at airports all over the world. People frozen in their shoes, cellphone in hand, attempting to communicate with family, with friends, to gather more information, to make arrangements. But none of these people had a signal. And that confirmed the icy new reality. People stood helpless and silent and suddenly the moment manifested on all at the same time. Wasn’t it as if the atmosphere itself had sucked up all the errant signals and waves and in a blinding flash of furious anger, exploded a shearing white light back at us that melted our golden city, turning to dust a city of blood.
Hugh could feel their thoughts. You could cut it with a knife. He thought this unspoken conventional wisdom was a typical response to the inexplicable: to blame God for man’s mad deeds.
If it had been any other international airport the answers would have been more obvious, television screens would have been lit up with CNN. And shortly thereafter the status of every flight in the world would change from DELAYED to CANCELLED.
The peculiar silence here came from shock and awe.
He felt the skin on his arms prick as he lifted his camera.
Realities were fused, one by one, into the digital memory of the chip.
While clicking one electric memory after another, the dream unraveled itself softly. It went like this:
You arrive at an expensive restaurant you have always meant to visit, and somehow imagine the people around you that you have imagined, suddenly becoming real human beings, just as you yourself become real to them. Can Rome and Paris continue to exist without our being there? What about other places we pass through like zoos, prisons, schools, offices and airports? When we die is it any different? Do we live under the assumption that nothing can exist without our being conscious of it? Do we think our consciousness prevents us from being able to die? Does the world need one person’s consciousness to exist? And when we die, will the world need us to imagine it into existence, and will the world want to imagine life again for us on some other world like this one?
Just then the music from his iPod transitioned from Enya’s Orinoco Flow to Green Day’s Holiday.
He put the buds in his pocket, but could still hear a soft bleating coming from his pocket. He moved among them, watching their faces, and the bags, the burdens they would be carrying with them.
A solitary figure at the head of a dense queue put down the big plastic receiver of an old, creamy white telephone. He went to a board and pushed a mechanical handle that flapped metal plates into place on a modest overhead board. Metal pushing against metal, to produce a loud, demonic, jarring noise. It took Puerto Princesa airport little more than half an hour to do what every other airport in the world had done.
ALL FLIGHTS CANCELLED
UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
Hugh led the mobs of people out of the building. He noticed military vehicles arriving, and 4x4 police vans, many of them, lights flashing, sirens blaring. Motor scooters were being fought over, so he decided to walk. Shouts, screams, shots, and he put the white buds back into his ears:
“…this is the dawning of the rest of our lives…”
He noticed cars rushing in the direction of the airport he was walking away from. He noticed the people in the cars had panicked eyes, and did not even notice him. Not long after that, the road was gridlocked with traffic, with some motor scooters moving between the paralyzed traffic.
It was a long walk, long enough for the weather to change. Gusts tore at his shirt. He wondered about the bags he had abandoned at the airport. Was there anything he would need? Perhaps his ACG shoes. The rest was just clothes, and he was prepared to do without those. The notebook? Perhaps now was a good time to begin to learn how to live without computers.
The warm wind pushed him. One more thing before I let go of that as well…
Further along the road he found a man with a bandanna around his head, wearing a Harley Davidson shirt, and sporting plenty of tattoos, stuffing his grinding jaw with what looked like a cheeseburger.
“Hey man,” he said in a lazy Texas drawl, “it’s just a hurricane.”
Hugh glanced up, nodded to him, turned around and took two steps backwards looking at the road behind him, and then with a last sidelong glance at the American, went on along Rizal Avenue.
As the hard rain began to fall he stepped into the internet café, and placed his Lonely Planet on the counter, brushing the rain wet cover with a leftover paper napkin.
“Is the internet working here?”
“Sure. It’s cable so it’s working just fine.”
“Can I have half an hour?”
“You can have all the time you want…”
“Can I have a coffee, and an extra napkin?”
“Anything you say buddy boy.”
He was the only person in the café for the first 10 minutes, but by the time the mob arrived, Hugh van Lewen was completely hypnotized by what he was reading.
A hydrogen bomb had been detonated over Jerusalem in the early afternoon; 14:43 local time. What was peculiar was that that was all CNN knew. For several hours now no one had updated the news at CNN. Through Google he tracked the information at source, finding bloggers and citizen journalists close or practically in situ. There was a grainy photograph taken from a redirected flight bound for Tel Aviv. There had been a lot of reaction.
Peculiarly the only streaming footage shown was of Lahore, also devastated. New York and London…still there. Every click of the mouse now took on a chilling significance. Another Google search, and a completely new set of results:
Google: blogs nuclear destroyed
Tehran joined a host of Middle Eastern cities.
The crowd outside were banging on the windows, an Irish female was conveying – shouting – the news as her boyfriend conveyed it to her. Her voice began to break.
The mayhem outside finally woke Hugh out of his reverie. He thought this next instruction tapped into the black keyboard would be the last time he’d ever use a computer, anywhere, ever.
He typed in the Google search box: Philippines typhoon tracker
He studied the information and then clicked on an image.
‘..unusual track…hard to predict…record intensity…gusts up to 340 km/h…’
When he stepped outside he stepped into another world.
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