Sunday, July 13, 2003

Photo: Cigarette butt and drain - Beaver Lake, Mont-Royal, Montreal, June 25th 2003

Tuesday, July 08, 2003

The control of chaos
by
John B. Dutton


My perspective made it arc
And the movement of the car
Made it look guided
But it was just a drop, dropping,
Delayed by the leaves.

After the rain it chose me
And my eyes were magnetized
Pulled towards it
But it hit the windscreen, screaming,
Glass can be harder than water.

I thought of the fly
And the shadow of the swatter
Looming from our world
But a fly, flying,
Can escape the moment.

Then I saw the nails flying
And felt the dumb awareness
That I was in their path
But the hate, hating,
Was controlling the chaos.

Sunday, July 06, 2003

This Is What Will Happen To You
by
John B. Dutton


In seven years and seven months’ time you will board a train heading to New York City. Next to you will be seated an eleven year-old boy who politely asks you for a piece of pie. The woman with a hat across the aisle from him will smile at you. You won’t smile back.

“But I haven’t got any pie,” you will say to him.

“Yes you have,” he will answer. “Look in your bag.” Sure enough, when you look in your bag you will see a slice of apple pie, wrapped so tightly in plastic that the filling is bulging at the edges. You will take the pie out of your bag slowly. The boy will look you straight in the eye, smiling, while you do this. You will notice that the pie looks fine on top, but when you turn it over you will recoil in disgust because the bottom is moldy with three different colors of mold in a familiar pattern which you can’t quite recognize. You will look away, out of the window, and will notice a flock of birds disappear into a charcoal cloud.

The boy will snatch the pie out of your hand and start to tear at it with his teeth, though it is still wrapped in plastic. The woman across the aisle will smile even more as she watches him. He will finally manage to bite through the plastic, and the filling will spurt out and land on your cheek, just below your left eye. It will feel warm, and you will be able to see it stuck to your cheek if you look down. The boy will throw his head back and squeeze the rest of the filling straight down his throat, gulping like a lizard. The woman will take off her hat and hold it out across the aisle, upturned, for the boy to use as a garbage can. He will screw up the plastic and pastry, put it in the hat and say thank you to the woman. She will smile wider than ever, and you will notice a diamond filling in her right incisor. You will look down into your bag for a tissue to wipe the warm apple from your cheek, but cannot find one. When you look back up to ask the woman if she has one you will see that she is opening the window to throw out the boy’s garbage.

For the first time you will become aware that there is a man sitting between her and the window. He is in his eighties, wearing the kind of suit that went out of fashion thirty years ago. As the woman leans across him to open the window her skirt will ride up above her knees, revealing two faint scars running vertically up the back of each thigh. The old man will stare at the woman’s legs as she tugs at the window. The boy will also stare at her legs.

You will feel nauseous because of the pie filling on your cheek. It will start to run down and you will be able to smell its rotten sweetness. You will push past the boy to go to the washroom and see the woman throw the garbage out of the window. Instead of retaking her seat she will straddle the old man, remove the diamond from her tooth with long, French-manicured fingernails, and put it in his mouth. He will smile a plastic smile, which remains frozen on his face as she lifts up her skirt and lowers herself onto his crotch.

As you walk down the aisle the other passengers will start to wave white handkerchiefs, every one of them hideously obese and smiling the same plastic smile. You will approach the door at the end of the car and open it. You will see that the communicating space between the cars is full of sad-looking people, some wearing exotic clothes, some looking like bums. The apple pie filling will trickle into your mouth and, as you start to heave, you will shove people out of the way and enter the washroom, closing the door behind you. You will vomit violently into the toilet until there is nothing left in your stomach. After flushing, you will take some paper towels and wipe your face. You will then run the water in the washbasin and splash some on your face, dab yourself dry with more paper towels and look up into the mirror. As you clear your eyes and focus on your face there will be a screech of metal on metal and you will be thrown forward, smashing your head into the mirror. You will be thrown into the air as the car overturns. You will hear screaming and violent noises. It will feel as though every bone in your body is breaking as you are flung from side to side in the tiny washroom. Eventually the noise will cease and you will find yourself lying on the opaque window, which is now horizontal. You will try to open the door above your head, but it is blocked by the weight of the bodies.

The light in the washroom will flicker and die. You will start to shiver in the silence and darkness.

This is what will happen to you.

Samsara started as a regular website in July 1997. Six years on I have made the decision to relaunch Samsara as a weblog.
The original version of Samsara can be seen here