The Country from Hell
The rest of the day passes in a blur. At dusk, you find yourself at the banks of the polluted Moses River.
A few blades of dark grass push through the cracks in the sidewalk. Some broken stones and ashy bits of cement mark the sidewalk's end, where the scrub grass begins its descent to the Moses River. You pick up a sun-bleached piece of gravel, turning it over and over in your hand. It leaves a white stain in your palm and for a moment you imagine that you are holding the ruins of Ancient Rome, eroded through so many years and neglect. Your hand now looks like a ruin, too, covered in a white dust that won't come off, even as you rub your hands together and along your legs. Two men are sitting on the bank, their heads bowed over a single bottle of custia. The dusty wind sweeps over their old cloth hats, which tremble slightly above the rigid and motionless bodies. The hazy dusk comes down like a great cloth over you and the two men, bringing with it an unaccustomed quiet. The world has suddenly become soft, and you are reminded of a famous French painting depicting people spread out on picnic blankets on a lazy summer day. One of the men looks slowly up at you, reflecting in his dull blue eyes that unnamable anguish, the sweet and dusty old feeling of long ago places known only in dreams. He is a worker, with a dark gritty face and a large scar running down the side of his cheek. With a motion as graceful as a dancer, he tips his hat to you while nodding ever so slightly. You return his gesture and turn slowly to look out at the water. The Moses is an earthy brown-green, ugly and lovely and very still. Bouncing the white piece of gravel in your hand, you swing your arm back and throw it into the water. Before sinking beneath the surface, it freezes for a moment in time, its impeccable white surface turned ruby red in the dusk light. How can this be possible? In one instant, the world is shining like a small piece of heaven, and in the next it is all lost beneath an impenetrable murkiness. The men in the cloth hats have sunk lower over their custia. From the highway, someone shouts something obscene. The stone sits invisibly at the bottom of the river. A cold wind turns you back toward the sidewalk, and you emerge from the scene like a swimmer from the sea. As you break through the barrier of silence, your ears are immediately flooded with all the noises of your dirty city. There is nothing left of your underwater realm. It is just Iad, at sunset.
A few blades of dark grass push through the cracks in the sidewalk. Some broken stones and ashy bits of cement mark the sidewalk's end, where the scrub grass begins its descent to the Moses River. You pick up a sun-bleached piece of gravel, turning it over and over in your hand. It leaves a white stain in your palm and for a moment you imagine that you are holding the ruins of Ancient Rome, eroded through so many years and neglect. Your hand now looks like a ruin, too, covered in a white dust that won't come off, even as you rub your hands together and along your legs. Two men are sitting on the bank, their heads bowed over a single bottle of custia. The dusty wind sweeps over their old cloth hats, which tremble slightly above the rigid and motionless bodies. The hazy dusk comes down like a great cloth over you and the two men, bringing with it an unaccustomed quiet. The world has suddenly become soft, and you are reminded of a famous French painting depicting people spread out on picnic blankets on a lazy summer day. One of the men looks slowly up at you, reflecting in his dull blue eyes that unnamable anguish, the sweet and dusty old feeling of long ago places known only in dreams. He is a worker, with a dark gritty face and a large scar running down the side of his cheek. With a motion as graceful as a dancer, he tips his hat to you while nodding ever so slightly. You return his gesture and turn slowly to look out at the water. The Moses is an earthy brown-green, ugly and lovely and very still. Bouncing the white piece of gravel in your hand, you swing your arm back and throw it into the water. Before sinking beneath the surface, it freezes for a moment in time, its impeccable white surface turned ruby red in the dusk light. How can this be possible? In one instant, the world is shining like a small piece of heaven, and in the next it is all lost beneath an impenetrable murkiness. The men in the cloth hats have sunk lower over their custia. From the highway, someone shouts something obscene. The stone sits invisibly at the bottom of the river. A cold wind turns you back toward the sidewalk, and you emerge from the scene like a swimmer from the sea. As you break through the barrier of silence, your ears are immediately flooded with all the noises of your dirty city. There is nothing left of your underwater realm. It is just Iad, at sunset.
