from Jeremy J.H.
We are approaching San Francisco, "we" being me, 50 or so strangers and this strange metal bird, flight 321. I can already see a corner of fog tucked in low hills far below out the window. We have begun to descend.
Having lived in SF for almost a year now and going to state I sometimes hate that low ocean cloud and its salt pickled cold. Sunny days sometimes are eaten by it by mid afternoon as the warmth sucks it in from past the boats. Some Saturdays off from school are just uniform grey from dawn to dusk and downright claustrophobic.
We may land and instead it will seem to bring a crisp chill that is invigorating and a sense of winter any time of the year after time in Los Angeles. Eventually I will still become acclimated though, and won't notice the temperature at all. When I first moved to SF and school the fog seemed to enhance the corners and windows of victorians as it gauzed the streetlights in almost wasp eyed halos.
The seat belt light just came on with that dull electronic bell. The rattling as the plane is lowering feels comforting somehow, an earthquake when I need one as that other place is already just a string of polaroids.
We have landed. There is fog.
I don't feel anything but tired, a little hungry and utterly lost.
We are approaching San Francisco, "we" being me, 50 or so strangers and this strange metal bird, flight 321. I can already see a corner of fog tucked in low hills far below out the window. We have begun to descend.
Having lived in SF for almost a year now and going to state I sometimes hate that low ocean cloud and its salt pickled cold. Sunny days sometimes are eaten by it by mid afternoon as the warmth sucks it in from past the boats. Some Saturdays off from school are just uniform grey from dawn to dusk and downright claustrophobic.
We may land and instead it will seem to bring a crisp chill that is invigorating and a sense of winter any time of the year after time in Los Angeles. Eventually I will still become acclimated though, and won't notice the temperature at all. When I first moved to SF and school the fog seemed to enhance the corners and windows of victorians as it gauzed the streetlights in almost wasp eyed halos.
The seat belt light just came on with that dull electronic bell. The rattling as the plane is lowering feels comforting somehow, an earthquake when I need one as that other place is already just a string of polaroids.
We have landed. There is fog.
I don't feel anything but tired, a little hungry and utterly lost.
Once upon a time there was a tyrant, and a craftsman knew too much. So the craftsman lived in prison with his son, who knew no world beyond the walls. There had to be a way out. For years, the father worked and the son watched. The story says the father made wax wings and both flew from their prison, but that's absurd. No-one flies with wax wings.
The boy's name was Icarus. Father and son got away together. "Take care," the father said. But Icarus had reached his teens and teenagers take risks. He flew too high, too far, too fast and fell to earth.
His father watched.
And the tales fade into silence at the father's grief.
For today, if you like, I'll be a girl. I'll have two hands for you, and, let me see, I'll have brown hair, long hair that isn't brushed and flicks into my eyes unless I hold my head to the side. If it makes you happy then I'll be seventeen years old. I will wear icewashed jeans; I'll carry a windproof lighter, which I stole. I'll even have a name if you want. Why not call me Sarah. I'm not changing my eyes though; I'm keeping those.
Yesterday, and the day before that, I was a magpie, turning on thermals like a black and white kite in air. My mind was small and sharp as a craftknife tip, and red. When I spread my feathers, I could scribble poems in the air, so clever and so sad that the people in the market didn't know that I was there. Before you made me sit and talk to you, before these pills, I was nothing but a pair of wings in the sky.
Before today I was quick as silver, and I knew the secret things that hide among the city's pieces. When I was a bird, I was cunning and magic, and a mystery to the world. Before you gave me a blanket to wear, I was narrow like a dart; I could throw myself at people's heads, and spin away at the very last moment and vanish.
From the top of the town hall clock, the world is flat and hardly there. The sky is a landscape, huge, invisible, made of light and music, with great empty cathedrals and mountain ranges. I knocked my head on an outcrop of nothing, smacked against the gusting morning, and I fell. If you want, we can pretend that I'm a girl, just until my wings are mended.
from Padrika Tarrant, March 2008
Go to http://www.netvibes.com/flightpaths#Forums to leave a comment.
Yesterday, and the day before that, I was a magpie, turning on thermals like a black and white kite in air. My mind was small and sharp as a craftknife tip, and red. When I spread my feathers, I could scribble poems in the air, so clever and so sad that the people in the market didn't know that I was there. Before you made me sit and talk to you, before these pills, I was nothing but a pair of wings in the sky.
Before today I was quick as silver, and I knew the secret things that hide among the city's pieces. When I was a bird, I was cunning and magic, and a mystery to the world. Before you gave me a blanket to wear, I was narrow like a dart; I could throw myself at people's heads, and spin away at the very last moment and vanish.
From the top of the town hall clock, the world is flat and hardly there. The sky is a landscape, huge, invisible, made of light and music, with great empty cathedrals and mountain ranges. I knocked my head on an outcrop of nothing, smacked against the gusting morning, and I fell. If you want, we can pretend that I'm a girl, just until my wings are mended.
from Padrika Tarrant, March 2008
Go to http://www.netvibes.com/flightpaths#Forums to leave a comment.
from Jeremy J.H.
I remember leaving SFO after my first year away from home and that moment when I no longer could see the waving of my new room mates any more, only the geometry of collective windowglass and then whole buildings along the pavement as the wheels left the ground. Los Angeles had already become a blur of incomplete files rubbed soft months before: faces unfinished,streets with blanks for foilage, distance veined within it all.
The plane was airborne and for an hour it was as though there was no city, no sense of connection, no tether and it was a sort of aware amnesia. I know the concepts, the bits and names, but the world for an hour was the flight path, strangers, a soda and peanuts and me. The world to me at 22 was my weight on the seat, the angle of my body, random thoughts and a sense of a line being invisibly drawn between two fictions, elaborate incomplete narratives. It was very unnerving and felt infinite for a time.
I landed at Burbank and saw my father in the terminal, his face sun burned and tired and a skin broke somehow. Some details began to fill slowly and this continued on as we drove in the air conditioning of his car, tributaries of detail, mostly mundane as San Francisco felt like a sketch skeletal and far far off. A plane flew past as we got on the freeway and painted a thin line of ice crystals behind on its way to somewhere. I was home. At least for now.
Go to Forum, Locations, Flying Home to discuss Jeremy's story.
I remember leaving SFO after my first year away from home and that moment when I no longer could see the waving of my new room mates any more, only the geometry of collective windowglass and then whole buildings along the pavement as the wheels left the ground. Los Angeles had already become a blur of incomplete files rubbed soft months before: faces unfinished,streets with blanks for foilage, distance veined within it all.
The plane was airborne and for an hour it was as though there was no city, no sense of connection, no tether and it was a sort of aware amnesia. I know the concepts, the bits and names, but the world for an hour was the flight path, strangers, a soda and peanuts and me. The world to me at 22 was my weight on the seat, the angle of my body, random thoughts and a sense of a line being invisibly drawn between two fictions, elaborate incomplete narratives. It was very unnerving and felt infinite for a time.
I landed at Burbank and saw my father in the terminal, his face sun burned and tired and a skin broke somehow. Some details began to fill slowly and this continued on as we drove in the air conditioning of his car, tributaries of detail, mostly mundane as San Francisco felt like a sketch skeletal and far far off. A plane flew past as we got on the freeway and painted a thin line of ice crystals behind on its way to somewhere. I was home. At least for now.
Go to Forum, Locations, Flying Home to discuss Jeremy's story.
The central valley is passing below, a dull elongated brown classroom topographical map looking stretch of slight ripples amongst a seemingly endless flat plain. 23 minutes have gone by. This I know for sure. 23 minutes of a 55 minute flight. A bag of peanuts sags to one side on my flat little white tray table. I am not hungry. My father has already smoothed a bit in my memory, little blank spots as to parts of his hair and chin.
Yesterday we were all swimming in the kidney shaped pool and San Francisco and college were Iceland from that pool's edge, ice sheets of the poles from the diving board and the music from the radio. The water was so crystalline,a biting hint of chlorine in the nostrils but such a wondrous chaos of activity breaking along the ripples on the surface. The scent of the chicken wings dad was cooking with alternating splashes of beer and Italian dressing on the heat of the grill wafted across the water in one of those moments so detailed, so hyper-real as to be almost unbearable in its rich details.
I am now probably somewhere south of Fresno and it feels like the universe is only a terrarium made of the metal of this plane. I feel like I could take all those faces,voices,sounds,odors and nearby streets and just smear them together into some kind of feeble peanut butter.
Both Cities too.
The plane is veering right a bit, my right calf is cramping, my lips are dry, the man across the aisle looks just like Bela Lugosi. These things I understand.
Yesterday we were all swimming in the kidney shaped pool and San Francisco and college were Iceland from that pool's edge, ice sheets of the poles from the diving board and the music from the radio. The water was so crystalline,a biting hint of chlorine in the nostrils but such a wondrous chaos of activity breaking along the ripples on the surface. The scent of the chicken wings dad was cooking with alternating splashes of beer and Italian dressing on the heat of the grill wafted across the water in one of those moments so detailed, so hyper-real as to be almost unbearable in its rich details.
I am now probably somewhere south of Fresno and it feels like the universe is only a terrarium made of the metal of this plane. I feel like I could take all those faces,voices,sounds,odors and nearby streets and just smear them together into some kind of feeble peanut butter.
Both Cities too.
The plane is veering right a bit, my right calf is cramping, my lips are dry, the man across the aisle looks just like Bela Lugosi. These things I understand.
Flying Home Remixed, from Kate
I was on my way home from a fruitless business trip to northern Pakistan; my boss was trying to set up a factory in order to outsource labour but, as usual, he’d got it completely wrong and the whole thing was a waste of time. I had volunteered to go because I had always wanted to go to Pakistan. When I was in grade school my best friend for a couple of years was a boy from Karachi; his parents were extremely wealthy and going around to his house to play was like travelling to a parallel universe, a universe strangely like my own, except everything was bigger, nicer, softer, cooler, just better, really. Their house had an enormous pool in the garden and they’d brought their own servants with them from home and so after you’d been for a swim you could just drop your towel on the perfect grass in the knowledge that someone else would pick it up moments later: to me this seemed like the absolute last word in luxury.
I had the idea in my head that I’d be able to partake in some drugs while I was on this business trip, owing to Pakistan’s international reputation as a capital of that kind of thing, but to tell you the truth the place was so completely foreign to me that, once outside the hotel, I couldn’t figure out how to buy aspirin let alone hashish. And it wasn’t something I felt I could request from my skinny young translator. On the flight over I formulated a kind of plan that involved trading my American blue jeans for drugs, but it turned out that I was operating on ancient, no longer relevant, information. My skinny translator wouldn’t have fit my jeans, he could fit two of his legs into one of mine, and anyway, he was so well turned out first thing every morning, with his pressed clean white shirts and his sharp black trousers, the idea of offering him my jeans was ludicrous.
So I was sitting at the back of plane – very annoyed to be at the back of the plane, the worst place ever to sit, first on, last off, and next to the toilets - staring out the window, wondering how it was possible that I could know less about a country having just visited it than I knew before I arrived, when I saw him. He was dark-skinned, and his clothes were tatty, and he was crouching behind the luggage trolley which I knew was not normal airport behaviour, not in the US, and not in Pakistan. The next few moments played out like a little movie. He poked his head above the bags a few times to see if anyone was watching, and then he ran from the luggage trolley straight under the plane, straight under where I was sitting in fact.
I looked around. People were still boarding, finding their seats, struggling to get their bags into the overhead lockers, all that fussy stuff you have to do when you get onto an airplane. No one else had noticed anything. I thought about flagging down an air hostess but I wondered what I should say. ‘I saw a guy run under the plane’? Then I had another thought – if I was to say something, there was a strong chance the flight would be delayed. So I did not say a thing.
But to tell you the truth, I wish I had. I often find myself wondering about that guy – too often really. What was he doing? Why was he doing it? What happened to him? Where is he today? I can’t seem to stop myself wondering.
To comment on this go to Forum - Story - Locations
I was on my way home from a fruitless business trip to northern Pakistan; my boss was trying to set up a factory in order to outsource labour but, as usual, he’d got it completely wrong and the whole thing was a waste of time. I had volunteered to go because I had always wanted to go to Pakistan. When I was in grade school my best friend for a couple of years was a boy from Karachi; his parents were extremely wealthy and going around to his house to play was like travelling to a parallel universe, a universe strangely like my own, except everything was bigger, nicer, softer, cooler, just better, really. Their house had an enormous pool in the garden and they’d brought their own servants with them from home and so after you’d been for a swim you could just drop your towel on the perfect grass in the knowledge that someone else would pick it up moments later: to me this seemed like the absolute last word in luxury.
I had the idea in my head that I’d be able to partake in some drugs while I was on this business trip, owing to Pakistan’s international reputation as a capital of that kind of thing, but to tell you the truth the place was so completely foreign to me that, once outside the hotel, I couldn’t figure out how to buy aspirin let alone hashish. And it wasn’t something I felt I could request from my skinny young translator. On the flight over I formulated a kind of plan that involved trading my American blue jeans for drugs, but it turned out that I was operating on ancient, no longer relevant, information. My skinny translator wouldn’t have fit my jeans, he could fit two of his legs into one of mine, and anyway, he was so well turned out first thing every morning, with his pressed clean white shirts and his sharp black trousers, the idea of offering him my jeans was ludicrous.
So I was sitting at the back of plane – very annoyed to be at the back of the plane, the worst place ever to sit, first on, last off, and next to the toilets - staring out the window, wondering how it was possible that I could know less about a country having just visited it than I knew before I arrived, when I saw him. He was dark-skinned, and his clothes were tatty, and he was crouching behind the luggage trolley which I knew was not normal airport behaviour, not in the US, and not in Pakistan. The next few moments played out like a little movie. He poked his head above the bags a few times to see if anyone was watching, and then he ran from the luggage trolley straight under the plane, straight under where I was sitting in fact.
I looked around. People were still boarding, finding their seats, struggling to get their bags into the overhead lockers, all that fussy stuff you have to do when you get onto an airplane. No one else had noticed anything. I thought about flagging down an air hostess but I wondered what I should say. ‘I saw a guy run under the plane’? Then I had another thought – if I was to say something, there was a strong chance the flight would be delayed. So I did not say a thing.
But to tell you the truth, I wish I had. I often find myself wondering about that guy – too often really. What was he doing? Why was he doing it? What happened to him? Where is he today? I can’t seem to stop myself wondering.
To comment on this go to Forum - Story - Locations
I went to Dubai from my home because I heard I could earn good money. I had avoided marriage so far because I wanted to leave where I came from. Bangladesh is a poor country and I was a poor man in it and I wanted that to change.
There was one man in my village who had been working in the UAE; he was injured on the building site when a section of scaffolding fell on his foot. He had returned home then; he had been patched up in Dubai but the company told him he had to go home, they couldn't take care of him. He planned to come home to recover before returning to Dubai, but he lost his foot and could no longer work construction. He had a lot of stories about what life was like in the workers camps in UAE and so I knew what to expect: for it to be very very hot, for conditions to be as rough as at home, except much more crowded, and for expenses to be high. But where I lived there was no work for me anyway, so rough conditions with only a bit of income left over at the end of the day was, for me, a better prospect than staying home with my family. And the man from my village had a few postcards from Dubai that he showed me, the tall glass buildings like giant needles, the extraordinary new landscapes being built on the sea. I liked the look of that; I liked the idea of living somewhere where everything was new.
The plane to Dubai was full of Bangladeshi men like me, all ages, although I was one of the youngest. Many were men with families who wanted to earn money to pay for their children to go to school. When we landed we were transported to the camp where we were to live - simple concrete brick buildings, 10 per room, countless per toilet. But, truth be told, I was happy, and when I got to the building site the next day - two hours by bus either way - I was happier still. I wanted to work. Now I had a job. Now I would be paid.
The building site where I was employed was not out in the sea where they were building land forms shaped like palm trees and maps of the world like I saw in the school my youngest brother was attending. This was just as well, because although I liked the idea of creating new lands in the sea, I had never been in a boat and didn't much like the idea of having to spend a lot of time on the water. As well as that, the perils of working these jobs doubled out on the water; at least on my building site I was not in danger of drowning. I was employed on one of the glass towers, a fairly modest building of thirty-five stories, which was thirty-four stories more than the tallest building in my village.
More from me later.
There was one man in my village who had been working in the UAE; he was injured on the building site when a section of scaffolding fell on his foot. He had returned home then; he had been patched up in Dubai but the company told him he had to go home, they couldn't take care of him. He planned to come home to recover before returning to Dubai, but he lost his foot and could no longer work construction. He had a lot of stories about what life was like in the workers camps in UAE and so I knew what to expect: for it to be very very hot, for conditions to be as rough as at home, except much more crowded, and for expenses to be high. But where I lived there was no work for me anyway, so rough conditions with only a bit of income left over at the end of the day was, for me, a better prospect than staying home with my family. And the man from my village had a few postcards from Dubai that he showed me, the tall glass buildings like giant needles, the extraordinary new landscapes being built on the sea. I liked the look of that; I liked the idea of living somewhere where everything was new.
The plane to Dubai was full of Bangladeshi men like me, all ages, although I was one of the youngest. Many were men with families who wanted to earn money to pay for their children to go to school. When we landed we were transported to the camp where we were to live - simple concrete brick buildings, 10 per room, countless per toilet. But, truth be told, I was happy, and when I got to the building site the next day - two hours by bus either way - I was happier still. I wanted to work. Now I had a job. Now I would be paid.
The building site where I was employed was not out in the sea where they were building land forms shaped like palm trees and maps of the world like I saw in the school my youngest brother was attending. This was just as well, because although I liked the idea of creating new lands in the sea, I had never been in a boat and didn't much like the idea of having to spend a lot of time on the water. As well as that, the perils of working these jobs doubled out on the water; at least on my building site I was not in danger of drowning. I was employed on one of the glass towers, a fairly modest building of thirty-five stories, which was thirty-four stories more than the tallest building in my village.
More from me later.
from Kate's blog
In Dubai Yacub worked long hours. The bus from the camp to the site took nearly two hours most mornings, and the day on the site was ten hours long, and then the return journey took another two hours. At the camp there wasn’t time for much more than washing, cooking, eating - the queues for all the facilities were always long. When he was in Pakistan and dreaming about the job and the money he would make, he hadn’t anticipated any of this - although much of it was as his uncle had described. He’d listened to his uncle but, he realised now, he hadn’t believed him. It was good to be working, and he liked watching the building rise from the dirt of the desert, knowing he was contributing to that. But he hadn’t paid off the money he’d had to borrow to get the job in the first place. He wasn’t sure how long that would take.
At night Yacub lay in his narrow cot and dreamed that the building he was working on was his own. He was building a silver tower for his family to live in, his parents and brothers and sister, his uncles and aunties and his grandparents, the wife he didn’t have, the children he hadn’t had. They would all live in grand flats on the top floors of the building, while he ran his business from grand offices below.
At night he had these dreams, and in the morning it was time to get on the bus to the site.
In Dubai Yacub worked long hours. The bus from the camp to the site took nearly two hours most mornings, and the day on the site was ten hours long, and then the return journey took another two hours. At the camp there wasn’t time for much more than washing, cooking, eating - the queues for all the facilities were always long. When he was in Pakistan and dreaming about the job and the money he would make, he hadn’t anticipated any of this - although much of it was as his uncle had described. He’d listened to his uncle but, he realised now, he hadn’t believed him. It was good to be working, and he liked watching the building rise from the dirt of the desert, knowing he was contributing to that. But he hadn’t paid off the money he’d had to borrow to get the job in the first place. He wasn’t sure how long that would take.
At night Yacub lay in his narrow cot and dreamed that the building he was working on was his own. He was building a silver tower for his family to live in, his parents and brothers and sister, his uncles and aunties and his grandparents, the wife he didn’t have, the children he hadn’t had. They would all live in grand flats on the top floors of the building, while he ran his business from grand offices below.
At night he had these dreams, and in the morning it was time to get on the bus to the site.
from Jeremy J.H.
As a boy during the long summer doldrums I sometimes would spend hours just watching the high trails of jets coalesce into icy high trails or thinner wetter low ones, worm-like clouds expelled from some journey from somewhere to somewhere. Sometimes multiple older frozen lines would drift slow across the sky with no little reflective dot of a plane in sight.
This was a sort of driftwood to me as a kid, like it had broken from something and somewhere and wasn't even connected to a path anymore. No longer were there faces to imagine, drinks cool on the tongue in the August heat and dull still air.
The lines were now floating slow like astronauts while in the winter they got caught in what I would later learn was the jet stream. The clutter could be unnerving sometimes as though the paths were unclean in such a dull broken high jumble. It was as though the destinations, exits, arrivals, take offs, and all points in between had been erased somewhere else above some other boy and now it was over me instead as ghosts of a path that boredom could not begin to carve into imagined measure into some little fragments of stories and pictures. It was only drawings that remained, pencil lines in the sky from nowhere.
To comment on or add to this piece, go to Forum - Story - Location - Driftwood
As a boy during the long summer doldrums I sometimes would spend hours just watching the high trails of jets coalesce into icy high trails or thinner wetter low ones, worm-like clouds expelled from some journey from somewhere to somewhere. Sometimes multiple older frozen lines would drift slow across the sky with no little reflective dot of a plane in sight.
This was a sort of driftwood to me as a kid, like it had broken from something and somewhere and wasn't even connected to a path anymore. No longer were there faces to imagine, drinks cool on the tongue in the August heat and dull still air.
The lines were now floating slow like astronauts while in the winter they got caught in what I would later learn was the jet stream. The clutter could be unnerving sometimes as though the paths were unclean in such a dull broken high jumble. It was as though the destinations, exits, arrivals, take offs, and all points in between had been erased somewhere else above some other boy and now it was over me instead as ghosts of a path that boredom could not begin to carve into imagined measure into some little fragments of stories and pictures. It was only drawings that remained, pencil lines in the sky from nowhere.
To comment on or add to this piece, go to Forum - Story - Location - Driftwood
Trolley loud with plane passing over Sainsbury's Richmond - http://www.box.net/shared/po0bueq39d
Sainsbury's Richmond ambience with Kate at till - http://www.box.net/shared/deqi63l1ib
Airplanes passing over Sainsbury's Richmond -
http://www.box.net/shared/kih322338s
http://www.box.net/shared/ctvvv4n91b
Mix of Sainsbury's Richmond sounds - http://www.box.net/shared/qiuna25uta
Sainsbury's Richmond ambience with Kate at till - http://www.box.net/shared/deqi63l1ib
Airplanes passing over Sainsbury's Richmond -
http://www.box.net/shared/kih322338s
http://www.box.net/shared/ctvvv4n91b
Mix of Sainsbury's Richmond sounds - http://www.box.net/shared/qiuna25uta
from Jeremy H.
I saw my dad again at the airport. Only another 6 months had passed this time . Something was off. His black car was the same. His hair maybewas a few inches shorter I think. The music he played on the way home was of course the same 4 tapes he always plays, pretty much the only ones he has ever bought. Something was different somehow. We stopped at the same burger place on the way home as the last 2 times. We caught up like always. I ordered the same combo I have loved since he first brought me there when I was a little kid as a treat after school. Streets and faces were flooding back in fuller detail as we drove like always, the place filling in. The same odd sense of dream flesh was almost comfortably familiar but there was something else.
I spent the following week with friends and family. I went back to school. I still couldn't grasp what felt off and why it was even bothering me.
Now I get it.
It is like a patch of weeds cut clean. The space at first is clearly visible and then, over time, it all just fills in where it once was.
It was me. My absence.
They no longer saw it, instead saw the visit and had become comfortable, moved on.
I saw my dad again at the airport. Only another 6 months had passed this time . Something was off. His black car was the same. His hair maybewas a few inches shorter I think. The music he played on the way home was of course the same 4 tapes he always plays, pretty much the only ones he has ever bought. Something was different somehow. We stopped at the same burger place on the way home as the last 2 times. We caught up like always. I ordered the same combo I have loved since he first brought me there when I was a little kid as a treat after school. Streets and faces were flooding back in fuller detail as we drove like always, the place filling in. The same odd sense of dream flesh was almost comfortably familiar but there was something else.
I spent the following week with friends and family. I went back to school. I still couldn't grasp what felt off and why it was even bothering me.
Now I get it.
It is like a patch of weeds cut clean. The space at first is clearly visible and then, over time, it all just fills in where it once was.
It was me. My absence.
They no longer saw it, instead saw the visit and had become comfortable, moved on.
From Kate - 6 March 08:
Here's a link to an audio file I created today in the supermarket carpark in Richmond. It's me talking about the story.
Here's another link to the ambient sound in the carpark, including a plane overhead, a train, and some weirdly electronic sounding birds.
From Kate - 25 March 08:Chris and I went down to the carpark again. Chris took photos and videos of the sky and the planes and I made some more recordings.Here is a plane directly overheadand me pushing a very loud trolley in a high wind with a plane overhead
and inside the supermarket ambient, till beeping, and a bit of conversation.
I read the newspaper report, the idea behind flight paths, and it was really touching. I can empathize with this young Pakistani man in search of bread, as his father says in the article. There are so many people like him and worse than him, in Pakistan. Now Swat is also in the same state, as Kashmir. Apparently near this valley, is the headquarters and hiding place of Osama Bin Laden. Pakistan is conducting military operations following the commands of the US, blindly. But some of the sceptics believe that the tribal people will never give up and there have to be some conciliatory measures. So many innocent people are dying every day and the government is torn between the choice of foreign aid or the lives of its people.
I remember going to Swat as a child. It was so breathtakingly beautiful and utterly unspoilt. It also has the famous lake, lake saif-ul muluk, maybe it is in the neighbouring Kaghan valley, I am not so sure. But the valley boasts of a legend that many people have seen real fairies there. When I was a child, I believed it because it was really picture perfect.
All those memories have come back.
from Nadya AR, April 2008
Go to Forum - Story - Characters to leave a comment .
At Melbourne airport I was staring at some people, trying to work out by their clothes, where they might be going, when I saw a bird sitting above them. I stopped looking at the people and kept my eye on the bird.
I was enjoying myself wondering how the bird got along living in the terminal, if it felt like going outside, what it ate, and so on, when Catherine came back to the table with something from McDonald's.
'Jesus, that stinks,' I said looking at her tray, 'Do they serve McShitburgers now?'
When we’d stopped laughing I looked up again to the bird, but it was gone, and so were the people.
from lebusque, January 2008Click here to leave a comment.
from Jeremy J.H.
A jet just passed over my head, perfectly bisecting 3 ragged old vapor trails between some wreck ugly thin cirrus anvil cloud husks beheaded from yesterday's thunderstorms down in Mexico somewhere . This little bit of urine colored woozy geometry mixed in with a near transparent orange gauze of smoke from a fire near the ocean is depressing. The lines and clouds are a vaporous muck, a junk drawer, a skyward projection of the food wrappers and crushed newspaper pages that press into the dull grids of fences during the hot winds here. The sun is gleaming briefly off of the plane , now off to the east and shrinking;erasing in view into smaller and smaller versions of what passed overhead, almost gone.
A jet just passed over my head, perfectly bisecting 3 ragged old vapor trails between some wreck ugly thin cirrus anvil cloud husks beheaded from yesterday's thunderstorms down in Mexico somewhere . This little bit of urine colored woozy geometry mixed in with a near transparent orange gauze of smoke from a fire near the ocean is depressing. The lines and clouds are a vaporous muck, a junk drawer, a skyward projection of the food wrappers and crushed newspaper pages that press into the dull grids of fences during the hot winds here. The sun is gleaming briefly off of the plane , now off to the east and shrinking;erasing in view into smaller and smaller versions of what passed overhead, almost gone.
When I was a girl we had an angel candle at Christmas. Each year she came out of the box a little more depleted than the last. She had three wicks, one through the centre of her halo, which I don’t recall ever seeing lit. Tiny flames flew from the tips of each wing. We would light them for mere minutes a day, sometimes only seconds. Each breath of light cost her something, a softening or drip. After the burning she was always less than before.
The lesson we learned from the angel was the same one that other children learn about having and eating their cake. You can’t have your wax wings and burn them. This was a lesson about light, but so too with flight. No-one flies with wax wings. At least...not for long.
from LauraRobs, January 2008
from Jeremy H
If you could actually see the quiet curling fall of Skylab, the triumphant bending line of Lindbergh, the erasure and curve of Earheart , would these lines (and ghosts) tell of something or just be shapes of something best left to an unfinished memory and not of maps? What is that particular trajectory of failing?
It reminds one of that unfortunate rare condition where the person can never forget. All is data, collecting and compiling, slivers, increments,cold, integers in the face of questions, mystery and the poem written by an incompletion.
To truly, absolutely know anything maybe is to strangle it with its own measure, paths in the sky as much as a loved one's face or one's own reflection.
If you could actually see the quiet curling fall of Skylab, the triumphant bending line of Lindbergh, the erasure and curve of Earheart , would these lines (and ghosts) tell of something or just be shapes of something best left to an unfinished memory and not of maps? What is that particular trajectory of failing?
It reminds one of that unfortunate rare condition where the person can never forget. All is data, collecting and compiling, slivers, increments,cold, integers in the face of questions, mystery and the poem written by an incompletion.
To truly, absolutely know anything maybe is to strangle it with its own measure, paths in the sky as much as a loved one's face or one's own reflection.
from Kate's blog
Sitting at my desk in my new office for the first time, I see that I have a great view of the sky. I wasn’t expecting this. It reminds me of when we first moved to this house; we were amazed by the extraordinary wide open sky vistas our garden afforded. Twelve years on, the trees have grown up to obscure the sky-view in that direction. But now I find my new office has re-oriented me, giving me a whole new view: and there it is once again, the sky.
Sitting at my desk in my new office for the first time, I see that I have a great view of the sky. I wasn’t expecting this. It reminds me of when we first moved to this house; we were amazed by the extraordinary wide open sky vistas our garden afforded. Twelve years on, the trees have grown up to obscure the sky-view in that direction. But now I find my new office has re-oriented me, giving me a whole new view: and there it is once again, the sky.
Streets Paved With Gold
I have referred to Aqeel ur Rahman as Aqeel Polishwalla for as long as I have had my furniture polished by him, which is almost every year since the past thirteen years of my married life. He is a short, agile man with a grained, swarthy complexion. His thick jet black hair is constantly ruffled and he walks in a real hurry. Aqeel is a natural story teller and can entertain anyone for hours. His voice resonates with mirth, sorrow and countless emotions that he has lived through in his eventful life.
My husband has often warned me not to succumb to his charms, "He is a double edged weapon....A smooth operator.... You know money is everything to him. He tries to delay everything unnecessarily. Another trick to make extra bucks as he charges us a daily wage." I silently agree. And think to myself, "So do most of the people in Pakistan who find it difficult to make their ends meet."
Aqeel sits cross-legged on the chair, opposite me, on the narrow kitchen table. He speaks in a heavy Bengali accent, " Baji (sister), I feel really privileged to be interviewed and have my story on the English internet if it can help other people. But don't publish it in Pakistan and certainly not my photograph; otherwise, the police will come after me." I reassure him and get ready to hear the story of his life.
Aqeel was born in 1972. Presently, he is the proud father of five children, three sons and two daughters. His eldest child is his son, Mohammad Riaz, who is fourteen years old and his youngest child is a daughter, Maria, who is only two and a half years old.
His first act of illegal migration was when he came to Pakistan from his native country, Bangladesh. He came to Karachi via India, in 1991. Aqeel paid an agent Rs.3000 to reach the Indian border and then an additional Rs.200 to a subagent who dropped him to Delhi in a small, cramped colony behind the Red Fort. In Delhi, he was a fruit seller by day and a Rickshaw driver by night and he earned about Rs.130 a day. He also married a distant cousin in Delhi, Razia, whom he liked and his family approved of and facilitated the match.
His wife's cousin advised him to migrate to Pakistan for he could easily earn about 20-25000 rupees a month. In search of greener pastures, Habib found an agent in Delhi and paid him Rs.15000 for four people; his wife and infant son were also included in the package. They boarded a bus with their group and reached the Indian-Pakistan border at about one am at night. Their group consisted of seventy people and all of them hid in a huge wheat field. There was no water and soon the group was discovered by the Indian army.
The Indian army beat them up and enquired about their agent. A child identified the agent and the agent was then thrashed by the Indian soldiers. Only one tight slap landed on Aqeel's cheek while his baby continued to sleep peacefully on his lap. The Indian army let the group eventually cross the border in bunches, through the Rajasthan desert. Camel dwellers fed them food and looked after them in the Rajasthan desert. In the night, they hid in a thick jungle and found a bus in the morning that promised to drop them off to Bahawalpur, situated in the province of Punjab in Pakistan, for 4000 rupees. They reached Bahawalpur, sat in a rickety house and waited for the agent to come and collect them. The agent bought train tickets for Aqeel and his family and they reached Karachi.
Aqeel remembers vividly that in the year 1991, Benazir Bhutto started her first tenure as the prime minister of Pakistan. In Karachi, the Bangladeshi community embraced Aqeel and helped him and his family to settle down. He started with a welding job and learned the craft of polishing and painting. After nine years of hard work, Aqeel had collected a sum of nine hundred thousand rupees. He was now restless again and had heard that many people from Pakistan had reached Italy, the land where streets were paved with gold.
He found out that the route from Pakistan to Italy was by crossing the borders of Iran, Turkey, Greece and then reach Rome, his final destination. His relatives in Italy were employed in stitching jobs in a garment factory and were earning 3000 euros a month. His relatives told him to pay four to five hundred thousand rupees to the agent of the total one million rupees that the agent demanded and the rest of the amount would be taken care by them. According to Aqeel, it was not difficult to cross Teheran by road but the most difficult border was the crossing of the Turkish border, where he and his group reached in a Suzuki van. They hid in the most dangerous mountain, where they stayed for two days in icy temperatures, thinking they would all die. The agent kept on telling them, " The car will come." But it never came and their group became hungrier as their snacks had finished. The group of 250 people threatened to beat up their two agents. And then one hour later, the van finally arrived. The agents took Aqeel and his group through the same mountain in the van and gave one piece of bread and potato, to each one of them. The agent further divided the group making subgroups of 20-25 people. Aqeel was taken along with his subgroup to a house in the mountain which belonged to a Turk who served them good food.
Aqeel's group started their trek and spent seven days and nights on foot. Aqeel saw bones and skeletons of people on his way while trying to cross the dangerous Salamis border. On the way, his group was discovered by the Turkish army who asked for ten dollars per person. Aqeel and the group responded by, " No dollars." They started butting their rifle into Aqeel's tired body, " Five dollars or will KILL you." The agent advised them to cough out the money.
They proceeded to walk and stopped to rest inside the mountain. Four days passed without food and Aqeel lived on rationed water. Aqeel licked his small stock of tamarind so that he would feel less thirsty. By this time, two people had already died while three men were missing from his group. Aqeel was incapable of fighting the harsh conditions and screamed, " Take me back home or to Istanbul." Aqeel's uncle had broken his foot and became all wet. No one could walk anymore. The agent started hitting everyone," FASTER...Walk faster... The army will catch you." The agent ran away as the group could not keep up with his pace. After their agent's desertion, Aqeel and the leftovers of his group were on their own. Time had lost meaning for them as they trudged along on a bed of ice. At last, they spotted a light and reached a house. They saw the local people of the village and asked for their help. Families came and offered them water and shelter in the local school. In the local school, they were served tea and fruit. The school master did not fully comprehend the English language. The group wrote down their Istanbul numbers and the number of the house of the main agent in Istanbul. They talked to the main agent who promised to send them a car before morning prayers.
In the meantime, someone informed the police. The army arrived; about hundred soldiers entered the school compound. The army men dragged them to cars and when they reached the army camp, the soldiers stripped them naked and beat them again and again. They locked them up for two days and three nights without food and water. They were not allowed to use a toilet. Aqeel broke his hand. The higher official arrived and he made a movie of them. They finger printed them and took their foot prints. The army kept the pictures and deported the group back to the Iranian border. The army men dragged them into a hot, boiling container. Aqeel yelled, "Hit me, kill me but take me out of this hell hole." No one listened. He and the group endured the heat for another day, without food or water, and were sent to Iran via Iraq border.
They reached the Iraq border by foot and were passed on to the Iranian border where the police gave them water, tang juice and bread for everyone. One Iranian man gave money to the police and took the group in a large van into a jungle. There he locked them all up and demanded three hundred dollars to release them. This man was one of the shepherds who fleece money from people traveling illegally and was hand in glove with the police. Four people including Aqeel, gave him their account numbers and were released and taken to the main agent in Teheran in a bus. The agent received them in Teheran and later on, all of them ran away to Karachi.
Aqeel reached Karachi with blue nails, a limp hand and a ragged body. This was the finale of his first attempt to reach Rome. He heard from the agent that many of the men in his group had died, some of them were hurt and others who had survived like him were trying to recover physically, emotionally and financially from their failed attempt to reach Italy. On his second attempt to reach Rome, he touched the border of Athens. The Greek army deported Aqeel from Athens to Turkey in an oxygen container where he was confined for twenty five hours. The Greeks hit Aqeel less than the Turks and even gave him a little food. From Turkey onwards, he received the same treatment, and then came back to Karachi. On his third attempt, Aqeel reached Istanbul but the agent's house was raided. On his fourth attempt, he was again caught on the Turkish border.
Aqeel is tired and he feels all his money has been spent on trying to fulfill his dream of reaching the land of gold. He is trying to suppress his desires and wishes all the best to his lucky relatives who have fulfilled their dreams. He has more or less accepted his fate as living and dying in Pakistan. But he wishes that he will meet his parents in Bangladesh and has an opportunity to look after them and serve them before they die.
Go to http://flightpaths.net/bb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11 to leave a comment.
I have referred to Aqeel ur Rahman as Aqeel Polishwalla for as long as I have had my furniture polished by him, which is almost every year since the past thirteen years of my married life. He is a short, agile man with a grained, swarthy complexion. His thick jet black hair is constantly ruffled and he walks in a real hurry. Aqeel is a natural story teller and can entertain anyone for hours. His voice resonates with mirth, sorrow and countless emotions that he has lived through in his eventful life.
My husband has often warned me not to succumb to his charms, "He is a double edged weapon....A smooth operator.... You know money is everything to him. He tries to delay everything unnecessarily. Another trick to make extra bucks as he charges us a daily wage." I silently agree. And think to myself, "So do most of the people in Pakistan who find it difficult to make their ends meet."
Aqeel sits cross-legged on the chair, opposite me, on the narrow kitchen table. He speaks in a heavy Bengali accent, " Baji (sister), I feel really privileged to be interviewed and have my story on the English internet if it can help other people. But don't publish it in Pakistan and certainly not my photograph; otherwise, the police will come after me." I reassure him and get ready to hear the story of his life.
Aqeel was born in 1972. Presently, he is the proud father of five children, three sons and two daughters. His eldest child is his son, Mohammad Riaz, who is fourteen years old and his youngest child is a daughter, Maria, who is only two and a half years old.
His first act of illegal migration was when he came to Pakistan from his native country, Bangladesh. He came to Karachi via India, in 1991. Aqeel paid an agent Rs.3000 to reach the Indian border and then an additional Rs.200 to a subagent who dropped him to Delhi in a small, cramped colony behind the Red Fort. In Delhi, he was a fruit seller by day and a Rickshaw driver by night and he earned about Rs.130 a day. He also married a distant cousin in Delhi, Razia, whom he liked and his family approved of and facilitated the match.
His wife's cousin advised him to migrate to Pakistan for he could easily earn about 20-25000 rupees a month. In search of greener pastures, Habib found an agent in Delhi and paid him Rs.15000 for four people; his wife and infant son were also included in the package. They boarded a bus with their group and reached the Indian-Pakistan border at about one am at night. Their group consisted of seventy people and all of them hid in a huge wheat field. There was no water and soon the group was discovered by the Indian army.
The Indian army beat them up and enquired about their agent. A child identified the agent and the agent was then thrashed by the Indian soldiers. Only one tight slap landed on Aqeel's cheek while his baby continued to sleep peacefully on his lap. The Indian army let the group eventually cross the border in bunches, through the Rajasthan desert. Camel dwellers fed them food and looked after them in the Rajasthan desert. In the night, they hid in a thick jungle and found a bus in the morning that promised to drop them off to Bahawalpur, situated in the province of Punjab in Pakistan, for 4000 rupees. They reached Bahawalpur, sat in a rickety house and waited for the agent to come and collect them. The agent bought train tickets for Aqeel and his family and they reached Karachi.
Aqeel remembers vividly that in the year 1991, Benazir Bhutto started her first tenure as the prime minister of Pakistan. In Karachi, the Bangladeshi community embraced Aqeel and helped him and his family to settle down. He started with a welding job and learned the craft of polishing and painting. After nine years of hard work, Aqeel had collected a sum of nine hundred thousand rupees. He was now restless again and had heard that many people from Pakistan had reached Italy, the land where streets were paved with gold.
He found out that the route from Pakistan to Italy was by crossing the borders of Iran, Turkey, Greece and then reach Rome, his final destination. His relatives in Italy were employed in stitching jobs in a garment factory and were earning 3000 euros a month. His relatives told him to pay four to five hundred thousand rupees to the agent of the total one million rupees that the agent demanded and the rest of the amount would be taken care by them. According to Aqeel, it was not difficult to cross Teheran by road but the most difficult border was the crossing of the Turkish border, where he and his group reached in a Suzuki van. They hid in the most dangerous mountain, where they stayed for two days in icy temperatures, thinking they would all die. The agent kept on telling them, " The car will come." But it never came and their group became hungrier as their snacks had finished. The group of 250 people threatened to beat up their two agents. And then one hour later, the van finally arrived. The agents took Aqeel and his group through the same mountain in the van and gave one piece of bread and potato, to each one of them. The agent further divided the group making subgroups of 20-25 people. Aqeel was taken along with his subgroup to a house in the mountain which belonged to a Turk who served them good food.
Aqeel's group started their trek and spent seven days and nights on foot. Aqeel saw bones and skeletons of people on his way while trying to cross the dangerous Salamis border. On the way, his group was discovered by the Turkish army who asked for ten dollars per person. Aqeel and the group responded by, " No dollars." They started butting their rifle into Aqeel's tired body, " Five dollars or will KILL you." The agent advised them to cough out the money.
They proceeded to walk and stopped to rest inside the mountain. Four days passed without food and Aqeel lived on rationed water. Aqeel licked his small stock of tamarind so that he would feel less thirsty. By this time, two people had already died while three men were missing from his group. Aqeel was incapable of fighting the harsh conditions and screamed, " Take me back home or to Istanbul." Aqeel's uncle had broken his foot and became all wet. No one could walk anymore. The agent started hitting everyone," FASTER...Walk faster... The army will catch you." The agent ran away as the group could not keep up with his pace. After their agent's desertion, Aqeel and the leftovers of his group were on their own. Time had lost meaning for them as they trudged along on a bed of ice. At last, they spotted a light and reached a house. They saw the local people of the village and asked for their help. Families came and offered them water and shelter in the local school. In the local school, they were served tea and fruit. The school master did not fully comprehend the English language. The group wrote down their Istanbul numbers and the number of the house of the main agent in Istanbul. They talked to the main agent who promised to send them a car before morning prayers.
In the meantime, someone informed the police. The army arrived; about hundred soldiers entered the school compound. The army men dragged them to cars and when they reached the army camp, the soldiers stripped them naked and beat them again and again. They locked them up for two days and three nights without food and water. They were not allowed to use a toilet. Aqeel broke his hand. The higher official arrived and he made a movie of them. They finger printed them and took their foot prints. The army kept the pictures and deported the group back to the Iranian border. The army men dragged them into a hot, boiling container. Aqeel yelled, "Hit me, kill me but take me out of this hell hole." No one listened. He and the group endured the heat for another day, without food or water, and were sent to Iran via Iraq border.
They reached the Iraq border by foot and were passed on to the Iranian border where the police gave them water, tang juice and bread for everyone. One Iranian man gave money to the police and took the group in a large van into a jungle. There he locked them all up and demanded three hundred dollars to release them. This man was one of the shepherds who fleece money from people traveling illegally and was hand in glove with the police. Four people including Aqeel, gave him their account numbers and were released and taken to the main agent in Teheran in a bus. The agent received them in Teheran and later on, all of them ran away to Karachi.
Aqeel reached Karachi with blue nails, a limp hand and a ragged body. This was the finale of his first attempt to reach Rome. He heard from the agent that many of the men in his group had died, some of them were hurt and others who had survived like him were trying to recover physically, emotionally and financially from their failed attempt to reach Italy. On his second attempt to reach Rome, he touched the border of Athens. The Greek army deported Aqeel from Athens to Turkey in an oxygen container where he was confined for twenty five hours. The Greeks hit Aqeel less than the Turks and even gave him a little food. From Turkey onwards, he received the same treatment, and then came back to Karachi. On his third attempt, Aqeel reached Istanbul but the agent's house was raided. On his fourth attempt, he was again caught on the Turkish border.
Aqeel is tired and he feels all his money has been spent on trying to fulfill his dream of reaching the land of gold. He is trying to suppress his desires and wishes all the best to his lucky relatives who have fulfilled their dreams. He has more or less accepted his fate as living and dying in Pakistan. But he wishes that he will meet his parents in Bangladesh and has an opportunity to look after them and serve them before they die.
Go to http://flightpaths.net/bb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11 to leave a comment.
Harriet knew that she had to go to the supermarket today, otherwise her family would starve. Well, not starve, exactly. All things taken into consideration, it was probably true that in the event of a war or cataclysm of some kind, there was enough food in the house to last for - how long? She thought about it. The pantry cupboard. The fridge. The freezer. The cupboard full of storage jars. The cupboard full of breakfast cereal. The cupboard under the stairs that no one ever looked in. The shelf where she kept the tins. The bits and pieces she grew in the garden. It was quite tricky to figure out how long all this would keep the five of them alive. It would be at least two months, maybe even three, before they got down to eating those jars of red wine preserves her mother gave her several years ago. The bramble vinegar. The peas that had fallen out of their bag and were rolling around in the bottom drawer of the freezer. The tahini that was older than her eldest child. Except that wasn't the point; the fact that there was already a ton of food in her house and she was on her way to buy more was not the point. While there were plenty of wars and cataclysms happening elsewhere, as far as Harriet knew Richmond was its usual placid, well-fed self this week.
So, stuck in traffic in the one-way system, Harriet talked herself down. She knew she had to go to the supermarket today, otherwise her family would be annoyed. That was the truth of it. They were used to a continual supply of good-looking fruit and fresh bread. They were accustomed to the well-stocked larder. They expected their meals. They knew that fairies did not replenish the cupboards in the night, but how why when and where the food came from was not something that interested them.
It was not something that interested Harriet either. But she did the shopping anyway. If she didn't, who would? Well, Greg probably would, but having to do it wouldn't make him happy. But it didn't make her happy either! Still, this was a truly pointless line of thought.
And the traffic had finally begun moving.
from Kate, May 2008
Go to Forum - Story - Characters to leave a comment.
So, stuck in traffic in the one-way system, Harriet talked herself down. She knew she had to go to the supermarket today, otherwise her family would be annoyed. That was the truth of it. They were used to a continual supply of good-looking fruit and fresh bread. They were accustomed to the well-stocked larder. They expected their meals. They knew that fairies did not replenish the cupboards in the night, but how why when and where the food came from was not something that interested them.
It was not something that interested Harriet either. But she did the shopping anyway. If she didn't, who would? Well, Greg probably would, but having to do it wouldn't make him happy. But it didn't make her happy either! Still, this was a truly pointless line of thought.
And the traffic had finally begun moving.
from Kate, May 2008
Go to Forum - Story - Characters to leave a comment.
from Jeremy J.H.
It was during 5th period honors history. Our teacher Mr Hale was usually a jolly kumquat of a man with too tight pants, a penchant for mismatched socks and a blob of mayo on the corner of his lip from lunch that was a pale island rising whenever he laughed at his own jokes. He was clearly distressed. The only time before that he had seemed so awkwardly discombobulated was when he found a piece of lettuce had fallen into his pocket and,flecked with mustard, was waving along as he spoke like a hand.
He paced awkwardly for a few moments by his wooden desk then 2 students came in with a television and helped him plug it in.
A pale worm-like cloud was descending in a deep blue sky. It was on every channel. The cloud was red then gray until one small lonely bit spun in close ups for what seemed like forever. We had no idea what was going on.
Until it cut to people. It was the shuttle. It had exploded. The trail slowly faded as it fell. My seat felt cold against me as it replayed.
It was during 5th period honors history. Our teacher Mr Hale was usually a jolly kumquat of a man with too tight pants, a penchant for mismatched socks and a blob of mayo on the corner of his lip from lunch that was a pale island rising whenever he laughed at his own jokes. He was clearly distressed. The only time before that he had seemed so awkwardly discombobulated was when he found a piece of lettuce had fallen into his pocket and,flecked with mustard, was waving along as he spoke like a hand.
He paced awkwardly for a few moments by his wooden desk then 2 students came in with a television and helped him plug it in.
A pale worm-like cloud was descending in a deep blue sky. It was on every channel. The cloud was red then gray until one small lonely bit spun in close ups for what seemed like forever. We had no idea what was going on.
Until it cut to people. It was the shuttle. It had exploded. The trail slowly faded as it fell. My seat felt cold against me as it replayed.
Storie Migranti ( http://193.204.255.27/~migranti/spip.php?rubrique28 ) is an archive of migration stories, which tracks the history of our present through migrants’ stories.
Listen to Simon Perril read his poem at http://www.poetcasting.co.uk/sperril/theimmigrantsongsperril.mp3
not a moment sooner, my cloud
this is real time
with the aspic to prove it
Hotel & Golf Complex
Oakington Barracks
Immigration Reception Centre
driving through a fractal landscape
hedge-shaped bets: a ghost coast
lining the outskirts of silicon fen.
wthin this tucked hem
complex weapons harness ancient magnetism:
draw fire from their pen
accommodating fear houses
locked horns
spark contemporary demonology
the hammer of statecraft
the right-handed script
all too legible
Valhalla I am coming
by Simon Perril, from Hearing is Itself Suddenly a Kind of Singing, Salt, 2004
not a moment sooner, my cloud
this is real time
with the aspic to prove it
Hotel & Golf Complex
Oakington Barracks
Immigration Reception Centre
driving through a fractal landscape
hedge-shaped bets: a ghost coast
lining the outskirts of silicon fen.
wthin this tucked hem
complex weapons harness ancient magnetism:
draw fire from their pen
accommodating fear houses
locked horns
spark contemporary demonology
the hammer of statecraft
the right-handed script
all too legible
Valhalla I am coming
by Simon Perril, from Hearing is Itself Suddenly a Kind of Singing, Salt, 2004
from Jeremy J.H.
What does a pilot think when he knows that he is about to crash? What thoughts move through the mind before the descent?
I had a dream once in class after reading stories of WW 1 and WW 2 air warfare for a general education history class.
A pilot had his plane riddled with bullets and both engines failing. His plane was about to disintegrate. He floated above farmlands. The sky was a cruel postcard blue.
He muttered to himself "I hope I don't hit one of the farm houses, some family having dinner, potatoes and some meat and then..."
The plane halted in the air for an instant as I surely drooled a lake on my desk.
The dream switched to an image of peacocks , unfurling their feathers with patterns in a flash of display.
I woke up to a discussion of something about evasive maneuvers with pictures of pilots the professor seemed to see narratives in that were not really there, not to that extent.
I thought later about the odd second part of that dream as I rode the bus home. There was a book I read as a kid. It was one of those old books on fantastic spooky things, ghost stories and weird science, the stories that should have been left in comic books. One section described a supposed story of scientists that believed every cell in the body had the potential for sight as our eyes before birth evolve from simple cells.
The story was that they held cards about to people's skin. The cards had numbers, letters, simple line drawings. Supposedly about two thirds of the time they got the answers right. That was the second part of the dream.
The peacock unfurling has plumage of multiple ovals opening that otherwise cannot be seen. In an odd dream soup metaphor sort of way it was the pilot.
In his demise his plane may have exploded, his body in that instant like the peacock unfurling, a hundred eyes.
What does a pilot think when he knows that he is about to crash? What thoughts move through the mind before the descent?
I had a dream once in class after reading stories of WW 1 and WW 2 air warfare for a general education history class.
A pilot had his plane riddled with bullets and both engines failing. His plane was about to disintegrate. He floated above farmlands. The sky was a cruel postcard blue.
He muttered to himself "I hope I don't hit one of the farm houses, some family having dinner, potatoes and some meat and then..."
The plane halted in the air for an instant as I surely drooled a lake on my desk.
The dream switched to an image of peacocks , unfurling their feathers with patterns in a flash of display.
I woke up to a discussion of something about evasive maneuvers with pictures of pilots the professor seemed to see narratives in that were not really there, not to that extent.
I thought later about the odd second part of that dream as I rode the bus home. There was a book I read as a kid. It was one of those old books on fantastic spooky things, ghost stories and weird science, the stories that should have been left in comic books. One section described a supposed story of scientists that believed every cell in the body had the potential for sight as our eyes before birth evolve from simple cells.
The story was that they held cards about to people's skin. The cards had numbers, letters, simple line drawings. Supposedly about two thirds of the time they got the answers right. That was the second part of the dream.
The peacock unfurling has plumage of multiple ovals opening that otherwise cannot be seen. In an odd dream soup metaphor sort of way it was the pilot.
In his demise his plane may have exploded, his body in that instant like the peacock unfurling, a hundred eyes.
from Helen W, written in 1983
I just found a body in the boot of my car.
I came out of Sainsbury's and there it was.
It wouldn't have been so bad, except that
I'd just thrown my shopping in on top of it.
And there it lay,
Strawberry yoghurt staining its shirt,
Grapefruit juice (a special offer)
Slowly soaking into its sock
And an egg in its eye.
I didn't know quite what to do;
I'd only been away a few minutes.
It would be embarrassing to have a policeman
Sifting through my sugar and flour,
Frozen peas and Oven Crunchies
To get at the corpse.
Although, I didn't really fancy eating the tomatoes,
When I could see strands of hair sticking to them.
Finally, afraid that a crowd might gather,
I went and told Sainsbury's.
They were very nice about it really.
They lifted him out, groceries and all,
And wheeled him away in a trolley.
And they allowed me to replace my groceries,
Free of charge.
I last saw him wrapped in carrier bags
With the slogan on the side:
"Clean and fresh from Sainsbury's".
I just found a body in the boot of my car.
I came out of Sainsbury's and there it was.
It wouldn't have been so bad, except that
I'd just thrown my shopping in on top of it.
And there it lay,
Strawberry yoghurt staining its shirt,
Grapefruit juice (a special offer)
Slowly soaking into its sock
And an egg in its eye.
I didn't know quite what to do;
I'd only been away a few minutes.
It would be embarrassing to have a policeman
Sifting through my sugar and flour,
Frozen peas and Oven Crunchies
To get at the corpse.
Although, I didn't really fancy eating the tomatoes,
When I could see strands of hair sticking to them.
Finally, afraid that a crowd might gather,
I went and told Sainsbury's.
They were very nice about it really.
They lifted him out, groceries and all,
And wheeled him away in a trolley.
And they allowed me to replace my groceries,
Free of charge.
I last saw him wrapped in carrier bags
With the slogan on the side:
"Clean and fresh from Sainsbury's".
from Jeremy H
Cauterized. That is what the odd thing was. After enough time it all had cauterized and was as though there only a vague sense that anything had been torn away when I left.
As a kid I cut my thumb cutting watermelons. I still have a half moon shaped scar that is a faint sliver. It is the only thing that remains from not just the deep cut, but the moment and any memory at all. I am sure that my short term and long term memory would have cleaned house on that whole thing years ago, I mean how many times do young boys injure themselves playing? how could it be any kind of sepia tone or tragedy?
throwaway..
But a physical memory remains on my skin. A little curve.
Los Angeles has no arc from the cut of my flying back and forth , or of the drive with dad to San Francisco to finally go away to school. Why should it?
Oscar Wilde once declared his "genius" at a border. When I heard that in a lit class it saddened me. At first it was at the sheer pretension from a writer I thought was good, then it was from such a sense of presence.
Too much of a good thing is always bad. But I always feel like a sneeze at best, a spray of mist from a bottle, always have. I just want to have some place, some kind of presence. Now it is only as a visitor in a new city as a
tourist. What will come when I graduate? Will it be that feeling on the plane, of being a collection of information with no place, but now on the ground as well? Or will it just be a series of those sneezes, a city and people and me just drifting through somewhere....
Cauterized. That is what the odd thing was. After enough time it all had cauterized and was as though there only a vague sense that anything had been torn away when I left.
As a kid I cut my thumb cutting watermelons. I still have a half moon shaped scar that is a faint sliver. It is the only thing that remains from not just the deep cut, but the moment and any memory at all. I am sure that my short term and long term memory would have cleaned house on that whole thing years ago, I mean how many times do young boys injure themselves playing? how could it be any kind of sepia tone or tragedy?
throwaway..
But a physical memory remains on my skin. A little curve.
Los Angeles has no arc from the cut of my flying back and forth , or of the drive with dad to San Francisco to finally go away to school. Why should it?
Oscar Wilde once declared his "genius" at a border. When I heard that in a lit class it saddened me. At first it was at the sheer pretension from a writer I thought was good, then it was from such a sense of presence.
Too much of a good thing is always bad. But I always feel like a sneeze at best, a spray of mist from a bottle, always have. I just want to have some place, some kind of presence. Now it is only as a visitor in a new city as a
tourist. What will come when I graduate? Will it be that feeling on the plane, of being a collection of information with no place, but now on the ground as well? Or will it just be a series of those sneezes, a city and people and me just drifting through somewhere....
'Almost Gone' - Jeremy Hight
'A new sky' - Kate Pullinger
'An old story' - Kathz
'Approach' - Jeremy Hight
'Are you bothered?' - OxfamGreatBritain [http://www.youtube.com/user/OxfamGreatBritain]
'Asylum seekers tell their stories' - The Independent Asylum Commission and Human Rights TV via BBC News Online [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7314708.stm]
'At Melbourne Airport' - Lebusque [http://www.lebusque.com]
'Boeing 777 landing at Heathrow' - sunilr007 [http://www.youtube.com/user/sunilr007]
'Cauterized' - Jeremy Hight
'Challenger' - Jeremy Hight
'Clean and Fresh' - Helen W
'Driftwood' - Jeremy Hight
'Don't Hate Me Because I'm An Asylum Seeker' - lafamfilms [http://www.youtube.com/user/lafamfilms]
'Duty Free' - Lebusque [http://www.lebusque.com]
'End destitution of refused asylum seekers in the UK' - HumanTV [http://www.youtube.com/user/HumanTV]
'Falling Animation' - Chris Joseph
'Flying Home' / 'Flying Home 2' - Jeremy Hight
'Flying Home Remixed' - Kate Pullinger
'Global Flight Paths' - gletham [http://www.youtube.com/user/gletham]
'Goldstar' - zedex
'Gone' - Jeremy Hight
'Harriet Goes Shopping' - Kate Pullinger
'High' - Padrika Tarrant
'In Dubai' - Kate Pullinger
'In The Flight Path' - travelinlibrarian [http://www.youtube.com/user/travelinlibrarian]
'J Sainsburys' - adamjinj [http://www.flickr.com/photos/gingerblokey/]
'J Sainsbury' - Dominic's Pics [http://www.flickr.com/photos/dominicspics/]
'Peacocks' - Jeremy Hight
'Quiet Curling Fall' - Jeremy Hight
'Regeneration' - Crescent [http://www.flickr.com/photos/thecrescent/2127544436/]
'Santor' - Chris Joseph
'Seatbelt' - Sarah Atkinson
'Sound Up' - Lebusque [http://www.lebusque.com], NOISE.INC [http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=49629], Chris Joseph
'Sainsbury's - brand over literacy' - Francis Storr [http://www.flickr.com/photos/fstorr/62374861/]
Sainsbury's Richmond, 25/3/2008 - Chris Joseph
'Squared Planes' - Jeff Kubina [http://www.flickr.com/photos/kubina/]
'Sun Up' - lebusque [http://www.lebusque.com]
'The Angel Candle' - LauraRobs
'The Immigrant Song' - Simon Perril [http://www.poetcasting.co.uk/?p=93]
'Thermals' - Chris Joseph
'Words' - Chris Joseph
'Yacub in Dubai' - Kate Pullinger
'800iso' - Skuds [http://www.flickr.com/photos/skuds/]
'A new sky' - Kate Pullinger
'An old story' - Kathz
'Approach' - Jeremy Hight
'Are you bothered?' - OxfamGreatBritain [http://www.youtube.com/user/OxfamGreatBritain]
'Asylum seekers tell their stories' - The Independent Asylum Commission and Human Rights TV via BBC News Online [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7314708.stm]
'At Melbourne Airport' - Lebusque [http://www.lebusque.com]
'Boeing 777 landing at Heathrow' - sunilr007 [http://www.youtube.com/user/sunilr007]
'Cauterized' - Jeremy Hight
'Challenger' - Jeremy Hight
'Clean and Fresh' - Helen W
'Driftwood' - Jeremy Hight
'Don't Hate Me Because I'm An Asylum Seeker' - lafamfilms [http://www.youtube.com/user/lafamfilms]
'Duty Free' - Lebusque [http://www.lebusque.com]
'End destitution of refused asylum seekers in the UK' - HumanTV [http://www.youtube.com/user/HumanTV]
'Falling Animation' - Chris Joseph
'Flying Home' / 'Flying Home 2' - Jeremy Hight
'Flying Home Remixed' - Kate Pullinger
'Global Flight Paths' - gletham [http://www.youtube.com/user/gletham]
'Goldstar' - zedex
'Gone' - Jeremy Hight
'Harriet Goes Shopping' - Kate Pullinger
'High' - Padrika Tarrant
'In Dubai' - Kate Pullinger
'In The Flight Path' - travelinlibrarian [http://www.youtube.com/user/travelinlibrarian]
'J Sainsburys' - adamjinj [http://www.flickr.com/photos/gingerblokey/]
'J Sainsbury' - Dominic's Pics [http://www.flickr.com/photos/dominicspics/]
'Peacocks' - Jeremy Hight
'Quiet Curling Fall' - Jeremy Hight
'Regeneration' - Crescent [http://www.flickr.com/photos/thecrescent/2127544436/]
'Santor' - Chris Joseph
'Seatbelt' - Sarah Atkinson
'Sound Up' - Lebusque [http://www.lebusque.com], NOISE.INC [http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=49629], Chris Joseph
'Sainsbury's - brand over literacy' - Francis Storr [http://www.flickr.com/photos/fstorr/62374861/]
Sainsbury's Richmond, 25/3/2008 - Chris Joseph
'Squared Planes' - Jeff Kubina [http://www.flickr.com/photos/kubina/]
'Sun Up' - lebusque [http://www.lebusque.com]
'The Angel Candle' - LauraRobs
'The Immigrant Song' - Simon Perril [http://www.poetcasting.co.uk/?p=93]
'Thermals' - Chris Joseph
'Words' - Chris Joseph
'Yacub in Dubai' - Kate Pullinger
'800iso' - Skuds [http://www.flickr.com/photos/skuds/]
netvibes
RSS