May 31st 2010    Tim Candler

    Probably it is crude oil on the feathers of Brown Pelican six hundred miles south of where I live.   About the distance from Cardiff to Aberdeen and about the distance from Soroti to Nairobi, and about the distance from Hyderabad to Lahore.   And probably it is an understanding that puts human enterprise into the category of  joke, and puts me into the category of maladjusted.

     Some will argue that I am disloyal, uncommitted to the fate of the species to which I belong.  They will suggest that I possess a selfishness that joins with arrogance to form an untenable social mathematics the consequence of which sends me directly to the camps of the undesirable.  I am the bad soldier filled by the unholy, my grail cynicism.   And of course they are absolutely correct, until the mirror turns, and then it becomes a continuum between opposites where we stare at each other in anger and rally, because theater requires it.

   And yes I am a big fan of the electric light, the dehumidifier, the motorcar and ice cream.  Coffee and chocolate.  Oranges from the South Seas.  Nutmeg.  Turkish Delight.  Nor can I walk past a a well packaged plastic seed dispenser without awe and wonder.   As well I can drive six hundred miles without paying bribes, risking kidnap or the bullets of those who own certainty.

    So I think sometimes I am a hypocrite.   And I think sometimes that I am chicken crossing the road.

Previous    Next