A glamorous orange skyline met the gaze transcending the long rooftop terrace bar window ten minutes back. The sky now turned murkier, putrid, soiled by the clouds, the stain a stale specimen of lemon vinaigrette: a sepia photograph, hardly wanting of expertise, merely point ‘nd click, careful not to smudge or leave fingermarks, careful to avoid the follies of the sloppy Eugene Atget fingerwork, the golden age Parisian stills: a sepia photograph set to motion in the Buster Keaton two-reelers over horns and strings, or in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street over a synthesized soundscape.
Greed is good. Alliterations. A cheap jab. I like this one:
Gone too from the world, Averroes and Moses Maimonides, dark men in mien and movement, flashing in their mocking mirrors the obscure soul of the world, a darkness shining in brightness which brightness could not comprehend.
The bar attendant appears bored, smartphone the live long. Though without a measure of time, I estimate between 19 and 20 hours. And drinking coffee. Abuse. For the elevated caffeine, I will likely pay the tribute. In prose, naturally.
The coffee follows a gigantic, nearly inedible slush of a banana, following a gigantically delicious quinoa salad, prepared two days prior, expiring two days hence. When in Lima, must necessarily eat not as the Limenians: lest consequences follow: lest I no longer discern the gregarious arm veins. No.~Even if that reality were possible, we don’t live in it. Borrowed film quote.
She now plays table football with her first-mate, an evident volunteer, German. Both German. They told me such yesterday in the midst of my lethargic discourse gravitating towards the bizarre: the modernist bizarre, not the Lovecraftian. Lethargy. Half madness, half elation. That tower looks hand-sketched; the backdrop, a hand-sketched sky. Better: painted. Painted tower, painted sky. Or stencil work. Coleridge, Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. One has to be in the mood for a ballad.
Tainted Love. A transistor-tube sized Bluetooth speaker, party lights ablaze, the Foosball table of mayhem, bar unoccupied, no other patrons but the smartphone scrolling South-American nomad who shared the push-up floor plate this morning. Effective light strengthening. Must shed superfluous matter consuming my intestines and blood stream. I’d not normally appeal to such phrasing if not under the spell of Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. Endlessly relished.
In spite of all, solidity, for the moment. The calisthenics helped: middle of the lawn, atop the roof. The cat watched, then played with a sandal, then dozed off next to the leg of the chair I employed in the exaggerated inverse push-up routine, particular to maintain slight tactile contact with the swerving leg. That. And the draining self-guided tour across the intense and immense alleys of central Lima, sun scorching, opportunists opportuning, skylarks sauntering in the celestial corridors, guards enforcing Labyrinthine roundabouts. Unavoidable.
This time, well hydrated: two-and-a-half liters carried in the pocket-sized foldable nylon backpack: seams under pressure, enough to endure the Namibian marathon.
A mildly impressive church. Iglesia de la Merced. The electric augmentations saw no concealment effort, the interior diluted: amidst the religious framework, the electric candlelight on walls and chandeliers, the speakers, the sensors of sorts whose function I can’t assert. Prefer the Mexican cathedral.
I’ve not even the basic button phone now. No sim card. At least in Peru, for the interim. Will likely complicate correspondence. But I stake it’s manageable. Though I’m not keen on the pay phone boxes installed and neglected across the conglomerate. Let’s try to appreciate the disconnect an incremental notch yet.
Questions, comments? Connect.