Named after the greeting offered mine host every morning by a housemate, before both of us have had coffee and are lacking the ability to string together sentances.

22.4.08

a bit too much

I had a story once, you know. I was going to write this big thing about corruption. At the end, there might have been redemption, just like at the end of all of it, there might be redemption. So life the story, as I would have left off when the protagonist takes his first towards redeption--dare I ruin the suprise--possibly his last. But that's kind of not how it works. Every day we have the option to forgive, to forget, to be cheated or to cheat back. Every day, in every moment, we take steps. We are not stationary beings.

And now for something not entirely different.

The municipal building, the city hall, if you will, of Bahía Blanca is stately, european. It is a tall building, but much wider than tall. It is a wide building, but not awquardly so. It stands sombrely, housing everything from the disgruntled, antisocial employees who handle zoning to the disgruntled, antisocial employees who mark bus routes. It is cold to the eye--chalky blue up to the roof, where the slate slats imported, archetectually speaking, from France, from England, from everywhere but Argentina take over. Its a building that makes you shudder and chove your hands into your coat. It seems out of place, right now, across the street from the central plaza, with its northern palms and lush lawns. It looks better when all you see are the white taxis circling it, the black asphalt moat, the cloudy atlantic sky above and behind it. This is the hub of the city. Today it is on fire, as we change from summer to autumn. The trees beside it release a chute of yellows, absurdly bright yellows, beside it. The building cannot compete with the leaves, whose slow spirals make them everything the building isn't. For all its stately slate, for all its harsh and eternal winter, city hall can't hold a candle. The leaves fall with caprice, burning their way into the soles of the bahiense below.
Watching them fall, I feel like the oldest man in the room, watching The Wizard of Oz in colour for the first time.

1 Comments:

Blogger Chase said...

I'm so glad you're writing again! We should find some time to talk via Skype once I get myself settled in the town of Charleston (where they worship Calhoun).

-Chase

04 May, 2008 23:01

 

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