A Thousand Plateaus

the thousand backing voices weaving one sonic quilt in midlake’s “roscoe” are singing with a mixture of jubilation and desperation while i’m riding the bike home. they are driven by the same urgency that makes me head home. it’s three in the morning and i’m fascinated by how the street lamps create and release my shadow on the asphalt as i’m passing below them haphazardly : i look down, don’t really mind the street, observing how one fading shadow is displaced by another one fading in, growing darker and darker and then dying away again.

“do you think they enjoy the view” i asked nodding at the aquarium and looking to the cathedral in the dark distance.
“you’re always so funny!” is the - sadly serious and totally unironic - answer, and then “come, let me show you the newborns!”
i kneel in front of the glass.
“see, these silver ones are the babies of this big one…” tap tap “and of those little black ones…” tap tap “…there were twenty five, but most of them got eaten.” more taps against the glass and each time the fish - shimmering in the candle light like oil patches on the street - startle and make an abrupt turn. “and those golden ones i like the best…” tap tap and i have a hard time to keep myself from taking those delicate tapping fingers and breaking each one with a thickening ‘crack’ like a brittle branch. i know the fish would be thankful!

later i find an excuse to dress and drive back home in the middle of the night.
“you know…” i’m being told “if i wouldn’t know better i’d say you’re married and an angry wife is waiting at home for you…” i take the last sip of the white wine that has room temperature by now and swallow down the “i wish it was so.”

1891 they roamed around foraged
They made their house from cedars
They made their house from stone
Well they’re a little like you
And they’re a little like me
We have all we need