Monday 30 March 2009

Three sentences - One dialogue

The other day during my space/place class, the lady asked us think of a place which I visited a long time ago, and try to describe by the smell, colors, and some decor. Immediately I thought of that place which I have in my heart somehow unconsciously as the place I would definitely long for but never will go back. Interestingly enough, now I noticed it is a 'non-place' as Marc Auge would term it, a place we share the same but temporary identity as we are in transit from a departure to an immediate future. As I was writing down the words, definitely before which I picture myself again in the place, but this time with a deliberate sense to discern or to recollect the details of the place and the hypnotic experience given out by them. And suddenly, I almost burst into tears, and I found myself invaded by the most clear and vivid memory, or rather de javu ever, as if I have leaped out my body from 'here' and 'now' back to 'there' and 'then', and relive that static historical moment in a fleeting moment. Than I was called back to the task.

She then asked us to think of one person from now who we do not have particular feelings, neither love nor disgust, and to place the one in the place we thought of before, and picture him some action, say what he is wearing, and what he is doing. I thought of you, but no, I realized it would be against the rule. So, I picture the one who looks like you, but in the same cloth you were wearing that day, the same travel bag on back, and the same gesture standing in front of the window, looking into the distance.

Then, as the instruction goes, two years passed and I return to this place. Quite unlike what the lady told us that the place has changed significantly, I confidently and firmly insisted in my description that this place doesn't change in its milieu, other than the absence of the Other. She asked us to think of a sound, belonging to the place, or better indigenous to this place, and describe its quality. Somehow, I found my description is rather tampered with my complex feelings toward this place, and confused myself with its authentic quality.

Finally, she asked us to represent this person in the place in the two years after, but rather a gesture of the one approaching me. And then a conversation takes place between us. This person asked my a question; my response to his question; and last his response to my response.
I found myself writing three lines as follow:

TOM: Are you still that crazy?
ME: Why don't you find it out yourself?
TOM: ...

Time hasn't healed me over, has it?

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