Status Updates From Pot na jug

..So each emerging constellation brings in its wake whole networks of images—highly diverse networks that penetrate all real and dream worlds, in which we may occasionally glimpse a common, dreamlike pattern.

I heard the hum of the current from which characters of all alphabets emerge like crystals, and which throws them into clusters, so making words and sentences out of them; their constellations then refer back to the current that formed them, a current whose life endures in them. Also, over distances of space and time, they refer to and call to one another. ..

Or that the journey had a single center, but that this center was a void, and that the light that lay across objects was the silent light of emptiness, the glow of nothingness. But emptiness, too, can take many different forms; its light transforms, as if the void knows different times of day.

It’s also possible that the journey has had many destinations, and many centers; that the light that served to illuminate things came from more than one point; that rays from many sources were reflected in objects, and crossed, merged, and strengthened …

...and that all I experienced in the days to come was variations on the notes of that nighttime music of the platform—notes of expectation, restlessness, anxiety, and a strange happiness.

As we traveled, I sometimes had the feeling that the whole journey was contained in the marionette-like movements of the figures in the cold bluish light, or words echoing through the station, thereby acquiring a strange, even eerie meaning, or the fluttering of a bird’s wings up by the glass vault, and other things besides; ...

...a whirl of unfinished monster images, heading for the light and searching for their finite form, with no guarantee that they will reach it, that they will not remain forever in the larval stage; the hum of words that are but convolutions of unknown sounds; and rippling tangles of lines, in which future characters can only be guessed at.

the continuous transition of the void into shapes, and the blending of these shapes; the agonizing yet delightful surf of twisting, merging, and disintegrating lines; the sounds and scents from which words, images, and objects are born, and into which they crumble back; ...

In this form, the sea, in invisible waves, poured itself out on the shore, so becoming part of the urban space, the streets, the houses and apartments, embracing all things and faces, sharing in every gesture and act; in conversations, it was heard in the gaps between words.

...To do so, I would have to push through all the torn drapery of the past it was caught up in, and even then I would find it cold and indifferent.

Now, when it seemed that our journey was ending, Kristýna’s body had reemerged; like a drawing hitherto concealed, its relief standing out beneath the duvet in a tangle of white folds. It seemed as if the light on the duvet was a faint remnant of a glow from the sleeping body. I reached for the glowing body, but I was afraid to touch it: ...

In Pula, I had experienced my much-yearned-for sea as little more than a strip of shiny ribbon, espied at the far end of a street, vanishing behind a wall. Still, I understood that this brief, glittering apparition was one of the languages in which the sea sought to tell me something important about my life, and I was sorry that I hadn’t had time to figure it out

These currents share with actual rivers an ability to change their bed; the lake of emptiness, from which they flow, contains millions of possible rivers of all kinds and millions of possible beds carved by a river’s course.

he had also realized that the figures that appear in the life of things are secondary to something else; they are like meanders, drawing a river’s course in the landscape; they are traces of currents of the life-giving, indifferent void, creating things, spaces, bodies, and thoughts.

...each thing is spun only from its strange affinities and images, in which other images and affinities are contained. And these affinities may be linked to things and beings from distant continents, strange planets, the undersea realm, dreams, or the world of good and wicked fairy tales.

he realized that things we encounter emerge not in isolation but woven into magic nets. As each thing emerges, by some mysterious rule, so, too, do all the things and beings associated with it, and we may see these on the face of things;...

These images were connected by thousands of golden threads running through every word, syllable, and character. Grown out of the exploded void, these threads ran through the entire world, making remarkable connections, weaving the world’s fabric.

It was necessary to show that the book didn’t exist in isolation, that like each of its parts—stories, images, words, characters—it was part of an endless network, a galaxy of images in which some were close by, others extremely far away, and still others inside, in the worlds of its interior.

Tomáš’s book had its origins in what spurted forth from nothingness, but as time passed it somehow forgot this; it broke away from the welling-up of emptiness from which it had been born and closed in on itself. It wasn’t of the void, although it owed its existence to it.

Little did he know - or maybe he refused to acknowledge - that there are no pure story streams; all stories are scary, all come from a single strange-smelling wellspring that seeps into the folds of things and collects in dirty corners of the spaces we inhabit, all trace patterns of desire and fear that aren't even ours but those of a monster whose dream is our life.

He deliberated whether love, returning after many years like a painful, penetrative string, was more important than peace in which to do concentrated, solitary work.

She stood like this for a long time - not because she was afraid of death, but because she still wished to revel in the peace and joy she hadn't felt for so long.

This woman's expression made him think most of all of sorrow , but also of great strength lying fallow in an empty life, as well as compassion grown out of a sense of overwhelming futility.

...lodged in the intimate space of his childhood, on the flipside of world events, and which was shyly offering him an accumulated treasure.

Last night, in the solemn calm of the green room, a large portion of a love that had drawn him into so many awkward, undignified situations had dissolved; now, in the pure light of early morning, he saw that his love contained something more than foolishness and a childish fascination with a mystery that was possibly fake - there was also a longing that roused in him the sadness...