emily’s Reviews > Ply > Status Update

‘Slaughterhouses—turn into—planters—frothing with foliage—pixelated mass—beehive hangs from a persimmon—What will those cats look like in a few generations? Space is the sum of all their possible moves. Time, the actualisation of each one of those moves, explains itself through music—The sound challenges air itself—The desire to—submit & conquer is the dullest mystery to her—Still, she's not indifferent to—mahjong—’

‘Different temporalities coexist—an ever-expanding arborescence—In one timeline, his existence has ended, in the other, it continues—They truly begin—when they meet in the telepathic space—‘& what do some—do with the astounding gifts of sentience, thought & expression? They choose to find ways of increasing profit—accumulating wealth. Hard to imagine anything narrower & bleaker—emptier of wonder—incurious—unloving.’’

‘—despite the vectors of uncertainty—radiated from it—I’d left—my childhood behind. Someone else was gestated—born—collective closeness defined that period—I remained in communion with some of those people even if we never saw each other again—I remember the sounds themselves—I loved not knowing—noises reached me from that other reality by cracking this one—I even welcomed the stench—an obvious emblem. An allegory.’

‘—we’d all decode that music—hear its grammar, feel its punctuation, recognise its sentences, distinguish its phrases—predict its cadences. It would make sense. Then finally it would speak to us—If darkness was our social element—water became our private substance. Because we didn’t care to make a profit—we were exceptionally reliable—An anonymous form of collective—We were around when it mattered—then we were gone—’

‘—committed to easing the suffering around them regardless of gain. But they are few and overwhelmed—A new form of violence, dispassionate and beyond words. ‘Help me help you. This is something people say in your language.’ Continents drifting apart from one another, reduced to dim concepts. Within each continent, fully disconnected—blanks in between. We’re taught to anticipate one another’s needs—She knew.’

‘I never understood expensive haircuts—It resembled a complicated helmet—his head—calculatedly limp body seemed to hang from it—he had exhausted me with—performance & his vanity. & now I know I was headed for more of the same. In a different register—but—in essence—the same. Power. The thrill of making people feel what they don’t want to feel. I lost interest—I didn't think a response was expected. Obedient giggles.’

‘The city—always morphing—most people die young—And yet, here were those vomiting power because they had too much of it—Around the faucets, one can always find people trading goods, exchanging information—reconnecting with one another. A water station—implicitly agreed-upon meeting point for those who are looking for each other. Her face brought back—memories I didn’t know I had—All that remained was musical rubble.’

‘—grandmother—loved to talk about our ancestors—loved being part of the thread, and I can see now that with—anecdotes she was beginning to tie the knot that would extend the thread into the future through me. Can you imagine? Being an avid reader, she had answers to—my wider historical questions—During this—period—she did her best to pass all her stories down—our closeness anchored me—across time—infinite starlings—’

‘Even if it goes against my self-interest as a pincher, I believe in groups that achieve more with less. Absence was only the promise of future presence. The setting sun reached the facades w/o having to compete with sodium & neon lights. There was freedom in dissolution, joy in disorder. Those quiet moments seemed necessary for her—memories—to coalesce—Her tone—tentative—as if there was something rude in certainty.’

‘Anything can be priceless or worthless, depending on the person and the circumstances—what seemed to be junk would turn out to be the essential part needed to complete a repair. He was an archivist of obsolescence—the centre of the tinkering world. The real aristocracy had left—generations ago—leaving behind a shipwrecked world of dilapidated bygone grandeur. Dead luxury feeds a particular kind of squalor.’