Angles on Futaleufu March 1 and 2

Night

Those were the streets he walked along. Those streets of white concrete, like a compound. Those were the streets that looked pale in the dark. Houses everywhere on the little trimmed grid that was tucked away inside the mountains - tucked away inside the black humps the giant sillouettes. Even here there were houses lit in the quiet settled darkness, houses that belonged to warm families, a warm family of welcome.
It could have been infinite. You could say that there a man, maybe young and foreign, maybe toothless and local, maybe both if its possible, if you think hard enough, had always wandered those streets, far away between rivers and colourless masses. But be assured that this man could not imagine what it all looked like without the vague pain in his tired feet that plodded breaking the night with a dull thud at every step, without the light of the almost full moon. He could only say that those streets semed not to sleep lightly as we do, when any noise could wake us from our dreams, but into a deep slumber from which only the sun could shake them. You should also know dear reader, that these are thoughts before the day breaks, absolutely untainted by the sun that floods, or , shall flood between the cracks of windows, beams, between the cleaved mountains and into the eyes of all who slept that night (and I needn´t remind you that they were many).

Day

Long gone are the ghosts, and the sleeping giantes have awaken, though they do not stir. A rooster calls, breaking the graveyard silence. Once, only once in the hour and from here to the other side of the town they can hear a car engine. Every sound, there a bee licks pollen from the heart of rose pedals, delicate pink that line the chalky road - every sound disturbs yet eerily adds to a picture. There are trees that dot corners and line the grid but everything is , fittingly, dwarfed by the giants. Small and quiet. The sun and the silence are pressing down hard and its difficult to hear.
It is difficult to contemplate complete quiet, utter silence of thie type with words - indeed, it is foolish so let us sit and listen to the quiet.

(Please just sit and be passively aware of the sounds around you, do not read on until you have let everything outside you come inside.)


...





A voice. The voice of a child. Words are unintelligible but they caress the mountainsides for a moment before they fall and drift back into the veins of this town - the necklace of turquoise rivers that from here they do not hear - but they feel. And from this open bowl they would not lie; they are four more sounds: the sound of a combustion engine cresciendos , peaks and decresciendos for full minutes - one engine. Thirty two minutes later there are three minutes orf intermitant barks, yelps from a small dog down the street behind the garden. They smash against the side of this bowl like glass bottles smashing on concrete. Then in the midday suffocation of the sun footsteps are put out by the weight, but not before they unconsciously drag bits of sand and gravel along the rasped surface of concrete... then silence... and the last sound is telling: the house across the road from my cafe creaks...twice...

I drop my fork and everything, for one instant, a moment shatters in the deafening clang... then I pick up my pen.

Sleep

I blinked and the voices started to spit about the room. In my mouth a campfire lingered but from theirs, unintelligible sounds shot out and into the black. Then there were flashes on the walls - white-blue. Through the slits in my eyes I saw heads like beacons moving hither-thither. I tried to comprehend the rude light and harsh noise molesting my senses but in vane. My head was foggy with fatigue.
Their hands fumbled about with plastic bags, ravaging my eardrums at this hour. I tried to be discreet so as not to offend anyone - after giving up on sleep in a timber drywall mess. So I gintgerly pulled back my covers and turned on, no not the light that would be suicide. I groped the ground until I found it. A black fabric case and I grabbed hold of the bulky mass and held it up to the moonlight. I opened the clasp, pulled out the black camera and turned it on...scroll. time: 5:31am. Dark. Discreet? Whit did it matter - to them it was day. The door with its metal clasp was opened and slammed, accompanying the flashing lamps and"outdoor voices". Then with a final flutter of bags - I was concious by this point - some flashing lights (no different from the preceding half hour eternity) and the slam of the door, I was left in darkness and a sudden unexpected silence. As quickly as the storm came it went. I began to feel war and heavy again - a familiar feeling...