We try to ignore the flat man, but he’s back again, slipping beneath the door of our precisely focused attention, his smile not a smile, his words loud but devoid of meaning. He’s here to congratulate us on his own achievements – his promises printed on burst balloons, and his architects’ plans pasted on the faces of condemned buildings – and he’s here to socialise innovation in the outmoded distinctions between truth and lies. Sitting himself at the head of our empty table, the flat man grows fat as we eat our raw anger and waste away. Soon, he tells us, opening his smooth palms to focus our attention on the fact that he holds absolutely nothing, we will regrettably be invited to slip away, but first he’d like to thank us most sincerely for digging our own graves.
.
Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor
.