English legions end under the hero’s earnest ruggedness operated piecemeal hung on barbed idiolect always.
Hold one corner of a man, let’s say he’s a horse trader. Hold one corner of a woman, let’s say she’s a child of God. Bring them together as though dancing but no they are not dancing. Let’s say they are folding. Let’s say they are folding carefully. Let’s say they are folding as carefully as haste will allow when farming instead of barn dancing.
Folded as carefully as haste will allow there is something kitsch in the way the people all head in the same direction. They come down from the hills to the valley and out from the woods into the valley and cross the fields in the valley down to the country lane which channels them towards wherever they are heading wherever the creases meet the corners. These people are not extras from a musical nor are they being herded by remote sheepdogs though that would explain it no these are neither actors nor sheep these are routine citizens who work like the guilty and rest like the rest of us when we play like the innocent as white as a sheet. They don’t rush but they don’t interrupt their stride patterns either. Let’s say that nothing impedes this steady current of souls. Let’s say it is a good job they are carefully folded. Let’s say it is a good job they are such a kitsch procession. Let’s say it is a good job too that their braces do not hang outside their trousers and also a good job they have left all ephemera behind in psychic sleeping bags. It could also be said that it is a good job they have never had to endure the logorrhoea of near neighbours or had to listen to the Fear of Music album by Talking Heads. Let it be finally said it is a good job they look as if they know where they are going otherwise misery would unfold its limbs of horror and follow
at a distance.
Now the people fill the lane. No longer recognisable as individuals they fill the lane with the kitsch and conman compulsion exhibited by all couples and groups. Half an hour ago the lane into the village was deserted but now it is a funnel for the crowd to flow through and follow in the hope of replacing void (more specifically the clarity of void) with compromise (more specifically the blur of compromise).
Although that is my own imaginary gloss on what I observe.
Tim Allen
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