The one thing we learn from History is the art of the sequence, from the crazy voice dismissed as a joke, to the bodies buried in unmarked pits. It’s a line I can – and do – draw in my sleep, and then I wake up to identify any twisted face I may still recognise. Family, friends, celebrities, work colleagues, and local shop assistants with whom I’ve occasionally exchanged pleasantries, though I struggle to place them when I encounter them out of context. Though quantum theory queers the concept of causality, History holds the cards in a neat fan, and lays them, face-up, one by one. It’s a pack like those that sailors used to carry, with pin-ups winking shocking promises, though these are leering men in suits, lying through their gleaming teeth. We’re somewhere round the Jack of blood diamonds, and we know it won’t be long until the self-appointed king trumps the lot. And then it starts again: ace, two, thee, four – we’ve seen and heard it all before, and will laugh at the bland predictability of it all, until familiar faces start to disappear, and we realise, once again, that no one is joking.
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Oz Hardwick
picture Nick Victor
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