I knew it couldn’t last, and it couldn’t last. I knew it – how could it last, when it was so fragile? How is it we could come together, such a disparate group, and not fall apart straight away? We fell apart, that was true – but not for a while. There was a summer, and perhaps a little longer. A Spring and a Summer, before it fell apart and we left in different directions.
How was it I was always waiting to be included in a life – to be able to call on others as they would call on me, to be one of a crowd, but also one upon whom others would call. How was it we could come together then, for that short time? On my birthday, in the sun on the Ees, we picnicked. When the Eurovision came on, we watched it together. And didn’t I call in, every now and again, and sit with you on the roof in the sun?
But I knew all around the city faded into nothing. This was an island, a reprieve; before and after, the usual anonymity. Behind this foreground, there was a background; the city retreated from us even as it seemed to press its way forward. Were we friends? What is a friendship that passes only by way of the moment? It was fragile, I knew it – such a disparate group! – but it seemed we turned in a kind of friendship. You came round to mine, and I to yours – were we friends? There was friendship, I would say that. Friendship – and we were friends by way of the spring, the summer and by sitting out on the rooftops, the city around us.
Deep time. Months would pass without event – years. And then, as though we breathed in those empty gaps in time, as though we took them into ourselves, did they seem to bloom – exhaled. They made sense, the days of waiting; they were heading in a direction. For a time you could call on others and they would call on you. And when it disappeared again, that chance? When it fell back into a time without event? Nihilism: nothing meant anything. Nothing kept its form.
Dispersal – why did we leave in every direction? Why wasn’t it strong enough, our friendship, to hold us together? But it was a friendship by way of the spring and the summer – by way of the floating pollen and the summer winds. How could it end but in dispersal?
But for a time, I remember walking along the streets – the usual walk, the usual streets – in the faith that something, today, would happen. It would begin today! It would continue today! Yesterday’s good fortune would continue tomorrow and so on from tomorrow to eternity. Continuity! Day after day would turn in friendship!
But then the grip on time would be loosened again; tomorrow was an empty as today; no meetings – no friendship, only the autumn streets and the winter streets, and everyone behind their doors. How could it be otherwise? Nihilism – what promise did the streets hold? Where did they lead? To spring, to summer – yes, but they were months away. And until then?
Lars Iyer's Blog 