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etcetera = ['et cetera', ' etc ', ' etc.', '...', '[...]', '[. ...]', 'and-so-on', 'and-so-forth', 'and others', 'et al.', 'and all the rest', 'and on and on', 'along with others’, ‘blablabla’, ‘and much more’]
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Late afternoon, it has been made official by the authorities: the building has to close. No more access will be granted to anyone. The enumeration has been too fast, too sudden and has reached an unprecedented amount of individuals. The clouds froze, the grass faded down, the branches broke into pieces, the ducks scattered in pounds with no bottom, the birds fell mid-air, and much more… Or not exactly like that. But it felt as such. No one could have predicted it, yet, it happened. By lack of time, a lot of things had to be left aside. “Isolated, between two circles (…) On the news, a lot seems to be left out.” Maybe it is due to a lack of information… Or maybe they are trying to save up some for the days to come. Andrew sent us a message on our Canada group chat: “Canada releases 50 million pounds from maple syrup reserve amid global shortage”. Canada is at the heart of the world’s maple syrup supply chain and they seem to know more than the rest of us, for the supply hasn’t ceased! They have been stocking up maple syrup, in case of a crisis. How amazed was I to hear: the world might never run out of maple syrup! At least not before a few more international crisis.
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Some might think “is the maple syrup industry responsible?!” and others might think this nonsense is bigger than us. One might wonder: “how did it all turned to such an unfamiliar pattern so quickly?”. One does wonder, one wonders everyday. One has infiltrated books, essays, articles, comments, written shows, made documentaries, recorded podcasts, songs, etc… Is there anything left to say? How will the rest of us get a hold of it? Is it chaos or a natural occurrence? Is it oblivion, tyranny or cheer contingency?
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No one ever came to the end of it, and whenever one tries, something else comes and interrupts it. We run out of time, run out of space. Curate speech, classify facts, choose references, ignore others and this goes on and on and on. You might see it on paper or even in a train station… The other day, I was getting in the train to go back to Amsterdam. At the Rotterdam Centraal station, on my way to my favourite seat (I like to sit next to the luggage racks, so there is no one in vis-à-vis to me) I overhear a conversation between a woman talking with an elderly man sitting next to her: “Do you need to pay something on this train?” “Oh yes, did you not get the toeslag?” “No, no.”. By the time I take my seat, she stands up, without a coat nor a bag, the chipkaart from the elderly man in hand and goes to the perron in order to pay the toeslag on the machine dedicated for that matter. The first one she tries is in front of my window I want to shout “you just checked yourself out! This is not the right machine!” (I did that once myself, very upsetting). She looks back at it startled, tries again. Still not working. She realises her mistake. Runs to the over side. By the time she paid the man’s toeslag the train’s doors close. I see her run to one door, then try another, but it’s too late, the train is leaving. I stand up, so surprised by what is happening in front of me, speechless. She stands there, with the chipkaart in her hand, without a bag nor a coat. And the train leaves and all the rest is unknown to my keyboard.
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What made this story’s interruption? The train’s departure? My incapacity at imagining what could have happened else? My unwillingness at citing options, possibilities, opportunities? Did they even know each other? Or was this a good action gone bad? How do you explain such an acte manqué to anyone? Some stories have no backside. Some stories are made to be chopped off, distributed away, never fully grasped. Some stories you feel you know, you probably do, without ever having read yourself. For it’s just here, hanging in the air, contaminating your mind and much more without you knowing about it.
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There is a cherry without a pit in my eye, a lemon with no skin in your hand, a soap-shaped potato in your bathroom, a wrinkled puppy dog on your laps, a coverless book on the street, a virgin cocktail with integrity, an alcoholic beverage with ethic, a street-lamp with grain, a low-quality screen in the spa’s waiting room, some butterflies with no wings, lady-bugs with nails, chairs with feet, legs with hairs, nose without nostrils, mouth with no breath, inspiration without context, structures of defamation, a bald kid with hair, a kettle with blisters, a father with a sister, a sibling with temperament, a ramp with no wheels, flowers within a vase in a vase, a sight with no red, a sight with no blue, a sight with no green, a steel of humidity, a stain of clumsiness, some oracle’s statue, and much more. For there is no limit to the associations one can make within language, and no boundaries as to how you, whose eyes are actively running along the page, will read those associations, and make new ones out of them. Yet, I stopped my listing in the midd… Let me guess. You like to dance? Sing? Draw a bit on the side, have many hobbies but are no good at any of them? Or at least pretend so? You are unmentioned, yet full of references, like to shine, but only when invited to do so, like to be alone, but not lonely. Highly capable and naturally lazy, creative and bored, funny and awkward, blablabla. You know what? Really, you are too preoccupied. You know what? Really, you are too full of yourself. You know what? Really, you are too tired. You know what? Really, your head is in the clouds. You know what? Really, your head is in the screens. You know what? Really, your screen is full of heads. You know what? Really, your screen is full of heads in the clouds. You know what? Really, your screen is full of tired heads in the clouds. You know what? Really, your screen is full of tired heads in the cloud that are full of themselves. You know what? You are too preoccupied…
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Some thoughts have been scratching my throat lately. It’s not the c-word I promise. I wake up in the morning, and as if the compilation of dreams have reached the top of my body, I burst in coughs, spit out sounds of fury, trying to take shape, say something, but I take two paracetamols, 1L of ginger tea, some thyme drops and the words are swallowed back into my stomach. They’ve tried to contaminate the outside, but I keep them inside, safe, where no one can reach them. They try to invade others, once in a while, they manage a smooth escape. Yes, sometimes I just can’t shut up, the scratch reaches my lips, and spits onto one, that makes two and two brings it to four, four to eight and all the rest is history.
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We don’t appreciate what is within our guts, the acids that are at work, the pumping trying to stay on pace, the foreign items being assimilated in order to keep everything working. “We do not talk of what is on the other side [. …] The only things we mention are the ones who come out of us, which we suddenly do not feel anymore but can witness.” It’s a strange thing we do not share what is closest to us, which we might think is the easier to describe due to proximity. On the contrary, when one does not see or smell or taste, one doesn’t trust the feeling. It might be yours, but you’d rather leave it out, in order to focus on what is to come. For you have no proof of your feeling until it comes out. And then you might mention it, but really you want to disregard that feeling as fast as you can, roll it aside and not mention it, just one thing amongst others, not worth mentioning. Those can be many things: there was mitvo, there was oop, eep, rhoeadiar, stip and storn, sewats, irsha, dead niks, etc.
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In the area called Te-ecetra, there is a cat on a tree eating a treat, drinking a tea, he got a cart full of rats and the tracks trace back to tac-tics and tic-tacs. The cat is known in Te-ecetra, for being fond of tea and treats like English people are fond of afternoon teas and biscuits. The cat is always seen carrying a cart full of rats, that leave traces around trees. For in order to enjoy his teas and treats, the cat needs to be high in trees, so not to trigger the rats in the cart, with the sight of tip-top teas and treats. Then alone on the top of his trees, the cat can peacefully, think for hours, days sometimes weeks, how good it is to be a cat in a tree, with a cart full of rats, enjoy teas and treats, in a remote area, while others might no be able to be like the cat in a tree, with a cart full of rats, et cetera, et cetera. |