Thursday, September 15, 2011

Take his body over where?

For some reason the phrase 'Lleva su cuerpo alli (take his body over there)' keeps repeating itself in my head. I think it unlikely that I've heard the phrase out loud, so I have no idea why it would lodge itself in there. I say it, rolling the phrases over my tongue.
Ye-ba su cuer-po ayi.

It wound its way around in there for quite a while before I noticed, listened properly, translated it word for word. Came out shocked at the result. The nuances of perception within it - is it talking about taking a man home or moving a cadaver? Why on earth would that phrase be in my head?

I have no doubt that if I analysed most of my thoughts in this way I'd come out just as confused. There rarely seems to be much of a pattern. This morning, for example, I woke up feeling somehow dislodged from the day. My dreams were powerful and left lingering tentacles around me long after I woke, drawing me back in, dulling my waking world until I sought solitude.

And so I search for treasure in the cracks between the stones, fingering crumbling wood and bleached white bones, zoning in on my surroundings and healing this strange turn of emotion in the way I know best.

Endless horizon over curling sea.
Frothy white parallels expanding towards me.
Watercolour sky arching in pale yellow greys.
First tint of the sunset creeps.

Water colliding with rock.
Pulsing rhythms in an ocean with a sheen like fine chocolate.
The land swallowed up by the sea or the sea, resisted advance by land?

And me, like a snake on warm stone, writhing as I comb the rubble for driftwood and broken mother of pearl.

I am alone other than the surfers, the burnished, dark-eyed Salvadorenses and the honey-coloured extranjeros, all seeking a few second's thrill on those shining tubes of water. From my throne they are helpless insects, steering their way through hills and valleys of shifting power in the name of hedonism.

I hear the waves calling me. But I put off that moment in favour of this warm wind.

I stare at the sea for a long time, breathing in time with the waves.

Inhale,
water rears in expectation,
Exhale,
waves curl and crash before me.

In front of me, duality of wave.
Within me, duality of breathing.

Noise filling everything, the crashing sizzle of the waves and the ribbons of wind through the palms all fizzing into one dizzying hum.

I come unspun.

Reel myself in again and roll back down the beach. Sea rolls inside and waves just there are breathing and its me again, just me. The cadaver has been removed.