In November last year, when every day was a round of doubts and tension, I became interested in the fate of a machine which had been launched into creation and disappeared during my boyhood. The thought of it roaming our system unconcerned about the policies of the regime was a relief from the strains and suspicions at home. In the days I would visit the library, and in the night, overhead, sought refuge in the parallel journey.

Aboard, I read, was a deeply-etched record of the world that floated away. Perhaps an observer far in outer space might study this information in days to come. He would have to weigh in his heart the strange pictures. Man seen from the inside. Man with tool. The practical assembly of the hand. Machine in a field. The selection must have been difficult for the personnel who made this record. It involved large bureaucracies and highly technical fields. But I felt there was a need to list various matters not presented in the official fiction.

Drops of water falling on a stone. The hectic design of the fly. Geography of the East. Observer in ruins. The internal structure of the river. The occupied bank of the river. The river which continued its course through a book about change. Autumn in the transitional camp. Self with umbrella. The bridge as the bishop described it. Warship on a pale sea. The blue overhead at the end of the day. Helmets of broken stone. Two men on a border discussing a map. Thoughtful machinery which departed my world. Spade work.

[previously published in Columbia: A Journal of the Arts]