Excavating Modern Catastrophes
29.06.25
I remember suddenly hearing the sky rumble. Everyone looked above, searching for what could have silenced our incessant scraping. We watched military aircraft fly over our ancient home. We watched and dwelt on the modern catastrophes that surround us.
Even centuries earlier.
Eventually, we could no longer find the blades above, but we heard them cut through the humidity. And as though they were infected starlings, we couldn’t help but stare at the sky. I no longer noticed the dust in the air, trying to find its way to line my lashes and swim inside.
When you wonder why you are where you are, why you have trapped yourself in the 11th century while current tragedy and history are being written, there is no element that can separate you from that thought. Nothing else can upset you more than feeling like a coward.
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I wondered, would I fight on the front lines? Who would I lock arms with if I had no home? Is that why I attach myself to others — because wherever they are is where I would get my uniform? What makes your vision murky, though, what makes you ignore, or hope for, splinters peeling from your trowel, is the guilt you feel for escaping.
By now, everyone would have gone back to work. But I watched them submerge their fingers and palms under the soil. I watched how they allowed it to escape from their grasp. Watched how it dove back down or lingered in the air to travel elsewhere. How some will embed itself between the cuts of one’s hand. Now they had proof of life stained on their skin. Someone else’s sweat combined with the ash. Upon witnessing this insignificant behaviour, I knew why I immersed myself somewhere so far gone. I released my hold from my tool, and colour flowed back to my previously white knuckles. The jets told me that I could never handle the future without understanding, utterly, the past.
Without intertwining yourself in the webs of history, you could never escape modern fractals. Maybe you’ll be devoured. Maybe you’ll wish you had no ancestry and tear the hair off your scalp, begging to be rid of your identity. Maybe every time you turn a corner, you’ll hope who you’ve attached yourself to will be there.
Take you home.
But making gloves out of sand, submitting to the heat, cutting your fingers on shells, that’s when you know you ought to help quiet the rumbles that had disturbed you.
That time will come.
Which is why I still have a few strands of hair.
