Tuesday, April 29, 2003

"He is known to us...", the Policeman said, polishing a small box. Inside the small box was a smaller box, and inside that one yet smaller, and inside that... Well, there's no point finishing that sentence is there? You've seen an elipsis, you've felt the tension of it wobble off the back of your retina, but you know that the sentence would proceed similarly till knigdom come, just like you know one divided by three never stops, as maths is never satisfied. We try and argue points, and we can keep going with arguments, until we reach the point that we feel answers the question - not really answers the question, answers it enough for us.

An elipsis is three dots. A dot is a nothing, it has one dimension at most. Yet an elipsis like that leaves so much unsaid, so much room for interpretation, the operation of the imagination. An elipsis is an invitation to create.

The Paras (medics not trooper, super, knights) recognise the elipsis in the Policeman's sentence, and reach for the glassy usual suspect prostrate on our front step. Me and Kieron stand there agape. We'd been having what passed for a dinner party in our flat (half-light over a pastel scene of stir-fries and Sergio Leone) when an early exit meant someone spotted this friend of the prescription on our doorstep.

Kieron kindly put a blanket over the open-eyed figure. We waited uncomfortably with the only passerby to stop (I had not thought apathy had undone so many) for the police to arrive. The police arrived first through the torments of Bath's one way system, they found the pills by his side, they tried slapping him awake (remembering to put down their maglight this time, thankfully.) I shifted, uncomfortably holding the door open for no good reason other than looking busy. The medics wriggled their van in, asked if the Policeman knew him, then bundled him up and he was gone, leaving only his pills behind.

Back we went, inside. Kieron threw the blanket in the wash immediately, disgusted with himself for doing so, but conscience doesn't always stop the bad action.

""Flow my tears the Policeman said.

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[Thinks: Is beer from the planet Dune Fremented?]

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