A series of close-ups at summer's end, when the temperature
drops and the insects begin to fly around in slow motion as if they're
drunk. It's comical, their off-kilteredness, their rough landings on street
signs and yard furniture, the carnivalesque concertina soundtrack. Lost
perhaps, a ladybug circles low over a birdbath, tracing his reflection.
A wasp flies in place, fighting a slight headwind. Days later, when none
of them can fly at all, they continue on foot. They crawl like wounded
soldiers desperate to remember where they're headed. What they're fighting
for. It's less funny now, butterflies blowing away like tiny newspapers
into gutters. Bees inching across sidewalks and streets, their dead little
wings sputtering weakly at their backs. The music has faded. In the background
it's the hum of approaching traffic, a dog barking from an apartment window
left open. Then during the credits just the scrape of dry leaves across
cement. A few drops of rain striking a mailbox.
If you sleep at all you sleep with one eye open. You
never know what could happen, and you never know when. In Hazardville
you can feel it—something always on the verge of giving out or crashing
down or opening up and sucking someone under for good. There's quicksand
in somebody's sandbox. Rattlers napping in pantries. At the beach a tidal
wave brewing in the shark-infested seas. When you're still young in Hazardville,
they teach you to grow eyes in the back of your head. It's a long and
painful process. Meanwhile you cultivate stealth. You camouflage. You
watch your step. In Hazardville the weather is always taking a turn for
the worse, and lightning's bound to strike twice when it strikes. It's
best just to stay inside, keep calm, keep an eye out. Though no one moves
here on purpose, new people wander out of the woods or wash up on the
beach every now and then and stay. Dazed and amnesic, they stumble to
someone's front door and knock—a little afraid of what might happen
next, a little more afraid to go back the way they came. |
