Mapping The Territory (6)

MAPPING THE TERRITORY (6)

I'd heard said that the Priestess was obsessed with semiology; had applied to reading tarmac yet another tired theory.

I, myself, am sick of theory: such a bore, so dry and dreary. (What's the use of methodology? I ask you quite sincerely.)

Anyway.

We were walking up hill. The sun was striking hot. I was nigh on giving up; throwing in my weary lot. By my side, she held her stride, but the heat was so oppressive that she hitched her dress up high revealing thighs that were impressive.

I looked away.

'Is it me who's seeing double, I must say I've had some trouble with my eyes in recent years - course, it could be all those tears that I've cried for girls, like you. Now I regularly see two.'

I ignored her.

'Yes.

'When I cast my glance aloft, the horizon's rendered soft, but that ain't the thing that bothers me, my dear. What perturbs me all the more and, my child, I can't be sure, but do we always have two suns this time of year?'

I stared up at the heavens, and gasped.

'Do you see?

'I have watched the sun and moon occupy the sky at noon now and then throughout the ages of my life. (There's a theory that their union portends strife. . . )

'But, the detail's in the shadows; things are lit from left and right. While I hate to be alarmist, I believe it's not my sight.'

Nescio (24)

NESCIO (24)

You see.

The priestess had originally studied visual literacy (before she got into her idiot prophecies).

Once an avid reader of fictional stories, she'd subsequently turned to the practice of photography as an alternative way of making sense of reality. (She'd been known to quote Bakhtin's Discourse in the Novel - on Skype and Facetime, from her domestic hovel - applying to her medium what the man had to say, albeit in some strange and distorted sort of way.)

At least, it all made sense to the menopausal priestess.

So.

As she traipsed the streets (with blisters on her feet) the priestess cursed Szarkowski: his mirrors and windows. She longed for the days of documentary straight-forwardness. A photographic practice that eschewed self-reflection, nothing to do with a personal inflection. (The priestess still suffered from a deep sense of dejection.)

But, instead of working with the ethics of humanism the priestess now struggled with the vagaries of relativism.

She was starting to feel seriously fucked off.

Nescio (19)

NESCIO (19)

The priestess considered this new conundrum as she stuffed her face with Portobello mushrooms.

Convinced her enquiry had uncovered a lead, she poured a large gin and snorted some speed.

The key to her thinking was this:

The sister might demonstrate an academic intelligence, but her emotions were determined by a childish innocence.

The priestess concocted her plan.

Nescio (18)

NESCIO (18)

But one day while reading tarmac, the priestess was brought up short.

The priestess was all for empirical proof but when she encountered the drawings of children in chalk on the pavements of the nearby park, she found herself feeling out of sorts.

How does an adult make sense of the intelligence of innocents?

Nescio (17)

NESCIO (17)

But, the priestess continued to search with tenacity. (It was, after all, a case of great necessity.)

And, before long, reading tarmac became her preoccupation.  It was now the priestess' primary daytime occupation.

While she privately longed for her own salvation, she'd all but given up hope. But, the signs on the tarmac had provided her with scope for interpretation: skid marks and painted straitions.

She really appreciated the aesthetics of these configurations, too.

She was turning into a connoisseur.

Wherever she looked she saw significance and clarity. The semiotics of tarmac leave no space for ambivalence or ambiguity.

Nescio (16)

NESCIO (16)

The priestess lay comatose in her back yard.

Deciphering tarmac had always been hard. The meanings of road markings didn't come easy regardless of one's appitude for semiotics and theory.

The priestess had once known a thing about things but, as her knowledge increased, she'd also stopped thinking. Too often she'd sat with her heart all but sinking as her colleagues recited received information: contrived parley, convoluted hyperbole. All nonsense (as far as the priestess could see).

In the end, she'd quit listening.

Nescio (15)

NESCIO (15)

The priestess was feeling less than nibble as she traipsed the streets looking for symbols (convinced that only the material world could offer up the truth.)

No truck with woolly notions of mindfullness and meditation. (And, for the record, she was done with CBT and dynamic psycho-therapy too.)

What mattered, muttered the priestess to herself, was empirical proof.