What is "the work?" The one you need to do because you cannot not do it or the one you have to do as a means to an end, an escalator. Maybe it's both. A Schrödinger's Dilemma. Great piece, Vanessa.
Great image to get us started: on and on into time that stretches / like chewing / gum. The tenseness of the tone and structure, combined with the repetition and the feeling of the endless up and down of the escalator, darkens this piece into a projection of isolation—that no illumination can brighten. I would say it made me feel a sense of vulnerability at first, something to do with the typical American reading of the word “work,” but after a few read throughs it transformed into an uncomfortable feeling (or desire) that I wanted to escape, to shed the pattern. In my head, I realized I started to revise the last repetition of “This is the escalator” to include a question mark, changing the statement before the final stanza into question, in that robotic female overture. Personally, I enjoyed your experiment, and I don’t think I have a suitable answer to the question. I find that writing, running, or meditating can help me breakdown and breakthrough in these moments, maybe that is my best answer for now. Thanks for posting this!
as I get older I am more gravitated into history books and non-fictions as well because those are just as fantastical as the fiction itself!
I agree writing is a way we digest and understand the world around us at times and use of human accident makes it feel... wrong. As if it wasn't intentional at all, it just happened to happen. But it wasn't the person made the choice and acted on it.
I felt what we are suppose to feel when a life flickers away was muted and sanitized so we don't feel what we are suppose to feel. A loss.
I remember the haunting reality of "Human accident" and realising what that meant when I visisted Japan and found myself also stuck on a train for that same reason. Then it happened a few more times and the scale of it came into view.
What is "the work?" The one you need to do because you cannot not do it or the one you have to do as a means to an end, an escalator. Maybe it's both. A Schrödinger's Dilemma. Great piece, Vanessa.
Great image to get us started: on and on into time that stretches / like chewing / gum. The tenseness of the tone and structure, combined with the repetition and the feeling of the endless up and down of the escalator, darkens this piece into a projection of isolation—that no illumination can brighten. I would say it made me feel a sense of vulnerability at first, something to do with the typical American reading of the word “work,” but after a few read throughs it transformed into an uncomfortable feeling (or desire) that I wanted to escape, to shed the pattern. In my head, I realized I started to revise the last repetition of “This is the escalator” to include a question mark, changing the statement before the final stanza into question, in that robotic female overture. Personally, I enjoyed your experiment, and I don’t think I have a suitable answer to the question. I find that writing, running, or meditating can help me breakdown and breakthrough in these moments, maybe that is my best answer for now. Thanks for posting this!
as I get older I am more gravitated into history books and non-fictions as well because those are just as fantastical as the fiction itself!
I agree writing is a way we digest and understand the world around us at times and use of human accident makes it feel... wrong. As if it wasn't intentional at all, it just happened to happen. But it wasn't the person made the choice and acted on it.
I felt what we are suppose to feel when a life flickers away was muted and sanitized so we don't feel what we are suppose to feel. A loss.
Thanks for sharing it.
I like this, Vanessa. It's powerful.
I remember the haunting reality of "Human accident" and realising what that meant when I visisted Japan and found myself also stuck on a train for that same reason. Then it happened a few more times and the scale of it came into view.