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My room was on the far end of the narrow
passageway, I had lived there for a long time. The
room was provided for me as a form of gratitude for cleaning the place
from rat and pigeon droppings, clutter and cigarette butts. When inside
the corridor the only light that was available to me came through the
back of the translucent billboards, and the traces of discrete daylight
passing through the cracks under the passageway.
I did my job at night; I put on my work clothes, polished my black boots
until they gave a faint shine and went on to work. I stopped to admire
my boots when I passed an area where the light was more distinct; they
were in good condition even for their age.
I uttured in surprise when an ominous looking rat hurried its way over
my left boot and into the crevasses of the space.
Walking on through the narrow corridor with a sigh and yearned for the
fresh air that awaited me outside. I opened the small hatch slowly and
exited my oblong vault. ´The
downpour of seven o’clock had brought with it the smell of the city, I
could smell it clearly, it formed pictures in my head of pedestrians
moving by the night traffic with haste, clinging to their big black
umbrellas, running to bus stops and subway station to reach their
desired destinations. I had no terminus, I was stuck here and there was
nowhere for me to go, nobody to wait for me. I could imagine their
initial anticipation of reaching their houses after work, but soon
realizing that it’s already a destination so familiar to them it is not
simply a question of striving to get there to break free from the daily
routine of their working space but equally of looking forward to the
activity of traveling per se. I imagined that many people found
themselves taking this activity as an act of endurance, they are so used
to getting from point to point, in doing so they end up ignoring the
simple pleasures revealed by taking time and enjoying their precious
traveling bubble, a privilege I haven’t had in a long time. I exited
neither in the present nor had I any hopes of establishing a better life
for myself in the future; I had no destination and no motivation.
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Without a further thought I crouched and took out my
cloth, put my bucket of sallow unctuous water next to me and started
wiping the grime stained billboards. It was quiet; nobody was
passing by the transitional bridge between the Tigerton Inc building
and the down pass that night. I only saw people on rare occasions
and it was for the best that way, people nowadays seemed to be
obsessed with the global polemic about raising oil costs and they
were easily aggravated by the slightest divergence from their route
and always showed reluctance to communicate.
I went from billboard to billboard and cleaned as much of the dirt
and bird scatterings as I could without an effective solvent in my
possession. By the end of it I was exerted from the labor and
trudged with drooping steps back to the hatch. I picked up a
cigarette butt that had not been smoked till its end and put it in
my pocket. I walked clumsily between the columns inside the hatch as
my eyes were not used to the darkness of the passageway.
My room was lit by one singly oil lamp which I took with me to my
chair and put down on the floor next to me, I took out the
cigarette, lit it and inhaled the tobacco. I get downiness come over
me. The cigarette was potent and intoxicating: one of those foreign
brands they had in the Far East. That night I slept a troubled and
spiteful sleep, dreaming that I was a man-eating beast analogous to
lycanthropy, hunting for flesh and creating carnage in my path.
A loud noise woke me up in the night; I could hear the raindrops
tempestuously hitting the pavement outside. I rushed out of my room
to see what had caused my uprising, I walked carefully through the
corridor with bare feet, trying not step on any sharp objects. I
told myself that it must be another homeless person sheltering
himself from the rain as I walked down the cold path; it angered me
as I felt it was my precedence to be here. There was nobody there
and I had covered the whole circumference of the place. I decided to
walk outside to see if there wasn’t someone outside trying to make
their way in.
The rain was assailing down on my naked body when I registered her
presence, she turned around and looked at me.
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André
Russu is an
artist, writer, curator and art director
for the global art
and culture magazine World of Art. He lives in
Stockholm and London.
Some of his creative energy is spent in Transylvania |
