I am writing this in the dim gas-light flicker of the Metcalfe’s caravan in the field at Friar Beck Farm, Calverdale. I got here at two this afternoon after a leisurely three-hour journey via Gillrigg and Washgram . . ..
We walked along Blea Gate and passed two men with shotguns cradled on their arms, their peculiar clothes ill-fitting and old-fashioned. Origins uncertain. I didn't look at their faces as we passed and somehow they appeared faceless anyway. Men with guns. We wondered if they were poachers and the encounter filled us with disquiet.
The countryside is full of hidden meanings, hidden menace. I thought of Flannery O’Connor. I imagined we three staring down the barrel of a gun, being taken into the woods . . . bang bang bang . . . Messy, grotesque, senseless . . . but the walls and fields stretch to the sky and there's no meaning there save that which we, in our fearful shrinking from emptiness, put into things.
No comments:
Post a Comment