Tower by Senz Beats

A blanket of rain shrouds the square, punctuated by tintinnabulating lights that pave the way through the pall. A muted and continuous roar announces a procession. Marchers materialise in small groups, lurching bare-foot and trembling. Right foot forward. Pause. Shift the weight forward. Pause. Bring up the heel of the left. Pause. Left foot forward. Pause for two beats. Repeat in reverse. They file past the burnt-out vehicles that litter the square. The air is filled with the sound of their moans. They form a dense mass, indistinct from its environment.

I light a cigarette and marvel at their appetite, fascinated by these expressions of faith. The stigmata of their differences still scar the city, lingering proof of their diversity. Certainty swathes shapes waving banners. One has an umbrella. The others brandish scabs. They are plucked and cropped to varying degrees of severity. Many are naked. Some are mutilated. The side-shows sit cross-legged and dialling devices. The limbless ones lead. They are the ones without bonds, the absence of appendages a symbol of their indifference to all things somatic.

Adherents tend to spend the shorter days in torpor, sometimes in groups. I once found a cluster huddled underneath a slab in a parking lot. Their processions are prompted by rising temperatures. The urge is innate yet triggered by cues. Three successive acts are involved, the result of lubricated injunctions and blared interactions. They provide a frame and an end to the stagnant and languid. But this is not the first time. Dogma is in season again.

Some people drink, some collect stamps,
some prefer gardening or cross-dressing. This is our thing. This is our two-word gesture
to life as a statistic. In case of anxiety, just infuse longer.

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