Stations

I'll put you on a lemon-yellow plastic bridge over an endless mirror lightly flooded with Chartreuse. The stars will be out in full force and the mirrorstream will be kleiglit by lamps affixed to the underside of the bridge. You will be naked.

I'll put you inside a transparent gyroscope roving the Carnival of the Torture Demons. For all intents and purposes, I could have put you in the shark tank diving-bell – but you’ll get a hell of a lot more out of this experience, I guarantee you. You'll be safe in the gyroscope – it’s like a magic carpet with an impermeable aura – and the Carnival itself is the ultimate spectacle of sheer menacing horror and pranksterish delirium. I’d love to have this chance myself.

I’ll put you on the private car of a train that ceaselessly roars out of the Gare de Lyon, but which never leaves. And when I say private, I mean private: you’ll be shocked by what you discover about yourself. I’m shocked – and, frankly, a little disgusted – just thinking about it. But it’s all in good fun.

I’ll put you in the body of a lynx and I’ll put you in the body of a raven.

Maybe I’ll even put you in the body of a wasp if you’ll fit.

I’ll put you in a lighthouse made of black rubber and steel. Its walls will be adorned with mandalas of contraluz opals and petrified wood. It will be evenly lit by an indiscernible source I haven’t figured out yet. Its atmosphere will be suffused with an idyllic sadness. You will hear the foghorns of ghostships. You will see, through crystal windows, gigantic manta rays surging through primordial waves in a sea blasted by silent lightning. There will be others with you, and you will say to some of them: ‘My god, but you’ve been dead all these years’; and to others you will say, with tears in your eyes: ‘But how can I know you so well, how can I have missed you so much, when we’ve never even met before now!’ And you will leave this lighthouse and walk out into the streets and valleys of the world, but it will never leave you.

I’ll put you in a labyrinthine factory filled with dead machines.

I’ll put you in the land of the starving and you will not thank me for this, nor should you.

I’ll put you on the moon, if that’s what it takes. From there you can look at the Earth. I’m told it’s very beautiful from this vantage point. I have seen photographs taken by astronauts and robots. I will be envious of you when you return. We will meet in passing but you will not recognize me. I’ll be the one who takes your ticket at the cinema. I’ll be the one who spills coffee at the table next to yours in the all-night diner. I’ll be the one who glances blankly at you from the back seat of a cab as it rounds the corner at which you stand, soaked with rain, having forgotten your umbrella. I’ll be the one who asks you for change in the train station, and you’ll walk past as if I don’t exist. Perhaps I don’t.