2 february 2001

Welcome to Malaysia

Georgetown

A ficherman's village

Cameron Highlands

Khota Bharu

Kuala Lumpur

another morning call of the dark green reptile in the tree that cold pulsating noise in the throat. their form of life is so different from ours that, half-awake, you can’t imagine that if you clap your hands it will make it stop, scare it off.

but then desperate, because the pulsing doesn’t stop you clap your hands and just like the furry little warm-blooded chipmunk the myriad of dry cold green geometric scales moves off silently in its prehistoric two step, a flicker of the head, tongue out like an antenna and then jerky two-step by jerky two-step the thing advances on ruddy bent low legs its tail staccato.

such freezing muscle! such syncopation! such wired rhyme!

such are the ways of the jungle. the beach is more civilised: a stretch of white, three lonesome palms; the sea as flat as the readings off a corpse. how many shades of blue have managed to find their way into this panoply of steady imperceptible movement? when the wind ripples off the early tide and crosses longingly to the sands it is like a lover’s call. it is like all irresistible urges, a fresh and gentle pull, a tug of hearts.

and so, sand drunk the days pour out. they rhyme with each other, polishing our eyes and making solitary our souls. before the immense. the immense! the intense and insufferable beauty of the sea! i don’t even dare ask questions in the face of it, in the face of its own personal monologue of apostrophes, exclamations and question marks.

all that is missing from the great blue diagram is the full stop. the period point. the abrupt and brutal end.



Mair and Marie-Do