“it cannot be rendered in words nor go beyond thought… it can only be known by transforming it” - UPANISHADS
no one knows it except for one person, me, when a story occurs there is only a them and a me, autumn, the heavy winds of such a shifting season blow from the primordial heaven and earth, should annihilate every last eye sore, the commander of the purge speaks, it is not surreptitious speech, neither is it a public declaration, the words spoken as a whimsical ghost silently thread their way through the alleys of a century flaring up in outbreaks of hate, it cannot be said if hate is deserved or not [should continue to let time evaluate it…] the purge seems mysterious, it seems that while human existence persists then so does it [should continue trying to wait for a movement of time…], this is the script of an era, a dog barks in the night, a man talks with himself, it’s not that I want to push the story into a grave, but clearly each unfolding thing has an air of mystery like beginning with the sounds of a barking dog [which is to say the metaphorical sounds of a barking dog…] this is the script of an era, a dog barks in the night, a woman talks with herself, kneels down in the long night, prayers have only the night wind to feel them, the winds of such a shifting season bathe the whole surface of the earth in the sounds of a barking dog, this is the script of an era, supposing that sustained mistreatment is sustained resentment, the messenger says, a dog barks in the night, one cannot distinguish between the barking of the messenger, the barking of the purge’s commander, or the barking of the frivolous ones who step into the purge of the century, how can we know everything that has transpired in the thousands of centuries of human evolution, it’s not that we ever had human ancestors who peacefully slept here [here is where prehistorians see a disruption in the series of evolution…] or the disruption is the consequence of the past purges, after the long meandering sleep, maybe they are deviations accumulated by fate, suddenly diverging off into a branch, families, carrying within themselves different ways of seeing the world, in a certain gloaming sun, clouds the color of blood are suddenly seen, here they are immediately called a sign of pleasure, there they immediately become an omen of disaster, the different voices and laughter, the different ways of eating and sleeping, ways of making love, the different notions of life and death, gradually pulling people away from each other [despite cultural establishments eternally based on the foundation of love…] until the day comes when a hostile heart suddenly fixes to the memory of humankind, until the day comes when [contemporarily…] one suddenly howls out to make the date of the century, a date to destroy fellow creatures, this is the script of an era, a dog barks in the night, a man talks with himself, and looks at how the commander of the purge of the century is screaming [should annihilate every last eye sore…] looking at the bloodthirsty ones plunging into the massacre and looking at a kind of giant tree appear before one’s eyes, a big family tree gentle and merciless, its branches and roots disseminate all over the place, running over the agonies of the earth’s surface, the agonies caused by congenital sexual growth and uncongenital sexual resistance, a woman watches blood run rampant across the surface of the earth until she screams out this is the script of an era, no one knows the whole story, except for one person, which is me, because when a story occurs there is only a them and a me, I have carried them all into my nightmare.
-- translated by Kaitlin Rees -- image by Nguyễn Hoàng Giang