ACROSS THE FLATS

I have been told that I listen to too many stories and don’t have an adequate grasp over reality - it's admittedly a vice of mine to listen deep, deep down inside the words of people’s private or collective fictions, and not for any reason I would be willing or able to provide upon compulsion. But there are some stories I do not want anything to do with. Some stories contain dangers you just don’t want to know about. Like the flats. That’s not a story; it’s a mire, a swamp, a death-trap. I’ve heard that across the flats there’s descriptions so contradictory as to madden the senses; a road that dissolves - no, ‘dissolves’ is not the correct word - but still, the road ‘melts into air’, as the saying goes. And the name is not a bad description, neither. When you are out there, or so they say, it is so flat all around that you lose all sense of direction. Many were lost there before and many are lost there now; the matted reeds present a lethal maze during a fog and certain pools are so terribly deep that were you to stumble in, perhaps you might disappear literally without a trace; erased, as it were. If that were not deterrent enough the dread shadows of dengue and mal-aria stalk the flats in summer, and the freezing mists have claimed countless lives during harsher winters. But none of these very sufficient reasons is quite sufficient enough in itself to explain why people don’t go across the flats. No. The reason is that, once you’re out there amongst the fogs and the vapors, they say it’s tempting to just, you know, evaporate as well. I mean, why wouldn’t you? I know I have...

I have heard many stories about the flats; I have heard the same story told many different ways, and I’ve heard different stories told the same way. But stories without experiences have got me into trouble before, so I always listen with caution to what the people of New Town say about The Flats. Their words contain an abundance of traps in themselves! And not one of them can give me what I need: experience. And, as exciting as these campfire stories are about the flats, as far as I see it, it is only the stories keeping people away; the fogs and vapors are just hot air and mystique. It is a miserable life to be put-off from one’s own deepest desires by a few meagre words! How easily the paths you might have taken in life have been inveigled from you by a few well-timed dissuasions…

I think one should dance and sing across the flats - and I shall do so - and lose myself in the madness that exists between the place and it’s reputation. Gaslighting! These tall tales are maddening - evidence of the collective insanity that grips New Town; a thought which, taken seriously, is frightening and maddening itself…

A dog on the furthest extreme of the mountain plateau barks, but the echo barks a dozen times. The fucking things. I deplore them. Echoes, not dogs.

I wait between the rain showers at a bar back in New Town. I order a coffee, anarchist literature, whatever, from the slovenly creature in the back room and her son. My research is finished unless I can get across the flats for myself - I have nothing going for me here, and I know it. As I wait for the coffee to arrive, an old man in a felt cap who I did not see before leans across the bar very artfully and places himself between the exit and me, motions towards my ear and then spews forth in a cloud of stale nicotine:

“...the flats got another one of them old’uns; one or two or three of them up there up behind where it goes downwards and you really oughtn’t to go up there by yerself not today tomorrow or t’other day not at least without some of us old’uns to look after you you know what I mean and I says you should think twice yes you should you should think twice and that’s just the way it is and I says...”

- I lurch back from the bar, suddenly aware of the nearness of infection; they are trying to warn me about the flats! Their story is insistent and this old man is the current host. Fortunately I had my wits about me, but the story has changed somehow - I found myself listening. For the first time, I found myself listening. But not because what the old man said was gripping, important or true even, but because…because it was something to do with...well, maybe I don’t have a reason after all. Maybe I don’t have a reason after all? What kind of an answer is that? This does not bode well; perhaps I heard too much? Time to leave...

I grow apprehensive. My visits to town have grown infrequent, and it saddens me not to be among the others. I feel comforted to think about the story; how the old man was just looking out for me, trying to keep me away from the danger. They’re all like that down here in New Town, they’re lovely people and wouldn’t mean no harm to a foreigner not even one of them. The story gives me a clear path ahead; I don’t need my own personal apprehensions of The Flats when I have the story about them instead. The story encourages all that is air to reconstitute itself back into that which is solid.

I stare into an illuminated shop-window whilst I am waiting for the rain to stop. Although I no longer live in the capital I still enjoy the tranquil moment conferred by this infrequent and solemn encounter. The light from behind the tobacco counter, the magazine covers, the rain droplets and condensation mix with passing umbrellas into a glorious kaleidoscope accompanied by the commotion of a delivery truck; the sound of everything I ever wanted. I bend down to pick up something filthy in the gutter. It is my life.

This evening I discovered something more significant about the flats than had previously been the case. The Flats are all around. What I am standing on right now is little more than clumped reed-beds tangled and matted into rafts, seeping water in from all around, and one mustn’t linger long in any one place. A pike sidles across my foot looking for an easy kill. The natural bridges formed by the rafts allows me to pass from the shop window and across the village square, only to be forced again to take shelter from the relentless downpour, this time beneath the warm glow of an awning belonging to a modern block of flats. The building opposite is dark and cold, lacking any windows and exposed almost entirely to the elements through its collapsed roof. I feel sorry for having left the civilisation of the shop window for this miserable sight. There is no street light here in the alley and water is pouring like a river down the gutterless concrete road. Upon second inspection, the modern apartment above is only an empty husk with no insides, no plaster, no walls even. There is no warm glow. I wonder how an entire block of flats can change so profoundly in the space of a few seconds. But The Flats change suddenly and without warning.

I press on despite the rain, just to walk the streets and comfort myself they are still there, keeping all the buildings tidy and in order. An alleyway appears as I turn the corner, then vanishes as I disappear out the other end. So often in life it is like this. And then the next street emerges just as quickly, maybe more quickly than the last one vanished, ferocious to make its rendezvous and by that point any sense in stability I sought in going for a walk around the block is completely eradicated by the million new concerns now thrust at me from each angle, from each corner-block. Where two blocks of flats meet there is an undeniable tension; where the smooth kerb rebels from the tarmac I am compelled to calculate my footfall more precisely to make it land nice-

The Flats are not some words. Whatever you think The Flats are, they can only ever be the way in which you've managed to get yourself trapped there...

Jim Broadband

Julio 20-th, 2017