Archaeology
2025-Aug-26 • Salvatore Difalco
He walked down a street he didn’t recognize. Nor could he recall his starting point. His unbuttoned greatcoat swept the sidewalk behind him. No one was about for directions. Were someone about what directions would he seek? He walked arms pressed to his sides, head bowed so that he led with his crown. An unnatural form. Were someone about they would stop him, or call the authorities. No one was about so he walked without impediment counting cracks in the pavement. One, two, three, four, too many, too many. His shoes looked familiar, black, thick-soled, sturdy. They moved of their own accord. What was their provenance? No memory of purchase registered. Like so many things that day, a day full of holes. How long had he been walking? He must not have been out walking long, he wasn’t tired. Keep walking, then, his little inner voice said. I’ll get somewhere eventually or run into someone who can help me or I’ll just keep walking until I can walk no more. His thoughts bubbled along with his stride, often running ahead of it. Sometimes running so far ahead of it he had to sprint to catch up. Out of breath now, he stood with his hands on his hips and surveyed the landscape. Ramshackle row houses and dilapidated duplexes and bungalows sagging roof-wise. Okay okay. But where were all the people? Maybe this is like one of those things, he thought, but he could not more clearly define what one of those things were. The weather. The weather involved overcast skies of a pewter hue and spitted raindrops, enough to pepper but not permeate or malign the greatcoat he wore. What was the provenance of the greatcoat? He had no memory of it before this walk. He did not incline himself the greatcoat type. It felt unnatural to wear one. Nevertheless, he wore one and heavy as it was, girding him from the vicissitudes of the elements and likely able to repel an arrow shot from a bow or the bolt of a crossbow but likely not a bullet. He did not fear getting shot necessarily, but it lingered in the air as a possibility, simply because it was not an impossibility. Nor was it impossible for metal debris to fall from the sky, say a cashiered satellite, and crush an unsuspecting pedestrian. Such an occurrence has undoubtedly been recorded In the annals of history. But it benefitted nothing and no one to ruminate on subjects remote from the immediate experience of walking through an unknown neighbourhood, or grappling with one’s identity which also manifested metaphorically as an unknown neighbourhood. How long have I been walking now? he wondered. I am starting to tire. The landscape grows more barren as I continue. Gone are the paved streets and sidewalks and humble edifices. I have reached a no man’s land, bereft of human touch or feeling. A continuum of rocks and dirt. An old woman stumbled before him by a boulder with red handprints painted on either recently or in the remote past. She was straying in search of ancient pottery fragments. Red clay only. Painted shards dated to more recent times, of which she had no interest. With no mind but for these ruddy chips and shards she almost bumped into our man. With her eyes combing the stones and rubble, oblivious to surroundings, to context, to meaning, she came upon him, also stooped, also oblivious to the world outside his head. He looked up aghast. He opened his mouth as if to say something but no words emerged. She stood there in her black wool cloak and black leggings, a dusty burlap sack tied to her waist, her hands powdered red from clay fragments. The two stood breast to breast, close enough to breathe each other’s breath. Her eyes, a clotted blue, stared into the colourless, depthless holes of his eyes. Was he a man, or a demon? She believed that demons freely roamed the world. But nothing in the man’s demeanor suggested evil or mischief of any species. And yet he looked familiar. Who did he look like? A character from a film or book? It had been ages since she saw a film or read a book. Certainly the greatcoat added to the peculiarity of the man as well as the ostensible mystery. What was his provenance? But nothing said, nothing heard, no gesture offered or taken, thus she moved on. Nothing said, nothing heard. The greatcoat added to the peculiarity as well as the mystery. A character from a film or book? Huh? Is that who the poor devil looked like? A fictional character. But aren’t we all fictional characters? she thought with a chuckle. Ha. And yet he looked familiar, didn’t he? No mischief, no evil. The eyes, the eyes another matter. Unnatural. Breast to breast. Nose to nose. I looked into the nothingness there, the void. She looked at her hands and brushed them on her leggings, reddening the thighs. She saw a clay shard lying by a chunk of flint. She snatched it up and put it in her burlap sack. An ancient civilization had left rubbled evidence of its existence, a puzzle waiting to be pieced together. To examine the old woman’s motives, one would have had to climb inside her head and hung out there for a while. Otherwise, her peculiarities obscured the true nature of her mission. At some point she realized she was in an unfamiliar and apparently abandoned neighbourhood. Were someone about would they stop her, or call the authorities? How did she wind up there, so far from the clay bits that sustained her, that kept her moving through the world, forever leaning forward, forever searching, as if trying to piece together her own past, of which only a few shards remained?
Salvatore Difalco
Salvatore Difalco lives in Toronto Canada.