harmless? Young people, they were. Drunk of course. But murderous as well? I wondered if it was a new sport, running people down. They were playing a game, indeed, but what was its end? How deadly its intent? Were they pretending, always intending to swerve back in time? More likely they were simply out of control.
My body ached, my face was scratched from contact with the bushes, my eyes bulging and strained from the vomiting. I resented feeling so painful when I ought to have been feeling snug in the tummy and comfortably at work. Of course it occurred to me that the young people could be dead, already; failing to kill me, but successful in killing themselves. What is it with the young, I asked myself. Do they think themselves invulnerable? It’s often described, that sense they have that death is not for them, that they can play with it and tempt and tease it yet still be safe, and the evidence of how wrong they are there crying out in the statistics. Or maybe it’s the opposite, a kind of deathwish, life so meaningless that they actually want to throw it away. Like the young Russians playing roulette with their revolvers, letting fate, chance, luck, decide what will become of them. Not, I have read, quite so random as it seems, for apparently when one spins the magazine of a gun with one bullet in it the bullet tends to weigh that chamber down, so it ends up at the bottom; it is likely that the bullet will not be in the firing chamber, which is at the top. But not certain, by no means certain. But playing death games with motorcars seems to leave less room for salvation. Or do these ugly children believe they have destiny on their side. Destiny, fate … Do they even know the words?
Unanswerable questions. By me, certainly. Apart from being too long ago, my own youth was so abnormal. I look at the young people of today and they could be a different race, a different species. That son of Laurel’s, for instance; he used to come into the restaurant quite often. She often said how clever he was; I thought that was as may be, but he was certainly very beautiful. In fact he made me think of a Greek kouros. His smile, I suppose, the archaic expression, the lips curling in that ambiguous smile called Daedalean. His hair fair and long, caught back. I’ve thought about that smile. It’s not one that engages others, it’s one that proffers itself as a serene and perfect object of contemplation. I thought that he would not be an easy sort of son to have. A quite charming boy; I noticed the sweetness with which he’d embrace his mother, such a personable lad, curiously dressed in the manner of the young but not unattractively. How she would smile, slightly, even unwillingly, but with tenderness. And something else, I puzzled over that. Now I think it may have been apprehension. Nothing archaic in her smile, just the ancient and everlasting anxiety of mothers.
I’d notice she’d go to her handbag when he came, and would be discreetly giving him money. Once I saw her take some notes out of the till and give them to him, and then write a cheque to replace them.
Afterwards I thought about that Daedalean smile, and how it is named after Daedalus the sculptor, him who made the labyrinth which contained the minotaur, and constructed wings of feathers and wax for men to fly with. Maybe he used as his model the face of his own son Icarus, who out of hubris flew too close to the sun so that the wax in his wings melted, and he fell to earth. Fell into the sea, and drowned. I could imagine him smiling like that when his father warned him about the danger, smiling and taking no notice, as is the way of children.
At the time, sitting on my sofa, sipping the hot thin tea, I had other thoughts. I was considering that general state of the young that my near-murder gave cause to think on, and remembering Laurel’s cryptic remarks about her boy, his cleverness being a cause for worry, and suddenly it came to me.
Laurel’s son Oscar.
My body ached, my face was scratched from contact with the bushes, my eyes bulging and strained from the vomiting. I resented feeling so painful when I ought to have been feeling snug in the tummy and comfortably at work. Of course it occurred to me that the young people could be dead, already; failing to kill me, but successful in killing themselves. What is it with the young, I asked myself. Do they think themselves invulnerable? It’s often described, that sense they have that death is not for them, that they can play with it and tempt and tease it yet still be safe, and the evidence of how wrong they are there crying out in the statistics. Or maybe it’s the opposite, a kind of deathwish, life so meaningless that they actually want to throw it away. Like the young Russians playing roulette with their revolvers, letting fate, chance, luck, decide what will become of them. Not, I have read, quite so random as it seems, for apparently when one spins the magazine of a gun with one bullet in it the bullet tends to weigh that chamber down, so it ends up at the bottom; it is likely that the bullet will not be in the firing chamber, which is at the top. But not certain, by no means certain. But playing death games with motorcars seems to leave less room for salvation. Or do these ugly children believe they have destiny on their side. Destiny, fate … Do they even know the words?
Unanswerable questions. By me, certainly. Apart from being too long ago, my own youth was so abnormal. I look at the young people of today and they could be a different race, a different species. That son of Laurel’s, for instance; he used to come into the restaurant quite often. She often said how clever he was; I thought that was as may be, but he was certainly very beautiful. In fact he made me think of a Greek kouros. His smile, I suppose, the archaic expression, the lips curling in that ambiguous smile called Daedalean. His hair fair and long, caught back. I’ve thought about that smile. It’s not one that engages others, it’s one that proffers itself as a serene and perfect object of contemplation. I thought that he would not be an easy sort of son to have. A quite charming boy; I noticed the sweetness with which he’d embrace his mother, such a personable lad, curiously dressed in the manner of the young but not unattractively. How she would smile, slightly, even unwillingly, but with tenderness. And something else, I puzzled over that. Now I think it may have been apprehension. Nothing archaic in her smile, just the ancient and everlasting anxiety of mothers.
I’d notice she’d go to her handbag when he came, and would be discreetly giving him money. Once I saw her take some notes out of the till and give them to him, and then write a cheque to replace them.
Afterwards I thought about that Daedalean smile, and how it is named after Daedalus the sculptor, him who made the labyrinth which contained the minotaur, and constructed wings of feathers and wax for men to fly with. Maybe he used as his model the face of his own son Icarus, who out of hubris flew too close to the sun so that the wax in his wings melted, and he fell to earth. Fell into the sea, and drowned. I could imagine him smiling like that when his father warned him about the danger, smiling and taking no notice, as is the way of children.
At the time, sitting on my sofa, sipping the hot thin tea, I had other thoughts. I was considering that general state of the young that my near-murder gave cause to think on, and remembering Laurel’s cryptic remarks about her boy, his cleverness being a cause for worry, and suddenly it came to me.
Laurel’s son Oscar.
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