PLACES DON’T EXIST: 3. Staircase
If you’ve just landed yourself out here, I suggest you start the voyage from the beginning —
When we were children, we sat
on the staircase of an abandoned house.
The stairs led up to darkness and fear,
and the house climbed up the stairs.
One step at a day.
— — One step up a day.
— — — — One step all a day.
All in all, the house was disappearing
into its darkness, converging
in its centre, located on some floor.
Our evenings were a premonition
in which the houses disappeared inside themselves.
The days of the first bombs weren’t easy,
more so, because you weren’t used to them.
Not yet. We didn’t expect bombs those days.
We were happier with helium balloons
because they went up like a staircase
and a house you could attain by going up the staircase.
Bombs weren’t staircases, the balloons, or the houses
in that they always came down,
and there was no fun in things that fell from the skies
unless it was rain: you could dance in the rain, not in the bomb.
We had seen pictures of the bombs in the newspapers
after they fell for the first few days. We didn’t like those;
the bombs appeared particularly heavy in the pictures.
We were afraid that one of these days
while we walked down the streets
one of those bombs would land right on our feet
and crush them under its weight.
We made sure we wore strong boots.
And then, we realised one red evening,
it weren’t just us and the houses that took the precautions;
every constituent of our sombre town
had stepped up a few stairs, going up into itself.
Every dust particle, every tree, every street dog, every sparrow,
every song, every smoke, every school, every dream
climbed up the stairs, routing for the floor
that was always one floor up. They went up.
One step at a day.
— — One step up a day.
— — — — One step all a day.
One day, the town was no more;
all its houses and all that ever stayed
inside or outside those houses
had gone up the stairs
and comfortably stepped inside a whimper.
There have been no bombs ever since
in our peaceful town.
Your Attention, Please! Next Stop…
… is waiting for you in a dark place
