rest ye weary traveler

the weary traveler returns to find life relatively unchanged. he sits in darkness with the secret objects that signify his journey, recently taken, each thing significant in invisble ways to the world, perhaps because this significance is not in them, but truly inside him. these things can never be navigational for us, for we are the outsiders. yet he is anxious and able to cover them with his eyes and hands lovingly; and then, with eyes closed, fingers strumming, he visualizes everything he left behind - every moment these claimed objects really speak of. he relives these moments through these objects, and he sings songs that replicate their original atmospheres, his hummings suggesting spaces, lighting, and feeling of there and then. through song and object, images grow in his mind, and they are as difficult for us to navigate as the objects themselves, because we are not allowed to enter... but within his mind they are clear and potent: a small bell, a train, a fruit market, a lake, an apple tart, stars, daguerreotypes, spiders, and finally after much seeking, printed on the page of a book the word 'aufblitz'. the smile on his face conveys the depth of his connection to these things he now holds inside of himself with great strength and longing, his memory as a series of beautiful moments, small pools of light strung together as on a chirstmas tree. these things bind him. his face also betrays a sadness in his heart, maybe his eyes, maybe his smile, but his face still remains a kind of premonition of the tears that begin to fall just after this photo was taken, as if the bright flash and the shutter click had finally broken him, forcing him violently to go from there and then to hear and now... but he seems an unwilling traveler... still his back remains upright, and his knees stiffly crossed, his face still staring, and solidly mute. the photograph has been taken, but he has not gotten up and wandered away. he remains still, even now, in this state, existing in that strange netherland of threshold where one must stand at the precipice of here, and at the same time long to be there. he is either a stone, or he evaporates... i'm guessing that at some point that beam on the right of him will soon collapse. it will either fall upon him and crush him, or it will fall right past him, through the floor, and he will quietly crawl through the passage to find all his of his seekings....