#98weeks

HOW TO BE IN THE FUTURE | NORA RAZIAN 

Panel Discussion with Tarek El-Ariss (Moderator), Yazan Al Saadi, Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Sophia Al Maria, Ahmed Naje. The panel discussion explores constructions of the future, the politics of imagination and the poetics of projection. The discussion will be preceded by readings of science fiction novels by Nihad Sharif, Mahmoud Mustafa and Youssef Izzedeen Issa among others.

Meaning commutes and as such never arrives on time.

Two girls in dresses play around the fire to acknowledge the forgotten.

Let us acknowledge that there were two girls, two dresses.

Girls commute too, they run into meaning on the early morning train.

I commuted and waited at the platform but meaning never showed up.

Meaning takes the train at 7:32.

Commuting without meaning does not make sense.

We must acknowledge that the girls forgot their dresses and therefore can never be expected to arrive on time.

For meaning, commuting is just a game.

I lost all meaning when I lost my girl.

Meaning is busy playing with girls.

We must acknowledge that a dress is not ideal attire for playing with fire.

Commute to the next fire you will find the meaning.

One girl said to another let’s commute halfway.

Commuting on time never arrives as meaning.

I waited by the fire but the two girls never showed up.

If you are waiting for meaning, there must be a suicide on the tracks.

Two girls switching dresses are like two words switching meaning.

Meaning is fire.

The girl lost all meaning when she lost her dress in the fire.

Meaning commutes and what it commutes is what it means and what it means can be pretty fucked up.

The girl is I, and I sense the fire commuting towards her.

Meaning develops social anxiety while commuting.

The girls made sense but forgot to make acknowledgements.

Meaning missed the exit, perhaps deliberately.

What is the meaning of this, girls?

Meaning stood me up.

It makes sense to hit two girls with one dress.

Meaning forgets the ideal conditions in which it was dressed.

Because girls have to commute they are largely hopeless.

When meaning arrives it smells like a long day’s work.

Arriving is so overrated.

Girls are so overrated.

Meaning such things is so unbecoming of you.

I like to be where I am not expected. Now let’s play a game of hopscotch. Take the chalk and trace the outlines. There is the boy with the bright eyes walking barefoot on the highway. How many squares have you drawn? There must be a fire in the living room, why is everyone still sleeping?  It’s a clear day out, but I can only see half of it. I am having a hard time building. To this day there is something illusionistic and illusory about having one eye open and one eye closed. The sirens’ wail is getting closer. I sat behind the train station waiting for saltwater to resurface. The day was clear, but everything else was not. Do you remember what you said to me last night? The day may have been clear, but the water was not. Perhaps I thought I was in the past, or it could have been my secret desire to turn non-places into places. The sirens’ hysterical song echoes in my morning. Times are hard and I am having a hard time reconstructing. Recalling is hard and I am having a hard-on trying as Kafka, his father, the boss, the wolf and the pigs, watch solemnly in the background. Even when the day is clear, the water is not. Objects immersed in time do not differ from those immersed in water. I’ve been traveling on the waves of song since I can remember. This must mean I was born in water. This must mean my mother sang while giving birth. This must be why whenever we come home from elsewhere we never feel quite sure if or where we have been. There is nothing illusionistic or illusory about time or space. Traveling is not illusory. Time travel is not illusory. All moments of time co-exist simultaneously when you are in water. You must be in water. This must be water. Nothing is left untouched. Even the Internet is filthy and China wants to clean it up. Time stands eternally still and motionless in one place and I watch it fly by from the train window. Time will not pass. Time will not pass away. Time will not come alive. But I can turn back and go behind it whenever I want. I can commute every morning at 7:32 or I can walk but that could take forever and I don’t have that kind of time. We both know past events are waiting. What are they waiting for? Because past events are waiting, they are largely hopeless. Most hopeless things are waiting to occur at the moment when we think of them. Moments have no beginning or end, and we both know it. A river slithers between our skins and we both know it. I’ve swallowed my words and yours back when the ships stopped coming to shore. This must be why life sometimes seems a blank point without duration, this must be why life seems blank, this must be the point. I should have waited more patiently for the day to clear. We have been largely successful at creating things where there had been none.

people pay attention since the meaning leaves in fall I smell the wood cracking in chimneys take me there again cobblestones humid under my soles while history books attached to each other wait again for the surgery to be over wait what is this white residue wait why is my leg so heavy panting I summon summon summon hear the rustle rustle rustle oh lover lover lover here I go again leonard you are a sneaky olive branch it’s not about reading anymore every step my path is imaginary ici jamais walk desire a peeled orange walk cadavre accidental remainders a tire blown to shreds my car swerves to avoid the terrified kitten having a seizure the seat belt is oppressing is that a moth in my sleeve corps cadavre mimicking my hypothetical child I don’t want children only grandchildren injecting gold in their bones and rocketing off into subspace stays a reality simply collision is the voice of the cricket that lived on my shoulder for a month that spring I waited for the last leaf to fall before I could forget repressed ghosts multiply and nothing is retained every day words forget mothers and readers outside the human mind you I should call my mother I should call my sister I should call my sister I should call my father I should I should but I threw up at someone’s doorstep a kind of summoning in an attempt to teach them language would always land in butter churned towards me from paradise two girls in dresses play around the fire to acknowledge the forgotten everybody knows impossible tombs take you forever that music was so lyrical but you played your own piano certain that true reality is possible only if people sacrifice their masters slowly bam! violence bam! désir bam! extase bam! our insides have no obligation to obey the past