I’m afraid of entropy. A thing so fearsome, it can only be alluded to with the letter S. It is haunting; it looms silently over everything, only expressing itself materially in the mess that litters itself on the edges of highways, in a crowded mall, in a subway full of disparities, in images of landfills. Images so foul and beyond our imagination, they look almost like artful depictions. We find beauty in them, abstract them to colors and shapes and assure ourselves in the efficacy of our ideology. Chaos surrounds us, makes a necklace around the circumference of the ocean and hangs upon the necks of its oldest inhabitants. The shell of a sea turtle looks like infinity. It carries the resonance of a pool of water, an entanglement of snakes, a rat king, a mangled mess of necklaces. Unbreakable chains. Putrid and infinite. The stuff that emerged from Pandora’s box. We yearn for boxes, we want to contain our sins, our sorrows, our shame. We look for safety within four walls, in the shadows of concrete structures, in straight edges, things we can count. But silently, we despair, because we know, for all our effort, it does not suffice. Everything around us builds in complexity and in inextricability, linking the mother and child to the predator and prey, holy things become impure, ugly things become common in our collective imagination. We try to filter out the horrid symbols completely, but they linger like an albatross hung round our necks. Our spines weaken, our postures relax. We feel the humidity and the stench of garbage follow us to the countryside. Poppies lined in gunpowder and pain. ***** tinged with the scent of blood. Products spring forth from the ground, but they aren’t the bounty promised by our ancestors. They are made of plastic and tin. They long to be recycled, made homogenous again, but that fearsome letter. Will always have its way.
