The rattle of the window is cyclic. The rotund driver throws the ageing bus around impossible corners. The sun sets on a field of rotting car-frames, a silent tribute to the slow flowering of rust.

I notice that as we round the corner and my weight is shifted against the seat, that the window is still and flush to its frame, with no sign of what was causing the noise. Then we swing onto a straightaway and lurch and heave as the driver slams the bus into gear and then, I notice, a thrumming can be heard from the bottom pane.

It’s an organic sound: sharp but not at all metallic and I cannot establish what’s making it. I imagine the slow spreading cracks that wriggle across the pane, before the glass gives away – just like in a movie. “Look, don’t move. Don’t move! Just stay calm, okay? We’ve sent for help and they’ll be here in just a second,” as the lines widen and trace inexorable graphs across the surface. Axis reads time-elapsed. Axis reads heart-rate of protagonist. I want to wake her up and explain all this and I can picture, perfectly, the expression I’ll get in return – a straight-faced mask of contempt. And the eyes grin.

In the right circumstances, walking across broken glass makes the same sound as walking across fresh snow.

As I stare out the window, I can feel my attention drifting. It’s a long way back. I figure at least another two hours, but really I have no idea – the maps are bad, the signage non-existent, and we’ve been pretty casual at keeping a record of where exactly we’ve been. This place exudes an atmosphere of “fuck it, it’ll do.” Laissez-faire goes hand in hand with limited resources. Take that, economic theorists, I think; I bet the free-market has never been compared to the broken window of an antiquated bus before. I’m pioneering, right here, right now, and there’s not a person to tell. I gaze at nothing and let the thrumming of the window grab my attention periodically. Cyclically.

I imagine a huge plane of dots. Focal points. Pull out and pull out and pull out. A field of intersecting purple lines that arc and weave in a dazzling display of the interconnectedness of everything. Tiny white intersections are hubs amidst them. This is another graph, I realise. Another way of displaying information. A swimming sea of it. And in the meantime she’s fallen asleep on my shoulder.

In photography, the golden hour is the name given to the first and last hour of sun in a given day. Warm diffuse hues. Limited overexposure. “If you’re shooting monochrome, you’ve probably got an hour and half but colour, maybe a third of that. Carry extra rolls, and make sure you bracket each shot up and down. No sun in the eyes, cause they’ll squint and then you’re screwed. Can’t post that.” Digital has made old lessons irrelevant and as we rumble towards the city, I realise that car wrecks are something that don’t work during golden hour. The warmth gives them a familiarity they don’t deserve.

And we learn through repetition.

Posted in Mwah on Monday February 26, 2007.

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