Broken

It was broken, the ancient City of Az was broken. The chair outside the shop lay on its side, broken and disappointed. The cars were crumpled and the doors lay flat, the windows askew. Walls, more holes than walls, buildings gaping like skolls. The wires hung down without sparks and the pipes stuck up without fountains, blankets with patterns hanging three floors high. Floors in layers, layered flat, lives reduced in between. The cooking pans dented, knives and forks lost through the cracks, now crusted with grit in the basement. Kitchen draws out on the slant.

Computer screens dark, radio plays, someone else’s shoe, two cats asleep on unrecognisable concrete pieces.

The Blue Knight, emerging from a shapeless hole in the ground, once thought to be the cloister of thought, dusted himself undusty, or maybe just a bit less dusty. Really, he was still covered in dust, but the big gatherings had flowed away or joined the other dust clouds. Surveying the scene presented by phonogram, the twenty second encrypted service, he scrolled.

The ancient city of Az was crushed in the blender of history. Cooked to a paste, crispy at the edges, bitter with herbs. Lives stretched past the point of no return, resources spent, a scattering of individuals.

The Blue Knight, children’s author, questing scientist and moral maze, mended the chair with cable and struts, sat and considered. He thought to mend the city with cement and tape, silicon tubes of new stuff, which squirted out under pressure and would not stop, even when you unclick the trigger thing. He balanced square edged bits on top of each other until they became gengan and fell in a heap of pieces. He built with tar and paper, string and envelopes, sugar syrup and laminated card, but to no avail. No cakes and ale.

Highly trained lifters with several armatures might try to begin rebuilding but could not get over themselves or the rubble. They lifted bits of concrete and threw them over their metal shoulders like troubles. Big push diggers shuffled the piles of nothing to and fro to discern clarity amongst the absent rose bushes.

The Blue Knight took the broken chair from the street, three legs, but otherwise in perfect order. He placed the chair upon a clearing in the rubble, where it fell over. Casting about, he found a steel drum, an orange crate (a crate for oranges, not an orange painted crate), some breezy blocks and some metal things. He tried each and each under the broken leg area of the chair until he found the perfect. Which option do you think that he picked? Why not draw a picture yourself, to see which support works best? Send me your suggestions on the back of an email.

He tried using a raft of understanding, a digital platform, and the opinion of the man on the street. Where was his wife or partner? Which do you think he chose? When the drone rises, its camera aimed directly down, the individual items shrinking and disappearing. Does this new viewpoint give us a new perspective? I hope.

The Blue Knight built a complex of copper alloy tubes, a box of special joints at 92 degrees, a special kit found nearby, proving a puzzle. The concrete was not food or thought, nor food for thought. The mattresses piled up, the furniture was clean once and tidied on a Saturday, the children played on this rug, the adults argued by the television, now the rug is filthy and the tv has been looted.

He then sat and imagined the city undamaged. The buildings rose once more, and the shops opened, fruit abundant.

I shall dream a ceasefire when I sleep, I shall whisper the names of the temples as they rise. I shall wash the rubble back to the swamps and advertise my dreaming services.