BORDERS

Sydney had lived in a hole for ten years. Today he emerged. He popped his head up and looked around. Then tentatively he pulled himself up until once again he was standing on the ground up above his hole. He begun to walk and when after a few steps he turned around he could not see where the hole was anymore.

He walked into a shop right up to the lady behind the counter and questioned her with his wide eyes. But when at last his mouth begun to flap no words came out. The woman clapped her hand over her own mouth. She walked backwards through an open door which was then closed so that it now separated Sidney from her.

“Oh” said Sidney and his mouth took on the same expression as his eyes.

Then he too walked backwards until he found himself outside the shop once again as if about to enter.
“Excuse me” said a passer-by who now entered.


Sidney begun to walk down the street but people kept walking into him. So he began to learn that walking backwards was the thing to do. This is how he now progressed in life adapting new skills in the heels of his feet that he never knew he had. These were to guide him through the pitfalls and holes which quite by accident seemed to entice him yet which he was now skilful at avoiding.


Yet it was not his eyes now grown accustomed to the light that guided him and so gradually they changed expression until instead of being wide “Ohs” they were thin “dashes”. Very agile but not too good on detail.


And so gradually his body too took on this more agile shape and this is how one fine day he back-trod his way into the heel-dance competition and won face-down.


And so Sidney became a huge success. For he was pliable and easily accessible to the shapes around him. For having lived down a hole for ten years severe preconceptions of how things ought to e did not trouble him.


But of course Sidney’s success had, in a manner of speaking, its own pitfalls.

Maybe Sidney should have stuck to the dancing but success demands a sentence or two. Yet it was chatter that Sidney cold not contain. It slipped out and chasing it he lost his balance and swung out all around.

And so the flapping mouth of long ago became the flag which brought action in high colours and a certain restlessness not to be found in the ordered placing of heels on the dance-floor.


And so Sydney forgot his steps. And at last he overstepped the mark chasing forever further into the distance where the colours in his words swayed and beckoned to him.


So Sydney was tried before a court of law. And it was suggested that he should be put in a hole so as to contain his capacities in an appropriate setting.

And so Sydney returned to his sitting place and it is from here that he is talking to you.