Inundate (HNY)

 

All Images: West Leicester, December 2020

On the following day, the deluge abated.  Plummeting temperatures quickened the senses.  Crystalline illumination filled the city - sliding across sodden concrete and slick tarmac.  A high-contrast mirror zone assembled itself from polygonal sheets of white light and tessellating wedges of shadow - a world become polygonal and facetted.   

Catastrophes can operate at differing scales.  Down here, some micro-event may model multiple macro crises.  A shimmering metaphor inverts the familiar.  A subtracted portion of the norm requires careful negotiation.  Measures must be taken; restriction - imposed; ad-hoc precautions - carefully followed.  The lower reaches are littered with hastily-assembled emblems and beacons - inviting cautious interpretation.  A conical depth gauge is improvised, and direction attempted.  We might wadethrough the implications.  "When will they ever fix this?" - a question casually imparted through a dropped window.  A moment's hesitant assessment - prior to the submersion of brakes.  A wake settles over extended minutes; a surface is reinstated.

Some remedy may yet emerge.  This route is not yet abandoned, and can be restored.  Habitable territory may be reclaimed.  The decline lies in the shadow of dank cliffs, but the up-ramp forms a bright elevator.  Light inundates the upper level, even as water has below.  Down here we stand at a corner of time, and new traditions must assemble as days extend from this point.

Happy New Year.