Sun’s out. It burns; a kind of soothing burn to those that have lived under its glare long enough. It’s that familiar warmth that wouldn’t be traded for a winter wind or White Christmas. The lake’s alive with a thousand voices – bees, barks, birdsong, splashes of spawning fish, a group of kids laughing a mile away that sound like they’re in your backyard, a motorboat. The sound is constant and unrelenting, like a highway drone, but it’s melodic and calming. It’s soothing like the sun, the air seems to vibrate with life and there’s a strange stillness despite the activity. The waters lap at the shore lazily, then a motorboat passes and there’s a minute of violent, crashing waves that disrupt the stillness but they fade back into their calm rhythm.
Wind blows scents and sounds to you
and an alligator suns itself nearby. Egrets eat fish. You spit in the water and
minnows devour it like they’re starved. Turtle heads dot the water like little buoys. It smells like mud and something tells you to
cover yourself in it, absorb it…be absorbed
by it.
You want to float drunkenly forever
in the lazy brown waters and never get burned. You feel like what you have is
worthless even though you might have it all.
You want to drink the waters dry and eat all the land but that void can’t
be filled; you feel doomed in a land of grace.
The wind blows gently and the air is loud and soundless all at
once. You feel like you could fade into
the wind if you tried hard enough. If a
gator, a real gator; a big one, swam up right now you’d jump on its back and
hope for the best. Nothing seems real
but you’ve never felt more alive. You
know that if you died right now this world would go on without you. The birds, the fish, the dogs, the children
laughing across the lake, none of them would miss you. None of them would even know you’re gone. The days would roll on quietly, the children
would still laugh, the birds would still sing; another day of southern
discomfort.
I love it. The word plays, the description, the cypress, it's real Florida.
ReplyDeleteYou're background image is the first thing that jumped out at me. The contrast of the red writing against the black and white photo is striking, but almost in an agonizing way, hence the "discomfort" I suppose... The red words look as if they've been painted on; the red is angry and loud, the words cover part of the background, wanting them to be the main focus, not the image. The dilapidated docks and dated boat in the background remind me of an earlier time, but also a poor, country town. The placement of the image at the top, middle point of the page is interesting. The fact that it doesn't continue with the rest of the page as you scroll down is fine, the blackness of the rest along with the red (blood) and purple (bruises) links of the site pick up it's theme.
The photo selected for your first post is pristine, almost too perfect. It doesn't reflect the humidity, the mosquitoes, the unpredictable weather that comes with swamp life. I would suggest something a little more gritty to reflect the passage and the title. Or even if you just zoomed in and focused on one element, that would be enough.
I floated through your first post, it relaxed me until I got to the last paragraph. It contrasts so much against the others. It's where the "discomfort" comes in; you build up the scenery, the nature, but when man is introduced to it, he just can't fit in as bad as he wants to. The play of nature against machine is also interesting in your descriptions of sound.
The white writing on the black background is an interesting choice as opposed to standard black on white. It adds a serious and melancholy tone to the site. Also, the way the text is smooched into a narrow column adds an element of claustrophobia.
I feel like more will come out in your next blog posts. I'm interested to see where you go with this.