Scott: Aimless Wandering: An Exercise in Motion

In the distance between sole and stone, space opens.

Terrain, apprehended as a formal constraint nobody chooses, swells underfoot.

It is of uncertain value to recognize that, in those moments when one loses the capacity to focus the eyes on objects close at hand, distance attains a watery distortion that weighs laterally on the conscience.

People you know (and about whom you care) grow smaller over time.

Distance may be partly to blame. Who knows?
In any event, the area of most concern is often that which lies in the immediate vicinity of the feet.

Falling: an accident under-represented yet all too common; consequences can be severe.
While older citizens are perhaps most vulnerable, anyone may be endangered by a misstep.

Even disposing of garbage can be risky. Burdened with an unwieldy rubbish bag or otherwise hampered by an obstructed view, one becomes wary, lest a shoe not properly placed in the closet, or worse, a children’s toy with wheels, find its way beneath the feet.

Consider comic books: banana peels, inevitably leading to high jinks. Adolescent perhaps, but nonetheless containing a measure of truth: walking is always dangerous, the outcome unpredictable.

Even if one has been given proper directions, complications inevitably arise. First of all, it can be difficult to recognize landmarks as such, and to make decisions accordingly.

A tree, for example, often looks just like any other. The same can be said about houses, parks, benches, etc. In certain cities, a fountain is often mistaken for its double.

Additionally, consider the interconnectedness of measurement and distance.

“One block” can mean five or more. “Two right turns” might disregard a jog in the road as no turn at all. Often, the fault lies with locals. The streets through which they walk have become too familiar; essential details are forgotten.

As if space had been cleared of all clutter, there is only one clock, one corner, one train.

Journeying assumes a singularity akin to an Arthurian quest. Like Sir Gawain, one senses that with every step one’s burden—the terrible sentence awaiting failure—becomes heavier.

Cracks in concrete, signs, sidewalk benches, strollers; peripheral images assert themselves.
A destination maintains its primacy over a route.
Teleological in essence, journeying transcends itself only when the traveler loses his bearings.

At such times, pigeons mock passersby; commodities grimace behind glass; every face bears traces suggesting astronomical foreboding.

Doomed Arctic voyages come to mind: sled dogs slaughtered for food, fingers lost to frostbite, ships stuck in ice, mutinies realized by half-starved hulls of men later found dead in Captain’s clothing, beards covered in human blood.

A hotel appears.

It is the very refuge one has been seeking, and out of nowhere, an unspecified fear collapses; the names of streets one cannot pronounce are suddenly reproduced as the familiar fragments of an ancestral tongue.

A concierge produces impeccable directions in broken yet comprehensible English.

He talks of squares and of fountains. There are circles filled with flowers, an automobile club.

Once again, the traveler sets out, somehow convinced the proper route will reveal itself.

Jingles, repeating like church bells in his mind, ring out reminders of an airplane company’s reliability.

It begins to rain.

The hotel’s insignia re-emerges.

A memory of a smile—but whose?

Undoubtedly the smile belongs to the concierge. Once again, an unwitting traveler has been duped.

There is no square, no fountain; the unmistakable neon glow of the red light district reveals itself in the waning light.

Night drops, littering drunkards under awnings.
And then, it happens: a raised stone in the street catches a boot sole and everything tumbles.

*To produce one’s own aimless wandering (a device—at least to this writer’s knowledge — inaugurated in the above text), compose each sentence without using a single word that appears in the preceding sentence.