Angelsoftheroad

Map Illustration: the route south, leaving home. Right top corner; Mother posing amongst her father's business in precast concrete in the foreground yard to the house in Mortsel. Right image: the ghosts of WWII and first 1800 km leg trekking chain link villages. Map left bottom corner; at port hoisting the truck on board the ocean line.

The veil of dusk came to lies on the split windshield and in the passage of time its darker shadow on the laps in the confinement of the truck's cabin on father, mother, and my sister, and this while I wasn't conscious of them, and only momentary in an egocentric awareness that later in my adult life, I was in measure to estimate. I was a toddler then, and relate to a faint light bulb the switch of my brain functions by a curiosity and an amplitude in developing that gifted new organ. Moments before I come out of the blues alone to existent in a world and narrow on focused cat-walking a reconnaissance by intrigue. I failed to absorb a sweeping cycloramic view that reassured me, the ghost of father in place behind the steering wheel of the red Studebaker dumper truck. That, I must have been aware of sitting on mother's lap in the passenger seat, and in a logic reconstruction that my sister occupied a place in between. At one moment on route in the night, we came to a standstill. I was carried out into the open, and fell asleep, Until, mother laid me down and nippy bed sheets were needled pricking and sending a

weird dimension of my body to mind. My muscles retracted, pulling me into a protective fetus ball when I dissolved gathering warmth in an unconscious existential sleep. Angelic bright and peering through the window a sun beam stroke the entire interior with an overwhelmed red brown glow the hardboard paneling with a rivet- stitched of shining screw head with the halo of an expensive washer and like ants crawling off behind a caravan's fixed furniture a scene that my soul entered out of thin air in the grasp a moment of conscious. In time I grew aware of my parents' presence above in the bunker, while I, and my sister were given to sleep on the bottom bunk, where I opened my eyes to a generosity of light unknown further north where we came from. by sight I sought through the confinement of the brown interior, which by deduction eavesdropped during my moments of an unconscious existence, to be the caravan at the center of discussions through that period of a nurturing adventure by father's determination to leave the port of Antwerp behind, where the caravan was turned away and oversight in size to fit in the hull of ships. The Capricorn in symbiosis with the Wild Boar1 in Chinese astrology, is a thermodynamic impregnation of that fatherly assurance, with the permanent shadow of his telepathic wing. in a period when communication was left to the resourceful minded. Leaving the port that day. Father must have calculated to get sailors less intimidated by the grand caravan, or the promise of bigger ocean liners. With such uncertainty in mind, he dared to head south in the shadow of a five years withering war machines and of reconstruction. the wayside in a constant straggling of distant lonely farms in a surround of woods lands flowing off cattle grazing fields. Shepherd smaller farms in numbers grew closer with our passing by. Then, gather in herds of roadside extended walls with enormous arched ways. These barn gates regrouped to a symbiosis of a small farm family life, with their poultry, pigs and cows when the grazing fields grew so scarce as to disappear along backyard splits. like native children, the buildings crowded shoulder to shoulder squeezing cobblestone streets down to the village church. the caravan in tow by the dumper truck squeezed up to these churches in the middle of the village with those bell towers that sprouted form medieval stone foundations. After which, airing the light they stifled, we emerged time and again on a stretch of country road and chain linked those village taking a break and sleeping wayside along those local roads zigzagging the French countryside. I became aware to take a center stage place, and sensed a growing mature in holding my existential moments longer conscious. Though, cloudy and in spells of boredom, I grew to watch elbows on sill, my nose and forehead glued to the glass with a Those rooftops were sitting in my horizontal seal run. Growing to sight a traffic of unconscious mental bank, until in the people in the momentums of fetching necessities at course of my childhood those deep trough roof tiles inspired father with the building of the big corner house in the then Belgian Congo. in a later life in South Africa and adult builder, in similitude of deep trough tiles on low pitch roofs, I was going to pack every tile on the house that I contracted to build for my soul-twin sister. a style and a few years later. Over the white wall with wide eaves. a symbolic shade, and a tricky roof tile lie. After, I packed every of the five thousand tiles with the assistance of a crew of laborers. a roof under which, a mother will rear my two boys. local grocery stores. Allowing those slow,
1 In Chinese astrology, I have a preference for the wild animals than the in this case the domestic pig.

ongoing, and rotating landscapes that together, in blur of overlaps clouded. I had that slipping perception of a clarity fading out into a foggy skyline. from these rotating horizons, pushing back winds that flowed a current sweeping overhead. Behind me, the symbiotic Virgo-Wild Boar genie sat on the surfaces and the very bench on which I climbed the genie of father's mother. passing off an uncountable number of village agglomerations, fashioned towns, changing in style from which wakes a city slopes against an azure skyline that particular architectural jungle of terra-cotta saddle rooftops . The road whined down the hillside to disappear in an entwined agglomeration of deep streets shading shouldering house against a Mediterranean bright sky. walls punched with deep dark windows openings and doorways, from which my existence abandoned there and then. When I emerged from thin air, I gazed down form the bright over exposed and meditative peaceful blue dome, silent in its curve and meet the outreaching turquoise waters that weakened my eyesight stress, in which dissolved my conscious existence. Until the afternoon, overshadowed by the wing, of a symbiotic moon of the Capricorn and the year of the Monkey that mother exuded and radiated my existence. I walked in the umbilical motherly hand. Strolling through a timeless mood. Leaving behind the warmth of a draconian beauty spreading those littoral held back no man's dry land these to those townhouses on the verge of dipping a foundation into the waters they were the ballerina of a living in style clearing their wide skirt of walls and laying out that phlegmatic and leading dark driveway that pointed our way to port. In father's notes I read the exasperation of the first leg of a journey labeled the place, the time, wrapping up a responsibility of venturing a family on an uncertain journey; "it was the Thursday before easter that we arrived late at Marseilles. My mother stayed with the children, while me and my wife headed off on a site visit of the city." notes that contradicted a toddler memories. but then, neither were father's notes taken on the spur of the moment, and who know how long after the event. Along the dark grit pointing seaward through a clutter of scattered metal and rusted structures and sheds. In our approach, meeting lurking interstices behind the sheds as we passed, the sea blues came out from hiding and approached calm and reassuring silent. Until, the jetty that launched a concrete quay into sea, promenaded cranes for attention. But as we approached, I fixed sight on the dominant dark bow. In a constant growth of the dark wall, which hid an ongoing internal frenzy, to which father was close. As the structure grew darker and offset a bright daylight in the background. At a moment, passing the mooring bollards with tied massif ropes around a bull's head neck. Mother sensed by the pull of her hand that I followed my eyesight over the edge and into the vertiginous gap. There were the quay breaks away from the hull of the ship. There, the darkness held a mystery that my sprightly curiosity sought to stimulate. While the black smooth metal hull kept me fascinated raising higher and steeper and in mischief. I thought it was mother who held me back, but then was it Granny? I looked up front and around the barrel of a flimsy skirt, to meet the shadow of my sister stepping out of role and rolling her wings from the woman's flank questioning the turbulence I caused in our progression. I didn't insist to force the issue, though my eyes and curiosity left the forecastle growth and lipped along the hollow of the gap along the pier. Father wrote; "The following day and ready to embark. crates were hoisted from the truck. The truck was hoisted and individually placed in

the hull. the freighters wanted everything had to be taken out the caravan. after an eye opening seaworthy discussion, that it was impossible to take everything into the cabin with us, they authorized us to leave everything inside the caravan. We boarded the ship, for a scheduled for 2 pm departure, when it was already after 3 pm. followed by sight the hoisting of the truck and trunks, but the caravan stayed behind on the pier in front of the ship. The boarding ramp withdrawn, and anxious of the ship leaving port without the caravan. As a last resort, the ship's crane boom moved over in the air, the troll of cable headed for the silver caravan far below in the afternoon shade. Tackled the cubic container and hoisted it on board. Placed on deck next to the vertical wall. fastened to deck, while the ship moved away filling the cuneiform gap fill with water while leaving the pier behind." While before existence disintegrated after toddling up to the truck dangling on lines etched against the sky. My toy red dumper truck being hoisted in the air, at the boom of a pier crane, clearing the ground rising in the shadow and the dark wall of the hull to appear for a brief moment against the blues from where entering the shade of the buildings on deck lowered to disappear behind the railings. we climbed the diagonal boarding ramp that was drawn up the hull. At the break in run of the railing, we were welcomed on board by an all white man in uniform, exhausted to find the horizontal wooden deck with the railing to hang onto to a timeless wait. I hung on the railing, and mesmerized to catch the imperceptible motion the black gap wedging open at the tail end of the ship and like a giant wale the pellucid water entering as the massif steel foot of the crane where a pell-mell of workers turning circles in the midst of vehicles and nearby equipment grew smaller. When there was no turning back with a massive body of water and the coast line drawing its dcor in the retrieving weathered gray concrete dockyards, my existence dissolved in a hand pull unconsciousness. The next moment appearing on a stage of existence, and lost in time, of a strange metallic taste, and sensational body perfume of change. I deduced the change of sides with the ship turning around, to find I was standing at port with the helm heading toward the veil of dusk earlier east than behind where the horizon pulled down a bed sheet the last daylight of a retiring sun. Father's notes were mentioning the storm out of context, recollection of my time-line. He wrote; "leaving the harbor, violent winds blew from the sea, the ship begun to lurch. That evening people in the dining hall were few. The next day the ship was taken by storm. waves washed on deck, and naturally we were anxious and went to see if the caravan help, which it did." I was at the railing on a scene bored and overhanging the blackened and staring at the hull coming straight like a wall emerging from the bottom of the sea. A railing dipping at bow and stern the run of a wooden handrail and the pipes that held me from falling overboard while hanging suspended in time. at the opposite side the slippery watery shine light shadows the snakes on the thick wooden rail. As I grasped each of these living motions, that ended hanging on the middle bars my gaze suspended in the depths of the infinite transparent still waters, till so dark that my curiosity went out looking elsewhere. I rose my gaze from the dark lifeless world to surface, and swam by sight through the pellucid turquoise waters into the distance acrossing the three decades later and a milestone in my life by divorce, I returned home on the old continent. In a short laps of time driven by my unconscious mind, and deducing my early growing body into the world of physical existence I was destined to returned on the spot my experience annihilating the phenomenon of been the puppet at the end my soul's fingers playing off the spell of my destiny the guard by the strings of the soul's harp orchestrating the hormonal biorhythms development and shaping the physical aspect of my body. peaceful side crawling snaking wavelets coming up as I stole in these lonesome moment understanding the white coastline which in stages became smaller and taking distance from me. Father wrote in his notes; "While the children were in a separate cabin with my mother. They weren't aware of the struggle that went on. We left the cabin port hole open, because it was hot and my wife had unwrapped the chocolate easter eggs that she placed in front of the port hole where it was fresher. a bedeviled wave came and showered the eggs bring an end at preserving chocolate along the journey. With easter the weather was nice again to spend the evening watching from deck, Messina

along the Italian boot scintillating a fairy coastal display with its millions of little city lights." Instead of that toddler suspended in time watching the body of water pressing the vessel further away from the coastline. In an unconscious spell that amazing white chalk line drawn across the coastline. On my return to the continent I approached the Mediterranean sea, and nearest to the overhanging cliffs I traveled from the top that chalky white and rugged line seeking a tranquility that belonged to another life. The amazing virtual link to a child's drifting imagination of the French coastline. That evening with the draw over veil of dusk, a fluorescence emanated with the thinning coast line that didn't want to die, while grew a widening wedgy body of dark water. The point I backtracked in time to realize that imperceptible slow advancing, which captured, my curiosity faded dissolving my existence.

Impression

Father wrote; "No sooner the anchor thrown in Suez that a swarm of little boats and little barges of all sorts circled the ship. These floating peddlers from the old grizzly bearded to the alert youngster of ten years. They began to spread the so to say vases, statues, cloths, and other articles of high Egyptian antiquity. Engendering overboard wheeling and dealing, with youngsters on the assault of the vertical sleek wall, climbed on board. We descended the boarding ramp to ground. the time of wait for the upcoming ships from port Said, the canal too narrow for two way navigation of crossing ships. Suez is not an attractive city. build at the time of the canal. Large straight grids of dirty streets. But after several days strolling about a few anti- relaxation hours. The natives saw the foreigners to extract a few Paras (old Egyptian currency). especially amusing for the children who played with the annoying peddlers. I still in the habit of wearing a jacket, though so hot, which habit one magician inspired me at loosing. He accosted me, and in a wink brought out from the interior pockets of my jacket little chicks. He had the guts to ask, "Where do you keep your wallet?" they had warned us on the ship about pick-pockets, and had the habit of carrying my wallet in the back pocket of my pants, and a strict necessary of cash. We were back on deck, and started the journey through the canal. In Indian file, slow not to stir the waters, and dead creeping monotony a whole day. Half way through, the canal cleared a little lake, and amongst cross ships was a French escort ship with two hospital ship that brought back soldiers from Indochina."

As a toddler with a mental distillation plant, I emerged to a conscious existence, with the surprise. anticipating a stages of the turquoise sea that branded to mind, the azure permeating sky with a source of soul infinity. Where the pellucid blues were faithful from my perch befriending with the railing on deck. With a birds eye view the transparent blue, had solidified, to a dense and sun reflective golden glow waving desert sand dunes. My free will had nothing of a liberty, conscious surging, notion infiltrating that the ship was slicing through sand waves of a sea littered with palm trees oasis decors. smoothly we penetrating deeper inland, absorbed in a time dial that suspended its rotation, sweeping by sight a landscape that vanished into the lie of turbulent blurry horizon, as the layers of the imagination where settling. my failing existence from an exhaustive mental concentration, and gathering eavesdropping in on the whispers of the far distant horizon said to earth; 'I too, can lose my spatial cloak, by an alchemy of colors just as your liquidity elucidated the sands.'