Modern Times (In Three Sections)

I I am often lost. So far, I always find myself, but someday... Well, somedays when I am walking, further lost in my thoughts, oblivious to the landscape, I suddenly stop thinking and look out into the world spread about me. I look long and hard, but see no familiar landmark, remember nothing seen on my passage to this spot, at this time. People smirk: a stationary man can only be a lost soul, of no account, a useless man. There are others like me, standing alone, obfuscated, astonished, forlorn, but we do not speak to each other. Humiliation blocks that impulse. I pretend to be blind to the world, it is a point of pride: I turn inward and drop into inactivity. Like a scarecrow dumped in a shed, a beast chased from its lair, a citizen who never votes. Further walking is useless, I won't close this circle that way. I stand very still, like the others who were arrested before me, without gesture or expression. Is this any way to live? II My dilemma stems from the behavior of my house, recent behavior I can neither explain nor condone. This won't surprise you: my house, like so many others in these modern times, wanders the city in search of its ideal location. It pulls up its foundations, folds the basement against the first floor, opens wide all doors and windows, and lumbers down streets, scattering cars and pedestrians to the side. I found my house settled in an abandoned parking lot, now redesignated an Urban Park. Wayward houses cluster at the far end of these parks, where the terrain is treeless, grassless, flat, worn down. They lack all sense of design or appearance, just plant their foundations in dirt, and let their weight settle them, usually with a marked tilt to one side. Scavengers quickly strip the house of window glass, frames, light fixtures, furniture, carpets. The house doesn't resist, it is happy to be free, and call itself - what else? - h-o-m-e. III A compassionate cop found me, turning in circles, dizzy from my circuits around an imagined center, a MODERN TIMES dervish intent on his ritual response. He drove me to an empty lot once occupied by my house with me in it. He shook my hand and wished me luck. 'I've been through this, too, brother, ' he said and drove off. Of course, memories flooded my thoughts, and I stood exposed to autumn showers for two days, oblivious to seasonal change that infected my body and roiled my mind... But memories could not sustain me, and the oceanic waves of thought subsided into a weary flow. Wet autumn was replaced by dry autumn, and the dust layers rose up and choked the city. Dust is the sign and signifier of the city's slow-motion collapse. Dust is dust, and someday I am dust, and I accept my final fate. But for the present moment, I am flesh and bone, blood and sinew, and I require my human happiness. So here I stand, in an empty lot, alternately soaked by rain or buffeted by dust, starting the dervish dance of a homeless man.