Zorby (James Flint)

The rainbow skein of petrol on a puddle. The orange haze around sodium vapour lights when the mist descends. The glow of a single laptop screen in a darkened room. The hum of servers in a silent building. Cloud bellies lit by a city at dusk. The hollow tang of a basketballs bouncing in a baking court. The shiver of heat above a hot exhaust. The yellow cyclops eyes of taxis lined up in a rank. The hiss of a Eurostar pulling into Gard du Nord. The crust of sand turned to glass by an exploding missile. The glint of curtain walls in the midday sun. The copper pathways of a microprocessor seen under a microscope. The traces of a thousand passenger aircraft on a traffic controller’s plasma screen. The remorseless black of a fighter pilot’s visor. The pixellated strain of a digital viewfinder in low light. Countless multicoloured plastic particles drifting on the tide. Iron scum left by a dead, receding sea. The electric lattice of Los Angeles laid out on the land. Tankers hugging the horizon north-west of the Philippines. Soldiers’ boots looming green in night-vision. The whine of a modem connecting to a network. The hush of bus wheels in the rain two streets away. The creak of rooks above the rooves of vacant buildings. The amber blink of a mobile phone’s light-emitting diode, to let you know your lover’s left a message. The celestial echo of aircraft overhead. The distant thrum of trucks and motorbikes. The rust of dried blood on the road beside a checkpoint. The carboned steel of burned-out homes and cars. The shadows thrown through window blinds by passing headlights. The countless lives lived alongside countless railway tracks. The metal taste on your tongue when you wake at 3 a.m. The astonishing waste, the overwhelming beauty, the pure incomprehensibility of our being in this world.

Pour citer cette ressource :

James Flint, Zorby (James Flint), La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), juin 2014. Consulté le 22/11/2024. URL: https://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/litterature/entretiens-et-textes-inedits/zorby-james-flint-