Fixing

[vaneramos]

August 18: Morning on Cavendish Beach, Prince Edward Island


When the door opened, the place inside held only ancient machinery jangling mysteriously, wanting maintenance: room after room filled with dissonance. I came from a family of engineers (my father wanted to design airplanes), but none of us were good with the architecture of inner spaces. Not knowing where to lubricate or what to tighten, the men would turn from drum kettle boiler rooms of emotion, pretending everything worked fine, not wanting to face rust and misalignment until finally gears started firing pyrotechnics. Then someone would stand in the smouldering clamour shouting words, as if men could reason with the deaf apparatus of relationships. Nothing ever got fixed, and each new gizmo was based on the faulty configuration of the last, laced with failures of memory. I, not even an engineer, never carried correct tools into the bowels of any groaning factory, always a spanner. First would appear blueprints, eyes passing messages across the dark, heartbeats in careful detail if I listened closely. I craved to press my hand against smooth steel of a strong machine and feel its harmonious rhythm. But engineers always try to fix things, and the true way of life is to build ourselves from within.