Monday, April 28, 2014

Presence

It's still there.

The plastic bag caught on a twig, dangling in the tree right before me. It's been there for almost a week now, or at least for as long as I have noticed it. 

That flimsy white piece of plastic has been holding on despite the winds, the rain, the booms coming from Spring Fling, the drunkards shaking on the tree, the chattering and goings of L-Dub courtyard. 

It looks worse and worse everyday. The plastic shows tiny tears, the color turns a little more grey, the green spots fade out into the white that it once was. One day it will probably the torn to bits, the plastic shreds floating in the breeze like little artificial snowflakes, and its alabaster shade will turn to muck and grime as it is trodden on and forgotten like the grass on Old Campus after a night of partying. 

I wonder whether anyone notices. Whether anyone else sees this puny plastic bag that is clinging to this branch, an outcast in the white spring blossoms that surround it. What do they think of it? As a abomination? A blight on what is for the most part a beautiful tree? Some sort of sad cooked up symbol for some environmentalist gobbledygook? An allegory for the human condition? 

More likely no one notices. No one cares.

It's still there.

"Apathy and Abomination" Taken in New York, October 2013.
Click for larger image. OKJ All rights reserved.