Escape

The time came for my escape from Erewhon. I knew that I would have to find an excuse to visit the eastern mountains during the dark of the moon. I told the King that I wanted to observe the residents of Naffity when they gathered the tears of mourning. He raised his left eyebrow, but granted leave.

I was handed a dark lantern and we hiked up to the plateau below the giant fallen statues. Once everyone was bent over with eyes fixed to the ground, I slipped away and climbed up the rocky slope. My hands and arms and face were scratched by the long thorns as I burrowed through the boor-geresy thicket and found the tunnel entrance beneath the up-bent knee of the statue of Xite.

Much as I love words, they can be tyrants sometimes. Swarming together into thoughts and buzzing around my brain, they distract me from my body.

Then I make my escape into the world of numbers. There is nothing so clear and simple and elegant as an equation, where all the powers of x and y are discovered and revealed and work together.


^116

If escape is not at hand then you must make your own escape.

[escape links: Thesaurus | Ish | Frog | Reconstruction | No]
[escape links: Traffic | Law | Beautiful | Common | Toaster]
[escape links: Sex | Submarine | Plexus | Accuse | Gardenia]
[escape links: Regret | Multilingual | Muscle | Invention | Garlic]
[escape links: Muscle | Which | Help | Text | Awake]
[escape links: God | Bombast | Bed | Factors | ^116]
[escape links: Engage | Seattle | Goodhearted | Reality | A-Bomb]
[escape links: Flower | Frame | Fret | Cinema | Understanding]
[escape links: Reasonable | Fridge | Master | Voodoo | Baby]
[escape links: Llama | Picture | Materialism | Will | Gleam]

Ettore thought his escape manifested his freedom but he is fettered by the very word of it. His escape is a tunnel between cells: Ettore can erase his fingerprints, his precious signature, digging; but if only he would get off his knees and look around ... who told him he was in prison?

I NEVER hear the word “escape”
Without a quicker blood,
A sudden expectation,
A flying attitude.

I never hear of prisons broad
By soldiers battered down,
But I tug childish at my bars,—
Only to fail again!

~~~Emily Dickinson (1830–86)

Every series, be it books, movies, TV, at least contain one episode that has something to do with escaping:

»Escape from the jungle of doom«
»Escape to paradise«
»Frank's Escape«
»Escape from the planet of the robot monsters«
»Espace from the empire strikes back«

Last week, someone asked me what it is that drives me. I didn't know what to say. Is there something other than architecture that drives me? I searched my mind for hours thinking of what my passion was. I thought of all the movies that I had seen throughout the year, and then it hit me: the thing which drives me is the hope, the promise, that I can be anywhere but Here.
I told her that I liked to travel. She thought I meant something like going to Europe. But I really only wanted to die.