The Opiate, Spring Vol. 17
The Museum of the Statues of Salt Julio Monteiro Martins, Translated by Helen Wickes & Donald Stang We are all trapped in old photographs. No one has confined us there. It’s that we have never been outside of them. And no one knows where we are now —certainly no one can know— because we are nowhere (while we are suspended everywhere). And every time we open our eyes to look back, we become statues of salt. Each one corresponds to a snapshot in black and white, calcified in time. In place of an album, another dream, unexpected memories. Each moment of our life stops and freezes forever, somewhere, while we believe naively that we are moving forward. We will encounter ourselves farther down the road, yes, but among the things of the past, in the back of a drawer full of useless objects that we never throw away. A sort of continuous present pursues us. A showcase of events, a well-stocked museum of things lived, the display case of the soul’s antique store.
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