The Cretan Wife: Three Videotexts

7/30/2019 The Cretan Wife: Three Videotexts

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THE CRETAN WIFE

three videotexts

MICHAEL BLACKBURN


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The Cretan WifeMichael Blackburn, 2013

Sunk Island Publishing

Lincoln

Where Are You Going?, Midway This Life, The Cretan Wife, all

originally written as texts for videos by Michael Blackburn (2006),

originals on youtube.com/sunkisland

Also by Michael Blackburn

The Constitution of Things

Why Should Anyone Be Here And Singing?

Backwards into Bedlam

The Lean Man Shaving

The Ascending Boy

Portrait of the Artist as a Cyborg (hypertext)

Let's Build A City

Black Swan Of Trespass

The Stone Ship

Big on the Hawkesbury

Pocket Venus

Spyglass Over The Lagoon


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WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

My travels had brought me to a lake in the centre of a city in which I had

once lived. In those days the streets were dirty and littered with the

rubbish of downcast residents and disconsolate drunks. Now it was therubbish of building sites. Everywhere was the sound of cranes and

machines.

Life is not like crossing a bridge, I thought, not even like falling into the

river the bridge crosses and being ignored by the madman who has been

pacing around by the water for the last half hour, ignoring the swans that

the tourists love.

The images of other lakes filtered through my mind: Semerwater, Huron,

Tuggerah, Balaton. Attached to each one are perhaps two or three

memories, each lasting no more than two or three seconds: the sound of a

curlew at Semerwater, diesel rainbows on Huron, the smell of coffee at


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Tuggerah, the bright white wall of a hotel at Balaton.

Life is not the same as crossing a field or a bridge but perhaps it is more

like falling into the current and being carried away.

I have found in my travels that no matter how far I journey or however

much I experience, I always end up repeating myself.


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MIDWAY THIS LIFE

At the fourth hour of the second day of our journey we saw a small flock

of sheep under a large chestnut tree. My companion believed them to be

cows. I remonstrated, saying they were obviously sheep, though theircoats were closely shorn and they were indeed large animals. My

companion continued to disagree. I put this down to his lack of years and

excess of egotism. The argument was resolved in the usual way.

We also discovered a tree with unknown fruits that were hard and

covered with a velvety green skin. At first I thought they were almonds or

walnuts, although after crushing one beneath my foot, it was obvious they

were neither. We plucked a number to bring back with us.

Half way on our journey we came across a yellow boat abandoned in a

garden. We were told this was the boat in which a local man had

singlehandedly crossed the Sea of Partition, but we were sceptical. We


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continued through the wood.

After a while we perceived a road ahead. My companion, being young in

Olympian years and thus lacking caution, wanted to dash onward, but I

made him follow behind.

I prepared for the unexpected, just in case the tigers returned.


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THE CRETAN WIFE

I was accompanied by my wife, who was 15 years my junior and spoke

with a Cretan accent which the others found either disturbing or

mysterious, depending on whether they came from the islands to thenorth or to the south. As we passed down the ancient streets of villages I

often caught sight of the men staring at her with expressions of both

intense attraction and repulsion.

She began to have occult dreams and waking visions. She saw people

walking through doorways that no longer existed, ghosts seated at table

in full sunlight, triremes making their way along the coast, half naked

warriors from the Peloponnese sprawling by the riverside, their helmets

and shields filmed with dust. She said she'd listened to an hour-long

conversation on a telephone that had long since been removed from the

hallway of the hotel in which we were staying, a conversation between an

irate mother and her wayward daughter in Piraeus in 1921.


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This unexpected activity left her drained of energy yet nervy and alert at

the same time. It made her so languid that she moved slowly and

sensually, her limbs relaxed, her black hair loose. A dark, erotic charge

flowed from her, and I burned fiercely within its radius. Our lovemaking

became strangely violent. She would display herself, insouciant andpassive whilst recounting her latest dream or vision. This would excite me

and the more she babbled the more aroused I became. Even in the midst

of our passion she would continue her breathless narrative.

For months we travelled on the mainland, through the mountains, along

the coast, staying only in villages and small towns, never in cities. And we

moved from one island to another, without haste, without plans, withoutdestination.

Documents

The Cretan Wife: Three Videotexts