Curator --

An attempt at post-modernism

Photo by Jakob Rosen on Unsplash

Cat’s vinyl-record shop was closing down, so she curated all the artists in talent-order. 
	The disposable artists came first: 
	The socially approved artists second: 
	The talented players third: 
	And the unrecognised genius fourth. 

The room was painted burgundy, the smell of porous skin flaking from the walls of her stage. 
	One person had cried on her floor, right center. 
	Two people had professed their love in the left center. 
	Three people had quarrelled over a bill down center. 
	Four people had agreed on Queen’s brilliance up center. 

The ceiling was stained with memory -  a drunk and addicted brawl that witnessed an ending. 
	One manager - Cat - had called the cops. 
	Two witnesses happily hyperbolised the addict’s violent state. 
	Three passers-by could see the addict was in fact only grieving in a dream-state. 
	Four police officers had mercy, but continued their occupational requirements. 

The shelves tasted of broken gold and cracked hope, emeralds bleeding - green ink running. 
Cat had tried to write-off debt, selling heirlooms and inherited wealth. 
She had no love nor children nor home nor hobby nor happenstance 
Beyond the realm of her vinyl store. But society takes prisoners by wired hands. 
And cuffs them to the chains of robotic futures and haphazard realities. 

The eyes of the bereft woman, cloaked in sandalwood and tattered cloth, began to weep. 
	Where would she go? If the world had no place for her dreams? 
	Where would she dream? If the vision of humanity dissolved all hope of antiquity? 
	How could she hope? If all the waking minutes of her golden life 
	Became subsumed by a mechanical landscape of some autonomaton’s making? 

The hands of Cat quivered as the evening sun began to fall into the catacombs of the sky. 
	Perhaps she could work for some employer that did not care for sales? 
	Perhaps she could find someone to love, and find purpose in love alone? 
	Perhaps an ancient deity would protect her against machines? 
	Perhaps she could build a home, a life of her own devising on a nearby plot of land? 

But a cat on a cold tin roof on a farm without company never sang a sweet  song of kindness. 
	And the employer would surely consume her, cooking sandalwood on a hot pan. 
	And no one ever loved a broken vinyl, only abandoned after exploit usage. 
	And an ancient deity is subsumed by the wires of modernity. 
	And the home on the plot of land would hold no meaning if she sung sweetly alone. 

So Cat finished compiling all the vinyls in talent order, and locked the front door for the final night. 
	And the midnight moon leaked oil across the swollen sky. 
	And the birds choked on coagulated dust upturned in disposable air. 
	And the door to her home was opened before she could enter. 
	And the unrecognised genius of her dreams sat on her floor, curating a dream of light. 

Photo by Nahid Hatami on Unsplash