Those who live by the word will die listening.

—Delmore Schwartz

 

It is a country where you can touch nothing: the food, the toilets, the people. The flies are everywhere. You come with your pockets stuffed with money, but there’s nothing you can buy for fear of contamination, and nothing you can let touch you.

 

*

 

You enter a hotel with a central court. White plaster nymphs and cherubs in the fountain. Blue and yellow walls with white icing. Palms, ferns, growing out of white plaster planters. Servants sliding around noiselessly as if on invisible ball bearings. Fans turning overhead. The constant continue of the fountain in the central court. But the statues are sugar. Gradually, the water erodes them and they crumble and fall into the fountain. The fountain crumbles and falls into it self. The whole court dissolves. Next, it begins to dissolve the hotel and the guests, who are also made of sugar. The hawks circle and circle overhead. But they are not interested in melted sugar.