Saturday, July 15, 2017

West Exit

readings from mohsin hamid, exit west
oddly transcribed

Their funds were growing thinner more than half the money with which they had left the city now gone they better understood the desperation they saw in the camps the fear in people's eyes that they would be trapped here forever or until Hunger Force them back through one of the doors it led to undesirable places the doors that were left unguarded what people in the camps referred to as mouse traps but which in resignation some people were nonetheless trying especially those who it exhausted their resources venturing through them to the same place from which they had come or to another unknown place when they thought anything would be better than where they had been the effect doors had on people altered as well rumors had Sade was also Ensure but in the nearby House of his fellow country folk the man with the white beard spoke of martyrdom not as the most desirable outcome but is one possible end of a path the right-minded had no other choice but to follow and advocated the banding together of migrants along religious principles cutting across divisions of racer language or Nation for what did these divisions matter now in the world full of doors the only divisions that mattered now we're between those who sought the right of passage and those who would deny them passage and in such a world religion of the righteous must defend those who sought the past who sought passage because he was moved by these word strengthened by them and they were not the barbarous words of the militants back home because of whom his mother was dead and possibly by now his father as well but at the same time the Gathering of the band did remind him of begun to circulate of doors that could take you elsewhere often to places far away well removed from this deathtrap of a country some people claim to know people who knew people who had been through such tours a normal door they said could become special door and it could happen without warning to any door at all most people thought these rumors to be none since the superstitions of the feeble-minded but most people began to gaze at their own doors a little differently none the last that day size felt he was really accepted by this house and he thought he could ask the man with the white marked beard if there was a space for him and nausea whom he called his wife the man said there was always a space for brother and sister those sadly not a room they could share but could stay with him and some other men on the floor of the living room provided that is he did not mind sleeping on the floor Nadia could stay upstairs with women unfortunately he he and his wife were split up in this manner and they were among the first residence but it was only the only civilized way to Everyday of flight of fighter aircraft would streak through the sky screaming a reminder to the people of dark London of the technological superiority of their opponents of the government and nativist forces at the borders of their locality Saeed and Nadia good occasionally Glimpse tanks and armored vehicles and communication arrays and robots that walked for crawled like animals bearing loads for soldiers or rehearsing the disarming of explosives or perhaps preparing to do some other unknown task even more than the fighter planes in the tanks these robots few though they were and the drones overhead we're frightening because they suggested an Unstoppable efficiency and inhuman power and he wrote the kind of dread that is small mammal feels before predator of an altogether different order like a rodent before a snake

They met at a Chinese restaurant of Nadia's choosing this not being a class night the family that used to run the place after arriving in the city following the second world war and flourishing there for three generations had recently sold up and immigrated to Canada but prices remains reasonable and the standard of food had not yet Fallen the dining area had dark and had a dark and Opium Den Jones in contrast to other Chinese restaurants in the city it was distinctively lit by what look like candle filled paper lanterns but were in fact plastic illuminated By Flame shaped electronically flickering bulbs after the assault on the stock exchange Saeed and Nadia City it seemed the militants had change strategy and grown in confidence and instead of merely detonating a bomb here or orchestrating the shooting there they began taking over and holding territory throughout the city sometimes it building sometimes in the entire neighborhood 4 hours usually but on occasion 4 days how so many of them were arriving so quickly from their bastions in the Hills remained a mystery but the city was vast and sprawling and impossible to disconnect from the surrounding Countryside besides the militants were well known to have sympathizers Within without warning people began to rush out of the camp and Saeed and Nadia heard a rumor that a new door out had been found a door to Germany and so they ran to in the middle of the crowd initially but striding swiftly so they were soon closer to the front the crowd filled the narrow road and overflowed into the margins and stretched many hundreds of metres at its longest and cyan wondered where they were going and then up ahead he saw they were approaching a hotel or Resort of some kind as they room near he glimpsed align of men in uniform blocking their way and he told nausea and they were both frightened and started to slow down and allow people to pass them because they had seen in their City what happens when bullets are fired into an unarmed to massive people but in the end no bullets were fired the uniformed men simply stop the crowd and stood the ground and a few Brave or desperate or enterprising Souls tried to make it through running at high speed on either side where there were gaps but these few were caught and after an hour or so the crowd dispersed and most people headed back to camp

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