The Crack in the Plaster

Day one hundred and fifty-six, Georgia. Joseph Turner has gone, as unexpectedly as he arrived. I went down to the landlady of the guest house in Tskaltubo first thing and asked where he was.

„Left already.“

So I take out my journal and look at what he said last night.

„The interesting thing about a perfectly built wall is the crack running through the plaster.“

We liked each other immediately. Joseph is a traveller from Australia, early twenties, John Lennon glasses and the haircut to match, quick, and paying attention.

„Mistakes are part of the perfect world we live in,“ he said.

In a few hours we went through every political, economic and spiritual context the two of us could hold in our heads at once: the pandemic, war, poverty, greed, the eleventh of September, the Aborigines, artificial intelligence, power and control.

If the world in its present state were a plastered wall, it would be full of cracks, and in places the plaster would already be off.

What is behind it, then. Who holds the power. What on this stage is real and what is painted.

He was here for one evening and left the questions on the table.