I’m walking and dreaming but mostly walking. Through this city so far away from where I was born. Walking to a school, a place that might give me a reason for being here. It’s busy and it’s hot but I don’t mind. My nostrils full of exhaust and the smell of chewing tobacco. It’s dusty and the dust thickens my sweat. I squint at the sun that diffuses in the smog and I keep walking.

And I notice things. But they’re nothings. Or nothing I can make much of. Pavements interrupted by strips of rubble. The skeleton of a new building. The clatter of somebody pushing a trolley full of linen. Some flies drinking a puddle that wasn’t made by the rain.

I walk past some soldiers smoking in the shade of a tree that I don’t know the name of. I look away because soldiers, like cops, make me feel nervous.

I walk past some children standing in line. A young girl steps out of line and in front of me, impudent, imperious. She sticks her hand out. I shake her hand. I’ve been accosted on the street a lot here but never by a girl before and I guess it’s because she’s young enough so that she’s not obliged to care.

And I’m walking. And it’s hot. My forehead’s reddening, sweat pouring. But I don’t mind.

And I come to where the school should be but there’s nothing to be found there. My guidebook map is only approximating. So I walk and I walk and I ask shopkeepers and loafers but nobody knows what I’m talking about. I but a Coca Cola and marvel at its unhallowed tangs. I walk down the same road ten times. And I’m tiring and my forehead’s reddening and my sweat stings my eyes but I don’t mind, I just keep shuffling forward. I walk and I walk and I squint at the horizon and wonder how I’ll ever find it and for seconds at a time forget that there was a reason for this walking.

But then I remember the existence of taxis. I hail one and it takes me straight there!

And I wait and I wait in the cool of the reception, watching the students file past relaxed and laughing. And finally somebody comes out to see me. And they say that I’m too late, that I’ve got the wrong date, that I’ve missed my chance.

So I go back into the heat and I’m walking. And this song comes into my head.

(there's petrol in the engine hundred million years old today falling petals brush our faces hundred million years old today flaming petals burn our faces and everything is ok)

And I’m walking. The sun is pounding on my forehead, my forehead reddening. And the heat and the fumes and the voices on the street full of distorted verve and the chaos and the commerce and the rubble and the dust and the yellow sky and the dinge and the clatter and something and something and something and something and

(there's petrol in the engine hundred million years old today falling petals brush our faces hundred million years old today flaming petals burn our faces and everything is ok)

The accumulations, the waste, the centuries, the history, the degeneration, the generation, the sprawl and the increase, the fat of the land, the marrow of the land, the collapse, the failure and triumph and death and persistence and falling, and I’m walking and walking and I’m just a speck, a mote in the spillage, a red forehead with a vein bulging in it, a febrile link to the sun.

(there's petrol in the engine hundred million years old today the glory days are over and everything is ok)