Overpauis

'Pauis' is plural for 'paul', from the latin 'padūle' and 'palus', a Portuguese word for swamp; marsh; morass; moss; muskeg; quagmire — a flooded ecosystem. The poet Fernando Pessoa had submerged himself in this paulical plane, and through his overpauism (sobrepauis) he would consciously deny the Real in exchange for the Dream. Ever since my first table-service job in his city — Lisbon, pauis which I then abandoned — I had taken note of the psychological phenomena. The word 'slime', lodo, is used to imply a mess-up; a fumble. I invented whatever metaphors; dreams; solutions I had to invent; but I drowned nevertheless.

Now, two in the morning, while watching foxes cross Upper Street, I search for paulical images and come across the Marsh-harrier; also called, translating word-by-word from Portuguese, Ginger-harrier-from-the-pauis. I'm standing straight on top of another time's marshes. I invent a ceiling-mobile that evokes archaic traditions; furnishes the singular present with its hanging objects referring to the sacral-centre — the overground — the Marsh-harrier is orange like the hermaphrodite sexual-zone.

This afternoon I went to see a second room for potential rental, one block from the first one. A lady opened the door and a strange smell made my nostrils frown uncontrollably; our visible relational discomfort inhabited the entire visit; I said I had appreciated it very much, knowing it had absolutely no chance to be so. I then went up to the first house, scanning my future window to the world.

I walked for one dilated hour, crossing Hackney's marginal promises, and the parks wet and white, followed by an entire Goldsmiths Row haunted by the Good Nostalgia in Mark Kozelek's voice, until I got to the restaurant in Shoreditch for a trial shift. With almost no instructions I perfectly grasped that system in its whole — it's only people's games that you gotta dodge... — and no slime stuck to my secretary-bird-feet, and n'even my heart's modesty escaped me. Honeycomb was my reward for such practical excellence, take honeycomb, Nicomachus.

Then an old friend and compatriot was playing soccer nearby; he sent me his location and it was nearly identical to mine. I opened the Commercial Tavern's door and there he was, whom I've dined with when just-arrived in town, in times of Christmassy euphoria. I told him: "It turned out that he who had hired me was fired earlier today; and he who had fired him resigned in the end of the day." When we were asked to leave the pub for it was closing, we walked passed the Dirty Dicks to look for some tobacco, and then we smoked weed in his favorite alley. In reply to his comment about being cautious, I said: "It's February" — which doesn't mean much here, but in our hometown it means that it is Carnival, therefore caution can be spared.

But after we said goodbye, I gave up on walking home for one dilated hour. I didn't want to place myself above reality as surrealism does, neither underneath it because since the time of infrarrealism the game has got multidimensionally more complex. If pauis float on the surface of deeply still waters, to learn how to walk them seems precisely right from the point of view of magic. I took a bus.