A carapaced overcoat huddled to the wind, disappearing round the next corner, enshrouded and enmeshed in mist. The multiple feet pattering on the Cornish cobblestone caunseway, clattering. A presence, larval, gnoscient, aglow with wisdom, a clear intelligence, cornucopia of crystalline chrysalis glistering glycerine lepidopteral looming forth through the fog that swirled in from the sea. This was no everyday wanderer, not the typical denizen of this realm of codfish pasties and odd goings-on. This was the ‘Carapaced One’, as I thought him so dubbed; the very Caterpillar, transmitter of this flow of fluttering double journals, flags flew in face of fleeting street rag barrows.
Holder of myriad glossaries of dialects, alphabets, idioms, pictorial hieroglyphs and tablets ceramicus. Dabbler in technology of shifting times, epochs and places around and all over the place. Broadcaster of shimmering symbols on aether’s aery waves. Living lexicon of culture’s codes, collections of systems, ways of communication lost or not yet found, ways ancient and dreaminspired; ways mottled in sunshine’s memory’s yesterday’s forever’s dancing leaves in the sun of yesterday’s a sunny day’s a dappled windy day’s echoing, shuddering, rippling pictures. Most informative and innovative pupa, mystical tourist guide to psyche’s flight; so long from my sight. A message he transmitted to me by the wire, the telex. This slumbering behemoth of a beast of a machine still hurled its rolls unraveling an ink-spattering paper-jam, ticker-tape and green lights flashing. Dream-transmissions of subtle cultural sub-codes continued. Myths imparted by osmotic symbiosis. An outwardly rippling telegraphy of symbolic meanings to open the eyes- his mission resolute as he hunched over the dials of his communicating device, reloading paper-supply regularly and antennae-inspecting the inner-workings, clicking. With insectivorous precision he fixes the coordinates and delineates the paramaters of transmission, then the wave is put out. Jamming all spectra, the Caterpillar rides the airwaves as a buckaroo clings to the mane of a bucking morvil steer or a toucan spills over the rainbow gliding. Valves glowing and static crackling, ribbon spins and swirls on spools as ink is warmed by special flame jets to correct temperature for print-run, paper by now spinning on giant rolls towards gaping jaws of printing press. With the crisp rip of paper torn along a perforation, the message is in and production can commence… Dials sing, valves glow and the wave is put out…
email: caterpillardub@gmx.com
Burn, burn, burn…..
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