When fifteen years ago I went to see the première of a play of mine in a town not far from Detroit, the president of the Ford company invited me to lunch. As we were sitting on his terrace on the top floor, or more accurately on the roof of the Ford skyscraper, from which there was a view of that hideous huge city through whose streets countless cars were moving, instead of asking about his latest model -- a question which would have delighted my father -- I wanted to know how he removed all those cars from the world once theyd reached the end of their service. He replied that this was no problem. Anything that was manufactured could vanish without trace, it was merely a technical problem. And he smiled at the thought of a totally empty, cleansed world. After lunch the president lent me his car and his driver. I was taken to the edge of the city, where an incalculable mass of battered and rusty sedans were parked on a vast area. Negroes in brightly-coloured overalls first of all ripped the guts out of the cars with enormous pliers, stripped them of their tyres, windows and seats, and then pushed them into gigantic presses which turned the cars into metal parcels of manageable dimensions. But those metal boxes do not vanish from the world, any more than did the glass, the tyres or the spent oil, even if they were all burned in incinerators, nor did the rivers of petrol that were used on all those necessary and unnecessary journeys disappear. They probably melt down the crushed metal to make iron and steel for new cars, and thus rubbish is transformed into new rubbish, only slightly increased in quantity. If ever I were to meet that self-assured president again Id say to him: No, this isnt a mere technical problem. Because the spirit of dead things rises over the earth and over the waters, and its breath forebodes evil. - Ivan Klíma, Love and Garbage
Posted on: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 00:53:12 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015