View One. Images of cottages with shake sidings and ill-kempt yards draw across the windows of the bus respecting our detachment the same as the day before we don’t care and wouldn’t live there if we were given a choice or had paid attention non-participants forgoing interest validating television to turn our excitement on or off it’s not me beyond these tinted windows behind that hedge within those walls we do not glimpse would not stare at toothpaste caking between the bristles white hairs falling from a curler breakfast from a box getting soggy in a bowl since noticing would make life harder we want relief instead of crawling into the moment even if it resists. View Two. I watch an old man cross the aisle laying back with his fat head like a dead man on the window his stubby legs thrust out his thick hairy arm along the back of his seat (his scepter of ease and confidence) close his eyes as his head lolls from side to side turn to turn. View Three. A young woman who sits up front stares out the front window for an hour without moving her hands folded in her lap and I wonder whether she experiences enlightenment in her staring, whether she sees anything today that she didn’t see yesterday. View Four. My eyes sting at the end of the day from hayfever or the heat or lack of sleep or wearing dirty contacts or the afternoon sun through my office windows or glancing back and forth from page to screen discerning many words Early May Over 90 Up late and up early Protein deposits Western exposure Nine-point type Cathode rays I must be straining because the outlines of dynamic control blocks and virtual users do not focus. View Five. Eyes are ports to the soul Words are ports to the world Terminals are ports to the computer Theory of ports Information is useless unless it passes through a port.
29 & 30 April, 6 May 1987