Flies dancing in the light hovering above his eye, occasionally dropping to his occulus to suck at the seam of his eyelid; some sweet nectar from his unproven young tear duct.
The tram screeches to a halt, its connecting magnetic antennae cascading sparks across the front of the train. The driver yelling inanities and expletives as a three-legged dog crosses the line. The creaking noise of the old wooden interior; its seats barely held down by rusted communists screws that never seem to snap. The afternoon’s long light continues to beat down on our brows obliquely from the open windows of the tram. It’s so fucking hot here. Sweat stains our shirts. She is sipping passively, almost lethargically from a dusty water bottle containing some word in some language trying to sell me some natural water, I suppose. The tram careens through the small streets through towering block apartments, litter and refuse pushed to its side like fetid and crusty mud hanging to the women’s hemline on their dresses. It shouldn’t depress me. As with anything anymore, it simply exists. Vlad and Anna sleep quietly in the opposing seat. Flies dancing in the light hovering above his eye, occasionally dropping to his occulus to suck at the seam of his eyelid; some sweet nectar from his unproven young tear duct.
The tram stops atop the hill and out from nowhere, grand expanses of crystal water confirm our destination. People dot the beach like so many ants on a piece of discarded gum. The wind blows sand up the hill’s face into my mouth, caking my already parched lips and wedging granules of grit between my teeth. We head to the muddy shores. From above the fata morgana, the double apparition of what appears to be a great orb emerging from the sea, the sun set high above; it melds within the maniacal dissemination of heat on our beings. Upon our final descent to the beach, we stand transfixed, tired, and unable to raise a finger towards the consuming light rising from the sea. We strip naked, rub the healing mud from blackened waters over our bodies and wait for the spectacle to consume us from the shores, singing its praise covered in the same salt and mud of our forefathers.
We strip naked, rub the healing mud from blackened waters over our bodies and wait for the spectacle to consume us from the shores, singing its praise covered in the same salt and mud of our forefathers.
Joseph Charroy’s “la Frontierre” is an opaque little book. It feels like a chronicle, a road trip, through the east. The images have a simple, but effective anachronicity about them due to the color shift they present. They look like images in which the dyes of the chemicals have been processed with bleach, regarding their specificity of chronology to the look of the 60s, maybe 70s. Even the hints one modern car, or some amount of modern clothing are distorted and rent askew. The whole of the book presents itself as a mirage of youthful behavior. Couples, exploring the world together in short bursts, excerpts to re-tell the children in two decades time, minus the fucking, minus the toothless store clerk forgotten. It’s a nice, personal meditation on the wanderlust that should never be laid to rest.
Joseph Charroy
(All rights reserved. Text @ ASX. Images @ Joseph Charroy.)