The Shoot
Reflections of a Broken Bridge
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She danced down the Spanish Steps in a pale indigo diaphanous dress,
a saffron bow in her hair.
An unexpected dawn mist, disowned by the night, added a faint sadness to the scene as it crawled over the Roman rooftops like a drunken father traipsing over the mess in his hotel room, and his life.
I took notes, adding an imagined storyline for perspective, a sense of reality.
Later that night, on the way back to St. Regis, I passed the Casino and the Bar San Calisto, fighting the urge in my blood to explore well known ground.
I passed the long-legged girls north of the Tibre underneath the Chanel billboard and fast-food neon’s.
Suddenly, there’s a text ping on my phone.
‘The school fees have increased by 20% per annum. I need the money transferred immediately’… and something about alimony.
Somehow, I ended up at Ponte Emilio — The Broken Bridge — and at once everything made sense.
I had helped create this false world. This, you can have anything you want, world, based on a love yourself first and the rest will take care of itself, philosophy.
It’s a lie. Take it from a guy who writes the scripts to the advertisement’s subliminally echoing through your divine nature.
I look at the broken stones in this cinereal twilight. The honesty of their brokenness is beauty incarnate.
I am a fake. I am worse than a fake. I sell fake. I am a town crier of fake.
I call spectators to watch Gladiators kill or get eaten by lions in the arena.
If they are hungry for more, they will always be dissatisfied; and in their dissatisfaction, they will dwell and think:
To strive is as natural as it is to breathe.
To struggle with the unquenchable thirst of want is as God intended.
What want? Some may ask.
The want to live free from pain. Unshackled from the constraints of poverty.
To be taller, thinner, stronger, cleverer, prettier — like the girl with a saffron bow in her hair on this morning’s shoot.
