A Quiet Rebellion

01Apr08

The Quiet Rebellion

Three times every weekday I took my coffee to the same bench. For fifteen minutes I watched the hole in the earth across the street deepen and widen. At the edge of this hole was a small low-rent hotel with the words “Unlimited Growth Increases the Divide”, in polished brass letters affixed to its brick façade. I was told that the owner had been offered several million so that the conglomerate could make a square-shaped rather than and L-shaped hole. He declined and put up the sign instead.

For the first few months it seemed no one inhabited the hotel. Or no one entered or left as I watched for the allowed two hundred and twenty five minutes each week. But the roof was covered with birds. I was told that there had been seven accidents so far at the construction site—most caused by the flocks that stirred whenever the crane moved over their heads. Not content with the hole, the company had filled it with concrete and was erecting something on top. But no one was quite sure what. The flock circled routinely around the rising concrete trying to inspire vertigo among the workers. And from the smudgy open hotel back windows a small shrivelled hand threw bread crusts.

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