The feast of k’virik’oba (კვირიკობა), in honor of St. Kvirike of the Georgian church, is held every year atop the mountain in Upper Svaneti where the church of Sts. Kvirike and Ivlita sits. Hundreds of people from all over Georgia come to visit the church, recieve a blessing, and feast. St. Kvirike is associated with hilltops and the pagan god of thunder.

A place named nowhere, now here — the empty set — a cæsura, break, split or gap — a nonce — an elision — a minimus — a leaving-out — a vacuum abhored by nature, and much ado about it — oblivion — Null Island — Rub‘ al Khali — limbo — mu — ex nihilo — absolute zero .

The train pulls into the crumbling station, an ornate pile of blackened bricks, steel girders framing dust-fogged windows, statuary caked with grime. Erstwhile passengers run from the gathering clouds and cold gusts as the light swiftly evaporates. The ode of the clocktowers begins.

The fake thing is the impetus; the real thing is the echo (of it).

In the crepuscular haze of a decaying, but busy, transfer passageway between old urban train stations, we study the gaits, the postures, the faces, the precise trajectories taken, of those who are simply moving between their own personal points A and points B.

It is often hard to know when we are approaching a limit. The contours of our zone of awareness unexpectedly reveal the crumbling ledge when we least expect it. From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached (Kafka).

The city is full of dark birds. They float down from pointed towers

and winter trees, their feathers disheveled by the updraft, and walk

among us on two feet. The sky congeals into cold droplets, and the

crowd, for shelter, quickly evaporates. As a reflection, this piece is

grounded not so much in the fleeting moment of a transient effect but

rather in a sense of the eternal here and now.

The author Stanisław Lem is reported to have thought the various film adaptations of his book were off the mark; their failings for him amounted to turning a philosophical problem into a story focused on the erotic problems of the protagonist. In Lem’s mind, Solaris is about nothing less than the limits of reason.

A scrap of paper you had earlier pushed deep into your pocket now rests on your fingertips. As you consult the smudged address, you understand that you have arrived. The fillings in your teeth are picking up something — click cli-click ca-clic-click — energies pulsating with the urgency of a message intended only for you.

What world am I on? We have a sun that rises and sets; we have a moon, too. There is an absent glow; something torn down, trampled upon, and then put back up, gashed and sorry-looking. I see a diffracted vision of the present, its tides and indifferent coercions. I feel unreal in this world, as these and other doubts amass and accrue.