Iain Rayner

9 Sebastian’s.

M. Parfait talks about Iain Rayners Drawing


Before I was born, the world was turning. And when I am gone the sun will continue to rise. The meaning of this is minimal. I am too tired to care. We can’t all count the days, the trauma of futility is manifest in our culture. We can’t stop it, we can’t throw an anchor into the sun, but we will continue to die trying.

Many are ready, though few are chosen. Elected by a council of chance, no stentorian pin-cushion can take the prize. That day when on your way to work, a gear shears and force prevails. Objects settle to the lowest point, water finds its level, mixed with blood and oil. You are risen, you bare witness. In your two arms that have lain commonly in view for all to see, you cradle innocence and try to empathise with something slipping away. A something that will not look back and will not judge. A something that cannot follow the rules. Something that is dying.

You can shout these facts that float around the events. You can shout them out to the largest sea, you can hear them echo back to you from the corners of the deepest cave. But the sea won’t understand you and the cave won’t pity your darkest fear. You have shared a moment the lasted only in the present and was without fear, containing only regret and hope.

The Sebastian’s didn’t die that way, they aren’t dead. The arrows were pulled from them by Irene and he came back to health to die again at the boot.

That man, five hundred years of my past, memories I conjure with. The rock of my faith in man. We can all find wonder and inhabit a moment looking thru the same gilded window. My fragile flesh can be pierced, my life can seep away, all our visions will eventually fade and all will be at peace. Sebastian was ready, and he was chosen, only to be robbed of his exultant snuff, later to fall undignified at the boot in a latrine.