©Leo Muzhen Li
This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity.
—— Albert Camus, Le Mythe de Sisythe
The dome was quelled by a stifling force, the air were suffocating as the pressure dropped to an unbearable number. Every time he pause, he could felt the sticky-drenched fabric slightly cling to his neck. The summer heat percolated through every corner of the wasteland. The unpleasant climate has come. There is a twinge in his stomach and that was getting intense as he approached the gate. He panted and paused beside the door. That’s a long way back. The strange pain in his stomach grew as he almost leaned forward. What the heck was that? He trundled, slumped halfway when he finished the last few steps to the cleaning shower, a visceral complain blurted out as he reached to take his protective suits’ zip, this won’t absorb those virulent contaminant, never.
Reveries came after, first time have he experienced such lucid and less intricate question, When he unzipped his disheveled protection suit, he tried to stifle something that is buried deep but continued to be something agonizing, even though it is something unclear for him to answer fully.
‘Why?’ He desperately need an elucidation, what is the purpose? He felt sorry for himself, instinctively. There is no right path to accomplish certain things, he carried on the same job monotonously every day, is there a certain reason for him to endure? Dilapidated, He is dilapidated. That eternal feeling accompanied him for at least thirteen years, it is not agonizing to retrospect or to commemorate the pass, and it’s not difficult to think of his passion in such assiduous jobs. Past somehow meant something to him, it was an abyss: when were he born, his primary school of state, and his science teacher, what does that mean to him if he can’t retrieve the memory and insert his own character ?
He further unveiled the protective suit’s interior. That acrid smell commingled of sweat and body’s odor unsettled him the first time, which pummeled him. Since he was ten he came to such a desolate ocean basked in the North Africa sun, inundated by Algerian flood, he didn’t stop working, on his behalf it’s state responsibility, the leader’s command and his unwavering spirit. About 40 years ago the new Uto state sent children to this diabolical and sickening place for training purpose, he received something that ‘quenched’ them for real citizens. Everything in the desert is pernicious, the tempest descended as the sun blighted brightly, scorching them implacably, through ponds of half dry rain water with ripples that ruffled the greasy oil surface, demonstrating the reflection of the melancholy, tarnished metal color of the land. To live and to inhabit means to accept that burn of North Africa, one were denigrated on the scale of the robust nature, a robust nature that ignored one’s struggle and complain without the slightest concern, one would always be cautious and conscious as time pass, even though many sojourn for other purposes.
Yet he didn’t sojourn, he is part of the kids would were there.
Half opening his eyes, he walked slowly and meticulously as he passed by huge oil tanks and the wreck of French military trucks, the twilight caused to shadows to elongate.
The forlorn.
(Link: Unveiling a hidden tragedy: the devastating legacy of French nuclear testing in Algeria | War Resisters’ International)