Hysteria

It being half-term week there are lots of kids in the parks feeding or torturing the ducks depending on how they've been brought up (the kids not the ducks). Whether feeding frenzy or just warning off the would-be assailants, the birds were making one helluva din, which put me in mind of this:

As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill. I was drawn in by short gasps, inhaled at each momentary recovery, lost finally in the dark caverns of her throat, bruised by the ripple of unseen muscles. An elderly waiter with trembling hands was hurriedly spreading a pink and white checked cloth over the rusty green iron table, saying: 'If the lady and gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden, if the lady and gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden?' I decided that if the shaking of her breasts could be stopped, some of the fragments of the afternoon might be collected, and I concentrated my attention with careful subtlety to this end.

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965). Prufrock and Other Observations. 1917.


This image is dedicated to sleepyduck and Imp, who I for one still miss a lot, and hope to see them back on Blip one day.