Flights

PURGING THE MAP

If something hurts me, I erase it from my mental map. Places where I stumbled, fell, where I was struck down, cut to the quick, where things were painful – such places are simply not there any longer.

This means I’ve got rid of several big cities and one whole province. Maybe someday I’ll eliminate a country. The maps don’t mind – in fact, otherwise they miss those blank patches, the shape of their happy childhood.

Whenever I have had to visit one of these non-existent places (I try not to bear grudges), I’ve become an eye that moves like a spectre in a ghost town. If I could fully focus, I would be able to slip my hand right inside the tightest blocks of concrete and traverse the jam-packed streets, making my way through backed-up traffic unfazed, incurring no damages, and making no fuss.

But I have not done that. I’ve played by the rules as established by the people who live there. And I’ve tried not to betray to them the phantom nature of these places where they’re still stuck, poor things, all erased. I simply smile at them and nod at everything they say. I wouldn’t want to confuse them with the knowledge that they don’t exist.