White Sands: Experiences from the Outside World

10

In Luxor there is a sculpture, slightly larger than life-size, of a prim king and queen sitting with her right hand on his left shoulder. He is complete, facing straight ahead, but by some accident of time half of her chest and all of her head and left arm have been sheared off at an angle. The damage is severe, the loss irreparable, tragic.

Looked at from a different angle, from the husband’s right, it seems as though her left hand (which in fact is entirely absent) is on his shoulder. Imagine a couple sitting for a formal photographic portrait — a photograph in ancient stone. In the instant when the shutter clicks she dips her head behind his back, giggling at the ridiculous rigidity of the pose they have been asked to adopt. Suddenly they are made whole again.

I assumed this effect was a transitory delusion on my part, but every time I shifted position the woman moved accordingly, reconfiguring herself and re-creating the illusion. The statue has been like this for thousands of years, but its delicacy is such that the fleetingness of a moment — a movement — has been preserved in stone. The ravages of time are caught — and reversed — in an instant. Time is alive, permanently.