Martin Aitken

STATEMENT 097
You want to know what I think about this arrangement? I think you look down on me. The way I see it, you’re a family that’s built a house. And from the warm rooms of that house you now look out at the pouring rain. Safe from menace, you delight at the rain. You’re dry and snug. You’re reaping the rewards of a long process of refinement. When the storm gets up, it only heightens your enjoyment. I’m standing in the rain you think can never fall on you. I become one with that rain. I’m the storm you shelter from. This entire house is something you built just to avoid me. So don’t come to me and say I play no part in human lives.

It was boiling hot.
The air was nearly glowing.
I liked it better when it was windy and raining. I could lie in my room then and watch films or read and sleep without feeling guilty about it. The sun was so unsparing. You were meant to be out in it, meant to be out with friends, meant to be having a good time. If I lay in my room then, there’d be something the matter with me, I’d be letting myself down, even though I’d be doing exactly the same thing, and even though my life was my own.

It was all their own doing, and yet they acted like it was something that just happened to them, like it was the same for everyone.