2002-12-14

The house is covered in shell-sand. It was built at a time when interesting experiments were being made in durable surfaces for concrete buildings. A flat concrete roof with a concrete surround. The window-posts are vertical only, dividing the windows in two. Sills beneath the windows coated in pulverized obsidian; the roof surround too. The remnants of the shiny lumps of obsidian used for the pulverized coating are in a wooden box in the garage.
It is a pleasant sensation to pass one’s hand down the vertical surfaces. It tickles the palm, prickles a little sometimes. When the eyes follow the hand, one sees tiny shells, witches’ hats, which are unbroken, but sit fast in the rendering. Also fragments of shells in interminably beautiful colours, colours that most resemble those times when, in midwinter, a warm wind blows down off the mountains and clouds of mother-of-pearl appear high in the sky. As if they are beyond the Northern Lights.
The wall is large, and there is much to see in the pulverized sand. Sometimes one can prise a whole bit of shell from the wall. A tiny smooth dent is left, fiited for the smallest finger. From the street the walls of the house appear plain, pale grey.