Ille-et-Vilaine (Bretagne, France)
Three clocks. And all of them have stopped at a different time. In the accommodation, one hangs in the kitchen, with a thick, ornate frame made of dark wood. It shows the time at 9:43.
If you look out of the window, you can see an oversized clock with Roman numerals on the wall of the house where the landlords live. A metal structure covered in rust, just like all the metal objects in the yard. It shows the time 12:52.
And then there is a small clock in the courtyard, you only see it when you step out of the door and pay close attention to it. It also has a rusty frame and a white clock face on which the Roman numerals are barely recognizable. It shows the time 10:59.
But there is no clock anywhere that shows the current time. It's like a sign. You are lost in time here. Time has stood still here. And somehow it is for me too. I'm working and making progress, but it feels like I am standing still. I don't feel any joy about what I've achieved and I don't see progress. There is no feeling of satisfaction, just a numb emptiness.
The week is long, things are repetitive and often feel dull. We do nothing, spend most of our time in the accommodation, which is too dark and cold. A door and a small window barely let any light in. The stove, which is far too small, produces more smoke than heat, which remains in the room. The entire accommodation is open and every corner is filled with smoke. You can even smell it in bed at night.
And here again, nights start to creep in when I either can't fall asleep or sleep through the night. Inner restlessness with thoughts of the future, in which I have no clear picture of what it might hold for me, or of the past, from which I see too many and too clear images that I don't want to see. And then the sometimes monotonous present, in which I do things but in which too much still remains undone.
When I sleep, I dream very vividly and intensely. I feel very alive in these dreams. Sometimes I wake up and my mind continues to play the dream. It expands it, keeps it alive beyond the moment of the night. Not because it was beautiful, but because it felt so real. Then it feels like the dreams are more real than reality.
And then there's the loneliness, which usually comes in the evening. And when it's there, it stays overnight. The next morning it gets up early and leaves, because when I wake up it's gone. It comes when everything else stops. When I'm not working or watching a series or when I'm not enthralled by a football match. It fills the empty moments with even more emptiness.
Three clocks. And all of them have stopped at a different time. In the accommodation, one hangs in the kitchen, with a thick, ornate frame made of dark wood. It shows the time at 9:43.
If you look out of the window, you can see an oversized clock with Roman numerals on the wall of the house where the landlords live. A metal structure covered in rust, just like all the metal objects in the yard. It shows the time 12:52.
And then there is a small clock in the courtyard, you only see it when you step out of the door and pay close attention to it. It also has a rusty frame and a white clock face on which the Roman numerals are barely recognizable. It shows the time 10:59.
But there is no clock anywhere that shows the current time. It's like a sign. You are lost in time here. Time has stood still here. And somehow it is for me too. I'm working and making progress, but it feels like I am standing still. I don't feel any joy about what I've achieved and I don't see progress. There is no feeling of satisfaction, just a numb emptiness.
The week is long, things are repetitive and often feel dull. We do nothing, spend most of our time in the accommodation, which is too dark and cold. A door and a small window barely let any light in. The stove, which is far too small, produces more smoke than heat, which remains in the room. The entire accommodation is open and every corner is filled with smoke. You can even smell it in bed at night.
And here again, nights start to creep in when I either can't fall asleep or sleep through the night. Inner restlessness with thoughts of the future, in which I have no clear picture of what it might hold for me, or of the past, from which I see too many and too clear images that I don't want to see. And then the sometimes monotonous present, in which I do things but in which too much still remains undone.
When I sleep, I dream very vividly and intensely. I feel very alive in these dreams. Sometimes I wake up and my mind continues to play the dream. It expands it, keeps it alive beyond the moment of the night. Not because it was beautiful, but because it felt so real. Then it feels like the dreams are more real than reality.
And then there's the loneliness, which usually comes in the evening. And when it's there, it stays overnight. The next morning it gets up early and leaves, because when I wake up it's gone. It comes when everything else stops. When I'm not working or watching a series or when I'm not enthralled by a football match. It fills the empty moments with even more emptiness.