4. making of flower nectar
PART IV / MAKING OF FLOWER NECTAR: A HYPEREAL GESTURE
the Ora flower (Sonneratia Caseolaris)
firm and virginal flower buds—violently ripped from the wilting branches
and delicately placed in a translucent plastic bag
CUT TO
5.9 kg of plastic found inside a beached sperm whale
(its decomposed stomach carried 115 cups, 4 plastic bottles, 25 plastic bags, 2 flip flops)
a cautious and delicate synthesis of beautiful, amphibious objects—dead yet becoming (like hair and nails on a corpse)
(a sensory remembrance of) crimson nectar of the Gods
nectar < nektar < nek (death) + tar (to overcome)
nectar / ambrosia / amrita / soma
a liquid with the power to defeat death
CUT TO
my first memory of death / fifteen years ago, at least / summer morning / a rat trapped in a cage overnight/ my Grandad put the cage inside a bucket of water (warmed by the morning sun) / violent jolts of despair / an ecstatic, almost enthusiastic hysteria /
and then it stopped—posthumous cicada mourning
it was a crime of hubris to steal nectar from the Gods
Tantalus was chastised for attempting to steal nectar; he was sent to the Underworld where he was eternally punished to suffer of hunger and thirst
forced to stand in a river, every time he tried to drink water, the water receded
forced to stand beneath a fruit tree, every time he tried to reach the branches, the fruit would disappear
CUT TO
a snowball you once kept inside the freezer until summer time
nectar tastes like sweet water—an ambrosial sugary fluid, secreted by plants to stimulate pollination
with devious charisma, it seduces insects, animals, mythical characters
nectar, or THE BIOFICTIONAL TRICKSTER
a meta-transforming amphibian—its already extinct state precedes another
in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, ‘the Graces bathed her and anointed her
with ambrosian oil such as is rubbed on deathless gods,
divinely sweet, and made fragrant for her sake’
in ‘The Iliad’ Hera ‘cleansed all defilement from her lovely flesh’ with nectar
in ‘The Odyssey’ men disguised themselves as seals in untanned skins: ‘and the deadly smell of the seal skins vexed us sore; but the goddess saved us; she brought nectar and put it under our nostrils’
CUT TO
the scaling of a fish / remnants of gut liquid soaked into porous cement and evaporating in the hot sun / a familiar scent of putrescence lingers above the ground / a bed of coarse scales and fins deaden as time passes
churning of the ocean milk; in Hinduism, the gods and the demons coalesced in order to retrieve the amrita, the elixir of immortality from the bottom of the cosmic ocean / when the amrita rose to the ocean’s surface, the gods stole it; a vicious stimulus to an aeonian war
CUT TO
the greasy leftovers of a ‘roadside picnic’ / a low, muffled drone of cars from the highway / debris; a floating reminder of a (once) coming together
nectar allures bacteria—a microflora that attracts and repels
forever dwelling in stagnant yet living water—A PROTO-VISUAL IMAGE OF MATTER
time felt through bacteria—always becoming (through macrotime / microtime)
the flower’s viscous insides become a gravitational field / an a-gravitational field
CUT TO
dashcam footage of the Chelyabinsk meteor that entered Earth’s atmosphere over Russia on 15 February 2013; a superbolide shedding vaporised particles into the universe, some reach the ground
re-staging a once-happening / like a dream you revisited as a child / every night, you traced its remnants with the ‘confidence of a sleepwalker’
the Ora flower: ‘óra’ in Greek meaning
TIME / a period of time / season / climate / year / hour / time of the day / time span of life; youth / the right time for something
the right time for the meteor to fall; the right time for the flower to blossom