Rooftop, reading from left to right

Rooftop, reading from left to right: a flat roof with a cot -- four wooden legs, an open frame netted with rope, passing light through to netted shadow. On the low wall at the roof’s edge, a white cloth shaped like a man who must be alive – because, why would you stow a corpse there? Corrugated iron slopes beyond and just below. He looks wrapped and ready to roll down the iron slide.

Here’s the metaphor: precariousness of life, easy ride into oblivion.

But he’s not really going to fall, is he? He might nap there every day. The empty cot is the thing. In the baked city, can’t you move even that far from the edge?

photograph by Ramesh Gandhi