The creation of art is the

placing of significance onto

place, a person or a moment in time.

Having a fleeting subjective

empirical experience

and trying to crystalise it,

trying to grant it immortality – 

that’s what artists try to do,

he says,

 

and I suppose he’s right,

in a way.

 

But everybody does that,

not just artists.

I do it all the time,

I’m doing it now.

 

There’s nothing to it;

that bloke sat there,

that bloke sat next to the girl,

the bloke with the bogey

on the end of nose

that he doesn’t know about,

 

the bogey she’s now noticed, but

doesn’t want to say anything about

because she doesn’t want

it to be awkward, even though

the very fact that she’s not

saying anything will make

it awkward when he

finally realises

he has a bogey on the end of his nose…

 

That bloke,

any bloke,

can become a mythical figure,

or a metaphor

or a symbol

or whatever.

 

That bloke,

any bloke,

can become something that

I will forget to write about

when I get home later.

 

And he will become immortal

in the same way that

I will become an artist.

 

He won’t.