what use a map?

“Want to buy map?” the boy asks, as I sip my little glass of chai.

What use would a map be? I ponder. I could draw you a plan of the town but no sooner would I have finished than some new houses would appear here and some old ones would crumble away there. The map would soon be out of date. 

I could draw you a map of the area but what would be the point? Barely would the ink have dried before a new bypass would spring up; an old forest would be cut down; the meandering river would carve a new channel across the plain.

I could map the whole country but to no avail. Before I had even finished, the government would change; the borders would be disputed; new motorways would be laid down and new towns would appear.

I could show you the world but I would be foolish to do so. For in the blink of an eye, the tectonic plates would have shifted; mountain ranges would have been born and oceans swallowed up.

There can be no map, for truth is a living thing, ungraspable but utterly liveable.

“No, thank you,” I reply to the young map seller.

(December 2004)