The word itself is a palimpsest, a_ tracing, an excess, a remainder. To speak is to overcrowd the tongue. The wind might knock down a sign, but not the insistence of a flag. To be seen is to be an other, to be in exile from a perfect presence. I am told of a man who speaks to his own diaspora, of a people who has forgotten its language – but I am also told of a tongue that invades and is spelled by water. I see a grid, I see a picture, I see a frame – but I also see timelessness, I see embeddedness, I see fugitive colors. You say apocalypse, I say a sound. You say a perfect memory, I say a perfect presence.