Exhibits,

Anatol Pitt Something that happened but never took place

Standing there, one can’t help but think about giant ground sloths. Carving out their burrows, their claws turn the porous rock into walls of texture. As they dig deeper into my past, what seemed solid to the touch dissolves in dendritic possibility.

Memories stutter, recovered, dug up,
digested,
buried again,
waiting for another chance.

Tracing out their evolutionary tree, I don’t have the guts to tell these sloths how it all ends. Not that I really know. All I have are a few bones and my threadbare theories to go by.

How long do these ancient creatures sleep for? Was it out of necessity that they burrowed down, carving out a life, before realizing they preferred the surface, the canopy, their algae?

Of over fifty species of sloth, only six remain. The large majority were ground-dwellers, some as big as elephants.

A camera snakes past, searching, retracing its own path, documenting everything—even if it sees little. Not that it matters, it’s the principle of it, the process.

My voice echoes down the chambers
of this Anatolian city, papered over.
No response.

I remember, crawling underneath Budapest. Clambering down into my new home below the suburbs.

The guide just in front of me turns off his light and disappears into the darkness. Everyone stops. Where next?

Not really equipped for this, we wait, directionless.