there's nothing (to see)

‘Most visitors spend a day at the [Hancock Shaker] village, visiting all the buildings, the restaurant, the gift shop, and leave, village map in hand, without seeing the Shaker graveyard. Indeed, when I asked my guide directions to the graveyard she said, “But there's nothing to see!” And so I went. Across a field, over a footbridge, past a row of cornstalks, one turns and sees another empty field with a modest obelisk at its center. Here Lie the Shaker Dead—or something to that effect. At the beginning of this century, the elders decided to change the nature of Shaker burial and removed all of the individual headstones, using them for sidewalks, countertops, and ironing boards. Standing there one is confounded with the real Shaker theme—a simple, empty meadow full of the dead who have been stripped of their names, like the anonymous burying grounds of war, all individuals gone to a greater cause—which may be noble, and may be moving (..). By the way, nineteenth-century insane asylums also buried their dead without names—as if the deceased belonged to an anonymous collective insanity.’

Mary Ruefle, ‘On Theme’, Madness, Rack, and Honey. Collected lectures

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dit verhaal over verdwenen namen —

ik las het 's avonds laat in bed, ik kon er niet van slapen.

ik begrijp niet dat het zo makkelijk is om gebeurtenissen te doen verdwijnen (decided to change/ removed all of the individual headstones). ik denk vaak na over wat ik niet weet en nooit zal kunnen weten. dat zwarte gat wordt almaar groter.

de stenen zijn er nog. sidewalks, countertops, ironing boards.

wie ligt waar?