For the last year his view through the window has been of the edge of a building site. This transient landscape has created impressions of permanence through some features that have evolved into landmarks: A muddy path, a derelict building, some scaffolding and a ladder standing in the middle of the path, leading nowhere and making no sense. He calls it “The Ladder to The Sky.” It’s like a cosmic joke, a folly. Positioned on a whim, illogical and absurd - a reminder of madness, a thorn in the side of order.
The landscape is changing and the dereliction and absurdity are gradually being replaced by neat rows of houses, each one the same as the last. I noticed that the ladder to the sky was missing one morning last week and I couldn’t help but think what it might mean to him. Just gone. No explanation. No warning. I wondered if he somehow felt its absence, if some route that might have been open to him had disappeared forever.
I don’t know what the ladder really meant to him; he used it to climb, to stretch, to take-off at times. It took us places, through conversations, through fantasy, through the clouds. I imagined he might climb to the top and disappear, like the Indian Rope Trick, perhaps emerging in a parallel universe. He imagined that it would be there forever; long after he himself had gone. He imagined we would take a photograph. In the picture we’d be standing on the rungs, climbing upward. Like pilots on the steps of an aeroplane or explorers about to embark on a great adventure. Turning to face the camera for a moment, caught, somewhere between heaven and earth.
Joolz Mclay 2004