Spoiler

Ed Atkins

22—29 January 2010

Epilogue:

First, the dog’s corpse is hauled off the keyboard. Silence rushes in. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief. The body thumps oblivious against the gallery floor. This then hustled into an industrial bin bag – a difficult process requiring a certain amount of gruesome ‘bending’. The keyboard is unplugged (with flex gathered lazily) then re-boxed and taped-up. Likewise the amp. This belongs to Dennis. Someone suggests returning the keyboard to the people at Roland for a refund; we are within the 14 day period. Then follows the mopping. A good hour of mopping-up all that graphite. No one speaks or thinks to turn on a radio – an air of funereal solemnity lingers. Graphite – blackened, soapy water is poured down an open drain in the yard out the back. The boxed keyboard (to be returned to the people at Roland), the amp and the dead dog are loaded onto the back of a pickup truck. Everyone leaves, saying their muted goodbyes. Dennis clambers into the truck and drives off. Out of the city, out of the state – he drives all night. At sunup, he pulls off the highway down a rutted track. At the end of the track is a barren field (perhaps a field he used for some previous piece). He drives into the centre of the field, parks up, gets out, lowers the tailgate, and unloads the dog’s bagged body. He flops it down in a ploughed ridge and unwraps it. He douses it in petrol and lights it. He drives off, heading for the people at Roland. Black smokes obscures the shot.