| Miguel
Angel Rios
by Adebiyi Adepoju
It starts with fertilization. A new life is made. The time
clock of a new heartbeat is set off. The quiet heartbeat evolves into a crying soul, a
speaking being and eventually ashes. The cycle is always the same. The darkness, voices,
the final breath and darkness creeps in again.
Walking into the room housing the Los Ninos Brantan De
Nache art piece, I cannot help but be amazed and captivated by Miguel Angel
Rios’s artistic yet ingenious expression of the human experience. The artwork simply
says it all.
The presiding darkness. The stage of total ignorance of the
world. Medically they call it the development of the fetus. I call it the period of
uncertainty. Encased in the womb, not sure whether the next second will be your last. Who
knows, maybe it will be another case of an unidentified fetus not making it to the outside
world. But what is there to lose? Life? At this theater, life is no bigger than the
biological fiber we are enclosed in and total dependence on a chord, our life source that
acts as the only link to the outside world.
The wooden box puts in plain words the vulnerability of
life. The helplessness of it all. Death they say is nothing but a heartbeat away. Life is
in stages and the cold hands of Death remain the only constant visitor in all the phases.
Never timed, hardly ever expected. Death comes calling. Man has been able to master
virtually everything, but the cold slick hands of death have remained uncontrollable. Just
like the air we breathe, death is everywhere. A non-respecter of person, creed or age. The
inalienable guest that comes in quietly and leaves taking with it our loved ones,
reminding us that our time left is reduced by a second. Though we don’t know when,
the countdown has begun. One second we are here. The next we are over there.
Then come the voices. Different sounds, Different tones.
The voices of loved ones and those of our adversaries. This symbolizes our first contact
with the world. The cries of pain or the solemn voices. In our helpless sojourn through
life, it is these voices that make up our lives. Our daily decisions and actions revolve
around these influences. Our laughter and our smiles. Our groaning and cries of anguish.
Actions can be amended but a spoken word, like a dropped egg cannot be scooped up again.
The footprint of each voice heard leaves a permanent mark of influence on our lives.
When it is all said and done. When the never invited but
ever welcome guest comes calling, Darkness skulks in again and once again we are
transformed into the state of unconsciousness, only this time never to return to the world
again.
Alone we came, alone we shall depart.
Somewhere, someplace the sequence begins again and goes on
and on and on…………….
Adebiyi Adepoju is a student at Devry Institute Of
Technology. Long Island City, Queens N.Y |
