?Interrobang! · Track 68 · middle
Luck or Faith Through the Dark
OBJECT (intimate, what Sisukiro found): a rosary worn smooth by ritual. OWNER (re-linked by Sisukiro): Dirty Derek — chimney sweep from the rooftops of Germany; note the irony of the name. FOUND AT: Sistema Huautla, deep in Mexico. THE (UN)LIKELY STORY & THE UNANSWERABLE QUESTION: Derek climbs into soot though sweeps are said to bring good luck; left his worn prayer-beads in a deep Mexican cave. Is it luck or faith that gets us through the dark passage?
Lyrics
Found you on a ledge in Sistema Huautla. Polished by a thumb in the dark. Fifty-nine beads of quiet desperation. Or maybe... quiet devotion. It's hard to tell the difference, down here. They called him Dirty Derek. A Schornsteinfeger on the rooftops of Germany. His face smeared with the work, a sign of good luck for the new bride, for the New Year. A living charm, climbing into the black throat of a chimney at 4 a.m. But in his pocket, you. Not a rabbit's foot. Not a four-leaf clover. This string of prayers. So which is it, Derek? Is it the luck you wear on your skin? The soot you're forbidden to wash on holy days? Or is it the faith you wear smooth in your hand? The Hail Mary for the tight passage, the narrow flue. What gets you through the dark when you're all alone? The regulations of 1786 couldn't tell you. Johann Samuel Petri never wrote it down. Just the rules for the guild, the brass badge, the proper way to climb. But every bead... that's a story. This one, a loose brick over Leipzig. This one, a child's cough from a cold room below. This one, the long climb down from a roof drawn by Schinkel, into the deeper dark of Oaxaca. So far from home. So which is it, Derek? Is it the luck you wear on your skin? The soot you're forbidden to wash on holy days? Or is it the faith you wear smooth in your hand? The Hail Mary for the tight passage, the narrow flue. What gets you through the dark when you're all alone? Did you come to Mexico to find a darkness a chimney could never teach you? A passage so deep, the luck ran out? Where the soot washed away in the dripping water and all that was left was this wood in your hand. Did you leave it here as an offering? Or a surrender? I'm holding it now. It smells of wet limestone. And faintly... of smoke. The question hangs in the air. Luck? Or faith?