Ramneet Ubbi Analysis

Textual Intervention – Ramneet Ubbi

This textual intervention is taken place when Wilson arrives to meet Myrtle and leave Wilson alone. The intention is to refer to the American Dream in a lower-socioeconomic area.

Wilson bathed in the thin layer of dust that concealed a small Ford. It was crouched down begging for mercy in its operation. His skin was grey as if no sunlight had ever managed to pierce through his garage and onto him. Melting like ash. A tiny, shattered glass forged a reflection of himself – the sick man. A debilitating disease of desire had consumed him, a credulous fool stood there in its emptiness. He saw a thirty-something man had worn his sickness so threadbare that it evoked a decade of loneliness and thinning hair. His establishment had a large window with a view of Queens. It pictured the ashes that grew into wheat and grotesque gardens, there were tiny ash-grey men who
mingled their way around town. A small lake that remained calm, it was dirty but serene. The water was black with dead things in it. And a thick grey cloud was deployed just above the unnoticed deep set eyes of Dr T.J. Eckleburg.

A cruel, monstrous and beautiful Egyptian blue coupe arrived punctually at midday.
Its engine growled in greeting. Wilson expanded his palms in avidity, and relief rose like bile in his body. Instantly, the grey interior of the garage was enlivened by a labyrinth of the windshields that mirrored a dozen Suns. A gleam of hope feasted his grey eyes. A hulking beast stepped out, the corners of his mouth were pointing upwards. ‘She’s a beautiful one, isn’t she?’ the man chuckled. Wilson took one look at the coupe, its lights grew brighter as the Earth lurched closer to the Sun. He sucked in a shaky breath; envisioned his laughter and freedom would become easier minute by minute. He’d sip cocktails spilled with false prodigality, and delve into the inexhaustible variety of life. Wilson glanced back to the Ford, but something made him turn away.

‘When are you going to give it to me, Tom?’ Wilson questioned.
‘Soon, I’ve got a man working on it,’ He replied.
‘It’s been six-months Tom, when?’
The cold dust rose again, ‘Look if you can’t wait, then I’d better give it some other struggling mechanic.’
Wilson’s throat became numb and apologetic by the rich words that spoke the truth. He tried to swallow his defeat, and immediately expressed regret. ‘Forgive me Mr Buchanan, I just meant –’. His words were promptly weakened by the loud, and thundering footsteps of his wife. She smiled, slowly staring at Tom and had walked past her husband like a ghost. Without turning around, she demanded Wilson to bring in chairs for Mr Buchanan. ‘Oh sure,’ Wilson helplessly agreed; sweat ran in rivulets down his back at the discomfort of unfinished business. He hurried his weary and anaemic legs into his small grey office. Wilson’s eyes scattered the place to search for a chair, he could see from the corner his wife and Mr Buchanan suspiciously murmuring. She had both hands lovingly clasped with Mr Buchannan’s – looked into him and wet her lips tenderly in anticipation.

Wilson shamefully glanced at the ground, fragments of plaster laid damp over the ashy floor. He looked up to the crumbling walls, resembling a ghostly silhouette. The wind outside whistled through the leafless trees bringing laughter of his younger self. The walls weren’t grey then. His garage was a castle. It would gleam white against the fresh grass and it grew in expeditious pace. He looked at is hands, the fingers were thin and frail; shaped by prominent phalange bones and knotted pea-sized lumps. He gazed at the untrodden floor. Where footsteps had never echoed within the walls of Wilson’s establishment; except for Mr Buchanan’s… “The Arrow Collar man.” So, he let the rich man have it: his wife, her vast, unrefined and meretricious beauty and his coupe, to fool around with.

Wilson swallowed his humiliation, or perhaps choked on it. He escaped the room with two timber stools. However, his wife and Mr Buchanan were gone. The light escaped, the grey shadow rose again. A faint moustache of perspiration appeared on his upper lip. He needed the light. The light that would beam so bright, it would aid the gnawing of his broken heart.

Wilson placed the stools down as if they were to come back – he knew they wouldn’t.
He progressed towards the entrance, his thoughts and time became like liquid. Slowly melting, he led himself outside, and gazed at his establishment. It was one of the three contiguous buildings, which looked like a product of commercial pollution. The ash became contagious, a thick impervious layer settled on the roof, which somehow resembled Wilson’s skin. He restlessly sat on the very edge of a seat, he had his chin resting on his arms looking up to the eyes of Dr T.J. Eckleburg. He tilted his head closer to the billboard, exposing his thin face to a small portion of sunlight. The warmth enlivened him, it dissolved him. With peculiar intensity, it drew him closer. He whispered words that he knew would speak of his delusions, ‘God sees everything…’. He could recall his wife in the past telling him, he was a ‘fool for believing that, it’s an advertisement’. But he didn’t care. He outstared the eyes, nodding into it. And his thin, purple lips repeated it again, ‘God sees
everything…’.