Did the child, all slim legs and sun-burned arms, know the area was occupied? Could the child read? Did the child sing? Was the child a reader, a singer, an appreciator of signs? Musical and otherwise? Did the child know the alphabet song, not his own but the English one? Z for Zebra, O for Orange, N for Nose? Z for Zealot, O for Occupant? Z for Zone?<\/p>\n
Did the child have questions? If he asked them, not with words but with eyes, with the sheer existence of his body, did the soldiers point to the sign? Did they point with their fingers, with their hands? Did they point with their guns? If they pointed, did the child run? Did the child look? Did the child recognize any of the alphabet?<\/p>\n
Was Military Zone a child-friendly sign? Was it semantically reducible to a child-friendly word? To music? To body, to movement? Was it in any way possible to turn the signifier into signified for an eight-year-old? For anyone? If not semantically, then, was it semiotically possible?<\/p>\n
Is the gun a good enough sign? Is the word sign a good enough sign? Is it significant that a sign can be a sign, not only of its own but of everything else? That a town along the coast of a gulf can be all held under a sign? Can a sign hold a town, its history, its name? Can a sign hold the body of a child?<\/p>\n
If semantics fail, does music come to the aid? Are musical notes clearer signs? Less arbitrary, more lively, more intense? Does intensity supersede arbitrariness? The cruelty of it, its cold violence? How about the body? When the body moves, with music that is played or is imagined, does it enhance the musical sign? Or diminish it?<\/p>\n
Can a singer be a sign? A performing singer, on the stage, with an audience that is there or is not there? The music, the voice, the word, the movement, the body, all conflated as one? Layers of signs upon layers of signs? Is such a sign semantically significant? Semiotically intense?<\/p>\n
When the child hummed, not the English alphabet, but the local music of his town, when his arms unfolded and his legs danced, was he considered a semiotic threat? A semantic impasse? Was the child aware that at that moment, he was instantly turned into a sign? His moving body, his humming voice, his unintelligible words, the color of his arms, his legs, his face, all conflated as one?<\/p>\n
Did the soldiers move? Did they look side-eye at the child, at each other, at the sign? When they heard the boy sing, were they reminded of something? Of someone?<\/p>\n
Did the soldiers have different musical tastes? Did they prefer jazz? Baraque? Chopin? Mozart? Had the soldiers ever seen a music ritual? A dance ritual? Both? Did they hear music when they marched into the town? A military song, or the slow humming of a thousand mouths?<\/p>\n
Is music an auditory sign? Is a book a visual sign, a textual sign, a somatosensory sign? Does literature contain all of these signs? Layers of them upon layers of them? Signs of the body, the place, the music, the words? Is literature arbitrary? Are books accidents of signs? Was the book in child’s hands, “Run, Boy, Run” by Uri Orlev, an accident, or a sign? An accidental sign?<\/p>\n
Was Orlev’s book considered good literature? Good children\u2019s literature? Did it matter to the child, who was holding on to it like the last reed in a sinking lake? Was the child an avid reader? Did the soldiers think of that? Or did they think of the book as an extenstion of the child’s body? Like the guns were extensions of their hands?<\/p>\n
How many pages did the book have? Did it have pictures? When it fell from his hands, did the book land on page 32? Did it show the illustration of a boy, bare-feet and sun-burned? A Polish boy, with a knapsack? Did the soldiers see the book, the page, the illustration? Did they interpret the book visually, textually, musically? Did they think of the music when they saw the book? And the child’s body? Its movment?<\/p>\n
Is the sound of gunshot an auditory sign? Did the locals living nearby, in or around the military zone, interpret the sign? Symbolically? Somatically? When the book fell, did the child take a look at the last words on page 32? At the illustration? Did the boy in the book look back? The barefoot Polish boy at the child?<\/p>\n
When, a few months later, the Military Zone sign was taken down, only to be relocated elsewhere, did anyone look around? Did anyone notice a mound made out of sand and pebbles? A book peeking out? A book soiled, worn out, drenched? A book opened on page 32? Was the mound an arbitrary sign? Was the book an arbitrary sign? Was the boy inside the book still looking, still looking back?<\/p>\n
Is it possible for a book to be a sign, and not just that but the body of a sign? The sign of a body?<\/p>\n
Can a book hold the body of a child?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Did the child, all slim legs and sun-burned arms, know the area was occupied? Could the child read? Did the child sing? Was the child a reader, a singer, an appreciator of signs? Musical and otherwise? Did the child know the alphabet song, not his own but the English one? Z for Zebra, O for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":19320,"template":"","categories":[52,10],"class_list":["post-19350","stsp_text","type-stsp_text","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issue-24","category-prosa"],"yoast_head":"\n