LIGHT TRAFFIC

The suspect. © Carolyne Weldon

All right LIGHT TRAFFIC homies. I’m going to need your help on this one. I’ve already put the question to my Twitter people and not too surprisingly, no one could come up with anything. (It breaks a heart to see how bearded-guru illiterate the younger generations are getting. Really.)

So this is the story. One day (the details are vague – keep in mind the partial amnesia is suspicious), I found this most charming wooden object. The thing, which fits in the palm of your hand, consists of a main panel, showcasing a wise/nefarious looking old man, sandwiched between two ornately carved wooden doors on hinges. I honestly don’t remember where it came from, and I never knew who the man in the picture was, either. But none of that mattered to me much. We were cool.

And so for the longest time, me and the bearded guy got along famously. I usually had him propped up on the window sill, where he dispassionately surveyed the scene as I burnt toast or tried to rearrange stacks of dirty dishes to make the kitchen look more artsy-messy than just plain gross. Also, whenever the guru’s gaze got a little too intense, or I felt I needed more intimacy (to shove eager spoonfuls of Matamis Na Bao – sweet coconut spread from the Philippines – down my throat, for instance) all I had to say was “enough!” and there I went, closing the man’s little doors up on his face. Bye now!

But that was all before the recurring nightmares began, and also before a few of my very persuasive friends convinced me that my cute little apartment was haunted by the man in the picture, whom, the theory went, had been displeased by my mock devotion. It was even suggested I perform a cleansing ritual involving, if I recall correctly, incantations, placing a bowl of water in the middle of a room at night, and disposal of the “soiled” water at sunrise, with more incantations. Since then, I’ve had a hard time looking my guru in the eye. I know he’s still in the house somewhere, being his same old flat and serene self behind closed doors, but suspicion has sullied our bond. The nightmares, on the other hand, are getting out of control. These days, I’m having nightmares in my nightmares. And then I can’t wake up. Twice.

So the question, people, is this: who is this guy and what do I do? My only lead so far is a reverse image search I did on TinyEye (beta). (By the way, did you guys even know such a thing existed? You upload an image from your hard drive, or paste in an url, and it gives for you every occurrence of that image on the web. Tada! Some people are just too clever.) When I uploaded my guy’s photo, it found the location of this frighteningly similar image, on a text-heavy Spanish-language blog that died in 2007. My Spanish being what it is, this discovery didn’t quite enlighten me as much as it could have, but I guess it’s a start.

So, any leads? Tell me what you got. Sould I get the little guy garlands of orange flowers and anoint him in cow-fat, or should he perish on a mouse-sized pyre in the yard? I am all ears.