Every Street Is a New Chernobyl

In Andrei Tarkovsky's movie "Stalker" (a true masterpiece), he tells a story about The Zone - an abandoned, hazardous, jungle-like wasteland that inhabits all kinds of random yet generic objects that act in confusing manners, and how its three main characters - while searching for a room that supposedly, when entered, grants you your most precious wishes - they cross this mysterious place very carefully and silently, remaining aware of every step they take, doing their best not to trigger something dreadful around them by mistake.

This tiny out-of-context summary of Stalker always appears in my head while I go out and get lost in the streets, because of how I usually walk in the same manner, and what my eyes always look for around me - these weird things; distorted things; mixtures of orderly and chaotic things; funny placements of unusual and unrelated things.

I call it "Anomaly Hunting".

It's obviously an exaggeration on my part, as none of these things around us are (in most cases) deadly in any way... but still, it really puts me in that specific mood, helps me focus, and points me toward the general direction of all these dark, mysterious, dream-like combination of objects and backgrounds.

Sometimes it doesn't even have to be an object. Sometimes it's a place that feels kind of off to me; a room with no specified purpose; a machine that tells a different story when ripped out of its surroundings, or when observed too closely.

These anomalies are everywhere. In my opinion, there are probably far more anomalies than "regular-generic-in-order" objects and scenes in the streets all around the world. Problem is, they usually trick untrained eyes into seeing them as "junk". I myself tend to do that a lot when I'm not careful, or when I'm just going about my day. they are very good at hiding. Their camouflage is almost perfect.

But when you blanket yourself with petience, and find the will to tread lightly - they apear everywhere.