Spirit of the Dead Watching “If you dive this spring, it will be the death of me!” the greying woman nagged as she glanced at the snow melting on Mica Peak. “I lost your three older brothers to spring jumps. I don’t want to lose my youngest.” Their relationship had seasoned as Griffin learned of his gift. Once he passed through his first bubble in the plasma walls between dimensions of space and time its pull gripped him. As winter broke in Griffin’s 17th year, he wandered the black pine forest near home more frequently. A few pockets of melting snow lingered in northward facing depressions. Hangman Creek flowed with fresh vigour out sizing its banks. She could sense his restlessness. “Fewer young fools return from spring dives. Please wait until mid summer.” “But mom, you don’t get it. I can handle this.” “Don’t forget the risk of bubbles within bubbles or green frostfire. I lost your father to frostfire. I don’t want to lose you.” “I know how to fine tune and dodge.” She hugged him. “I share the curse of the vision my blood passed to you. I will never hold you again if you leave now.” One cool and warm April afternoon the pull that comes with the gift hit Griffin exceptionally hard.He had not planned to jump as he approached the first bubble any more than an alcoholic plans to break the seal and dive into the shining new bottle. He gingerly closed his eyes to peer through its taupe shell into a fierce empty desert. Griffin only intended to glance at the menu while he pretended he was not ravenously hungry. Suddenly, he sensed the presence of another deeper bubble two klicks to the west. Its shimmer glowed harsher than the first but of a subtler hue. Closing his eyes to feel its edge, he caught glimpses of a tropic island, smelled clean sea breeze and felt pleasant temperatures. A sudden passion twisted his will as he grew immensely curious about the angle of that world’s sun. The strange ground was soft. The vegetation glowed with a tangerine tinge. Griffin took cover immediately in the forest, watching for snakes or tigers or this dimension’s equivalents. At a short distance a woman in skimpy orange clothes jogged along a serpentine path followed by a dog like creature wagging its tail. Griffin traced the trail back from the direction she was travelling to a small village of thatched huts. Since swimmers can only dive possessionless and naked, Griffin covered his nakedness to the same degree as the brown skin natives who wore their black hair straight. Not sure of how peaceful the reception would be, Griffin felt for the bubble wall which was shifting ever so slightly. He could pass through in an instant if need be. As he waited in concealment, he probed the minds of villagers to piece together the rudiments of their language. Their myths felt comfortable. With a glib tongue that belied his meagre experience, he concocted a story about swimming ashore from a shipwreck. The best approach as an alien to each world is the truth, which as his uncle would boast, is a matter of keeping one’s story straight. Griffin watched and learned their words and signs for peaceful greeting. Suddenly he felt sorrow for his mother. His impulse did not leave time for him tell her he was leaving. Still, with her vision, she would have known already. As Griffin felt his entrance ripen, he staggered into the village acting confused and limping slightly. Two young men came forward with raised arms and sticks, their faces hard. Griffin started to cry, a gesture he had been taught to calm natives. An older woman came to his comfort. He greeted her in rudiments of their language. Unsure of their customs with sojourners, Griffin's mind probed and flickered across their closer consciousness. He felt nothing hostile. He would probably enjoy a jaunt for a week or two at this quaint way station then head home. In his powwow with the elders, the head woman of the village insisted, however, that he follow their customs and quarantine before mixing with them. They thrust Griffin into a thatched hut and sealed the door. In the corner on a black bed woven with lemon yellow designs a brown naked girl about his age lay on her stomach, weeping softly. Her long ebony hair shone bright against the lime green sheet. A pale crone wearing a black habit sat behind the bed watching over her. As the stark woman faced him, her green phosphorescent eyes fell on the shapely back and smooth legs on the bed. The old woman raised her eyes to meet Griffin’s gaze. The piercing tone of her stare reminded Griffin of his mother. She turned sharply away. The girl sobbed and moaned. Griffin fell to his knees to comfort the girl who cried louder with his approach. He could not see her eyes smiling. Was she frightened of the old woman or of the old woman’s vision or of the change she would wreak from his coming? Tyson West Tyson West has published speculative fiction and poetry in free verse, form verse and haiku distilled from his mystical relationship with noxious weeds and magpies in Eastern Washington. He has no plans to quit his day job in real estate. His poetry collection “Home-Canned Forbidden Fruit” is available from Gribble Press, http://www.greymaredit.com/.
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Unfurl the Sail
"I'm going to disappoint you. But you knew that already." My wife, Jocelyn, said this to me so many times that it seemed like a stock phrase like, "How are you?" or "How was your day?" I stood in the shadow of my two daughters, Sophia and Olivia, as they were sitting on the rocks near the sea looking at a reflected strip of sunlight. Olivia gently pressed her head on Sophia's shoulder. They told me that they pretended the strip of sunlight was a runway and they were waiting for their mother to arrive in her private plane. She would step out and give us a big hug. While we were waiting, we traced the flight of a sea gull flapping her wings over the water. She swooped down; beak dipped in and bobbed up and caught - nothing. Would her babies be disappointed when she returned to the nest with no fish? After several hours of waiting, they forgave their mother by saying that she'd missed her flight, her flight had been delayed, she'd arrived at a new destination. Jocelyn, meandering through an unknown town, talking to strangers, adopting a new family - these thoughts chilled me. Or, perhaps, she was arriving by boat, a longer journey. She'd been captured by pirates and was forced to maraud neighbouring islands. The smoke that we saw far off was her doing. Or she might arrive riding on a dolphin's back. Or she was afraid to unfurl the sail and come home to us. My daughters were not the only ones with an imagination. What I didn't tell them, as of yet, was their mother was lost. But they probably knew already. After the birth of Olivia, Jocelyn's flamboyant behaviour became apparent. She'd flutter around the kitchen leaping and grabbing at imaginary objects. Then less than five minutes later, she'd be sobbing on her pillow pleading with me to kill the spiders crawling up the wall. I'd left my job at the firm. We'd packed and moved to a bungalow high on the hill overlooking the sea. The milieu - the breeze off the sea, the warmth of the sun, the sound of the sea gulls - delighted Jocelyn. After we'd put our daughters to bed, Jocelyn and I would sit on the veranda, fingers interlaced, listening to John Coltrane. We would dance; I would twirl her around and around until we both collapsed from exhaustion. After reading the Ghost and Mrs. Muir for the fifth time, Jocelyn called our home Gull Cottage at Whitecliff-by-the Sea after the house Lucy and her imaginary ghost lived. The dream ended - tears streamed, the fear of everything gripped her again. I dreaded to think that she'd fling herself into the sea. The doldrums returned and shrouded her face. I commiserated as best as I could. She glanced up and said, "Kevin, I'm scared." The green-blue hue of the sea transformed into the green sterile walls of a hospital, a hospital that would be her home for two months during shock treatments. The sound of her screams as they wheeled her into the operating room wounded me. Afterwards, despite the vacuous stare, I knew Jocelyn, my wife and mother of my daughters, was stranded in a place only she knew. I sat by her bedside reading to her about Captain Greg telling his sea adventures to Lucy as she was writing them down. For now Jocelyn is off on a journey in her mind. Who knows, maybe one day she would unfurl the sail and come back to us. We will be waiting on the rocks by the sea, waiting for one more twirl on the veranda. Matthew Hefferin Matthew Hefferin enjoys writing short stories, flash fiction, and prose poetry. He has taught English as a Second Language and U.S. History to non-native speakers of English. The Day Death Died
It was widely known that Death had been ailing for some time. Its poor health had made it rather slipshod in the execution of its duties. Whole generations were being taken away in the flower of their youth, while other people were living for an extraordinarily long time - over 400 years in certain cases. For a while Death hovered in a half-alive condition, with one foot in the grave, and mankind held its breath, fearing Death would rally and make a complete recovery. And then the day came when Death breathed its last and nobody could believe their good fortune. It was hard to grasp that Death no longer dwelled in the world, and that one’s life would never again be burdened with the ever-present spectre of extinction hovering nearby. No one would have to grapple any more with the problem of incorporating one’s own demise into their lives. The most eminent pathologists of the land were assigned the task of performing an autopsy on Death. Their unanimous conclusion was that Death died of natural causes. What nobody had suspected was that Death possessed a finite life span. Everyone had always assumed it would live forever, yet it too carried within itself the lethal seeds of mortality. The next most pressing issue was the burial of Death. Issues never considered before needed to be addressed urgently, for the world wanted to be sure Death really was dead and would not rise again. Where should the funeral ceremony be held? According to which religion’s rites should the memorial service be conducted? Who should give the eulogy? Where to entomb it? The matter of whom to invite to the service proved to be the most intractable issue of all. A certain number of tickets were reserved for those most deeply affected by Death's passing - morticians, grave diggers, psychotherapists, blues singers, goths and horror film directors. Otherwise, it was nearly impossible to determine who was genuinely grief-stricken and who only wanted to attend the ceremony so as to be a part of this historic occasion. Eventually, all of these matters were resolved, although not to everyone’s satisfaction, and the world gave Death the sending off it deserved. Straight after the funeral, the world kicked up its heels and celebrated. When the unbridled, hysterical wave of joy at being liberated from Death's tyrannical rule had abated, people sobered up and recounted the ways Death had helped out in the past. They recalled with fondness Death’s unique ability to provide clear-cut and definitive solutions to any inextricable, inflexible or abstruse problem of existence; its unmatched faculty of erasing all pain, shame and misery; the way it was always there to readily and obediently offer its helping hand to anyone who would ask for it and the way in which it brought equality to the world and granted perpetual rest to the weary. Religions could no longer survive without Death, for their appeal and authority derived from the promise of ideal and everlasting existence in the next world and from their expert knowledge of the nature of the Afterworld. New religions arose, prophesying that one day mortality would return to Earth and the virtuous would be rewarded with Eternal Death. Mankind recognised how fundamentally it depended upon Death’s existence for the preservation of social order and peaceful international relations. Given that capital punishment and armed conflicts ceased holding any threat to a person’s life, nothing stood in the way of lawlessness and immorality in human affairs, and countries went to war on the slightest pretext. Life soon lost its meaning, for Death had been needed to provide the contrast that distinguished being from non-being. Without it, existence became unrecognisable, a grey shadow of its former vibrant self, and to be alive was now an unendurable, yet inescapable, fate worse than death. Each human being was forced to find the strength and the courage to face a baffling future in which the saving grace of demise was no longer present. Only then was it realised how inextricably Death had woven its fateful thread into every aspect of man’s existence and how much had been irremediably lost the day Death died. Boris Glikman Boris Glikman is a writer, poet and philosopher from Melbourne, Australia. The biggest influences on his writing are dreams, Kafka and Borges. His stories, poems and non-fiction articles have been published in various online and print publications, as well as being featured on national radio and other radio programs. Jerome Jerome? You sure you want to go up there? Well, you’ve come this far by boat -- that couldn’t have been easy, and you do have a determined look about you. The road to the place where he lays his head, well, it’s two day’s journey from here. He gets the occasional letter, and I’ve had to deliver a few to him up there in the hills. But he’s kind of irascible, that one. I can’t imagine he has many friends. There’s that fellow down in North Africa, Augustine I think his name is, writes to him now and then with some question or other about the scriptures. Jerome always wants paper, says I should bring more paper with me whenever I come, so he can keep translating his holy books. Who knows where he gets the money to pay for it? But he’s never owed me anything, always seems to have a few coins about him. Well, it’s not like he’d spend it on anything else, right? Never seen a woman up there. Doesn’t keep much to eat or drink. Where he lives, it’s a cave mostly. You could call it a hut, but it doesn’t even have a proper wall. The rain seeps in, the wind whistles through. But believe me, it hardly matters to him. He keeps a crucifix before him, and a skull, his memento mori he calls it. Once I found him talking to a lion, pretty foolish that, and I told him, I’m not coming any closer! But he whispered something in its ear and the thing padded off. For a good part of the way it’s farmland, and that part’s not bad. You’ll go past a lake too, where there’s a mill. You might see a few carts, coming and going. Not far from there is a monastery where they’ll put you up for the night and help you get started again in the morning. But soon the road gives out and from there it’s just a path, Lonely, deserted. Keep your wits about you, friend -- some travelers were beaten and robbed up there recently. You’ll come to a footbridge that crosses a stream and from there it’s about an hour. Eventually that path comes to an end, and that’s where you’ll find Jerome. He’ll probably be praying when you get there, he might not even notice that you’ve come… Fred Guyette Fred Guyette is a Reference Librarian at Erskine College in South Carolina. "In the place where I work," he says, "I walk past a print of "Jerome" by Patinir (1524) everyday. I often stop for a moment, and find something in the landscape that I haven't seen before. I try to imagine... Who would go and see Jerome? How would they get there?" Break
The night before your plane left, I broke my left pinky toe — or as the doctor diagnosed, my fifth metatarsal. I was getting out of the shower, wringing my ratty hair in a towel, when I noticed the bathroom rug was the same colour as your eyes. I buried my eyes in the damp towel, and slipped on the ceramic floor, somehow wedging my toe between the bronze pieces of the tub’s drain. “Just go to the doctor,” Jasmine urged, bagging ice cubes from our freezer in a Ziploc for me.“ Tomorrow,” I told her. “Tomorrow” was what you told me after I asked when your flight was. I wasn’t expecting that. I cursed at you for the first time, slamming the door of my apartment behind you, between us, like the Equator would be once your plane landed. “I didn’t know how to tell you.” Your spearmint-coloured gaze was wet, sparkly; mine was frozen. I glared past you at Jasmine’s National Geographic map plastered on the wall. I traced my eyes from Los Angeles to Bolivia, and somehow, down my cheek, emerged a river. You felt like you had to go now, that you needed to see the world and find yourself, by yourself. Joining the Peace Corps would be the answer to your happiness. I’d spent two years under the impression that I was. You hadn’t even told me you’d applied. There was nothing peaceful about that. I numbed my foot with ice since apparently the break was too small to cast. Meanwhile, Jasmine tried to distract me with Netflix. “You need to get out of this apartment.” It was three days after you’d left. I hadn’t been out since the doctor’s appointment. She peered across the couch at me. I didn’t like the nervous pity that blazed in her wide eyes. “Fine,” I handed her the ice and hobbled out the door. The doctor had advised me to take it easy; I figured driving was okay. You’d figured graduating early and teaching English in South America was okay too. I punched the steering wheel of my car, horn screeching. I was parked somewhere on Main Street. For whatever reason, the coffee shop here was the only place I could think of going; it was the one we’d found when we first started dating, the one with the vibe you’d decided you didn’t get. Limping crutch-less through the door, I was stopped by a man, probably in his sixties, with sea-blue eyes a little darker than yours. “You look like you could use a Scott Jones original.” I’d forgotten the place was like an art studio for self-proclaimed abstract philanthropists. He held up a large watercolour pad, flipping through several canvases, each adorned with its own array of vibrant, fading lines. I asked if they were tree roots. He said if I saw tree roots, then tree roots they were. I stared hard at the one he lingered on; his stained hands, cracked with dried paint, tore the painting from the rest of the collection and gave it to me, free of charge. I ordered a chai latte and wondered if you’d see tree roots too. “That isn’t beautiful to me,” you’d retorted, tugging my hand away from a copy of Mark Rothko’s “Number 61.” There were three lines in the painting — pigments of indigo, eggplant, and that post-sunset, full-moon sky glow. It was the time we’d stumbled upon the coffee shop after getting pizza up the street. The walls were cluttered with abstract works from floor to ceiling, some replicas of more famous pieces, others originals donated by the local artists who congregated here. I asked you why it wasn’t beautiful. You told me art had to have a purpose, that beauty should make you feel small. On the drive home that night, you told me I was beautiful. I didn’t mention that sometimes you made me feel small. I looked up Rothko’s website after you’d dropped me off at my apartment. The painting was inspired by staring at flames for too long. My eyes searched the brick walls for it now, but it was gone, replaced by a Picasso and numerous variations of the tree roots I’d been given. I scrutinized the swaying, pigmented lines, wondering what had inspired them. I carried the sheet back to Scott’s table. He set down his paintbrush as I approached, eyes reflecting the same pity Jasmine's had. I ignored it. "What inspired this?" I held up the tree roots. "The subconscious," he said with a smile, stirring his eight-ounce cup of mildew-coloured water with a brush. "Do you think your paintings are beautiful?" I hesitated, hoping he wouldn’t take it the wrong way. He told me I was a beautiful person. I asked if I made him feel small. "Beauty should make you feel big and small at the same time." "Huh," I muttered, staring at the canvas. I thanked him as I walked out the door. “Thank you for being a lovely person,” he said. I drove home and lit a candle; I was big enough to blow it out, yet small enough to get burnt. I couldn’t decide which was worse, getting blown out, or burning someone. I placed the painting on top of Jasmine’s dresser and Googled a picture of “Number 61.” My printer fed it to me in black and white. I taped it to the wall above the dresser, beside the tree roots. I knew that forests and fires were not supposed to go together, but somehow these did, like we used to. I’d leave them side by side for now. I immersed my purple pinky toe in another bag of frozen cubes. This was the only thing the doctor had prescribed. I don’t think he understood that my foot wasn’t what seared relentlessly. “You’re just gonna have to be patient,” he’d said. “It’ll heal in no time.” Shelby Zurcher Shelby Zurcher is an aspiring English teacher studying at Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, California. Originally from Portland, Oregon, she is inspired by the beauty of nature as well as the beauty represented by the diversity of human beings. Feel free to check out her blog at https://wordpress.com/posts/shelbyzurcher.wordpress.com. The Pen of Plenty (or A Portrait of an Artist as the Entire Universe)
Part I "Take this Boris, may it serve you well!", a booming voice commanded, as a hand, holding a shining writing implement, extended towards me. I was all of thirteen years old when the Hand from Above bestowed the Pen of Plenty upon me. " You shall be my voice! I shall speak through you with this pen. You shall be a conduit to that Other Reality, the one inhabited by Eternal Truths, Infinite Beauty and Ineffable Questions. From this pen will spring forth an inexhaustible flow of Magic, you will not be able to help begetting works of perfection, each one more perfect than the one before it. There is a price to pay. You will not be able to feel, smile, laugh, love, pursue ordinary human activities. You will only be able to write, writing alone shall be your existence. You shall move solely in the Infinite, Eternal, Universal sphere. You will capture and portray through your writings every permutation, manifestation and aspect of life, yet you shall remain cut off from mankind. This pen shall be the bathyscaphe with which you will descend to the lowest abysses, and it shall be the alpenstock with which you will ascend to the highest heights not yet scaled by mankind. The world will ostracize, scorn, misunderstand, persecute, laugh at you and it will cherish, adore, worship, celebrate you. But you will stay numb, unmoved by both love and loathing. You will not know how to be young, yet you will not grow old and will stay a man-child, for, by not partaking in the outer world, you shall be free of its deleterious effects. You will give life to an infinity of uniquely bizarre, wondrous realities, yet you yourself will be a mere metaphor, an empty shell of a shadow, never being able to feel real, concrete. The worlds you engender will be suffused with sensation and meaning, while your own outer reality will be bare, senseless and pedestrian by comparison. This pen shall be the flame that will illuminate truths as yet invisible, you will help others find their identity, will bring clarity and enlightenment to humanity, will reveal the underlying, inner structure of existence, yet you will be forever lost, confused, at odds with yourself and the world, drifting aimlessly through existence, a jellyfish in the ocean of life. This pen shall speak with a thousand voices, educing hysterical laughter, uncontrollable tears, twisting minds into Moebius strips, creating transcendental beauty that will stop others dead in their tracks, dumbfounded with awe, even if they have had just a fleeting contact with it, but you will be blind and deaf to its powers and will stay frozen inside. You will feel no pride or pleasure in your creations, for you will know that you are merely a conduit. But even though this is a Pen of Creative Cornucopia, one day it shall run out and will write no more. Consequently, writing will be the hardest and most terrifying task of your existence, for you will be forever insecure, not knowing when you no longer will be able to create any more. Yet, before that time comes, you shall be flooded with a ceaseless deluge that will demand every instant of your life and your very sanity. Once you take this pen, it can never be un-taken, you can never disown it or rid yourself of it." The voice stopped. I waited a while for it to resume, but it remained silent. Then, with childish, reckless eagerness, I extended my hand upwards, to meet the hand reaching down from above, caring not at all about the consequences. Part II The Writer sits in his room, writing at his desk. He has access to the deepest secrets and mysteries of the Universe, but the question that the whole world, from the tiniest and simplest organism upwards, seems to know the answer to, he can not solve: " Why live?" The Writer is torn apart by two contradictory thoughts that occupy his mind simultaneously and seem equally valid. He is certain that he is blind to a fundamental truth that the rest of the world is in possession of, for how else can one explain the whole world choosing life over death and existing with a purpose, something that he is not capable of. Yet he also knows that he is in possession of a fundamental truth that the rest of the world is blind to, for if it was privy to this truth, it would not be able to live in certainty. The Writer is triply trapped by his room, his mind and his pen. Occasionally, overcome by curiosity and longing, he steals a brief, wistful glimpse, through the window, of the world outside that is teeming and pulsating with life in all of its infinite variations, life that he can never be a part of and whose simple pleasures he could never enjoy or grasp the meaning of. Other times he catches sight of a sliver of the sky that is visible to him from his sitting position. But he immediately feels guilty for neglecting his sacred task and hurriedly resumes scribbling, letter after letter, word after word, sentence after sentence, in his notebooks of madness. Life passes him by, and then death passes him by too. He has no time for life and he has no time for death either. Neither life nor death can arouse his interest or get their hands on him, and just as he has forgotten all about time, so time has forgotten all about him. In any case, the Writer can not die, for the pen is still working and so he must keep on writing, for his commitment to his pen is greater than his commitment to life and death. Years, centuries, millennia, billions of years elapse. The Sun expands into a red giant and then collapses into a white dwarf. The stars are torn apart by the forces of the Universe's expansion, and the protons themselves rot into pieces. Cosmos begins to wind down, all of its energy having dissipated and turned into useless forms. Then the fabric of space-time dissolves. Still, the Writer remains writing at his desk, which is now floating in vacuum, separate from time and space. Now and then he sneaks looks at the outside world, even though nothing remains there but pure nothingness. And then, for the very first time, something leads the Writer to take a close look at the pen he was gifted with. He examines it carefully and notices the faded blue letters forming the words MADE IN CHINA etched on its side. Distant memories come flooding back to him, memories of his mother buying pens at the local supermarket, for the start of the new school year; memories of the bare walls of the bathroom that distorted the acoustics, and how he liked to speak to himself there and listen to his boy voice transforming into the stentorian voice of a man. He remembers standing in the bathroom and hearing a million voices calling out his name, then turning around and seeing all of humanity in the mirror looking back at him, as his left hand passed the pen to his right hand. The Writer now realizes that he is the Creator. Having had encompassed the Universe with his mind, the Writer expands to encompass the Universe with his body, so that the Universe and the Writer become one and the same, identical entities, coinciding precisely with one another. With quiet satisfaction the Writer slowly puts the pen down and that is how the Universe (and this story) ends, not with a bang or a whimper, but with a . Boris Glikman Editor's Note: This story was inspired by the painting The Gift, by Alex Grey. We have substituted the Escher image because we were not able to procure permission to use the original image. We would appreciate it if you would click here to view the inspiration piece. Boris Glikman is a writer, poet and philosopher from Melbourne, Australia. The biggest influences on his writing are dreams, Kafka and Borges. His stories, poems and non-fiction articles have been published in various online and print publications, as well as being featured on national radio and other radio programs. The Giant Egg
Where exactly the giant egg was found is no longer remembered clearly. What is certain is that an egg of such a size had never been observed before and it dwarfed the sightseers who gathered to gawk at it. The immediate instinctive reaction was to attempt to crack it open right where it lay to see what was within, but a voice screamed out above the din of the excited crowd that something rotten, perhaps even a half-decayed gigantic monstrosity, could be inside. It was therefore decided to drag the giant egg to a nearby beach so the sand could absorb any putrid liquids that might leak out once the shell was broken, and the ocean could then be used as a trash can to dispose of every trace of this aberration’s existence. Engineers arrived on the scene to draw plans for the most effective way of breaking the shell. Environmentalists gathered to ensure the surrounding land would not become too contaminated, should the egg release any foulness. Scaffolding was erected all around the egg, upon which an army of labourers hammered relentlessly at the egg's thick, concrete-like shell. No one can recall how much time it took for the workers to make even the slightest dent in the shell or how long it was before the first visible cracks appeared on the surface of the mysterious egg. The spectacle of the egg unveiling its secret was just so overwhelming that all other details faded into obscurity. An awed hush swept over the crowded beach as the inner contents slowly came into view. Some could not bear the stress of the suspense and turned their backs; others even ran away. But those who stayed to watch are unanimous in their recollections of the wonder of the moment when a golden star, bathing the surroundings in soft light, drifted calmly out of the broken shell and settled cozily upon the horizon, as though it had always belonged there. Boris Glikman Boris Glikman is a writer, poet and philosopher from Melbourne, Australia. The biggest influences on his writing are dreams, Kafka and Borges. His stories, poems and non-fiction articles have been published in various online and print publications, as well as being featured on national radio and other radio programs. The Glass Painter
It was the Friday after Carnival Day, 1521, when I first met with Albrecht Durer, the most honoured guest of our guild. It was also the day they found the woman's body in the wharf. My master, and Dean of St. Luke's, Dirick Jacobsz Vellert, had travelled to Dilbeek on business. He was not due to return to Antwerp until the week after the Festival of Judiz. I was at my bench, poring over sketches for a rondel pane of St Alena when I felt a hand gently shake my shoulder. I should have sensed whose hand it was by the depth of silence that had befallen the other glass painters and apprentices. I'd no idea that Durer had been standing behind me, studying my work. "Come with me,” Durer said. I wiped the charcoal from my fingers and flung on my cape. Durer did not speak again until we were outside a print works, where he stopped to poke at the pavement with his stick. Around the gutter, where the apprentices tipped their buckets of ink-wash, ice crystals of many frozen hues built and grew as if vitrified. "Sir, is this what you wanted to show me?” I asked. "No.” He peered in though my eyes and it was as if my innermost thoughts and secrets were rendered clear and comprehensible to him,” You're skilled but your work is mimicry. How did you manage to conceal yourself in the guild for so long?” "Sir?” "How do you hide your breasts?” Despite the fierce cold my face burned and I shook. It was as if God Himself had called me out. "Well?” I stared at the frozen ground between his boots. "Straps…” When he led me down the wharf steps and across the ice I prayed a chasm might rent and the merciful waters engulf me. But his intention was not to expose me. A crowd of skaters and gawkers gathered in a semi-circle around the side of a merchant's fluyt. We pushed our way to the front. A market trader, with a brace of four chickens tied to her belt, knelt and wept. An old man, with a once-wise face, clothed in ragged finery, stared with a terrifying vacancy. The fool from the inn clasped his marotte; a heartbeat's echo, he tapped it softly against his chest, and for once he uttered not a word. The dead woman was frozen into the underside of the ice, her face in profile, a bloated arm hooked around the ship's anchor rope, her skin mottled and pale as white glass and grisaille. A frond of golden hair flowed from under her white bonnet and swayed in the current. Some murmured she'd been the mindless old man's wife. Durer took hold of my arm and spoke in whisper, ”I have a merchant from Cambridge, England, his client demands fidelity to the eye and alchemy of imagination. You will work in my studio, at night, under my instruction until your master returns. Are you willing to take the risk to know yourself, girl?” I nodded. Andrew Barnett author's note: "No one can agree who the artist was, although some speculate it could have originated from the studios of Dirick Vellert; he was the Master of the Guild of St Luke, Antwerp. If it had been painted in 1521, that was the year Durer visited and stayed in Antwerp, often as guest of Vellert. I found it fascinating to speculate, given Durer’s exposure to some of the more radical arguments of humanism in that year, if the artist who painted this image could have been a woman. There’s no historical evidence to suggest this might be the case but the idea of a 16th century female artist at the centre of the Lowlands Renaissance was too compelling not to explore as a fictional narrative." Andy Barnett is a student at the University of Cambridge in the Uk. Andy comes from a former mining village on the Nottinghamshire-Derbyshire border, which during the Ice Age, was the most northerly point our ancestors settled in Europe. He prefers manual jobs and working outdoors. He hasn’t set foot in an office for the last thirty years. He likes visiting Cambridge University because it is quiet and the buildings are surrounded by fields and trees. Next year, hopefully, he is going to step up to the MSt in Creative Writing and he would eventually like to study for a PhD. So far, Andy’s writing has been published in the Prague Revue and Zetetic: A Record of Unusual Inquiry. His visual interpretation of the work of the Romantic Poets was sold in greeting card format through the Tate Gallery in London. In-between his university coursework and writing flash fiction and short stories, he’s working on a gritty northern novel which is set in a former mining village on the Nottinghamshire-Derbyshire border. Dischord of Analogy
One fine, sunny day, they realized it was futile to go on pretending things would work out between them. Separation became an urgent necessity, yet neither he nor she had anywhere else to stay. After considering a number of options, it was decided she would move to living on the ceiling. Half the furniture, including the double bed and the piano (her most treasured possession), were moved up there as well. A light globe was inserted into the floor to provide illumination for the ceiling dweller. After an inevitable period of awkwardness and inconvenience, things returned to normal. He led his life and she hers. Although it would not have been very difficult for them to communicate, they each carried on as if the other didn't exist, just so they could maintain the illusion of privacy. This way, they could deny the fact that they were hanging above each other's heads and observing and judging one another's every action. The piano became the sole link between him and her. Its sound, refusing to respect the artificial boundaries, permeated the silence and spread equally to every point of the room…connecting, in spite of themselves, their senses and their souls. Thus, by a slender aural thread, their love did hang on. Separation eventually turned to reconciliation and an even stronger love prevailed. The piano became their conjugal bed. Boris Glikman Boris Glikman is a writer, poet and philosopher from Melbourne, Australia. The biggest influences on his writing are dreams, Kafka and Borges. His stories, poems and non-fiction articles have been published in various online and print publications, as well as being featured on national radio and other radio programs. Nancy Drew Anthology from Silver Birch Press
I am most excited to announce that one of my paintings is featured in the new Nancy Drew Anthology from Silver Birch Press. How amazing it is to see the names of quite a number of Ekphrastic's contributors listed as authors and artists. I can't wait to get my copy! Get yours here. Lorette |
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April 2024
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