The Sleeping Gypsy, by Sacha Archer

The Sleeping Gypsy, by Henri Rousseau (France), 1897.

The Sleeping Gypsy

It is the witching hour. It is Sunday, July 11th, 1897. S. A. Andrée is about the happiest man in the world and if not the happiest, perhaps, detrimentally, the most confident. Tucked in, asleep in his bed in Sweden, gathering his energy, he dreams, not of Örnen, his balloon, but of himself – himself as an African man in simple drag. Exhausted after having flown his village, he decides to crash. Feet swollen from the joyous flight, spreading himself out beneath the full moon, he smiles at his freedom, the luxury of the open path, the exhilaration of the unknown. He begins to drift. Floating in the space between consciousness and unconsciousness, at the door of the subconscious, that is, the sub-subconscious, his young friend  Frænkel, covered from head to toe in the hair of the sun, approaches him from the north, and attempts to speak. Where words are intended a roar escapes in which is heard the crunch of snow beneath boots wrapped in the winds of the uncharted Arctic, that shadow of white. In a dream-logic, Andrée’s bones interpret this as an auspicious omen and for an instant, everything is frozen in place, which is to say, both past and future, the present’s determiners, lose weight. There is no better condition in which confidence can know.

Sacha Archer

Sacha Archer is a Canadian writer residing in Ontario. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as filling Station, ACTA Victoriana, h&, illiterature, NōD, Experiment-O, and Matrix. His most recent chapbooks are Detour (Spacecraft Press, 2017), The Insistence of Momentum (The Blasted Tree, 2017), and Acceleration of the Arbitrary (Grey Borders, 2017), with two chapbooks forthcoming: TSK oomph(Inspiritus Press) and upRoute (above/ground press). One of his online manifestations is his blog at https://sachaarcher.wordpress.com