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Storytellers |
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1. Completion On this page, nothing but his picture. A child, the toys throwing shadows. No title, no description, the dates erased. 2. A Myth She heard a legend and she pinned her ear to it. The wait had transformed her and now the world made sounds as though it were on the other side of a door. A long time ago, Man was able to walk on water. He wasn't heavy then. He lived as his soul: weightless, yet solid. He clothed himself despite having no body. He played hopscotch, cooked popcorn in the microwave. Enjoyed the movies on basic cable. He sailed without a life vest because the wind was his friend, and he could tread on the water, softly, like a fly. But that was a long time ago, before Man decided to put himself inside a vessel of organs and blood, and sink to the depths. Even God had a name then, which Man knew until he cowered within his empty shell and forgot. The burning bush came later and how smug it was in the way it answered, how cruel, how selfish. What is his name? Allen, she called him, screaming his name from the shore as the boats came back with the bodies, as she fell to her knees on the sand. 3. A Myth The young man imagines that he and his brother are inside a room traveling near the speed of light. The clock on the wall bears thirteen numbers, the second hand a survivor walking around a wreckage. He is reading a book to his brother. Did you know, he says, that the earth wails as it spins on its axis? The scientists say it is an awful sound, but I have not heard it yet. I can only think of the screech of tires, a car crumpled like paper. His brother does not respond. In this room, the young man thinks, ten days can be stretched to a hundred years. He imagines his brother outside this room, marking his paperback with a piece of string, his easy confidence in the days that will follow. 4. A Myth In the next room. Asleep. Unscathed. 5. Story Idea Let us say he was not wounded. Let us say he has been found. 6. Story Idea Let us say 7. Story Idea After the quake, she can only say, Where. The earth, a stern parent, shrugs off her question daily, continuously, turns away from the sun. She thinks of the possibilities. The fallen walls, the many shadows. The safety of doorways, the open sky. |
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