haruharu
11-09-2011, 08:00 PM
Untitled 4
The feeble flame of a single candle is whipped about and almost extinguished by the wind that fights its way into the room from outside. The walls, although a result of my labor, are simply too weak to block all the wind. It divides itself and slips its way in through the cracks between the logs that form the walls, carefully maneuvering under and over the white beech bark that covers the inside, and finally escapes into the room. My home - simply a single room furnished with a small, wooden bed with a mattress of straw, several bookcases lining the walls, a desk, and various other small items scattered throughout the room - is dimly illuminated, as though by a group of stars, unable to decide on a final point of rest. As the light moves from place to place, I am able to see a corner of the room faintly and fleetingly, until the wind's baton pushes the flame in another direction. I can see the stacks of paper, piled on the desk and on the floor in the corners of the room, hiding between groups of books on the bookcases, crowding the wooden boards beneath my bed. I can see the words, scrawled across every wall, covering every inch of free space in dark ink. Even my bed posts have carved into them short phrases and small sketches from long ago, many of which would evolve into pages of work since the time of their conception.
I pull a page down from the wall above me, as I lie on the rough bed, unable to sleep. It is the only page I ever cared enough to hang up. Through the dirty glass of the window above me, moonlight emerges into the room and lands across my chest on onto the floor adjacent to me. The moon is shining brightly tonight, further illuminating the darker corners of the room and revealing more pages stacked carelessly.. I pull the page to my face, as the candle rests on the bed post behind my head. The page holds a drawing, done years ago, of a girl that I knew when I was young. She is turning towards me and pushing the wet black hair out of her face, a smile beginning to form as her eyes gaze at me. I remember receiving the drawing, as a gift from her. I even remember the scene depicted on the page, though it was years ago. She stands on a red wooden bridge, uncaring as rain pours on both of us and into the small river below our feet. I remember snapping a picture, capturing her in her moment of candor, of youth, of beauty, and looking upon it later with such fascination. I told her I wanted her to draw it for me. She was so amazingly gifted with a pencil. The moon shines brilliantly behind and above her head, a full circle, shedding its light on the small Chinese village and cobblestone street behind her. We were tourists back then, fascinated by the rural Asian villages we were visiting. We traveled across China, Taiwan, Japan, choosing not only to visit the cities but also the villages like this one. I doubt she could have predicted back then that I would have stayed, but here I am. And where is she?
I rest the picture on the window sill, leaning it against the glass, careful not to let it fall to the floor. I close my eyes, imagining the scene more vividly. I feel the rain drops pelting my body and soaking into my clothing, I can see the moon as it shines, unwavering, and briefly illuminates each drop of rain as it falls. It's the same moon that now watches me. I see her, her back to me as she leans over the railing of the bridge and watches the water flow listlessly beneath our feet. I call her name, and take a photograph as she turns around. She opens her mouth to speak...
I awake to an intense burning sensation in my right hand, which is draped lazily off the edge of the bed. I pull it back quickly, startled, and look around me. The entire room is lit up now, as if by a hundred candles, all directed in unison by the wind. I look up and see smoke gathering under the ceiling and realize that my home is on fire. Flames rise from the floor next to the bed touches the edge of the bookcase. The books and pages on the bottom shelf begin to catch fire as well. I grab the cotton sheet off of the bed and attempt to smother the flame that engulfs the floor around me, but my hands and chest are burnt as the fire rises to meet me. The heat forces open my fingers and the sheet falls, quickly consumed by the flames. My thoughts race. I must have knocked the candle over as I fell asleep.
I have to save my work. Where do I begin? I recklessly begin gathering papers and dumping them on the grass outside my home. As I rush back in to gather more a thought occurs to me. The drawing. Where is it? It was in my hand as I fell asleep, it must be around the bed somewhere.
I sprint to the bed. Flames now engulf the entire bookcase next to the bed and creep up the thatched roof. I violently search the remaining bed sheets, overturn the mattress, push over the bedside table in search of the paper, forcing several pens, pencils, and miscellaneous objects into the hell that festers on the floor of the hut. I rummage through the papers under my bed, glancing at handfuls of them and throwing them into the fire. I would trade any of my work, all of my work, so many years worth of work. I would surrender it all to the fire if I could just find the picture.
But it's no use. The fire started next to my bed. The picture must have been one of the first things to go. My eyes begin watering as smoke climbs into them. The fire evolves from individual flames to a blurry mess of orange and red, an impenetrable hell, a labyrinth that could not be solved in a thousand years.
I stumble through the fire and out of the room, defeated burned severely, and collapse on the grass outside. The village, though only a few miles away, wouldn't notice a fire at this time of night. I'm left here to watch as all of my most prized possessions, all my life's work, all that I ever had to be proud of, is incinerated. I feel as though I can see the letters, evaporating and floating upwards with the smoke, to mingle with the clouds. Embers rise above the flame, which now engulfs the entire house, drifting upwards until they are finally extinguished by the wind. The same wind that earlier caused the small flame of the candle to flick about as it illuminated my home now pushed the massive flames in front of me to and fro, equally unable to extinguish them. I gaze up at the moon, now made dim in comparison to the sun that is before me. The same moon that I saw behind her on that day. The same moon that shone through my dirty window as I gazed upon her minutes - or was it hours? - ago.
The window. I remember now. I stand up, but as I move the skin at my joints is ripped apart where it was burnt. I am forced to limp because of the pain, each clumsy movement summoning a screeching pain in my arms and legs. After several painful steps I arrive at the side of the house and the fire warms my face. I think about how fragile, how delicately balanced fire can be. From the perfect distance, even the flames that engulf my home can be gentle.I peer in through the chest-height window. There it is, leaning delicately against the glass just as I left it. The fire rages behind it, engulfing almost everything inside. It creeps up the wall below the picture and licks the corner of the paper. Desperate, I trust my fist through the glass above it. Instantly, the skin on my hand is pierced as the broken glass scrapes across it and digs into my wrist. I feel as though my skin itself screams the instant it is penetrated. I push my arm in up to the elbow, and angle it awkwardly, bending it down in an attempt to lay a finger on the page. The glass digs into my arm and draws bloody lines from the wrist to the elbow. The heat inside tortures my open wounds, the pain growing in intensity as my hand moves closer to the flame. I'm just able to grab the page, between my index and middle fingers. I have it, and carefully I begin to pull my arm back out. I wince as the glass once again tears my skin, digging deeper the wounds that it dug as I pushed my arm in. Carefully, I pull my hand out through the glass and notice that the paper is on fire. I quickly blow it out and run my hands over it, surveying the smooth remains of the page and the rough, charred edges. Almost half of the page is missing. The fire had caught in the lower right corner and crept up the page, ravaging the image as it crawled. The charred edges release smoke into my face and my eyes water. The image becomes blurry, the colors softening and blending, rolling over each other. She, though, remains pristine, her image untouched by the water that gathers in my eyelids. The right half of the bridge and much of the scenery behind her is gone, but she remains untouched. Even as rain drenches her, she gazes at me. I notice that the page has been burned away in such a way as to transform the full moon into a rough crescent shape.
A tear travels down my face, cooling it and shielding it from the fire inside. My eyes are fixed on her. Almost everything I've worked on for so many years is gone. Countless pages representing countless hours have disappeared. And it doesn't matter. As I gaze at her I realize it never mattered. I have her, as I remember her. Young, beautiful, infatuated with me as I was with her. None of the rest of it matters. This is all I have ever had, in the palm of my hand.
The feeble flame of a single candle is whipped about and almost extinguished by the wind that fights its way into the room from outside. The walls, although a result of my labor, are simply too weak to block all the wind. It divides itself and slips its way in through the cracks between the logs that form the walls, carefully maneuvering under and over the white beech bark that covers the inside, and finally escapes into the room. My home - simply a single room furnished with a small, wooden bed with a mattress of straw, several bookcases lining the walls, a desk, and various other small items scattered throughout the room - is dimly illuminated, as though by a group of stars, unable to decide on a final point of rest. As the light moves from place to place, I am able to see a corner of the room faintly and fleetingly, until the wind's baton pushes the flame in another direction. I can see the stacks of paper, piled on the desk and on the floor in the corners of the room, hiding between groups of books on the bookcases, crowding the wooden boards beneath my bed. I can see the words, scrawled across every wall, covering every inch of free space in dark ink. Even my bed posts have carved into them short phrases and small sketches from long ago, many of which would evolve into pages of work since the time of their conception.
I pull a page down from the wall above me, as I lie on the rough bed, unable to sleep. It is the only page I ever cared enough to hang up. Through the dirty glass of the window above me, moonlight emerges into the room and lands across my chest on onto the floor adjacent to me. The moon is shining brightly tonight, further illuminating the darker corners of the room and revealing more pages stacked carelessly.. I pull the page to my face, as the candle rests on the bed post behind my head. The page holds a drawing, done years ago, of a girl that I knew when I was young. She is turning towards me and pushing the wet black hair out of her face, a smile beginning to form as her eyes gaze at me. I remember receiving the drawing, as a gift from her. I even remember the scene depicted on the page, though it was years ago. She stands on a red wooden bridge, uncaring as rain pours on both of us and into the small river below our feet. I remember snapping a picture, capturing her in her moment of candor, of youth, of beauty, and looking upon it later with such fascination. I told her I wanted her to draw it for me. She was so amazingly gifted with a pencil. The moon shines brilliantly behind and above her head, a full circle, shedding its light on the small Chinese village and cobblestone street behind her. We were tourists back then, fascinated by the rural Asian villages we were visiting. We traveled across China, Taiwan, Japan, choosing not only to visit the cities but also the villages like this one. I doubt she could have predicted back then that I would have stayed, but here I am. And where is she?
I rest the picture on the window sill, leaning it against the glass, careful not to let it fall to the floor. I close my eyes, imagining the scene more vividly. I feel the rain drops pelting my body and soaking into my clothing, I can see the moon as it shines, unwavering, and briefly illuminates each drop of rain as it falls. It's the same moon that now watches me. I see her, her back to me as she leans over the railing of the bridge and watches the water flow listlessly beneath our feet. I call her name, and take a photograph as she turns around. She opens her mouth to speak...
I awake to an intense burning sensation in my right hand, which is draped lazily off the edge of the bed. I pull it back quickly, startled, and look around me. The entire room is lit up now, as if by a hundred candles, all directed in unison by the wind. I look up and see smoke gathering under the ceiling and realize that my home is on fire. Flames rise from the floor next to the bed touches the edge of the bookcase. The books and pages on the bottom shelf begin to catch fire as well. I grab the cotton sheet off of the bed and attempt to smother the flame that engulfs the floor around me, but my hands and chest are burnt as the fire rises to meet me. The heat forces open my fingers and the sheet falls, quickly consumed by the flames. My thoughts race. I must have knocked the candle over as I fell asleep.
I have to save my work. Where do I begin? I recklessly begin gathering papers and dumping them on the grass outside my home. As I rush back in to gather more a thought occurs to me. The drawing. Where is it? It was in my hand as I fell asleep, it must be around the bed somewhere.
I sprint to the bed. Flames now engulf the entire bookcase next to the bed and creep up the thatched roof. I violently search the remaining bed sheets, overturn the mattress, push over the bedside table in search of the paper, forcing several pens, pencils, and miscellaneous objects into the hell that festers on the floor of the hut. I rummage through the papers under my bed, glancing at handfuls of them and throwing them into the fire. I would trade any of my work, all of my work, so many years worth of work. I would surrender it all to the fire if I could just find the picture.
But it's no use. The fire started next to my bed. The picture must have been one of the first things to go. My eyes begin watering as smoke climbs into them. The fire evolves from individual flames to a blurry mess of orange and red, an impenetrable hell, a labyrinth that could not be solved in a thousand years.
I stumble through the fire and out of the room, defeated burned severely, and collapse on the grass outside. The village, though only a few miles away, wouldn't notice a fire at this time of night. I'm left here to watch as all of my most prized possessions, all my life's work, all that I ever had to be proud of, is incinerated. I feel as though I can see the letters, evaporating and floating upwards with the smoke, to mingle with the clouds. Embers rise above the flame, which now engulfs the entire house, drifting upwards until they are finally extinguished by the wind. The same wind that earlier caused the small flame of the candle to flick about as it illuminated my home now pushed the massive flames in front of me to and fro, equally unable to extinguish them. I gaze up at the moon, now made dim in comparison to the sun that is before me. The same moon that I saw behind her on that day. The same moon that shone through my dirty window as I gazed upon her minutes - or was it hours? - ago.
The window. I remember now. I stand up, but as I move the skin at my joints is ripped apart where it was burnt. I am forced to limp because of the pain, each clumsy movement summoning a screeching pain in my arms and legs. After several painful steps I arrive at the side of the house and the fire warms my face. I think about how fragile, how delicately balanced fire can be. From the perfect distance, even the flames that engulf my home can be gentle.I peer in through the chest-height window. There it is, leaning delicately against the glass just as I left it. The fire rages behind it, engulfing almost everything inside. It creeps up the wall below the picture and licks the corner of the paper. Desperate, I trust my fist through the glass above it. Instantly, the skin on my hand is pierced as the broken glass scrapes across it and digs into my wrist. I feel as though my skin itself screams the instant it is penetrated. I push my arm in up to the elbow, and angle it awkwardly, bending it down in an attempt to lay a finger on the page. The glass digs into my arm and draws bloody lines from the wrist to the elbow. The heat inside tortures my open wounds, the pain growing in intensity as my hand moves closer to the flame. I'm just able to grab the page, between my index and middle fingers. I have it, and carefully I begin to pull my arm back out. I wince as the glass once again tears my skin, digging deeper the wounds that it dug as I pushed my arm in. Carefully, I pull my hand out through the glass and notice that the paper is on fire. I quickly blow it out and run my hands over it, surveying the smooth remains of the page and the rough, charred edges. Almost half of the page is missing. The fire had caught in the lower right corner and crept up the page, ravaging the image as it crawled. The charred edges release smoke into my face and my eyes water. The image becomes blurry, the colors softening and blending, rolling over each other. She, though, remains pristine, her image untouched by the water that gathers in my eyelids. The right half of the bridge and much of the scenery behind her is gone, but she remains untouched. Even as rain drenches her, she gazes at me. I notice that the page has been burned away in such a way as to transform the full moon into a rough crescent shape.
A tear travels down my face, cooling it and shielding it from the fire inside. My eyes are fixed on her. Almost everything I've worked on for so many years is gone. Countless pages representing countless hours have disappeared. And it doesn't matter. As I gaze at her I realize it never mattered. I have her, as I remember her. Young, beautiful, infatuated with me as I was with her. None of the rest of it matters. This is all I have ever had, in the palm of my hand.