Stardust and light poured into the shape of a woman, Arris says, ‘Sure, the dust of creation settled and compressed.’ Like diamonds, I suggest. ‘Yep. Trillions of particles forced into form and held together by luck and habit.’ I ask her what the space between is made of. ‘It is the elemental nothing opposing the desire to be something.’ Moving us like magnets. ‘Invisible repulsion.’ Attraction. ‘Compulsion,’ she says and winks. Beyond the eye of measure one star blooms and another wilts. But how did we come to be from dust? She tells me, ‘That’s a matter of time.’
Jennifer took every part of the man she loved and put it in a blender. She poured the contents into a milkshake glass and drank. It was sweet at first and thrilling, possibly wicked, but after several sips she grew to hate the taste. So, she placed it on the counter and left. Several women passed in this manner, drank and discarded the drink, excitement turning to disgust and the glass always empty. Arris, upon seeing the receptacle, remarked upon its craftsmanship. ‘Exquisite,’ she said, ‘and practical,’ then took it home with her where it was filled every day.
As one might attend unspooled yarn, I try desperately to gather the logic of the world around me. In the same vein, I find myself so often tangled in a knotted skein made of my life’s own twisted purls. Would that I could take my teeth to the problem as my childish self allowing frustrations to force tears in my beleaguered shoelaces. I wish these problems were that simple or physically solvable, but there’s more nonsense every day, everybody adding to the fray, and if I can’t untangle or use it then I’d at least like to avoid it.
Arris looked at the walls around us and said, ‘I bet we could knock one down if we wanted.’ Of course, I said, if it’s sound. She strode to each surface, knocked and listened in turn. ‘Well, they all sound amenable to me.’ Her laughter fell out and furnished the room around me, her dreams and intentions colouring everything. ‘We’ll start from the middle and work our way out,’ she said. ‘Making and shaping space as we need it.’ Knock down whatever you want, I told her, I will build the pillars to keep the roof over our heads.
Piece by piece I removed my soul and arranged it in the shape of a man in front of her. It’s fragile, I said, and worn. Please take care of it. ‘Forever,’ she said, ‘but first things first, lets put you back together.’ She set to rearrange the pieces then and place them back inside, making me whole again in new and unexpected ways. It is perfect now, I said, but she just shook her head. ‘It was always perfect, love, you just needed to see it for yourself.’ I embraced her then, finally comfortable to be simply myself.
Vignettes at the intersection of poetry and prose, the first collection of Hundreds is one hundred stories written in exactly one hundred words and accompanied by one hundred images. Connections exist between them all, they can be found or discarded as you please, but the links aren’t as imperative as the instances depicted, and won’t please any sensible chronology. Otherwise, just enjoy the moments.
Hundreds vol.1 is available now.
I giggle all the time now thinking about the things that make her laugh. Silly voices and swift caricatures tread the boards of my brain, running ragged the props department of my imagination. Such worth in her mirth though, and my own, in trying characters and satirical takes on self, in loving laughter and putting energy into entertaining what you enjoy. We do our routines together in the round, oblivious of any audience but ourselves, grateful for the glancing approval of strangers but always and only perfecting our performance for each other. All the world’s stage built for us.
She screams, ‘Why are we fighting?’ So I make my voice cold in the way I was taught as a child, deep and sharpened for stagecraft. It’s because everything’s too good, I tell her, we don’t trust joy to come so easy or stay solid for long. Hard eyes and a soft tongue, she says, ‘Testing for imperfections.’ Like a peach. ‘Rotten inside?’ Delicious all over. It takes thirty seconds of staring before we’re holding each other in hysterics, the promise of tears swallowed with pride. ‘Are we being silly?’ Only about arguments, I say, the rest is serious.
Arris looks out over the waterfall and is still for a moment. ‘The sound will never be the same,’ she says, ‘every trickled note is a new iteration of combination and intonation but the effect over time is homogeneity.’ I suggest it’s one of natures menial magics and she shakes her curls against my neck. ‘It’s us playing the trick,’ she says, ‘it’s too beautiful for us to handle so we drown it out.’ I look out over the waterfall and listen to the world move through time. I tell her, I can hear every moment of our lives.
Remember when you kicked me in the head and told me it was my fault, I’d leaned into it, or when you took me by the throat and told me to apologise for upsetting you? I want to say it’s funny now, but it’s not. I wake with the fruits of your labours festering on my skin, caught in iced droplets of sweat that chill me in ways I can never say. I wish I had scars that could heal, something to show for the violence and pain, something I could use and not merely the memory of abuse.
I have to say it while she’s calm so I might get heard. You make me feel disentitled to my opinion. She doesn’t look at me, ‘Is disentitled a word?’ I think so. ‘And that’s your opinion?’ That’s condescending. ‘No sweetie, that was patronising. This conversation is me condescending.’ You fucking strip me of my humanity and then blame me for being a zombie, like a proper voodoo puppet for you to play with. I feel like I’ve been shot and asked to pay for the medical expenses. ‘Oh, sweetie,’ she says, ‘we both know you couldn’t afford that.’
I keep dropping your brain on people that don’t even know you. Yeah, I say, you were telling me about that the other day, or showed me this article, or read it, said it, did it… All the things you know and do in my conversations; depth, breadth and dimensions, I only wish it were truly you and not just your thought. Actually, I was telling my friends only the other day about how you’d said that or something similar, I think. Funny, I can’t quite remember now, I’ll have to ask you next time I talk to someone.
I’m standing with strangers, near enough to one myself but not for the charms in my pocket and graces of fate, watching her play a piano in the street, beaten old upright been community curbed, loose a few boards, some keys, and an octave or three. She lays out a film score near to denouement, full of latter act arpeggiation here played as prelude. As the piece unfurls she pours herself into the sound until she is no longer conscious of how impressive she is, merely the pressure of the keys, the rhythm and its needs. My heart sings.
Sharing space together but me separating myself by insecurities, an evolutionary vestige still clinging to my chrysalis. You know, it’s not always going to be sonnets and sunshine, I say. There might be times where it’s gloom too, and grey. Arris smiles with her eyes and opens her mouth wide, unleashing a kaleidoscope of butterflies. They flock around the room, flutter, flap, and fill every available space, countless wings in the colour of all things beating their response upon the stillness in the air, a chaotic order of magnitude. So, I say, it doesn’t matter? And the butterflies abate.
A Few Short Words 