Wren Handman's Blog, page 10

The Lighthouse Keeper

My uncle Tobin taught me to believe in magic.

I’ll never know if he understood the effect he was having, though I doubt he gave the tales much weight. To him they were nothing but stories, but to a young, frightened boy with an imagination as wide as his eyes, they were a lifeline to a world I desperately longed for.

If you could have met my uncle, you would not have thought him the type for flights of fancy. He was a stolid man whom I cannot picture as a child, with a wild beard and a voice that seemed husky from disuse no matter how many hours he spun yarns into the night. Lighthouse keepers are a certain breed of folk, and Uncle Tobin was no exception. It wasn’t that he didn’t like people so much as that he didn’t see a use for them; my wild, unpredictable mother confused him, and my crying, trembling self alarmed him. He preferred the predictability of the tides and the amorality of seagulls. His was a life of routine and hard work, and into that careful weave my mother tossed me like a spark into dry brush. She left me there the summer I turned seven, citing ‘a desperate need to run away – well, you understand!’ – which Uncle Tobin never did. He didn’t see his hermetic life as running away; rather it was the natural progression of a life that had never been lonely despite being lived alone.

That first night I cried so long he finally stomped up the stairs to my makeshift bed and told me to go to sleep, as if standing in the doorway and glaring at me with crossed arms was the way to accomplish it; I cried more quietly, but didn’t stop until the sun came up. All day we trudged up and down the beach; Uncle Tobin thought that if he could exhaust me checking traps and setting new ones, perhaps ‘the crying problem’ would resolve itself. But despite my aching limbs and my drooping eyes, when I finally crawled into my nest of blankets, I salted my pillow again. He told me to be a man and I told him sharply that I was just a boy, and our stalemate lasted through an entire stony day and into the afternoon, until finally Uncle Tobin summoned me with a sharp, “Come here.”

We trekked out of the lighthouse and up the rocky hill behind, and sat overlooking the bay. The sunset was more beautiful than one of my mother’s paintings, and I rested my head on my crossed arms and watched it, feeling peaceful for the first time in two days. But then I thought how much my mother would like it here, and how maybe the stillness would infect her and she would hold still, just long enough for me to hug her; and then I started to cry.

Uncle Tobin cleared his throat, and asked me, “Do you know the story of the mermaid who fell in love with a lighthouse keeper?” When I shook my head, he began to speak, and I was caught. He won me that night, and my loyalty burned bright and fierce through everything that came after. If I’m being honest, I’ll admit I don’t remember the details of that first story, but rather I remember the sense of it. It was a story sprinkled with wonder, full of magic and hope and a thrill of danger that was never quite realised; it was the kind of world where trials always prepared you for something, so you never felt anything was senseless. That was what I craved; not the magic, so much, but the order. An investigation always led to an adventure, a warning ignored always led to dire consequences, and a woman was always the source of your destruction and your joy. Simple tales for a life that never was. The stories I soaked up that year and a half grew into my bones, just as the salt and the air did. When my mother came for me she found a solemn child, with wide eyes and a belief in the rightness of things that she never did manage to shake.

The lighthouse still stands, though Uncle Tobin is no longer its Keeper. That rock where we spent so many evenings still holds me perfectly, and when the sun sets across the bay, the colours are magical, and beautiful, and right.

 

 

This image comes courtesy of Hayley Mechelle Bouchard. Her work can be found at Little Cat Photography, with more information about Hayley on Our Contributors page.

Kaleidoscope Eyes

If my body is an illusion I choose to banish it.

I deny every sharply intaken breath,

the effect of your dark eyes. I am in control

not this traitor skin with no brain

but its own ideas

no heart

but this thorny yearning.

If I am the master of myself I choose

to look into your eyes and see nothing at all.

No kaleidoscope of broken dreams,

no memories that haven’t happened yet.

I choose to deny the children who play on swing sets in your irises

the dark nights in your pupils where you hold me close

the mottled lazy Sunday mornings

and, here and there, the flecks of perfect blue skies

If I chose, I would be blind, and deaf, and safe

from your eyes.

 

 

This image comes ‘shopped together by me, with the eye and the statues from a free image website called Morguefile, and the girl on the swing courtesy of Hayley Mechelle Bouchard. Her work can be found at Little Cat Photography, with more information about Hayley on Our Contributors page.

Black as Ebony

Well, it’s that time of year again. I’m working on my annual Solstice novella, which means I’ve got no time for stories! So, here are some little Easter eggs and fun. This week I’ll post a bit of a novel I’m working on which is inspired by Snow White.

 

“Once upon a time, the world was a lawless place. Beautiful people nursed evil in their hearts, and ugly children grew into ugly adults, no matter how pure of heart they were. Little girls who wished upon a star might never find true love, and a peasant born would a peasant remain, from birth until their inconspicuous death. A person might have said, “Life’s not fair,” and meant it; or “There’s no such thing as magic,” and they would have spoken true. The people, curled up in their cold houses at night, told fairy tales to while the time away, dreaming of better lives they would never have.

“Until one day, the Godmothers came. No one knows from where they appeared, and no one knows when they might go, leaving us alone, again, in an unfair world. The fairies brought with them the stories we had always told; magic to turn a peasant into a princess, true love’s kiss, evil witches and coal-red shoes.”

“Which princess will I be?”

“You’re already a princess, heartling. You just have to be make sure you don’t grow up to be an eeeeeevil Queen. You must be pure of heart, because dark thoughts fester and breed darkness. Let me see, is your heart pure?” She buried her face against her daughter’s chest, tickling her, and the small child shrieked and laughed.

“You can’t see it, mama! It’s inside!” she defended, trying to burrow under the blankets. Her mother tucked her up, trapping her in soft wool as she giggled and squirmed.

“And inside it shall remain,” her mother promised, and kissed her forehead, as if in parting.

“I’m not tired yet, mama, not at all. I want to hear a story.”

“We don’t tell stories, sweetheart, we live them,” she chided. But then she softened, seeing the plaintive look in her daughter’s eyes. “Of course, I could tell you again about your aunt, in Milasea far to the north, whose husband rescued her from the dragon. Or I could tell you one more time about your father’s brother, wandering lost in the desert for ten years before reuniting with his one true love!”

“Mama?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Why are all the stories sad in the middle part?”

“Well – because, that’s how you get a happily ever after.”

“I don’t think I want one,” her daughter said. In her small dark eyes were thoughts too big for such a little face; understanding just dawning, still raw and untested. Her mother bent and kissed her forehead, knowing she was supposed to say how wonderful it was to be a hero, how love was worth any challenge. Stories weren’t things anyone was taught to protect themselves from.

“Your life doesn’t have to be a story, Elodie,” her mother whispered instead. “I won’t let anything hurt you.”

 

On a Red String

We wrap our prayers in red string.

What is it, I wonder, about red? Red flags on the branches of trees, red thread around wishing wrists, red petals on dark earth. The red string of fate around a pinkie finger; a red ribbon in a little girl’s hair.

Will my prayer go farther wrapped in red? Will the wind catch it more forcefully, carry it more faithfully? If I had no need of prayers my father could answer my questions, but I suppose when it was possible, when I was young and carefree, I didn’t think to ask questions such as these. I wondered about the blueness of the sky, asked why the elephants’ tusks were so long and their feet so slow; I didn’t question how loud a whisper needs to be before it’s heard, or why darkness is so full of shadows. I didn’t understand how little I knew until I asked ‘why’ and no one answered.

I wrap my prayer in red string, and leave it for the wind.

 

 

Image courtesy of Hayley Mechelle Bouchard. Her work can be found at Little Cat Photography, with more information about Hayley on Our Contributors page.

A Change in the Air…

Wow. I can’t believe it’s been two and a half years of Lucid Dreaming. Two and a half years of (mostly) weekly stories; two and a half years of incredible artwork. I’ve seen beautiful paintings, stunning photographs, detailed sketches; I’ve written tragedies, comedies, weird murder fantasies (only one, thank goodness!).

And I have such a blast doing it.

But looking at this huge catalogue of stories I’ve been blessed to explore has made me realize that I need to focus a little bit of my efforts on writing some short stories that I can send out into the wider world – stories I can publish, stories I can share on other platforms.

With that in mind, I’m going to be cutting Lucid Dreaming back a bit. For now we’ll be aiming for biweekly (yes, I know that word means both twice a week and every two weeks, making it pretty useless as a denoter of time, but you can probably figure out from the context that I mean every two weeks, since I can’t cut back to twice a week!). Ideally, I’ll still be writing a story every week, I just won’t be posting them all. That way, I can start to build up a backlog of stories for other venues.

Thank you for your years (years!) of support, and for your eyeballs, which have presumably been following me all this time. Check in every two weeks for more of what you’ve come to know (and hopefully love).

-Wren

The Monster

He lies on the floor, a stake through his heart, and my own does not flutter. I am not afraid, and I feel no regret.

“What the hell makes you think you’ll ever be anything other than what you are right now? You can’t even make it as a waitress in a diner whose big lunch rush is twelve people, you think you’re going to move to a new city and somehow you won’t be such an epic fucking disaster? You’re always going to be clumsy, you’re always going to be screwing it up!”

I watch his lips. If you focus on one thing, you can distance yourself from your surroundings – I didn’t learn it anywhere, just started doing it and now I never cry when he yells at me. I used to watch my plate, keep my eyes glued on my greasy peas, but then he’d ask if I was listening, yell twice as loud, so now I watch his lips. They move so fast they’re almost stop-motion, and I track the path of his spit as it flies on every ‘p’ and ‘f’. There, on the napkin. There, on the side of his glass of beer. There, like a bull’s eye in the centre of his chicken cutlet.

In my mind, he is a monster; and because he’s a monster, the people cheer when he dies.

“You think I’m going to support your ass when you run off, you’ve got another thing coming! It’s one thing to live in my house and barely pay rent, at least you’re chipping in with the cooking and cleaning but there’s no way I’m going to pay for you to slum around Chicago and do exactly what you’re doing here but there! And no one there is going to give you slack just because you’re my daughter in the big city, do you understand that? No one is going to put up with your shit! You hear me?”

I nod. It’s always best to seem engaged. People run out of steam when there’s nothing to bang against, like a boxer who’s done nothing but reps and reps of shadowboxing. You gotta get in the ring or you’ll think you hate the sport, and there’s no point screaming when they’re already on your side. So I nod.

I never duck my chin, never hide behind my hair. I wear leather because I am not ashamed of the shape of my skin. When I put my stiletto on the stake and push, the crowd cheers.

“You’re bored, you don’t run away from your life. You stop hiding and try to make something of the life you’ve already got! When you run away your life just comes with you, and I promise you there isn’t anything there that we don’t have here. You watch too much damn television, it tells you everybody can be anything they wanna be. Some people aren’t made for anything but getting married and having some kids. You want a better life? Start dressing nicer and get a boyfriend.”

The monster is never kind; he never makes me soup when I’m sick, or brings me ice cream to soothe a broken heart. The monster did not carry me three miles on his shoulders when I sprained my ankle on a hike, or sit with me patiently every night while I learned long division. The monster does not love me – and I do not love the monster back.

 

 

Image courtesy of Hayley Mechelle Bouchard. Her work can be found at Little Cat Photography, with more information about Hayley on Our Contributors page.

Magic

People write about magic a lot; but they don’t write about how it feels.

I guess that’s because they think it’s too hard. How do you describe colour to a person who’s always been blind? How do you describe the sensation of a muscle moving in your arm to a person who doesn’t have limbs? But the greatest thing about language is how we can share experiences which to others are impossible – how we can live lives which to us are unattainable.

So I’m going to try.

You know that feeling when you walk down the street at night, and you realise that someone is walking behind you? You’re listening to music on your headphones, completely insulated from the outside world, so you know you didn’t hear them. And you couldn’t have seen them, they’re behind you, definitely not in your peripheral vision. But somehow you were aware of them, you felt them in a place you couldn’t touch or name.

That’s where magic sits.

When you aren’t using it you can still feel it – you’re aware of it. Everyone who knows magic knows when it’s there, and when, rarely, it isn’t. I’ll call this awareness the whisper, though I hope I’ve described it accurately enough that you’ll understand it isn’t really an auditory experience.

If you’re one of those gifted people who can feel the whisper, the first step towards using the magic is the gathering. Magic is essentially energy, but think of it as energy that you can feel, that has a presence that is directly synonymous with physicality – but only the non-physical part of you can touch it. Imagine another skin layered on top of your own, just as sensitive, just as expansive; and this second skin is the one that can feel magic. They interact with each other in exactly the way your hand interacts with a cup of tea; but like pretty girls who know it, they only interact with each other.

This second skin can be manipulated, moved, the same way your arm can; you cause it to happen in the same way you might decide to lift your hand and scratch your nose, but you don’t feel each muscle tense and pull. You can isolate the movement if you try, break it down, learn it, but usually it’s a more instinctual response; cause and effect, action and reaction. This second skin reaches out for the magic and wraps it around you like vines in fast motion, crawling up the side of a wall. You can feel the connection points, the suckers holding it in place. You can feel it on you, connected to you, but not really a part of you. Magic is always external, a force greater than yourself, but it fits around you like a living glove. Vines. I like that. Vines of power, with a life and purpose of their own, which you can tame if you have the strength.

The next step is release. This is the harder part to describe, I think. Once the vines are wrapped around your second skin, you have to direct them; to decide what the magic will do. Are you using it to tame the winds, or call them up? To curse an enemy or bless a foe? Here I move to sight. Imagine, if you can, a world where you could isolate windows of possibility. Where every time you looked at someone the world split into boxes, and within each box you saw layered colours, and every colour was a possibility. Look at the wind. It could be stronger, it could be weaker, it could be wetter. Each option layers with the world around it, determining how those changes will ripple out. When magic wraps around your hands the world is a fractal. Beautiful, divisive. Deciding what you want to accomplish before you Gather is essential, because after you’ve begun the choices can be overwhelming. You don’t see them with your eyes, of course, but sight is the closest approximation, squares and colours and layers of sight.

Once you’ve chosen your target, the final moment is easy – you breathe. Breath is magic – magic is energy and energy is life, and breath is the fundamental connection to the circle. You breathe in or you breathe out, everyone does it differently, but you just – breathe. And magic flows like water or shifting vines, and tangles itself around your objective.

And maybe, now, when you hear about magic, you’ll feel a little less blind than you did a moment before.

 

 

Image courtesy of Julia Roncesvalles. Julia is an art enthusiast from Vancouver, BC. She primarily creates figure and portrait style pieces using pens and inks.

In a Gallery at Midnight

It’s my face.

I don’t know how I can tell. Her features are obscured, just impressions of lips and nose. She is sand-blasted with shadows, and long black hair covers her eyes, something between a veil and a blindfold. Her head is tilted back, her long neck taut, immersed in the calm ecstasy of being free, finally, from the burning drug of truth.

Memories surface, monsters in the murky waters of my mind’s lake. I am ready for them; they don’t live long. Iron will is stronger than a sword, kills more quickly than a knight in platemail. I will them into temporary death, knowing they’ll never be truly gone but knowing, too, that it’s enough.

I open my eyes, not realizing I had closed them, that my internal struggles touch my external world. The painting confronts me like a slap to the face; and yet. And yet I can’t help but think how satiated she looks. I didn’t think he would ever understand – that he could ever see how happy my choices could make me. Is there something like understanding in the brush strokes? Something like forgiveness?

I sense him behind me. Most days I don’t believe in things like souls, the energy we’re said to give off; most days I choose not to, choose to believe the world is as small as I have made it, that it is something I can hold in my two hands. But I feel him behind me, without a sound to give his presence away, without a scent that reminds me of him.

Memories. The water ripples and I know something is alive beneath it, a creature with a will of its own, sharp spines and beautiful scales. Beneath the terror I know there is the possibility of joy, of beauty, the heights and depths. If I let it out it could live again in what I’ve left behind, feel like I haven’t felt since I dropped his hand, feel breath that is a part of me, feel the madness of joy unchecked. But I would also be devoured. I could fall, fall and never land, and I know already where that path leads.

I close my eyes and breathe softly, brushing the waves away.

When I turn, there’s no one there. Just a gallery, milling hipsters and art critics with glasses of wine and too-hot canapes. I look back at the painting, and smile.

I think it’s something like forgiveness.

I wander on to the next piece, and slip the painting into the deep, dark waves.

.

.

Image curtesy of Curtis Duke. Curtis is a painter and tattoo artist. You can see more of his work at Darkside Tattoo Parlour, where he works.

Fuck Teen Wolf

Fuck Teen Wolf.

Fuck American Werewolf, too. While we’re at it let’s add The Wolf Man, Gingersnaps, Being Human (the American AND the UK versions!!), Underworld (One, two, three, prequel, postquel, whatever), and oh that gospel of all things hairy and growly, Buffy the freaking Vampire Slayer.

Did you know the moon comes out during the day? I sure as hell didn’t.

Be a werewolf, he said. It’ll be great – what are the downsides, really? One night a month you get hairy and angry and you hide in your basement until it goes away. What’s the old joke? Women are angry for a whole week every month, what are you complaining about! It makes you stronger, faster, tougher. Sexier. You’ll be raking in the girls, he said, come join me and walk on the wild side. He actually said that. Walk on the wild side. That should have been my first hint that he didn’t exactly graduate valedictorian of his high school class.

There’s just the one problem. The one large, glaring, bright and fucking sunny problem. Did you know the moon comes out during the day?

In the movies it’s always a dark night. There’s a bit of cloud, but not enough to cover the moon. It’s round, beautiful, like a silver penny with a face scratched on it. You can go romping through the woods and no one will ever see you. You can lock yourself in the basement and no concerned neighbours will hear you howling and call animal control. Because it’s FUCKING NIGHT TIME.

The moon comes out all the damn time. Middle of the day, middle of the night, depends on the time of year. How do you explain to your boss that you really have to miss that important meeting because you DID book the time off three months ago? How do you explain that you actually can’t attend your best friend’s wedding, could he move it to next week?

Being a wolf stalking the night sounds cool. Being a wolf accidentally terrifying campers on a sunny August afternoon? Not so awesome.

Fuck Teen Wolf. Why did I say yes?

 

Image by Colin Carruthers. Colin is a local theatre technician and guru of the wild side.

 

The Spy Who Screwed Me

“Oh, yeah, this is really subtle.”

“What? No one can tell that we’re talking to each other.”

“There’s a giant white statue. It couldn’t draw any more attention to us if it was a neon sign with a freaking arrow.”

He glanced over at the statue and then back to his sandwich. To anyone passing by he seemed to be eating lunch, taking a break from a busy morning; but in fact there was a small transistor nestled in the cardboard bread. The smell of ranch dressing wafted through the air and made him wrinkle his nose. Sometimes R&D were TOO good at their jobs. “We’re hiding in plain sight. Weren’t you paying attention in Spycraft with Professor Bullion?”

“Hiding in plain sight means you’re the waiter at a cocktail party full of waiters – not you’re the guys sitting right next to the most visited sculpture in the city. Look, that tourist is taking a freaking picture of us.”

“He’s taking a picture of the STATUE.”

“Which we are in.”

“Would you please focus? The Argentinians will be here any minute, and we need to optimize our strategy for maximum impact. Now, if you enter the building by the West-”

“Look, now there’s a tour group!”

“What?”

“A tour group! He’s telling them about the history of the statue or something.”

“Would you focus?”

“I am focusing. On the tour guide’s ass.”

“Jesus. We have – eight minutes and thirty two seconds before an entire contingent of highly trained operatives descends on our heads.”

“I have about twenty seconds before this contingent of Japanese tourists descends on my mockingly fake sandwich. What flavour is yours? They keep giving me tuna.”

“Well that’s what happens when you sleep with someone and don’t call them in the morning. You have no one to blame but yourself. So if you go in the West window on the fourth-”

“I just did the victory sign for a picture.”

“Why would you do that?!”

“Well, if we’re going to be in this many pictures I figure we need to act natural, right?”

He groaned and dropped his head into his sandwich. “No. You do not need to act natural by posing for tourists’ photographs. You need to keep your mind on your objective!!”

“Excuse me, sir?”

He looked up in alarm to find a uniformed police guard in front of him. He swore under his breath – and realised he had been rather loudly yelling at his sandwich. “Officer.”

“I’m going to have to ask you to move along, sir.”

“Move along? I’m just sitting. Enjoying my sandwich.”

Over the radio his colleague’s voice crackled, “Now you’re hooped.”

“I’m afraid loitering isn’t permitted. You have to move on.”

Again, the crackle, “Maybe you can play sexy cop? Jennifer told me you aren’t very good at it but-”

“Shut up!!”

“Excuse me?”

“Not you, Officer! I mean, I just – I need to stay here. For a minute. I’m almost done.”

“Okay, sir, I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.”

Over the radio, “Did you just get arrested? Oh, this is brilliant. Wait, let me see if I can get one of these tourists to take your picture for the breakroom fridge.”

“I am going to fucking ki– Uh–”

“On the ground! Right now!” He knew three ways to disarm the officer in six seconds. Four ways to kill him in under three. Well, one took more like seven, but that wasn’t the point. He couldn’t do any of it without drawing attention to himself.

“Don’t worry,” he heard in his sandwich, “I’ve got this covered. And when I take out the entire enemy team on my own – no more tuna sandwiches for me!”

“Jesus,” he gasped as the officer slammed him into the concrete, “I think I just got played.”

 

Image courtesy of Stuart Thursby. Stuart is an art director and photographer. This photo was taken during his adventures in the wilds of Germany, from which he has recently returned. To see more of his work, or to check out his portfolio, please visit StuartThursby.com.