Wren Handman's Blog, page 13

Today We Are Strangers

I clench my fingers and fight the urge to take your own in mine.

Last night you slept with one hand on my thigh, claiming it in the off-handed way a lover of decades might. It didn’t feel like you had rested your hand on me; rather the warmth from your slightly calloused skin became an extension of me, my skin tingling and disappearing into yours. For a moment, just an instant between breaths, I believed that if I shifted, pulled the muscles of my arms like puppet strings, it would be your hand that would move: you had become so much a part of me. Sometimes when we believe we would rather cling to the lie than test our faith and risk proving ourselves wrong; so I closed my eyes and practiced stillness.

You walk just a little too quickly. My steps are awkward trying to keep up. In the sunlight we’re acquaintances again. Half strangers, half friends, keeping each other company on our commute back to our real lives.

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Image courtesy of Stuart Thursby. Stuart is an art director and photographer, currently adventuring in the wilds of Germany, where this photo was taken. To see more of his work, or to check out his portfolio, please visit StuartThursby.com.

 

It’s My Birthday, And…

Haa-ppy Biiirth-daaaay to meeeeeeeee,

Haa-ppy Biiirth-daaaay to meeeeeeeee,

Haa-ppy Biiirth-daaaaaaaaaaaay deaughg oh god a bear! A BEEEEAAAAARRRRRRR!!!!

 

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

At Night

At night I believe in ghosts.

In daylight they would be nothing but dresses; pretty sculptures made of an artists’ fancy, or old heirlooms from another time. In light you could see where they had worn through on the bottoms, stained not by dirt but by the daily act of living, of sweat and time. In sunlight you would mark the seamstresses unsteady stitches, where a clever pin held the sleeve in its pocket. In sun you could smile and dream about the girls who might have worn them, the suitors who might have called on them, the games they might have played with a spool of red yarn.

But at night something lives in the folds of white fabric.

In the semi-darkness the glowing skirts aren’t halogen lights but a fire within, a presence that brings these shimmering cloths to life. In the murk the red yarn is a magical thing, protection from the evil eye, bright red luck spooled through nervous fingers, tied between their wrists as a talisman. In shadows their faces aren’t absent but hidden, their voices not silenced by silent. In twilight they are creatures from another world, and they tug on the edges of my scarf and beg me to hear them, see them, dream them into being.

At night I can hear them breathing.

I wonder if I give them life or if they crawl, groping fingers first, into the recesses of my imagination. Did I give birth to them or did they devour me and rise up, powered by the light I gave them? Are they more real now than they were an hour before, more solid every minute closer to midnight we creep together?

When the sun comes up they will be harmless mementos, but in the night, alone, they are something more than eerie.

They are ghosts.

 

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

Some Days

Some days your fingers bleed.

Some days your fingers sing.

Some days you kiss the strings, the smiles of passers-by like wings, lift you up, it’s what you’re doing all this for, why you get up off the floor where you sleep, sling your backpack on your arm, don’t forget your good luck charm, walk the cobblestones before the crowds are even out their doors, and you brave the rain, brave the snow, wipe the droplets off of your guitar, share your pain, feel destroyed, earn a shining coin that won’t get you much but buys you just enough.

Some days your fingers bleed.

Some days your fingers sing.

Some days you take a break, wring the pain from locked up joints, watch your eyes in the glass, see the traffic rushing past, know you’ve done all this before, know that every day’s a war, and you remember every line, and you tell them all your lies, and you stop and take a drink and you never pause to blink sleep from your eyes, as the passers-by drops change in your case and you stand in this place you’ve claim as your own, closest thing you’ve got to home and

Some days your fingers bleed and

Some days your fingers sing.

And some days it is enough

and some days

some days.

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Image courtesy of Stuart Thursby. Stuart is a graphic designer and photographer, currently adventuring in the wilds of Germany, where this photo was taken. To see more of his work, or to check out his portfolio, please visit StuartThursby.com.

My Man

My man’s coming home today.

He’ll come here first. Before he goes to the white house with the picket fence, with the sky-blue shutters and the apple pie kept warm in the slanting sun on the windowsill, he’ll walk up my steps. Before he takes her hand and calls her sweetheart, before he swings a child through the air and listens to its laughter like sweetened bells, he’ll knock on my door.

He won’t call me sweetheart but baby; he’ll dip me down instead of picking me up, drink me in like the whiskey he hasn’t had a drop of since he went to war. I’ve watched him be so sweet to her, picking flowers growing in a neighbour’s garden and laughing through the old lady’s chiding; with me he’s rough, desperate, and I tell myself that means he needs me more, wants me more.

She doesn’t wear a smile like mine; pearls he gave me dripping down my throat, scarlet clothes a good woman wouldn’t dare to wear.

I have freedom she could never dream of; walk myself to church every Sunday, eat bonbons til my sides split, host salons where intellectuals grope in dark corners and whisper dreams their wives will never know. But freedom is another way to say no guarantees. We can give each other up as easily as breathing; and like giving up breath, I will move on to the next inhale or die.

Today is all about the smile, all about the waiting, all about the dream he’s been clutching in dirty hands as blood mixes dirt into slurries around him. My man’s coming home today, and he’ll see me first, and I’ll feel like I own him, a little bit more than I usually do, a little bit more than I did tomorrow, and a little bit more than I will next week.

 

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

How DO you solve a problem like…

I wish he had never written that song. Or I wish that my mother hadn’t been quite so devout – that she had named me Marigold, or Summer. She was a hippy, my mother, in every way a good Catholic girl can be a hippy. She wore flower print dresses and talked softly of love, the way you whisper secrets you think everyone should know. She kissed a boy in a party in the dark, and married him in the rain on a Friday because he talked about poetry, about changing the world, because he believed in charity and freedom and helping your fellow man. She baked cakes for strangers who slept on our couch when times were hard, printed leaflets and wore hand-knit sweaters and taught me to use macaroni as prayer beads – Hail Mary full of grace, don’t eat the rosary beads, they aren’t cooked.

I am not a problem to be solved. That’s what my mother told me the first time someone sang that stupid song at me. It got worse when I became a nun, obviously, but I heard it first when I was seven and I knocked over a vase in a fit of rage. You are not a problem to be solved, she soothed, and the unflinching compassion of her arms chased me out of the room, to a place where I could not fail to live up to someone’s lofty expectations.

Parents can’t bear to think that they can ruin you with love. That the dreams in their eyes can be prison sentences as much as their opposite; that there are a thousand ways to wreck a spirit that isn’t strong enough to stand on its own. Not that bad parents would have helped – I think I was destined for a place where I could do good and hide my face and know that I would be forgiven, endlessly, as I failed again and again and again.

I like I like failing. I suppose I am a problem, and that’s why I always hear that stupid song. I break the rules not because I want to, but because I know I will eventually, so I might as well get it over with. But as I stand here smoking a cigarette, and I think about the girls back home, about the looks I’ll get when they smell the tobacco on my habit, I know Sister Sarah will sing that stupid song. And I wish he had never written it – or that my mother hadn’t named me Maria.

 

Image courtesy of Stuart Thursby. Stuart is a graphic designer and photographer, currently adventuring in the wilds of Germany, where this photo was taken. To see more of his work, or to check out his portfolio, please visit StuartThursby.com.

The Junkyard Witch

“Whither you go next, be wary and warned. Dangers can be soft, and spirits can be touched by evil so slowly they hardly notice the change.” She shook herself like a cat, from the feet to the tip of the head, and the beads in her long tight messy braids clinked and shook.

“I understand. Thank you,” he said, even though she knew he didn’t understand a word. It didn’t matter – he would be touched by the meeting, and the steps he took would be more hesitant, more thoughtful. It would have the same result to him truly understanding, and he would shake off that monkey that hung from his back.

She sat up abruptly. “Go,” she snapped, her nostrils flaring as she scented the air. He stammered, then rose and quickly retreated, his polished shoes scuffed as they tore heedlessly through low piles of trash. She licked her dry lips, tilted her head so her long braids touched her knees where she squatted. She ran fingers lightly over her leather vest, scratched under one sagging breast. “Well?” she asked. “Step into the light, little wanderer.”

He snorted. “Gimme a break,” he said, but he came forward anyway – runners held together with duct tape and determination, worn jeans and a ratty jacket with nothing underneath. His steps stopped just shy of where the shadows ended, like he was afraid to give up their company.

“You are the one who sought me out, steps in the dust and over the roofs. Come here.”

“This is bullshit,” he said. “Danny told me to check you out, but come on. ‘Wither you go dangers can be soft’? What are you, some kind of… fucking fortune teller? You’re just bilking naive idiots. I can’t believe this. What a fucking waste of time.”

She sniffed, straightened, her back cracking from the hour of bending almost double. She cleared her throat, hawked up something black and green and spat it across a pile of discarded metal. When she spoke her voice was softer, without the cigarette burn she had adapted for her last client. “Some people need the frills,” she said, shrugging, and ran a hand through her braids. “It’s hard to believe someone’s seen centuries when they say ‘hot damn’ and ‘fuck that’ every second word. But it’s a skin I don’t need, if it bothers you so much.”

He raised an eyebrow at her, took in the outfit, the persona she had discarded like a snake’s unnecessary skin. “So it’s a scam.”

“It’s a coating of chocolate on a bitter pill,” she corrects. “People don’t want to do what’s good for them. They’re more liable to listen if they think you’ve got a foot in another world.”

“But you don’t,” he says, and she can see the weight of disappointment, the serpent with its tail wrapped tight around his neck. She hissed and the snake blinked, snarled, but she saw the coils loosen. Not a lost cause, then. Good.

“Of course I don’t,” she said, and smirked when he began to drop his head. “It’s only one world. It’s just two different ways of seeing.” He raised his head at that. She could see he didn’t believe, but that was nothing new. They never believed at the beginning. “Now take a knee, leave that snake behind, and tell Mama Laaku what the problem seems to be.”

 

Today’s image comes to you courtesy of Rene Blais. Check out his work  on His Facebook Page, and see more about him on Lucid Dreaming’s Contributors Page; with model Deb Graffenstyne.

 

A Story in Pictures

A few years ago, I took a film class, and one of our assignments was to tell a story in still-frames. This is what I created – I hope you enjoy. It’s called : Grey World.

With Brock Haug and Katie Matt.

That Way

“That way.”

“Are you sure?”

“The man with no eyes went that way.”

I drag my knuckles across my eyes – it burns to keep them open. I don’t remember feeling so tired – wonder what happened to the days when I faced the world secure in my own immortality. I used to follow a case for days, get by on nothing but caffeine and grunt determination. They called me a blood hound, called me a falcon, called me a demon with the hands of a priest. I’m too old for this shit.

I kneel in front of her, this little girl whose eyes make mine look young, who has seen centuries. She’s clutching a ragged brown teddy bear under one arm. It’s wearing a little red shirt, like Winne the Pooh. My daughter had one just like it. I remember setting it in the crib beside her, before she was old enough to look at me with disappointment in her eyes. Though maybe it didn’t wear a shirt. Maybe it was a giraffe and not a bear at all – I’m too old for this shit.

“You need to go now, honey,” I say.

“I must bear witness,” she reminds, but the face of a child shouldn’t see everything she does, and whoever put her in a body like that had one warped sense of humour.

“Don’t get in the way,” I grumble, and our steps sync up as she follows down the cobbled street. My tie is too tight – hate wearing them. You’d think most of a century of life would have earned me the right to wear nothing but house robes, but I can’t help but put the uniform on when I get a call like this. A call – haven’t gotten one in years. Younger, better man have taken my place, and more credit to them. But no one was here but me and the Witness, and times are hard for most everyone. A man like me doesn’t retire – he just slowly fades to black.

“He went that way,” she says again, her eyes following signs only we can see. I don’t need her guiding me, but it makes her feel useful and I don’t mind so much. The poison’s in the air like oil now, though, and I could follow it with my eyes closed. Well, one eye closed – I’m not as young as I used to be.

She really does look like Sandy. She has kids of her own now, invited me to Christmas once out of guilt, and I felt like I had a family for the first time in twenty years, but once the dishes were cleared and the presents opened it was so long and thanks for coming, and the phone calls dried up after a month or so.

There’s a shadow at the back of the alley. “There,” the Witness says, and I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes. She knows damn well I can see it, knows I might be old but the power still vibrates through my wrinkled shaking hands, and I know I might be old, but I am enough.

“Let’s do this,” I say, and there’s still a twinkle in my eye, and I don’t feel so old after all.

 

Image courtesy of Stuart Thursby. Stuart is a graphic designer and photographer, currently adventuring in the wilds of Germany, where this photo was taken. To see more of his work, or to check out his portfolio, please visit StuartThursby.com.

If You Love Me

If you love me, meet me by the clocktower at 3pm.

Ultimatums are idiotic.

Or maybe I am.

Ultimatums are idiotic, and so am I. If you love me, as if a person can’t love you despite themselves, as if a person can’t love you and still break up with you at three a.m. after a fight that lasted seven hours, two meals, one reconciliation, one phone call from work taken and one from family ignored, five rooms, two apartments, and nine – count them, nine – insults that you remember three days later in a way you know means you will never forget them, that when you’re drunk and feeling vulnerable they will crawl back up like acid reflux in your brain, eating tiny holes in the fabric of your self-esteem.

If you love me. I could have said – if you think we can still make this work – and then when I was standing here forty-five minutes after three p.m. and she was nowhere in sight I wouldn’t be going through every minute we spent together wondering, was that when she stopped loving me? Was it the day she performed a piece of poetry in front of a crowd who heckled and jeered and she laughed along and then cried quietly in the bathroom, mascara tracks down her cheeks, while I sat in a meeting with my chin on my fist dreaming of the big promotion I wouldn’t get? Was it the time her mother called and I answered her cell and forgot to take a message? Was it that moment when we lay in bed together, our ankles twisted under the sheets, and I told her that I had never, not once in my entire life, been happier?

They do it in the movies all the time. If you love me, light a candle in your window and I’ll know you still care. If you love me, meet me in the spot where we first kissed. If you love me… and they always come. Sometimes it’s just to say goodbye. Just to break your heart, just to say I will always love you, but – just to say sometimes love isn’t enough. But you get your tearful goodbye, you get your farewell in the rain, you get more than ‘I’m so tired,’ more than, ‘I just can’t do this anymore’ but you don’t know if she means this, this fight you’re having, this, this moment, this, this pearl on the string or if she means the whole necklace, if she means you and I.

If you love me. And I am an idiot. Or maybe ultimatums are.

If you love me, and your absence is the answer to the question I wish I could unask. If you love me – or if you don’t.

 

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