If sleep, a noise could reach in. Drag you out. Not sleep. No noise. No silence even. All walls sealed. Unconsciousness — the word she couldn’t think of twelve years ago. Except here she was. The mind watching itself. And wasn’t that the definition of consciousness? An ultramarine impasto. As if she knew brushstrokes. Odd, because in this life, Wendy Kochman had been an amateur violist. A failed academic and a mother. Never a painter.
She’d been here before, a place of still images. All in blues and purples. Trees, walls, vines. Emily playing the violin, elbow cocked. Benjy streaking by on his bike. Flowers with gargoyle faces. Each preoccupation inhabited its own cool plane.
Like a cubist painting, she’d told people after the last time.
Like a window, a shattered window, an irregular starburst of cobalt and violet. The pattern was familiar, and not just because she’d been here before. She could see that now. See was the right word. There was no sound, touch, taste, or smell in this place.
This story is from the Winter 2016 edition of Still Point Arts Quarterly.
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This story is from the Winter 2016 edition of Still Point Arts Quarterly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Standing In The Stream
I had also become enamored with the beauty of a man — it was always a man — standing in a rushing stream about mid-thigh, sunlight winking off the whitewater, casting nearly in slow-motion, over and over again, the long thin line whipping back and forth, catching the light, before barely alighting atop the water.
The Old Barn
The photograph above, by Jeffrey Stoner, is part of Still Point Art Gallery’s current exhibition, Solitude (see more images from this show on the previous pages).
The Art Of Solitude
Solitude isn’t loneliness; it’s different. With solitude, you belong to yourself. With loneliness, you belong to no one.
Wendy's Room
If sleep, a noise could reach in. Drag you out. Not sleep. No noise. No silence even. All walls sealed. Unconsciousness — the word she couldn’t think of twelve years ago. Except here she was. The mind watching itself. And wasn’t that the definition of consciousness? An ultramarine impasto. As if she knew brushstrokes. Odd, because in this life, Wendy Kochman had been an amateur violist. A failed academic and a mother. Never a painter.
On Throwing Things Away
I will work until my mind finds peace, even if that means I will work for a very long time.
Sea Foam And Clyde
Behind the house he hears the rustling of grasses that shine when the wind blows. The blades lift and turn and catch the sun and glitter like tinsel. He stands and sees the house. If you squint maybe it does look like sea foam.
The Restaurant De La Sirène At Asnières
The Restaurant de la Sirène at Asnières is crumbling; you can see it clearly when you stand up close, the bricks are split with age, the boards are warped with weather like the damaged spine of an old man. The building is a decaying, moldy monument to the men who look upon it.
