In the sky, the balloon was an absence, a black hole.

His hands shook and the glasses tumbled on the card table.  They gave a trembling cry:  "Be brave and finish up."  "Stomp your feet and howl, but don't be heard."  "Calm your heart rate and settle into the rhythm: loss, found, empty, satisfied, raging, quiet--switching on and off.  Finding the vase then a face, a void then a wholeness."

He stood, turned a switch, dug his feet into the dirt.  Then, his body suddenly launched into the space where clouds crystalized and oxygen thinned.   "I wonder," he said, "if anyone'll see me..."

The couple saw from the balloon.  A man lit up and burned like a rocket on the horizon.  A snap and a small rustling and the lights went out.

photo via

Trees silhouetted black against a white sky;

Her tower was sometimes light, sometimes dark, 

always either, never both.

For 700 years, she found no difference in the day,

apart from the trees noir, the grass blanc--swaying--

and black badgers sniffing along the ground.

On a golden afternoon that she did not see but did feel--

on her skin, the warmth of spring, the sweet breath 

of the blank west wind, swishing her black locks--

she lay on the pinnacle of her tower, thinking of 

truth: "Like the sky, bright and without blemish;"

evil: "The trees, the badger... my hair," 

she caught a wisp in her hands.

"Black, and very fearful."

At that moment, an itinerant fiddle player stumbled into her woods.  He fell flat on his knees on the harsh whiteness of the ground.  "What terrible magic is this, that steals all color from the world?" he gasped.  For in his last step, the hundred greens of the fields had vanished.  The greys, blues, and yellows of the sky were wiped clean.  Next to him, his friendly violin lay like a scorch mark on snow.

Bewildered, the young man rose and bravely tiptoed forth.  Shortly he came upon the lady's tower.  Looking up, he saw the her hair flying, looking much like a black flag in the wind.  He longed to know some sorcery, some incantation that would rip the contrast from the world, bringing texture and depth to this surely beautiful, strange place.  

A sad, angry song welled up in the fiddler's eyes, and his fingers, out of habit, began to pluck the worn violin. Suddenly, the ebony of the tower walls faded into a rough grey.  He lifted the bow and let forth a few solemn notes; the grass around his feet whispered itself greenish.  The man continued his song, and slowly around him the forest grew into life.  Gracefully, he lilted color over his path, passing out and over the boundary of the forest.

The sky parted into white and blue 

before the maiden's lifted eyes.  

She gasped, and her hair swept yellow over her pale face.

She leapt to her feet.

A black and white badger sniffed among the green grass far below.

She stared and a sunset drained her soul of words.

photo via

When she closed her eyes that night, she saw fields of flowers.  She held that like a tiny treasure to her chest, and it blossomed inside like a yellow ranunculus.  Petals unfolded, stretching the limits of their crumpled joy.  Stems twisted all over each other, all glad and stepping on toes to get the same golden sun.  

Glad, glad, glad, her soul smiled to her.  

The wind had whirled around the city all day, lifting pear blossoms off the flowering trees, tripping shopping bags into women's ankles as they quickly walked.  Minutes had been altogether lost by teachers as it blew through their classrooms in the early afternoon.  Gleeful boys ran home for snacks and video games, not noticing their tousled hair and homework papers running away.

The eucalyptus trees felt their leaves whispered by several doors swinging shut all at once.

A girl whom the wind had whipped all the day, walked slowly through the park in the orange glow.  Noticing her, the breeze softened.  Silently, it breathed out a moment it had stolen earlier from a postman.  The girl inhaled.  Her shoulders relaxed.  She closed her eyes and saw the patches of sunlight shadowing through the trees.  Whisking her gently along, the breeze grew her moment until the girl was gazing with wide eyes at the branches of the highest trees glowing in the invisible air.

photo via

Giants spring from rock to rock, grinning sillily when they miss and splash knee deep in the icy water.  Their guffaws resonate off the valley walls like rock slides--and cause them too.  This is Giant Country, and two smallish people would feel rather out of place here.  And they do: they sit, unnoticed on the river bank, a normal-sized girl, hugging her knees, and a braver, smaller boy soaking his feet.  Lucky for them, the giants are too immersed in crossing the river to notice two tiny people.  But they all together cause tidal waves big enough to keep both children uncomfortably cold and wet--and ruin their sandwiches too.

Now the girl and boy are whispering to each other.  The girl's brow is furrowed and the boy munches an apple.   The giants have almost all crossed to the opposite side of the river from the children, when one loses his footing and falls into the river with a large splash.

photo via

gathering stories

Like the light from a fire, piled around her were pages and books, scribbles and stories.  Her face was glowing; her pencil flickered.

On the wall, shadows played out figures.  A mother, shutting the door.  A young boy, poking at a centipede.  Two old men, crying on a bench.   A woman, crumpling a piece of paper in her fist.  A coyote, howling at a car.

Stories swirled around the room, lifting off the pages.  She could not contain their life.

She wrote madly through the night.

song by jónsi

He watched as the land was left behind.  

as the sea was left behind, in small mountains, cresting out

space widened, gaped in his chest 

the nearest star now a trillion light years away

he floated there, in the vacuum of a home left behind,

gasping.

photo by Steve Broadbank.

Often--her and the river.  Swirling mindpaths lost their way in the eddies, so she sat until her pants soaked through, and left in the golden light.

photo by nicolas souche.

He followed her for miles, quietly padding over rocks and pine needles, before she turned.  The tiny smile that broke from her lips was the sunrise for him.  He froze, uncertain and awkward, mid-step.

Carefully, the girl bent down and opened her arms.  He stood still but for breathing.  The sun moved in its path.  Still she knelt, arms shaking now, the smile deepening in her eyes.  His starlight eyes searched hers.  

The sky turned pink and orange behind them.  Her breath misted golden in the dying day, her patient arms unwavering.  

Finally, the sun set blindingly behind the girl and the mountain.  At once, the fox knew.  In her eyes, he saw the need of the cosmos, and he would go with her forever if he could, following the sun.

He took a step toward her and was wrapped in her warm arms.

photo via.

Bricks, hands of them, pressed down on his shoulders.  Lane straightened.  He realized he was gripping tightly to something, looked down and it was the info leaflet, crumpled and twisted.  Laughed to himself--yeah, my life is that way.

Shuffling behind the parade of white tourists snapping every angle of the place, he felt cold.  Wished he didn't.  Hunched over, watching his feet on the bricks, he rammed into the guardrail around the white marble saint.  He rolled his eyes--what's the point in glorifying people?  Lane asked the man with open arms. What kind of crap did you do to your friends?  How dark was the anger in your heart?  And how long did you pretend it wasn't there?

photo by Lyndsay Buchanan.

Even from a small boy, he was the kind to climb up the slide and slide down the stairs.  Never a question.

Now he found himself at the top of the highest stairs, encased daily and nightly in glass views of moving lights.  His elbows rested on his desk, supporting his head, which was particularly heavy tonight.  He couldn't remember when it was not.

Then, pushing back from his desk, he felt the wheels spinning again.  He skipped into the elevator and pressed down, down, down--with a grin playing his lips.

photo by silvia mogni.

"Anyway, I'm trying not to think about it," she said, shoving her hands into her eyes.

"How is that working out for you?" he asked, twirling a pine needle.

The pine needle dropped.  "When my eyes are closed, all I see is blood on my windshield.  I don't know how to live anymore."

He fell on the grass next to her.  "The selfishness.  That's what gets me.  How can someone, not wanting to live, not consider the lives he ruined when he dropped on your car?  It angers me."  He covered her hands with his.  "I want to take away the blood from your eyes."

They both looked up.  The blue light morphed to purple, then black, speckled with puncture wounds of light.  Their skin changed color and disappeared.  He looked over.  Her eyes were crammed shut, trying to erase the blood.

photo by Alexander Dvornikov.

She remembers standing with the sunflowers in the foreground and the sun shining on the water in the background. It had felt just like a picture, so they snapped a few for memory's sake.  But now, holding the frozen moments--wind paused midstream, flowers' heads nodding without motion, emotion hanging heavy just outside--her memory is tainted with cloudy skies and two disrupted hearts.  

"There are no 'if only' moments in nature," the sunflowers whisper to her, "only onlies." 

She pins the picture above her bed and opens the window.  The sunflowers nod their heads.

photo by anna shelton.

Special things follow you special places.  To all your places, they come.  To rainbow days and rain-pour days and days the vast blue oppresses you with its greatness.  Special things tiptoe after you like children, fingers on lips, peering around your hips, hoping to surprise you with their quietness.  

A special thing sleeps by her bed, wings folded, tucked away for nighttime--exhausted from the specialness of his new self.  The joyous flutterings are calm now, heartbeats slow.  When she turns around tomorrow--MEOW WHACK BAM--another special thing will make for her a special place.

"How much for the light in a basket?"  The girl lays her coins on the counter.
"How much for the light in the basket?" she asks.

"The one, 'containing:
   happy thoughts
   wishes
   corners of smiles
   twinkles in eyes
   sisters' hugs
   summer picnics
   sweet dreams,
     and fairy dust?'"

Counting, one, two, three pennies, the clerk smiles.
"You have it exactly," he says, and retrieves it from the window.

She stood waiting. Tiptoe on the top of the mountain, eyes straining. The greyness was unbroken. The weight of it pressed into her chest like a heart attack.

No movement. Seconds. Hours. Suddenly.
She let out her motion, and the clouds broke.

photo by new legs.

Pencils don't tremble on their own.  His pencil was trembling, but he was not.  How could this be?  Water splashed down on the white surface.  Microscopic grains of charcoal stood out on the page.  Swirling: frank aloneness, nails bitten to the end, an orange haze clinging about the lamp posts.  He stood there, his pencil jumping out of his fingers.  Strategy: a mind that works like no one else's.  No wonder.  No courage.

He was a hermit because he lived simply.  He walked to the end of the block and stopped.  He peered into the murky haze.  The pencil would not stay in his fingers.  He caught at it, and yanked it back.

A cry in the fog.  Shrill, but human.  Or animal?  He took half a step forward, and his neck grew like a crane.  One minute.  Two.  The pencil danced in his fist.

Eeeiieee.  The cry vibrated in his mind.  Eyes shut, he opened his fist, and the pencil leapt into the murk.

photo by emily.

A light dusting of snow.

Of summertime?

Of snow.

Of dust from the attic?  Of cold, musty memories?

No.  Snow.

Oh.  Not ash from past lives, or shedding skin, from living?

Sure.  Frozen tears.  From summer.  From living.

Oh.  Snow.

photo by Gardendier.

"Why else would someone climb a mountain?" Her hands on hips, sucking in the thin air.  

"To be fit, maybe?  For the adrenaline rush?" her companion suggested.

"Not me." Eyes closed, wind whipping her clothes.  "I like to stop, always, and be exactly where I am."

photo by Saria Dy.

Ellie was born that way, the doctors said.  Her brain was tested by a number of pathologists, small incisions made into various organs, CT scans and blood tests and behavior therapy.  No one could figure out the cause nor even consider a cure.  Her parents were concerned, but they loved their daughter, and they would love her no matter what.

So, they calmly padded their home, cushioned every corner, removed all breakables, covered every floor in plushy carpets.  And then they waited.  Ellie was a fast mover, and she was walking by nine months... The only trouble was she was walking upside down.

When Ellie was born, everything about her appeared normal.  No one had any cause for concern when the nurse placed her in her mother's arms.  But when her father carried her home, Shasta, the family dog, ran up to greet her.  Ellie did a back flip in her father's arms, and hung there, cooing as the dog licked her face.  Mother gasped, and Father looked confused.  But Ellie seemed perfectly at ease.

After that, whenever someone held Ellie, she titled her head back or rolled around until she was looking at them upside down.  Her neck was strangely strong, and her odd habits never harmed her at all.

One day Father realized the puzzling truth: "She see the whole world upside down!"

photo by rachael schumacher.