Alchera #29: Snowflakes

This general option is very, very general. It has a theme and that's all there is to it, but I will offer examples to offer some sort of clarity and direction to those who operate that way. Theme: Snowflake(s). Examples: you could write a poem about catching snowflakes on your tongue; a series of character sketches of snowflakes (no two are alike); write a story about snowflakes or an essay about them. Pretty much anything about snowflakes.

A girl with long brown hair rises every morning to follow the arrow traced by a row of evergreen mountains. Blue skies fade into gray to bring water, nothing more than water. Change is an illusion, for the rain and the sun and the wind leave everything the way it was before they happened. The arrow is ever present, defined by the millennial rock monsters which seem to have told everyone in the city never to leave. Maybe the mountains don't draw an arrow but a cradle in which people dream their green dreams. As the girl gazes into the mountains, she believes she will be rocked too, right there, forever, against her will.

But nobody knows what the future is about to bring, just as she ignores what colors should and will tinge her life.

Soon she will cross the skies to discover gray and ochre on an infinite irregular chess board, and a single minuscule snowflake will fall on her coated hand as she waits for her tour bus to show her a lake as big as the sea, only smaller —it's easy to be fooled. And even then she will have no idea... for years later she will shiver as an old black car slowly lets some warmth into her body and takes her exactly to that very lake which she thought she'd never see again. As her eyes cross the beloved landscape, snowflakes will gracefully frame the window like temporary lace. Their hexagonal uniqueness will remind her of that single watery disk which melted on her green glove, green as the mountains which she thought would confine her for the rest of her life.

And even then, she will know nothing. Only when the last snowflake makes its path through the last air there is to breathe, or when the soft breeze from the greenest mountain caresses her cheek... only then she will know where her cradle was, where she was supposed to be rocked until the blackness of the soil which is hidden by all greens and whites and grays and ochres, that very universal black on which all snowflakes vanish, rocks her in her eternal sleep.

Alchera #28: Hope

a white hand is longing
for its eyes to be mirrored
as a candle burns away
in gray swirls of red cinnamon

longing to be mirrored
on eyes which are not yours

but you still think
there is hope

Alchera #27: Niente

"They had nothing to say to each other." That sentence alone is the making of soap opera gold. But you're not going to write a soap opera (unless you really want to). Instead, write a short story using this as the first line.

They had nothing to say to each other.

Her eyes were dry and opaque, her cheeks cracked with wrinkles. She had promised to wait for him forever, just as he had promised to return sooner or later.

The last time they had seen each other seemed like yesterday. He was looking for adventures, for a better life to give her; she knew her only possible future was next to him. However, they weren't mature enough to start their life together: surely there would be more stories to share when they became old and tired if they spent some time away from each other— surely they could build a real friendship that way.

But nothing had happened.

Time slipped away from their aging hands, walking, sitting, eating, breathing— and nothing touched them. Their bodies wandered around, but their spirits remained static, melting away under the acid rain.

And so they came back to their usual corner, empty-handed, empty-headed, and greeted each other with a slight, twisted smile. His eyes were sinking in his face, as if his skin and muscles were quicksand swallowing a pair of putrid olives.

They recognized each other immediately, and they gazed at each other for a long, long time.

And then, feeling the weight of their sorry lives all of a sudden, like the weight of a heavy armor which was never to be used, they nodded slowly, painfully.

They had nothing to say to each other.

Alchera #26: The Sixth Summer

Put yourself in an unfavorable situation--perhaps you're in the middle of a break-up with someone you love, your job is in jeopardy, or maybe you're even saying your final words at a loved one's funeral. Write a poem with interchanging lines of speech and thought. Your first line should be what you're saying out loud and the second line should be what you're thinking (this line should either be in a different color or, preferably, in italics). The situation in which you find yourself is up to you, but remember it should generally be an adverse one.

To this very place I shall run back
(Atalanta on winged feet),
And find you through warm, salty air
(Moist from my own burning tears)
On the sixth
(Sixth?)
Summer.

From other arms I'll be wrenched
(Yours in my dreams, thin air),
After two thousand one hundred ninety
(Billion)
Days
(Of madness).

You said distance would be poison
(I've drunk it all!),
You said days would drip like acid
(It's rained on me!),
You said—
(I am nothing but ruins).

Thus, I shall turn around
(Three hundred sixty degrees),
To live my life, and you, yours
(Or to crumble and fester);
Until
(Never)
The sixth
(Never, ever)
Summer
(Yes, never).

Alchera #25: Things

Make three or four lists (5-15 items per list). Try to choose some of the list
titles Sei Shonagon uses.

Things About Which One is Liable to be Negligent

1. Homework
2. Cleaning one's room when nobody will see it
3. Writing long letters
4. Writing the lyrics for a new melody
5. Losing weight

Things That Especially Attract One's Attention on Some Occasions

1. A man squeezing oranges, facing the street
2. A peculiar ringtone in a cell phone
3. A stranger's house through the window, from the street
4. Curtains
5. Food as it's being eaten
6. Other people's conversations

Things That Give a Clean Feeling

1. A new book
2. An organized bed
3. Wet paper, or paper which has been become wrinkled from firm writing
4. My grandfather's hands
5. A silken dress
6. Very thin gold/silver chains
7. New bills and coins

Things That Look Commonplace but That Become Impressive When Written in Chinese Characters

1. Phones
2. Subways
3. People
4. Names
5. Grapes
6. Machines
7. Water

Alchera #24: The Blind Seamstress

Take a sad or happy moment from your life, one that really stands out to you, and turn it into a fairytale (an old classic or one you make up on your own). Don't focus on a happy ending, as fairytales rarely had them. And because I (Laurie) want to make this a bit more difficult, the fairytale must be written in second person (you, your, yours).

You must remember the days, little seamstress, when you thought you lived the best of lives in the best of worlds, and the idea of becoming a queen never crossed your mind. You walked around blindfolded, and the blindfold had been imposed by none other than yourself. Oh, seamstress, you were so embedded in your simple life that you did not think it possible to find something better beyond the mountains which surrounded you.

Poor girl, you were so blind that you screamed in despair when you were commanded to leave the kingdom for a year. A year! Everything you had built around you was about to crumble down as you left it behind for a new village where you knew nobody, where you were nobody. Didn’t you feel this was death for you, child? Didn’t you long for time to speed up in order for you to go back home, to be the same little seamstress in the same little village amid the mountains?

It must have been hard for you, so lonely, so worthless. People surrounded you, but they were only footsteps for you. There was a calm river to walk by, but it was only a point of indistinct noise for your exceptionally sad ears and idle eyes. However, right in the middle of your dim solitude, just a while away from the point of desperation, a long-haired prince came galloping from afar. His silken robes glimmered under the sun, and his outlandish deep eyes resembled almond shells which contained the whole night sky. He approached you slowly, timidly, amused by the blindfold which seemed so easy to remove and yet remained on your dazzled head. You were convinced in your blindness that the sound of hoofs meant nothing. It must have been a passerby, one of the many who simply stared at your face and walked away. Even when you heard his striking accent speaking to you, you tried not to listen and held on tight to your dear piece of coarse cloth.

You kept holding on to it, even when he lifted you and took you away on his black horse, trying to show you the world you insisted missing. He took you over tiny creeks and majestic rivers, he took you over golden wheat fields and jade forests, and still he couldn’t get you to see. However, one amber afternoon, he caught you off guard, delighted with cold wind on your cheeks and warm sunshine on the palm of your hands. He didn’t have to ask you: this was the right time to wake you up. It didn’t matter if you hated him for what he did; he snatched the blindfold from your head!

Did you gasp?

Did your formerly idle eyes fill with tears as the horizon suddenly stretched to infinity?

What did you feel then, eh, little girl?

And please tell, sweet mistress, what did you feel when you stare at the prince’s abysmal eyes? And when he asked you to close yours for no other reason than to feel a kiss softer than the wind on your cheeks, warmer than the sun on your hands?

You wouldn’t go back home then, would you?

You must remember, Your Majesty, the days when you thought you lived the best of lives in the best of worlds, and the idea of remaining a seamstress was always in your mind. Now that you have opened your eyes, now that you see, your heart will never be able to go back home, for now you do believe in the existence of better days beyond all unsurpassable mountains.

Kokoro

"The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double."
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning

She left her grayish green city once; she left for a town on the riverfront. When she returned she had so much luggage that she had to leave her heart behind. In order to make sure it wouldn't get lost or accidentally dumped into the river, she entrusted it to a boy who had saved her life once, when she was about to choke in her own monotonous breath. Despite the girl's constant clumsiness, the boy insisted in saving her over and over and over again. Too bad the boy had to take off too, to his own town of rice paddies and hot springs.

Home again, her suitcase turned into drawers, the girl placed her hand against her chest. She felt nothing. Her face turned pale for a brief moment, but rather than despairing, she immediately dashed to her front door, to wait. Her heart's custody couldn't have just run away and let her die... or could it? Who'd want a heart in these days?

Months passed, and her face had lost all possible color and her limbs began to shake. However, something was lying by her feet. The first package had arrived. Then a second, and then a third made their appearance. The girl was receiving envelopes with hundreds of thousands of heartbeats to go on, plus a lifelong promise. When the promise arrived in a big box, she began to feel a trace of another heartbeat mingled with hers. She didn't need an explanation to understand.

"It will be impossible to get it back the way I knew it," she pondered every night in her bed. "If he comes to me someday, to my grayish green city, he will bring me a bigger heart, but we'll have to share it. I don't mind, though."

She smiled then, placing her hand over her chest to feel its silence, picturing life when she would turn left in her horizontal slumbers to find the slow ticking of a piece of soul she had lost so long ago.

Alchera #23: The Dead in Boston

Pull five books, either at random or by choice, from your shelf and place them in a line before you. Write down the first sentence from the first book. With the second book, write down the second-to-last sentence on the last page of the story (not the index, &c.). From the third book you will need to write down the ninth complete sentence from page thirty-three (33). Write down the last sentence from your fourth book (again, the last sentence of the story, not the index, &c.). With the last book, write down the title.

Use all that you've written down to write a short story (no excerpts or incomplete stories allowed; there is no required word count).

So many steps had tortured the grass which grew in front of the jail in Prison Lane, so many eyes had been waiting for an answer to the questions which haunted their curious hearts. Whoever was supposed to walk through the heavy gate into the gray daylight was going to be history, infamous forever. I was there that summer morning, and I knew nobody in town would be so stupid as to miss this show. After all, this was what we were born for; we didn't just stare into the face of guilt: we reassured the treasured traditions of our ancestors, thinking we were pure and saint-like, condemning anybody who showed the slightest trace of human fallibility.

I was there, but my eyes were not at all fixed on the iron-clamped oaken door. No, my gaze went beyond that, into a vast green meadow covered with stones of all sizes and shapes. It was home to hollow bodies which sought nothing but rest. Someday I should find my place among them, and I hoped silently that day would come soon, for I could not resist my people's thirst for public shame and holiness. Of course, this constant thought could not come out of my lips, as I wasn't able to speak my mind under any circumstance. "Don't tell anybody anything, much less everything," I kept telling myself whenever my eyes met someone else's. My only chance to let my voice and feelings run free came during my sleep, and thus I longed every day for night to fall. Of course, I could not manifest this either, for I could be mistaken for a witch.

As I stared into the silent cemetery, it dawned on me that the eternal darkness which engulfed it couldn't just mean the ultimate rest, but also an opportunity to scream at will, to rant and rave into a vast nothingness. Once again I longed for my arrival into that ghastly paradise, laden with ivy and moss. I still wonder, when will I finally be there? My cowardliness has never let me take my own life.

The crowd began to murmur and stir as the oaken door creaked, and my head was violently brought back to reality. "She's going to walk out," somebody said. "She must be shameless," added a shrill voice. My eyes were so attracted to the calm garden of eternal silence that I was late to catch the first glimpse of a coarse coffin being slowly taken into the path that led to the cemetery. She had not survived prison. There was no shame for her to display like a giant banner for the rest of her life, as she had no life left.

"She took her sin to her grave," whispered someone. "Not a single chance did she have to let us enjoy it. What a pity. No one will know."

I tried to locate the faceless voices who spoke, but I couldn't. If only they understood that silence is a mere façade, that the dead in Boston speak with rage until we, the living, wake up in the middle of the night, washed in cold fear...

A moth made its way through the crowd onto the coffin. Did it know what I knew then? Could anybody imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth?





***
Excerpts used:

1. "The grass plot before the jail, in Prison Lane, on a certain summer morning not less than two centuries ago, was occupied by a pretty large number of the inhabitants in Boston, all with their eyes intently fastened on the iron-clamped oaken door." The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

2. "Don't ever tell anybody everything." The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

3. "It confirmed, in a remarkable way, certain treasured traditions of the ancients." Some Learned Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls (short story within Mark Twain's Best), by Mark Twain

4. "I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth." Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë

5. We the Living, by Ayn Rand

Alchera #22: Back in the US

If you were able to travel back in time to any year, era or century, what would you bring back with you? You can only pick one frame of time, and the things you bring back may be living things as well nonliving things (in other words, creatures and people can be smuggled back with you). There is no limit, but aim for 50 things.

I don't know if this list will make it to the due date of the project... I'm hoping for a response from the webmaster, I really want to be a member of the Alchera Project! Anyway, if I were able to travel back in time, I'd go back to the year I spent in Iowa (2002-2003... not too long ago, really). It was SO interesting, I wish I had had more time to see more places, more space in my suitcase to bring all the stuff I had to leave. And this is what I'd bring:

• The earring I forgot in Des Moines


• A Japanese bag from Nihonmachi in San Francisco


• A picture taken the first day I saw Minori


• My old, ragged sneakers


• Ice cream from the Student Union (University of Wisconsin, Madison)


• A sailor hat from that strange store in Madison


• The shoes I wore when I played Old Granny Possum in Nick Tickle, Fairy Tale Detective (they were extremely bizarre, gray and old)


• The MLA Handbook


• Cool clothes from Haight Ashbury


• Minori's guitar


• Lorryloads of Xylish Bubble Gum


• A picture of that terrifying harvest moon


• That delicious banana cereal I used to eat for breakfast


• Subhekchya, Yunya, Saroj, and Amol, my Nepalese friends


• Pictures from our rides in Six Flags


• Chinese food from Mandarin Garden and the restaurant in SF Chinatown


• Sushi and mochi ice cream from Sushi Station


• Yukimi Daifuku


• Raymond Roseliep books


• Souvenirs from St. Louis (there must be more than what we saw)


• Minori's old black sweatpants


• My black catering shoes


• Kotaro's glasses


• Chocolate-covered frozen cheesecake from Napa


• Sarah Boreen, one of the nicest girls I met


• The IBM laptop I had to rent!


• Victor Hugo's Les Misérables


• Pumpkin coffee from the gas station


• Minori's brush-pen


• Tulips


• Minori's Honda CRX


• Kotaro's Grand Am


• A temporary tattoo in the shape of a Chinese mask


• Minori's croquettes


• My fried eggplants


• Broccoli cheese soup


• Broccoli-filled chicken


• That fiery orange tree in autumn


• All the Math homework I graded


• Caesar salad from catering


• A pen I lost in San Francisco


• Japanese candy, lots and lots of it!


• James Pollock, my Poetry Writing professor


• Grape juice


• Minori's stew


• All the food Minori, Kotaro, and I had for Christmas and New Year


• Minori's ring


• The strange thermal thing Minori stuck on my back to keep me warm in Chicago


• Kotaro


• Minori... *sigh*

It sounds like things you could go pick up anytime, but each of them is a memory, and thus I'd go back to them just to relive the magic of every second that whizzed by.

...and all the silly poetry goes here!