Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Those who are gone...
I can see across the plain. Over the grass, to the edge of town, where an automobile moves north along I-28. The workers have set fire to the fields. Smoke lines spiraling into the atmosphere. I go to the sea forever.
Friday, January 4, 2008
"Those Who Have Risen" (1.2)
(rough draft)
Francois was a Texan. People asked how a kid who grew up in El Paso got the name Francois. He wouldn’t talk about it.
Francois had a bad habit of counting the room.
Forty-six people in this subway car, eight wearing hats, he'd say.
Or: Seventeen in the main dining room, one with silver hair—as if the night hinged on that.
And when you missed a social gathering, the inevitable text message would follow: Twenty-six people at the party tonight, twelve of them women, four of them non-hostile.
The darkness of the woods felt like the bottom of a well.
Cold night now, Francois said. Sure picked a strange time to head north.
We didn’t pick it, Gene said.
Want some coffee, Gene?
No, Gene said.
Francois drew circles in the dirt.
I had a strange dream last night, he said.
I was some sort of detective, undercover, following a man.
A criminal on the run.
I was on an airplane and the man, he was three rows up along the aisle.
I watched him. I observed his motions. He was very calm. All the normal things. He chatted with his neighbor, read the in-flight magazine, flirted with the stewardess—even ordered a drink—it was an old-style plane, they served a steak and potatoes dinner—it was delicious, and the man, he ate everything.
Yeah?, Gene said.
Yeah, Francois said.
I looked away, just for a second, and when I looked back, this man, he was at the emergency door now.
Standing there, peering through the little window.
He yanked on it, the door, and there was this loud popping sound, and it opened, and the light flowed in and the wind was flapping and blowing everywhere.
Then he just jumped.
I ran and looked out as he fell downward toward the sea, getting smaller.
Without thinking, I jumped out after him and we’re both shooting toward earth and I’m falling fast.
The man, his parachute opens and he's carried.
I feel around.
I don’t have a chute.
I realize this as I’m falling and he’s floating like a leaf, slowly, and I blaze right past him like a rock toward the water.
Then it just ends.
In the distance, over the black hill beyond them, the wind blew hard.
Francois warmed a tin of coffee over the pale embers of the fire.
Gene looked past his friend, into the woods, into the flowing pines.
I had a dream of my own, Gene said.
Like mine, asked Francois.
No, Gene said.
I was on a train with my father, he said.
It was morning and the sun was coming in and my father was in the seat across.
He was wearing an expensive suit and tie. His briefcase on his lap.
We’re going to see your grandmother, he tells me.
He’s staring out the window, at the plains, which just go on.
Then I hear a whistle.
And the train stops.
And the doors open.
And my father, he gets up, carrying his briefcase.
I try to go with him, but I can’t move.
I try to speak, but nothing comes out.
He’s in the doorway now, looking at me.
Saying something to me. I can't make it out.
And then he goes.
And I watch him cross the plains, disappearring into the color of it.
Francois was a Texan. People asked how a kid who grew up in El Paso got the name Francois. He wouldn’t talk about it.
Francois had a bad habit of counting the room.
Forty-six people in this subway car, eight wearing hats, he'd say.
Or: Seventeen in the main dining room, one with silver hair—as if the night hinged on that.
And when you missed a social gathering, the inevitable text message would follow: Twenty-six people at the party tonight, twelve of them women, four of them non-hostile.
The darkness of the woods felt like the bottom of a well.
Cold night now, Francois said. Sure picked a strange time to head north.
We didn’t pick it, Gene said.
Want some coffee, Gene?
No, Gene said.
Francois drew circles in the dirt.
I had a strange dream last night, he said.
I was some sort of detective, undercover, following a man.
A criminal on the run.
I was on an airplane and the man, he was three rows up along the aisle.
I watched him. I observed his motions. He was very calm. All the normal things. He chatted with his neighbor, read the in-flight magazine, flirted with the stewardess—even ordered a drink—it was an old-style plane, they served a steak and potatoes dinner—it was delicious, and the man, he ate everything.
Yeah?, Gene said.
Yeah, Francois said.
I looked away, just for a second, and when I looked back, this man, he was at the emergency door now.
Standing there, peering through the little window.
He yanked on it, the door, and there was this loud popping sound, and it opened, and the light flowed in and the wind was flapping and blowing everywhere.
Then he just jumped.
I ran and looked out as he fell downward toward the sea, getting smaller.
Without thinking, I jumped out after him and we’re both shooting toward earth and I’m falling fast.
The man, his parachute opens and he's carried.
I feel around.
I don’t have a chute.
I realize this as I’m falling and he’s floating like a leaf, slowly, and I blaze right past him like a rock toward the water.
Then it just ends.
In the distance, over the black hill beyond them, the wind blew hard.
Francois warmed a tin of coffee over the pale embers of the fire.
Gene looked past his friend, into the woods, into the flowing pines.
I had a dream of my own, Gene said.
Like mine, asked Francois.
No, Gene said.
I was on a train with my father, he said.
It was morning and the sun was coming in and my father was in the seat across.
He was wearing an expensive suit and tie. His briefcase on his lap.
We’re going to see your grandmother, he tells me.
He’s staring out the window, at the plains, which just go on.
Then I hear a whistle.
And the train stops.
And the doors open.
And my father, he gets up, carrying his briefcase.
I try to go with him, but I can’t move.
I try to speak, but nothing comes out.
He’s in the doorway now, looking at me.
Saying something to me. I can't make it out.
And then he goes.
And I watch him cross the plains, disappearring into the color of it.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
From "Those Who Have Risen" (1.1)
(rough draft)
It was night now. Gene watched as Francois knelt over the fire, slow cooking a tin of beans and slabs of bacon, singing to himself. They'd walked for almost two days, north along the interstate at first, and then up into the hillsides where the din of automobile traffic gave way to the cloistered silence of the woods.
We'll eat good tonight, Francois kept saying over and over. Real good, he said, one knee planted in the pale grass of the forest floor.
Yesterday evening, Gene could still see the lights of the city in the eastern sky. Now thirty miles further west, night was true. They camped along the edge of a clearing at the peak of a hillside where a brief meadow gave way to pines. There the burrough of Queens felt like a thing of the past. A dreamlike recollection of storefronts and liquor stores and people. On Gene's last night in the city, they threw a party for him, his acquaintances, at The Cedar. He never showed up, walking instead to the pier, alone, where merchant ships floated undisturbed in the darkness. He watched the crafts bob and part the water methodically, the ripples like radio waves.
It was night now. Gene watched as Francois knelt over the fire, slow cooking a tin of beans and slabs of bacon, singing to himself. They'd walked for almost two days, north along the interstate at first, and then up into the hillsides where the din of automobile traffic gave way to the cloistered silence of the woods.
We'll eat good tonight, Francois kept saying over and over. Real good, he said, one knee planted in the pale grass of the forest floor.
Yesterday evening, Gene could still see the lights of the city in the eastern sky. Now thirty miles further west, night was true. They camped along the edge of a clearing at the peak of a hillside where a brief meadow gave way to pines. There the burrough of Queens felt like a thing of the past. A dreamlike recollection of storefronts and liquor stores and people. On Gene's last night in the city, they threw a party for him, his acquaintances, at The Cedar. He never showed up, walking instead to the pier, alone, where merchant ships floated undisturbed in the darkness. He watched the crafts bob and part the water methodically, the ripples like radio waves.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
A New Project...
We are releasing a new book of drawings and stories in 2008. The collection (entitled Those Who Have Risen) will chronicle, in part, the lives of 20 passengers aboard a seaship voyaging from the U.S. to Scandinavia. [Pictured, at left, is Sufi Jonell, the younger sister of Vivian-Olivia Jonell, one of the book's major characters. ]
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