Task 6 - "Desert Temple" by Irina

Desert Temple

The group of campers were waking up. Some were slowly getting out of their sleeping bags, others remained lying, perhaps feeling too tired and hungry to lift themselves up. Carrie was one of the latter. She had just raised herself on her elbows. The stark beauty of the landscape dazzled her. The intricate patterns of the brown hills in the distance were glowing in the morning sun. The air was still fresh from the night’s cold and the heat hadn’t set in yet, the scorching heat of Arizona in the afternoon. She was partly looking forward to it, for the night had been freezing. The whole group, about sixty people, had spent the hours of dark and cold with just sleeping bags to protect them. Actually no, she was one of the few who had resisted the temptation of buying a Peruvian poncho for just $250, when Jean, the chief of Ray’s assistants, was offering them. Carrie took this experience seriously, she had joined the Spiritual Warrior retreat to achieve harmony in life and she was determined to follow all of Ray’s commands. The idea was to test your endurance and clean your body, and if she had to freeze and sweat for that, freeze and sweat she would. “I’m determined to make it through. This will change my life,” she thought. She was annoyed at some of the others who kept complaining about the fasting. “This was not a five-star hotel, you’re here to become better people and you will have to work hard on that,” she wanted to tell them.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the camp, James Arthur Ray, a well-built, 38-year-old man with a big smile and ego had just finished his breakfast in his tent and now he was updating his Twitter page. “Hm, I love google ads, always relevant. Here, I love this BMW, a couple of retreats like that and I’ll be able to buy a dozen of these, not that I need them, but it’s a good feeling, to know I can buy all this stuff…I’m a genius, I love myself. That’s what all the others should do – reach out and grab what you want, like I do. The Law of Attraction. Ok, let’s focus now… Jean tells me my dear sweet followers are a bit grumpy this morning. Maybe it’s been enough fasting, these guys aren’t as trained as those monks in Tibet that I interviewed about the benefits of fasting.”

He called out: “Jean, dear, would you be so kind as to offer the camp the buffet meal we were saving for after the sweat lodge. I’ll order an extra meal for later. I think some refreshment would do them good.”

“But you told them the fasting rule was very strict and important. How shall I explain this?” Jean, a small plump woman in her fifties, was puzzled.

“Just tell them they have worked hard and their Spiritual Leader thanks them with this inspirational buffet meal that he has sanctified in his meditational dreams during the night,” Ray said, opening himself another bottle of cold water.

The day continued much like the previous few days of the retreat. The devoted believers listened to Ray’s revealing philosophy. He taught them the Secret – you can achieve anything, yes, anything with the power of your thought. And all the body-purging exercises would help them learn how to make their wishes materialize. Damian spent the meditation time in strenuous efforts to imagine his promotion at work. Meryl could almost touch the Pear-shaped diamond necklace by Christie’s. And Jeff knew his new restaurant would turn a huge profit so he’ll be able to finally afford that scuba diving vacation in the Great Barrier Reef. Panny pictured herself married, 4 inches taller, with hair twice as long and no pimples at all. And they were all confident and secure, “This retreat is worth each and every cent of the nine thousand dollars I spent on it,” they all thought. This was the final day and there was a feeling of fulfillment among the group.

Ray shared that too. For the past few days he had enjoyed the status of a god, a prophet who knew the answer to all problems – the simple formula – know, feel and receive. This was all based on The Law of Attraction, the scientific evidence that all our thoughts attract events. He had talked to many people, traveled to sacred places all over the world and knew many stories of ordinary people who had believed in themselves and grabbed their opportunities. His followers adored him and obeyed all his commands. “I can’t wait to get the feedbacks from this retreat, I can smell the praise… and with the series of future retreats coming…then I’ll write another book or two, maybe that will get me on Oprah, or Larry King again… I’ve always known I was born to be a prophet… This is the mission of my life, to help others achieve success in life like I did.”

The retreat concluded with the ancient Native American ritual of the sweat lodge. The traditional tent was already built – a low structure covered in plastic sheeting with a hearth in the middle. Scolding, lava-hot stones were brought in by Ray’s assistants and as he poured water and incense over them, he explained the cleansing purpose of the ritual to his followers, all of them packed together in the small tent. They would purify their bodies and souls, the heat would evaporate all dirt from their spirits. Sitting cross-legged on the ground, very close to each other, they listened to the inspired words of their prophet, who kept bringing in more and more meltingly hot stones. They were lulled by the vapors and his voice. Sleepy and nauseous, vomiting and gasping, yelling for water and nudging each other to see if your neighbor is still awake, they all knew this was the beginning of their new, happy life of riches, promotions and new shoes. Nobody thought of trying to go out – this would have been sacrilegious. They could see nothing in the dark excruciating heat, scorching their very souls inside their lungs. From this human boiling pot some of them arouse, finding new heights of the tent, then realizing they have actually left the tent and were again in the chill outside evening desert air. They had achieved everything one could hope for in life, they could now float freely above the desert shrubs and in an instant they were on top of the intricate-patterned brown hills touching the orange purple glow the sunset had left behind.

Around the sweat lodge they had just left, ambulances were gathering. People were crawling out, spitting blood, mucus flowing from their eyes, crying for help, struggling to breathe.

James Arthur Ray was already on his way to his car. A bit dazed from the last round of the ritual, he was thinking about how difficult his mission had become and how he would overcome this minor obstacle on his way. For he was sure that nobody would understand what had actually happened in the sweat lodge, all the joy his followers had shared, all the purity they had acquired, he knew there would be accusations, for police had arrived with the ambulances. So he opened his laptop and before driving off sent a quick email to Joe Tackler, a man with lots of experience in publicity.

Task 2 - "Breaking News" by Irina

Irina Hinova

Breaking News

[Advertisement]

[SparkReports theme tune]

[Camera 2]

Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome to SparkReports – the most trusted name in news. I’m Sland Gosper. Stay with us as we try to get to the bottom of the political scandal that has shaken the Cabinet. It is rumoured that some Ministers may hand in their resignations by the end of the week.

But first let us try and go back to the beginning of this story and find the actual causes of the scandal, which started with last week’s fiasco at Miss Cosmetics. This is what the chief manager of the contest Robert Pattison told us:

[Video no. 53.17- Robert Pattison interview]

“So, Mr. Pattison, tell us how it all happened.”

“From the beginning we were prepared, we knew just what to do, for hadn’t we seen it all a hundred times?—the good people of the town going about their business, the suddenly interrupted TV programs, the faces in the crowd looking up, the little girl pointing in the air, the mouths opening, the dog yapping, the traffic stopped, the shopping bag falling to the sidewalk, and there, in the sky, coming closer – the huge majestic sequin-covered pageant platform – descending graciously onto the main square. As always, we had kept the time of the event in absolute secrecy. Nobody knew the exact time or venue – would it land on the main square, or the stadium, or float on the lake …”

“Yes, right, but was there anything different in the rules this time? It’s said that some of the girls knew there’d be a change and reorganized their daily beauty routines to follow the new fashion trend, but they had little time to get the desired results. Perhaps there was a leak?”

“No, no, no, everything was as in previous years. The candidates for the title Miss Cosmetics were expected to lead their usual lives and follow latest fashion trends and were called for the show only two hours before it started. Nobody had expected it would… turn out like that.”

[video no. 72.00 –Miss Cosmetics contestants interview]

“I’ve been preparing for a whole year, you know. Fashion magazines, latest products, first row in all Fashion Guild shows – cause they set the trends, you know. I felt ssso disappointed, my heart like broke, you know, cause just 30 minutes before we went on stage, we were just lining up to fly up on the platform, you know…Oh, it’s so hard for me to take it…”

“All I can tell you is – like… half an hour before the show this bloke, Robert Somebody, he just came in and went ‘You’re all totally disqualified. The latest trend in tan is orange and you’re all mauve or pink ivory.’…apparently the Fashion Guild had just… like issued a totally new fashion trend. I was like how could they do this to me! That was totally uncalled for, I did everything…”

[studio]

[Sland Gosper on camera 3]

“As you can see, Ladies and Gentlemen, the girls are all devastated. The only one who had somehow anticipated the new trend was Anna-Sui Redmond, her tan was impeccably orange. Being the only contestant, she was crowned Miss Cosmetics according to the rules of the contest – the one closest to latest fashion trend wins. Since she is the daughter of Celeb Redmond, the Minister of Greens, Education, Gardens and Greenish Garments, rumours about corruption led to the launch of an official investigation. Miss Redmond said in her father’s defence that her orange tan was casued by a fault in the sunbed at her beauty salon. She added that the fault was discovered too late for her to have a tan repair and because of that she had fallen in a deep depression and she had learned about the new fashion trend only when all the others did. Nevertheless, Mr. Redmond is accused of using classified Fashion Guild emails, to which he had access as an official, to his daughter’s advantage. Another fact that fuels suspicion is his Garden project. Here’s what he said yesterday on the phone to our reporter:

[Recording no. 45.07 – Redmond interview]

[Redmond photo on screen]

“Mr. Redmond, why did you choose orange for your project? Our sources say you had to order extra paint for the trees and you even exceeded the ministry budget. There are also rumours about ministry officials selling orange paint on the black market days before the announcement about the new trend… ”

“Well, we had all these children out planting trees, see, because we figured that ... that was part of their education, to see how, you know, the root systems ... and also the sense of responsibility, taking care of things, being individually responsible. You know what I mean. And the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don’t know why they died, they just died.”

“But why exactly orange, who gave you the information?… [The line is dropped.]

It seems the connection failed…”

[studio]

[Sland Gosper on camera 1]

It seems there is trouble in store for Mr. Redmond. The Cabinet is soon expected to issue an official statement…

***

The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn’t clear at first as to what the bulletin was about, since the announcer had a serious speech impediment. For about half a minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say, “Ladies and gentlemen – ” and then the camera stopped. TV screens went gray. But that bothered no viewers because they had flown out of their homes with the same speed and urgency as the TV presenter and the whole SparkReports crew had left their places, followed by the cameramen and everybody else down to the cleaners and the night watchman. For the news had pierced the whole town like a lightning – two major cosmetic factories - Bêtise sans arrêt and À la folie, had closed down because of a power failure due to bad management by the Ministry of Energy, Electronic Music and Elegance. People were lining up in front of cosmetic shops to buy large supplies of beauty products because with the political crisis already under way, nobody knew when cosmetics production would be back to normal. And with all the orange-tinted bronzants and eye-liners already in stock, God forbid the Fashion Guild issue a new trend.

TASK 8 - "Night of the Wet Cat!" by Tsvetelina

“That’s it, I’ll go torch the damn fleabag.” Valerie was hysterical. She was hysterical and was hysterically clutching a zippo lighter in one hand and a hairspray in the other. It was raining in through the open window. Someone dumped a tangled mass of spaghetti leftovers from a window on the upper floor. A sticky meatball brushed her nose and crash-landed on the window sill. She didn’t notice.

“You’ll do no such thing.” That came from the unoccupied corner of John’s mouth. The other corner was occupied. Lucky Strike. John was languidly chopping carrots. The carrots were orange. His nails were yellow. He was in the company of a dead salmon. It was staring at him from an oval white plate on the kitchen counter. It didn’t say much.

“It won’t stop mewing. I’m out of laundry pins and it hid under the table anyway. That mewing freaks me out. Plus, it’s wet. Wet cats stink like hell. I’ll go dry it out.” The door slammed shut behind her. The meatball on the window sill was sticky.

“Don’t get wet. These are my only good socks you’re wearing.” The chopped carrots were piled in the baking tin. They were still orange. John decapitated a fennel bulb. His cigarette resting in peace in the ashtray, he now started whistling a tune from “La Traviata”. The kitchen filled with the sound of sparrows being strangled. The salmon didn’t mind.

The landlord was allergic to peanuts. He was a retired cook for the US army. He had lost his left eye in a freak accident involving a cripple Venecian prostitute, a stiletto heel and considerable amounts of cheap grappa. He was replacing the light bulb in the lobby, strenuously stretching his scrawny arms to reach it while precariously balancing his asparagus of a body on a red plastic bucket. When Valerie rushed past him, creating a whirl strong enough to make him clumsily grasp for the lamp cord he squeaked under his bushy moustache: “Jeez, woman, where’s the fire!?”

“Oh, we’ll have one alright!”

“What’s with the hairspray? Having a bad hair day, are we?”

“I’ll go torch a cat.”

“Well, I’ll be damned! What for?”

“It won’t stop mewing. It wails like a friggin’ siren.”

“The guys from my platoon in Vietnam never complained of such nuisance. Cats tend to be very quiet when served with rice and soy sauce, if you know what I mean.”

“John silenced a fish for dinner. I have a cat to torch.”

Valerie turned her back on the peanut intolerant, cat-cooking, one-eyed asparagus perched on a red plastic bucket and darted off towards the mewing, wet, stinky, hairball-vomiting, rat-eating, soon-to-be-torched fleabag. The sky over Bologna was full of night and rain. On the splashy pavement there was a tangled mass of spaghetti leftovers. On the same splashy pavement there wasn’t a wet stinky cat. On the window sill above her there was a lone meatball. The lone meatball was sticky.

John’s only good socks were soaked. Valerie’s hair looked like a tangled mass of spaghetti leftovers. Her hairspray couldn’t do anything about her bad hair day and it couldn’t torch the cat that wasn’t there. What it could do was nest in the nearest trash bin. Valerie squelched in the lobby. The landlord attached to the bushy moustache was perched on a red plastic bucket.

“Dinner ready yet?”, mumbled the orifice under the moustache.

“The damn fleabag’s gone!”

“Oh, well, look on the bright side. Maybe it got run over by the milkman’s truck.”

“Yeah, yeah. I hope it’s cat pate by now. Or dog food.”

The apartment smelled of roasting silent fish. John was in the john. Valerie looked down through the window. She wished her hair was short. That way there was a chance she wouldn’t look like a mafia cuisine specialty. On the pavement below there was a cat who wasn’t there.

“Did you torch the damn fleabag? Are my only good socks ruined?” John’s voice carried from inside the john.

“There’s spaghetti on the pavement and on my head.”

“I told you we’re eating fish tonight.”

Two hours later on the kitchen counter there was a cooling speechless fish with a stupid expression, snuggly buried in multi-colored vegetables. On the window sill there was a contented pigeon with a sticky meatball in his belly. The doorbell rang. Valerie opened, wearing John’s not-so-good-but-dry socks. The landlord smiled sheepishly which caused his bushy moustache to part in the middle – a telltale sign he was allergic to peanuts. He held a baking tin in his hands. There, snuggly buried in rice and splashed with soy sauce, lay a roasted quiet cat.

Task 8 - "American Cherry" by Milena

Can't Upload story....

Task 8 - "Rat in the Rain" by Snezhana

The elderly Japanese couple was in Germany for the first time. They were visiting the picturesque provincial town of Alfeld. The hotel they were staying at was facing the river, but their window overlooked the place's main attraction - a backyard equipped with fully functional authentic outdoor toilets dating from the early 19th century. Beautiful marble tables were set in front of the toilets for the guests’ convenience. On sunny days grannies would sit in the rural ambiance, enjoying the buzzing of horse-flies around the toilets while trimming handkerchiefs with lace. No flies were buzzing now because it was raining. The toilets were all vacant except for one, where the dim light filtering through the cracks in the wooden door betrayed somebody’s presence.

The Japanese gentleman stood peering through the window. Outside right under the first of the marble tables he saw a rat. The rat was hiding from the rain but at the same time it seemed to be glaring at him and showing him its teeth.

‘How dare this rat glare at me like that. I’m going down to kill it with my ninjato[1],’ he said suddenly.

‘Do you want me to go and do it with my kaiken[2]?’ asked the elderly wife from the rocking chair she had rested herself in.

‘No, it belongs to me. I’m not coming back without its head.’

‘Be careful with your kimono,’ she murmured from the insides of the chair as he closed the door on his way out.

The husband went downstairs. He passed through the lobby where the hotel keeper sat behind her desk drinking beer. She was a big German matron in a crimson silk dress, her muscular neck and massive biceps bulging under the fine fabric.

‘Gute nacht’, said the husband. He was impressed with the frau’s warlike appearance.

‘Schönes Wetter heute,’ she responded in a thunderous voice.

The husband did not speak much German but he thought that the hotel keeper was indeed very polite, so he turned to her and bowed reverently. Then he opened the door, took out his ninjato and prepared for combat. Suddenly he heard a flapping sound and at the same time felt a poking sensation in his behind. He turned around and saw the hotel keeper who had unfurled a large umbrella without measuring the distance and now was giggling with embarrassment.

‘Not get wet, you,’ she boomed and lifted the umbrella above his head.

‘Arigato,’ said the husband and they stepped into the cold rain outside. They reached the backyard where the toilets glistened mysteriously in the moonlight. The husband carefully examined the space around the tables with the shining ninjato ready in his hand, but the rat was gone.

‘Warum du out in rain?’ humbly asked the formidable frau.

‘There was a rat.’ said the Japanese gentleman and pointed under the first table.

‘Rat…rat…’ the hotel keeper started mumbling to herself, scratching her head.

‘Yes, a rat. I saw it from my window. It was hiding from the rain under that same table. It glared at me and showed me its teeth.’

He looked at the hotel keeper who by that point had become rather confused, a large raindrop hanging from her pale Aryan nose.

‘Go in...get wet...’ she said and smiled somewhat hesitantly at him.

‘Alright then,’ agreed the husband and reluctantly sheathed his ninjato.

They went back into the hotel lobby. The husband watched the hotel keeper as she folded the umbrella and violently shook it to get the water off. ‘Impressive woman,’ he thought, ‘gentle yet brave.’ He pressed his palms together and bowed reverently again.

‘Oyasuminasai,’ he said and went up to his room. He opened the door and saw his wife still crouching on the rocking chair. She was listening to haiku on her iPod.

‘Did you kill the rat?’ she asked as she removed the buds from her ears.

‘No. It was gone.’

‘Maybe it was struck by lightning. After all, the bold do receive their punishment.’

‘It was mine. Its head should have fallen under the infallible blade of my ninjato. Maybe I should have taken its miserable life with my shuriken the very moment I saw it from that window…’

His wife had resumed listening to haiku.

He walked up to the big mirror that hung on one of the walls and took off his pants. He carefully examined his thighs, his left buttock, his right buttock and his six-pack. Then he started tensing them rhythmically like a bodybuilder.

‘Do you think it would be a good idea if I wax my legs?’

His wife removed the earbuds again and, after a moment of consideration, replied ‘Only legs won't do. You should go for chest and back as well. Maybe there, too,’ and she nodded sagely at his loins.

The husband stepped back from the mirror and went to the window, peering through the glass into the mellow German night.

‘I want to be smooth. I want to be silky smooth. Like the silk of a kimono. Like the silk of the hotel keeper’s dress..’

‘What the hell..’ started the wife.

‘I want this rat’s head on a silver plate. It’s my duty to offer it as a gift to my brave ancestors.’

‘Why don’t you try some haiku?’

The husband still stood with his pants down in front of the window. He couldn’t stop thinking about the rat. The rat in the rain. The rat that had laughed at him and then ran away. The shame had almost covered him from head to toes when someone knocked on the door.

‘Wilkommen,’ he responded.

The door opened and there stood the formidable frau, the hotel keeper, in her crimson silk dress, bloody cleaver in one hand, slain rat in the other.

‘Entschuldigen Sie bitte,’ she said solemnly, ‘Rat!’

---

[1] A short Japanese sword that the ninja historically may have carried

[2] A dagger formerly carried for self-defense by Japanese women of the samurai class

Task 8 - "A Puppy In The Sun" by Mariyana

A Puppy in the Sun

A very hot day in July. The sea and the palm trees in the public garden were still in the haze. There was an artist drawing a half naked girl sitting on a bench. The square with the war monument was empty. A waiter stood at the door of a nearby café and looked the progress of the artist and especially the girl. Another girl was looking out of the window of the second floor of a hotel. A newly-wed American couple on vacation. She was looking at the waiter while her husband was sitting in the bed with a book in his hands. Right under their window a puppy was lying in the heat breathing heavily with a tongue protruding out of its little muzzle.
“ Go down and get that puppy,”said Anne.
“Mhm,” answered the husband without moving from the bed.
“ Did you hear me at all. I want that puppy. It is thirsty and I will give it some water.”
“ Well, go get it yourself.”
The American wife hated her husband. She went out of the room hating him and banged the door behind her.
Downstairs she passed by the office of the owner. The door was open and he had the displeasure to make an effort and bow to the lady. He was an old man with small hands and the face of a weasel.
“Fa Caldo”, the wife said
“Si,si, Signora. It is very hot.
He stood behind his desk counting money. The wife didn’t like him. She didn’t like his forced servitude and most of all she didn’t like his small hands. The slowness of his manners reminded her of her own husband. She could picture George lying on the bed and reading a magazine entitled “ How to grow roses.” from the Home Gardening Series. She opened the door of the hotel. In this moment the maid who looked after their room came and offered a parasol with a perfunctory polite grimace. The hotel-keeper had sent her undoubtedly.
“Grazie. I don’t need it. I’m only going to get that sweet black puppy in the garden,” said the wife.
She went to the spot where the puppy lied but it was not there any more. She thought it a really awful vacation, ascended the stairs to their room and fuming opened the door with a bang.
“The puppy was gone.”
Her husband only shrugged his shoulders. He was reading the latest edition of the Home Gardening series - “How to grow lilies.” The roses edition was on the bedside table. She took it from the table, ripped it in two pieces and throw it out of the window. That made George lift his eyes from his magazine and ask:
“What do you want ,honey?I bought you that diamond ring, the fur coat and the golden necklace. Why are you so angry? We are on vacation. Have some rest,” said he with his soft voice and artificial smile.
“Are you going to lie and read through the whole vacation?”
“Well, I’m making up with the editions I missed. I was too busy at work. You know I have to take care of the garden.”
“ I want to go on long walks. I want to have fun. And I’m tired of this short hair. I want long hair tied on a bun. I want it to sway gently on my back as I walk. I want to tie it with a golden ribbon and watch myself on the mirror brushing it at night.
“I’ll buy you a wig,” said the husband unconcerned.
“I don’t want a wig. I want a long red dress and candles and a long walk around the city and a puppy. And most of all I want to have fun. I want to have fun now. I want fun.”
“Oh, shut up! I want a quiet vacation. I want to lazy around all day and I’m doing it. Get a magazine to read! ,” said the husband.
Anne sat on the chair beside the dressing table and went back to looking out of the window. She thought that he is hopeless anyway. Her attention was attracted again by the waiter in the nearby café. He was still standing at the door .The artist and the girl were gone. The square was empty. She could see he was not like most Italians. He was tall and muscular. She remembered his beautiful face from the previous morning when he had served her table.
“ I’m going for a walk,” said the wife.
“Have a nice walk.”
Anne went out of the room leaving George on the bed. After some time there was a knock on the door and the maid came in the room holding the black puppy.
“Excuse me” said the maid “ the puppy Signora was looking for appeared again.”
Anne was in the café. George had finished the lilies edition and was playing with the puppy.

Task 4 - "A Day on Mind Channel" by Ani

A Day on Mind Channel

Now this is just awful! How am I supposed to do… the cleaning, for instance, all around the house when there are two whole rooms missing sets?! I can miss a bargain as big as a whole supermarket! Not that I don’t appreciate his efforts, of course I do, but hey, this is life today. It’s just like that… can’t miss anything. I must talk to Robert, but really gently, don’t want to upset him now, do I? Hah. We’ll work it out, we always do, somehow… Like with the coffee machine… oh-oh-oh, must make a cup now or I’ll have to drink three in the afternoon! And Sharon experienced what happens if you don’t consume the right amount of coffee – they take the machine away! Oh no oh no. This is The Greatest One. Can’t let that happen. Hah, I’m so absent-minded today, lucky I remembered. But I’ve got to talk to him. At least we’ve got the handset here. Now I can relax a bit till I wait for my coffee. Don’t have to run around the house so I don’t miss the program. But still… oh anyway, we’ll talk.

Mmm. Tastes great. Oh I’ve got to call Molly, we’ll miss the 11.30 make-up discounts, God what a disgrace that would be. Only once a week. And I’ll have like an hour or so before that just to myself, just me and the Bargains!!!! God knows what’ll be on today, can’t wait can’t wait. Where’s that phone?

Hello Molly dear!

-Hi Judy! You’ll be ready for 11.15? I’ll come pick you up with our new caaaar!

New car?! Oh my, how time flies… haha! So, yes, of course dear, I’ll be out front. So, see you in a while then!

- See you!

Now let’s see, program two, just in time. Oh I just love this announcer, I can almost guess by that face of his what the next number will be. Hah. Reminds me of someone, though… Hmmm. Ok now, 391-HW8-612….4! NOO! Shit. I think it’s one of Robert’s friends… or patients? But why would a patient be seeing him when he’s off duty? Oh I know who he is! I saw him once. That morning when I was with Robert in the car to the hospital, we were supposed to go pick the new microwave. That freak, Hathaway. That’s who he reminds me of. Never mind, concentrate now… 503? Nononono. Not my day today… That guy, he’s totally crazy. Can you imagine, people being manipulated? Hah! Now that’s outrageous. Who would do that? And how, as a matter of fact? Robert said he blamed those signs they’ve been putting up lately. Now this is totally … stupid. It’s just that he can’t afford it, that’s all. Jealous of the good hard-working people who can. So let’s go now and try to spoil it all for them. And poor Robert, that weirdo’s got on to him. Playing with his mind when he’s got so much to think of… we’ve got the mortgage, and all the debts, and his job, now that he’s working even on Saturdays… 876-1LS-K780… Ohmygod! I WON! HA! Happy new TV, ho-ho-ho! …… Aaand what do I tell Robert now? Hope he doesn’t mind. But he’s a reasonable man, sure he’ll understand we can’t live here like some cave people, we have to have everything we need, this is our age now, this is the way we live… I know it’s hard sometimes, but reality is reality. And I already won it so we’ll just have to pay for it. Can’t imagine how much it would cost without the discount… Lucky I guessed the numbers then! Good girl, hihihi. Now I’ll just have to phone in to tell them the address. And get ready cause Molly’ll be here in 10 minutes. And let some fresh air in. Oh my, they’ve put up a new sign? It’s huge now isn’t it. Wonder what it will advertize, still blank. Ok, should get dressed now, and I must not forget to grab a new coat of some kind while we’re at it with Molly. Don’t know how I thought of that but it’s a good thing I did, the old one’s already… old.

*****

Home sweet home. That hypermarket’s the greatest. Managed to buy so many red-point items, they’ve probably won me like a thousand points up till now, and soon we’ll be able to buy some new things with monstrous discounts. And those absolutely gorgeous coats, I simply had to have them both, the second one being more or less free. Yes, Molly’s right, I’m really putting so much effort in trying my best to economize and I’m always running the whole town through just to find the biggest bargain, and now I’m all hysterical about how Robert was going to react, blah-blah. He’s a brilliant man, my darling, but sometimes he’s just too old fashioned. He has to get used to the fact that it’s no longer the hippy age, it’s not cool to live in a dump and not have the basic things you need to live a comfy life. And I’ve the feeling it’s all that loony’s fault. Come to think of it, it is strange that those signs are blank, and that people seem just a bit more … eager. But what do the signs have to do with it? It truly is crazy. Subliminal control. Hah. Molly almost choked with laughter. So don’t be absurd, Judith, get a grip, this is all the conspiracy phobia of a madman’s sick mind. They can’t make us spend so much……. Is it really much that we spend? What’s gotten into me?! I’ve got to talk to Robert, that guy’s starting to blur my own mind too, let alone his, the way that weirdo’s been lurking around the hospital to talk crazy things to my naïve darling. He is the actual subliminal monster! He’s trying to make people do strange things against their will and making them act unnaturally. Cause it’s a natural turn of events, our reality, isn’t it? That’s just the way it is. This is our world. Now let’s see what’s the newest bargain.

Task 7 - "A Conversation at the Gallery" by Emo

A Conversation at the Gallery

Behold the Gallery. Boundless. Enormous. Very, very large. Standing outside the material Universe, it is just as well that it is where it is, for the Gallery is the repository of all Art in Time and Space (and a few other dimensions highly deserving of a capital letter).

Right in its center, in the air, among a throng of others, a picture hung. In front of it two men floated.

"Will it stand up to time?" asked the first. He was small, bright-eyed and ageless. His eyebrows shone like oiled sunlight. He turned his head to his companion.

In the mist-shot darkness under his long violet robe, its color and shape tapering thornlike to black towards the hood, the second one seemed to have accommodated all the ages the first one lacked.

"TIME SHALL TELL."

Driven by a cosmic resonance, the TELLTELLTELLTELL carried in a wide powerful tremolo across the vast expanses of the book-steppes, fluttering pages like windblown grass. The word disturbed two scavenging Huginn-ravens, which took to the air amid panic-shed feathers and the flicker of ink upon paper.

Almost immediately they calmed – having been by now used to the sound of reverberating, if somewhat dubious omniscience – and perched back atop a Holy Book, bound in the red and goldsilver hide of some obscure starbeast and written by the Race of Concrete Shoe-Horns, encapsulating the wisdom of two billion years of sentience and culture. Back in the Universe, the complete Book wasn't due for another two billion and one years. One of the Huginn-ravens took a bite out of it, thereby decreasing the chances of the Concrete Shoe-Horns' ever achieving sentience by one page.

While eating books might seem like a barbarous thing to do, even by a bird, the Hugginn-ravens are more than simple-minded scavengers. Some have written books themselves (if only by using their droppings to paste pages from other books together), and the appellation "scavenger" is technically incorrect, applied to a creature that eats things which, for the most part, haven't even been created yet, whenever "yet" might be in a place like the Gallery. What Hugginn-ravens actually do is to pare down the sum of all Art in the Gallery to control the amount of clutter and cliches in Life in the Universe, thus instinctively enforcing a fundamentally Universal Law – "Art is pretty big thing." In the case of a book as central and powerful to the existence of a race as the Shoe-horn Holy Book was, its destruction in precreation could obviate the development of the entire species. Which, in the case of a species called "The Race of Concrete Shoe-horns", was probably for the better.

"Tell! Tell! Tell! Tell!" squawked the other raven, and received a critical look from his cousin, who had a single eye like blue glass.

"Shut up and eat your binding."

"Tell?"

The blue-eyed Huginn-raven ignored the question with a sigh. It had of course been rhetorical, as would be every question from a creature so daft.

Meanwhile the echo had traveled the Gallery's whole circumference.

As mentioned, the Gallery is technically boundless, but the echo was produced by a voice equally boundless (technically). It seems the laws of simple mathematics hold even outside the boundaries of Space and Time, which is probably a mystery even greater than the existence of the Gallery itself, but the Gallery is generally more fun to look into, so the laws of mathematics and their effect shall, contrary to what the length of that paragraph suggests, not receive any more attention than the two Huginn-ravens have accorded them. Suffice to say the echo, having completed its rounds, returned back into the black hood from whence it came and there it sank but did not cease, proving without the shadow of a doubt something murky yet profound about the nature of probably Everything.

The small bright man screwed up the side of his mouth and flashed a sceptical eyebrow.

"Time will tell. Right... No, actually, you are. Now, what is it? Looks like Earth-art to me."

"YOUR..."

"Don't you go all endless on me."

From the bottomless depths of the robe came a soft sound, like a galaxy clearing its throat.

"Your skills are growing greater – Earth-civilization has seven billion billion and three twin-cultures in the entirety of existence. Yes, it is from Earth. Or it will be. Or it has been. Or..."

"French?"

"Why, yes."

"Twentieth century?"

"Yes..."

"1961, from the look of it. Jean Dubuffet's work? Looks a bit like Paris, Montparnasee, what he's painted."

The hood turned toward the small man. He turned from the painting, drawn from his analytical contemplation by an invisible gaze and something he perceived as a singularly strange combinations of smells. Although the tall, robed one did not speak, he radiated a rank endlessness, along with a confusion just as endless, which was a much more satisfying aroma.

"What?"

"...," the hooded man failed to say.

"I googled it. It's a thing you use to find things out. Powerful. Not as much as you, but it's getting there."

"Maybe I should stop it then. Shall it prove a mighty adversary?"
"Most mighty. But you may find something in common. Lack of substance, for one. Now, is that going to stand up to time?"

"Unlikely. It's power is too great."

"How does that make it unlikely? Is going to be destroyed at some point in time? Or it never gets painted?

"I have traveled far and wide..."

"No, you haven't. You don't go out in the Universe".

"My substance has traveled..."

"You don't have one. Or is that where it went?"

Again that unpleasant smell. Like roses expelled from the bowels of a dead fish, if incontinence was a viable issue for a dead fish.

"I HAVE TRAVELED far and wide upon the viewless wings of Art, and have seen its capacity for creation in the minds of countless species, in the mesh of the elements themselves, ordering Chaos, bringing beginnings and ends, reordering the laws of the Universe itself..."

"So?"

"Are you familiar with the Race of The Yellow-Bellied Worms of Gnuu'lt'bz'tz.Tz??"

"I'm happy that I'm not."

"So your Google can't travel among the stars?" asked the Endless (But Not Now) One with a smirk.

"It's getting there. What about the worms?"

"Among the Yellow-Bellied Worms of Gnuu'lt'bz'tz. Tz? there lived a great artist, who shall remain unnamed – so great was his power, so nonsensical his name. He could use his art to alter reality, to conjure up the past and the future."

"And what did he do with it?" The small man was impressed.

"Once he realized his power, he painted himself tons upon tons of dirt and for a short time became the richest worm on the planet."

"For a short time?"
"He was crushed to death in a landslide during an inspection of his coffers. His spirit and his power, however, remained and roamed the Universe. They found a home on Earth."

"No!"

"Yes."

"Jean Dubuffet is a worm?"

"He has the creative power of one, yes."

"And what does that mean for the Earth?"

"It could mean it's DESTRUCTION."

The hooded man paused until the word returned to his hood. His companion weathered the smell. For a sublime critic of art, The Endless One had little enough creative flair, so even that piece of slightly worn-out dramatic flourish was appreciated. He went on:

"The power of the worm has manifested fully in this picture. It represents a consummate if unwitting imitation of a style that by the twentieth century has been extinct for more than three hundred centuries – the artistic style of humanity's ancestors, their real history and their great battles against humanity's greatest foe obscured by time."

"They had a greatest foe that wasn't themselves? Who?"

"The Bunrabids."

"Never heard of them."

"A mighty race, also indigenous to Earth. Much was lost by both races in the course of the war, but at the end humans prevailed and completely obliterated the Bunrabids, effacing them even from their art and left only scarce and ambiguous traces of their enemy's existence.

What Jean Dubuffet has done is to reach back in time by the sublimity of his imitation, and begin a cycle of reversion for Earth's reality. First the dodo bird will appear again. Then the Arabian gazelle and the bulldog rat; the stuttering lion and the woolly slug; the saber-tooth tiger and the mammoth; and then the Bunrabid. And there will be carnage.

"But the twentieth-century human has devastating weapons."

"None shall avail him against the Bunrabid."

"Allright then, how about the prehistoric human. Won't he appear too?"

"It is possible, but not likely. The biological niche is full. Either way, there shall be a bitter struggle."

The small man glowed with a hungry fire.

"When does it start?"

"The cycle's speed is unpredictable. It might begin and end in a day, or in a thousand years. But it must be observed. Such a large-scale effect of art is well-nigh a cosmic impossibility. The consequences of this event may extend far beyond the reaches of the Earth's cosmos."

The Endless One said a number of other things, but were all greatly diminished in importance by the fact that the small man had eagerly vanished and so didn't hear them, and so there would be little point in repeating them to the reader. All of them save the last, probably.

"CAN'T BELIEVE HE BOUGHT IT," The Endless One said and chuckled quietly, the sound like that of a company of galaxies sharing a joke.

Task 7 - "The Unknown Art" by Miryana

The Unknown Art

“Whut”s dat?”

The two teenagers stared at one of the French exhibits that were brought for a month to the Contemporary Art section at the Brooklyn museum. Such art didn’t mean much to two black kids, although you could say they were literally immersed in it all day long. They were its blazing representatives, and they were Samanya and I, back in 1994.

“It sayz Paris Mont-something…Itz French,” said she. Later, when I was already in college, I found out that her name means “the unknown one”. And so it was with that girl.

“A bunch of cats ridin’ on an ol’ broken-ass bus, man. U sho dat aint NY?”

“It dont say NY, iz it? Da guy’s French – Duhbuffet. And dat sign on da bus – itz in French I think.”

“Yeah. Eau mineralee – sounds like the word dat my grandma sayz for perfume. U know she from Big Easy.”

“Kinda feel dat one. All those people walkin’ or ridin’ in couplez. No one iz out there, alone…” Samanya had the strange ability to darken her brown eyes at will.

“Whutz up, boo? Why u do me like dat? U trippin’ over dat fox Rakisha again?” The feeling of guilt that I had came over me again.

“I aint trippin’. Itz just I cant see whut u saw in her. U aint like ur boy Tylor.”

“Told ya itz over. Couldnt take her game no mo’’” Now I wonder how I could even think for a second that this can make her believe me. But I there I was, and I didn’t want to drive her away.

“Anywayz, dont u worry ‘bout Taylor. He went O.T. u know. Cuz of dat shootin’ last Friday.Somethin wrong wit those colorz? They shoulda taken better care of their stuff round here.” I would often stare at “Paris Montparnasse” later on, thinking about the faded yellow, grey and blue. They looked even paler next to the bright silhouette of Samanya, the unknown one.

“Colorz iz just fine dat way. Dem folks r smiling, but then again, they r like in pain or somethin’. “ She turned her eyes away from the painting and onto me.

“U had nothing to do wit it, did you? Those guys from da Bronx wont know ya? They cant. Uve got plans. U be leavin soon.” She wanted to look strong, but her eyes gave her away.

“Nah, boo. Neva went wit Tee dat night. Momz needed help wit lil’ CC. Trust me on this one. U know Id neva lie to ma ebony queen.” I really didn’t go. Truth is, I got cold feet. He was my friend, but I had to try my chances after high-school. Couldn’t afford to get stuck in the rut of beautiful Brooklyn. Much as I would want to say I did it for her, I did it for myself.

Samanya looked at the picture once again.

“Glad they brought us here. It aint da usual stuff u get in dem books. It different.”

Over the years at arts school, I grew a fondness for the works of Dubuffet. They have always looked like some alien graffiti. All his black lines have a strange hold on me, in them I see Samanya.

“I feel ya. And all those people goin somewhere in their automobiles.” Another instant of regret. It seems that back then, I couldn’t help myself from hurting her.

“U be gone one day. And me, I be stayin here. Mr Collins sayz a lot of good stuff about ya. Sayz u got sum great future. He knowz thangs.”

“It aint like itz gonna be foreva. Ill be back. Youll see boo. I cant be without ur hershey kisses now, can I?” And yet I could. I don’t know how I managed to do that, but her taste doesn’t come easily to me now.

“ I dont want ya back.” She said it plain and simple. In that intense moment, all there was , was the painting on the wall. People floating rather than walking, somewhere in between dimensions, heading who knows where. Probably home.

“Whut ya sayn’ Sami?”” I raised my voice in anger.

“Shhh. Keep quiet, or theyll be throwing us out!” when she meant something no force on Earth could contradict her. “U heard me. I dont want ya back. So ud betta not come n look for me. Ive had ‘bout enough from you. Us, together, it aint meant to be. “

“So whut am I suppose to do now, huh? “ All thoughts came rushing through my head. I thought of her skin. That couldn’t be right. I suddenly felt the need to get on that Parisian bus and leave her in the middle of the museum the way she did. Let her wonder why I was doing such a thing to her. Sit in a seat and watch her turn into a human speck in the distance.

“Think Im done wit this one. Ill go check out da one over there.” She swayed her hips over to the next exhibit, a couple of minutes before our teachers called on us to head home. What she saw in the unfamiliar painting - I never got to know.

The unknown one. I can picture her now. A powerful woman, unbending to no one’s desires but hers. She can let you take her in your arms, but she’d never let you bend her. I can almost see her lips turned up in a proud smile. But the taste of her – that I cannot recall.

Task 7 - "The Mirror of Fine Art" by Kiril

The Mirror of fine Art

“What a live I’ve had! What a thriller! I am pretty sure that even da Vinci’s “Lady with an ermine” would want to switch places with me. You can’t count that for much, after all, she is actually a lady hugging a rat, but it is something, it should be something. Oh, who am I trying to fool? I’ve spent an eternity in this dark ugly backstreet gallery. And that is not the worst. Every time someone does enter I feel like a kitty waiting for adoption. I just hope that some idiot with a ten-digit bank account would finally buy me and put me in a spacious well-lit room across a window with a splendid vista of a beautiful city. A dust protector and a temperature and humidity controller would be nice, too.”, said the painting to itself. It actually said a lot more, it was a very clever and talkative painting, in fact, it was so clever that it possessed the processing power of a supercomputer and could probably prove Fermat’s last theorem in a nanosecond, and so talkative that it could easily deliver a speech that would make Fidel Castro look like a shy schoolboy. As a matter of fact if the painting had access to one of those fancy speech synthesizer with a strong Yankee accent, and hence the ability to communicate it would probably be able to steer human civilization in a much better direction than its political leaders. Sadly, all this happening would be highly unlikely. I leave it to you to decide if it was a miracle of God or some sick trick of fate, but actually the very next thing that happened was even less likely. A man entered the gallery, passed quickly the other paintings in the exhibition and suddenly came to a sharp halt in front of our super clever and hyper talkative painting.

“Interested in that one, ah, aren’t you. I can see already that you are a man of fine taste! “ the gallery owner had popped out of nowhere.

“Well,..”

“A pretty talented lad, that author. And he has one of those strange artistic names on which alone you could count to make you a great artist. Dorian Grey. Come on, let us say it together just so that you can feel the power of the name. Dorian Grey!”

“Dori…”

“You have seen his works exhibited in the Louvre , I suppose . Quite extraordinary sketches, I should say. Well, I wouldn’t like to steal more of your precious time sir. Let’s cut the long story short! Will it be cash or credit card?”

“I don’t want it” said the man.

“Sure, do you want me to wrap it up for you?”

“I don’t want it” said the man again.

“What do you mean you don’t want it? I have children to feed, ok, ok, this painting is worth three million, but I will make you a discount, just for you it will be two million. How about that? ... Oh, you want to ruin me! Ok, then you can have half of it for a million, and this is my final offer. You cannot say no to that, can you! …Ok, please don’t leave! What is your favorite color; I will have Dorian redo it for you adding more of it!”

“ I came in to ask where the closest grocery store is.”

“Oh, please be gone!”

The man left and the owner said to himself “I just hate these cheap b*****ds, who come in here and don’t have a clue to what the price of fine art is!”

“Ha, and if you have a clue to what the price of being fine art is ,then I am, I am a postcard,” the painting laughed bitterly. It had endured the whole conversation and stood still hanging on the wall. It was in a bad mood. You see, if one doesn’t take into consideration its monstrous intellect it was not quite unlike a human being. It had never seen what was drawn on it, and it had to heavily rely on the perception of others to guess if it was a beautiful painting or not. Neither the author, nor the owner of the gallery, nor the painting itself were aware but, every time when someone was unimpressed by the painting’s look, a fresh new shade of dark grey appeared among its beautiful colours.

Task 7 - "Belle and Bus" by Evgenia

Evgenia


Belle and the Bus
(A play in one action)

Two men standing before a painting. Any gallery.

1st man: Good afternoon. I can see you are looking at my painting. How do you find it? Oh mon dieu, this was such a wonderful time…
2d man: Excuse me, are you nuts?! This painting was drawn by me!! Paris, the colours, the women…
1st man: What the hell are you talking about?!? This is ridiculous…wait, I will tell you how I painted it and then I will call for the security. All sorts of lunatics are walking around. So, back then, at that very same day, I was very hungry, all the painters in Montparnasse usually are hungry, waiting for bus N 133 calling at Gare du Norde, here it comes, it was coming, crowded, women with clammy faces and scarlet mouths, bald men with grey clothes, tormenting, such a wonderful Parisian morning. It is slowly moving its dirty body towards the bus station. Out of the blue, madly coming behind the turn, a car, a blue car, blue as the skirt of my neighbour, the psychologist, Belle. In the car, a woman, clammy face, scarlet mouth, the driver, a man, a bald man with grey clothes. Ooooh, an accident….heeelp, the people around, still smiling, still realizing the crash in the wonderful Parisian morning. They died, yes, all of them died in that day. I didn’t, I painted all of it. I painted it in grey, grey is the colour of fear.
2d man: Sir, please, don’t shout like this, we are in a gallery after all. I am afraid you are in a terrible mistake, you are terribly confused. This painting is my creation, it is the story of my life. Sit here, calm down, I will explain. I met her in 1959, fair, fragile, always wearing blue, Belle. Tres belle, indeed. She was attending my Experimental Psychology classes at the university…
1st man: Are you crazy or what, you say that you teach Psychology and at the same time you believe you are an artist. This is absurd.
2d man: Well, sir, painting is a vocation, it is not a profession, you couldn’t know that. Please, don’t interrupt me, I listened to all your nonsense. So, as I was saying, she was attending my classes, she would always sit at the front, always right against me, her blue skirt, barely covering her pointed knees (the knees of a real lady), was shining, shining with an azure light in my eyes. We fell in love in the third month, oh, these colours, these times, that Paris. She would look me straight in the eyes, hers were green, she admired me, she thought my authority at the university was very sexy. Until that day. I was travelling in the bus calling at Montparnasse, it was a tender violet Parisian evening, suddenly, on the pavement, I saw a familiar blue silhouette (she is the only person in the world to wear that specific blue colour). Ooooh, the terror…
1st man: Sir, please, don’t shout like this, we are in a gallery after all…
2d man: The terror of seeing her soft hand holding someone else’s, smiling at a stranger, a bald man, grey clothes. I haven’t seen her since that evening, quite a long time. You see, on the painting, this man in the bus, at the back, miserably looking, it is me, seeing the end of my happiness in a blue skirt. I painted it in brown. Brown is the colour of pain. The couple down there, in the middle, it’s them. Scoundrels…
3d man: Gentlemen, I am listening for quite some time to what you are talking about. This is insane. You both claim that the painting I drew, the work of my life is by some of you. What a disgrace, what a lie. I will tell you how it all happened, how it all began…

Task 6 - "Peyote" by Yan Kiev

The sensation is … sublime, as if the big fatherly hand of God is caressing your brain, his long fine fingers strumming the strings of your soul, drumming the tam-tams of your heart… And then he’s singing, singing of the broad beautiful cosmos, of Space with billions of brilliant stars and purple nebulas and bright pulsars pulsating rhythmically pulsating rotatingly in your head exploding expelling gigantic galactic domes of dust and gas giving birth to universes growing expanding eternally.

I float outside myself and look at my own face, looking back at me, angelic blue eyes smiling. I smile back at it and extend my arm to touch it, at the same time feeling the soft touch on my cheek. The world moves in concentric circles pulsating pulsating pulsating the sweat glistening on my forehead and little beads streaming down my chin dripping drip drip drip to the ground.

After a time I reluctantly get back to my body in the sweat lodge, the air almost unbreathable with the heat of the steam from the stones. Dozens of pleasant human bodies around me, warm little centers of pulse and desire, rhythmically swaying with the beat of the tam-tams, their faces shining like suns in the darkness.

By one of the stone heaps I see a girl, her long hair glittering and her feet bare, like an Indian princess. I go over to her and yell HI over the sound of the drums. Her gaze is steady ahead, cosmically uncomprehending, so I lean over and yell again in her ear:

“The feeling is like God’s hand is caressing your brain”

Her red lips part slightly but I can’t make out any sound so I yell again:
“The hand of God,” I point upwards, “is caressing your brain,” and I stroke her hair, warm and soft and smooth like a cat’s coat. Her face shines incessantly, eyes still looking steady ahead, so I leave her and find my way out through bodies lying and sitting meditating and empowered for the first time, for the first time truly silent, truly humbled by the majesty of the gods and their Universe.

Outside alone, I slide my hand on the canvas of the lodge as I walk around it, every sensation magnified, the sound of the tam-tams still audible pulsating through my chest pulsating through my stomach pulsating through my groin, the sweat cooling off my body in the night.

I lay down on the ground, still warm from the day’s sun and look up, past the walls of the canyon which I know are sandy red in the day but only colourless shadows now, into the giant sky upwards, where brilliant stars sparkle, they’re suns and planets and galaxies, their pulsating rays brought here to me by divine volition and I brought here at divine behest.

You can’t see this light in the city, not so bright and incandescent, not so pure. The only light in the city is neon and dull, nobody shining from within luminously, everybody conditioned into bluntness and mediocrity, into greed and gluttony, consumers and corporations the lot of them, not one ray of starlight or sprout of grass. Only here do you find harmony, here under the vastness of space, here under the quantum divinity, here under the cosmic rays.

“Mister Ray,” somebody’s yelling. “Mister Ray, they can’t breathe!”

It’s that lady, the nurse. I get up from the ground and slowly round the sweat lodge again towards the entrance and there she is, dragging somebody out of the entrance, there are bodies everywhere lying on the ground and the nurse is sweating, running between them, squatting checking their pulses but there’s none, not even the drums are pulsating anymore.

“Mister Ray,” she says to me, “help me please, they’re not breathing.”

I look at her and shrug, ten twelve eighteen bodies are lying, and somebody’s brought their car shining its lights on to the scene, the lights so bright they’re concealing the stars. In the distance I can hear the wail of an ambulance or police car, they’ll probably want to talk to me too soon. Their souls chose not to come back, I want to tell the nurse but she’s gone by the time I can bring that up to my lips so I sit on the ground and look for the Indian princess.

She’s one of the bodies on the ground, her bare feet dug deep into the dust where she’s been dragged out, her hands clutching her throat. But when I walk up to her, I can see her eyes are joyous, her soul saw the glory of the Universe and didn’t want to come back in the corporal, she now understands more than anyone out there in the concrete neon world will ever know.

I lean down and caress her hair, warm still and soft and silky, then I grab her and lift her up. We walk like that, me carrying her body, through the lot of scared brown-motion running people and around the lodge, to where there’s no longer any artificial light, only the brilliant stars and the looming shadows of the canyon walls.

I lay her down on the ground and unclutch her hands from around her throat and lay them down gently, each palm pointing down. I put my ear to her chest but there’s no pulse there. I lay my body next to hers and take her hand in my hand and together we look up, where the stars are.