Modernist Dream

April 28, 2018May 20, 2018 ~ 하늘의 조각

Nealy stood in the wood-paneled study, in her beige suit and red ascot. She poured a glass of wine from the glass decanter. Lightning illuminated the room, splitting the sky in two. The faint lamplight flickered across her face.

Alli sat in front of her, in a simple cashmere sweater and jeans. The rain raged outside, racing down the windows and pouring onto the balcony nearby.

The darkness pressed in on them, suffocating and urgent. All along the walls were tomes, ancient, leather-bound manuscripts, shrouded in dust, some of them written hundreds of years ago.

“There can be no future, without the past,” Nealy growled. Thunder snapped and cracked, in the distance. She poured a second glass for Alli. The scarlet liquid seemed to hover in the air, forever suspended in time, even as it flowed inevitably to its endpoint.

Alli stopped glancing around, and looked back at Nealy, her eyes flashing with a look that could have also cut the sky into pieces, “If that was the case, Nealy, then why did you leave me?”

The thunder grumbled in reply, rolling mindlessly, over the hills dotting the landscape.

Another Star in Heaven

April 24, 2018May 20, 2018 ~ 하늘의 조각

flowers grieve and fall

Kaan and Alli walked through the night, their flashlights cutting wide swathes of light through the darkness. The beams bounced off the trees, shone through translucent leaves and often pointed down at their toes.

The night hung like a shell over them. The stars wavered like ghosts in the ether. They were making their way down the hill, in a long, sweeping arc. Their shoes dug into the layers of dead, brackish plant matter. Dust congealed in the conic sections of their artificial radiance.

In the valley, a bulky black and gray building swam in front of them, materialized out of the inky gloom. A twisted chain-link fence, long rendered useless, cordoned the area, festooned with loud ‘Keep Out!’ signs of black and white painted metal.

The door was rusted and hung ajar. The lock had long been picked and someone had taken the time to kick the entrance in. Leaning down, Kaan and Alli folded themselves into the parcel-sized opening.

The two of them turned their lights to race down a long, abandoned corridor, with sheet metal walls. “Still feels like a prison,” Kaan remarked.

They got to one of the many test rooms, with a white, battered chair – much like one a dentist would use – only fashioned with heavy, leather straps for the abdomen, legs and arms. In the white room, at the top corner, was a two-way mirror, that opened into a control room above.

“I’m surprised they still haven’t torn this place down,” Kaan thought aloud.

Kaan looked around. The room was dusty from lack of use. Twigs had blown in, through unseen holes. Webs stretched across corners. Little rat feet could be heard crawling around in the walls.

“Do you think Nealy would ever come back here?” Alli asked.

“I doubt it,” Kaan said, “This place was abandoned for a reason.”

“Still worth a look, right?” Alli wondered.

Kaan didn’t answer.

They left the dilapidated, unmarked lab. As she got on the back of Kaan’s old Harley, Alli pretended she could see Nealy there – between the branches, coming through the ether, bleeding through from the other side, wearing a beige suit and a red ascot, ensconced in the brilliant rays of an aura – bright and shining, like the sun.

espers