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Local Artists

Posted in Conceptual Art, Mystical Experience, World Myths with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on November 12, 2012 by javedbabar

Sophie was given a month off after fainting in the old quarry. Why this had happened, she couldn’t say. She fainted maybe once a year, usually following a trauma such as a blood test, tooth extraction, or session of heavy drinking. Never just like that though, and her heart stopping was scary to think about.

Maybe the old quarry’s manager, Albert, had overreacted. Maybe her heart’s beating and her breathing were fine, and his old miner’s ears just couldn’t hear. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy to make a drama out of a crisis. It must really have happened.

Her dreams of every kind of art continued. Blue and gold paintings, violin solos, white-masked dancers, poetry, stories, dramas, sculptures, celebrations, parties, holy rituals.

Were these inspirations or delusions? She yearned to visit the old quarry, but was scared to. What if she fainted again?

During her month off, an answer came to her. The quarry was a place of pain, where Mother Earth had been butchered. Her body had, piece by piece, been ripped out and removed, and once the demand for rock was exhausted, the quarry was abandoned like an old crone.

Her vision had been one of endless life, pouring forth, unstoppable. What if this place of pain could become a place of healing? She continued working on her status report for the old quarry.

“Sophie, what a nice surprise,” said her CEO, seeing her back in the office.

“I have the report.”

“But you’ve only just got back. Don’t you need more time?”

Sophie said it was complete. She shared her vision of using the vast, bare walls, floors, ceilings, and pillars of the quarry as a projection area. Bringing the stone to life, like a miracle, and using it to show every kind of art.

“That sounds very interesting. Leave it with me. I will take a look.”

Sophie imagined that would be the last she would hear of the project, but a week later her CEO called her in again. “Good news, Sophie. Your plan has been approved, at least on a test basis. I had to put my name on it for the project to acquire traction, but we both know it’s yours really. As recognition of that you can manage the project.”

The quarry project was approved for community use only. Sophie contacted Eric Yahoo, Director of the Lucerne Arts Council, who asked for a week to fathom a plan. He responded with a fund-raising proposal including carefully costed lighting, logistics, security, production charges and vendors’ fees. The concept revolved around ten reconditioned slide projectors showing sixty images each per hour, filling the quarry with pictures.

Local artists offered their works freely, which were loosely fitted together into the It’s Mine! Festival, a humorous critique of materialistic existence. Their paintings, music, dance, poetry, stories, drama, sculpture, celebrations, parties and rituals were combined, creating an overwhelming spectacle.

A critic from the New City Sun christened these artists the Lucerne Set. He loved their clay figurines, urban tapestries, unmade beds, pickled watermelons, moose dung, monkey graffiti, blood heads, and twinned personae.

It was a diluted version of Sophie’s vision, and seeing it manifested made her cry. From this old quarry she had mined rich treasure.

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Old Quarry Conversion

Posted in Conceptual Art, Mystical Experience, World Myths with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on November 11, 2012 by javedbabar

Her CEO yelled, “Come!”

Why does she always do that? thought Sophie. Is it too much effort to say the word in? Or even to add a please at the end? I guess busy people need to use fewer words. Superiors must save their time and energy – for what though, so inferiors can expend theirs instead?

“Good morning,” said Sophie. “I haven’t seen you for a while. You look well.” Why shouldn’t she look well, she thought, she has a full time servant at home. That’s what she calls him – servant. How can she afford him? Lucerne Village Hall doesn’t pay that well.

“Thank you, Sophie. I feel that you are underworked. Would you agree? You would? Good. Obviously, Crisis Manager is a vital role, but we don’t have a crisis every day – unless you count my management style.”

This was a joke and Sophie was meant to laugh, wasn’t she? She wasn’t sure though. The CEO practiced GBH: Guidance By Hysterics. She was a terrible person to work for.

“We need a status report on the old quarry. I am allocating a month to do it. Can you have it complete by then?”

The bauxite quarry had been in operation for almost a century, providing material for civic buildings and fine homes. It had a history of accidents, pollution, corruption, industrial action and financial trouble. The Authority had kept the quarry open to maintain local jobs, but admitted eventually that it was cheaper and easier to import finished rock, and shut it four years ago.

Sophie went with Albert, the old quarry’s last manager, to take a look. She had only been in the village a year, and never seen the quarry open. Once the rusty locks were oiled, Albert pulled the overgrown iron gates open.

They walked past mounds of broken white rock and rusting machinery, before seeing a tall, rectangular gash in the hillside. As Sophie drew closer, she realized that the gash was a hundred feet high.

Sophie was drawn to this void; her feet led themselves; it was like walking towards the church when she was a child, to her grandma’s for lunch, and to a friend’s birthday party. It was like walking everywhere at once.

The gash had not been cut cleanly. Around it were probings and narrowings, where blasters, pickaxes and drills had worked, homing in on the centre, the cave, the bony canal extending deep into Mother Earth. It seemed a source of hidden power.

Albert gave her a hard hat and said, “Watch your step and your head. I come here once a year to take a look, but otherwise it is empty and falling apart. So just you…”

Sophie smelled figs and apples. She had a vision of the gash filled with everything in the world. It was overflowing with people pouring out. Life was being celebrated here by every kind of art. There were huge abstract paintings dripping blue and gold. Violin solos soaring. Scores of white-masked dancers. Poets on rock niches lauding the dark. Stories told of dragons and hidden treasures. Dramas of tortured hearts. Giant sculpted women. Bar Mitzvahs. Birthday parties. Holy mass.

The touch of God.

The breath of God.

The kiss of God.

Sacred vibrations.

Albert stared into her eyes. “Are you okay?” he said, looking crazed. Sophie had fainted and her heart stopped. Thank God he was trained in first aid; his skills were rusty but he had administered the Kiss of Life and CPR.

Sophie was used to managing other peoples’ crises. Now she must make sense of her own.

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Extracted

Posted in Classic Sci-Fi, Conceptual Art, Mystical Experience, Unknown with tags , , , , , , , , , on August 18, 2012 by javedbabar

Naomi and her uncle Bobby remained trapped in the drawing that they had created. They’d recently tried tattooing their bodies decoratively as a way to escape it – the thinking being that drawing on yourself within a drawing gave you more control. They had not been successful though, and their tattoos had eventually faded.

Bobby felt an area that still held promise was that of medical tattooing. Placing careful marks on the body allows you to align electronic instruments to perform precise procedures. It is more accurate than a surgeon.

Though human intuition is a wonderful thing, it mustn’t go against the principles of nature. There is a cosmic order based on numbers – on ones, twos, and threes; on pi, the golden section, and harmonic frequencies; on primes, doubles, and squares – which creates the structure of the world. By using medical alignment in reverse, maybe we can access this order and escape our physical limitations. We can free ourselves from spatial confinement.

Bobby spoke to an elder that he’d come to know, and whom he respected deeply. Guru Baba said, “You have tried many ways to escape the drawing, but they have not proved fruitful. There is a reason for this. You have tried to do too much. We know that as Ancestors you have created the mountains, valleys, forests, rivers and towns. We are grateful to you for creating this bountiful world. But that is also the problem. You have created so much that you have become lost in it yourselves. You must remove yourselves from its complexity. The way to do this is to focus on one thing only. The Masters call it Spatial Study. You must study the gap between your thoughts.”

“How do you do that?” said Bobby. “How do you see the gap between your thoughts?”

“That’s a very good question. I don’t know the answer. Only you know the answer for yourself.”

He’s infuriating sometimes, thought Bobby, but I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about. I must be patient. A further hour of confusing conversation led towards an answer. “You must create a cosmic dot. Tattoo a spot between your eyes and use it to focus your energies.” Guru Baba smiled and added, “With laser like precision.”

Sophie was rehearsing her presentation in her office. In an hour she must present her plan to the crisis team. Rising rivers in the Upper Valley had everyone worried that there would be a great flood.

Her phone rang and she fidgeted. This sent the beam from her red laser pointer astray, hitting the framed drawing on her wall.

She was amazed to see the form of a man appear in the drawing, and then tumble to the floor, followed by a girl. The optical amplification and high irradiance of her laser had energized their cosmic dots, creating spatial and temporal coherence, which via spectroscopic principles paralleling the techniques of bloodless surgery, had extracted Bobby and Naomi from the drawing.

She heard a disembodied chuckling. Then a voice with an Indian accent said, “Good shot.”

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Erased

Posted in Classic Sci-Fi, Conceptual Art, Mystical Experience, Unknown with tags , , , , , , , , , on August 17, 2012 by javedbabar

The city’s elders told Bobby that the way to escape from the drawing was to “Cut through the skin to the edge of the blood flow. There mark thyself.” When he asked them if they meant tattooing, they nodded but said nothing more.

What a strange notion, thought Bobby – drawing on yourself within a drawing. Did that mean that you became more a part of the drawing or less so?

There were no tattooists in the city. No one spoke of it. It was a forbidden art, forever taboo. Then why did the elders mention it to him? Maybe like corruption and murder, or a sweet tooth, it was allowable to some.

He brought needles and ink and asked Naomi to tattoo him. She was too squeamish to do it, and impossible to persuade, but said, “I don’t mind if you do it to me though.”

“You want me to tattoo you? Are you sure?”

“I’ve been to Diya’s house lots of times. We make henna patterns on our arms and hands. It’s lucky.”

Bobby showed her the needles again. One of them had to try it, but he would prefer it to be him. “But this is different. It will hurt you. Do you really want me to do it?” She nodded.

Naomi was remarkably tough. Maybe it was a result of her being in the drawing. She didn’t flinch. Bobby started with a single red flower, and then filled a meadow, which was in a beautiful valley, with a river running either side. There was a white mountain at one end of the valley and a dark one at the other, seeming equals yet opposites. The rivers were teeming with salmon and trout, and the forests were filled with coyotes, deer and bears.

“I feel like I’m home,” she said.

She wasn’t though, her physical location was the same, but she was somewhere else spiritually. She had become the archetypal goddess whose body is the world.

Within the drawing Naomi and Bobby were influential beings. People thought of them as manifestations of the Ancestors Aqu and Pani, so their deeds were observed and copied. Rather than singers, sportswomen, or salesmen, people emulated the Ancestors. They were the ultimate role models.

Whereas before, mutilation was seen as a sin, now it was embraced enthusiastically. Everybody was decorated with tattoos, including priests and leaders.

However Naomi’s tattoos soon began to fade. Maybe it was the effect of early sun-exposure, or her picking away scabs – Bobby told her not to, but she couldn’t resist – or simply Bobby’s lack of skill. When people saw that her tattoos were disappearing, they also began to get theirs removed. The tattoo industry largely disappeared.

They remained however on gladiators, slaves and soldiers – to prevent their escape and desertion. Prisoners were also marked for life here; there was no forgetting of crimes. Gangsters took pride in the markings they’d received in prison, and added to them, creating complex codes. A tear meant you were a killer. A trail of tears, a mass murderer. Livestock continued to be tattooed rather than branded, which was considered cruel.

There were also uses in the field of medicine. Tattoos allowed precise alignment of instruments during medical procedures. These cut through the skin to the edge of the blood flow, and then went deeper. Maybe that was the only way to escape the drawing.

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Framed

Posted in Classic Sci-Fi, Conceptual Art, Mystical Experience, Unknown with tags , , , , , , , , , on August 16, 2012 by javedbabar

Sophie had framed the drawing she’d found by the side of the road. It looked good on her office wall but the colours seemed to be fading, so she’d put it behind her desk, out of the sun. She kept banging her knees on the frame though.

The frame was also causing problems elsewhere. Since the drawing had been bounded by a black wooden strip, covered by glass at the front, and board at the back, things had changed for the people who had created it – Sophie and her uncle Bobby.

One day Naomi said, “Uncle Bobby, things don’t feel right here. Recently I’ve been feeling trapped. I don’t know why. It’s making me sad.”

“I’m feeling the same way, Naomi. I remember being freer, and travelling wherever I wanted to. Now I feel that we’re stuck in this city. Every day is the same.”

They were no longer able to move in and out of the picture. The frame had created a physical barrier that was impossible to cross. It had also created a mental barrier – to leave the drawing was inconceivable – and a spiritual one – there was no other existence possible, no past or future worlds.

Naomi said, “Maybe we should try to think of a way out. Can we do that?”

Bobby wondered where this talk would lead. He didn’t want to disappoint his niece, so should be careful. There’s nothing worse than a sad little girl. But then he thought, she is already sad, so why not go with her idea and try to change things?

He said, “Sure, let’s try. Let’s decide what we want to do, and then make a…”

She interrupted, saying, “I don’t want to be here. I want to be somewhere else. But I don’t know where I want to go to. I don’t know where else there is.”

“Okay,” he said. “Why don’t we make a mind map? It’s always useful to write things down.”

She wrote the word escape at the centre of the page. Then she joined it to freedom, imagination, desire, will and pleasure.

“That’s a good start,” said Bobby.

She looked at him desperately. “But it’s not changing anything,” she said.

“When I was your age, I loved different languages and scripts. Shall we try some other ones?” She nodded with enthusiasm.

“Okay, I know some letters in an ancient writing system called cuneiform.” He wrote the symbols for dream and vision.

“And here are the Egyptian hieroglyphs for beauty and joy.”

Then he drew astroglyphs for the sun, moon and stars. “Should we go to another star or planet?” Naomi looked amazed, but then looked sad.

She said, “I like all the languages, but they haven’t changed anything. We’re still here.”

The next day Bobby consulted the city’s elders. They said that there was indeed another world beyond this one, but to reach it you must engage in body modification. Between this world and the other world was a permeable layer, accessible by imagery. They repeated ancient words, “Cut through the skin to the edge of the blood flow. There mark thyself.”

It seemed that the way out of the drawing was more drawing.

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Copied

Posted in Classic Sci-Fi, Conceptual Art, Mystical Experience, Unknown with tags , , , , , , , , , on August 15, 2012 by javedbabar

That picture is always changing, thought Sophie. Yesterday it had a bluish palette and today it seems browner. Maybe it looks different throughout the day or maybe it’s just fading in the sun. She looked at the picture more closely, “Hmmm…” she said to herself, “maybe it isn’t a drawing after all. Maybe it’s a cheap print.”

That would be very disappointing if true, as she’d spent $100 getting it framed. But what if it was an original artwork, a very fragile one that needed more care?

She removed it from the wall and put it behind her desk, to at least get it out of the sun. Maybe she should photocopy it before it changed some more. At least she’d have a reference. It was a big drawing though, three foot square; she would have to do it in sections.

Sophie turned the picture around and removed the back of the frame. Then she systematically copied each section. There was a little overlapping on each one, and she completed the job with a total of twenty copies. She taped them all together and folded the whole thing down to fit into a folder.

Sophie’s actions created panic in the drawing. Its citizens were dumbstruck by the overwhelming flashes of light that seemed never ending but eventually stopped. Then there was an earthquake that caused considerable damage. They prayed harder than ever to the Ancestors Aqu and Pani, who had once manifested in their city as Bobby and Naomi.

“Save us!” they cried. “Forgive us!”

Naomi and Bobby were stuck in the drawing. They decided to go into hiding for a while to think things through. They made camp in a cave on the outskirts of the city, near a source of fresh water. Bobby managed to find fruits and berries and catch some grouse – who virtually came and offered themselves up, stupid birds.

Naomi said, “Uncle Bobby, I’m feeling very strange since those flashes occurred. I hear echoes of my thoughts. “

“Echoes of your thoughts?” said Bobby.

“Yes, it’s like everything I think ripples outwards and returns. Right now, I’m feeling scared, and somehow feel that I’m scaring others…”

“Shhh!” said Bobby. “There are people coming. Be quiet.”

A crowd of men and women emerged from the forest and headed towards them. “There they are,” cried one of them. “Aqu and Pani are here!”

Bobby tried to shield Naomi but the crowd pulled her away. They were both held down and presented to a shaven-headed man in black robes. He said to them. “Excuse our rudeness, Holy Ones, but our need is urgent. I am Ozwald Malchizedek, prophet of Aqu, who like all others, is formed of dark ink and Ancestor’s blood. There have been powerful omens – both on land and in sky. They have spoken to me in divine language. They say you are required to complete your cycles of return.”

Bobby and Naomi were taken to the top of Mt Alba, where they had their throats slit. Naomi’s screams beforehand echoed throughout the valley and into the original drawing, where the genuine Naomi felt that a part of her somewhere had died.

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Dried

Posted in Classic Sci-Fi, Global Travel, Mystical Experience, Uncategorized, Unknown with tags , , , , , , , , , on August 14, 2012 by javedbabar

Sophie had been affected by the drawing she’d found this morning on the Lucerne Valley Road. She decided to display it on her office wall. She couldn’t make out any details clearly, but it gave the impression of a vast, complex city, filled with human activity. Framing it had been a good idea. It filled the boring expanse of beige opposite her window. People looking into the office now had something to see.

She was mostly out of her office that afternoon, at crisis meetings about rising water levels in the Upper Valley. Two straight weeks of blazing sun had melted snow caps and caused the highest river levels since the last great flood of 2008.

She’d pulled her door closed behind her when she’d left, as per regulations. There was no need to lock it though. Every door opening was recorded on the surveillance system, which was enough to deter unauthorized staff from entering her office.

To improve village hall’s green rating, the office manager had switched off air-conditioning systems, and the building’s passive solar design was meant to keep it cool. However the angle of the sun today was such that the overhang was insufficient. Sunshine poured in throughout the day and made her office an oven.

The framed drawing took a direct hit of sunshine for over an hour. The city portrayed within it heated unbearably and began to suffer droughts. Its reservoirs were exhausted and aquifers dry. Its infrastructure had been repaired after the recent “nuclear accident” which most citizens knew had really been a war. However, due to corruption and incompetence, it had not been fixed well. The little water supply there was suffered big losses, causing The Authority to implement rationing and initiate Level Three hydrostatic measures.

Tensions arose on the streets, and there were simultaneous water riots all over the city. Ozwald Malchizedek claimed to be the Prophet of Aqu – the god of fresh water. He called a citizens’ gathering outside the Transparent Temple and said, “People of the holy city, we have displeased Aqu. He is withholding his water from us, the blood of life. He no longer fertilizes mother earth with his fluid seed. He withholds his kindness and displays his strength. He is angry because we have forgotten him!”

There were shouts of agreement.

He continued, “Let us remember the Dreamtime story of the first parents – Aqu, in the form of Bobby, and Pani, as Naomi – who came from another world and created this one. Their pathways became our waterways. Their dreamlines are our bloodlines. Let us build more vessels for water. I call for the initiation of a mighty canal-building project for transport, leisure, and trade. Let us show that we are worthy to be blessed with the gift of water. If we build the canals, they will send water.”

The Authority had no choice but to supply the machines, tools, and workers required. They knew that drawing water was a matter of life and death. Right now they were powerless, but let Aqu and Pani take the blame. Religion is useful for civic order. Amen!

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Cropped

Posted in Classic Sci-Fi, Conceptual Art, Mystical Experience, Unknown with tags , , , , , , , on August 13, 2012 by javedbabar

Shama pulled up in his silver pick-up truck. “Having car trouble?” he said.

“No, I’m not,” said Sophie. “More like brain trouble. I had a rough night and don’t feel like driving this morning. Are you heading into town?”

He said, “I sure am. Jump in.”

Despite feeling bad, Sophie was looking good this morning. A white summer dress always works wonders with a tan. Her relationship with Danny had cooled off since they’d got engaged. Though her friends had said this was normal after reaching such a milestone, she hoped it would revive soon.

Shama dropped her in the village and she went straight into a crisis. The Lilly River was rising in the Upper Valley, setting off alarm bells. Four years ago the Village office had been slow to heed warnings and the flood had claimed ten lives. The Authority had made the mayor and council scapegoats and removed them.

No one was taking chances this time. Geologists had been called in from the city, and old timers with personal experience of the great floods of ’43, ’68, ’89, and 2008 were consulted. Search and rescue teams stood on standby.

At lunchtime Sophie remembered the drawing. Why would someone throw away such a detailed artwork? It must have taken days of careful sketching. Then she thought, well, everything changes. Maybe they were redecorating their house and it no longer suited their scheme. There’s days when there’s just too much stuff, and you can’t even breathe till it’s sorted and gone. Maybe somebody had one of those days.

The drawing had not been casually tossed aside though. It had been properly screwed up and stuffed into garbage. Sophie opened it out on her desk. Again she felt assaulted by the detail and somehow drawn into it. It seemed alive.

She knew that good art affects you. This drawing was doing that. Maybe I’ll get it framed, she thought. She went to the local art shop, which also offered a framing service. The owner priced it up. “It’s three feet by four, that’s twelve square feet at thirty dollars a foot – so that’s three hundred and sixty dollars.”

“Three hundred and sixty?” said Sophie. “Really? I didn’t think it would be that much.”

“It’s a specialist job. It if was three feet square, I could sell you a standard frame for a hundred dollars.” The owner gave her a mean look. “Why support local artisans when you can support factory workers in China?”

What a stupid comment, thought Sophie. She’s offering Chinese products in her shop. No one is making her do that. There was no question though. “Why don’t you crop the picture for me, and I’ll take the hundred dollar frame.”

The woman sliced a one foot strip off the end, and fitted the drawing in the hundred dollar frame. “There,” she said. “How does that look?”

“It looks good,” said Sophie, thinking that it looked different somehow.

It seemed darker and quieter.

She didn’t know that the slicing of the city had caused agony for suburbans, who had suddenly lost all power and communications. Huge fault-lines had appeared. Disaster recovery teams had been despatched to patch up the broken edges of the city.

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Discarded

Posted in Classic Sci-Fi, Conceptual Art, Mystical Experience, Unknown with tags , , , , , , , on August 12, 2012 by javedbabar

Naomi and her uncle Bobby were lost in their own drawing. What had started out as a bit of fun together had become a serious business. They had created a village, extracted resources and developed technologies, expanded it into a city with a vibrant creative economy, allowed it to become a totalitarian city-state undermined by revolution, but too late to stop a nuclear war, and their world’s ultimate evolution was into a black and white digital territory. Naomi’s mum coming home early, screwing up the drawing and throwing it away, had been a setback, as Naomi and Bobby were now trapped within it.

Naomi’s mum assumed that her brother had taken Naomi on a surprise adventure, like he often did, and they’d be back tomorrow. He was a good uncle.

The black garbage bag sat outside that night, leaking aromas of old dinners. The most prominent smell was from Bobby’s famous lemon chicken, a dish that he was very proud of but which failed to impress most others. They all said it was wonderful that he’d made his lemon sauce from scratch without using a recipe, and then scraped away half their plateful when he wasn’t looking. Naomi had done the same.

Local coyotes however had fewer issues with lemon chicken. They came soon after dusk and ripped the bag apart. They devoured the chicken, even licked up lemon sauce, and left a mess of onion peels, garlic skins, wasted rice, and eggshells mixed with plastic and paper.

Naomi and Bobby’s drawing was curiously unspoiled. It had taken only a light hit of lemon chicken, and wasn’t soggy. It had flown out of the bag along with everything else, and now caught the wind and rolled into the road. What strange tumbleweed, containing a whole world.

Sophie was driving her Toyota too fast down the Lucerne Valley Road. She saw a torn garbage bag sitting by the verge. How stupid, she thought, people really should know better – putting out stuff that was sure to attract bears.

Something white came towards her, causing her to panic. Was it a seagull swooping down? It was pretty far from the lake. Maybe a ball of cottonwood seeds?

The drawing hit her windscreen and became tangled in a wiper. Sophie screeched to a halt. There was something scary about the image before her. Its detail assaulted her and she felt drawn in. She couldn’t make out the forms but it seemed like a city plan. There were brief snatches of grinding sounds and sirens, and wafts of singeing and decay.

Sophie thought, I really did drink too much last night. And from now on, no more disaster movies. I can’t believe that they’re affecting my alertness the next day! Maybe I’ll park here and hitch into town. I don’t trust my reflexes this morning.

She was intrigued by the drawing though. She grabbed it from the windscreen and stuffed it in her bag.

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Archway

Posted in Conceptual Art, Lucerne Village, Mystical Experience, Sacred Geometry, Unknown with tags , , , , , , , , , , on June 23, 2012 by javedbabar

Sophie loved wandering in the Botanical Garden; it was a great way to wind down after work. She knew the main path well, but there were always new side-trails appearing. She often crossed paths with this haven’s creator, The Gardener, and young crews who, he said, were studying Extreme Gardening.

She’d been upset by her argument with Danny. Last night had started well. He’d bought a cheap but surprisingly good wine; they’d cooked together, watched a movie and gone to bed. After making love, he’d brought up the subject of marriage. God knows why. Wasn’t that the girl’s job? He’d said, “Sophie, do you want to be with me forever?”

She’d said, “Let’s take it slowly, love. We’re only just getting to know each other.”

After a brief silence, he’d said, “But don’t you think that when you know, you know?”

“Well, maybe, but I don’t know yet.” That had been the end of the conversation and the start of the fight.

Sophie saw an arch in the distance, covered with red flowers. It appealed to her anger, and she walked towards it. What kind of flowers were these? Their petals seemed as if made of glass. She was afraid to touch them in case they shattered. Their red was hot, evoking power and anger, also passion and danger, and blood.

Sophie sat in the garden for a while. The sun appeared from behind dark clouds and the flowers on the arch seemed to change colour. They were now yellow, making Sophie think of summer, gold and joy, and the wheatfields of her uncle’s farm in the prairies, where she’d spent so many childhood summers. Wasn’t it amazing how colours changed your moods?

The sun continued its daily journey, now slipping beneath the tree canopy. There was a new coolness and freshness. The flowers on the arch appeared to be green. What neat shadowplay there was in this part of the garden. These strange verdant flowers cast a spell of fertility upon her filled with health and youth, and if it was too late for that, at least renewal.

The sun dipped below the horizon. Sophie realized that she’d been here from six to ten pm – four hours! She better get home; she rose to exit the garden.

The flowers on the arch now seemed blue; the colour of sea, sky and mountains, also of deep space. It was a colour that brought peace to her soul. Calm. Stability. Harmony. A colour of acceptance of the larger things in life; awareness that she was a tiny character in a vast cosmic story.

As she passed through the archway, she saw movement ahead. Danny was rushing towards her.

He said, “Where were you, babe? I’ve been looking for hours. I was worried.”

“I’ve been here,” she said.

“You missed dinner. I couldn’t get hold of you. I feared the worst.”

She looked at him with kindness. He really cared for her.

He calmed quickly and said, “For some reason I thought you might be here.”

The archway’s colours had transferred from the outer world to her inner realms. She said, “You were right. Now I know.”

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