“Marrakesh Express”: “The sounds of ‘Marrakesh Express’ filled the room. The song captured the carefree joy known only by a child: the joy that makes kids join hands and begin to spin round in circles until they fall, dizzied, to the ground in wild laughter. It had the joy of a nursery-rhyme jingle, the effervescence […]
Continue reading“‘Sugar Magnolia’ evoked the invigorating sap of man and nature: the seminal flow of male-for-female desire, the deep, in-taking mysteries of the earth-woman sought and probed by the extrinsic force of man, the lush intertwining lianas of feminine grace, the earth’s flora, and the gleams of celestial bodies. ‘Sugar Magnolia’ sang about the earth and […]
Continue reading“The shadows from the street-side trees and storefront awnings spilled out across the sidewalk like dark ponds, threatening to swallow Skylar when he entered them. As the light of the world had been muted, so had its sounds. Stray cars whooshed by like flaws of wind. The birds must have misplaced their songbooks. The world […]
Continue reading“So, a gigantic gulf separated Skylar’s view of life itself from those of everyone he had ever met. For he believed with all his soul that the superficial show of life was, at bottom, false. He had not yet understood why it was false, but he knew that it was. Childhood had shown him that […]
Continue reading(Warning: This post contains body imagery.)“Schoolboy Fantasy”: “In his fantasy, Skylar had the power to still the world. His inner eye saw clearly how things would work. With a mere intention, he would stop everything in the universe from continuing its wonted course. People would freeze in mid-stride; cars would stop in the middle of […]
Continue reading“The disappearance of the sun symbolically ended the party. Skylar’s guests thanked him for his hospitality and said good-bye. When they had all gone, he lingered on the balcony feeling the now-cooler breeze against his throat and the chill of the stone underneath his arms, watching the vestiges of the sunset: the broad swatches of […]
Continue reading“The one interview that stuck in Skylar’s mind for many years took place at Ivy Club. Mr. Oswald Crocker Astor III ought, on first appearance, Skylar reasoned, to have been immediately soaked in formaldehyde and placed in a glass container by a biologist eager to preserve a creaturely specimen long considered extinct. At a time […]
Continue reading“Throughout the night, couples took a table, passing the time before their dinner reservations at Fior d’Italia or Ristorante Mona Lisa, the latter famous for the variety of La Gioconda paintings on the walls, one of which was topless, as well as the faux elegance of its red-velvet décor. Sporadically, excitements of teenagers burst through […]
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