Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

Category: Novellas

  • chapter 3 – beauty rides on mystery train

    monet, the gate saint-lazare

    The route to Arcadia was a painting of Georgia O’Keeffe, a famous landscape artist with an eye for authentic beauty: the restive naked beauty of vales and hills covered with rocks and reddish toil would make the flickering amber of any vapid spirit ablaze with prairie fires in the mind’s field. Looking at the panoply of the spectacular landscape from her seat on the train, Iris could not help but think that it resembled her. The untamed nature in its pristine condition looked a lot like her independent spirit, a unicorn whose wings were clipped by the needs of existential life. The nature without the landmarks of civilization betokened its uncorrupted virgin territory that no force could dare violate it. Nature was part of her, it was whole of her. It was wild and innocent and breathtaking, a mysterious reconciliation of ancient esoteric paganism with traditional orthodox Christianity in her. Iris was contemplating all of this, and she was taking all of it in.

    When the train arrived at Arcadia Station, Iris was suddenly seized with her usual brooding premonition that misfortune might happen to her today. She wanted to ignore it, but it was bugging her like a mosquito in the middle of a sizzling summer night. She had to ignore it because today she would be read what the Fates had spun for her. She wanted to come to terms with it and face the Fates whom she wanted to defy and challenge with the help of the wise woman. ‘This will be the day,’ thought Iris as she walked into the sunlit streets of Arcadia. Going to a pagan witch was against her Christian teachings as though by going to Hellfire Club of unspeakable debauchery and ineffable blasphemy. And yet, Iris wanted to get things sorted out for her own clandestine future and humdrum present. When Iris arrived at the door of the pagan, she saw an adumbral shape of face lurking out of the opaque window stained with the debris of dust. It was the face of a beautiful woman smiling at her. She looked ageless as if age could not wither her away, nor could custom stale her magical power. Emboldened by her beautiful welcoming, Iris went into the bungalow and thought to herself that it was a good thing to take a trip to this place, even if the prophecy would be contrary to her already smoldering anticipation.

    “So, you came all the way from Corinth to find a tapestry of your life. Welcome, I was expecting you.” Iris was flabbergasted. ‘How did she know I was coming? She must be genuine.’ Iris was even more gobsmacked when the woman continued. “Iris, the Fates had already told me in my dream a fortnight ago that you would become. And your grandmother Elaine appeared in my dream yesterday to tell me I should be attentive to your needs. Therefore, my dear Iris, do not worry about anything. You were not alone, you have never been alone, and you will never be alone.” Those kind words, those thousand comforts, all flew from her graceful lips and Amethyst crystal eyes that looked deeper than Sea of Jewel. She was irresistible not to answer, she was impossible to be real. Yet she was there, before Iris the doubtful who would not trade the moment of mystic beauty incarnate in this beautiful mystic for anything now. She was already bewitched by the witch, or was she become already one? Or even more so, Iris would be a changeling born of fairy, bred by a human. All this would be known to the unknown today. Iris could not wait any longer.

  • swept away – chapter two

    Hector was wide awake in the middle of the night. His bare chest was covered with beads of sweat, and his lips wet with drops of water from the jar beside their bedside. Hector looked at his wife sound asleep: Moira’s pretty face looked lifeless in the moonlit darkness, and her silhouette of the slender frame even more soulless against the luminescent lunar beauty from her celestial abode in the nightly sky. Maybe it was that moon, the Full Moon in the midsummer night that filled his heart with a tempestuous desire of a dangerous liaison, of violent passion, of primitive instinct, all of which was a forbidden play for a man like Hector whose status and condition could move heaven and earth, as it were, whose valiant beauty also matched the sweetness of his mind. He was indeed a curious conflation of innocence and worldliness, an enchanting consilience of Platonism with Eroticism, in the manifestation of those thousand actions, those thousand expressions that flew from his own person, fascinatingly interacting with his irresistible manhood.

    Hector was looking at the lunar beauty at the terrace, hypnotically infatuated with an indescribable yearning for a secret escapade from the confinement of his conjugal life. No, it wasn’t just one of those whims and caprices that a married man bored with his marriage usually craved. Moira was a loyal and dutiful wife with a practical sense of the world who bore him two beautiful daughters. She was a daughter of a well-to-do merchant in Rome, assisting her father at his shop where Hector used to visit for his trade. Pretty as she was, she wasn’t exactly a Helen whose faces launched thousands of ships. Yet her sensible words and lively actions were what prompted Hector to pursue her as his would-be wife who could settle into his way of life. Funny that, my dear reader. For someone like Hector had remained unattached for long despite his beauty, talent, and character. No, he wasn’t a shameless cult of sybaritic Bacchus, nor did he attempt to, nor was he inclined to cross over the boundary of Eros in any mode of preference. He was rather an idealist, a romantic follower of Apollo in search of endless love consummated by Eros and Psyche. Call it cloddish, vagarious, or hokum even, but that was what he was, really. That was how he kept his wild horse of desire in him, still. That was why he wanted to release it from its rein, now.

    The story of Eros and Psyche was his favorite, reverberating down to the bottom of his heart. But then it was more of Eros that sparked his dormant passion locked into his mind’s cabinet. For he was a man after all whose sensory organs would react to the stimuli of the seen, the beautiful, the enchanting, the mysterious, and the fatal. He’s all up for it, waiting for it, and going for it. The moon was still high above all the lives of the nightly world, and as its soft white luminescence was glowing and glowing harder, and penetrating his Olympian body deeper, Hector’s desire of a dangerous liaison was growing bigger, louder, and bolder in an ineffable ecstasy of unknown love as mysterious and adventurous as the ones shared by Goddess Circe and Odyssey and Eros and Psyche. He was in the theater of this solipsistic midsummer night’s ecstasy, swept away by his violent passion that knew no restraints with all his vigor, with all his virility, and with all his vitality.

    The phantasmagorical display of the sensual dreamscapes was beginning to fade as Chariot of Apollo was approaching yonder in the dusky distance. Forget Shame. Perish Fear. Curse Fate. Hector wouldn’t let his passion for his unknown love dissipate into one night’s dream, safely ensconced in the complacency of his life. He would look for her, wherever she might be. As the dawn finally broke, Hector’s eyes sparkled with brown marbles, so beautiful that they could be sinful to look at. He decided to go to travel to Cumea, where there was his studio of paintings and sculptures. But first, he was going to tell Moira that he’s going to stay at his studio alone until he finished creating his new work of art. And he knew it would be a magnum opus following his unstoppable heart.

     

  • swept away – chapter one

    3334d704022e42fad10b32d8694af248It wasn’t love at first sight, really. Although one look at him would suffice to appreciate the principle of beauty incarnate in his statuesque figure, it wasn’t the tall, well-toned body that she fell for. It was the eyes that played upon her usual stoic inner world, sweeping it in the whirlwind of unquenchable longing, wanting, and yearning: big, brown, warm, passionate, soulful, and doleful, all the marbles of his spirit sparkled in the windows of his soul. The faculty of her mind worked with her imagination in the peculiar alchemy of infatuation and turned the rut of life into a theater of fanciful motion pictures about love. That was what made her go through her existential life. For she always had to be in love with someone fictional, nonfictional in the highest ether of her imagination. For that was what she subsisted on to give her a burst of zest for life. What others would think of her was not her savior vivendi because she belonged to her class of her own, her own world of dreams and wishes, which was her own only in her muliebral meditation.

    Alas, poor Iris! I know her, my dear reader! She was a descendant of Dido, a human-bred fairy whose lineage belonged to Clytie, who pined away for her unrequited love for Apollo and became Sunflower. For her own person, Iris beggared all description: tall, slender, beautiful, she was something of a Cassandra whose words were regarded as hallucinated riddles in divine madness as her punishment to refuse Apollo’s love. Maybe it was Iris’s cool, reserved aura from her being that held back romantic advances from men. But she was none other than a mortal woman with none other than woman’s reason, so she always found her love interest in men whose stars were high above in the nightly skies. Hence, she was invisible to any of them and existent to none of them like a wandering spirit, traveling the boundary of this world and the Netherworld at night. But Iris was content in that surreptitious way of unrequited love without a litany of woes and pains that relationship was fated to bring.

    Always searching, always dreaming, Iris now found her Aeneas in him. But this time she wanted to manifest her beautiful self before his beautiful eyes because every part of her somatic existence ached for his attention and her spirit invoked divine intervention to charm his anima. She did not want to be like Clytie whose echo was still haunting in Valley of the Lonely Hearts. That was why Iris went to a wise woman known for her witchcraft of love spells and pharmaka, the ancient Greek love potion believed to be invented by Goddess Ceres. Iris’s preferential choice would be a love spell, which she thought would fit her secret purpose in the most portent way. With this secret machination of love, Iris resolved to make a trip to Arcadia, where the witch was already waiting for her because she knew she would come to her.

  • [updated] cheery sunday

    Mr. Fred Holstein (hereinafter “Fred”) visited his good friend Mr. Paul Collie (hereinafter “Paul”) on this beautiful Sunday afternoon. Paul had a pretty garden in his backyard, and being a good friend of his, Fred even helped him water the home-grown vegetables. After their joint labor, Paul and Fred had a good time with their favorite snacks at the garden. In fact, Fred’s new jokes were so funny that Paul fell out of a chair. Then they parted merrily before the sunset. Tolstoy would have enjoyed himself if he had joined them at the garden, for it was his kind of nice restful time.

    Author’s Note: Since downloading the video from the app seems to take forever, I have included its Youtube version in my Blog.

  • small simple sweet

    A merry heart goes all the day, warding off evils of everyday existential life. The Bard said, “Frame your mind to mirth and merriment, which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.” Which also strikes the biblical chord of “Refrain from anger. Turn from wrath. Do not fret; it leads only to evil.” It all fits Sally’s way of fulfilling demands placed on her daily tasks in life and enjoying small pleasures in the simple and sweet novelty of it all.

    Author’s note: with my new iPhone, nothing is impossible 🙂 I hope to make a short film, using a series of stop motions, in future.

  • Jonah’s Days

    img_0110(1)
    Andy at the helm of the store during his training of Wendy

    Andy’s culinary business has been doing very well since its opening three months ago and become one of Must-Go eateries through the digital grapevine of regular village chatters, peripatetic wayfarers, lunchtime workers, leisurely saunterers, and food critics incognita. With the growing popularity of the now famed hot dogs, french fries, and waffles of Andy’s, hiring a helping hand was unavoidable. So Andy posted a job on Solid. Com for a full-time attendant with benefits after a 3-month probation period and $13.00 per hour, which was really an excellent job opportunity for anyone looking for decent employment in this time of static unemployment situation and a growing number of homelessness all around the world.

    img_0112The lucky winner of the happy opportunity was Rosetta whose honest-to-goodness character and sweet smile moved Andy’s robust stoical temperament at the interview. So Wendy came aboard as a new cute attendant at Andy’s, and she loved every minute of it, serving customers with care and smile, grilling sausages, flipping buns, frying french fries, and performing all other miscellaneous tasks given ad hoc by Andy or his wife Martha, who always religiously brings her homemade buns, sausages, and other condiments to the establishment every day and attends to customers in the morning until 11:00 AM.

    img_0113
    Andy chides Rosetta for misunderstanding customers’ orders.

    But the halcyon days of the initiation to her new employment came to an end last week. Or it seemed so. Although Rosetta was intelligent, always eager to learn new things with her whole heart, she needed a certain period of time long enough to be proficient in her new trade. But Andy’s spartan way of inculcating a new set of know-hows and modus operendi of the attendant position in his new seemingly fumbling employee did not go hand in hand with Rosetta’s trait and temperament. Maybe he expected from Wendy a novelty effect, which is to say that every new role and responsibility needs to initially improve when such new doctrine is first instituted. Maybe that’s an universal tendency of every employer anticipating from his or her new employee, which is understandable. But then maybe it’s Andy’s short-sighted insight for Rosetta who would need enough time to be soaked into new knowledge until it became her secondary register and octave.

    img_0114
    “Man can be destroyed bit cannot be conquered,” is one of her favorite axioms.

    Rosetta’s shyness and her introvert personality might appear a bit farouche at handling multi-tasks or adroit at communicating with vendors providing products to Andy’s due to her tendency to stay indoor, which makes her guarded against dealing with the outside the world in all aspects of everyday life. Nonetheless, Wendy’s willingness to work to the fullest extent possible, honesty, and kind nature should also be highly esteemed because finding a good person is harder than hiring a smart worker. Surely, employers run businesses, not charity organizations that provision their employees with bread unconditionally for free. But then they deal with people not with cyborgs they can discharge anytime at will. Therefore, it is best to advise employers to learn that there are more things in heaven and on earth that are dreamed of in their business stratagems and callous modus vivendi.