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

Tag: short story

  • Prompt 45

    What is something others do that sparks your admiration?

    Toro the Thinker: “Your admirations are mine.” 💫

    I admire people with two qualities: artistry for creative value and artfulness for social craft.

    The Art of Sociability: This word is synonymous with wearing a mask in public to hide one’s true character in interacting with others. The Swiss psychologist Jung defined the concept of a mask with which you conceal your shadow to live a thriving social life. I have seen these masked people all the time at work, and they amaze me how they hoodwink their managers and colleagues into believing that they are friendly and cool to be accepted by the cliques only to sack those who have no such craft. Having an eye for looking into people’s true colors, I am mesmerized by their craftiness in social interactions. The craft protects the performers from the emotional suspense at work and indemnifies them of their mistakes and misbehaviors. 😯

    The Art of Playing Musical Instruments: I consistently highly regard musicians over actors/actresses because of their creative streaks in the form of lyrics and playing musical instruments. My favorite idols have always been musicians, and I greatly respect musicians and composers, ranging from Baroque to Pop. Music moves peoples’ minds and takes us to the memory lanes with vivid images, the ambiance forever lingering in the hearts’ reservoirs. Musicians are true magicians of the art who invite our spirits to flit with gossamer wings in the garden of sensations. I especially admire those who can play guitar and sing songs simulatepously because they are singing poets/poetesses, a modern day tradabours. ⭐️

    The French novelist Guy de Mapassant’s last word on earth was: “I coveted evertything, but I took plareasure in nothing.” I don’t covet those crafty people’s art of deceiving people, but I hope to learn how to protect myself from those untrue people who think they can get away with anything despite their sins. I covet those who can play musical instruments like they are breathing the air. No, I don’t want to die like Maupassant. So, I am thinking of learning myself how to play the guitar soon. I want to take pleasure in it. How about that, Monsieur Maupassant? 😉🌍🌻🧚‍♀️✨

  • On the Nancy’s Steps

    Photo Credit: Londonist
    Source: https://londonist.com/london/history/where-are-nancy-s-steps-and-why-do-they-lie-to-us

    There are stairs called “Nancy’s Steps”
    at the London Bridge on the Thames
    where Nancy used to walk up and down
    from her den to the world, back to the den
    to live a life God cared less with neglect
    with nothing more than her untainted heart
    flowing milk of kindness and compassion
    into the neverending faith of humanity alone
    Even if it betrayed her and bullied her in tatters;
    She pitied an orphaned boy named Oliver
    And protected himself from the world under
    Until the blindfolded Goddess Fortuna span
    The Wheel of Fortune to the fateful turn
    To which all her wishes were forefeited
    As her already wretched body was battered
    With the compass of the wheel bludgeoned
    Her life with the heart cherished with love;
    With the blows upon her still young head
    all her hopes for the beauty of life shattered
    and her tears rolling down her cold cheeks
    turned into liquid drops of pearls and crystals,
    and then, with a cry of the heart, she departed.
    or thought she, for she knew not what happened
    from dusk till dawn, wandering and waiting
    on the fateful steps, asking if you’d seen the boy.

  • prompt 36

    What’s the hardest decision you’ve ever had to make? Why?

    I have my share of making the hardest decision that I want to divulge in the hope of making the readers see that your problems are not unique but common to all of us and, therefore, support you to do what your heart tells you to do.

    Do you like Dickensian stories? So the story goes.

    It happened at my workplace, where I started this past March. I landed this job through a referral of an employee who was a friend of my acquaintance. I am thankful that I got this job, which is highly competitive with decent pay and benefits here in Los Angeles, CA. But the gratitude should not exploit my dignity and vulnerability at no expense. The employee who referred me to the job became my supervising manager, but it didn’t take long for me to realize her uncontrollable temper, topped with tantrums and mistreatment of me in public. She constantly berated my performance – even if my mistakes were not fatal, resulting from her inept management and leadership skills. She caviled at my appearance, saying it’s too thin and thus pauperish and haggard. That didn’t end there. She shouted at me over the phone every Friday when she worked from home, tainting TGIF in Evil Friday. And the torture continued.

    My colleagues who shared the same office space witnessed such malice and urged me to talk to HR so that they could put me on a different team. However, I was hesitant to do so, though my spirit was yearning, because I was afraid of the worst scenario of my getting discharged from the position since I was still on a probation period. So, I waited until a divine sign resulted from my prayer. Days passed, and finally, the moment arrived on a Friday. I couldn’t take her insult any longer, so I took the matter to HR in person and via email. The result was the change of my team from hell to heaven. Now, I work under an organized manager with leadership/management skills and a graceful personality as a bonus. So, in sum, my hard decision to voice out a cry of the heart was fortuitous. Happy Ending.

  • prompt 35

    If you didn’t need sleep, what would you do with all the extra time?

    A deprivation of sleep would be a nightmare to me. Sleep is the most natural and safest palliative to forget worries, however temporarily it is. But if there should be any other props for this natural medication, I could keep my promises.

    I want to read and write as much as I should after returning home from work and generally at home. I used to work in an office where I could write during the lull, but for this year, the cognitive processing activities have been reduced to about 10 percent of my daily life because I have been feeling mentally exhausted. It has become psychosomatic by preventing me from sitting at the desk when I am home. My best regular place has become a sofa bed, watching YouTube continuously. I don’t even play with my cats as much as I should because of this sense of powerlessness combined with the weight of existential despair. When writing – which I am doing now during my one-hour lunch at my workplace – I feel so much better with the fogginess of the mind cleared and the heaviness of the spirit relieved.

    Therefore, engaging in activities that use the body and the mind would be the best thing I should do during the extra time because, as the ancient Greeks called it, Mans Sana in coporore Sano. (“Sound Mind, Healthy Body”)

  • Prompt 33 – why cats are women’s best friends

    What are your favorite animals?

    One and a half years old Camille

    Rudyard Kipling described the nature of a cat as a creature that walked alone. The graceful pose, the noble demeanor, and the aristocratic solitude make the feline kind all the more mysterious and charming. Cats are so loving and, at the same time, so selfish, which makes them exuberantly human. It is no wonder the ancient Egyptians turned them into goddesses Bastet for womenkind. To make the long story short, the association of cats with women is natural and inseparable as if the two kinds are supra-natural companions.

    Three years old Toro

    The feline imagery has been complimentary and cautionary depending on the purpose of its application to societal conventions. For example, black cats are typically associated with devious single women practicing witchcraft (or, for God’s sake, cantankerous spinsters) because of their formidable ambiance of darkness, which significantly contrasts with their wonderfully fierce eyes and quiet solitude. While feminists would disagree with the application of such feline imagery to femininity (“How could you use such a demeaning word?!”), one can’t eradicate the visible traits that are so unlike their counterparts, including the canine. The coquettishness of feline characters and the capriciousness of behavior conjures the images of Cleopatra charming Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony, and the like. And what about Michelle Pilfer’s Cattleman? Then there were Charlotte Bronte and Lucy Maud Montgomery, whose feminine sensibilities were replete with fiercely independent creative spirits, and the fascinating power of words still mesmerized the readers of her times and ours. They were lovers of cats, and their best friends were cats who could share secrets because cats were the only true secret keepers.

    Tori and Camille

    Some people seem to take pride in publicly announcing their dislike of cats as if there were some virtue in doing it. They say cats are treacherous and capricious. But that is precisely why I like cats because, like us, when they are good, they are very, very good. Yet when they are bad, they are horrid. I never get bored with my two cats, Toro and Camille, because they are very responsive to my talking by vocalizing their needs when they want to play, go out to the living room, and eat. But you know what? They are also my best friends who always stay with me, even when I am blue and gray under dark spells.

  • ‘Trail of Crumbs’ by Sunee Kim – Book Review

    I first learned of the author from a Korean television documentary about her search for a natural mother in Korea. A successful food editor of a cultural magazine and a writer, Kim returned to the land with the tears of the past and the hope for the future in realizing her ideal figure for the unconditional love she longed for, which piqued me to read this book to know more about her story, hoping to acquaint another kindred spirit.

    So I hoped it was, but her story betrayed my hope. It was about her affair of the heart with the CEO of a famous French beauty product, L’Occidante. Kim seems to have the magic power of charming men – the higher and the smarter – without effort, and she’s never alone, although she wants to think she is. She has never been in poverty of love, money, and opportunity, yet she complains about a lack of love and total freedom. Her parents, who adopted her, have taken care of her, and her sister is also a Korean adoptee. They may not be perfect, but no one is perfect, and they certainly didn’t burden her with the weight of economic support or, worse, the total abandonment that happens to some of the other adopted children. And that’s not it. Kim always escapes from the responsibility of love when the further half showers with love and warms her with kindness. You can’t treat love as it is a business deal. Unconditional love is altruistic and agape. Love is giving and sharing, not owning and demanding. A sense of abandonment envelops Kim like a wandering ghost wailing in perceptual disappointment and howling in forever resentment. Ultimately, Kim finds herself alone, and it’s too late to regret the ancient bliss of love.

    To think that jealousy resulted in such an acrid train of thought is to miss the accurate impression of my heart on the narrative itself. My power of empathy wallowed in the sympathy of humanity and propelled me to read it, in addition to the Korean heritage the author and I shared. The tears I saw from the program pleading for help to find her natural mother in Korea were heartfelt, so I wanted to hear the cry from the heart to know about the death and breadth of her soul. Yet, her story resonates with the outcry of her never-ending angst and constant chasing of mirages springing from the imaginary ideal of love.