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

Tag: story

  • Prompt 206 on mind boggling

    What bothers you and why?

    I am bothered by people and their hypocrisy. Injustice, Avarice, Cruelty, and Ignorance. A lack of charity and understanding. Weakness to all that glitters, power to all that pleads. Aristoteles said we can’t live alone unless we are beasts or gods. But I tell you, humans are angels and demons, the children of Janus with two faces of light and darkness.

    People can move heaven and earth, making a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven, so much so that we can make a criminal of an innocent man like a human sacrifice to idols or false deities. For example, I watched a Netflix documentary about Henry Lee Lucas on Friday. He was known as a “Confession Killer,” who claimed to have murdered 600 victims all over the U.S. But did he kill them all? He killed his mother for sure because she was atrociously violent toward her son, beating his head so severely that the portion of his frontal lobe was permanently damaged, let alone his right eyeball that burst out, which was later replaced by a false prosthetic eye. Lucas was said to have an IQ of 87, but he could read, write, speak clearly, and draw quite beautifully. It was his social IQ that put him on a pedestal of the mentally inept.

    While watching the documentary, I could not help but think that Lucas was a victim of circumstances and prejudices. He was coerced into confessing falsely to the killings that he had not committed because the sheriff under whose custody Lucas was fatherly to him with warmth and kindness that he had seldom received. It was painful to see Lucas pleading not guilty to the falsely confessed murders through the cell in front of the hordes of reporters and camerapersons as if he were a freak in the circus. He was crying, and even if he might have lied, you could not/should not bear false witness.

    Nevertheless, those who chanted vehement epithets with no mercy but spite for the murders that he had not committed did not apologize to him as if doing it would be an immoral thing to do. And people continue to be merciless to those lowly in social status or need care out of collective neglect. We champion human rights, equality, and justice while doing the opposite things to those who need the championed values. It’s sickening, and that is what bothers me.

  • prompt 204 on three books of life

    List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?

    Three books that have planted Tree of Golden Apples in my mind’s garden are the following elementals:

    1. Recollections: An Autobiography by Viktor Frankl – Dr. Frankl was the father of Logotherapy, one of the three Viennese Schools of Psychotherapies, who practiced what he believed and experienced. Far from an armchair scholar in the Ivory Tower out of touch with the crowd, Dr. Frankl gave hope, not as a delusional escape from the burdens of reality or dangerous daydream, such as Thuclides defined as the nature of hope, but as a beacon of light in the darkness of the soul crying for help. It’s because he was a survivor of the hell on earth, called Auschwitz, and other circles of hell under Nazi-ruled Austria. He wrote other books, which I have read, but this book pales others because it shows him not as a scholar but as a human soul whose spirit we all possess and, therefore, can relate to.

    2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte – This is the book I can never get bored with. Since I received the book at the tender age of twelve in Korea, I have always loved it and returned to it when I feel lonely, very lonely, and lonely in this big, wide, cold world. Jane is my soul sister, and we have things in common. And I see what kind of woman Charlott Bronte was different from many people who like to claim. I like her works more than her contemporary peer, Jane Austen.

    3. Why I Write by George Orwell – This is a small pamphlet-like book. I carry it around when I feel like doing nothing, yet doing something resourceful and thoughtful to keep myself from mentally procrastinating. People tend to think writing belongs to intellectuals when it isn’t. It’s a record of personal existence through written communication to express one’s inner world within the outer world. But many people, including professionally established writers, like to think that writing is a form of art that belongs to the ether. It’s not, and the purpose of writing is simple. Orwell’s points of view agree with mine.

    These are the books that I always come back like trusty bosom friends who can keep secrets besides my two cats.

  • prompt 200 on last live show

    What was the last live performance you saw?

    It was an A-ha concert on April 8th, 2022, at the Wiltern in Los Angeles, California, which was in my town. It was my second time seeing them in concert since I attended their New York City concert in 2012.

    I went there alone, but many came alone to see their first puppy loves or idols in real life. As the band became old, so did their fans, which proved that time was non-discriminating, visiting the doors of huts, villas, and palaces. Here they were, my old hot flames, once so young and dashing, now ripened with the years of experience, seasoned with the echelon of exercises. A-ha indeed grew mature, but they were more relaxed and confident, which endowed them with a different sensuality that the green salad days of youth can never have.

    The most interesting thing I noticed at the concert was that fans brought their young and grown children with their spouses to see their old loves. Although their children didn’t quite seem to enjoy the same level of pleasure that their parents were having, it was an excellent concert where people had a good time returning to the days of their begone youth by the witchcraft of music taking all of us to that time.

  • The Housemaid by Freida McFadden – Book Review


    Being a housemaid is no easy job. Apart from daily chores, one has to ensure that one is not on the wrong side of one’s employer and family for job security. Who says it’s a lowly job for little women with no or little education when it requires guts and wits to endure all of these and those that will jeopardize her sense of existence? It would be best if you did not make your maid angry because once she is exposed to the unkindness of her employer, her ire becomes Rage, which will turn her into something of a she-hulk.

    Here comes Mille (Wilhelmina) Calloway in the house with a secret past, trying to pretend to be someone she isn’t. Never will she be the one she wants to be because normal is not normal for her. Security is insecurity, and love is betrayal, or is it ever such? That doesn’t mean she’s Devil incarnate, but a being between an angel and a human, something of a Valkyrie, trumpeting one’s death, bringing the soul to the Underworld. In this book, you will find it hard to dislike her because she will not harm you if you do not betray and hurt her. The plot is intriguing in how you see what she is and why she is the way she is. That is not to justify any wrongdoings, but the motive is free from guilt, like Robin Hood stealing treasure from the arrogant rich or, shall I say, Incredible Hulk helping the good against the wicked? You will want to know more about her and the characters who are not dull from the beginning to the end. What a twist of fate!

    A few books are written about protagonists whose livelihoods are not as glamorous or glossy as many featuring women or men with high incomes and fanciful lifestyles because being common is a trifle and, therefore, not worth writing about. But that’s a lack of imagination and creative resourcefulness, which inhibits creating a world beyond reality in the likeness of truth. In that regard, this book is a fresh breath out of stuffy air. It is a thrilling admixture of Harrison Ford’s The Fugitive, Bill Bixby’s The Incredible Hulk, and Clint Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter wrapt up in a maid’s hide.

  • prompt 119 on reason to live

    What gives you direction in life?

    It’s always unexpected. This moment of Eureka of life. Or so it seems. Finding meaning in life is like searching for a lost star destined to be mine and yours when it falls from its journey to see you and me.

    I am still looking for my lost star, but sometimes, I want to give all up, facing stripes of existential dilemmas, crossing the vicissitudes of life that I don’t want to. At those times when I want to quit everything and leave this world, my eyes meet the eyes of my cats, who need my care and love. Then they come to me and rub their little flurry heads against my hands, legs, and heart, sending me the pulses of life all over my body, entering the palace of the soul.

    Small pleasures and simple joys keep me going like the Energizer Bunny beating the drum in an energetic march of celebrated longevity. My cats need me, and the need for care gives me a reason to continue this search for my star in life.

  • Night at the sea

    High waving ire beneath the mountain of tiding whirling,

    Darkness howling, ascending to light moaning, immersing,

    Gray somber fear turning into white foams of desire roaring, 

    The spirit in the fetters bursts upon the furious waters revolting. 

    The souls of the dead rising from the abyss and walking,

    Midnight, moonlight, and starlight upon the waters shining,

    The skies gaping then cracking as earth laying and embracing,

    The spirit with the clipped wings begins to flutter and leap rejoicing.

    Ghost ships appearing from the shadows of the moon sailing, 

    Panthom seamen singing the songs of the misty past echoing, 

    Mermaids and nymphs emerging from the deep desiring, 

    The maiden’s fancy fills her broken heart with joy, yearning.