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

Tag: storyteller

  • prompt 115 on my positive change

    Describe one positive change you have made in your life.

    Recently, I have established a habit of going to a coffee shop after work instead of going directly home.

    They say when you return from a funeral, you should not go straight home but have some time at a crowded place so the soul of the dead or another spiteful spirit will come and follow you home. Whether or not it is legitimately true, there is a point in doing so as a ritual of getting rid of negative influences from outside to home. In like manner, I have begun spending time at coffee shops, preferably and usually at a nearby Starbucks, after work. I sit there alone. Yet, I am also surrounded by people who are also alone. It gives me a sense of belonging and comfort. I read and write with iced tea, which is refreshingly relaxing.

    After a purification ritual for about an hour, I return home, where my cats, Toro and Camille, are waiting. They are only pleased to see me because it’s their dinner time, but whatever the reason, it feels good to be greeted and missed.

  • prompt 110 on question

    What is one question you hate to be asked? Explain.

    A seemingly innocent question can be out of the question depending upon time and place. I have two such questions I hate being asked:

    1. How old are you? – I don’t see the importance of knowing one’s age unless I am in a doctor’s office. Oscar Wilde said a woman revealing her age will tell almost everything. I am not that woman, and I think age should not matter, especially for a woman’s nature to be beautiful.

    2. Can you do me a [big] favor? – The question itself is arbitrarily imposed upon the asked. How dare the other be! Why do I have to perform something that satisfies the id or ego of the other? It is a blatant expression of a market bargaining of human relationships.

    I am easily moved into tears when I see a person in need or watch sad movies. I also forgive people who broke my heart if they apologize to me or treat me nicely later – without asking for a [big] favor. So, the questions mentioned above trouble me extensively with pain, knowing that I have to answer them reluctantly against my true self.

  • prompt 109 from my autobiography

    You’re writing your autobiography. What’s your opening sentence?

    It could have been better. They should have known better. God should have been kinder. All this could have happened if I knew how to stop the wheel of fortune played blindfolded by the Sisters of the Fates, cheered and hooted by the spirits wandering between the worlds, not knowing they are long dead. So, how can it be solely my fault for the life I have lived without knowing about my life? How can you be so quick to label me as a negative loser harping on the unseen that no one wants to hear? My name is written on the water, and my spirit is flitting on the clouds in the azure sky, still longing for life because living is far better than dying. It could have been a beautiful life.

  • Hidden secrets of houses

    Being a homeowner is being a master or mistress of your castle. You can fashion it in whatever style you prefer without thinking about posterior owners who would be new rulers. What if the previous owners of your houses were occultists, Satanists, spiritualists, or criminals of the worst kind? – I mean psychotic murderers who kill people for pleasure or displeasure. Some of them build secret passages or rooms that homeowners accidentally discover, as seen on some YouTube programs filmed mainly by the owners. Naturally, they piqued my curiosity for all things uncanny.

    Imagine there is a hidden basement with a single bed (yes, really so!) whose purpose is terrifyingly mysterious with sinister presumptions. There is also a hidden room in the basement, assumingly a panic room. But these are not figments of imagination but truth. People find them within their houses while renovating the interiors or cleaning them. Because homes were built hundreds of years ago, there have been many homeowners in many cases, and you never know who they were or what they did behind the doors. One spectacular example is an Ohio couple in a relatively recent year who discovered millions of dollars in suitcases hidden in different places and one full of VHS tapes. When the couple reported such findings to the FBI, they must have watched the contents of the recordings because they made sure that the couple would not say a word about their existence as if they never existed. I would not watch them, although I am a curious person by nature, because I feel that they contain abominable acts of unspeakable nature. Even an old convent is not an exception in harboring such a secret place because, in England, the maintenance specialists working on a derelict convent found it, which is quite eerily inquisitive. Why did the religious sisters have it concealed? For what purpose? Did the demons collectively possess the nuns?

    I have always known that these things are possible because old houses have unknown histories with place memories that still linger in the places and are kept in there. Besides, unlike apartments, homes have accessible entrances from downstairs to upstairs. It is said that most psychotic killers reveal that they randomly go about houses, and if the doors are unlocked, they go in and commit atrocious murders or rapes. Apartments are not always wholly safe but comparatively safe and relatively secure. If I had a choice of being the owner of the two premises, it would be an apartment with a nice view, needless to say.

  • Prompt 106 on Drink

    What is your favorite drink?

    As some people go to bars to drink, I go to the Green Mermaid’s Coffee Tavern, aka Starbucks, for my favorite drinks with a Kindle and an iPad. Their menu is inventive and innovative, welcoming new additions. These drinks are my sprit drinks.

    My first favorite drink is Iced Hazelnut Oatmilk Shaken Espresso. Because of its oat milk, the flavor is wonderfully smooth, richly silky, and beneficially wholesome. It’s my comfort drink.

    My second favorite drink is Iced Caffe Americano, my staple morning must-have to perk me up. And it is always iced because I find Americano tastes better when cold.

    My third favorite drink is Iced Passion Tango Tea Lemonade. The color says it all about the prettiness of the flavor, which isn’t too sweet but refreshingly delicious and refreshing because it is added with lemonade. Without it, the tea will not be as lovely as it is.

    I believe we should all have favorite drinks because, without them, life would be all gray and grim. Mine happens to be the above-referenced drinks from Starbucks. I am not affiliated with Starbucks to write this column, but I read Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz (you are welcome to click and read on the link.) with relish.

  • prompt 103

    Have you ever unintentionally broken the law?

    The Accused 😅

    Breaking the law springs up a grim faced judge with a wig with a gavel prone to sentence: “Death by hanging.” But no one is immaculately clean, and to err is a human. I broke the following laws, but I am not a hypocrite, as supported by Robert Frost: “Far more violence has been done in obeying the law than in breaking the law.”

    1. Diatary Law – I enacted this law on the first day of 2024 to return to the disciplined dieting I used to keep five years ago. I broke the sections of eating after 6:00 pm, indulging in carb-enriched food articles at home, and consuming a load of junk food. Now that my doctor has ordered me to lose weight until a follow-up visit in three months, I shall abide by the law in full force and effect.

    2. Law of Affirmation – I have violated all of the sections of the law: Imagination, Visualization, and Manifestation, all of which unintentionally – and intentionally. It is unintentional because when things do not go well as I expect them to or life seems unkind to me, my eyes become blind, my ears mute, and my head blank. I become comatose, thus violating the law. Intentional in the sense that when I am lost of all, including the will to live, the law seems needless, just as I am not here.

    The consequences of the violation come not in they do a single spy but in a battalion. Health risks, such as high cholesterol and diabetes, may be foreseeable. Mental health will be put in critical care if they do not adhere to the above laws. Give me a month as a corrective period, and I will reinvent myself.