7:35 AM
… the sound of dry cactus trickling through a rain stick imitating rain as it falls from the clouds to strike the forest leaves … rain … steady and heavy … from purple clouds … water fills the scorpion’s underground nest … Alacrán emerges and knocks at the dreamer’s door … go away, says the dreamer … tail in air Alacrán minces down the balcony and onto the staircase … now his carcase dries on a stone in the sun … when the rain ends, black ants emerge to pick at Alacrán’s drowned body … they carry him in bite size chunks … up the thin crack in the apartment wall … back to their nests … life goes on … many are called … many are chosen to be victims or assassins … who knows who will be chosen … and for which role …
“Heal yourself,” cried the sánate bird, drawing his knife blade over the sun-warmed stone outside Tim’s window. The trees in the courtyard filled up with sparks of colour as their leaves lapped at his balcony. A butterfly, yellow and black, shook delicate wings, and dangled, at the end of his floral string. Soon the bird of paradise would close its eyes and go back to sleep. High in the sky, strung out like a line of washing in the early morning air, the temples of Monte Albán basked beneath the sun as they dreamed of their former glory. Cloud shadows walked across Tim’s wall. Tourists on an endless train from there to here to nowhere in particular, white clouds stared at Tim from a pastel sky.
Tim loved the sparrows. If he left the apartment door open, they would cease their squabbling and fly down to his balcony from the red-tiled roof of his neighbour’s house. Fearless, they would step through the opening to see if he would throw them some crumbs from his table. Sometimes, they would fly right in, perch next to him on the table, and pierce him with their inscrutable gaze.
… Ah, would some power the giftie gie us, to see ourselves as these sparrows see us, Tim used to think, for sparrows dwell among the blessed and it is written that not a single one shall fall …
The sánate kept winding up the day with the whistle of his call and dogs barked on the azoteas and in the streets. A warm wind walked through the open door, ruffled Tim’s hair, and climbed out through the kitchen window with a last wave of the palm leaves. This was now his life: to sit here before an open book while black ants crawled their predatory letters across the page and tulips and carnations performed a slow dance in time with the sun’s rotation. Tropical fruit sulked in a basket on the table. The great wheel of the sun had risen over the rooftops and sparrows hopped, dogs barked, and the sánate dragged once more the long thin knife of his tinker’s cry across the sharpener’s grindstone as a rooster crowed his thick rich morning cocoa rico.
… the breakfast orange lies racked on the plate … juices flow like blood … a blood orange … rising like the sun from night’s mist … and now the orange … lifeless … a pale yellow robe spent and exhausted … fading in the sunlight … the wasted disc of a worn-out decadent moon … a lantern with its wasted light cast across a tabloid sky … a still life this orange … its life blood a sacrifice … thick rich golden liquid … as fierce and sweet as sunshine on a branch …
Tim blinked, went into the kitchen, and looked for the mescal, but it had all gone. The absence of the yellow worm’s slithering crunch beneath his teeth was the ultimate sacrifice. He stood in the doorway, shivered in the sunshine, and mourned one more among his many losses.
Your words paint a vivid picture, Roger. It is a sensory feast.
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I may well remove this page. It doesn’t take the story forward. Nice imagery and describes the place, but without affecting the action. It may have to go … I’ll keep it for somewhere else … the images won’t be lost!
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I love your ‘sensory feast’ … thank you … maybe I’ll keep it, then, and let the senses feast on it … I’m in two minds now … I’ll think about it …
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Lol…It was that for me.
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Methinks Tim is better off without the mescal today. He’s already having plenty of visions without it!
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Easy to get on, hard to get off, and very addictive. When the visions are better than real life, we get the old man in the road … Tim could be going that way … who knows?
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Oh wow! Premonition! I did not pick up on that. Hmmmmm……
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I am thinking of dropping this piece: it adds nothing to the story and doesn’t drive it forward. I may well be better off without it. Only the last paragraph really matters. I love the imagery, but it can be used elsewhere on another occasion.
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You may be right. It is a pretty piece of writing, though. Don’t drop it completely!
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A pause in the narrative, perhaps … it’s not that long and adds some background … I remember those little gusts of wind coming in and out of the window and ruffling my hair on the way through …
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Surely! That is a nice memory. The little sparrows, too. 🙂
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They were amazing. I left the door open one cold morning in December to let the sun in and there were about twenty of them inside the apartment with half a dozen on the table sharing breakfast with me. You are never alone with a flock of sparrows. I was down there on my own that year … very lonesome … except for my pecking friends.
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Aw, how great is that? Cute little companions!
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