Creative Non-Fiction
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The Innocents by Claire Duquennois
Claire Duquennois
ìParis sera encore longtemps un mÈlange bizarre de la magnificence la plus recherchÈe, et de la barbarie la plus dÈgoutanteî ~Voltaire
The entrance is hard to find. In a city littered with grandiose monuments the small glass door protected by green grate went unnoticed. Distracted by the bustling intersection, we mistook it for a maintenance kiosk. We were standing directly on the red dot of our map. All the street signs pointed straight at us. Maybe it was the ìmonumentî icons that misguided us. The stylized roman arch on the signs suggested something grand, ancient. Our eyes scanned for historic significance but in a city whose every building smells of centuries the kiosk behind us went unnoticed. I suppose that eventually we asked a vendor who pointed to the small grated door.
Paris is typically a gray city. Maybe the gray beyond their windows forced color into its citizenís minds. Winter days succeed each other adding new shades of gray to the color pallet. Snow falls on occasion flecking surfaces with white. Rarely does it last longer than an instant, a blink of an eye before it becomes one with the pavement...(more)
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Transitions by Colin Constantine
Colin Constantine
How does one describe the way light fades into a shadow? The way the air breathes differently without any warning or sympathy? How does one exist surrounded by such intricacies, but pays no attention to them? It is wonderful that when everything around us seems to disappear, we finally realize ourselves.
I used to live in a townhouse in an industrious city. Every morning I would wake up, prefaced by the soft glow of the sunís inevitable light peaking through thin curtains. My love, Julie, would make coffee for me as she slipped out early for work. While tying a loose knot around an oversized silk robe, I felt the comfort that one feels when everything is okay. The telephone was not about to ring, the neighbors werenít bickering yet, and the city gave way to a slow rise, like the sun, easing everyone into another day of existence.Along with a typical daily routine, I made sure to educate myself about the world that would soon engulf every ounce of energy I could produce. Our newspaper was always delivered by some phantom in the night, lurking in the shadows of the early morning hours, maintaining a balance between the sun and the stars, and being guided only by the moon. He held the greatest gift...(more)
When the red pond fills fish appear
When the red pond dries fish disappear.
Everything built on the desert crumbles to dust.
Electric cable transmission wires swept down.
The lizard people came out of the rock.
The red Kangaroo people forgot their own song.
Only a man with four sticks can cross the Simpson Desert.
One rain turns red dust green with leaves.
One raindrop begins the universe.
When the raindrop dries, worlds come to their end.
- Allen Ginsberg
The Barrier Highway is the longest straightest stretch of road in the world. That’s what I was told. It’s a line across the continent, from the east side of Australia to the west. The landscape it cuts through is barren in a way that seemed alien. There was nothing, just a strip of asphalt painted on the red dirt of the outback. Scrubby trees dotting the horizon. They danced and melted in the heat, down off the edge of the earth. We had an old station wagon, bought off some broken down lot outside Sydney.
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