pink light
LUCIEN SPECT
I don’t think I could be a building by an ocean,” she says, standing four-legged, planked, crablike at the top of the waves, “which is everywhere.”
She’s trying to understand why all of these big buildings on the beach have been built the way they are, whether their build makes any sense. “There is no way to know except, perhaps, to see what the buildings see, feel what the buildings feel, endure while the buildings endure.” So she sets out to experience life as a building.
It feels all wrong in her body. There are some differences which will need to be minimized: she is much softer than the buildings, much more made of water, smaller; she is desperately listening to the waves, sometimes she wonders aloud. The buildings have people like her coming in and out of them, people like her hammering at them, people suspended from scaffolding without questioning its integrity. She will need to become strong and hard, made reliable by experts with lots of different tools, somewhat empty; she is already permeable; night is beginning and for the first night of this her trial she notices the darkness.
Darkness has its place now: outside. Inside the buildings light up. Julie does not know how to light up and decides that tonight is not the night to try, though she does have some ideas about what might make a light in her. For now, Julie sticks to just being glared at by the darkness, trying to feel the emptiness inside of her; the darkness comes slowly and without definition, murmuring gradated pixels. Sharks linger in shallow water. There are fish. The dark is very powerful—it seems that the buildings have forgotten. Tonight, unlit Julie clings to the darkness, bracing herself with its hint of structure. She and the darkness begin to have an exchange like one happening between two sullen bodies sitting on a couch. And maybe she is distracted by the wind or the water or the light, but inside of this exchange Julie falls asleep on that couch—and smoothly, without a goodbye whisper to the buildings, who are waiting to extinguish their lights—does the darkness slip out.
She’s trying to understand why all of these big buildings on the beach have been built the way they are, whether their build makes any sense. “There is no way to know except, perhaps, to see what the buildings see, feel what the buildings feel, endure while the buildings endure.” So she sets out to experience life as a building.
It feels all wrong in her body. There are some differences which will need to be minimized: she is much softer than the buildings, much more made of water, smaller; she is desperately listening to the waves, sometimes she wonders aloud. The buildings have people like her coming in and out of them, people like her hammering at them, people suspended from scaffolding without questioning its integrity. She will need to become strong and hard, made reliable by experts with lots of different tools, somewhat empty; she is already permeable; night is beginning and for the first night of this her trial she notices the darkness.
Darkness has its place now: outside. Inside the buildings light up. Julie does not know how to light up and decides that tonight is not the night to try, though she does have some ideas about what might make a light in her. For now, Julie sticks to just being glared at by the darkness, trying to feel the emptiness inside of her; the darkness comes slowly and without definition, murmuring gradated pixels. Sharks linger in shallow water. There are fish. The dark is very powerful—it seems that the buildings have forgotten. Tonight, unlit Julie clings to the darkness, bracing herself with its hint of structure. She and the darkness begin to have an exchange like one happening between two sullen bodies sitting on a couch. And maybe she is distracted by the wind or the water or the light, but inside of this exchange Julie falls asleep on that couch—and smoothly, without a goodbye whisper to the buildings, who are waiting to extinguish their lights—does the darkness slip out.
Lucien Spect writes under large shadows.
|
THE AUTHOR ON MUSCLE MEMORY
I worry about buildings by the ocean. A long day at the beach wears me out. So what about these buildings by the ocean that just have to stand there, day in and day out, being worn and torn by the sun and the salty breeze? What kind of muscles have they grown? When will they give out? In this story, Julie uses adoptive muscle memory to glean insight into the ontology of these tough creatures. & ON WHAT IT MEANS TO BE KALEIDOSCOPED to be fractured and still shine |