Rita's Bench_Tracks_The Wasteland_Finger Painting
Catalog Guide:
Rita's Bench
We stepped into the bright sunshine of an early September afternoon. My daughter was just given a clean bill of health at her thirty-six month doctor’s check-up and the sting of her COVID shot was tempered by three stickers of cartoon heroes. As we walked along the concrete sidewalk she chatted away incessantly abowww.onedoor.ccut the needle and the “doctor not listen me”. I was about to engage her in conversation when my eye was drawn to a granite memorial bench with the name Rita Bagley 1965-2020, and it struck me that I knew a girl named Rita Bagley when I was growing up and the dates would be right. She...
Tracks
“Come in! What are you doing out there. No one ever comes up here. This place is miles from anywhere. That is why I come here. I can be alone. No one around, can hear yourself breathe, think, scream if need be. I don’t get visitors. Few if any know this place is here. How did you find it?” If it hadn’t been for the car stalling, and in my haste to be someplace, anyplace, but where I was, this place would have remained his exclusive secret. And yet my arrogance brought me to his door step. I’ve always believed it possible to accomplish anything if you simply believed. His words came like prayer...
The Wasteland
I shuffle the grains of sand between my fingers, willing something, anything, to be contained in the particles. When the grains finish falling, leaving my fingers empty of anything useful I force myself not to scream.It’s okay. I have to remind myself. You’ve gone much longer without the Chips.Reginald Thomas Wentworth II (we don’t talk about what happened to Reginald Thomas Wentworth I) seems to think the same, for he lifts one scaled hand up to rest on my knee, cocking his head to the side, staring up at me with his wide violet eyes. “I know, bud.” I give his scaled head a little pat, the ...
Finger Painting
*Story contains references to self harm. The velvet curtains swing open heavily. I stand on a pedestal of light, alone in a sea of dark. I look out, searching for faces that may or may not be there. Someone coughs; someone always coughs. The sound echoes through the silence. I breathe deeply, chest fluttering, stomach flopping. It could be nerves, but I tell myself it is excitement. This is where I am meant to be. Centre stage. “What will you do for us?” the voice slides through the darkness.I take a step forward, swallowing the ball of nervous excitement trying to force its way up my throat.“...