guackadolf

A good book fits into your palm. It is yellowed with oil and age. The spine is bent so much that you can hardly read the title. There are food stains on the corners and when you hold it, it falls open to your favorite page. The edges of the pages are fanned out from the thousands of times you've thumbed through it, and it smells of the dust it has collected sitting on your bedside table, waiting patiently for you to take it up again. You can pick it up at any time and be instantly immersed in the story again. You've read it so many times you can quote the entire things backwards and you still love it. Each page has character. A streak of blo

A well-worn street stretched from my toes. I'd been walking this road for a long time, my eyes on my feet, watching only where I stepped. Here though, I paused. The way was old, worn and dusty with the passage of many others before me. I was alone, but somehow I sensed others moving about me. Their passage disturbed the air around me as they walked, intent on their feet. Others too, the spirits of the road perhaps, watching us from a blazing blue sky as we fumbled our single minded way, blindfolded, along our destiny. I gazed about me. Open plains of wild flowers stretched far, broken only by the warm road. Mountains pushed their jagged peaks

In a studio upstairs, 20 students with different stories and different lives lay in a forest. A chipmunk chattered from across the way, running along a branch and scattering needles onto the floor below. Rain dripped soothingly somewhere far away, spattering on the leaves that shaded the undergrowth and dripping occasionally onto the unsuspecting heads of the rest. A wolf howled amid chattering birds and whistling wind. A fire crackled, throwing light across the students' closed eyelids. A crow cawed rhythmically among the swirling sounds of the forest that settled upon the listeners' ears. The long moan of a bear stirred from slumber echoed

The forest whispered in the breeze. Leaves fluttered with the passing wind, and branches creaked and groaned with the heaviness of the twigs. The forest life retreated to their homes as the great bird flew overhead. Her watchful yellow eyes were pointed straight ahead in their black, feathery embrace, watching the horizon. A deep cold permeated the farthest reaches of the forest. Frost settled on the ground and the sap beneath the bark of the trees froze solid with cracks and groans. The animals shivered as the great black bird soared over-head, every beat of her wings sending fresh waves of freezing air to wash through the forest. The leaves

Walking along a busy street, arms slung over the shoulders of those I was with, not for support, but simply to feel connected. Out of the mist came a familiar face. Older, the childish roundness and easy smile replaced with set lips and hollow cheeks. His eyes flickered as he saw me, gliding over the feminine shirt, the high heels. I did the same, taking in the combed hair, the shirt, the tie. The boy I knew was spattered in mud, his tangled hair like a halo about his gleaming face. My hand twitched briefly, a leftover impulse from long ago. He smiled, and nodded. By the street, two strangers passed, shoulders touching briefly as they walked

We are writers. Our fingers flash across keyboards with grace that would break a dancer's heart. We fill notebooks in the blink of an eye, recording everything, thinking more. The ball in the tip of my pen rolls fitfully across the page. It leaves behind a trail as green as the envy of poetry. We are actors. We don't know why, or where it came from. We are merely on, at all times. We enjoy that feeling of the stage. We love it, those of us that give our selves to the arts, who sacrifice on the altars of mirth and tragedy. We love it for its own sake.