Happy Little Bunny

He popped his head out of the burrow, thought Christ, there must be something wrong with me -- I have all the carrots to eat I could want and I have sex on tap, so why aren't I happy? Perhaps it is just that it's March and I'm suffering some of the madness the hare seems blighted by. I'll go out for a run, that usually makes me feel a bit better.The grass was green and the sky, though not a hot blue, was pleasant enough. He ran and he ran and he ran. Ah, he thought, I feel a lot better now. Let's go exploring.He ran through new fields he'd never seen before. He thought poetry into the clouds. He was happy. Yes, he was happy.He didn't see or hear the car until it knocked him sideways. Ah, he thought, lying by the side of the road, that's what was wrong with me -- a sense of impending doom.

Wolves

They had travelled as shadows for an age now, arriving in the form of wolves after a brief dream that birthed a pack mentality in them. The prey had at first been a teacher that they were after. The teacher, a fellow shadow, a jackdaw if Black Dog remembered correctly, that had rolled in the snow of amnesia and turned magpie: he had stolen their key and fled. What use was the key to a bird? He asked that of Umbral, his companion, but got no answer. And now they had learned their lesson: he was no jackdaw, but a man in disguise. The man had happened across a white hart as he slept and had stolen the dream from his flickering eye -- wearing that reflection he had appeared to the two brothers and seduced them with his tales. They should have known that it was not promise but lies that flickered in his eyes. Stood here under this burning sky, their ragged charcoal forms the shape they would be cursed to wear ever after, they watched as that wily bird-turned-man lifted into the sky in his hot air balloon. If they had the key in their possession they would have been able to shrug wings up from their shoulders. But they just had to stand and watch.

Man Sitting 2

Propped up by shadow, a source of primary colour, wearing shades to adjust the brightness of the whole scene. Earth met sky and water and collaborated on an idea which he shared in. It was Sunday and, having left the God Complex behind with the rest of the big smoke, he had come here to rest and survey the scene. He'd dreamt this place into being a while back and had forgotten about it. he coughed out the last vestiges of the car fumes his hours were wreathed in. Pulled the deep stabbing splinters of the subway from his mind where they lay coiled like vipers. He began to purge himself. The air tasted great out here. The sweet aroma of the grass. The sharp cut glass scent of fresh water (really fresh, not that recycled city imitation). He let the air blow through his head and scatter the gridlocked thoughts which clogged there. Let the cool water sooth his eyes and heal the sting neon had inflicted. Let the ground's solidity root him to something he could never kneel down and touch in a place covered by concrete. A hammer to the convex mirror of crippled urban retina. Align the chakras. Touch the Dragon Lines. Pluck the leylines. Dream the dreaming and sing the songlines. Spirit singing in tune with the quiet. There's an unknown frequency here. Ah, becoming attuned. Awakening.

Man Sitting 1

It was ironic that he had been planning a fishing trip for ages and here he was without any fishing gear at all. One blink and he was hundreds of miles away from that desk where he had been falling asleep while trying to type. He was a typist, not a writer: that's what capote would have said of him. And here he was at the perfect fishing spot without anything to fish with. Perhaps he could reach into the water with his hand aiming just in front of the reflection of the fish as he had seen them do on a documentary once, but then he thought that the water looked too cold. Those fish did look smug though, sat there staring back at him. Should he take up the challenge? No, he'd appreciate the landscape and forget about the fishing. His wife said to him that fishing did to a stretch of water what golf did to a good walk -- it spoiled it. What did she know though? He thought if he caught her now he'd throw her back in the water. He blinked again in rapid succession and sky, grass, water -- all peeled away, and he was back at his desk.

Watch Out

She glanced over her shoulder, shivering as she felt the past night's events freeze into place. She wouldn't be able to look backwards anymore because her gaze, piercing as it had become, would shatter that delicate icy reflection of the present moment. She cradled the gun, unsure of the object in a way she had not been before she had fired it: then it had had a function; now, what was it for? It's usefulness, like the bullet buried in Connor's chest, had been discharged. Could she pass it off as a crime of passion? unlikely, for most people who knew her would never use that word to describe her. The car would take her away from here and she wished some of its hue would flow into the sky and dispel the accusing red that gathered like blood in the clouds. The world knew what she had done and was turning away from her. She knew what her story would be -- a femme fatale who had engineered the whole sordid mess when she got greedy for the money her man was keeping from her. Yes, she had thought he was stiffing her ... and yes, she had intended to have it out with him. But he pulled a gun first. Self defence wouldn't fly though, so she would have to. Swiftly away she would go, but migrating for colder climes instead, where the heat would not be on her.

The Corridor

A life spent in corridors hadn't prepared her for the sensation she got when she came across the mural. It froze her in her tracks, feeling momentarily like Alice faced with a looking glass that was a bit behind with its presentation of reflections. Who was the owner of the image? This painting, located between the two galleries that the main exhibition was situated in, had touched her more than any of the post-modern posturing she had witnessed. There was a lyrical simplicity in its framing -- it was anchored to the real world: it had a presence in her world. And for a moment ... just for a moment, she wondered whether she might leave this place and walk into some mirror reality where life was artful and not mundane like hers seemed to be at the moment. But no, she had to return to the gallery - that cul-de-sac of thought where no one created, but only found their art. So she would leave the corridor - truly, she thought, her habitat - and she would leave behind this transitional place and go to a place of terminus, where process ended. She would leave behind that figure fossilised in paint who whispered truths to her that the people in the gallery would forever be deaf to.

Minimalist Heart

He'd removed himself from the room because he knew that he upset the balance that existed therein. When he had asked the architect to design it he had not thought about what effect his presence would have upon the harmony of the design. It was so perfect that he wept, and he knew that his weeping was ugly and, like him, did not fit with the furniture and the tasteful pictures. So he excised himself. He only ever watched the room now: observed its sealed-unit habitat through the intrusive presence of the hidden cameras. He was like a spy in the Forbidden City and he felt ashamed every time he let his temptaion rule him. The clean lines and elegant use of space needed no messy thing like him there. No, he watched, but did not enter. He tried not to breathe to much. Dust settled over him as he remained still.

A Certain Kind Of Man

I'm learning myself - it's an important lesson; and this mirror is a damned good teacher. I've been creating myself for a long time - a slow accrual of items like bytes building up to make a whole mouthful of data. They will look at me like I am looking at me and, if they see me framed by the mirror, wise eye that it is, they will understand ... for there is always a truth in reflection denied to those suffering themselvs ever to the caging iinfluence of a first glance.

Photographic Memory

Caught in an act of balance as I always seemed to be in photographs - balanced between what I was and what I was becoming, between how I felt and how I knew I'd look. It's not as if I ever forged a smile though -- more like the person taking the photo was drawing it out of me like I see myself here drawing the water. I was so young and, though I thought getting water up was difficult back then, it's so much harder now -- like drawing forth memory from a dried up head. Good thing I've got these photographs. Good job the album remembers - I remember the quality of that act but this crystallises it for me; gives me an anchor ... makes it real. I can taste that water again.

Night Mare Ride

She was head-deep in the paint, pearly globs of cadmium white cloying at the back of her mouth and clogging her already full throat with information. The horse she'd dragged up out of the metaphor tide this visual gateway had offered was hard to handle - a fiesty mare, nightmare. This was the only way to travel though. Paint dripping off her body, through her head, and bang -- she was out travelling through the universal medium of thought towards an idea - the painting left behind. the painting was a fossilised moment, a map of event, her skin shed so the world would know where she had gone and where she had been.