A giant, shiny, metallic hare glints in the soft light as he walks toward the graduate. What the, what the, what the, what the, what
the, what the...?
A silhouette against a dark background, a dream from childhood, from the earliest moments of his being, the very moment of his existence - the midwife, the hare, the dark forest at midnight... The midwife dancing with the hare in a copse in the moonlight, the slabbering, yellow-eyed wolf watching from the shadows
.
The hare, his name is Benny-Rae. God knows how he knew, but anything here can happen today. The hare half-turns, waves, and he watches as he approaches. He is standing on the side of a hill, the wind gently blowing on his face.
He can now make out the great hare's aerodynamic head, his beautifully proportioned skull and his sleek frame...dark...dark...malevolent eyes and long carefully designed ears pointing skyward. Skyward pointing ears.
Suddenly Benny-Rae is standing beside him on an architecturally perfect bridge spanning the sprawling metropolis far below them, the existential illusion. The city - Megasurpa St Lagamorph - is gargantuan and sprawling, dark and brooding, like a forest at midnight. He can feel the wind on his face, gently pushing back his dark hair. The rising breeze playing softly on Benny-Rae's ears - twinkling light from the moon and stars dancing along his gently vibrating whiskers.
Together, in unison, they are turning and looking upward. Staring, enchanted, at the mocking cosmos folding around them and above them and wondering what it is that they can see out there, life, the essence of existence, the whirring of the universe as it goes about its business, the wire mesh of a rabbit's - or in this case - giant hare's hutch, a darkened garden beyond them situated at the bottom of a tower block, in the middle of a city?
The music stops after two minutes fifty seven seconds...
Maybe the last star in the kosmos is a forgery after all, a fake brand, a phony designer label, but then who cares?
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8 comments:
Ooh, love this.
And, of course, Benny-Rae. >sniff<
Axasha.
"..dark and brooding, like a forest at midnight.."
Yes! Yes! You DO understand!
Forests are evil!
Axasha.
Soz ran out of credit! Forests are our minds and a metaphor for the dark world we live in?
Sergei,
I know you’ve reworked this and…WOW!
I’m just a sucker for this kind of imagery. It’s a metaphor for the mind you say? Magico-realistic to be sure. Benny-Rae – sleek and industrial - hops through a Collinsesque (? – just my reading of it) archetypal landscape, his silky fur ruffled by a primal wind, his baleful stare opaque in the moonlight - and the silence, it’s so otherworldly. Yes, what I hear is the praeternatural silence…
Don’t know why (maybe it’s the midwifery reference?) but I keep thinking of a scene from Bertolucci’s, “Little Buddha”. Not a great film by any stretch (I confess to rather liking Keanu Reeves’ Siddhartha though. Hubba! Hubba!) but the mythico-realistic flashback scenes are nicely done – beautiful cinematography effortlessly combining verisimilitude and stylisation, colour symbolism, etc.,…but I digress.
Anywho, the Lord Buddha’s mum goes into the FOREST (Uh-huh, yeah? See?) to give birth to him and the trees bow down their branches for her to lean on during labour. It’s lovely. Pared down storytelling, with only the narrator, a subdued sitar soundtrack, and the faint sounds of the woman’s (universal?) moans. What I hear is the silence. Again, I would call it praeternatural.
Check out this link for one of my favs, William Degouve de Nuncques:
http://cgfa.sunsite.dk/n/n-7.htm#nuncques
He frequently paints “metaphors for the mind” I suppose you could call them - memories, childhood dreams, that type of thing. Trees (Yeah? Again?) feature frequently in his work and usually scenes are lit by an eerie moonlight.
I love these odd pastels. “Angels of the Night”, “Nocturne..Brussels”, “Peacocks” and especially, “The Shuttered (or Pink) House”, really speak to me.
“His art, which bears the influence of poetry, transfigures reality in the sense that it affords a view of the invisible.” The Grove Dictionary of Art / http://www.artnet.com/library/02/0218/T021832.asp
Now pay attention, drum roll please – I’m giving up something deep and meaningful and personal here. “The Shuttered House” had a BIG impact on me as a teenager.
There. I said it.
I’m not going to analyse the work – just take a look at it.
D’you HEAR the silence too?
Axasha.
Just...'Wow' thanks for the links. You never cease to amaze me!
I think we are all basically and strangely primal. Human beings are , mostly, glib kneejerkers who tend to ract before they think. The Shuttered House eh? Mmmmmmmm?
Have to go to work, will comment later.
Was just kidding about forests being evil. I’m referring back to an earlier post when I confessed that forests unnerve me – they REALLY do! - and you called me a big girl. Remember? :P
Axasha.
The Shuttered House when you were a teenager? Deep and meaningful? Okay I shall have to return and have a look at this again and see what I can find, some deconstructionalism called for here? Do you mean we might actually be looking straight at Axasha's psyche - frightening thought?
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