{"id":2579,"date":"2021-01-18T01:22:27","date_gmt":"2021-01-18T01:22:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/?p=2579"},"modified":"2021-01-18T01:22:27","modified_gmt":"2021-01-18T01:22:27","slug":"fiction-from-a-picture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/18\/fiction-from-a-picture\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiction from a picture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

She led me into the darkened room, the light from even the unusually bright candle insufficient to chase the shadows from the corners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The candle sat on a small writing desk along with a stack of blank pages, their edges carefully aligned, and an ornate pen at the ready.\u00a0 To the side, a metal bowl and stone pestle lay.\u00a0 And opposite these items, a small bottle made of dark glass\u00a0 – its mouth filled with a metal funnel and its cork nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She gestured for me to sit and I picked up the pen as I did so. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo do I\u2026?\u201d I began and she cut me off with a stern command  – as one used to commanding and being obeyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWrite.  All of them,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll of\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll of your lies.  Every one of them,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t\u2026\u201d I began, but almost unbidden the pen leaped to the page, pulling my hand with it.  Or so it seemed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The words on the page, scratched out by my suddenly feaverish hand, told every falsehood I had ever uttered or whispered to my own secret heart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sated stomach and the greedy \u201cI\u2019m hungry\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Misplaced blame and the lie to reinforce it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plausible denial on my taxes. Slurred words behind the wheel. An accident – on purpose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A page filled and set aside.  Then\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI love you (you bore me)\u201d  \u201cI hate you (I need you),\u201d  \u201cI missed you (leave me alone),\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s been too long (not long enough),\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pen now a blur as the lies poured from me, transcribed to the page and then another and then a mantra appeared\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m fine I\u2019m fine I\u2019m okay I\u2019m fine I\u2019m okay I\u2019m okay okay okay fine fine finefine finefinefine I\u2019M OKAY I\u2019M FINE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Line after line until my hand cramped and the nib of the pen dug into the paper, tearing through the sheet to the desk below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEnough, \u201c she said and I pried the pen from my hand and dropped it to the desk.  It rolled to the base of the candle, then stopped. I held my breath a moment as she leaned over and collected the pages, tapping them gently against the wood to re-align the edges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a practiced hand, she rolled them into a thin, hollow cylinder – then handed them back to me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLight them, \u201c she said, \u201cAnd then hold them over the bowl for as long as you are able,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hesitated.  I felt no release or relief yet.  Was something supposed to happen or would it only be when the pages were consumed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My hand shaking, I held the edge of the pages to the flame until they caught, then held the now burning paper over the bowl as ash began to drift down.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tilted my hand this way and that to keep the fire going, wary as the flames got closer and closer to my skin..\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a gasp, I dropped the pages and shook my fingers – drawing them to my lips to suck away the sudden pain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I heard a \u201ctsk\u201d of disappointment from her, as though I should let myself be burned, then we both watched as the fire consumed the rest of the paper and only ashes remained in the bowl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She picked up the pestle and went to work on the clumps of ash, grinding them into the bowl until they were nearly dust.   With a practiced hand and the aid of the funnel, she transferred this powder into the bowl – and knocked the last of the cooling ash loose with a final tap.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funnel put aside, she corked the bottle and set it in front of me – then stood with hands clasped behind her back, her body language nearly shouting that she was done with me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I looked at the bottle, then at her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo I carry this with me?\u201d I asked and she gave the slightest of shrugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou always have, \u201c she answered, \u201cAnd you always will,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that, she turned and stepped into the shadows of the room, leaving me with the ashes of my lies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I paused for a moment, but only a moment, then picked the bottle and stood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And stepped into my own shadows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She led me into the darkened room, the light from even the unusually bright candle insufficient to chase the shadows from the corners. The candle sat on a small writing desk along with a stack of blank pages, their edges carefully aligned, and an ornate pen at the ready.\u00a0 To the side, a metal bowl […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2579"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2582,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2579\/revisions\/2582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}