Andrewdevenney.com

“The Cube. Can you still . . . feel it?” His tone was deliberate, his voice rhythmic. Arta’s mind focused on the word feel, twisting and bending around it like a snake. Could she still feel it? Her breathing was quick but raspy, the way the old woman in the next cottage sounded after walking to the well on a hot summer’s day. Her skin glistened with a sheen of sweat; every hair on her body tingled as if alive. The air in the room moved in patterns, swirling around her, dancing across her skin, electrifying the air with its motion. She could see it. She could hear it! Her gaze floated across the room riding currents of air like a bird in flight, and her breath quickened again. The smashed shards of the clay cube lay on the floor against the far wall, the edges of each piece roughly grooved. Her body trembled. It rode up and down along every ridge, through every groove, along the smooth outer surface of every broken piece. She could almost taste the metallic bitterness of the glaze, and it unnerved her. She could see a pattern in her mind, an interconnected latticework that blazed before her eyes like a written sigil. Every broken piece was in the latticework; every broken piece was the latticework. It was almost throbbing with electricity.

“Arta? Did you hear me? Is the cube still . . . there?” Again, his voice was deliberate, but also touched with a sense of urgency. It was almost as if he was getting excited . . . or anxious.

Arta shook visibly, her body completely enveloped in a whirling cocoon of sensation, of energy twirling around her, a mosaic of motion and color, ecstasy. “Yes, I can feel it,” she said, a slight quiver in her voice.

“Is it one or is it many?”

Arta hesitated a moment as the sensations overwhelmed her. “It is one and it is many,” she said suddenly, certainty dripping from the words as they hung in the air.

The old Tageshiar nodded thoughtfully, rubbing his chin as he did. He stole a quick glance toward Arta’s parents, but then returned to her, leaning in close as he did. He spoke again, this time more softly, more tender almost. His words caressed Arta like strong hands, slowly bringing a sense of calm to the tumult she felt. She heard the echo in her mind like a chant.

“Rebuild it, Arta. Many are one and the one is true. Make it true.”

Andrew D. Devenney
Dublin, Ireland, 2004

© Andrew D. Devenney, 2007

Just so you know what in the hell is going on for the next few weeks ...

Since I have finally finished writing my dissertation, I have a little mental brain power available for other crap. Sure, I still need to finish up French and do the defense and teach my classes and all that, but it's the thought that counts. Literally.

So, what I'm going to be putting up on the blog are a few extemporaneous writings -- what Warren Ellis would label "flash fiction" -- that are short stories or moments caught in time or short vignettes or whatever I feel like. This is mostly for myself, to get the creative juices flowing in the brain after a long period of prolonged academic wankery. But that doesn't mean you, my loyal audience of three, can't see the weird depths of my brain.

I'm not going to set any kind of requirement, such as putting up one per day or something like that, because I would never keep to it. Let's just go where the day takes me.

Of course, to go totally against the spirit of the exercise, the first one to go up will be something I wrote in 2004. At least this gives you some idea of what I'm thinking about doing.

Mes amis,

It seems there will be a slight delay in the scheduling of my dissertation defense. Instead of the end of January, it is now scheduled for Monday, February 12, 2007 at 3:30 in Powers 121. No need to go into the reasons for this except to say it has nothing to do with me or my work ... it's just a scheduling issue for the committee members.

Que sera, sera, I say.

Jawohl!! As of last Thursday evening, I have completed the principle draft of my final dissertation chapter!! I be done, fool! Just some piddling intro and conclusion and it's off to the races toward my defense!

Amazingly, I'm now always in a much better mood. Strange.