"The lava separated with each of its steps, sizzling and retreating at the disruption like water dropped suddenly into hot grease. I didn't realize that I was seeing an ambulatory entity until it was almost fully emerged from the lake. It's energy matrix must be magnetic, I believe, to allow it to exist in this most inhospitable of environments. I was able to film about three minutes of footage of the thing until it stepped out of the lava. Its proximity quickly melted my remote camera.
We saw it shortly after as it flew out of the crater heading west. It left a glowing heat trail, burning the very air with its passing. I feel ashamed at my naivete for not realizing the danger. We were so amazed at the entity's mere existence that we did not contact the local authorities immediately. Later we were shown photos of the small town where it first made contact.
There was a photo of a man trying to shield himself. He was knelt before the remains of what looked to be a house. His skin from his arms and face hung in loose strands where it had liquefied. The rest of him was charred and burnt like a log left over after a fire. He had one eye that was not destroyed. It had swollen to fill the socket it resided in and was an opaque pale blue. The other eye had melted away with the skin of his face.
I do not sleep well any longer. If I close my eyes, the man comes to show me the small flame still burning inside his head."
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from Am Kha Astrie
{Digital Images manipulated in Adobe Photoshop}
4 comments:
Chilling description. That last paragraph reminds me of the metaphors and symbolism in a lot of my own dreams and nightmares. As I've said before, you really have a talent for short fiction.
Thanks. I try to translate my own fears and nightmares into useful story elements. I really lucked up with the dream elements in this piece. The story was kind of floundering until that last bit with the dream corpse showed up. I also attribute the symbolism to my love of Mike Mignola's artwork. If you haven't read Hellboy, it is a delicious dark treat.
I'm grateful that I don't have as many nightmares as I used to. I used to have terrible ones involving zombies, tornadoes, aliens form the movie Aliens, and Michale Myers from the movie Halloween. On that subconscious and slightly syncronistic note: my next set of scans for From the Archives included a sketch very similar to the dream corpse in this piece. Weird.
my next set of scans for From the Archives included a sketch very similar to the dream corpse in this piece. Weird.
I know it may seem weird on the surface but speaking from experience with this sort of exploration of one's artistic past and current self, this sort of thing happens pretty regularly.
The second paragraph of your Burning Dead post gave me some serious déjà vu with regards to the thoughts and experiences I've gone through with my own art blogging. It feels a little freaky at first but when you realize that it's all you (conscious and subconscious) it makes a lot of sense that pieces fall into place like that.
Cool and thanks as always Vincent! I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at the syncronicities when this whole experience is focused on closing the loop so that none of my artistic thoughts get lost. I guess I'm just not used to sneaking up on myself like that. :-)
As to the melting / burning self:
When it comes to themes running through my work, I usually don't recognize them until a year later or longer. However, the number of pieces I've put out in the past two years is the most work I've done in that amount of a time since maybe high school or college. Maybe it's just that the whole rotation has gotten shorter...I dunno.
It is nice to kind of be on the same page with my subconscious for once...or maybe more a case of me getting out of my way. Once again, I dunno.
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