My grandfather called me in the afternoon when it first began, Varstu nokkuð hrædd? Were you afraid? Ha? Ó, nei nei… Huh? Oh, no… A magma chamber on the move has been detected between the mountains Keilir and Fagradalsfjall, causing tremors all throughout the region. Though mostly the seismic activity is hovering over the shoulder
Author: Vala Schriefer
Monet’s Summer
I stand before a summer day. Softer, warmer, brighter than the day I’m in. Monet’s vertical canvas, the object of my looking, dissolves, and I am left in space itself. Nature can be this for the mind, a tabula rasa. Hm… I’m not frightened by the vastness, the entrance is not a jolt or a
Memories on the Train
On the train I move at birdish speeds. I see buildings blur into living embers, points stretched into foreign conversation and foreign frames and the infinity of presence upon my sight. And the train too is looking, spawns a second set of eyes, mirrors me in its glass. My doppelgänger in the window glides in
I Imagine my House on Fire on New Year’s Eve
The house caught fire some time right before midnight, not officially celebratory, in or out of the city. The grass by the barn lit like matches, the light travelling down the brown strands now glowing gold, ending the fiery phrase with a black period.
Windows
A window is a frame for seeing beyond the container of one’s physical and immediate space. It is a peephole that propels the gaze outward. Through it, without really moving, you can confront the same two trees, always there and ever-changing, appreciate the paces of birds and bicycles, recognize time in warmth and photons. The window is uniquely suited for daydreaming as it literally displays another place you could be, without requiring the action that would allow for a physical transference, as a door does…
A Basic Field Guide to the Hooded Crow
Recently I’ve taken an interest in some of my neighbors in Pankow, the flying sort. It’s a relationship of some distance, me on my balcony, them in the clouds… so I decided to document them in drawing to make up for the space.
New Silences: Writing for Coronavirus
And indeed, I have noticed a biological metamorphosis; change my class to Reptilia, my superorder to Lepidosauria and so forth because washing has made my hands so damn dry. You become a reptile and the numbers start sounding reasonable and holy and something to worship. By the next day they mean nothing and we praise anew.