Tag: perception

A Short Bloom

~ Richard Schulte ~ 7 Comments

The old man was puzzled by so many selfies.

“Why? Because people want to see themselves in Heaven,” explained the gardener. He held a rake loosely in one hand. The park was crowded.

“That is why eyes look into cameras, into lenses. For one moment in spring the cherry blossoms bloom, so everybody smiles, frames their own face.

“They would like to appear in Heaven. But few understand the nature of what they see.

“Blossoms soon fall. Blooms are crushed under feet.

“With a button every person will make a painting of Heaven. Perfect white and pink clouds, angel faces, snowflakes fluttering in this unending wind.

“But snow melts into the thirsty Earth. Delicate blossoms are tread to dust by a thousand searching feet. All things return to the Earth. This good Earth.

“Paintings are put into vaults. And we become old.”

How to Paint Angels

~ Richard Schulte ~ 2 Comments

Another angel, not quite perfect. Carol snatched the canvas off the easel and balled it up hard. She flung her creation into the fireplace and watched the devouring flames turn wings black.

Like a dead weight Carol sank to the carpet, then lay on her back and shut her eyes. She tried to shut out the world.

That evening, after some television news and a bite to eat, she was compelled to place a new white canvas onto the empty easel. She stared at the blank space. She dipped her delicate brush into silver.

As usual she began with the angel wings. Her strokes were precise, slow.

The most difficult part was always the eyes. They never came out right. Angel eyes were a puzzle. She would do them last.

A knock at the door.

“Come in!”

It was her new friend Monique. “I’m sorry–I didn’t know you were busy–here’s the jacket you left in Tony’s car. I’ll leave you here to your work.”

“No! Please stay for a minute! The apartment can feel so empty. It’s nice to have some company for a change.”

“What’s this? You painted all these?”

Carol laughed. “It’s my hobby, I guess.”

“Seriously? It beats making tin foil Christmas tree ornaments, or any silly thing I’ve ever attempted. I didn’t know you were an artist! They’re absolutely beautiful!”

“Sometimes I wonder.”

“Wonder what–if they’re beautiful?”

“If they’re as perfect as angels should be.”

“They’re angels. How can they not be beautiful?” laughed Monique, wandering slowly about Carol’s small apartment, turning right and then left. She gazed with increasing wonder at a dozen silvery canvases on easels. There was such a clutter of angels that it was difficult to maneuver.

Monique looked quickly at each canvas. The heavenly paintings were exquisite but something about them was odd. They felt unnatural. Something vital seemed to be missing. And there were so many. She didn’t want to say anything. That would be impolite.

“You might have noticed that none of my angels have eyes,” Carol remarked, trying not to sound embarrassed. “Not yet.”

“Oh my gosh! I was just thinking there was something kind of strange about them. Now I see why! They’re absolutely wonderful but the faces are wrong. So you’re waiting to paint the eyes on all these? Are they difficult to do?”

“I always have trouble with my eyes.”

“Me, too,” smiled Monique. “That’s why I wear glasses.”

They both laughed.

. . .

Carol rolled in a nightmare. It was another lucid dream of Hell.

Blackness swallowed her. She was spinning, drowning in an infinite void, suffocating in ungraspable nothingness. There was no light, not a trace of substance or form.

A tomb.

In the blackness she struggled to find her hand. She was desperate to lift her hand and touch something, feel anything. She could find nothing. Spinning, spinning, she was alone, less than nothing in the consuming nothingness.

It was a Hell without flames, without demons or evil, without time, only emptiness. A devouring nightmare that had erased her entire world.

No hope.

Panicking, she strained in her mind to remember some known thing. A face, a ray of sunshine. Something in a vanished life she understood. Something near. Deep in her mind she tried to grasp at anything, a momentary spark, an atom, to cling to, to push back the black, ruthless, eternal Nothing.

Nothing.

In the blackness she caught a glimmer.

She woke.

Her dark apartment was strangely aglow. She lifted her head from her pillow. All about her were living eyes. Eyes of pure light, living light. Warm light.

Carol jumped out of bed and flipped on the cold apartment light.

She began painting eyes.

Dew on the Grass

~ Richard Schulte ~ 2 Comments

Missy smelled dew on the grass.

She smelled the damp earth and yesterday’s rain. The roots of trees, mouldering leaves.

She smelled freshly broken twigs, the scent of crisp, tart, yellow and brown autumn.

And a newly blue sky.

Simply by breathing, Missy understood everything.

A ten-mile-away fireplace, a nearby muddy puddle.

The rising warm sun, startled birds taking flight.

Bees, butterfly wings, the erosions of mountains, dandelion dust and the movement of time.

From beyond the horizon, just as clear as the smell of autumn, Missy sensed infinite things. An unending motion. The residue of untold lives.

She smelled happiness and loss and the atoms of those long-vanished.

She smelled the new moon and hidden stars.

A human pulled impatiently on her leash. Missy followed.

The Drawing of Leaves

~ Richard Schulte ~ Leave a comment

Kayon seldom spoke. He preferred to draw leaves with a ballpoint pen.

Sitting in Lakefront Park under an old maple tree, he drew the veins of living leaves on clean bits of paper he found in the garbage. His hand was patient; his eyes were sharp.

Looking carefully from tree to paper, tree to paper, Kayon sat quietly. First he drew the stem of a maple leaf, which was easy. Then he drew the distinctive lobes. Then he drew the veins. Hours passed and people passed, and shadows in the park gradually shortened . . . lengthened. His pen moved.  The leaves that he formed with thin lines of ink were so close to perfect they seemed to come alive on the scraps of paper.

They became more than alive.

Whenever someone walked past the place where he sat, Kayon held up one of his beautiful leaves. “For you,” he’d say.

Many of the people cautiously, greedily took the small piece of paper. As they quickly hurried to the other end of the park, they glanced at the paper, wondering about that odd, useless man. All they saw was a simple leaf. They crumpled the paper in their hand, tossed it onto the grass.

And the fallen leaves of many trees, and the crumpled drawn leaves, were gathered by the wind. They tumbled and cartwheeled into in a hidden place between the park’s bed of roses and the old brick wall. Layers of leaves, damp with rain, collected, mouldering, returning to the deep heart of the Earth.

. . .

Linda had brought the drawing of a leaf home. A magnet held it to the refrigerator.

Her young son stood gazing at the leaf. His eyes were bright and unusually wide.

“That’s really amazing.”

A Voice in the Shell

~ Richard Schulte ~ 7 Comments

One person was on the beach.

Linda walked quickly over the sand in her awkward work shoes. She breathed in the chilly morning air. Her thoughts were consumed by the busy day ahead: the meeting with an important client at nine o’clock and the many projects she had to work on because it was already Thursday. Her eyes were down on the sand, unfocused.

She noticed an unbroken shell.

She picked the shell up and instinctively held it to one ear.

“Hello?” said a voice in the shell.

Linda halted, turned about. She searched with confusion up and down the empty beach. The sun was just rising above a dark line of rooftops across Ocean Drive. A gull passed above her and the surf rumbled. Not a soul was nearby.

She looked for a moment at the small perfect shell, then held it again close to her ear.

“Hello?” whispered a voice.

“What? Who’s that?” asked Linda, whirling around.

Was somebody talking to her?

Perhaps she was confused. Calming herself, she carefully turned the sea shell over to examine it. Polished pure white, the small beautiful conch resembled porcelain. The unaccountable voice, she concluded, was just the muffled sound of the crashing ocean, an echo, an indistinct murmur of the air.

She raised the shell once more to her ear.

“Help me,” said a small voice. “I’m lost.”

“Who’s that talking?” asked Linda, listening with disbelief to her own startled words.

“Please help me,” said a voice in the shell.

“What do you mean? Who are you? I can hear you, but I can’t see you anywhere. Did you say you’re lost? Are you saying you don’t know where you are?” asked Linda.

“Please save me,” replied a voice in the shell.

“Who is this? This is crazy!”

“I’ve become lost. I’m lost,” said a voice in the shell.

“It’s okay. Maybe I can help you,” Linda said, her mind racing. “I can hear you, so you must be somewhere close.”  She looked up and down the sand again, much more carefully. “I’m standing on the beach near the intersection of Ocean Drive and 28th Street. The old lighthouse is about a mile to the south, out at the end of Lookout Point. A big ship is on the horizon.”

“I know,” whispered a voice. “I see that.”

“What?”

“I see the place where you are standing.”

“You can see me?”

“I see the wet sand under your feet. I see clouds moving past the lighthouse, casting living shadows on the golden cliffs below.”

“How do you see that? Where are you?”

“I see exactly where you stand,” said the strange voice. “I see silver sunlight on every ripple in the sand. I see the ebb and flow and surge of every wave. I see the dip and rise of every bird, the joy in unbounded air. I see the swell of Earth’s beating heart.”

Linda stood, astonished.

“I see everything,” said the voice in the shell. “But I am lost.”

“I see a lingering blush of sunrise in one vanishing cloud,” said the voice. “I see every pool and channel, the erosions of a thousand forgotten tides. I see the tug of a hidden moon, rainbows in skins of water, and unshed tears. I see beyond the horizon.”

The small voice spoke more quietly. “I see a needle of silent pelicans threading the crystal surf, the beauty of white spray rising. I see small splashes of green where blue ought to be. I see bones of driftwood, mother-of-pearl atoms, mute messages in polished stones.”

“I see everything,” whispered the voice. “I see broken flotsam, bits of time and bits of memory. I see the tiny brown crab skittering by your feet. I see the polished white shell in your fingers, a touch of wonder on your face.”

“Yes, you know exactly where I am,” Linda replied quietly.

“Will you take me with you?” asked a voice in the shell. “I don’t want to be lost.”

Linda gazed at the unbroken shell, her eyes opened wide. Until that moment she hadn’t understood its mystery.

She carefully put the small shell into her pocket. She continued slowly across the sand.