Fisher & Partlow-Myrick – November 2018
Lenett Nef’fahtiti Partlow-Myrick and Jack Fisher traded art and words. Lenett shared this untitled piece with Jack:
In response, Jack wrote this short story:
Underneath the Window
It’s gotten so that I don’t know any more if it’s a memory or a dream. Or a memory of a dream. We’re walking down the hillside. The heat hangs in the air, dripping softly off the branches overhead. I lead the way – I always lead the way. The path is well-worn, the vegetation trodden into the earth. Sometimes the palm fronds swoop across, blocking our way, and I push them aside, taking care not to let them spring back upon you. Birds call insistently. An insect lands on my bare arm, and I swat it away with the palm of my hand. You say nothing. You always say nothing.
Sunlight starts to filter through the canopy. The foliage thins out, and we catch our first glimpse of the water. It lies still, impassive, almost arrogant in its serenity. I get the urge,as I always do, to find a stone, a rock, to hurl it, even though I know it would never reach, to see it, hear it, crash into the water, break the surface. I want to watch the ripples extend out, all the way to the shores of the lake.
I told that to you, once. You looked at me and smiled. And in an instance something I always thought was strange about myself, became okay.
This is where we stop. Me, first, and then you appear next to me, and together we look out, watching the sunlight catch the water. We don’t go any further. We never go any further.
I’ll leave this one here. I made it this morning, underneath the window, while I was thinking of you. Maybe you’ll come back and find it, one day. Memory, dream, it doesn’t matter. It’s still real. You’re still real.
* * * * *
Jack shared this short story:
Head of a Girl
After George Frederic Watts’ Study – Head of a Girl
What do you want? The seaside! you said, as though I should be grateful. You expect me to play, to smile, to be happy so that you can be happy. Perhaps I could, if you would go away. Stop your fussing and let me be. You see what I’ve found? I took it from a nest. I took it so it can be free. Free from its mother’s beak. Free from the lies she will tell it, the pretence she will force upon it.
Or maybe it is better off dead. Maybe I will close my palm, now, and put it from the misery that awaits it. I’ll crush its shell and the life inside. Or maybe I will let it live. I have the power. I will decide, not you. I will decide.
In response, Lenett made this piece, titled “Shell in the Nest”:
