It's Still Life

At an Intersection Named After an English King and a Saint
Six Sentence Story: Part 17 Black and White

Last week: Last week: Connor slowly materialises, his anger falling in flurries of ash around him.

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Pierre’s eyes glaze wide with shock, he leaps up, upending the table with a resonating hollow-throated thud, and a chaos of shattering wine glasses echoing through the bistro.

Connor incubates rage – he is a cindered cone of a volcano, and glares at Pierre who retreats with his legs spidering backwards across the floor – his escape stopped by the wall.

“Death is such a short step, Pierre, it’s a shutting of an eye to houses, hills, sky, and Sunday roast dinners,” he laughs at that thought, “to a spring wedding to my Brigid, and as my wife, Arpège should’ve been hers not yours … you stole Brigid’s future, you stole my life,” Connor’s words are a rattling wound in his throat, “You will sign over the titles and deeds of Arpège to Brigid, or feel my smouldering hand down your throat with every word you speak.”

Connor stabs his finger at Pierre’s forehead and says, “I call on the spirit of flame that guilt grants you madness, that you dribble and drool with deathless self-scorn, and be fettered by shame … and it shall be so.”

And then Connor looks at me, there’s lingering fire in his eyes, “I will always love you, your eyes of blue water, you so nearly a rose, your body that changes just as the moon changes – I care not what feathers clothe you, my sparrow … you are my Brigid, not his, and since you’ll never turn to black magic, this curse will be his finality because I am black and you are white, my Brigid … we’re black and white.

Pierre sits on the floor under a cone of recessed lighting, staring into flames that no longer burn but cannot be extinguished – he is a mountain burning, he is a man that madness claims, and I hold Pierre, he feels limp, hung on a thorn, and gone far away, “Reverse this, Connor, reverse it …”

… and I feel a firm grasp on my shoulder, a familiar voice with its tectonic shift, “He’s gone, Brigid,” says the Gatekeeper, “Your Connor is gone.”

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Previous Instalments – Part 1: The Pull Back   Part 2: The Measure of Her    Part 2: The Gatekeeper’s Response  Part 3: The Colour of Walls   Part 4: Tectonic Shifts  Part 5: Out of the Frying Pan  Part 6: How to Break Eggs Part 7: A Moon River  Part 8: Starlight Shines on the Roof  Part 9: Before When  Part: 9.1 Flower Power Part 10: To Trace a Curl   Part 11: I Walk With Ghosts Part 12: Behind Every Lining Is a Cloud Part 13: A Constellation of Coloured Paper Part 14: Behind the Eye of a Needle  Part 15: To Bleed the Sky  Part 16: Smoke in the Mirrors Part 17: Black & White

To access all of the instalments on one page, please use this link

Written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story, include the word “cone”. Some artwork is created using Midjourney AI, and is identified as such in the ALT text or captioned. Images are copyright and not to used without permission, which I willingly give when asked, and when not for commercial use. Imagery and poems/prose ©Misky 2006-2024.