Those are lovely haiku, csc. I am not too familiar with non-Japanese/English language poetry, so I appreciate you posting those.
@emma: Thank you! I'm glad you like it.
@sherry Ann: Is there anything specific about The Voiceless that you don't understand? It's somewhat foggy, I admit, but if there's something you'd like clarified, please let me know.
colette: Thank you. She's one of my favourite artists as well, and her life story touches me.
bryan: Thank you.
Here's a short story for you all, to change the pace. Let me know what you think.
ZoraZora could feel the buildings rattling. “Oh Michigan.” she thought. “Another bombing” She screwed her eyes shut, praying that she would still be in one piece by the end of it. Zora's Arabic was bad enough to make an Imam groan so she prayed in her language, privately, in her head and her heart. “God doesn't care, right?” She hoped as much. The building stopped shaking, coming to a gentle stillness that was deceptive. Inside, all the blankets remained still, the light hanging above swayed gently. You'd never know from looking at the building interior that there was anything amok. Outside however, it was pockmarked with mortar shells, metal beams twisted by shadows of flame and lead, and each and every window was blacked out. Zora missed seeing the stars.
Inside though, her work was too important to risk opening a window, even to fill a slight summer breeze. Here, in this room, lay all the treasures of her heritage and her people. She was sworn to guard it with her life, and the slightest mistake on her part could result in her people's future being naught but a legacy of flames. Zora got up, legs still shaky from the bombing, and walked over to the nearest treasure, modestly veiled from prying eyes with a heavy canvas cloth.
With the careful precision befitting a surgeon, Zora lifted the cloth to inspect the contents. It was a painting, a beautiful one, full of the warm colors of summers past, pink cheeks of girls Zora's age, the periwinkle of the evening sky, the rainbow of nature's bounty. Zora tried to discard this childish admiration; it was a finely colored painting, but the brush strokes were juvenile, the subject overdone. Peasant girls dancing in the summer, far too titian to be worth anything grand. Zora sighed, fumbling in her pocket of her shabby coat. Whether or not it was juvenile, she didn't care. She wanted to be in that painting, dancing with the girls, pink-cheeked like them. Not here, in this hellhole, feeling death constantly at her back, jealously protecting history like her firstborn, against innumerable odds of failure and defeat. She put one shivering, almost jaundiced-looking finger an inch from the canvas, hoping to absorb some of its warmth and color into her. She drew her finger back after her other hand found what it had been searching for- a cigarette. “The true treasures” she mused silently, “lay here abandoned and left to the dust and the mortars. Meanwhile, cigarettes are treated like gold here.”
Zora put the cigarette to her lips, trying to stop shaking. “It will calm me down” she soothed herself. Her hand dipped into the pocket again, and dug up a match. Zora struck against a brick column, inhaled gratefully. The shaking began to cease, slowly. She wondered about the outside world. She had gone an entire week without seeing it, the last time she had stepped out, Emira had scolded her greatly. “If you are gone, who will guard these? Only you know what to do to keep them beautiful. This is your patriotic duty!” It occurred to Zora that if a week had passed since she'd stepped out, then tonight, she was due for another delivery of rations. Zora wrinkled her nose at the thought of the disgusting canned meals. “Do the people from the UN actually think we will eat that and be grateful?” She had an impossible time imagining them, in their plush offices, tisk-tisking at the plight of her country, giving up some cans of stomach-churning garbage which looked like it was leftover from WWII, patting themselves on the back for rescuing them from hunger.
Zora shook away the image. At least Emira, and maybe even Drazen, would show up tonight. Zora wanted some company more than the food. She glanced again at the dancing girls. She noticed, for the first time, that they each had distinct features. One of them seemed to sport a tiny mole on her cheek. Another had more olive skin and a cobalt glimmer to her eyes. The third one looked almost Asian, with a smooth face and eyes turned modestly from the onlooker. “I shall call you the Three Graces.” Zora said aloud. She was almost startled by the sound of her own voice. She rarely spoke aloud these days, with not another living creature to share her thoughts with her in this room. She imagined one of the Graces winking cheekily at this, clearly amused by Zora's surprise at such a little thing.
“Well, then, it's you and me tonight ladies. It will not be a sewing circle though. It's easy enough for you to be cheery in there, in that little paradise whomever painted for you. For me, it's different. Nobody paints a paradise for me. I have to find one myself, make one for myself.” Zora thought about this for a minute. Her home country was definitely not paradise now. She considered, after the war, if it would ever end, where she would go. Not Germany or France. Whenever someone talked of going to Germany or France, Zora would roll her eyes in a way nobody could see, and yawn behind her hand. Zora wanted to be far, far away. She wanted to put as much distance between the paradise she would build for herself and the war as possible. Germany and France were hiccups away. Same for Hungary. Budapest was beautiful though, she couldn't deny. She looked at her Three Graces. “Would you go to Budapest?”
One of the Graces seemed to like the idea, the one with the mole. She had a smile playing about her lips, and was tossing her head as if to say, “Will you take me to Budapest?” Zora shook her head. “I can't. I have to go across the ocean, I think. Far, far away from it all. Maybe Costa Rica, where I can paint the parrots. Or maybe Canada.” She tried to picture Canada. She'd never seen pictures of it, like Costa Rica. She imagined pale, smiling people, tipping their hats. “You three, I would ask you to run away to Canada with me, if I could. But you don't need to go to Canada. You have something better there. Nothing can harm you.” The Graces seemed giddy at the idea of Canada. Their eyes gleamed with possibility.
Zora continued to puff on her cigarette, gently blowing expert smoke rings onto the ceiling, where they fizzled out, like fireworks that had been rained on. The smoke made her calm, more lucid, and less dreamy. She enjoyed talking to the Graces though, even though others would think she's insane. It was nice to talk to someone who wasn't serious. War makes everyone serious, especially the women. The men, they sometimes joke. Drazen would sometimes put on his little imitations, and get laughs out of his friends and Zora. He had a true gift for comedy, and a knack for public speaking. Zora heard him express interest in becoming a holy man after the war ended. But the women, they carried the emotional burden of war, even though seldom few fought. Zora was here precisely because she was a woman, and because of her background in art history. If she were a man, she fancied she would be smuggling these treasures of the land out, perhaps to Greece.
A deafening BOOM followed a whistle Zora had barely heard. She was brought to her knees by the power, and dropped her cigarette. She gasped in horror, the cigarette could set up everything in this place, herself included, in flames. But the Graces! She cared not about herself, but prayed frantically that the painting wouldn't be burned by her carelessness. She scooped up her smoke, hurriedly checking around her. There were no signs of damage, the cigarette had barely left a mark on the cloth which had covered the painting. The painting itself wasn't marked by the cigarette. Zora cursed herself, then smashed the smoke on the same brick she'd used to light it up, then put it in her pocket again.
“Please forgive me. I was stupid. It will not happen again.” Zora pleaded to them, genuinely hoping they were not offended. They seemed unaffected by the commotion, and the calmness of the cigarette was draining out of Zora's body, as though she were being bled by a medieval doctor. Her cynicism was returning. “Exactly why” she wondered, “am I talking to three plump blobs of paint?” But she couldn't deny it. Whether they were alive or not, Zora could not deny how jealous she was of their carefree life. She hated them for taunting her with a life that was beyond her reach, now, more than ever. But she couldn't fault them. They were bringing her happiness in her isolation.
She took the remainder of the cloth off the canvas, deciding to take it all in. Zora's eyes traveled to the upper right corner of the painting, and she gasped audibly. There, encroaching upon the summery bliss of the Three Graces, was a thunder cloud. It was almost unassuming in size, but menacing in its color and shape. Zora realized then, that the Three Graces and their happy dance was a temporary affairs, until the storm came and washed them away. A vivid picture of the Graces weeping as they melted like wax candles floated in front of Zora's eyes, infuriating her.
“No!” she screamed. The war had taken away all happiness from her life. The Graces deserved to have something that was now forever beyond her reach. They could live it for her. She wasn't going to let that rain cloud take away their childlike happiness the way the war had forever torn hers away. Zora's eyes narrowed, and she sifted in her pocket.
*****
“These stairs are so rickety! I swear, if the snipers don't kill me, then this building will do their job for them.” muttered Emira, carefully avoiding the more haphazard slabs of wood, blessing the dust for keeping her step soft and light. Drazen nodded, even though it was unlikely she could see him in the dark. He was carrying the rations of the week for Zora under his arm, balanced on his hip, the way a mother might hold her toddler. “Do you think she is okay? It's hard being on your own. We at least have other people to talk to when going about our duties.” Emira snapped, “She's safe in this building, and she'll be very handy after we bring the paintings to Hungary, she can begin the process of restoring them. God willing, when the war is over, this will all be a dream, and our history will be preserved forever.” Drazen nodded again, and in his heart, he could hear the words, “There is no power, no grace, save for God the Almighty, the magnificent.” There was no point in arguing. They would be protected, and so would Zora and the paintings, if they just did what they needed to do and followed the word of God.
The door didn't have a handle, so Emira pushed it open with her foot. “Zora? It's us.” Emira was in awe of the space in this room. If the windows weren't covered completely for fear of bombs and shattered glass, it would be magnificent, even with the huddling piles of canvas and cloth in the far corner. Emira could make out Zora in the dark, squatting by the pile of treasures on a crate. She waved a cigarette at the pair in acknowledgment. “So, the week's rations! Thank you very much! Have you been safe out there? It sounds hellish, even in here.” Emira shrugged, and said “Me and my big brother are fine. It's awful out there, but our jobs are simple. We're glorified mailmen, basically.”
Emira walked over, Drazen trailing behind closely, still holding the crates. “So,” Drazen started, in his fake royal-majesty voice. “What are you common people up to tonight?” Zora smiled, she always laughed at his jokes, and Drazen loved making her smile. She had a beautiful smile, and it was so rare to see it anymore. More of a treasure than these paintings, that's for sure. He couldn't see why she was so fond of them before the war, but now he supposed, with the outside world so ugly and torn up, it was nice to have a little reminder of the past. Then he saw the painting she was sitting next to, and nearly jumped back. “Zora! Whatever happened here?” The painting was what Zora would call “pre Raphaelite” he remembered, and it was missing the top right corner of the canvas. There was simply a burning gash there, still gently emitting smoke. He glanced at Zora, and noticed that the fingertips on her right hand were blistered and pink, as though she'd used them to put out the fire. Her eyes softened as she looked at Drazen. “I'm so sorry, you two. There was a bombing, a mortar hit, while I was smoking, and I dropped the cigarette on the painting.” Emira looked crushed at the news, and patted Zora's painful looking hand. “It's okay. At least you stopped it before anything truly disastrous happened.” Zora smiled, as though comforted by more than just her childhood friend's words.
Drazen looked again at the smoking corner, and at the painting as a whole. Trying to cheer up Zora some more, he remarked, “Well, look at it this way! Those lovely ladies in the painting don't look like it even interrupted their dancing for a moment!”
Zora said nothing. After they were done chatting and unloading the food, she requested that neither Emira nor him bother risking their lives for cigarettes anymore. “I have more than enough to keep me happy here.” she'd told them. Drazen had no clue what she meant by that, but he was glad she was quitting. Such a filthy habit, and it would ruin her looks, and possibly, her future. “Glad to see you are looking ahead, Zora.” he said, before Emira and him left. She promised she would look to see if the damage on the painting could be repaired.