Word and Colour

Kitsune

Ellen was at the warehouse party where red, green and white lights pierced the stale air. Where the bass carved out all grains of thought. Where the quiet girl in the small mask had offered a line of coke with nothing more than a simple nudge.

On the side she tapped out a neat slug from a small silver capsule. Chopped from bigger clump to small clump with a driving license. Ellen remembered staring into the eyes of the girl on the ID card, the sideways face rapidly elevated before being slammed back down into the spongy white.

Mesmerized Ellen drifted to the tapping face. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap – it drew her in… she drifted back to her own ID, to her younger self, to her first time ‘tapping’. It was about six years ago, she had been 19 and still in college. In Lucas’s room before the night out, she could feel the pulsing vibe of the pre-drinks still seeping under his bedroom door. Lucas had drawn out a small baggie and smiled.

‘Want some?’ he’d asked, and Ellen froze– she should have thought of this decision before this moment.

I shouldn’t. But why shouldn’t I? They do it in the movies all the fucking time. From rap stars to rock stars, porn stars to gangsters.

The whole damn world was shoveling this idyllic feel-good fun stuff so why shouldn’t she?

She leaned down, held a finger to her left nostril and inhaled sharply – feeling the shards of Hollywood race through her veins until nesting itself in that little nook under the front of the skull. A sigh of relief, followed by a sigh of high serenity.

“Fuck yeah,” chuckled Lucas, holding out his hand for the rolled up bank note off her. Copying Lucas from earlier, Ellen slid her thumb and forefinger along the rim of the card and licked it; she felt like a million bucks.

The memory of looking down at the card drew her back to the warehouse party. The girl was still staring with titled head in leering anticipation.

“This stuff,” jabbed Ellen, “it’s fucking pixie shit, no market cutting bullshit.”

“You have to tell me how you get this.”

The silent girl looked directly into Ellen’s eyes and titled her head awkwardly. She looked somewhere on the spectrum just after alert and before petrified. Slowly she stretched out the crumpled note in her left hand. Ellen took it and read, albeit somewhat confused by the peculiar request, and went to ask the girl who had disappeared from sight. She hadn’t said answered her question.

Leaving the party, she her feet falling in step, one after the other, leading the way to Regent’s Park, just as the note had said.

What the fuck am I doing

Ellen began to take her shoes off and step into the water. The long grass was nodding; the human intervention had caused a large ripple disrupting the otherwise peaceful surface.

What exactly is supposed to happen now? What the fuck was she expecting?

The water began to tremble.

word by Sam Fresco

colour by Young Wavey

From the author: “One of my best friends has just moved to Tokyo. I caught up with him recently on FaceTime and he told me about their New Years Eve procession which gets the whole city to dress up as foxes and march from shrine to shrine. Legend has it that on New Year’s Eve, foxes gathered from across Japan under a large tree and disguised themselves in human costume to visit the Oji Inari-jinja Shrine.

I researched and found that Kitsune (狐) is the Japanese word for fox. Stories depict them as intelligent beings and as possessing magical abilities that increase with their age and wisdom. According to Yōkai folklore, all foxes have the ability to shape shift into women.

Amongst the spaghetti of stories I discovered, two things jumped out at me that I found utterly fascinating;

1 That some folktales speak of Kitsune employing this ability to trick others—as foxes in folklore often do—other stories portray them as faithful guardians, friends, lovers, and wives.

2 – Tales distinguish Kitsune gifts from Kitsune payments. If a Kitsune offers a payment or reward that includes money or material wealth, part or all of the sum will consist of old paper, leaves, twigs, stones, or similar valueless items under a magical illusion.True Kitsune gifts are usually intangibles, such as protection, knowledge, or long life.

So in modern society what really is material wealth? And where would a Fox find a woman to ‘take over?’ If so, under what illusion?”

she dreamt in tiny fists

She dreamt in tiny fists. The fever pushed at her eyelids when she kept them shut, and leaked out and over when they were open. Each morning Nathanael came to her with tea and the newspaper and an orange but every afternoon she woke to find the tea cold and the orange so soft and pungent she had to pick up and throw it away, an effort that made her grunt—a wild sound against the curtains.

She didn’t know what day it was, or what time it could possibly be. She only knew that she threw the oranges in the afternoons because of the clock that ticked like loss on the blue wall. Sometimes she threw the orange at the clock, but it was invincible.

Each hour became a cold and wobbly upper arm that no one ever touched or thought about. Perhaps this was what depression was like, she thought, as she blew her wretched nose and spluttered into the sleeve of her dirty nightie, but it wasn’t: she could see that through the waves.

Once, after throwing the orange and wondering for a long time whether it had landed on the air vent where she imagined it heating up and bleeding out onto the floor, she sat up and turned and bent her legs and lifted, and then she stood.

Her head was still on the pillow as she rocked gently there on the carpet. Eventually it met her in its place and together they walked to the corner of the room where the orange lay, nowhere near the air vent, perched on top of a yellow dress she had forgotten all about.

She laughed then and coughed and a purple snake slid past her foot before she tipped herself back in and under the covers.

Nathanael came at night to pick up the oranges and dispose of the bits of newspaper she had used as tissues. One night he had six heads—one night, seven incredulous eyes. Then there was the night that he had one face, and it was beautiful, and she wished she would recover so she could love it better and kiss it more.

That was the night it was over. Suddenly her stomach ached for food; it writhed and echoed with hunger. Can I have some soup, she asked, lightly and without commotion. Nathanael smiled and opened the curtains to the moon.

word by Laura McPhee-Browne

colour by Young Wavey

From the writer: “When I first saw this piece of art, I was instantly reminded of a dream; a feverish dream of the sort you have when you are ill with the flu, and sleep is confused and brief and uncomfortable, with a sort of sick surrealism just around the next corner.

When I have had a serious case of the flu in the past, I remember thinking in quick bursts about things that later made no sense. I remember having no appetite except for relief from the heat and the pain, and I remember feeling like I was going to be sick forever and ever. This story is an attempt at encapsulating how it feels to have the flu, and the dream-like nature of being stuck inside an unrelenting fever.”

Personal Response for Ms. Mitchell for Art Class by Julia Harris

#14- Blue, red, blue. Sometimes what’s important is just what’s right in front of your face.

#37- This sculpture was huge on the bottom but small on the top and it made me think of my dad’s girlfriend, Shelley. That’s what I have to call her, Shelley, like we’re friends or something.

#42- Vaginas. Art is full of vaginas.

#71- Egg all over a black wall, yolk and white and shell and everything. Like someone just couldn’t stand just looking at nothing anymore.

#89- Supermarket aisles. I got lost in a supermarket once. I didn’t know I was lost until someone found me.

#91- It looks like a building we used to see all the time that was covered in shapes and colours. My mom would say, “It’s too much like a Kandinsky,” and my dad would say, “You never like anything.” I thought it looked like an elephant, but I was just a little kid. My sister told me it was a picture of the most beautiful music in the world. She always saw things I didn’t.

#101- Rain.

#104- Ballerinas.

#111- The inside of a really big room.

#112- Two triangles fighting, one is upside down. This one was very red.

#118- This one looks like a lake. I remember thinking lots of pictures were of the ocean. When I was a kid, we used to take trips to the beach, but I found out a little while ago that we were swimming in a lake, not an ocean, so now I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen the ocean in art at all.

#154- Myself. But the art was just a big broken mirror. I could also see the other people looking at it.

word by Leah Mol

colour by Carlos Garci

From the author: “One of the things that intrigues me most about art is how it can invoke such specific and personal memories, feelings, and ideas for so many different people. I also find it interesting that what a person sees in a piece of art often says much more about that person than the art itself.

When I first looked at the art that goes along with these words, I was excited by the number of possibilities. I see certain specific things in the piece, but you will see something else entirely. In these words, I’ve tried to show the reader a character through what she sees in various art pieces. What she sees is part of who she is, where she’s been, and what she will become.”

people are clay

The thud on the porch means that the newspaperman is now awake as well. The boy retrieves it (i.e. the paper) and takes with him to the bathroom the most important section of the New York Times: the Arts. He finishes shitting in about 3.5 min. but is in the bathroom for at least 26. He has had one hemorrhage from these marathons.

The cover story is titled: “Sgt. Pepper’s New Look.” The boy reads that The Beatles have reunited for a world-tour “with a catch:” they have surgically removed their heads and replaced them with various members of the Rosaceae family.

Details of how this is done safely are enumerated by Dr. Kumari in the Science Section.

As he gets dressed, the boy cleans his circular glasses and checks his Facebook for notifications. Avery wants to see the Beatles live. Caleb wishes him a Happy Birthday.

The boy is convinced his computer is Canadian, because red DNA strips appear below the words “favorite” and “color” [sic]. Sierra, his cousin, was so “inspired” that she got the picture of the four of them inked on the nape of her neck. The girl who wished him a happy birthday was a day early.

It is now 0630h and the boy leaves his house and walks to the subway, which is three blocks away. He nods to the man who works the opening shift at A&M Deli. The 15th Street Subway stop is bizarrely multi-leveled for a station that only services two trains, both of which run on the same track.

A woman sells churros out of a cooler that probably held beer over the weekend, given the smell. The boy realizes he has never once actually looked at the ceiling of this station and subsequently realizes how often he misses anything that is above eye-level.

The G train pulls in and the boy gets in the middle cart, and goes to his favorite seat (which is totally, undeniably, everyone’s favorite seat: the one by the window on one of the old trains).

He overhears a girl say: ‘If I got that done to my head, I would have certainly gotten carnations.’

A smell hangs on the train. The boy cringes at the omitted ‘had,’ but agrees with her assessment. He grows uneasy.

A few stops later, as the train exits the Smith and 9^th Street Station, he peers out of the window and looks east as the sun is still creeping over Brooklyn’s horizon. This is the only time of the day that Gowanus Canal could be called something other than repulsive. Kentile Floors in big letters w/ Seraphs looks as though it’s been tattooed on the sky right next to the Chrysler Building.

It was the boy who farted. He feels centered. And as he stirred from his dusk-dreams, he looked out at the city’s silhouette, and he committed himself to the idea that for his 17^th birthday, tomorrow, he will turn his neck into a vase as well.

word by Jacob Goldberg

colour by Eugenia Loli

From the author: “People, myself included, are heavily influenced by pop-culture. The characters in this story surrender their identities to The Beatles. What happens here is tricky: one thing is that the protagonist loses his sense of identity (one may wonder whether he ever had one in the first place, given its (viz. his personality) malleability; another is that when people so quickly look to celebrities (or preferably artists) on what it means to be Hip, we so often forget what made them “cool” in the first place. It was certainly not their style, but their artistry, and their ability to uniquely express who they are. This overwhelming loss of identity leads to loneliness.”

the artist

She would look back in later years and ask herself if she had been right. It was irrelevant, quickly became removed from the frame of present life, but, still, she wondered.

Never one to plan for failure, she had certainly positioned herself to be right, that night: she had worn the right dress, invited the right people, ordered the right drink. She had educated herself thoroughly on questions of technique and style. Where necessary, she had asked Paul minimal questions, inquiring about his influences but not prying into his inspirations: she wanted to appear intellectual, perhaps in possession of knowledge unavailable to the simple attendee, but not to flaunt her connection to the artist.

That night, she lingered in front of the pieces known to be masterworks, gesticulated near the controversial (and higher-priced) items, pointed out canvases that she thought friends and connections would enjoy. She lost sight of Paul only a few times throughout the night.

It pleased her deeply to see that he seemed to be enjoying himself, was engaging in conversations with pleasure, losing the usual rigid reservation that bordered on condescension and inevitably settled over him in groups.

In other words, the evening was going well, until she saw it.

She couldn’t fathom, at the time, how it had arrived there, how it had come to be hung on the wall with a little white card next to it, a blurb and a title and a price, without her having noticed, without someone (not Paul, certainly, but someone) informing her of its existence. But exist it did, on a scale more immense than anything else in the gallery: her head, her bare shoulders rising above the gathered party, her face drawn in either ecstasy or a half-sneer of pride.

The other form on the bed, she had to assume, was Paul, sprawled at her knees, legs spread.

He kissed the arm, flung sideways, that pinned him to the bed. He had no face, no skin, no shadows, a collage of bright colours with the outline of a human man. Beside him, she looked like stone.

Other onlookers moved away as Faith stood looking up at it, overwhelmed by unidentifiable emotion. His hand was on her back, he who seemed to prefer not to touch her when he could avoid it. In later years, she would remember thinking he had drunk too much; through the tide of wounded shame washing over her, she had that one petty point of clarity.

He moved so that he was standing in front of her, between her and the colossal painting.

“Is this a confession?” she asked.

He faded from her life, some time after, managed to evanesce though there had been papers to sign and furniture to divide and accounts to split. There should have been a shared existence to break apart but really there was just the painting and then the wondering, occurring at larger and larger intervals in the life that followed him.

word by Charlotte Joyce Kidd

colour by Eugenia Loli

From the author: “I was initially curious about the male figure in this piece. The crime-scene outline seems to indicate that he’s absent, but even if he has already left the bed, his relative colour and movement give him a presence and appeal that his companion lacks.

Where has the man gone, and why has he left? What is it about him that would leave such an imprint behind? Has he left it on purpose? Art naturally demands that we tell stories; it presents us with startling, intriguing, even troubling images and leaves us either to supply our own explanations for what is happening and why, or to remain startled, intrigued, and troubled.

In this case, my answer to the picture was to write about the woman in it, who I thought was likely to have her own questions about it.”

no excuse for stillness

Trace the effort that it takes not to see us; this is the work of disappearing. Let your flesh be erased into the skin of the walls you pass, feel the weight in your heels as they touch the ground before us: prostrate. This is our altar, rest-stop, bedroom, front porch on a Tuesday afternoon.

What will you do with your hands?

Wish you had pockets? A cigarette? Something to bite into.

My spine grinds softly into the wall but it won’t make a mark. These surfaces don’t have the give to take the impressions of my body; I know. My legs have held the same bend for hours, and to shift weight would suggest movement, but there is nowhere I need to be today.

Not looking is also a choice: Keep your chin steady, level with the chest and with the slope of the sidewalk, your stride has suddenly widened – did you notice? Hold your breath, I am not sorry; wait for the reward, the prize of making it four steps further until you can relax, release your mind.

Does it hurt (to look)?

Why are you afraid?

I appear idle in spaces designed for movement. I won’t be ordering any pizza or beer or pulling keys from my bag to enter the stairwell or slipping cellphone into pocket or leaning against the doorjamb waiting for someone who should be here any minute or gripping the end of the leash while the dog takes a piss. I am here without an acceptable excuse for stillness.

My belly is swollen with indigestion and my hair slicks back at the nape of the neck. Chips of paint fall into my eyes, and you: your mouth tastes of chalk; your feet are light, but the burden is heavy. The sky is falling in streaks of blank nothingness and your apathy is numbness you use as armour. It is wiping us out and away from one another. It is killing you. What you cannot see does not disappear; it festers untended and intentionally forgotten, I take on your sickness. I am not the exception: with this strategy, everyone will be left behind.

word by Alisha Mascarenhas

colour by Brett Amory

From the author: “I needed to write this in response to my own complicity in the stigmatization of homelessness, both visible and intentionally erased. I wanted to address the violence of looking away, which I relate to and am sickened by. The posturing of the man passing on the sidewalk stirred a particular kind of anger, invoking fragments of a larger struggle with how to navigate interactions with people I meet in the street; chance encounters, moments of confrontation and real as well as perceived threats.”

otters holding hands

Towards the horizon, a yacht crawls across sand. It’s a trip to watch – a massive silhouette against a Nevada furnace. A rhythm, something dancy and electronic, thumps in the distance. The beat hadn’t changed in six hours. This is what it means to be a DJ in the 21st century, he thinks… toss on the laptop and let that record spin, baby! He would’ve hated it if he wasn’t so stoned. What’s so great about the fucking desert? Some of these mammoth sculptures were awe-inspiring, sure – they were standing inside some sort of terrific wicker palace, after all – but it didn’t resonate with him the way he wanted it to.

“Why bother building it if you’re just going to burn it down?”

“If you don’t get it, there’s no point explaining it – you’ve got to dig it to dig it, ya dig?”

“But I don’t dig it. I don’t. It’s like sure, you want to forgo the material limitations forced upon us by a capitalist consumer society. I get that. I can dig the idea of transient art. I’ve read Kerouac… the here and now? I dig that. But this… just seems like a whole lot of work, doesn’t it? I think radical self-reliance goes out the window with the yachts, man.”

“You’re missing the point.”

“Maybe Burning Man shenanigans are falling victim to the systemic trappings they’re trying to undo: maybe this all started as an escalation of the Haight mentality, the sitting-around-the-campfire-smoking-a-joint-and-singing-kumbaya hippie dippie shit of the sixties, but it’s gone beyond that. We’ve hit a point of market inflation, and it begs the question…have we managed to bottle bohemia?”

“Wasn’t that a Thrills album?”

“Irrelevant and immaterial, your honour. Move to strike.”

“Let’s say you’re right and all of this is becoming a commodity. Let’s say this spectacular monolith, designed and constructed with the sole purpose of being burnt the fuck down, sent back to the scorched earth from whence, has been co-opted by the man. A commodity being something that can be sold…who benefits?”

“The lumber mill?”

“…”

“Acid dealer?”

“Don’t ask a serious question and then fuck about when I offer you a legitimate rebut. What you have is a gathering of like-minded people who want nothing more than to come together, celebrate radical inclusion and maybe draw attention to the fact that the world we live in isn’t the best version of itself it could be, you know? There are alternatives. What’s more wholesome than that?

“Otters holding hands while they sleep so they don’t drift apart.”

“There’s a point in every conversation where you stop being a cynic and you start being an asshole.”

“It’s a matter of serious consideration. Those otters are cute, man.”

“And consider it I will. I’m not worried, though. I was skeptical too, at first. But the flames will wash all of that away. At dawn, when all that’s left are ashes, it’ll be hard to be cynical. You’ll see.”

word by Josh Elyea

colour by Arne Quinze

his wolf

Dad got anxious. Mama didn’t: she just swished around beautifully like colour in a paintbrush jar, singing Moon Shadow and tying scarves around her forehead so I never really knew how big it was. But Dad was anxious. His thin body shook inside his dressing gown, taking the tea Mama would bring him in his match-stick rouge hands, thanking her with his quiet voice, his normal voice; the voice I never heard raised.

Dad was so thin because he barely ate, and anything he did eat he told me he tapped away. He did tap it away—I watched him each night after school as he sat as close to the fire as he could in winter, and as close as he could to the fan in summer, his foot tapping at the floor and his hands tapping at his crooked, dancing leg.

Dad wouldn’t eat pigs—he said he was too fond of their pink hairy backs and the way they really had those curled tails you saw in picture books. He wouldn’t eat apples for obvious reasons; ‘they’re so happy up there on the tree and then we cruelly pick them down.’

When Mama would make me eat my carrots and corn, Dad would sit there smiling faintly, his plate free of anything but bread and thick shiny butter. He didn’t have to eat carrots and corn. I didn’t shake like him.

One morning I got up early to see whether Mama had left the butter on the kitchen table. I liked to spoon curves of it into my mouth before we had breakfast, so the grease would sit warm and safe in my mouth. I remember it was winter-time because I dragged my mittens onto my feet after searching to no avail for my slippers and they made it hard to get down the stairs without slipping. As I passed their room I heard Mama’s voice low and hurried and edged my head around the door. Dad was lying on the bed, flat and old, and Mama was standing above him. She was crying—I could see the tears dropping onto the doona and the air felt thick with worry and damp. She looked over at me.

‘Daddy’s sick darling. He’s very sick,’ she said, gulping, clutching at the doona’s soggy edge.

I asked her what was wrong with him, standing as tall as I was just there in my mittens.

‘His wolf has come again darling,’ she said. ‘His wolf has come to scare him.’

I ran to my bedroom, tripping on stairs in knotted wool mittens, grasping at the wooden edges to pull myself up and up.

I sat tight on my bed, wondering when my wolf would come.

word by Laura Mcphee-Browne

colour by Monsta

shoplifting

“The first rule,” Joanna says, “is make sure nobody’s watching.” She tells me that because she wants me to be ready for anything. “It’s pretty obvious.” She rolls her eyes.

Make sure nobody’s watching. I say it three times in my head. I know what obvious means.

Joanna is five years older than me. We have the same mother but we live in different houses. She has a boyfriend named Peace. He’s waiting in front of The Bay because he can’t smoke inside. We’re walking around the mall looking for a store that looks easy for my first time. The mall is shaped like an L, and we’ve already passed every store. Joanna is chewing gum and blows little bubbles, over and over.

“Can I have some?” I ask. “Gum?”

“None left.”

Joanna stops in front of a store called Girl Thang. She tilts her head, staring into the store, and blows another bubble. “This is good,” she says.

As we walk through the entrance she whispers, “Just be normal.”

Just be normal, just be normal, just be normal.

I follow Joanna over to a table covered in T-shirts. Just be normal, just be normal, just be normal. I try to lean on the T-shirt table in a normal way.

Joanna glares at me. “Pick something to try on,” she says, in her fakest friendly voice. I look for things that don’t have a plastic tag on them, just like Joanna told me. I find two blue T-shirts that remind me of water and the sky and a sweater with a panda bear on it. I walk back over to Joanna but she motions for me to follow her and goes into a changeroom. Make sure nobody’s watching, make sure nobody’s watching, make sure nobody’s watching. I look around. The only person in the store is a girl at the cash register. She’s biting her nails from the sides.

“This is good,” Joanna says in the change-room. “It’s expensive.” She shoves the panda bear sweater into my backpack.

“What now?” I ask.

“We have to buy something,” she says. “You always buy something.” Joanna chooses a cheap T-shirt she didn’t even try on.

We walk up to the counter and the girl smiles at me. “You didn’t like that bear sweater? It’s adorable.”

Joanna smiles. “She has bad taste,” she says. She takes her wallet out of her coat pocket and there’s a stick of Juicy Fruit in foil stuck to the outside.

We don’t want the receipt.

Joanna slips the gum between her lips and I make the foil into a swan and when you pull the tail the wings flap.

At night, I sleep with the panda bear sweater. I fall asleep.

word by Leah Mol

colour by Vincent Viriot

sleeping over

A prickling sensation creeps from the bottoms of her feet up the backs of her calves and thighs. The silkiness of the satin sheets underneath fades to cold cement ground. His left leg is sprawled just below her knees, occasionally twitching with the rhythmic echoes of his snore-embedded breaths. She doesn’t move it. Her legs can do the sleeping tonight. They can have the pins and needles. Since she too, with eyes wide open, is on pins and needles.

When will he be gone?

Just like all the other ones.

That’s all she can think about.

College girls always joke about fears of waking up with a stranger in bed Saturday morning.

Her biggest fear on the other hand,

Is waking up without the stranger Saturday morning.

“Don’t leave me tonight, okay?”

“Okay.”

Honestly, it’s not because she cares about them (at least she tries not to). It’s not the who, but the what, that breaks her every time. It’s the reminder that to these thirsty bodies, she’s esteemed for nothing more than the vacant space inside her (and every other female). She’s a Marlboro. Lit up. Inhaled. Exhaled. Until the last bit of romanticism and hope is sucked out and released; foul and toxic secondhand smoke that pleads to be appreciated one last time before evaporating and losing all evidence of existence. Then disposed of. If she’s lucky, she burns out before they’re done (at least she’s left with some dignity). If she’s not, they’re done before she burns out. And she gets stepped on. With a little extra pressure in the toe box, just in case she’s not out with the first step.

Nothing more than a butt.

That’s what she is to them.

Why does she still do it?

Some presume she’s masochistic.

Some think she’s outright stupid.

However the rare few, like the one sleeping beside her right now, knows otherwise. He knows that behind her indifferent eyes, hidden emotions and sarcastic comebacks:

She’s been hurt, deceived, and mistreated.

She’s tired of clubs, parties and alcohol.

She hates empty words, hookups and promises.

She sleeps with both eyes open, because she’s reluctant to yet again lose this game that she thinks she finally knows the rules to.

She’s still hopeful.

What she doesn’t know, is that she has finally found someone, who feels the exact same.

Someone who is determined to dismantle her walls.

Someone who plans to patch her wounds with his own skin.

Someone who sees her not as a cigarette, but as a cup of coffee.

The Americano with a spoonful of sugar that he can’t start a morning without.

Author: Word and Colour