Click above! SONGBIRD ASSASSIN & Artwork by Shane Killeen

GUEST VIGNETTES

Long-sheltered vignettes found their way to my mailbox, a chorus of voices clamouring for attention. This page is for them.

Being human

Our relationship with animals is at best tenuous and full of paradox. Animals in story are often used as metaphors. We borrow the characteristics of bugs, birds and beasts, we cloak our words in non-human imagery, so that we might better come to grips with the pure essence of ourselves and the primitive elemental forces of the universe around us.

Seeing the light

Typically, moments of visionary insight occur at times of great personal trauma when the psyche is at its most fragile and our consciousness is most receptive to new understanding. Using a simple honest voice the vignettes presented for our attention transcend the personal and speak to our universal human experience.

Consuelo Roland

What is a vignette?

Put simply, a vignette is a short, descriptive literary sketch. But what is a vignette, exactly? Is it a prose poem? A very short story? A piece of nonfiction? Or is it something new entirely? Actually, a vignette can be any of these, and acclaimed authors-poets, fiction writers and nonfiction writers alike-are trying their hands at writing the vignette in recently published anthologies such as In Short: A Collection of Brief Nonfiction, In Brief: Short Takes on the Personal, and The Best of the Prose Poem: An International Journal.

Colorado State University workshop

Vignette (literature), short, impressionistic scenes that focus on one moment or give a particular insight into a character, idea, or setting

Wikepedia, the free encyclopedia

LANA MAY

Before my Mother's death

The clouds journeyed silently through the dark of the night as I painted like a madman, thinking of my mother, hardly aware of the canvas before me. The paint whirled recklessly from palette to painting. Rich colours oozed into unrecognizable forms as the music throbbed through my bones, carrying my brush with its rhythm.

Sometime after midnight, I stepped back to look at the finished work. A bold red line cut across the blue canvas as if marking the path of a burning phoenix. Yet, in all its raw intensity, it held within its curves the subtle figure of an eland.

I turned off the music. The eland seemed uncannily similar to those of bushmen rock art. The more I looked upon it, the stronger its presence became. A weighted silence filled the room, drowning out the sound of the crashing sea outside. Time stood still. And then the eland spoke.

"For many years, many years, I have walked this land. I have walked it even as the heavens broke. I have walked it even as the sun went cold. It is dark now. It is very dark," said the eland. "In the darkness, too, my blood runs. My blood runs with the land. Always, the rain will come. It will come. As my blood runs so will the water run."

The air became thicker until it was almost too heavy to breathe. I did not move.

"I was hunted," it continued. "I knew the sound of the drums. My skin was cut with stone and my blood ran. My blood ran into the earth. I have come from far. You must know. I am called and I have come."

Upon these words, I felt the cold of the wall numb my spine.

"You must know this. I will take her with me. She will come with me. And you, you must know this. I have been many times and I will come again. But now, it is dark and you are not alone."

I could feel the salt of my tears burning into my skin. And as I let go of my last hopes, I knew in my heart that my mother would be alright and that we would be comforted.

The eland returned to its watchful place on the canvas. I picked up my brush, steadied my hand and signed my name.

DORIAN HAARHOFF

The Sun Bird

A woman and a man lived in a hot place. Their hut was cool and they made candles. They longed for a child. One day a bird landed on the roof of their hut and the woman conceived. But the child born, a boy, was made of wax. In other respects he was like other children. He grew up longing to play outside but he could not because of the hot sun. He looked at the birds flying in the sky and longed to be as free as they were.

One day, while his parents were asleep, he crept out in the early morning before the sun was up. He played with some children, then rushed inside. The second morning he went out and stayed a little longer. He began to sweat. On the third morning he was playing and forgot all about the sun. The sun melted him into a blob of wax.

His parents grieved, collected the wax and took it inside. His mother said, "he loved birds." So they shaped the melted wax in the form of a bird. The father collected feathers, which they stuck all over the bird. Early in the morning, before the sun was up, they placed the bird on a stone outside their hut. As the sun rose, it did not melt the wax because it was protected by the feathers. But the sun warmed the boy-bird who came to life. He rose into the air, circled his parents' hut three times and flew away. Every morning, just before dawn, the boy-bird came back and flew three times round the hut.

Photo by Shane Killeen

"I'm sending you a story - partly the world's - partly mine - one of the many stories we have been using for UNICEF (working in an HIV AIDS context with caregivers and children)."

Dorian Haarhoff

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