Myrrh and dust.

The journey is almost at end. We pause for rest, trying to rid ourselves of nervous exhaustion. The journey is almost at end. There will be tomorrow, but tonight we sleep. Only He remains awake.

Wine and poison.

In the garden above us, while we sleep, They meet. Nothing can be changed, that was clear. It had to be the way it was foretold. By His death. By His life. He understands and accepts. By His life we see, by His death we live.

Swords and spears.

A kiss, and the soldiers come for Him. We try to fight, but He would have no one hurt. He goes with them. A kiss is all it takes.

Whips and thorns.

Let us go in His place, please. We cry inside but before the cock crows, we forget, we deny. We give Him more pain that all the lashes He receives.

Wood and nails.

The long march to the hill is through. He falls along the way but here on the hill He is raised up high. For all to see. Or pretend not to see.

The journey is at end. He is tired. He thirsts. For us, for our love. Despite the pain, He cries to His Father to forgive us, for we are ignorant of what we have done.

He dies. For we have killed Him. So we may live. By His life we see, by His death we live. By His resurrection, we are freed.

But this is just a story, or so it’s been said. A story for those who believe.

Posted in: Exit Stage Write, Photo Gallery | Comments(0) | March 2008

Unquiet reigns in NoTimeAtAll. Encased in their Memory Shrouds, the Nomads laugh, wail, cackle, weep, scream, giggle and sob. The cacophony rarely subsides, but the Keeper does not mind. Truth to tell, she feels gratified by the noise of unrestrained emotions filling the air. This eerie music strengthens her.

It is for the silent ones, the handful of Nomads who fail to join the din, she cares most about. The Keeper goes over to each of them, disturbed by the stillness. She wonders if she has not wrapped the Shroud properly, removes it, and takes even greater care in putting it back on the Nomad. If the Nomad remains soundless, the Keeper takes a knife, slices off a tiny flap of cloth from the Shroud and like the most pliant clay imaginable, stretches it out, kneading and molding it into a Mask of Joy/Sorrow which she affixes to the Nomad’s face. Before long, the Nomad utters its first cry of delight or anguish and the Mask quickly dissolves, its task done.

The Keeper then proceeds to the next unyielding Nomad and repeats the process. She cannot stand indifference to her handiwork. As long as they dwell in her world, the Nomads are her people, her immediate audience. The Keeper bids them heed her one commandment: Let me hear you laugh and weep.

(This post is part of The Keeper of Memories series, which started with The Keeper of Memories made in November 2007, followed by The Hands of the Keeper of Memories (I) written in January 2008, and The Memory Shrouds of the Keeper done last month. Original ink drawing by Riana and digital colorized collage by e.s.)

Posted in: Illustrart, Exit Stage Write | Comments(0) | March 2008

The Keeper of Memories leads a solitary existence. She neither needs nor craves companionship. Yet she is as gracious a host as any to those who wander into her domain. Visitors do travel where the Keeper ranges, and they are legion.

Call them Nomads, humans who, by some quirk of fate or self-inflicted act or sheer dint of age, have lost the ability to create new memories. They are the comatose, the amnesiacs, the senile, the traumatized, the psychologically deranged, and the wretched substance abusers among us who can no longer weave conscious threads of their being with their lives. They arrive with no purpose save to view the remnants of what they still may (or care to) remember.

The ritual is always the same: The Keeper greets each by name, leads the Nomad to the bank where his or her drawer lies, pulls it open, and retrieves its entire cache as fibers writhing into a Möbius strip of gossamer fabric. The Nomad kneels, and with the reverence we accord our dead, the Keeper wraps the Memory Shroud around the head, neck, shoulders, and heart of the visitor, surrounding the latter with animated vistas of the Past, the infinite loop of a bygone symphony to be replayed over and over as often as desired.

There the Nomad remains, with countless others similarly accoutered, languishing in limbo until its bodily form in the Present becomes sentient again or dies without recovering. When that happens, the Memory Shroud flutters down in a wrinkled heap. Then the Keeper returns it to its compartment, where it changes back to the original bits and pieces of the Nomad’s Past in the chronological order they were stashed away.

(This post is a continuation of The Keeper of Memories made in November 2007 and The Hands of the Keeper of Memories (I) written in January 2008.)

Posted in: Illustrart, Rough Sketches, Exit Stage Write | Comments(0) | February 2008