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Cover
Table of Contents
Editor's Notes
Donations
Submission
Guidelines
Website
Stories
& Essays
Balance
_ By
Alison Baumy
Contemporary
Cultural Differences...
_ By
Ninni Siurua
Eclipsed
Yesterdays
_ By
Clyde Windjammer
Healthy Guy
_ By
David J. LeMaster
Immortalis Letum
_ By
Sophie Davis
Last Call For Salvation
_ By
Angela P. Markham
My Fault
_ By
Ro Thorton
Pacific Northwest
_ By
Aaron Hellem
Q-Q Ca Choo
_ By
Billy Pilgrim
The Best Laid Plans
_ By
John A. Ward
The Ecstasy of Cooking
_ By
Sam Nolting
The Girl With the Green Umbrella
_ By
J.R. Earlebeck
The Gods of Houston
_ By
Rebekah Frumkin
Poetry
Athena's Owl
_ By
Amberly Mason
But I Have Never Known This
_ By
Kaleen Love
Clouds On Your Floor
_ By
Savannah Bobo
Crowded Lobby
_ By
M. Blair Spiva
Ever After
_ By
Bennie Johnson
Important Questions
_ By
P.T. Bell
Migration
_ By
Sarah Wassberg
Moon Goddess
_ By
Kristina Diane Smith
Oldest Profession
_ By
Ashley Polker
On Visiting Hay-on-Wye
_ By
M. Blair Spiva
Sodom and Gomorrah
_ By
Jessica Fannin
Wal-Mart
_ By
P.T. Bell
Art
& Photography
Jeremy Harker
_ Paintings
Douglas C. Knight
_ Photography
Jed Knox
_ Paintings
and Drawings
May Ann Licudine
_ Paintings
Danny
Malboeuf
_ Paintings
Alex
Stanbury
_ Photography
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Balance
By
Alison Baumy
It happened, as most things of
this nature do, long ago. However, unlike those occurrences, this
happened in neither a far off nor distant land. No, this could only
happen here, for this is the story of how "here" came to
be.
It would be inaccurate to say
that before everything, there was nothing, because that is not the
truth, and as my only purpose here is to inform, there would be no
point in lying. Now as I have said, in the beginning there was not
nothing; there has never been nothing. Instead, there was chaos. A
tangle of motion, twisting and writhing like a nest of thick black
serpents, each connected to the other in ways unimaginable to any of
us, knotted together in a jumble of blaring noise, shifting black
shapes, and flashes light of all colors. It was a mess. Something needed
to be done. And so, in a way typical of such tales, something was,
quite by accident.
A lone figure, dark as an
inkwell and as deep as a thousand galaxies, stood at the edge of
this madness. He was lost, trying to find his way back to his own
world, when, by chance, he stumbled upon ours instead, twining in
discord, a demented and badly off-key harmony rising from the mass
of mess before him in a jangling wailing howl to assault his ears.
"Damn, what a
racket" he said covering his sore ears. "It's like being
at a disco for the criminally insane." Something definitely
needed to be done here. With a quick nod of self-affirmation he
reached out, sending a wave of darkness pulsing across the
dissonance, soothing the cacophony as his hands worked feverishly to
untangle and smooth the knots of space that twanged around him. Soon
he had finished his work, and the clanging and clashing melody of
the writhing bedlam that the universe had once been had become a
light, peaceful hum that gently filled the surrounding shadows.
He surveyed the scene before
him, pleased with himself. "This place has potential,” he
thought, staring at the stretch of space that lay like a blank
canvas in front of him. It was unlike any other place he'd been; at
first with all that movement and energy, and even now there was a
tangible feeling of raw possibility, like it was just waiting for
someone to make something of it. It was almost like a challenge, and
he had never been one to turn down a challenge "It just needs a
little something… more, " he said to himself. "Something…
different. "
And so with that in mind, the
man—whose name was Kayaku, but he was known more commonly as
darkness—called forth his brothers and sisters to aid him. He
could not do it alone, for there must always be balance in the
creation of such things as universes, because without balance it
would surely fall apart.
One by one his siblings
arrived.
The first arrived in a blaze
of flames and raging glory, radiating heat like a furnace fire and
burning fiercely against the darkened background. A towering inferno
of a man whose intense gaze could burn through your very soul, this
man was known as Kin of the flame. Kayaku soon found him self the
victim to that smoldering stare as Kin looked quizzically at his
brother.
"Where are the
others?" he asked.
Kayaku opened his mouth but
then, as if in answer to Kin's question, another light blazed into
life. Kin's analogue Kiyoshi—the elemental of light and Kayaku and
Kin's brother—entered in a bust of pure silvery white light, that
shined with the resilience of Kin's flames but held a softer and
more peaceful glow. He was of everything good and right, Kayaku's
complete opposite.
"Hello, brothers,"
he said softly. They nodded briefly in his direction.
The next three arrived one
after the other, first Ayame of the ice and water—mother of the
glaciers, smooth and gentle, hard and unforgiving, and one to be
feared and respected. She was followed shortly by Sora, the wind
elemental, all tricky, gust and zephyrs, fun loving and free,
content to blow about forever without a care in the universe. They
were succeeded by Ishi, mother of Nature, unmoving as the mountains,
beautiful as spring, the lady of the forest. The three sisters said
hello to their brothers and waited silently for the final two to
join them.
That was when Nara burst into
the fray. She was undoubtedly the liveliest of all the elements, and
though she was not of the light as Kiyoshi and Kin were, her skin
emitted a faint glow. She was the smallest and the sweetest, all
love and warmth and spark, and she was dearest to them, the heart of
their family. She was the element of The Spirit, the element of
Soul.
They greeted her warmly, never
noticing that the last member of their little group had appeared
until he slid in beside him. He liked being low key, as it was in
his nature. He was the most unnoticed of the elements, always last
and least, almost formless in his existence, leisurely drifting
through the eons. Lightning fast, glacially slow, he was solid and
never-ending. He was Yasuo; he was Time.
Kayaku took the initiative,
since he was the one who had started this project. "Now
that we are all here, I want to know what you think," he said
as he indicated the vast expanse of blackness behind him.
For a time no one spoke. They
all knew that Kayaku could get in to those moods sometimes, and he
was forever taking on new projects, fixer-uppers and what not.
Finally Kin spoke up. "It
could use some work," he said.
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the page) |
