Tags
Black and White, Experimental, Florida, Moon, Nature, Night, Noir, Photography, Prose, Thoughts, Water, Writing
I saw a coyote last night. There was a tattered hole in his left ear. I almost missed him, perched there on the porous sidewalk, his lemon eyes glazed in the orange glow of the streetlight, his tumbleweed tail thumping soundlessly.
I shuffled on, my shins swishing like plastic bags.
I noticed a glint of black blood on the pavement. Just a drop or two.
They shoveled up the rest of my remains, yesterday morning. I listened to profanities slung by the strident tongues of the Grey Men. They chipped at the concrete. I listened to their shovels scrape and scratch.
“Smells like hell but at least I’m not coughin’ up flies,” one said to the other, his shovel dripping.
“I ain’t seen a single maggot,” the other agreed, and nodded, digging back into the heap.
There was a groan and a metallic suction and crunch accompanied by the blinking back-up beeps of the garbage truck.
I felt a seizure welling up.
A mockingbird attempted to conquer the din. Ten years swam by. Hoarse and vanquished, I watched him fly against the watery-brown sky and vanish.
I once held a baby bird, a couple summers ago. The tiny creature, lighter than a fistful of sunflower seeds, quivered violently with life and burned my hand. I dropped it. Just before the cat pounced, I plucked it up again and set it in the sink.
Its eyes, like two drops of midnight, leered up at me, its pale neck of string nearly snapping- and with a peculiar rictus grin splitting its face apart, it commenced its screams for sustenance.
No harm done.
Some scraps from my corpse never quite made it into the truck. Some pieces were never going to budge.
A slurry of vultures descended for inspection. They poked and rasped and then looked at each other in disgust.
I watched them shrug and mount the bilge-water sky in a flurry of razor-black wings. Even the scavengers reject my remains.
The sun is pooling on the horizon now, in the garden of ales. Bottles glitter, poking up from the mud like stakes. Another wistful twilight hanging, the air sharp with the scent of broken twigs. The faceless doll in the background keeps spinning, dangling from the thumb of a branch.
The moon sweeps over. Distant lights yawn. The clouds are shorn by a gust of oven wind. I see the coyote again, stretching in the middle of the road, his ear whistling. I whisper a muffled apology to him- though, I know not why.
He gives me a lopsided look, his lemon-ball eyes in slits. A carnivorous smile swims across his inky lips.
A hiss of headlights reflects on a fleck of bone. I become encompassed in a warm deluge. I stare up from the bottom and allow myself to drown.
The ripples above never seem to end.
black and white meditation
Aye, I went into a bit of a noir stupor 😉 Thanks for drizzling by, Victor.
Smiling cheers,
Autumn Jade
Your descriptions are haunting in texture, sounds and smells. I read it twice.
Thanks so much, dear Coastal Crone. I am so thrilled that you enjoyed these rusted words.
I actually did see a coyote the other night, when I took the photos. He stalked across the road and was lovely. It is an eerie feeling to see the coyotes at night here, considering I live on a tiny strip of island mangrove beach, cushioned between the Atlantic and a long-running, intracoastal waterway known as the Indian River Lagoon. Not exactly the sort of habitat one imagines coyotes to inhabit. Of course, then again, NYC is brimming with coywolves, so perhaps it is not so strange, after all. 😀
Thanks for wading by and having a wee look. All the best,
Autumn Jade
I like that special focus that you have in your images. Very individually.
Thanks so much Markus! So glad you liked them. Thanks for sloshing by.
All the best,
Autumn Jade
same to you
Markus
Hi Autumn Jade, I love the artistry in your images and along with your words creative quiet an experience. The details in your shots are very interesting.
Aloha Jane! Thank you for canoeing by.
I am glad that you find the details interesting. I was actually supposed to just take a few haphazard snaps to troubleshoot what had gone awry with a camera. Hour-and-half later I came crawling out of the mire looking more like a swamp than the swamp did… 😉 There is no such thing as “just taking a few snaps” I have learned.
I am so elated that you enjoyed the experience. Thank you for such a delightful and encouraging comment.
Happy meandering,
Autumn Jade
*create quite*…spellcheck….
😀
Such compelling images…the written and the visual.
Thank you very much, Lynn. I appreciate the kind and thoughtful words. I have no idea where these “mental meanderings” emerge from, but delighted that they were enjoyed, along with the soggy visuals. The coyote that inspired it was very cute but I was unable to capture his image…blast.
Thank you so much for misting by. Smiling cheers and a peaceful weekend to you,
Autumn Jade
Another fine journey into your imagination .. Oh to write and see as you do ..
Julie, you are too kind. I always grin incessantly whenever I see that you have canoed by for a visit. Thank you so much for the kind words. Have a stupendous weekend and be grateful you are NOT as bent as I am, har har 😉 All the best,
Autumn Jade
You’re funny .. And not bent! 😃
😀
I must say that you write very well… Lots of imagination, almost poetic
Not entirely a work of fiction- I did see an urban coyote (at last) the other night. I had been haunting the nocturnal streets, waiting to see one, for weeks. It was a brief encounter beneath a hangdog streetlight and then he was gone.
Glad you enjoyed it, Rajiv. Thanks for stalking by and having a wee look and leaving behind such kind words.
Have a groovy weekend,
Autumn Jade
Ah! Autumn Jade… Have a good weekend yourself… I intend to start my Delhi by night photography. Who knows, one of my future posts may be from prison!
Why did you want to see a coyote?
I am AVIDLY looking forward to your nocturnal Delhi series of images, Rajiv. I adore how night transforms a place. I love the noir feeling. I love the compelling battle between the Darkness and the frenzy of man-made lights.
Oh, I do hope that will include photos of the prison, itself, Rajiv 😀
I like to track animals. I used to run with coyotes back in prairie days, but they are more elusive here (I live on a thin, sandy peninsular island sandwiched between an intracoastal waterway or “river” and the Atlantic). It is very urbanized. But I was determined to see one. Next on my list is to see a bobcat. Again, I will be stalking around at twilight and advancing into the night just to catch a wee glisk of the feline.
Thanks for bobbing by (again). Always a pleasure.
Cheers,
Toad Breath
Oh, I do have some night street photo pictures! There was a time when I was near a cremation ground, and these big chaps came up with lathis…
The night transforms..
What exactly do you do, by the way? I am curious
I must see those photos- they sound compelling and perhaps a bit eerie and ethereal. What a scene, just to imagine.
It does indeed.
I am an odd-jobber and a bit of a wandering wastrel.
Not so ethereal. One or two maybe…
An odd-jobber? Well, I came from a solid corporate background, so all this assignment stuff I am doing is all still new for me in terms of lifestyle
My imagination exaggerates everything.
I get restless or depressed when I stay in one job for too long, so I like to ping-pong around and prefer “gigging”. I like manual labour the most- less interaction with people.
So, you work on assignment as a photo-journalist?
Manual work? Wow. In India, people don’t appreciate manual work at all.
This is one of the differences between the West and the East
No, I am not a photo-journalist. I do interior shoots, product shoots and portrait
What I enjoy most is shooting landscapes, people on the street, capturing expressions, macro and still life
Plus, I write!
Interesting. I have loved manual labour all my life. It is not as fun in the Florida heat as it was up North, but I still enjoy the meditation and the peace of it. And I like the more rugged people that gravitate toward that kind of work- they are riddled with interesting stories and history. My dream job (apart from the ideal of working in STEM eventually) who be to work in a bait shoppe. Fishermen have the best stories.
Sounds grand. I trust you will adjust to transitioning from assignment to assignment.
Your writing is sublime, Rajiv, and your wit is very entertaining. And, of course, your photos are excellent. Ha, needless to say, of course. Glad you get to work with a camera for a living, as well.
I like to shoot much of the same, though I do not shoot people as much as I would like to.
Well, craftsmanship is not as valued in India as it used to be. The business owner `and the trader are kings in a way, and we now have become a race that seeks money and vanity
It is not all bad, however, as there are people who are drifting into the arts and creative spheres….
But, I know what you mean about the rugged type. I used to have fun in the steel mill. there is a culture there that is its own
But hey, I am glad you like my photography and writing!
P.S. I was threatened with a cudgel once- not as impressive as a lathi, and the officer was rather short, but still.
Ah… Well, I am not tall, and these guys were!
Do you know what a lathi is?
Sounds troubling, Rajiv. I am not that tall either. I suppose the officer towered over me but he struck me as a mewling shrimp. And the microscopic cudgel looked pretty pathetic. It was one of those military expandable cudgels. He did not extend it, or I might have been a little impressed by the snap. I thought it was a tiny taser when he initially got it out. He also opened the back seat of his cruiser and seemed to weigh whether or not he should push me in. I was in huge trouble for “aimless” walking. Guilty. 😉 My experience really does not compare with yours Rajiv, at all. Seriously sounds scary. By the way, I thought a lathi was a long wooden bashing stick. Yes?
Well, here is what lathi practice looks like
You need to be well trained to use it, else you could bonk yourself on the head! A lathi can be between 4 and 6 feet long
So yeah, you got the lathi right!
By the way, do you want to take this conversation to the email area?
Indeed. An email is trundling on its way to you now.
Yeah! Just saw… Shall reply in the morning. Am hoofing off for dinner with my cousins
You have a unique writing style. I love it.
Thanks so much, Sarah. I thank you for fluttering by and having a wee look, and leaving behind such kind words. Have a lovely rest of the week. Smiling cheers,
Autumn Jade
interesting venture into morbidity. it reminded me of the day my mother read a “good book” about planning for everyone else’s life for after you die…clever, but like cocoa puffs, you can only take so much of it. you have certainly braved beyond the pale. and even yet…yer still a fine lass ya are.
Thanks for oozing by.
Your dear ol’ mum sounds interesting. What a darling reading topic. And how old were you for this bonny reading? I am reminded of a slogan I heard slung into the air somewhere- “If you start to drown and another person’s life flashes before your eyes, you might have a co-dependency problem.”
Ye still deem me a fine lass, eh? I shall have to try harder. 😉
Wishing you a delightful weekend, dear Lost Kerry Man.
Cheers.
-toad breath
I always hoped that just once he would get the roadrunner
I derived masochistic enjoyment from his failure- I could relate.
I would love to work for the Acme company. They made some awesomely not quite good enough stuff
Definitely the dream job, Feral. 😀
Rockets.. Cannons.. Explosives.. All the fun stuff 😀
InDUBitably! 😉
Excellent pictures.
I cannot write like this as I must inhabit/be the thing I am writing, a dangerous place if I go too dark. You are dancing on the edge of it very well.
Ha ha, strangely enough, this post was supposed to be an anecdotal smirk story about my midnight misadventures pursuing wildlife down lonely, noir alleys and through the back-ways along the slithering canals…er, missed the mark just a wee bit, I did. 😉
Thank you for the delightful comment. How wonderful to dip so deeply into your writing world so as to inhabit it fully! I hope this silly write did not drag you too far down into the murky depths of the quagmire, DuneLight- and if so, swim back up, shake off, and let the sunshine rain down on you, once again.
Thank you very much for drizzling by. Have a majestic week,
Autumn Jade
great mood 🙂
Thank you!
Thank you for visiting
See you on the other side of creativity
As always Sheldon
Your writing and imaging are inspiring. So enjoyable. Keep up the great work! I look forward to exploring more of your work.
Thank you very much, Mobius. I feel the same about your work. Happy to have found your blog.
Cheers to you and thanks for drizzling by,
Autumn Jade
Prachtige creativiteit in woord en beeld.Schitterend werk.