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Great escapes
Curtains
Backstage the assistant stares at her tea.
“What do you see?” asks the magician.
The assistant stares down and frowns. The leaves in the tea form patterns.
“Nothing” she replies but everything comes together.
On stage the magicians feels icy steel. The blades have been switched.
The assistant smiles. Revenge.
Stray fire
The city sleeps and a garbage pile smolders
A thousand goldfish swim on reflections
On the house and car windows.
Drawing like a kid
There is something weird about trying to draw like a kid again. You have these themes you seem obliged to repeat again again. Stick figure people and box houses, stick crows flying towards the sun etc.
This one was always one of the more unusual ones I’d try to draw. I don’t know why I needed a house, trees, grass, pebbles, streams, mountains and a way away from it all. I would never complete the drawing because something about it would distract me. I wonder where I could have wanted to go.
In the mirror hall
The mirror house was from those movies they told you not to watch, where frightened victims leave clouded mirrors while a man with a knife follows.
I remember the night outside, thick with mist and the moon dropping low like a spider ready to snatch it’s prey. I hear their shouts trying to find me. Their flashlights reveal armies of fellow pursuers all bouncing off the corners, all on their own quests.
I put my hand against the mirror. Its deceitful icy cold gave way to warmth. Mine.
Time has taken a thousand moons hence, but the mirrors cradle my sleepwalking soul, my happy silhouette, ever elusive across the glassy cold.
Sleepless
Moonlight
On my glasses.
Insomnia.
Cat!
Cube Elephant
The Explorer
Rijul Ballal 