Ketalar

Whatever was or was not confined by that svelte stream coursed its way under my skin, releasing its sweet body into my salted estuaries, sharp and scarlet by vice of their ferrous casket. Course uncaged, but body unblent, it travelled onward, gathering into a blister at the back of my brain, pressing the pillow as it flourished. There it negotiated the doors of my perception, and slid asunder the drapes of the stage, the dramaturge dropped his puppets about me, infused life but buried the edge glancing, gashing the depth of their eyes. Once alive, now waxen mannikins of taxidermied psyches, their skins seemed leathered, as my fingers felt, sliding, flowing over one another, gloves lubricated by cool lather. Not mine. Nor those foreign legs, limbs in exile.

Onwards floating, a hair's width above the bed, sails covered eyes and mast twisted, sinking the vessel and drawing living water to my loose lips. A gasp, savoured and spewed, a gulp of smog. I released it outside the window, from a modest pipe, whiffing beneath the tongueless chimney, a mere beacon for paper pigeons, pinions defiled yet safe from deflagration. Crows, cut-outs of deadly nightshade, nested in the smokestacks, distilling from soot some flat import as impinging as it was void, or slit the sky, shadow marionettes speaking hollow stories outside my Cave.

My sight shifted from item to individual, brief infinities lapsing before their forms sharpened, each stare stabilising a shaky world, deluding me into illusions of normalcy. Yet eldritch was my ensnarement in a slough of nowness, the past in ken and reach, but for a brigandine of reeds, an iron tent dissecting instant from reminiscence and future. I traced my life entire, but left it unpeeled, I'd flake away with the wallpaper of that chamber, eternally enclosed, a gap in time.

Independent/Bosch Technology Horizons essay... déjà vu?

I've tried my luck again. This time an essay on the way Technology and Engineering drive change in a country of my choice... It shall not be published in the Independent newspaper this time, but did not fall short of the shortlist, and even fetched a Highly Commended prize. I lay it here before you, a cheeky review of the redemption of a land many love to hate, in case you wish to read it:

"Speak of the devil

Harsh foreign policy, unhealthy relationship with science, bastion of the death penalty in the developed world, second worst polluter per capita and, never fear, greatest polluter overall! Can you hazard a guess as to the country in question?

In recent years the USA hasn't been a country one readily thinks of in relation to the word "change" (except perhaps "climate change") as it congeals into strict conservatism in almost all senses of the word. Almost. A citadel of change remains its saving grace, the 'balm in Gilead' that can clear away the black Raven upon our threshold, and help metamorphose our dying world into the zestful butterfly it deserves to be. A host of technological advances grown in the USA will be pivotal on the Eastern Front of our battle for a sustainable world.

One revolution borne out of these lands will change the pages of history, rather literally. In Massachusetts, the E Ink corporation has developed "e-paper", an electrophoretic display that works by shifting pigment particles, changing its reflective properties, and hence its colour. Crucially, electronic paper, unlike typical computer displays, emits no light nor needs any electricity to show the image, only to change it. Eye fatigue and energy use are thus reduced, crowning e-paper as paper's perfect replacement. Think of the interminable piles of paper we come across every day: newspapers, magazines, books, briefs, documents, instruction manuals, most of which we have only time to glance at before chucking away - the lifelines of our work and leisure are tautly bound to the death of countless trees. Yet readers based on e-paper, such as the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader, forecast the liberation from our arboreal shackles forever more.

But as we make the electronic switch, we must beware of our carbon footprint. Thankfully, today we see the edges of a flipping change in our IT mindset. For years we've felt in our flesh the undying urge toward ever more powerful machines, but today, the simplest of computers easily serve most of our needs. A host of Californian companies have taken the initiative to popularize computers on an unprecedented scale. Everex has introduced the gPC desktop and laptops like the gBook the Cloudbook, which are affordable and efficient by virtue of low wattage VIA processors and the less power-hungry Linux OS Ubuntu. Zonbu offers a similar deal, but in addition does away with a local hard drive, instead using a small flash memory device while storing most of the users' data online. NComputing goes a step further by marketing single computers that can power multiple users (up to 30 per unit), making public terminals far more efficient. The bottom line here is that a focus on efficiency and centralization can make technology available to anyone, whilst landing smoother rather than rougher on our environment.

But, you ask, how are you to power all this change? Bitter black gold, for all your green credentials? No, we need not get our hands dirty, as there's more than enough renewable energy to get by. Indeed, thanks to a number of US firms there has not been a better time for solar power, which is quickly striding forward in efficiency, availability, economy and, vitally, versatility. For instance, at the University of Delaware, Christina Honsberg and Allan Barnett have broken a record in solar efficiency, with 42.8% of solar energy transformed into electricity, by splitting light into different colour spectra and directing them to different materials that best absorb them. Peter Jiang at the University of Florida has used divine (or, rather, natural) inspiration by creating bumpy, moth eye-like solar panels that, unlike traditional silicon panels, reflect very little of the light projected onto them, making better use of its energy. Jin Zhang at UC Santa Cruz wants to use metal oxide nanoparticles and nanocrystals, “quantum dots”, to increase conversion efficiency through having electrical energy move more easily by hopping between quantum dots.

Easing the production of solar panels, Massachusetts firm Konarka is developing technology allowing us to print them on an inkjet printer, while in the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Somenath Mitra uses nanotechnology to design a solar panel material that can be painted onto any surface. Another company, Ausra, plans to place solar plants in direct contest with coal plants, by patching up the solar Achilles heel, inconstant availability, through storage of energy in the shape of hot steam, ready to be used instantly to create electricity. All this brings solar efficiency ever closer to the fated 1$/Watt, the magic number making solar power cheaper than coal.

Thus, technology can heal the ecological sins we have perpetrated - let's keep our faith and humbly embrace this saviour, harbinger of change, let her wash our oily hands."

el Rey, el Acuario y la Mora

This little text, I wrote as an entry to a contest of microstories, and based it on an older tale of mine:

"Érase un viudo Rey cuya esposa dejó sólo un tirabuzón bronce, dentro del libro escarlata donde él trazaba su pasión, no con tinta, pero con sus yemas y hálito. Cada noche quemaba un pelo, intentando agostar su duelo, pero el mechón nunca menguó.

Una noche, saturado de sufrir, el Rey incinero tomo y trenza en su hogar. Esa mañana, junto al trono apareció un Acuario abarcando un pez áureo y cuarenta pescaditos plateados. A medida que el pez dorado tragaba a sus vecinos, el Rey conquistaba los suyos, hasta que declaró guerra con su última adversaria, una muda Princesa Mora. Él rechazó su hospitalidad, quemó puertas, rompió paredes y cuando ella, arrodillada, pidió merced, amputó y tomó consigo su negra cabellera como trofeo.

De vuelta al palacio vio al pez gualdo consumiendo su propio cuerpo, desapareciendo; y advirtió que de la bronce cabellera en su mano pendía un volumen carmesí."

the Charcoal, the Blackbird and their Art

There once was a piece of Charcoal, of no shape in particular, amorphous as blackness, shifting there and here, water-like. A mucky onion of infinite layers, sliding over one another, rubbing, as palm over palm, trying to wash away its own dirt.

This Charcoal had its own Art, as wild as graphite is tempered, drawing its flood of forms on the bodies of pebbles and stones, painting their outlines with the dyes of the sands and dust. But never did it draw its own nature, for it could not paint upon thin air; only the shadow of its true self could be traced upon the face of the Earth.

The deep self of the earthy Charcoal was flight, and only as it drew falsehoods, as skin after skin it shed itself, consumed itself in the fire of creation, could it approach its own truth. The dirt gone, the shining Blackbird emerged from her own ashes. And as she shook the ash from her feathers, she realised that she would never draw again as she once had, smearing darkness upon the world believing that the images she traced would last. Instead, she started painting with the world, marking the sand with her feathers, her claws, her beak; but never asking the lines to remain constant, but let the Winds change them as they willed. She threw her ashes into the eye of a whirl and let them melt.

All flesh is grass

All flesh is grass. Krishna walks upon the lawn without one backward look, this is her garden after all. Her mighty steps mould, sometimes mangle the stalky fingers, carve on a track across the green, darkening it with sacrifice, then tinging it, eroding it into gold. No single glance back. Who ever does look at the steps one takes, the steps one steals? We cut our paths through the lives of others, chances we pluck before their vines can tangle us, slow us down, and before they can caress us, touch us.

We are so heavy, yet all flesh is grass. Our meaty leaves are built from breath, upon our masts live sails of web, round chutes follow the wind, bade us the vertical though we only ever walk the horizontal. So many windows in the dew, encased in hoary silk, interminable eyes pointing to heaven, reflecting it in Indra's net, echoes itself in each one drop.

But now her palm parts the web, she loves not spiders, their world entire her hand, but not for long, her fist closes their death over their black carapaces. Pregnant, they crack into caviar, cast their mesh once more, each egg reflecting one another and all without. Indra cackles.

Does the mailman ever mark his strides? Sometimes his letter carries a dearer fare, stumps chiseled from paper cuts, sharp words, and long, blunt embraces.

the Stone, the Mirror and the Hedgehog

Once upon a time, there was a Stone. He lived alone, a pebble, his rounded skin enclosing mystery not only to others, but also himself. He lived mute, a boulder, his voice smothered in the lattice of sial within him. He lived sightless, a rock, his only eye a cataract glossed by the rain.

Within him, a brain of basalt and quartz learned time, touch and the content of himself. He knew of the Gravel upon which he lay, his brothers and sisters. He knew of the Winds, his Chance and Destiny, dictating his story, granting and robbing all that surrounded him, yet never touching his midst. He knew of the Lake, whose waves slowly gnawed his substance away and would one day devour him, would one day know him inside out and so would he know her.

But the Winds, envious, took the Stone in their hands and threw him into the Lake. As he fell, the blazing brushing of the Winds seared his cecity away and let him behold the Lake, a round Mirror. As he touched her surface, the Mirror broke into a myriad pieces and he saw himself as he was: not a single soul but a fragmented phantom, a hundred shards, a million grains of sand. As he watched himself breaking he became thus, a Stone shattered into a thousand thorns, not dry, but carrying a Lake within himself.

Thus was the Hedgehog born. Watch your reflection in his spines, a plain looking glass to your mind...

the Squirrel, the Tree and the Seasons

Once upon a time, upon a little hill, lived a Squirrel and a Tree, who loved each other with an abandon that knew not race nor age. The Squirrel well knew each of the Tree's branches, his lovesome leaves and fragrant bloom, she knew and reveled in the resin that flowed in his veins and gladly ate the fruits he offered her. The Tree well knew each of the Squirrel 's hairs, her tender talons and caring eyes, he knew and delighted in the dew that adorned her fur and lief warded the nuts she offered him.

But Spring soon left the Tree, then Summer came to take his flowers and rot his fruits, then Autumn came to steal his lush leaves, then Winter came to freeze the resin rivers within him. And as each Season passed, the Squirrel asked the Tree: "Why have you changed? Your gifts are gone, our love has lessened." The Tree replied each time: "'Tis but the seasons, do wait a while and I'll be born afresh." But the Squirrel did not believe, and wildly pushed the Tree away with its small mitts. But the Tree would never move.

The end of Winter came at last, and the Tree's life flowed once again, he grew once more; but the Squirrel did not look up to see, but long stared at the dry roots and softly spoke: "You are bark but I am flesh, my colour's fire but water is your life, you are stillness but I am motion. We are too different." She closed her eyes and pushed the Tree with all her might, and so great was her thrust that she fell back and rolled down from the hill. When she did open her eyes, the Tree was nowhere to be seen.

They say, soon after came the fallers and struck down the Tree, and from his body fashioned the pages on which these tales are written. Others claim a Blackbird made its nest within the Tree and stayed, for it knew much of Seasons and their ways, finding gifts in each of them. There are those who say that as the Tree waited for the Squirrel to find her way back, his fruits dried and turned chestnuts. Perhaps you know the End?