“Merely
this and nothing more” won the 14 November Flash!
Friday competition.
My interview with Rebekah Postupak over at Flash! Friday can be read here.
For this
prompt you had to include a famous writer and the photo below, and I took the chance to see how many
I could refer to as I couldn’t decide which one to use. I’ll give the story
first and then a breakdown of the intertextual references – these are writers and
books I think everyone should read at least once. So, here it is for those who have asked me
which works it was that I used.
 |
Merely this and nothing more
If on a summer’s day a Story Teller was to
exit Hotel L—, she would find herself on the road leading to the harbour. If
she walked, her mind would drift through centuries of memories. If she
remembered, she would colour memories to adventures, hovels to palaces,
obstacles to giants. If she stood on the shore she would recall all the
memories of all the ages. Cities. Armies. Voyages. Adventures. Sorrow. Love.
Fear. Beasts growing listless in ancient temples beneath the waves.
If she was to tell all these memories to
the ocean, she would slowly sink into a story herself; her voice caught in sea
foam, her secrets bound in a chest on the ocean floor where fifteen dead men
danced, her stories travelling through countries, years, and centuries before
being caught by ink.
She asked if her own words, those grains of
sand, would be remembered.
She did not wait for an answer; lest it was
“nevermore”.
 |
| Photo by Carin Marais |
The Writers and the Books, or, some stuff to
put on a to-read list
“grains of sand” – after my initial “I want to use an Afrikaans
writer” idea, I realised no-one taking part in the competition will know who
I’m refering to, but I did include Ingrid Jonker,
specifically her poem “Korreltjie sand” (Little grain of sand).
This poem is one of my
favourite Jonker poems and ends with the line “korreltjie niks is my dood”
(small grain of naught is my death*). The
English translation can be read here. Ingrid Jonker led a turbulent life,
which ended on 19 July 1965 when she committed suicide by walking into the sea
at Three Anchor Bay in Cape Town.
*Translation by Antjie Krog & André
Brink
Here Chris Chameleon
is singing “Korreltjie sand” and at the end of the post is the superb music
video created for her poem “As jy weer
skryf”, also sung by him.
“If on a summer’s day a Story Teller” – that was me butchering Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. Read
the book, is all I will say.
“hovels to palaces, obstacles to giants” – Cervantes’s Don Quixote. If you haven’t read this one yet, I can very highly
recommend the translation by Edith Grossman.
“Beasts growing listless in ancient temples
beneath the waves.” – H.P.
Lovecraft. Audible has a range of audiobooks of his works (this is not an advertisement, I use Audible
and find the books are of a high quality).
“sea foam” – Hans Christian
Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid”. Do yourself a favour and read the original
versions of the stories. You will never be the same again. This is a very handy resource.
The chest and fifteen men – “Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest…” is used
in Treasure
Island by R.L. Stevenson.
