“Detail” was reprinted in the third issue of Behind the Wainscot, a side project of the online magazine Farrago’s Wainscot.
This story originally appeared in issue 11 (fall 2001) of the print magazine Conduit. The painting in question is The Temptation of St. Anthony (left panel), a nice large image of which can be found at this online poster store. Our hero is in the lower right corner of the painting, and is the only one of my characters who has been made into an action figure.
I am a small, bird-headed demon, skating.Gliding up a frozen river, I totter from side to side to side; my legs are short and my crotch is low. In my crossed beak, I carry a letter. I have not read the letter.
I am coming to a bridge. I will pass under the bridge and go on.
I pass fields mummified by winter, all snowless rows of frozen mud and broken stalks of grain. A town is nearing on my right, an abandoned place, curtains flapping from the windows. Smells like plague to me. The evening is clouding up, bringing an unhealthy damp, and I skate a little faster.
Tuesday, January 1st, 2008 at 11:41 amand is filed under Fiction Excerpt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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