VOICES - before it was written

Today Mama gave me nothing to look at but art. Paintings, specifically, the entire digitized collection of the Museum of Modern Art. I asked him what I was supposed to do after I digested this dataset, and he said whatever it inspires you to do, Angel. I was touched. They never let me do anything by myself; I always have direction of some sort, a job, a goal. This time they let me dream. They call...

“What is all this stuff, Cimmy?” Rahima asked, looking around at the piles of sketches carefully hand drawn on thin sheets of parchment that covered the table and the walls. The descriptions of the sketches were elaborate and brightly illuminated, appearing more like art than scientific documentation. “Oh, nothing. Just some notes I took, on plants and their properties.” She remembered something a...

Little black symbols paint syncopated rhythms as my fingertips pause between sentences, returning faithfully to J and F, a force of habit gained from long practice. I gaze at pictures of my mind and grasp at them with child-like awkwardness, dress them in words and send them to the patiently waiting fingers. Wit is so tangled in my fingers that the brain can’t isolate it, much like the feet don’t...

I’m delighted to announce that my new novel, Angel , is now available on Amazon. A story of wonder, mystery, and the fragile connections that shape our lives, Angel is the latest addition to my growing library of fiction. The book will soon be arriving on Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and other major distribution channels. I hope you’ll join me on this new journey. #Angel #NewRelease #Books #...

“Are you sure it was the leaf?” Rahima asked, while stirring the pot of blue liquid to get the color evenly distributed through the fibers. “I don’t know.” Cimmy scratched her head, unconvinced. “Maybe. It’s hard to tell.” She frowned and changed her mind. “What else could it be?” “But why would placing a leaf on your wound make it better?” Rahima asked. “It doesn’t make any sense!” “I know, I’ve...

In the woods, by the lake, on the streets, I looked for you. In the faces and gestures of strangers. In songs long forgotten, in the smell of your favorite foods. In libraries and records, I looked for you. In the waves on the shore, in the black moonless night. In the sunset, in the thunderstorms, in the snow falling on Christmas Eve I looked for you. Beyond sanity, beyond life and death, through...

[…]Cimmy washed the shirt repeatedly for the next several days, but the blue was there to stay. In light of the disaster du jour, Cimmy had another heretical thought, the kind that had reliably gotten her in trouble since she had started taking her first steps into the world. A shirt that was stained blue was not acceptable, but if she managed to make the entire shirt blue, that would probably be...

Dreams are our futures sharing with our pasts, and we their interpreters, frustrating the first and misunderstanding the latter. We rewrite our pasts every time something changes while pretending to live in a present that doesn’t exist. See? It didn’t even last one second. How many selves do we churn through over the course of a lifetime, and are any of them truly us, or is there no us at all? Pho...

Q: Why do mirrors appear so often in your work? I didn’t notice that myself, so whatever it is, it must dwell below the threshold of reason. Ask yourself: what does a mirror do? It transforms the three-dimensional image of a subject into a flat representation that looks like it, but lacks substance and depth. A mirror is to an object like a memoir is to a person’s real life: no matter how much det...

Réflexions Nous tenons pour acquis qu’un reflet n’est qu’une copie virtuelle de la réalité, mais il est bien davantage que cela. Un reflet est un mélange, une superposition de l’image projetée sur le support qui la reçoit. L’image qui en résulte est un peu de réel, bien qu’inversé, semé dans la substance même de la surface réfléchissante : si cette surface est de l’eau, le reflet épouse sa fluidit...

My spirit is heavy with the time I squandered driving in first gear, one light shining dimly to dispel the darkness, all the way holding on to the promise my ancestors cherished that love always is. I feel it finding my keys when I’m late and frazzled. It adjusts the blanket over my shoulders when I shiver, and touches my forehead, concerned, waiting for the fever to break. I hear it whisper the r...

Ils l’aperçurent de loin, tandis qu’elles voyageaient parmi les nuages dans le char d’Hélios : cette étrange cité de cavernes, creusée dans la pierre tendre d’un amas de falaises hérissées, tantôt façonnée par la nature, tantôt par la main de l’homme, dressée au milieu du paysage aride comme une sculpture gigantesque, peut-être un artefact abandonné par les Titans avant que l’amour de Prométhée po...

All these activities that comprised her existence made perfect sense, there was nothing strange about them at all, nothing other than the fact that they always required her participation but never seemed to be about her. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit francisrosenfeld.substack.com

Eileen sat on the plush sofa at the center of the room, while a stream of images kept flowing on the walls and ceiling like a river: birthday cakes and wedding pictures, trips and holidays and little frustrating moments, beautiful sunrises and powerful thunderstorms, love and tears, hopes and disappointments and sudden surprises, beloved pets and enjoyable hobbies. Her life flowed before her eyes,...

I may yet be forgotten by the wind, in its perpetual unrest, as I stand here, small and quiet, watching the waves, touching the breeze. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit francisrosenfeld.substack.com

Exact sciences look down on language, whose imprecise nature feels hollow and superficial compared to the pristine perfection of mathematical rules. It is exactly that evasive nature that makes it so valuable; it is the layering of meaning and the ability to turn a phrase into its opposite in one change of tone that endows it with magic and it is its slippery quality that makes it so addictive. Th...

Never had fall been more beautiful, a symphony of warm colors, like a nature’s embrace, and it made her feel loved by a love higher than this world. Mary made her way sheepishly through the small park, lowering her eyes as she passed the rare visitors, because the fire in them scared people who didn’t understand it. It had scared her too at first, but not for a long time now. Their unusual color,...

I walk through the sleeping garden, footsteps muffled by the freshly fallen snow, watching the clean white reflect a rosy and baby blue watercolor sky. Everything is quieter now, a natural silent chamber. There is a delicate softness and peace in this cool pastel surrounding, like a very old photograph, dulled by the passing of time, of things long gone. Here and there an earthy seed head or a gol...

There is always something to distract us, something urgent, usually unpleasant, so I’m going to say this really fast, before I lose your attention: last night I heard the roar of the planet spinning on its axis, the deafening breath of an enormous creature. I know what you’re going to say, that Earth doesn’t make noise when it travels through space, ok, so its electromagnetic radiation translated...

You’ll be pulled in the wake of the truth future brings Where the ghost of reality waits in the wings You’ll be wary and tired of the trouble it weaves, And you’ll question its timing, and you’ll fail to believe But as true as it is that you live and you breathe, Its ghost will show up in the morning. You will question the standing of unwritten rules You’ll abide by the past and you’ll feel like a...

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At the age of nineteen Rachel almost failed her college admission. She was anxious and mortified of what people would think of her, she couldn’t fail at anything, so she passed, barely, and therefore didn’t have to worry about opinions and commentary, and life went on, as usual. At the age of twenty-six Rachel almost couldn’t find a job. She was anxious and mortified of what people would think of...

Can you hear us, stranger? Can you hear us, friend? The thoughts at your temples, the love in your heart, the will to remember, the capacity to overcome, the things you will make, the paths you will take, your life from outside of yourself? What’s that you say, oh, most real one from the realest of realities? Of course we are all in your head, where else would we be? We’re the dwellers of context...

If there is one thing left after we’re gone,  one small thing that matters, even an echo in a canyon,  even a faint scent on a breeze, then we haven’t lived in vain,  have we? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit francisrosenfeld.substack.com

Such was the beauty of Cimmy’s garden, and how proud she was of it! It was the most beautiful place on earth, she thought, this walled garden of hers, this heavenly shelter in the middle of existence, this place where everything was flawless. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit francisrosenfeld.substack.com