Prose and photography from Brian Barbeito

Dozens of black birds fly up into a gray sky with a brighter spot in front of the sun.

he looked at the map of the stars, a map he had gotten from a National Geographic book. he had affixed it to the wall and tried to remember it. he couldn’t remember the constellations though, not the way other people did. he was terrible at geography of the earth, and apparently could not remember the sky either. but still, he found that he liked the stars, and the whole idea of it. why not? what other posters were there on the wall? it was difficult to remember. Jim Morrison. The Silver Surfer. outside then the rain and the wind, the fall leaves sometimes twirling around as if guided by a spirit. nobody ever home, or hardly anyhow. emptiness. and no trouble there either, no bad people per se, but no good people either. nothing. a certain emptiness. perhaps it was because the past was over but the future had not really begun. open the window. let the night air go through the screen. sometimes angelic light or feeling. feeling. and actually sometimes the bad. what they call the Old Hag Syndrome, where a being sat is on your back and tried to steal your soul. she arrived twice. had to be fended off with will power. the first time she called his name. but was it real? or a medical thing that sometimes happened to people when they slept. music. soft music. plush carpets w/nightlights. the real stars out there, beyond the poster of such. but not as of late in those long nights, because the cloud cover made for an opacity. memory. nostalgia. ghostly. it wasn’t really eating, or sports, dating, or money or music or drawing or travel. what was it? sometimes something in the words read or written. sometimes that if something had to be picked. yes books. and the wind. books and the wind inside the night. the tarot often said the third eye was open. interesting. he wished no harm upon the ones that wished harm upon him. yet, the diviners say much trouble arrived for them. the wind goes through vines, over and around the old graveyard, and atop plum trees. the wind comes into the room and rustles papers, makes a pen and pencil to roll. friendship w/the night. prayer meditation vision mysteries. a group of deer must wander up the path. to appear just then in the dawn, in the very first inkling of the dawn when the light arrives so suddenly and has been borne and born, travelled and birthed. day was okay. night more spacious, wild, its capricious winds and restless clouds, its electric eclectic ephemeral ethereal dreams and the fall rains against the windows in the witching hour.

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