Annie Q Syed

No. 10 in the series Tuesday’s Torrent.

Photograph courtesy of Tim Corbeel.

One part of the authentic self wanders light years out in the interstellar spaces,

in exile from us.

The other part is buried so deep within us that to resurrect it would be another return from exile.

~ Harold Bloom

More than 3,500 years ago, 100 miles west of Luxor and 300 miles south of Cairo, there was  a road next to the ancient Girga Road known as Bin Abas. It was one of the many roads which led to nowhere. Sometimes it brought the pedestrians back where they began and other times some of these small pathways led onto others and no traveler returned back quite the same when they did finally make their way around.

Thais was one such passerby.

Tableau of scenes and symbols can be found on the walls surrounding Bin Abas to four sides of her story.

One story holds that she came looking for Goddess Maat, the Ancient Egyptian principle of truth, order and justice.

Another story states that she was in love with Sinuhe, who holds life of Sycamore trees.

The third story reveals that her name wasn’t even Thais and she was in fact a young man who often got lost.

The fourth story is the most complex. The carvings reveal a disturbing tale which many from the area still regard as a possibility.

Thais met a seventeen year old boy one afternoon who asked her directions to Girga Road because he didn’t know how to get there on his own. Thais, quite older and more experienced than him, told the boy a shorter route was possible through Bin Abas. The boy had short brown hair, darker brown eyes, and wore a long white linen shirt with a blue scarf wrapped around the middle. The light colors made his skin appear darker than it really was.

They say it was the bone dehydrating heat of the desert and the boy never made it to Girga Road.

It was shortly after that when Thais began speaking in fours. She had four names and four stories for all her selves.

It would have scared the townspeople but she was usually accurate in her four perspectives of herself.

Thais lived like this for a long time. No one knows her age.

That was a long time ago.

Eventually someone who was scared of her many selves brutally murdered Thais.

Now the world has many unauthentic four sides striving to be one which is not possible.

Research for this story provided by links shared on Twitter by @WaltPascoe and @Taabie . Thank you for generating serendipity. : )

September 5th.

Harvest months. Love like loving New York. Marco Rojas. A peek into Emerson’s “Over-Soul.”

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.

New York City inhaled the Sun and exhaled crackling heat to its fullest this past week before simmering into Fall. A magical dragon. The best few months when New York, New York is at her finest are here. The City is a marvel this time of the year: street fairs, divine weather, lush bronze, yellows, greens paint leaves everywhere and the air—the cool aloe vera  breeze—almost demands a stillness.  September comes with a fire but one that doesn’t burn and instead cooks just at the right temperature.  Harvest all you have sown in the prior months.

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inspiration |ˌinspəˈrā sh ən|

noun

c.1300, “immediate influence of God or a god,” especially that under which the holy books were written, from Old French inspiration, from Latin inspiratus: “inspire, inflame, blow into,” from in-“in” + spirare “to breathe.”

“in you everything sank!” ~ Pablo Neruda

More dangerous than an affair is the idea of one. Affairs end; ideas live on once delivered to the imagination, Sogah.

I wake up in the middle of the night, Sogah—where is the middle when you never fall asleep?  I dig through the wind’s skin and scratch scratch scratch at nothing. I look for Vega, Lyra, Altair and million, million, stars, Sogah, to give me something, anything to ignite what was once there.

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August 29th.

Rhythm of stillness. What’s in a greeting? Art for art’s sake, sex for sex’s sake, but no love for love’s sake? Tattoo of “Pole Star” by artist Alphonse Mucha.

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.

I was out with some friends last night and a friend’s friend mentioned how she couldn’t stand the City: the noise, the chaos, the people, the rush, the pushing, the hurrying, the commotion of going nowhere too fast, the overheard meaningless babel of strangers.

Was I delusional? Stillness in New York City that I rave about—figment of my imagination? Was I that in love with New York that I couldn’t hear the havoc around me? Why didn’t I hear and see this? Did I no longer interact with the outside world as much as I did before?

Ten years ago that woman was me. Loved New York but loved hating it. Loved New York but not without constantly complaining about it. The move to New York was part-choice, part-circumstance and part-intuition. I knew that is where I had to be but couldn’t quite make myself fit into the form-fitting sleeves of my decision.

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No. 8 in the series Tuesday’s Torrent.

Photograph courtesy of Tim Corbeel.

Children often grow up to forget that their parents—regardless of their intentions—were unreliable narrators for the facts of life.

Aix-en-Provence, a small town in southern France, was built around the dual identity: a town of water, a town of art. A visitor to France felt he or she had somehow ended up in Aix, as it is often referred by the local residents, even if he or she had prepared for a trip to ensure not missing out on this sun-drenched and easygoing hometown of Paul Cézanne.

Cours Mirabeau, one of the most famous streets in town, lined with green trees and cafes hosts a flea market on Sundays. On either side of the road built in the 17th century, in the place of the former ramparts, the leading families of the nobility built elegant homes to show off their success, sometimes ostentatiously. With richly decorated frontages on the Cours side, and shared hidden gardens opening on to a parallel street, this architectural style created remarkable urban unity.

Composed of the Saint-Sauveur market town and the City of the Counts is the oldest part of the center of Aix known as Old Town. Some of the smaller streets in Old Town have kept their evocative names, such as the rue Esquicho-coudo, a narrow passage dating from the middle ages. Ruins of the old medieval ramparts may also be seen right at the top of the rue Gaston de Saporta.  On Mondays the local residents take advantage of the missing crowd from Sundays.

It was on one such small street in Old Town where Lucas, who carried his mother’s features well and at the age of nine had yet to show any similarities to the father, accompanied his father for a stroll on Monday afternoons.

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