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Inspired byThe stairs went nowhere, and that was where we kept our memories. Dreams had better addresses, but I still searched for one I could reach. I stared at the blank wall, hoping tomorrow might leave a photograph, some small proof that it intended to arrive. Beyond it, the horizon had forgotten its own name. And what to speak of Giordano Bruno’s memory theatre? I had a ticket, but couldn’t remember the performance. A chair waited onstage for someone I used to be. She closed her eyes, as if darkness might offer what the world withheld. Inside her, emptiness spilled its ink, a black bile pooling in the little room where creation sat barefoot, waiting for something—anything—to stain. Perhaps a bird. Perhaps, if we waited, another world. Use just the original aesthetic of the second uploaded image. Now observe the image first closely. Do not attempt to preserve its original history, composition, or meaning. Use its visual elements as ingredients for an entirely new story. Select the most interesting elements, detach them from their original roles, and assign them new purposes, relationships, and meanings. Then, invent a surprising event that connects them—something that has already happened or is about to happen. Alter scale, position, function, perspective, or physical logic whenever doing so makes the story more interesting. Contradicting the original image is permitted. Create a surreal, minimalist, poetic, and meaningful scene that represents a pivotal moment in this new story. The result must evoke the image of a story never seen before. Do not illustrate the original image. Do not explain it. Transform its ingredients into something unexpected.not text.
She took off her face and laid it beside the stairs.
“I’m tired of being recognized,” she said.
It was a large face. Without her behind it, I could see how much work it had been doing. The eyes remained almost closed, saving a little darkness for later.
I sat in the purple chair.
There was no other chair, so she became the afternoon.
This happened without much difficulty. She had spent years standing beside windows.
The stairs led to a tower where we stored things we could no longer remember. I went up once and found a teaspoon, three summers, and the sound my mother made when she opened a letter she had been expecting.
I came down carrying nothing.
Some things become heavier when you find them.
A paper boat waited on the black water. Its sail was made from a letter I had never sent. From where I sat, I could see the fold passing through the place where I would have written her name.
“Does it go anywhere?” she asked.
“It hasn’t yet.”
“That’s a good beginning.”
Above us, a cloud dangled little red weights. Perhaps it needed them to remain a cloud. I had never considered how much effort went into staying above something.
A red bird flew past the tower with a loose thread hanging from its body. It looked as though somebody had begun mending the sky and gone inside to answer the telephone.
The black bird stayed on the ground.
I liked him immediately.
He examined a ball with a red stripe, then looked at me. I had no explanation for it either.
“What to speak of Giordano Bruno’s memory theatre?” I said.
She opened one eye.
“Is there somewhere to sit?”
I looked at the purple chair beneath me.
“Only if I get up.”
So I did.
For a while the chair remained empty. Then a small dent appeared in its cushion.
We watched it deepen.
I wanted to ask which afternoon of her life had sat down, but she had been recognized enough for one day.
Her face rested against the bottom stair. Somewhere inside it, darkness was gathering into ink. A little of it escaped between her lips.
I thought of bringing paper.
Instead, I put my hand beside hers.
The bird stepped around the ball. The boat moved an inch. Up in the tower, something fell from a shelf, and neither of us went to see what it was.
By evening, the dent in the chair had disappeared.
“Shall we go?” she asked.
She picked up her face and held it against her chest. I carried the chair, awkwardly, with its legs pointing toward tomorrow.
We left the stairs where they were.
Somebody might remember a way down.
