Challenge Accepted

Newsletter 22: A Visual Prompt with Winta Assefa

Original artwork by Winta Assefa

I thought about this photo a long while. I pushed it away, then pulled it close on and off over weeks. It’s funny, I’m in a writing group and can pound out 500 in 10 minutes.

So no excuses. I did my bodied meditation. I centered myself. Breathed…

I came up with nothing. I first phrased it as the end of an experiment. The Earth observation had concluded and a billion years of data had been collected. The planet would soon be incinerated. The being at the base of the glass was lounging and waiting for a signal from the control room.

Scratch that.

My second attempt was a poem about contemplating the infinite, of being all knowing and still feeling disconnected. The words clashed and tumbled. I didn’t like the way they rhymed… and when they didn’t.

Delete.

It’s an image to mull over with no clear answer. It’s vast and there’s a million and one stories to gather from it. We are so consumed by life on our little planet and forget there’s more than this. Imagine being outside that experience, knowing that Earth itself, with all its wonder, might be some being’s curiosity.

I finally chose another one of Winta’s drawings. It’s more of what I know as a writer: darkness, being alone, and journeys.

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In Time

Original artwork by Winter Assefa

I kicked rocks as the bullies had so politely suggested, still nursing the tender bruise on my left cheek. I could not go home, at least not yet. They’d wonder how many times it had happened before and I didn’t want to explain.

The sounds of billowing puffs and creaking gears beat like drums in the trainyard. Bright yet desolate. My favorite.

All along the path were discarded bits of trash, forgotten and folded into the ground as if always belonging there. I turned a corner to find another loner approaching. His gait was unsteady and shuffling, likely a bar patron walking off poor decisions.

“Got a light?” He asked. He was roughed up with short, dirty nails.
“Nah, sorry, I don’t smoke.”
“Thanks anyway.” His words dripped like syrup as he mumbled against crooked teeth. He’d make it. Probably.

Up the hill were two figures backlit by a hazy orange street lamp. Shit. It was him. Charles Lennox.

“Jooooeliiiieee!” He called.

His voice rippled through my back and tightened me all over. He skipped down the hill to meet me, kicking up clouds of dust.

“Hey, bud!” Charles said cheerfully.

He gripped by chin roughly, turning my face to one side. “Ooo… that’s quite a shiner. Where’d you get that?” He said grinning. He shoved his friend, Phil, who was more empty vessel than person. Anywhere Charles went, anything he said, Phil followed. Phil snorted and poked at my cheek.

“Now you know the quota is only once per day. Better run along before it’s midnight.” Charles tapped my cheek against a wince I could barely hold back.

They howled down the path behind me. I spat on the ground after them and glared at their backs. Bastards.

I was seething hot with rage. I imagined a rusted steel rod appearing in my hand and bounding into a giant leap, I’d come down hard on Charles’s back. He’d fall flat as a domino into the dirt. Phil would be dumbstruck and quivering, a widening wet spot coursing down his leg. He’d run and I’d let him. But he wouldn’t get far before I would suddenly appear at his side. I’d grab him by the collar and lift him off his feet. I’d drink up his fear and his soul until he withered into dust.

One day. One day I’d do it.

At the crest of the hill was the same disheveled man I’d seen moments ago, sitting on a large boulder. He was shrouded in darkness, with the red hot cherry of a cigarette illuminating his cotton white eyes.

“Hey, there, son.”

I approached, still standing in the glow of the streetlight.

“What do you want?” He asked.
“Nothing. Just headed home.”
“Those boys troublin’ ya?”
“It’s nothing. They do it all the time.”
“But what do you want?” He insisted.

I clenched my jaw, still sore from a few hours’ old blow. I tipped my chin up. “I want those boys buried.”
“Buried?”
“Yeah. Dead and gone.”
“Well, you know what they say ‘bout diggin’ graves…”
“I don’t care anymore.”
“There’s a difference between wants and needs. What you need is to go home. What you really want, is to be let alone. Ain’t that right?” Smoke rose from his nostrils.

“Yeah. I do. But they’re… horrible people. They deserve some punishment.”

The man smiled widely and rolled his head back. “Naw, son. There’s no swift punishment for the wicked. You wait and see, he’ll dig his grave before you do.”

He took a long drag and breathed out smoke that formed an entrancing swirl around his head.

“Your name’s Joel, right?”
I nodded.
“Joel, you see those tracks up there?” The man pointed toward the far yard where there was the faint pounding of spikes.
“In ten years’ time, ole Chuck there will be on that track, poundin’ away at a spike when he’ll trip over his own carelessly scattered tools. He’ll land face first onto one of his own knives and that’ll be the end of him.”

I forced back a smile that I was almost sure he saw anyway.

“Come on back here tomorrow. Same time. You and me should talk more.” He flicked his cigarette and it flew end over end into the brush.

I watched the man walk deeper into the dark.

“Hey! But I don’t even know your name!”

“You’ll know. Soon enough...”

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I’d like to thank Winta Assefa for allowing me to share her art, but also helping me give my audience a bit of a departure from the norm.

This was a challenge. With writing, I am usually conjuring my own images and from there, the words come. I found myself blocked starting the process with a visual prompt. It’s one of the pains of writing but really a key to growth. At my usual publishing time today I had virtually nothing. Slight panic? Slight panic.

I was ready to send this newsletter out to tell you about my failure, but thought about fellow Substack writer Jimmy Doom. He publishes daily fiction and sometimes it’s 20 minutes to midnight, but the newsletter arrives nonetheless. Can I give myself some grace? Absolutely. Then the story slowly materialized, with a nod to some of Jimmy’s work, but also, T Van Santana. They’re a sucker for a smoking character and I added that here too. It’s funny how the work can come together just in time.

I’ll invite you, reader, to try your hand at the first image.

What would you come up with?

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1. I have a podcast called Substack Talk with Diane Hatz of Whole Health and in the latest episode we chatted about branding, where we see our Substacks going, and the perils of other platforms. Give it a listen!

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