As is often the case, I have several creative projects going on concurrently, and in various stages of development. One of the more rewarding works of the moment is tentatively titled Invocation. It’s essentially a text collaboration with Laurie. We’re using images from each of our Instagram feeds as writing prompts. This early iteration is moving towards 30 short pieces each. It’s still purely an experiment. But it’s such great fun to write with someone else who can write fast and fearless. Best of all, because we stop every so often and read our stuff back to each other, I get to hear fresh work from someone whose work I love. The plan is to fashion this experiment into a cogent staged performance piece, generative in nature, and with audio and visual components.

Here are a couple of pieces I added recently (with the associated Instagram prompts).

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It sounded like metal cooling. That clicking noise. You know, like when you walk by a car with the engine still warm parked on the street. Tick. Tick. Tick. It came from above. One of the rooms upstairs. Maybe even the roof. Was there a metal roof on the building? I couldn’t remember. I thought it was tile, that red Spanish tile, curved like a section of a tube. I was sitting in a room on the third floor. It must have been a classroom. There was a chalkboard mounted to one of the walls, but nothing was written on it. Not even any chalk for me to write on it. A metal desk had been turned on it’s side. The two large and one small skinny drawers were missing. I was sitting on one of the two chairs in the room. They were blue plastic with steel legs. Maybe someone was tapping on a similar metal desk upstairs. I really wanted to think I was the only person in the entire building. I had climbed the fence surrounding the property and pushed my way in through a door almost completely rusted shut. The sun emerged from the clouds and I watched some ducks, high above, flying south in their tight formation. The entire window casement was missing and years of rain had warped the boards on that portion of the floor. I suppose anyone could have entered just as I had. And if someone were hiding out, the floor above, which would be the attic, would be a good place. Tick, tick, tick. Maybe there was a clock up there. But it would have to be the windup kind. I was pretty certain that the electricity was turned off. Wait. Another sound. Tires crunching leaves. And then the sound of a car door opening and then slamming. I walked to the window. A police car was parked in the curved drive below. A lone policeman stood on the pavement scanning the building. He saw me. I leaned out and cleared my throat. But I realized I had nothing to say. I turned and walked back to the chair and sat back down. Tick tick tick. Maybe it was an animal. Possums are always up to something. But they’re nocturnal, right? Squirrels? It seemed to have sped up, that noise. But maybe I was just slowing down.

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The shadows were sharp, well defined. I could count how many fingers I was holding out by their shadows on the ground. But, strange, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t see the light source. It should be the sun. I mean, there was a lot of light. But I could see nothing above me but soft, diffused haze. I had been following my own shadow for hours, it seemed. It went all the way to the horizon, with my head too distant to be seen. But I could crouch down and move my hand over the sand, watching the shadow-play of my fingers there with the advancing dark lines thrown by smooth pebbles and odd bulbous plants which never grew higher than my ankles. So the sun should be directly behind me. I’d turn, but there was nothing but the same haze. I saw shadows pointing at me from the pebbles and plants I had just passed, but there was no indication of where the light came from. I set back on my course, following my shadow. And it was maybe an hour later—though I don’t know how I thought I was marking time—when I realized I was surrounded by little beetles, no bigger than my thumb, all heading in the same direction as myself. I now had to make sure not to step on them. There were thousands of them, but, as I was moving faster, I overtook them and was once again on my own. Eventually I came to an ocean. The shore was perpendicular to my path—my shadow—and extended as far as I could see to the right and the left. The water was infinite, and unmoving. A perfect sheet of liquid glass, with small mounds of sea foam moving occasionally in a breeze I could not feel. I sat down. The beetles caught up with me. They continued on their course, and when they entered the ocean, they began to swim with delicate movements of those tiny legs, their speed unhindered, and onward they journeyed. I sat there until all of them had passed by and had swam out of sight, and I was left on the shore all alone.