The following article was published in N-SPHERE March 2011 issue.

It must have been a little over a year ago when a new voice was heard through the long bleak days and nights, offering salvation in exchange even for a hint of repentance.

He swore then not to serve him anymore, slithering false master, hidden god of the fools. “The slavery you’re selling is all but too transparent for my taste. The fruits of eternal life you’re offering are poisoned and deceitful and this will bring your downfall. And you will watch on bedded knees the fall of your empires, and I will be there to take comfort in the massacre of your former servants, and throw a perverse grim on your eyes.”

Black clouds of abandonment gathered around him, all the masks he used over the years begging to be allowed to shatter and lay to rest. At least for a while, until he watches from afar those whose life he would soon claim.

“Start peeling off face by face until the raw blackened meat sees the light of day. No more blood, no more veins, just a void filled with cruelty and wrathful deities standing immerse between you and your other self.” “Now I understand. You’ve drawn out the one monster you should have left alone, unspoken of and unseen. You know that this cheap impersonation of the other realm will not protect you when he comes for you. And come he will. The ultimate hideousness, You.” “Yes. I’ve always prayed it would be me the one who summons and keeps him on a leash. Imagine. To just close your eyes and see through his eyes as he turns day into night and disembowels the ground with his mere breath. Would it not make you feel like the sun god himself?”

But some creatures cannot be overthrown and it is better to start carving in secret another fake smile for the days to come. Sadly, not even the hordes of lesser spirits at my disposal will protect me from his evil. I risk too much, yet I still have too much to lose. “And what might that be? Can the all knowing hiding in the back of your mind say for sure? I doubt that.”

I still listen to that song, honoring the memory of you. And the mind flows back to the beginning, when freshly carved faces announced a world of possibilities ready to crumble.

text & artwork by Bahak B

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The following article was published in N-SPHERE February 2011 issue.

Beside the fountain he stopped to sneak back into the onetrack mind of the infidel in him. The tormenting duality left him drained and out of focus, with the same old petty wondering through the meanders of the same old “nothing”.

“You’re pale. You could say that something or someone devours you from the inside… yet again. Or may it be that your illusion is coming to an end?” “Yes… Come… I feel your treacherous claw crawling up my chest and squeezing. I recognize the slow insinuation in my mind. The horrid odor takes me back to a sunny day… I feel like we’re on borrowed time already. But I’m too spineless to say it out loud.” “I don’t recall seeing you in a different state other than misplaced and disoriented, oblivious and alone… And even now you don’t try to come to terms with whatever happened to you, and move on. You could have been so much more than what you are” “Perhaps it is not all lost.”

And as the architecture of his sanity slowly collapses, and without so much as an empty crypt to rest for a while, he’s not ready to lead vast armies of innocent souls into the holy war. The infernal gate of a concentration camp only known to him opens wide, leaving him paralyzed with awe and wonder. Extermination is the new standing order, fresh pages of the genocide being written every day on parchment skins, and engraved on the barbed wire jewelry.

“I know I can’t go back, but set me free nonetheless. This is how our winter should look like.”

text & artwork by Bahak B

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The following article was published in N-SPHERE January 2011 issue.

I feel like creating mushroom clouds all over the world… I feel like sleeping in the afternoon just like I once used to, before my mom would wake me up to wait for Santa… I feel like burning down the face of the good mother earth with meteoric harshness… I feel like erupting endless judgments on other’s sanctity…

I feel like stealing a solar storm just for myself… I feel like melting down the oceans and every living thing around me… I feel like playing the guitar and writing about the sounds you do not hear… I feel like dreaming in infrared and smile in ultraviolet, and take a casual stroll through radio frequency spectrum, just for the hell of it… I feel like sliding down microscopic slopes… I feel like apologizing to everyone I ignored for not ignoring them sooner… I feel like mastering the art of contempt… I feel like taking up a career in airbrushing ugly paintings… I feel like drawing up your future with three lines… I feel like torching your past as I erase you from all memories… I feel like cooking fancy dishes out of leaves and rubble… I feel like closing my mind’s waking eye waiting for the the creepy chill of December who’s late for this venue… I feel like burning every bridge behind me when I walk out the door… I feel like raising black widows for illegal racing… I feel like making amends to myself for what I lost that day, though I do not know how…

I feel like hearing you breathe slowly like you haven’t since… forever. Tell me, what color are my wings lately?

by Bahak B

artwork by Vel Thora

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The following article was published in N-SPHERE December 2010 issue.

A dying magnolia scent lingers around the hallways, mixed with bad cooking fumes from a cold kitchen. Old warm quarters barely invite you in anymore. The space filled up with junk, improvised cemetery for bewailing sorrows, holds true and dear the last image of a winter’s night’s welcoming moment. Soft piano in the mist soothes you and makes lounging in the past’s labyrinth seem tempting. And the thought hurts. It physically hurts and you can’t let go. And no one can shake the feeling or make it go away. You’ll have to find a way to live with it, carry it with you on your journeys. Professional wonderer or fulfilled man, be it either, suit you admirably, especially dressed so elegantly in hordes of violins’ sounds. It’s a perfect fit.

“Will you dance?” I heard you say with unbelievably familiar voice. Frigid dance floor sputters beneath feet never touching the ground, while the daily moment of magic in your hands pours flawless and undisturbed. Sometimes I wish I worked in guiding souls across to the other side, tranquil and reconciled to the passing. Words slowly fade, echoes wither in distant corners, and it feels like goodbye.

You cannot bear to take another step, and yet you must. Swirling and consumed, you turn your back to the darkness, at least for a moment, with beautiful memories imprinted deep inside. And with the first ray of light, you face the shadows once again, still divided and torn by the things that were denied to you. A mixture of fantasy and vague wishes is offered in exchange for the hesitation, a not so fair trade.

I find myself looking absently through closed eyelids. My own, someone else’s, with no regrets, except maybe for the things that should have been said and have not been said. Now we can fall…

by Bahak B

artwork by Vel Thora

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The following article was published in N-SPHERE November 2010 issue.

We dreamt of a high speed chase across the heavens and of a spineless army throwing calcium arrows at catatonic targets. The firing squad has never been so beautiful. This is but a small token of my appreciation for the big black book on my night stand.

“Did you hear the chorus chanting in the afternoon sun?” “Not this time. I was indulging together with my ego into the remembrance of the bizarre conversations, in simpler shapes and sizes. You had something to say back then. Now you’re again mute.”

“Do I sometimes still think that one bullet brings the silence and another one the long forgotten ovations? I couldn’t say. There’s still much work to be done until that level of performance.” “I will excuse myself then, and return when you’ll desperately cry for help.” “You’rYou’re planning the future sufferings and rapture as always. I occasionally hate you as much as I hate myself. I’d gladly rip off every square inch of your skin and feed it to the subjects of your experiments, leaving the illustrious meat for the posterity to dispose of, and polishing of the bones for the children’s primitive amusement. Any further resemblance to your methods sickens me profoundly.” “Yes. Jumping in and out of psychotic episodes like in a new found game of hopscotch, spreading the joy and fun, is primitive indeed. But I am positively convinced that you can go beyond primitive.”

Let us agree on how not to make each other feel uncomfortable and out of place again. It shouldn’t be that difficult. And if by any chance it turns out so, we’ll summon our old friend and referee. Shall we begin with the appetizers?

by Bahak B

artwork by Vel Thora

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The following article was published in N-SPHERE October 2010 issue.

Some find it difficult to mourn over a dead flower. But to the truthful naked eye, seeing the petal’s last breath is as easy as a walk in the park. Sing a feeble song for the dear departed souls you cannot sculpt anymore and draw thick lines on the blessed retina as you turn your eyes inside. Black harps invite you to merge with the sound burnt by sunlight of the dying sky, and take a seat at the head of the table. Assume the office of the lonely gardener and bring forth the tools of your justice.

So, may the infants come and play over the remnants of the soil you tended. They just as well might laugh a little more before dumping their nightmares on the concrete walls of your garden. And do something about those horrid noises. You should know best how the creatures howl and squeak as they grow, change skin, develop steel limbs. It hurts them too. Remember that you’re not only a mere gardener. However, that doesn’t mean you got to do whatever you want whenever you want. You hold a high position so, as long as you are here, and that is for quite a while, entertain the products of your original recipe fertilizer. Make the poor worms smile once more in their miserable lifetime. And hand out stupid painted ceramic gifts and creepy butterflies under the moon.

That’s how your tiny isolated naïve kingdom should be run. If you want to be reappointed that is. Pay heed to this free advice I’m giving. I have no interest in seeing you fail. And besides, the family picture would not be the same without you, and the dressed up children would feel uncomfortable without you at their side, or at least lurking somewhere at the back of the school bus. And the last thing they need is a karmic get together scheduled in the near future.

by Bahak B

artwork by Vel Thora

Full article here.

The following article was published in N-SPHERE September 2010 issue.

I want to tell you about the winter of the walls they built in years and years of shared distance and rejection.

Relentless tiny drops of poison knocked at their door with silent piercing sound, the means to a brutal end. One carried false sorrow and regret, and an egocentric sense or reality (or whatever was left of it, both the sense and the reality), the other meaningless and mean rebellion against a fraud authority of a demilitarized dementia. And “the games” go on each day, and the walls grow stronger and break within themselves, until there will be no one left to fight or rebel against. Each of them secluded and “safely” tucked away in their mockery of fortresses, they go on burning every bridge, insanely justifying it with the tardiness of everything that might bring the senseless chaos to a halt. And as the slaughter unfolds yet another spectacular act, the poor watcher, collateral mandatory victim, knowingly and perhaps with futile energy and intent steps between the monstrous and toxic warmongers “blessed” with endless resources of psychotic attitude and of fabricating enormous amounts of refined and top quality, exquisite guilt.

And so, by the rules of combat and those of “the games”, a new sacrificial lamb takes up the challenge, w.m.d.–s in his back pocket, casual weaponry for everyday use at absurd picnics and mute howling choirs singing odes to King Nonsense.

“Hail Master. Let it be bestowed upon me thy grace and madness, so I may be allowed to do thy bidding. As anxious as I may be, I pledge that I will not fail those who joined the nothingness before me.”

by Bahak B

artwork by Vel Thora

Full article here.

The following article was published in N-SPHERE August 2010 issue.

Every day, rusty scales in front of him, he offers silent prayers to the indifference of the passersby. Be it sun or rain, heat or piles of snow, you’d find him there, cursing the other side of the worldly mirror.

“You’ve forsaken hope, you’ve abandoned faith. Alas, the ferry man doesn’t hear you, and as you swim across the Styx, carve incandescent truths on rotten skin, under eyes vacant of pity, and resonate the thousand heart beats you carry like a beautiful sin.” “I actually hid my secrets in the flight of blackbirds. Do they move around just the same? Or did sloth take hold of them? Nevertheless, do you like this?” “As much as I like the one who prays all day for nothing. But if you can describe the unseen geometry in the sky, I might just favor the interlude of flowers, feathers and decomposed worms you prepared for our guests.”

They played with their tiny totem bones, drawing the future, drawing the past, mocking the present, twisting the timeline as they saw fit. To an end not even them knew. A drop of poison in their ears and once again they let unspoken pain consume whatever it was left of them.

“Just for once, for a damn once in this shithole, can I desire something without the necessity to justify the need?” “No. It’s much more spectacular watching your desperation. Almost inspiring. You’d make a fine comedian… And if you add the final touch of a blind tear, we will all be astonished by your performance. Isn’t this what you have always wanted? To reinvent the awe of the lame and lost spectators. The recipe of real success.”

“My shy friend, you have been captive since the very beginning.”

by Bahak B

artwork by Vel Thora

Full article here.

The following article was published in N-SPHERE July 2010 issue.

The old man plunged to his fate, enraged at the earth that would not have him. Heavens laughed, and his friends found themselves saddened by what they would later call “his great moment of weakness”. His story was passed on, as the seasons kept chasing each other amongst the crimson lamplights spread across the vast gray plains of remembrance. Stillness reigned here for centuries, now a spider’s web’s kingdom, and yet, countless eyes whispered counterclockwise, waters ran upwards, and every time the peace of mind was in his grasp, it would elude him with unflinching stubbornness rooted in dark despair.

He meditated upon the prospect of abandonment, the urge of letting go and throwing it all to hell. But even that in itself required a certain amount of energy he did not possess at such a time. He sought comfort in the unanswered icy clouds brewing fearful cries, filled with unnatural ethereal light.

A strangled voice slowly turning into a screeching ugly howl drew his attention away from the wonders at his feet. He had nothing to say, nothing to share with others. Why was he troubled with triviality and nonsense? He told himself ‘Listen to the rain, listen to the stones grow’, maybe something good will come out of that. But for now, he felt… depleted. That would best describe the state he felt inside and around him.

Letters were swept away from parchments, dancing vigorously around a blank, pitch black mind, as he walked away with a faint ‘Insha’Allah’ carved on his lips.

by Bahak B

artwork by Vel Thora

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The following article was published in N-SPHERE June 2010 issue.

They appeared out of nowhere, in a split second, brethren of the same dead leaf, not knowing what they have in common or what they share. If such a thing indeed exists.

“Run around rooftops on your tiptoes; be careful not to awake the dormant mind. I would say this is a fair warning.”

“You always put your heart into it don’t you? It is somehow ironic, since your heart is ‘safely’ locked away in a place even you cannot remember. It’s almost amusing to see you struggle against imaginary dilemmas and ‘handmade self-torments’. I see you are quite the craftsman.”

“Now, now… There will be again time to play in the sand, to laugh at the fire, to build castles out of ash. But for now you have to play the main character at our funeral. Caution: the ‘I am the Way’ line doesn’t suite the prosperity of the abominable carnage we leave behind.”

“Must I? I would like to linger some more at the corners of apathy, contemplating the bizarre designs of the mother earth. It soothes me. Even better than Valium or Prozac.”

“Yes you must. After that you can go play with the fireflies, shoot down the stars one by one, give offerings to the night’s chilly air, or do whatever it is you like to do.”

“Do you take me for a child? If I do this and that you’ll give me candy or let me be? The infant in me died long ago you know. Misjudging me again, you are…”

by Bahak B

artwork by Vel Thora

Full article here.