BY MARY MATSHINE
My work as a writer includes both poetry and prose. Poetry contains different themes and ideas, whereas prose is mainly fantasy and epic fantasy. Since I am a student of literature, I strive to be proffesional and a perfectionist when it comes to my writing. I hope you will enjoy the works I've included here. For more you can visit my blog. Happy reading!
February, 2018
FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY
No, this is not a dream
it is your countenance
looking at me from the mirror;
this is a reality of a thousand chimes
that rattle from a ray of light;
from there your outline reaches out
and reminds
that you are my part.
I would gift you a video game.
And we would play for hours,
like when I was little.
I watched you play, and even today
it reminds me of you. [...]
March, 2018
LIGHTLINED — THE NOVEL
Minerals aren’t flammable. At least not like ordinary wax candles. But, if you use a bit of magic even a diamond can burn. Dante chose quartz because it burns bright. Besides, he needs a little bit of magic in his life. He also liked the names of things Gargon told him about — crystals, minerals, diamonds, gemstones. Shortly after, he gave him a book on mineralogy. They are used mostly for magic and mending, occasionally as a form of light, so not everybody needs them. Dante tried to memorize as much mineral names as he could and to attach them to the correct form and traits. He asked for more, but Gargon explained that they are hard to exchange; mages don’t like to share them, especially shamans; he could ask menders, but they are very secluded and anxious, and he is afraid he will hurt one if provoked.
He placed the candle in a hole between two stone blocks about twenty centimeters under the celling. And so, he could read anywhere in his dungeon, not just uncomfortably sitting, leaning against the cell wall above which is a small opening, catching, in weird angles, a small beam of late morning sunlight.
In a letter he got after he read the book on minerals, the author talked about life, death, but most of all about time. He said that thanks to a candle he managed to calculate how long he spent reading. Dante can’t even do that. He asked Gargon to bring him a time keeper, but Gargon said that he didn’t need it. He was born before they started keeping time. He doesn’t believe in it and is completely against that idea.
Dante doesn’t mind, and he doesn’t care much at all. He just wanted to see the device. That is the reason he wanted to read the letter in the first place, so he could learn about a person who thought about it first. The author noticed that for work, followed by lunch, he needed one candle. Soon he realized that he needs about four candles for the whole day. In his letter he doesn’t write so much about his idea as he writes about his feelings. Comparing the passage of time with how he feels at any given moment, he concluded that there is no need for a device that will keep time. The reason is this — no matter how much it melted, he sometimes felt time pass slower, and sometimes faster. He ponders, further, does that, then, make the candle burn at a different speed? Dante isn’t concerned with that, because to him, the answer is obvious, and also, because he is bothered with something much more important: is the keeping of time even necessary, considering the subjective experience? [...]
March, 2018
POSTMODERNISTIC LOVE
The bartender called: “Jack and Kitty!” But John was in the back, stuffing his suit in a container. He understood he would probably have to go back to the clinic/fight club and realized one good thing — no one can call and bother him now. He returned to the shop to the disgruntled looks of the employees, grabbed the hot cups and rushed out.
While he was busying himself with the trash, she took the time to make sure everything is where its supposed to be. She placed the seemingly runaway lock of hair a bit further to the left, added some gloss to her lips, chewed a gum and threw it away, adjusted her breasts so the stuffing wouldn’t hurt her, and all of that while looking at her small black-mirror around her wrist.
Realizing only when he was halfway to the bench that he was wearing shorts and a white tank top, he stopped. This made a little drop of coffee jump out of the cup, pass through a small crack on the lid and land on his shorts. Good, he thought. It didn’t mess up my shirt. And with that, he didn’t care anymore about what he was wearing.
It took her a second to see that a fairly tall, kind of handsome guy walking her way with a coffee cup in each hand was her very own dog-man. She smiled.
“I was just about to leave,” Katie said.
“Oh, no. You would’ve missed the best part!”
“Which is?”
“Here you go, Kitty.” He grinned.
“Oh, well, thanks Ja… Come on! That’s not half as funny.”
“So, what are you up to?” He made himself more comfortable on the bench by creating a pillow out of the dog’s head. He pushed it a bit further, but not too much, so as to make her sit closer. She didn’t bite.
“Now or…?”
“In life.”
LITERARY PORTFOLIO
"Writing is the geometry of the soul"
Plato
