Printer: Lorson's Books and Prints
Engraver: Gwenda Morgan
Binder: Smith Settle
The response to our Twext Tales competition offered up an intriguing smorgasbord of stories, showcasing some real talent, and allied with no little skill in packaging tales of the imagination into just 1140 characters. And so we were invited to be witnesses to the regrets of a Vietnam vet and his reflection upon a personal loss that still grieved him; the moment when one’s own death is realised after plunging from the Golden Gate Bridge and the immediate introspection into the cycle (futility?) of life; a devious little tale of revenge when love is not reciprocated (with passing homage to that scene from the movie ‘Final Destination’); bemusement in the transit lounge of the afterlife; and a slice of real-life hilarity as a girl goes through the anguish of familiar dating shenanigans before the big event, which is gate crashed in a most unexpected manner.
There is a fair amount of reading pleasure to be gained by browsing through many of these stories…so I would encourage you to do so, if you haven’t already. And you never know, perhaps we can get together and do it all again sometime?
The Winner: Bird comes. Bird goes. Comes again. By Wayne Erb.
A man’s struggle to maintain his grip on a situation that is slipping fast from his grasp, and his acute awareness of the precariousness of his own position, is thoughtfully constructed throughout this piece. The vulnerability of the human condition and the fate of this man are engrossingly entwined; in this case, with clever deployment of Hamlet’s definitive “providence in the fall of a sparrow”* declaration, our protagonist knows that all his efforts may come to nought, that control over his own fate may in fact be illusionary, and with no apparent hint of madness concedes power over his future to the actions of a sparrow which appears regularly at his prison cell window. And so we are left dangling, with an intriguing conundrum unanswered: If the sparrow fails to reappear, will the man’s demise follow as he seems to think it will? This is a wonderfully spun vignette and a window into the struggle between sanity and insanity, between ‘Self-determination’ and ‘Fate’. Take a look into it if you dare.
*”There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come...”