The Blue Jay’s Feather by Gabriela Marie Milton #short story #literature

Image: Gabriela Marie Milton, 2022, Interior of Capela dos Ossos, Évora

Autumn. The day after Helen left for Madeira. The city’s noises vanish in a moribund sun. A paraffin lamp burns on a glass table. The light trickles on the walls like water. There is something familiar about this room. Vague scents of dried flowers. Tear-like motifs on the walls.

I hear footsteps.
I shudder.

– Miguel, let’s get out of here.

He put his hand over my month.

Laughter comes from upstairs. It’s Jacques’ laughter. His and the laughter of a woman. She is not Helen. It can’t be her. Helen left yesterday. What am I thinking? The laughter can’t be Jacques’ either. He is dead. Jacques is dead.

The smell of the dried flowers Helen put on his coffin on the day of his funeral invades my nostrils.

I pull away from Miguel’s arms, my soul dark, the tightness in my throat stronger. In a mirror I replace my image with that of my mother. My voice is not mine anymore.

– Miguel, with you or without you, I am getting out of here. Where is the door?

He bites his upper lip.

–Anastasia, I know you are surprised.

I am enraged.

–Surprised? Who? Me? If Winston Churchill would walk in this room right now, wearing Josephine Baker’s famous top hat instead of his, and Bottega Veneta stiletto sandals I would not blink an eye. From now on until the end of my days I swear nothing is going to surprise me anymore.

The light from his eyes vanishes.

– Anastasia, how many times have you asked me for the truth?

I shout.

–Oh, the truth. Stories masquerading reality: the plot, the characters, the setting, the conflict, the theme. Spare me the banalities. I do not need your truth anymore. I want to get out of here. There are dead people in here, or ghosts, or whatever. I want out.

—Anastasia…. Listen…

The geometry of the space changes. Through a little square cut from nothingness, I see a lonely blue jay feather floating in the sky.

Paraffin and dried flowers.

Was Jacques dead?

*draft – modified version of The Blue Jay’s Feather, a piece published in my #1 Amazon Bestselling Book: Woman: Splendor and Sorrow I: Love Poems and Poetic Prose.

Announcements:

I wrote in a previous post that I was going to launch a new project in mid-October. Thank you to all my followers who expressed interest. The launching may come a bit later due to circumstances that are out of my control. Please be patient. Much love to all of you.

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Gabriela Marie Milton
Pushcart Prize Nominee
#1 Amazon Bestselling Author
Books:
Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women (ed.), Experiments in Fiction, 2022.
Woman: Splendor and Sorrow :I Love Poems and Poetic Prose, Vita Brevis Press, 2021.
Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings, Vita Brevis Press, 2020.

Lethargic trees, nights dripping verses in our bed, Baudelaire’s ennui silhouetted against my soul. A young autumn, breasts stuck to the moon, cloudy eyes caught between sunrise and sunset.

There are too many eyes in this place: mine, yours, those of the portraits and the photographs on the walls, why do we have so many portraits and photographs?

Facing the armoire, left arm under your head, you sleep. Black dahlias invade the bedroom. I listen to the sound of nothingness.

I sit in front of the computer. On the screen, Sebastian’s letter.

Anastasia, I have no idea why Jacques fell in love with you. Your mild manners, your lipstick always in the right place, banal essences of Coco Channel on your clothes. Why do you dress in black all the time? Oh, wait, I know, Baudelaire, À une passante,

La rue assourdissante autour de moi hurlait.
Longue, mince, en grand deuil, douleur majestueuse,
Une femme passa, d’une main fastueuse
Soulevant, balançant le feston et l’ourlet

That’s the way you got Jacques. Soft black fabrics, mixtures of innocence and mysteries, the majestic air of an untouchable nun burning with desires.

I try fitting in one of your dresses. Why do you pick taffeta all the time? It’s so yesterday.

I look down. Ravishing view from your balcony. The moon bathes in the water, nightingales sing, the air is soft like the touch of a virgin… Beauty and then forever night… How I long for the forever night… the black of your dresses…

I am not in our bedroom anymore. I hang onto the balustrade of my condo’s balcony. Void. Impulses of self-destruction. I taste their ashes. A mannequin floats in the air. I am scared…

Jacques’ arms wrap around my shoulders.

–Anastasia what are you doing in front of the computer? It’s 3am. Back to bed.

–Sebastian…. Sebastian’s letter on the screen…. Read it.

–What letter, love? There is no letter on the screen. There’s a website that says, “Travel to Corsica.”

*draft

…

I can see the woman who assumes things. Every night she picks the flowers that I throw on the road: withered lilies of the valley. She wants to be me. She wants my blood. She does not know I rearranged the bell-shaped whites so no one else can breathe their sweet scents. No one else can be me. No one else can make you, you.

The woman puts the withered flowers in her bag.

A new moon rises over her left shoulder. Bad luck.

I shiver.

I rush to protect her.

I stumble.

Before he died my father said:

If you try to do justice to the wicked, you will forget to do justice to the virtuous. And if you forget to do justice to the virtuous you only work for yourself. That is the biggest sin of all.

I have to think again.

My poetry collection Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings is available on Amazon here .
Passions featured in San Francisco Book Review
Passions featured in Manhattan Book Review.
image: Sandratsky Dmitriy; Shutterstock; [link]

@Gabriela Marie Milton

My Dear Readers,

I am delighted to host Diana on my blog today. Diana is a fantastic novelist and a wonderful friend to those who know her.

Please stop by to congratulate Diana on the launching of her novel Liars and Thieves, the first book in her new Unraveling the Veil series.
Global Link Purchase http://a-fwd.com/asin=B08FGQ2W3Q

Blurb:

Behind the Veil, the hordes gather, eager to savage the world. But Kalann il Drakk, First of Chaos, is untroubled by the shimmering wall that holds his beasts at bay. For if he cannot cleanse the land of life, the races will do it for him. All he needs is a spark to light the fire.

Three unlikely allies stand in his way.

A misfit elf plagued by failure—

When Elanalue Windthorn abandons her soldiers to hunt a goblin, she strays into forbidden territory.

A changeling who betrays his home—

Talin Raska is a talented liar, thief, and spy. He makes a fatal mistake—he falls for his mark.

A halfbreed goblin with deadly secrets—

Naj’ar is a loner with a talent he doesn’t understand and cannot control, one that threatens all he holds dear.

When the spark of Chaos ignites, miners go missing. But they won’t be the last to vanish. As the cycles of blame whirl through the Borderland, old animosities flare, accusations break bonds, and war looms.

Three outcasts, thrust into an alliance by fate, by oaths, and the churning gears of calamity, must learn the truth. For they hold the future of their world in their hands.

Q & A

How many books have you written? Do you have a favorite of your books and if so, why?

My goal, years ago, was to write 15 books. With the addition of this trilogy, I’ll have reached 19 total books! What a surprising journey it’s been. I actually don’t have a favorite. When I write, I get intimate with my characters. I experience their challenges, sorrows and longings, their tragedies and victories. They become people I’ve known and cared about, part of my life. Are all my books equally well-written? Of course not, but to me they’re all special.

Trailer:

Author Bio:

Wallace Peach started writing later in life after the kids were grown and a move left her with hours to fill. Years of working in business surrendered to a full-time indulgence in the imaginative world of books, and when she started writing, she was instantly hooked. Diana lives in a log cabin amongst the tall evergreens and emerald moss of Oregon’s rainforest with her husband, two dogs, bats, owls, and the occasional family of coyotes.

Author Links:

Website/Blog: http://mythsofthemirror.com

Website/Books: http://dwallacepeachbooks.com

Amazon Author’s Page: https://www.amazon.com/D.-Wallace-Peach/e/B00CLKLXP8

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Myths-of-the-Mirror/187264861398982

Twitter: @dwallacepeach

Thank you!
Gabriela

@Gabriela Marie Milton

My Dear Readers,

It is my pleasure to introduce a wonderful novelist, Darren Gilbert, whose book Montagnard was recently published.
Do you want to know more about Darren and his beautiful book?
Here is Darren in his own words:

Montagnard is my second book in the JD Cordell series, and while a sequel, it stands well on its own. It is a story that begins in the jungles of Vietnam, then whisks the reader to Niger and the Middle East and on to Thailand before returning them to Vietnam. While Montagnard is undoubtedly an action and adventure novel, to me, it is so much more than that. Themes such as courage, honor, loyalty, comradeship, and revenge wind through its pages. And, there are several strong women, a K9 warrior, gritty combat scenes, and a smattering of martial arts. There are even some great moments of humor. But more than all that, it is a story of love. Love of family, love of country, love of freedom. It is a story about the bond between a warrior and his K9 partner. It is the story of the relationship between those who have shared and survived life and death situations together, it is a story of friendship, and it is a story of redemption.

To be honest, I have probably been a writer my whole life. I have written lots of stories that no one will ever read. Most new writers will understand. There is always that nagging doubt; who would ever want to read that? Or, what if nobody likes what I have written? Finally, I decided to take the plunge. Serpents Underfoot, my first book and the first in this series is, by most accounts, a fairly good read. But it was my first, and I made several newbie mistakes getting it out.

The response to Montagnard genuinely humbles me. I guess that is because it tells a tale that is near and dear to my heart. I am a veteran who loves his country. I am a dog lover, and I have had the honor of knowing several strong women in my life. I am also somewhat of a romantic fool. And, I genuinely love my characters. They are, I guess, composites of myself and people I have come to know and respect in my life. But then, I think that is what any good writer does, isn’t it? They write stories that share a little bit about who they are, both in their lives and their dreams.

Darren’s book is available on Amazon here.

Please visit Darren’s site here. You will not be disappointed.

Thank you
Love
Gabriela

In Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world.
Federico García Lorca

open your veins Andalusia
let him drink from your lynx blood
inject the rhythms of the flamenco
under the coldness of his eyes
tattoo his flesh with tiles of azurite
pour the sounds of castanets
into his arms
my fingers swirl
the flesh of ripened olives
covers the old shroud
the flow of blood from the white shirt
has stopped
I hear his voice
there is one cross
and you’re my only love
my body arches
oils flame in my hair
a Moorish verse falls from a wall
covering my cries

Andalusia
I kneel among your cacti fed by salt
your wounded lashes
resurrected him
for yet
another night

@Gabriela Marie Milton

image: Fernando Cortes; Shutterstock; [link]

the eye of my heart
cries
lost at sea
ribbons of black

@Gabriela Marie Milton

image: S. Splajn; Shutterstock; [link]

My Dear Readers,

Incautious Clearing, a stunning poem written by the Italian poet Flavio Almerighi [blog]

Flavio Almerighi was born in Faenza, Italy, in 1959. As a boy he began writing poetry and got involved in radio and the theater. The best year of his life was 1976, when he read The Odyssey over the summer. Among the poets he considers his most important influences are Guillaume Apollinaire, Pedro Pietri, Peter Sinfield, Pasquale Panella, Dario Bellezza and Amelia Rosselli. His poetry collections are: Allegro Improvviso / Sudden Allegro (Ibiskos, 1999), Vie di Fuga / Escape Routes (Aletti, 2002), Amori al tempo del Nasdaq / Love in the Time of Nasdaq (Aletti, 2003), Coscienze di mulini a vento / Consciousnesses of Windmills (Gabrieli, 2007), durante il dopocristo / during the afterchrist (Tempo al Libro, 2008), qui è lontan / here it’s far away (Tempo al Libro, 2010), Voce dei miei occhi / Voice of my eyes (Fermenti, 2011), Procellaria / Storm Petrel (Fermenti, 2013), Caleranno i Vandali / Drop the Vandals (Samuel, 2016). He is a regular contributor to the virtual magazines Versante ripido (Steep Slope) and L’ombra delle parole (The Shadow of Words).

Incautious Clearing was selected from Flavio’s book Storm Petrel.

Amazon link

@Gabriela Marie Milton

I open my veins in warm waters
each time when you like what I write
the sound of the sands in the darkness
the eyes of the desert are dried
the midnight windows are opened
I jump like a lynx from a cage
dressed in cold winds and in black
barefoot
I land on the yolk of young times

I paid all the bills do not worry
I buried my bracelets by the green wall
white shirts are lined in the closet
this sand tastes like canvas and paint
I sharpen my eyes
my fingers are stretched
from the cosmic tomorrow
I enter tonight

I’ll return do not worry
disheveled, loves cry between us
remember the words of Persian Sibyl
who sold you my soul for three coins?
the time is fluid like rivers
waterlilies can bloom in the sand

@Gabriela Marie Milton