The Wanderer by Chipka
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Description
He’d shared warmth the night before.
Now, he was alone with the scent of a stranger still on him. They’d made warmth for themselves in a single sleeping bag. They shared the stranger’s flask of gin and fell into sleep shortly after. He awoke first, slid into his sandals, and left his map—as a gesture of thanks—for the guy whose name he’d never learned.
“There’s a park over that way, near the tracks by the river.” The stranger had said. “There are a couple of camps, too. You can find a place to sleep, and if you need money, there’s the trade, or odd-job work in some rat-nest co-op.” And as the stranger mentioned trade, he inserted the index finger of one hand into the slack fist of the other, stroked the finger back and forth. He thought of a piston when he saw the motion. The stranger smiled. His teeth were crooked.
And that was it: the last he saw of the stranger, the fellow traveler bound for some other city. Up north. Where it hadn’t happened yet.
It hadn’t happened in Milwaukee, but he’d seen the signs of its beginning, and so he’d started walking. Now…here…in the heart of it all, he listened to the crunchy hiss of sandals on gravel, and thought of last-night’s companion. He recalled the scent of raccoons. Or were they wild cats?
He’d been walking for hours. He smelled smoke: signs of a camp. He’d find it by nightfall, and maybe score a tent for sleep, and soup from a dented pot left simmering over an open fire. All that he owned, he carried, and amidst his belongings was the notebook he’d purchased (before it happened.) He liked this park and the fake pagodas standing like little temples for invisible gods. This was a good park, he decided, and maybe he’d stay a while—writing and working for what money still existed in a place like this. Money, he decided, was important for this part of his journey, and so he’d work. Digging, hammering, cleaning out rooms or painting them. There was always work of that sort, work where a wanderer could be left alone. It was enough. For now.
Ahead, smoke curled into the cloud-clotted sky. A dog barked.
Last night’s stranger, he thought, was right: there were camps here. One of them wasn’t very far.
* * *
I haven’t begun to re-read Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany, but I will probably do so soon. There was a time when I’d read it once every couple of years, but it’s been a decade since I’d settled down with the entire novel. It’s a touchstone novel for me, something that marks my start as a “serious” writer, or at least a writer who is serious enough about writing to keep doing it.
The image here has nothing to do with Dhalgren or an unnamed apocalypse. It has nothing to do with the person walking along the path (he’s an import from another picture, added here simply because I wanted a human focus amid so much non-human subject matter.) He doesn’t actually fit here. He is a wanderer. A digital import.
The text above is more an homage to Delany and Dhalgren than anything else. It isn’t rendered in Delany’s poetic style, but it touches on an “event” which may or may not be the incident that led to the evacuation I’d written into yesterday’s post. It’s a mood…it’s a feeling…it’s a marker of something I have yet to define, but I feel it and so here it is…an impulse, an image, a text, and a mood.
As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting.
Comments (27)
elfin14doaks
Very cool postwork! Awesome story too.
jac204
Nice story, and as always a great image.
jif3d
And I thought this wanderer was Bruce Lee's ghost ! Bad ass postworkings and interesting tale ! Well done & ~Cheers~
alessimarco
I love the story....it gives one the sense of being in the shoes (or sandals) of the wanderer. The image is really outstanding too!
kgb224
Outstanding capture and story my friend.
Roxam
I like the detachment and matter-of-fact freedom portrayed in "the Wanderer", your image works very well as an illustration to this. It's fabulous that the prose itself skirts the poetic and is so perfectly stripped of metaphors-- perfect for this character.
mbz2662
Great artwork, both words and image. I enjoyed my few minutes of getting lost in a story :)
beachzz
The words are so graphic, I can smell that smoke and hear the sounds of the camp. It also has that sad side, he wanders from camp to camp, meeting strangers for fleeting moments of connection, hoping to find the words that will finally work. More great stuff, Chip!!
MrsLubner
amazing postwork that really gives this a special mood.
xpersona
Doskonała jest Twoja praca. Piękny przekaz. Serdecznie pozdrawiam.
durleybeachbum
A quite unsettling story, and the pic is perfect for it!
M2A
Nice effect and words.
flavia49
marvelous!
helanker
An Another amazing and touching story so beautiful... and warm too. Beautiful as the the picture above it. I love both.
MrsRatbag
Excellent writing as always, Chip; you have the mood perfectly, and the image is exactly right!
auntietk
Did you know this is your 400th? Congratulations, dear one! Given the quality and depth of your gallery, that is quite an accomplishment. You have a talent for drawing us into your story immediately. In only a few lines, I care about your characters, and hope they do well in their adventure. I love the serendipity that happens here on RR from time to time: When I posted last night I hadn't seen your image and story, but the idea of setting out on a journey, an adventure, a quest, runs through them both. No wonder you found Telam and Miro so soon after wandering into my world! They were probably lurking here, south of Milwaukee, waiting for their cues. (Thank you for them, by the way!) :) Excellent work! I'll look forward to hundreds more ...
sandra46
fantastic landscape, a great setting for the story, with the lonely figure and the exotic pavilion.
Alex_Antonov
Very nice!
marybelgium
splendide !
blondeblurr
Here is our friend (the Cheesecake with Beer & Cyberspace actor)again, >KNOW THYSELF< & >LAF<, I could be wrong but he reminds me somehow of him, his mannerism appears similar, the way I imagined him...nice import! You know I love the POV, him making his way up-hill and us looking down-hill, and as always (no, as of recent times) the spooky atmosphere by manipulating those colour changes. BTW. CONGRATULATIONS...BRAVO...ENCORE...400! quite a milestone! and of course thanks for sharing YOUR ART with us, which is very unique and fascinatingly binding. BB
zulaan
Another beautiful piece of art !
KatesFriend
It's certainly has much to compare with 'The Descent'. An atmosphere of a world broken down but some try to piece a little bit of it back together again. Maybe in vain, maybe not. Maybe for good, maybe for ill in the end. I like your artwork here. There is a feeling that not just the wanderer but everything in the scene is not where are when it should be. Complete disorientation. A little like 'Dark City' in a way.
wysiwig
For a self-defined beginner your photography has become very good very quickly. I do like your way with words. You paint a world on the edge of dystopia, kind of like where we are today.
faroutsider
400 snapshots of humanity, 400 slices of life, real and imagined, 400 unfinished journeys (the best kinds of journeys are never finished). Another milestone, another day survived, another opportunity to look back, and more important, to look to the future. Congratulation, and keep moving... BTW, great prose...
myrrhluz
I love the beginning! The connections lightly made and then he moves on. Most of life is like that, and here the connections are ones that will be remembered amicably. There are so many meetings in life. Even if we barely think of them, some leave us enriched and other chip away at our well being. Travelers make for such interesting reading, whether they travel on foot, in space or through time. Terrific narrative! I love the question of what "it" is. Wonderful image! Great that your wanderer has wandered into it. I love the postwork, which gives it a jaded, bruised appearance. Excellent!
romanceworks
'an impulse, an image, a text, and a mood.' For now it is enough and quite intriguing. CC
anahata.c
Chip, I've barely been here, but in this visit, this time, I wanted to stop at your 400th because, though it's really random, it's another of life's excuses to stop & smell the flowers; and your flower, your offerings, are prodigious and exquisite. The image looks like a chinatown somewhere in America, then it could be a theme park, then it could be a mixture of images you've manipulated into a whole, or it could actually be China. There's a man inside the portico of the Pagoda, and he looks like a statue: A political god of your tale? Of your imagination? Someone people bow to, in this new world? He doesn't look like a buddha (what you might expect in a Chinese structure): He's a little too clean cut and doesn't appear to have long earlobes, lol. But his mysterious presence just adds to the mystery of your writing. As always your writing suggests as much as it actually says, telling us enough details to point to a larger world & larger tale that we're not seeing right here; and yet which is so rich that we feel we're inside it all the same. "In medias res," as they say, in the middle of things; but unlike many "in the middle of things," you make us feel we've been here a long, long time and may not leave for a long time. I don't know the writer you speak of---but I don't know a lot of writers, that doesn't mean anything---but this writing is all yours: I love the hint that there's a world of established lives around these wandering souls, and yet we aren't part of them: We're a part of the wanderers. And you mention Milwaukee: What, of a future age when it will be relics & ruins providing shelter for a nation of wanderers? Very enticing, very mystifying. And the image of a city now covered with camps...maybe that's what these huge cities will turn out to be, eventually. Europe's great cities were that to a degree, after its 20th C. wars. Maybe ours will be too. Whatever it is, it's terrific writing, and you're doing this 'burnt' and copper-treatment of your images, creating a sense of an image etched into a plate, or a paper image burnt by heat & time. It's dripping with nostalgia and deep time. A fine job all around, and congratulations on your milestone. I'll come back again, but for now I wanted to bow once more to your deep & prodigious mind, on your 400th upload for those fortunate enough to have found you. Many, many more, Chip. Great job!