Don’t look away

Flash fiction

“Don’t look away” in watercolours by Güzin Ayan

The chronometer starts the count down. You have thirty minutes. The whole world is reduced to two motionless bodies sitting on dry, cliffy rocks in front of you - a woman shivering and sheltering under a sweatshirt she is holding like a tent over her head, and a man towering over the woman to shield her from chilly winds. Don’t look away. Keep looking. Keep focusing. Hold your pencil and study their proportions. Scan them. Notice how their legs are angled. How cold she feels. She must be freezing. And how hard it is for her to hold her posture. She is tired. Examine. Hold your pencil, squint at the two figures at rest. Check how their bodies are reduced to geometrical shapes. Two seperate triangles are formed by their legs. Half a circle makes up the man’s torso. Their proportions are reduced from seven to four as they are sitting. You will not put their whole body onto paper. Something will be lost. Something has to be lost. Something is always lost. Keep looking. Yet, make sure you lose nothing wrong. Do not add anything that is not there. Do not let what you already know deceive your vision. Do not let what you believe to be there taint your sight. Do not let what you expect to see spoil your perception. Accept them for who they are. Watch like a hawk. Pay attention to surfaces where the last rays of the daylight are hitting the most. Observe the brightened contours of their bodies, the darker folds, the changing curves, and the fragile lines of their attire. Keep a weather eye on their hands. They might reveal something. Something vital. Something fundamental to hold onto life. Do not take your eyes off this world before you. To look life in the face. Always to look life in the face. And to know it for what it is. At last to know it. To love it for what it is. And then (maybe) to put it away. Keep going. Draw. Damp your brush. Paint. Don’t stop. No. No. No. You are not dead… drunk… you are… alive.

Written and illustrated by Güzin Ayan

P.S. Starting from June, I will have to post monthly instead of my biweekly schedule. In the coming months I’ll be busy with not only moving to a new place but also carrying out some research projects. Until then, take care. And thank you so much for bearing with me.