A man is on all fours feeling his way gingerly on the ground. He is an artistic sort, thin with deep set eyes, casual limp hairstyle. His body is like some kind of winged creature with an insects’ abdomen. His delicate wings are like a mayfly’s wings. They are pink. He wears white, high-heeled gogo boots that are turned in the wrong direction, as if he has fallen and broken his ankles. He has flown too close to the sun. Only to fall back down to dismal planet earth with a horrific thud, for his lacy wings didn’t help him at all.
A plant sits beside him, a snake plant with leaves reaching upward, spikey. One of the leaves is a woman. it is her whole head. It is in profile. With a calm untroubled gaze she looks away from the man. It’s as if there is nothing she can do for him so she’ll direct her attention to something else.
All around them is nothing but chaos. The man’s falling back to earth is quite troubling to all involved, sneering creatures, weeping half-persons. They think he has failed. They had staked their wellbeing on his success. All kinds of scribbles and smoke and blood on the floor. Though chaos breaks out all around him, the fly man is content and poses for the camera quite elegantly.
*****
Featured Image Credit: The Fallen Man, painting by Kim Silva
Kim Silva lives in Rhode Island with her musician husband and dog, Zelda. She has a BA in Writing and Painting from Vermont College in Montpelier, Vermont and an MFA in Painting from Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Georgia.
