Taka Kono
Taka Kono
the translucent tabletop made of amethyst absorbed the light from the fuchsia-like lamp and illuminated the table legs, her leather slip-on, and expanded across the otherwise empty room. she runs her finger through the dense curtains of raw garnets hanging from the rim of the lamp, causing the nebulous grains of the walnut floor to peek through the dim like ripples spreading on quiet waters. she stares across the open room remembering the time she stalked a bruised boy harvesting blue water lilies at a nearby pond. topless on his boat, he carefully avoided any unnecessary contact with the petals and gently rowed his boat around the pads while collecting the flowers. she followed the boy into a shelter with a large phallic copper-still connected to a faucet with a tube that resembled something of an umbilical cord. while the tube carried cold water into the condenser, he stood in front of the copper-still and watched the vapors condense back into liquid, making sure the heat would not damage the delicate flowers.
that night she dreamt of herself in the same shelter only to find the liquid overflowing and puddled next to the boy’s body. drops of scented liquid were dripping into the puddle, calmly pulsing while the hues of his bodies discoloration had started to take over the colors of his bruised skin. she noticed the parts of his body in contact with the ground had a stronger lividity; a color of mauve with a gradual cherry red at the periphery. curious of the colors of his back, she lifted one side of his body trying to turn it over into a prone position, yet while doing so she could not help but notice the complete absence of heat in his stiff flesh. as she flipped the body over, she observed the patches of bruising morphing with the mauve colors of his back, creating a scene like that of the blue water lily pond.
