Les Études – The Elements: Water
Copyright 2012 by Oluwatosin Ojumu
Les Études - The Nature Series: Samples : Free Ebook of Samples of Études from the Nature Series
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – Water Music
Chapter 2 – Water People
Chapter 3 – Water Worlds
Samples from other ebooks
Les Études – Solitude: SAMPLE: Prisons of Light
Note from the Author: Oluwatosin Ojumu
About Oluwatosin Ojumu
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Chapter 1 – Water Music
Dreamy Reflections
A woman is walking forward. Behind her a grand building, whose steeple boldly pierces the sky.
The clouds clash and tumble in self importance, asserting their majesty.
The woman walks oblivious to the grandeur of her surroundings. She is dressed simply, she walks quietly.
About her head missiles fly unobserved, unnoticed. Buildings and clouds at times shimmer, at times glare in sharp forcus. The woman herself disappears....she reappears again.
The woman that commands our gaze is a reflection, as are the buildings around her and the cloud faces in th sky. The woman is a metaphor for the other side of consciousness; of sleep, of memories, of imagination. The missiles about her head are gaps where the paving slabs have been fitted together.
Where we have been observing the shadows, the real buildings stand, the real woman walks, each step mirrored, if imperfectly, by a hazy reflection.
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Furore
A dark outline of buildings daubed across the sky. Just discernible from the dark outlines are pillars, windows, limestone, suggesting a dark music. Ignorant, unconcerned, clouds tumble against one another, racing, full and strong, naughty and playful.
The sun smiles angrily down onto his kingdom, punishing his disobedient subjects.
A figure stands bowed, humbled, repentant. A sea of steam arises around her, almost higher than she is tall, but she is oblivious of the ground fog. She is young, no longer a girl, not yet a mother.
A few metres from her the sun's malevolence is dimmed somewhat in the rain-mirrored pavement, but his anger is reflected off the vapour that is rapidly rising upward, and filling the town like the smoke of a sin offering offered for a whole town of transgressors.
The figure continues to stand: forlorn, dejected, sad, herself the dark shadow surrounded by white. Still she prays, still she weeps, still she begs from the desperation of her silence.
Abover her the clouds continue undisturbed, uncaring in their mischevious competition. Their concern is not with the world of men.
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The Conductor
The conductor stands, his arms oustretched, poised, his wand quivering.
Before him his orchestra, ten thousand strong, tune up their instruments, producing now only a cacophony, as a prelude to a beautiful symphony.
And yet there is already here a harmony of sorts.
The light seeping in onctuously glides and drips off each performer, like liquid gold, like petrol, as the music will glide and the melodies will drip slowly and juicily to the ground.
The arena of the orchestra is shaded in different hues of monochrome, blending in with each other in a scale of single toned colour, as the notes will blend in together in powerful resonance.
Above them all the conductor waits, tense, excited. Finally his arms drop. As the music leaks out of him, it slowly flows to each instrument, setting it gloriously alight until the whole arena is aflame.
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Treetrunk
The rain forms a high gloss varnish on the pavement, spread by an unseeing, impartial eye over smoothness and flaws alike, reflecting distorted tree trunks in its broken veneer.
Each tree trunk is like a wave form with its zigzagged shadow, a piece of solid music projected brilliantly into the air, with dizzying, dazzling virtuosity.
A man walks, his shadow reflected in the polished pavement. Talking on his mobile phone, he is playing another kind of music, making waves of another kind. He is talking to the air, he is talking to the trees, he is talking to the music.
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Chapter 2 – Water People
Blue
Above the sky is blue, hung with resplendent candy floss clouds from which shimmery light rays gently bounce. Various bodies are walking around. They are wearing everyday clothes – teeshirts, shorts, handbags. They walk about dazed, confused, bathed in blue light, gazing downwards, as if trying to reintegrate themselves into the lives they knew so recently.
But a concrete wall now separates them from that world, or a glass ceiling – but they are on the wrong side of that ceiling, seeing everything clearly, looking down from above, forever separated from it.
They start to look at one another, exchanging looks of shock, stupefaction, wonder.
The braver ones in life remain the brave ones now. They are the ones to voice now the question on everyone's minds.
"Wait, this is..this is... we're in....aren't we?! So we're ...."
The bravery does not extend far enough to say the word.
Someone else's voice excitedly cuts in, drowning out the words that hang unspoken in the air.
"Wait, I think that that's my mother!" Then -
"Oh my goodness, I think that that's me!"
A few seconds later, perhaps up to a minute, more quietly this time:
"I think that that was me."
Slowly the realisation dawns for everyone. There can be no going back. At least they're in this together. Strangers a mere heartbeat ago, now friends forever – in a different kind of forever.
New questions quickly arise, echoed in everyone's eyes, by their silence, if not by their lips.
"Well, if we are....and if this is...well where is.....(looking around – everyone starts looking around) - you know....you know?!"
And then the voice of reason and responsibility asserts itself. A school prefect, head boy, star employee, and as much a leader now as ever.
"I suppose we had better go to register."
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Man and Child
A boy and man are walking together, the boy's hand outstretched in excited emotion as he tries to explain a difficult concept to his father. The father listens patiently, proud of his boy, eager to encourage him and guide him gently.
Now the boy is relating a story, which has flowed on so naturally from what he was discussing before. The father continues to listen, continues to contribute helpfully.
They walk on, heedless of their rain battered surroundings. They have already come this far.
They walk into the mist. They walk into the unknown. Who knows where they will be ten years from now – or fiften years, or twenty years? For now, they walk securely together.
"The Child is the Father of the Man." For now the child walks alongside the father that he too will one day become. Tomorrow is unclear, today is a beautiful day, after the rain.
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Rain Dance
On the window, raindrops are falling in regular rhythm. "Each one keeps to its ranks", neat, evenly spaced, orderly. Through the window two indistinct figures dance. They talk, they laugh, they move. Their movements are softened through the unclear sceeen, lending to them a gentle poetry.
The couple are a man a wife, once childhood sweethearts, now long married.
Sweet words are exchanged, inaudible
through the glass, but with a mutual tenderness that can almost be touched even from here.
Middle-aged love dances in the rain. There are to be no scolds, no grumbles, no indifferent mutters tonight. Just being and smiling and getting soaked, and later on warming up around a roaring fire!
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Symmetries
A man stands on a bridge above a canal. To his left and bright, leafless branches bristle in leafless symmetry.
The man stands, quietly watches. Ahead of him the scene is the same, behind him the scene is the same; the bridge and trees and trees and bridge are mirrored in the canal beneath.
The bridge and its reflection form a circle of symmetry as he walks on, he continues on the cycle of life. He is currently standing halfway along the bridge, but in time he must walk on, and complete the circle.
As he walks so does his shadow, completing its own vibrating circle in the shimmering waters below.
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The Boy-Frog
A child plays on all fours on the rainy pavement. With his palms to the ground and his knees tucked behind his arms, and his head facing the ground, he looks like a boy frog, hopping around on a concrete pond. The boy smiles at his own reflection, oblivious to the world around him.
He is at peace with the world, he is caught in the wonder and fascination of childhoold. He will continue playing here for minutes, if not hours, heedless of being wet or catching a cold, adding one extra episode to his memories of a blissful childhood.
At long last the moment passes, the frog hops away, the boy looks up.
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Chapter 3 – Water Worlds
Kingdoms
The sun whispers over a meditative seascape. Not a beach, really, more a sea facing sandy wilderness.
In the near distance a person walks – a man? A woman? A child? They walk further and further away. Their footsteps quietly assertive over kingdoms of sand, where each grain is an eternity and each step is a geological age, and kingdoms and eternities and ages swim in an ocean of blue sepia.
The person walks further and further away. Are they walking into the sea, or are they merely walking into their own memories? Soon they are but a point on the distance, and then they are gone, swallowed up not by the depths of the waves, but rather by their own shadow.
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A World without Man
Bands of clouds are stretched tightly, thinly across a silent sky. The sun peeks in inquisitively from the corner.
In the background, the sea churns in small time restlessness. The light from the heavens is reflected and bounces off the ground, sand, stones, pebbles and rocks.
The sand newly scrubbed by the outgoing tide is wrinkled, furrowed, like the skin of the earth, long soaked in its marine bath.
The sun is not yet setting, however, the scene sighs with the latent energy of a mid to late afternoon. This world is at peace, the peace of a thousand waves lapping in unison or a thousand thousand clouds inching across the sky.
This is a world without man.
Might this be what the world would have looked like, if no man had ever arisen to disturb the tranquility?
A world without man! Imagine! What a thought! What a vision – a world without man!
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Red Tree
A tree stands in the red sky of the setting sun. Its branches fan out, so that it looks like a three-dimensional gingko leaf.The land under it is black, fertile, even, with a smaller tree crouching under its shadow.
The sun slips and falls down behind a distant mountain, leaving only the fingertip of its brightness, and the smudge of its aura.
The accurate mirror of an undisturbed lake surface reflects the sanguinello sky and the branches of blackened burgundy.
The scene simmers for a few quiet moments, minutes and hours. All is still. Finally the sun completely disappears, and all turns to black.
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Spikes
Waterlogged marshland, where spiky leaves jut out of sand flats.
Not a pond, or a lake, but marshland. Clumps of plants.
In the distance, wild horses, riderless.
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A World with Man
The bands of clouds remain stretched across the sky. The sun darts playfully, caressing the earth with a gentle smile. The tide is slowly coming in. Satisfying pools of water have appeared, quenching the earth beneath.
In the distance two figures walk, quietly, purposefully.
This is a world with men, the world as it was created to be. Earth and sky and clouds and pools stand on alert, a frame, a backdrop patiently waiting for the star actors.
Finally the people come into view. Here they are! Here they come!
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Vista
A vista of sand, a Sahara of the north stretches out beyond the visible range. Waves of sand, ondulating, each grain a tiny stipple.
And on it stretches. Grey, cold, desert sand, instead of piercingly hot gold red and brown hues.
In the middle of the scene, a small strip of water. Not a mirage, as there is clearly a small boat, some figures sitting. They are going fishing in the desert, to haul up a catch from the waves of grey.
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Samples from other books
Les Études – Solitude: Prisons of Light.
Prisons of Light
A man waits. He stands silhouetted against the window, of a thousand refractive prisms. The late afternoon and the cold stare of marble underfoot conspire to keep his shadow held captive in each prism's reflection. This architecture was designed to be grand and imposing, a secular answer to the confident turrets of faith; architecture providing, yes, light, but empty light, uncommunicative light.
The man stands. It could be an office block, or a hospital complex, or a cathedral to modern art. He could be an executive, or an anxious father to be, awaiting news of wife and child. Or he could be a conductor relaxing before his next concert.
The man waits. He has already been waiting thirty minutes. Time to wait in silence is increasingly rare in anyone's life. It is to be savoured. He is the willing prisoner of the reflective prisms.
Here no mobile phones rings can assail, as poor reception thwarts even those who would be disobedient, or unaware. However it is a time not of tranquility, but rather of solitude. And yet he surrenders himself easily. The man waits.
The man reaches down to check his watch. Not for the first time. Not for the second time, either. Not even for the third or fourth time. Again, he looks, again, not seeing, he rather senses that it is not yet time. His life seems to pause as he considers the momentous undertaking that lies before him, that will speak so decisively about his future.
Yes, on one hand it could be considered as merely a job interview. On the other hand, what an interview!
This is the culmination of months, years, decades of planning and careful execution. It was due to this that a younger man, his earlier incarnation, endured endless sleepless nights, and countless fervid days. It was because of this that he pushed himself far beyond the edge and then fell and drowned in a sea of coffee for the sake of maintaining a semblance of sanity to the watching world.
That younger man had been less burdened with life, experiences, disappointments and personal failures.
Now his dream stands before him, as magnificent as the edifice in which he himself stands, as close but not quite tangible as his own breath, and yet...dented somehow...less glistening. Crashingly audible, but with a faintly hollow echo.
Victory is surely at hand, but it is surely to be a less satisfying victory. Life and life lessons, bittersweet experiences with bittersweet people have taken a little of the sheen off his goal, removed a layer of lustre from his golden trophy. And yet it is still a victory, all the same. It still gleams in his eyes, if a little less brightly. This is his dream! This has been his goal!
The younger m
an mastered the art of the perfect facade for an onlooking world. He had never wanted anyone to see quite how crazy he was...how desperate. The older man has not lost any of that skill. Outward calmness masks a heart fraught with fear, anxiety but also surging confidence.
He looks down at his watch. No, still not time. His eyes are arrested by the play of light from the square windows overhead. He lets himself be distracted. He smiles whimsically at the effortless rhythm of each square, marching in its own place in space and time. He watches how his own shadow is caught and contorted in each little reflection. There is a sadness in that light, that mirrors the sadness in his own heart. And he knows that today, of all days, this sadness can only help, so today, of all days, he embraces it, with the awkwardness of friends who have fallen out of touch.
For the first time, he looks around him. He suddenly sees. He sees the marble floor, the cold smoothness of polished steel. He shivers. This place could be a mausoleum. He shivers again. His mausoleum! Here he will be entombed in living death, coming only to life behind those doors, doors which are currently closed to him with a dreadful finality. But he sadly smiles again to himself. He does not mind. After all, this is what he has been living for. This is what he could have died for!