Sofía Rhei
translated from the Spanish by Lawrence Schimel
Cities Like Themselves 2
Are there more birds than towers?
It is thought that the towers grow at night, but that so many wings necessarily wear them down during the day. Too many pigeons: if the beating of a butterfly's wings can wind up provoking a tornado, what wouldn't so many thousands of wings do against old bricks, those ancient stones that keep their balance by some miracle? And perhaps those gray wings are nothing but the reincarnation of those forgotten and buried stones, the stones of the crypts? Their trajectories in the air have a sort of eternity that challenges that of the monuments, because they are a map of frustrated intentions, of parables interrupted by the need to escape.
Siena, City of Dead Emblems, seems to tremble with each slightly larger cloud, with each minute extra line on the seismograph; the symbols of fear can be that subtle, that small. However, other signs (the flags, the shields, the emblems of the ancient lineages) are enormous and conquer the streets. But who today understands those signs, those codes, those flags that meant so much, when those who invented them have been dead for so long?
The memory of the symbols, of the images, seems to be enough, and nonetheless true memory is that of the jokes, of the recipes, of the songs, of the forbidden loves and the public loves, that of the meaning of the names, that of the language of the flowers and gestures.
Siena is identical to itself, in its determination for every stone to remain in its precise spot, and it is itself its own catalog of the past: of one of the pasts, repeated unto infinity, dragging its errors of interpretation decade after decade.
And nonetheless, the dead laughed more and dressed in more vivid colors.
The Cities and the Water, 1
I've been told that there is not just one legend. Another says that Lilith, on remaining alone, received a divine order to annihilate and destroy Paradise, so that the descendents of Adam could never again find it.
But since obedience was not to be found among her many qualities, Lilith stopped to think. She had worked hard on that garden, choosing the best seeds, twining the trunks of the young trees, inventing the shapes of the leaves: the famous "Adam's rib" could be nothing but a subtle vengeance. The garden would not be destroyed. What could one disobedience more or fewer matter at this stage?
Lilith asked for help from the intermediate beings and gave them a body. They invented the manner of mixing earth with hay and hardening it under the sun, they found the sand which they heated in fire until it became as transparent as water, they tried infinite ways of piling the blocks, joining them with mortar, and they built: they hid the plants in buildings of vulgar appearance, anodyne, secret.
Over the centuries, the demons became men. In the city that bears her name, Lilith still lives, if not in flesh, in leaves and fruits, and her descendents still care for the gardens, and multiply their wonders in each generation of seeds.
Meanwhile, some errant travelers who have strayed from the commercial routes are crossing those moldy and smelly alleyways, thirsty and overheated, and don't find in this strange city neither a hotel, nor a hospital, nor a single open store.
The Cities and the Water, 2
If you were told that there are places in which everything moves so slowly that even the act of inhaling air takes hours for its inhabitants, would you believe me? You are used to efficiency and immediate responses, to the resorts, to the propellants, to the remote controls of your automata, but do you even know who fabricates them?
Areli is a city of this sort. Built upon stilts, in the center of a gigantic lake that houses other cities on its banks, Arelia is made up of platforms of wood and braided hay covered by roofs of enormous leaves. The inhabitants of the nearby cities leave, among the rushes, jars of water, baskets of fruit, toasted fish and white cookies covered in threads of herbs, then collect the finished figurines. There are also fragrant clay vessels with a scent that's somewhat bitter but sweet.
Absorbed in their meticulous rustproof sculptures, in their mechanical prayers, in the cleaning of complicated cogwheels and hinges, in threading miniature pearls, the inhabitants of Areli, who are seated in lotus position and never speak, don't even look at the traveler.
One of the great flowers loses a pinkish petal the size of a hand. The waves, when the petal falls into the water, increase in number and push one another until the first reaches the lake's shore. In this time, on the shore, the heart of another flower has already become orange.
__________
Sofía Rhei (Madrid, 1978) has published five books of poetry, including Alicia volátil (El Cangrejo Pistolero) Las flores del alcohol (La bella varsovia), Versiones (Ediciones del primor), and Química (El Gaviero), as well as the collection of microfictions Las ciudades reversibles (Colegio de Arquitectos de Ciudad Real). Her most recent fiction titles include the YA fantasy novel Flores de sombra (Alfaguara) and a series of Sherlock Holmes pastiches featuring a Young Moriarty, including El misterio del dodo and El joven Moriary y la planta carnívora (Fábulas de Albion). English translations of her work have also appeared in Strange Horizons, [PANK], The Raven Chronicles, Space & Time, Mythic Delirium, The Weird Fiction Review, and other magazines. Her website is www.sofiarhei.com
Lawrence Schimel writes in both Spanish and English and has published over 100 books as author or anthologist, in many different genres. He has won the Lambda Literary Award (twice), the Spectrum Award, the Independent Publisher Book Award, the Rhysling Award, and other honors. He is also the publisher of A Midsummer Night's Press
(www.amidsummernightspress.com). He lives in Madrid, Spain, where he works as a Spanish->English translator.
translated from the Spanish by Lawrence Schimel
Cities Like Themselves 2
Are there more birds than towers?
It is thought that the towers grow at night, but that so many wings necessarily wear them down during the day. Too many pigeons: if the beating of a butterfly's wings can wind up provoking a tornado, what wouldn't so many thousands of wings do against old bricks, those ancient stones that keep their balance by some miracle? And perhaps those gray wings are nothing but the reincarnation of those forgotten and buried stones, the stones of the crypts? Their trajectories in the air have a sort of eternity that challenges that of the monuments, because they are a map of frustrated intentions, of parables interrupted by the need to escape.
Siena, City of Dead Emblems, seems to tremble with each slightly larger cloud, with each minute extra line on the seismograph; the symbols of fear can be that subtle, that small. However, other signs (the flags, the shields, the emblems of the ancient lineages) are enormous and conquer the streets. But who today understands those signs, those codes, those flags that meant so much, when those who invented them have been dead for so long?
The memory of the symbols, of the images, seems to be enough, and nonetheless true memory is that of the jokes, of the recipes, of the songs, of the forbidden loves and the public loves, that of the meaning of the names, that of the language of the flowers and gestures.
Siena is identical to itself, in its determination for every stone to remain in its precise spot, and it is itself its own catalog of the past: of one of the pasts, repeated unto infinity, dragging its errors of interpretation decade after decade.
And nonetheless, the dead laughed more and dressed in more vivid colors.
The Cities and the Water, 1
I've been told that there is not just one legend. Another says that Lilith, on remaining alone, received a divine order to annihilate and destroy Paradise, so that the descendents of Adam could never again find it.
But since obedience was not to be found among her many qualities, Lilith stopped to think. She had worked hard on that garden, choosing the best seeds, twining the trunks of the young trees, inventing the shapes of the leaves: the famous "Adam's rib" could be nothing but a subtle vengeance. The garden would not be destroyed. What could one disobedience more or fewer matter at this stage?
Lilith asked for help from the intermediate beings and gave them a body. They invented the manner of mixing earth with hay and hardening it under the sun, they found the sand which they heated in fire until it became as transparent as water, they tried infinite ways of piling the blocks, joining them with mortar, and they built: they hid the plants in buildings of vulgar appearance, anodyne, secret.
Over the centuries, the demons became men. In the city that bears her name, Lilith still lives, if not in flesh, in leaves and fruits, and her descendents still care for the gardens, and multiply their wonders in each generation of seeds.
Meanwhile, some errant travelers who have strayed from the commercial routes are crossing those moldy and smelly alleyways, thirsty and overheated, and don't find in this strange city neither a hotel, nor a hospital, nor a single open store.
The Cities and the Water, 2
If you were told that there are places in which everything moves so slowly that even the act of inhaling air takes hours for its inhabitants, would you believe me? You are used to efficiency and immediate responses, to the resorts, to the propellants, to the remote controls of your automata, but do you even know who fabricates them?
Areli is a city of this sort. Built upon stilts, in the center of a gigantic lake that houses other cities on its banks, Arelia is made up of platforms of wood and braided hay covered by roofs of enormous leaves. The inhabitants of the nearby cities leave, among the rushes, jars of water, baskets of fruit, toasted fish and white cookies covered in threads of herbs, then collect the finished figurines. There are also fragrant clay vessels with a scent that's somewhat bitter but sweet.
Absorbed in their meticulous rustproof sculptures, in their mechanical prayers, in the cleaning of complicated cogwheels and hinges, in threading miniature pearls, the inhabitants of Areli, who are seated in lotus position and never speak, don't even look at the traveler.
One of the great flowers loses a pinkish petal the size of a hand. The waves, when the petal falls into the water, increase in number and push one another until the first reaches the lake's shore. In this time, on the shore, the heart of another flower has already become orange.
__________
Sofía Rhei (Madrid, 1978) has published five books of poetry, including Alicia volátil (El Cangrejo Pistolero) Las flores del alcohol (La bella varsovia), Versiones (Ediciones del primor), and Química (El Gaviero), as well as the collection of microfictions Las ciudades reversibles (Colegio de Arquitectos de Ciudad Real). Her most recent fiction titles include the YA fantasy novel Flores de sombra (Alfaguara) and a series of Sherlock Holmes pastiches featuring a Young Moriarty, including El misterio del dodo and El joven Moriary y la planta carnívora (Fábulas de Albion). English translations of her work have also appeared in Strange Horizons, [PANK], The Raven Chronicles, Space & Time, Mythic Delirium, The Weird Fiction Review, and other magazines. Her website is www.sofiarhei.com
Lawrence Schimel writes in both Spanish and English and has published over 100 books as author or anthologist, in many different genres. He has won the Lambda Literary Award (twice), the Spectrum Award, the Independent Publisher Book Award, the Rhysling Award, and other honors. He is also the publisher of A Midsummer Night's Press
(www.amidsummernightspress.com). He lives in Madrid, Spain, where he works as a Spanish->English translator.