/lit/ - Literature

Examples of striking and memorable characters created with few touches or in a very limited space, such as in a short story of a few pages, or in a brief scene in a novel, or with just a few lines in a play.

That from your heart may emerge a wild swan

I

The silence before torture chokes the skies
While the black inquisitor of the storm
Ties the naked heights, opens the case of darkness,
Removes his lightning, sharpens the blond horror
And, whistling low, with slow hands, begins –
And then the air squeaks and kicks, squirms and writhes in a whirlwind,
Drools and urinates downpours, screams in pain so loudly
That the eardrum of the entire earth is set on fire.

II

With fear and relief the macaw sees, from its refuge,
The skinning of the horizon and the unboning of the skies;
He knows that the anthill of the winds that devour
The atmosphere alive doesn’t have nails that can reach him.
There is protection, there is a shield in the dead gold of the cage.
Why did he fight so hard against this gift
When they, who feed him, saved him from the wilderness?
Why did he tried to bite the hand of the protection
That absolved him from this world of eternal hunger and fear?
It doesn’t matter anymore; it’s in the past. That was many years ago.
His feathers no longer scream, hungry for heights,
His wings were finally transformed into sleep.
He has long lived the privilege of ornament.
The shelved skies of the shelter comfort him now.
He already accepts to have the world served him with a dropper.
The pneumonia of pleasure has long since corroded
The boldness in his chest. Like the goo in the mouth
Of the glutton who awakens the day after the orgy
Is the bronchitis of balm: it’s a honey that muddies the mind.
Not even the wings of the soul venture beyond
The perpetual slimy deserts of his days.
Woods, plains, lakes, rivers, rocks, mountains:
Everything is velvet now. He returned to the egg.
Outside the silk of the egg there is death and its thousand faces;
The storm, that disembowels the skies with its frown,
Is just one of those thousand faces.

cont

Please, be kind: the original is not in English.

>That from your heart may emerge a wild swan

I

The silence before torture chokes the skies
While the black inquisitor of the storm
Ties the naked heights, opens the case of darkness,
Removes his lightning, sharpens the blond horror
And, whistling low, with slow hands, begins –
And then the air squeaks and kicks, squirms and writhes in a whirlwind,
Drools and urinates downpours, screams in pain so loudly
That the eardrum of the entire earth is set on fire.

II

With fear and relief the macaw sees, from its refuge,
The skinning of the horizon and the unboning of the skies;
He knows that the anthill of the winds that devour
The atmosphere alive doesn’t have nails that can reach him.
There is protection, there is a shield in the dead gold of the cage.
Why did he fight so hard against this gift
When they, who feed him, saved him from the wilderness?
Why did he tried to bite the hand of the protection
That absolved him from this world of eternal hunger and fear?
It doesn’t matter anymore; it’s in the past. That was many years ago.
His feathers no longer scream, hungry for heights,
His wings were finally transformed into sleep.
He has long lived the privilege of ornament.
The shelved skies of the shelter comfort him now.
He already accepts to have the world served him with a dropper.
The pneumonia of pleasure has long since corroded
The boldness in his chest. Like the goo in the mouth
Of the glutton who awakens the day after the orgy
Is the bronchitis of balm: it’s a honey that muddies the mind.
Not even the wings of the soul venture beyond
The perpetual slimy deserts of his days.
Woods, plains, lakes, rivers, rocks, mountains:
Everything is velvet now. He returned to the egg.
Outside the silk of the egg there is death and its thousand faces;
The storm, that disembowels the skies with its frown,
Is just one of those thousand faces.

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