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Hi, I'm FRANCIS ROSENFELD
I GARDEN, I WRITE, AND I WATCH THE WORLD GO BY
There is nothing new under the sun but our perception of things. Technology advances, civilizations flourish and fall, but the human spirit never changes. We are born with all the storylines able to touch our soul. These basic tales bind us through time and cultural differences and allow us to relate to each other while we harbor completely different views of the world. The rest is just letting life flow quietly through you.
We thrive on empathy and recognizing ourselves in others; we love to know we’re not alone in our predicaments, victories or convictions.[...] I write because I lived, loved, learned, hurt, and I have so much to say!
This is the greatest joy of writing, you get to create your own world just the way you want it to be, unchallenged. We storytellers are glorified liars, we revel in elevating deception to the standing of art.
March Audiobook
Terra Two
Y
oung biologist Sarah Feaherty enrolls in a post-doctoral program run by a reclusive religious order and unwittingly becomes part of their terra-forming team.
At the age of 116, Sarah is entrusted to tell the story of their first century twently light years away from home.
How did she get to live so long? Their new planet is a very special place.
The first thing Cimmy saw when she opened her eyes that morning was an intricate wooden vault, whose ribs intertwined and transformed in spellbinding ways, drawing her attention from one detail to another.
“Are you going to start working or are you going to keep staring at the ceiling? By all means, let your patients stew in their problems until you’re done contemplating the meaning of life.”
‘Patients?’ Cimmy thought. ‘What’s a patient?’
The irony of Bertha’s comment about not keeping the patients waiting didn’t escape her, and she got up to examine the rest of the space.
The room was flooded with light, even at this early hour, and it was stunningly spacious and grand, a far cry from what she was used to.
The structure was built of flexible wooden branches, which were smooth and remarkably uniform. It featured vaults and arched openings that looked out to the sea and the forest.
Its walls were lined with shelves, holding a collection of books and jars filled with dried herbs and potions.
In the middle of the room, on a large table covered in anatomical and botanical drawings, the diseased book ruled supreme.
‘I jumped again,’ was Cimmy’s first thought. She looked around to find Fay, who wasn’t anywhere in sight, and turned towards Bertha, who seemed to have no recollection of the fact Cimmy had ever been banished.
“Where is Fay?” she asked, worried.
“At home, of course. You may be so eccentric as to keep a pet rat, but the rest of us don’t appreciate the danger to health that critters poses. Keeping a rat in the apothecary! That’s precious! Have you finished the readings I gave you last week?”
‘You mean to say this is not where I live? I have another place, just to sleep?'
She remembered having woken up there and asked out loud.
“Did I sleep here?”
“I stopped trying to figure out why you do anything a long time ago,” Bertha went on the offensive. “Maybe the effort of actually moving your from one place to the other didn’t sit well with you today. Thank god that friend of yours remembers to feed your rat when you take leave of reality to go to whatever crazy entices you that day. You seem to have no sense of responsibility. Normal people actually feel guilty when they don’t tend to their duties.”
‘Oh, great,’ Cimmy thought, ignoring the familiar diatribe. ‘Rahima is here too.’
As long as she had her friend and her pet, life was going to be ok.
She got up and picked a tome from the shelf, and noticed it was made of the same whitish substance they had found in the stream, only thicker, smoother and more resilient, and brought the book closer to her face, to examine its details.
“I could swear nothing you do could give me pause anymore, but this is strange, even for you: are you getting confused by paper? I haven’t seen that expression before, except maybe once, on a lemur.”
‘What’s a lemur,’ Cimmy wanted to ask, and then reconsidered, planned to find out all by herself later and put the book back on the shelf.
The day passed slowly, with only a few minor injuries and upset stomachs. This allowed her to dedicate a lot of time to examining the rest of the books. With each one she opened, her excitement grew, eventually bringing her to tears.
In every tome, in exquisite detail, old illnesses and afflictions had elaborate descriptions and cures, explanations for why they happened, diagnostic tools, recipes for medicine.
“Are you admiring your own work?” Rahima mocked her. She was standing in the doorway, holding a little basket of food, and she had brought Fay, who was sitting on her shoulder.
“Fay!” Cimmy turned around, excited.
“Don’t worry, I fed him,” Rahima was taken aback by this strange display of emotion. “I swear, if he tries to get in my hair, I’ll hate you forever. Have you had anything to eat today?”
Cimmy wasn’t hungry, so she assumed she must have, only to be contradicted by Rahima’s firm hand gesture. The latter had put the basket on the table and dragged her there, forcing her to sit down.
One by one, unfamiliar treats came out of the basket, all wrapped in clean linens and smelling delicious.
‘Who in creation ever forgets to eat? Especially when food smells like this,’ Cimmy wondered.
She frowned unconsciously as memories of starvation and the oxalic taste of the bitter roots resurfaced.
“I thought these were your favorites!” Rahima looked offended. “I took a half hour detour just to get them for you.”
“You didn’t make these?” Cimmy wondered.
“Cimmy, I know you have important work to do, but the rest of us don’t sit around twiddling our thumbs, either. I wouldn’t have time to bake, even if I knew how.”
Cimmy wanted to ask Rahima who found the diseased book and when, but knew there was no point in referring to histories unshared, and was sure her friend wouldn’t have any idea what she was talking about.
How curious was it that Rahima’s personality and demeanor kept getting mirrored in all these overwritten versions of life, perfectly recognizable and fundamentally unchanged?
The Rahima who made an extra effort to bring Cimmy her favorite foods was the same Rahima who shared her bitter roots with her, at the risk of starvation.
“How lucky am I to have a friend like you!” Cimmy blurted out, a little embarrassed by the raw display of emotions.
“Yeah, you’re weird.” Rahima examined her with an amused and detached gaze. “Eat! You’ll start seeing things next.”
Cimmy obeyed, surprised at the familiar taste of the food, and wondering if all these overwritten realities which kept her skipping forward by leaps and bounds weren’t all connected somehow, at their core, by a fundamental and unchangeable essence which was the real existence, and for which all the ephemeral transformations were irrelevant details.
“How was your day?” She asked Rahima, with the hope the latter would get chatty about her whereabouts, so Cimmy could orient herself around her friend’s life without having to ask questions that would make the latter worry she’d lost her mind.
Rahima was glad to share the plethora of details, emotions, and surprises of the day, and discussed her projects, lectures, and field trips.
Now that she had discovered her friend's occupation, Cimmy felt encouraged to participate in the conversation.
“Do you like being a teacher?”
“Teacher? I guess I never thought of it like that. I suppose taking care of the art room has some similarities to teaching, yeah, no, not really. Cimmy, are you ok?”
Art caretaker? Could one claim caring for art as a profession now?
“Yes, of course. This is delicious.” She pointed to the baked goods to change the subject. A soft breeze blew through the arched openings and brought with it the scent of flowers. Cimmy couldn’t figure out what flowers those were, but their fragrance was deeply anchored into her memories, a strange thing, really, because none of her pasts had characteristics which would allow for the heavenly fragrance, and she suddenly realized it was a scent from her Garden, roses, she was sure of it, even if she’d never seen roses before. Damasks, she elaborated. Definitely Damasks.
She worried Rahima would think her crazy, but couldn’t help herself.
“That smell! Are those roses?”
“Yes,” Rahima nodded, pleased. “My new perfume, I got it yesterday. Do you like it?”
Cimmy was so perplexed by the idea of her friend smelling like one of her imaginary flowers that she couldn't respond.
“You don’t like it?” Rahima’s face darkened in disappointment.
“No, it’s lovely,” Cimmy rushed to reassure her. “I just didn’t realize one could steal the scent from a flower.”
It did make sense, though: if one could steal the healing essence from a plant, and its color, why not its smell too?
“Ever since they invented perfume,” Rahima mocked her, while grabbing Fay from her own shoulder and placing it in Cimmy’s hands. “Now that you’ve eaten, take your beast and go home. People are coming to see the new paintings, and I don’t want to make them wait.”
“Can I come?”
“Of course,” Rahima hesitated, surprised. “I didn’t think you’d be interested, since when are you excited about art?”
The return of another overwritten past brought back the heartbreaking memory of Cimmy's treasured artifacts fueling a bonfire. How does one cope with the weight of nonexistent memories and the absence of someone to share them with? What was one to do with all the pasts that had never been, with whom was one to share their weight of nonexistent memories? How could a past that never happened make one sad?
“What, a healer can’t appreciate beautiful things?” Cimmy brushed off the burden of her inexistent past.
“Art is not about beauty,” Rahima started to engage in a sophisticated argument about different forms of expression, but met Cimmy’s tearful gaze and felt guilty for upsetting her friend.
“I’m sorry, Cimmy. I didn’t mean to sound condescending.”
“Can I bring Fay with me?”
Rahima didn’t want to further upset her friend, and reluctantly agreed, all the while wondering what kind of nut brings a rat to an art showing.
You figure you need a pair of shoes and have a mental picture of what you want: a sensible choice that coordinates with your wardrobe and matches your busy lifestyle.
You go to the mall and start eyeing the displays in search of what you already know you will buy. As you expertly scan the merchandise, a display draws your attention, you don’t know why, exactly, but you can’t take your eyes off of it: it’s a pair of suede pumps in deep plum, formal wear.
As much as it incites your curiosity, you keep going forward, true to your original intent to buy a pair of sensible shoes, mid-height heel, preferably in black and definitely leather, not suede.
Never had fall been more beautiful, a symphony of warm colors, like a nature’s embrace, and it made her feel loved by a love higher than this world.
So many disciples, so many years, and not one of them had made it out of the Fog, not alive anyway. The Fog was ruthless and cold, the absolute judge and mirror of the soul. It found everyone wanting.
Their unusual color, a muted glow of embers, echoed the ruby of burning bushes and sugar maples like their color turned with the seasons as well.
She’d been born this way, hair snowy white, her porcelain skin the palest shade of alabaster and eyes of fire.
”You really want to try this?" the Master asked, unconvinced. Dregs of bitterness surfaced from the bottom of his thoughts and he pushed them back before they clouded the pristine waters of his gaze.
Mary made her way sheepishly through the small park, lowering her eyes as she passed the rare visitors, because the fire in them scared people who didn’t understand it. It had scared her too at first, but not for a long time now.
The Fog had taken a piece of him too when it called out to him, how long ago, it didn't even matter now. It took him, he didn't seek it, that's how the Fog was. It didn't like being summoned, challenged or besought: it reigned supreme.
On my commute from work, I used to pass a graveyard.
I was young and filled with want, as one is at that age, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, the age when life makes demands of you, and you of it, but you’re excited about them because they’re yours.
You’re too young to be entrusted with caring for others, but too old not to care for yourself, and you can feel your life bear down on you and ask for a tally of what you’ve done so far, how you’re progressing, and what you’re planning to do to improve yourself.
I’m excited to announce my books will be promoted as part of a special sale on @Smashwords to celebrate Read an Ebook Week 2024 from March 3-9. #ebookweek24 #Smashwords
Just Published
My Dear Fiona
An American anthropologist and her creative sister spend a year in the Orkney Islands trying to locate the burial site of a Viking princess from the 10th century. Much to their surprise, they find themselves embarking on an adventure much more meaningful than an archeological quest: they uncover an entire world of ancient Norse poetry, history, music, stories, our connection with nature and the world of the dead.
Dear kindred podcast lovers, it's been months in the making, but I'm happy to announce francis rosenfeld: VOICES is now live.