OBSIDIAN DUENDE · 08

Chapter atlas

Eight chapters. I–VIII are open.
Chapter V poster: a person kneels over black water; a reflected hand reaches up towards theirs, while eyes, profiles and footprints repeat along the margins.

PLATE 05 · DELAY / UNISON / ANTICIPATION

CHAPTER V · FACE AND MEMORY

THE
WATER
BLINKS

First the water followed. Then it blinked first.

THREE FORMS · THREE RECORDINGS · ONE FACE

CHAPTER V · THE REFLECTION THAT BECAME MORE EXACT

The water
blinks.

After a long road, a person comes to a dark lake to see whether his face has stayed the same.

No wind, no moon, no ripples. The surface resembles an open eye that will not blink.

At first the reflection lags behind.

Its hand rises one heartbeat later. Its smile appears after the smile on shore. The small delay could be the ordinary inertia of water.

Then the delay narrows. The reflection grows clearer and calmer. It gives him more than a face: a room he never entered, a hand on his shoulder, a winter without weather. The more he doubts the memory, the sharper it becomes.

One day their movements match exactly.

Which is the copy now? For a moment there is no visible difference between them. The perfect match almost feels like relief.

Then the water blinks first. Its mouth begins to move before the word; an expression appears on the surface before he feels it. The reflection seems to know his next self before he does.

He steps back from the lake.

The question is who took that step.

ADAPTED FROM THE OBSIDIAN DUENDE RELEASE STORYBOOK

PLATE 05 · HAND AND REFLECTION · 00:15 VIDEO PLAYS SILENTLY

THE LISTENING ROOM · CHAPTER V

Three positions.
Three recordings.

First the person tells us what he saw at the lake. The instrumental form explores the distance between a gesture and its reflection. Then the water answers.

Choose a recording. The music will keep playing while you read or watch the plate.

FORM 01 · LYRICS

The Water Blinks

He came to check his face. The more precisely the water replies, the harder it is to tell whose memory he is seeing. Here the voice falls silent just as the next motion begins.

No wind.
No moon.

The lake lay open
like a black,
unblinking eye.

I knelt beside it
to find the face
that had survived
the road.

The water
took a moment
to remember me.

Dust on my tongue.
Old names in my throat.

I carried every answer
until the letters broke.

The surface kept no weather,
no wrinkle, breath, or tide.

I leaned into the darkness.

The darkness
wore my eyes.

At first,
it followed softly,
one heartbeat
behind.

A faithful little error.

A face
almost mine.

The water blinks
after I do.

It learns my mouth.
It learns my scars.

I lift one hand.
It rises slow.

I ask for my name.

It already knows.

It gives me back a room
I know I never entered,

a hand upon my shoulder,
a winter without weather.

Each doubt becomes a detail.
Each silence, evidence.

The water keeps remembering
a life I never lived.

It smooths the scar
I remember earning.

It holds the face still
while everything beneath it
is turning.

Now every movement
arrives with mine.

No lag.
No error.
No seam in time.

I touch my cheek.
It touches too.

I cannot tell
which hand
I moved.

The water blinks
when I do.

The same small tremor
passes through.

I close one eye.
It closes too.

For one perfect moment,
there is only
one of us.

Then its mouth…

AFTER THE LAKE

Who looks
from the water?

When the reflected hand first trails behind and then moves exactly with his own, at what point does the perfect match stop reassuring him?

The lake shows him a room he never entered and a winter he cannot recall. Why does each objection make the picture clearer?

The water blinks first, and he steps back. Who really left the shore?

RETURN TO THE COVER