THE INNER HOLOGRAM

UEL ARAMCHEK

The human body and its reflection are not the same beneath their skin. 

The image contained within a silvered mirror’s surface seems identical to its observer, but this semblance is usually only a few photons thick. Beneath the opaque barriers of the double’s visible flesh, a candle burns within a cage of transparent ribs, reinforcing the lifelike coloration of the illusion beyond. It is held in place by the long, glass candlestick of the spine, which refracts the firelight into sinuous rays of vital crimson.

THAT'S ALL, FOLKS

UEL ARAMCHEK

The coyote awoke one morning to find that his roadrunner was gone.

He’d disappeared, beyond the asymptotic horizon which outlined their desert, that unreachable boundary between two nowheres. Together, as predator and prey, they’d followed the same highway westward for thousands of miles, always encroaching on that same horizon, yet finding no end to the repetition of sagebrush and sand.

BODY OF EVIDENCE

UEL ARAMCHEK

By the time the photographers arrived, all that was left of her was a chalk outline. Her corpse had been removed from the scene, leaving the otherwise empty alleyway to a handful of spectators and journalists. Their voices filled the air with speculation: “From fifteen stories? Nobody could survive that.” “Nah, no foul play is suspected. People who knew her, they knew she’d eventually pull something like this.” “Her husband doesn’t want to talk. Just wants a lawyer. Go figure.”

The noise didn’t last. One by one, the reporters disappeared, back to the newspapers from which they emerged.

Then, as moonlight filled the city, she rose from the pavement once more.

THE DECONSTRUCTED OWL

UEL ARAMCHEK

Every now and then, the owl in the bottle pretends to be solid. It presses its wandering eyes against the inner surface of the glass, watchful and eager, searching the room for prey beyond its reach. Eventually, the twin orbs tire of their vigil and swirl away, back into the pool of liquid feathers from which they emerged.

THE TOMB OF PAUL BUNYAN

UEL ARAMCHEK

While hiking through the woods of Selganac, east of Minnesota and west of Wisconsin, I happened upon Paul Bunyan’s tomb. Though I spent seven days wandering the perimeter of its brasswood walls, I couldn’t find a single corner or entrance. I turned around before noon on the eighth day, for though it was clearly the work of human hands, the structure had proven endless.

During the return journey, I crossed paths with a carpenter from Duluth, who told me that he had been hired to help build the tomb. “Yep,” he told me. “It’s still very much under construction.”

A CONTROL CHARACTER

UEL ARAMCHEK

“The ASCII standard begins with a set of control characters,” she explained. “If you type the last of these on a modern computer, an invisible character is added, one that usually doesn’t do anything. It’s a relic from another time called the ‘delete’ character, number 127. These days, programmers sometimes use it as a placeholder, but for the most part, it’s obsolete.”

TEMPORAL BUOYANCY

UEL ARAMCHEK

The human mind does not actually move forward through time; it is far more accurate to say that it sinks through it. The passage of time is a constant, ambient force like gravity, rather than a willful motion. When one closes their eyes and attempts to resist it, there is no traction or grip to be found that might stall the inevitable descent.

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