Flash the Court

Tag: Objective Correlative

  • “The Girl Who Broke Every Omen” by Hana Xen

    “The Girl Who Broke Every Omen” by Hana Xen

    In “The Girl Who Broke Every Omen,” Hana Xen lends new nuance to the objective correlative. Omens of folklore are reframed as their literal objects, instead of their actions or outcomes: broken mirrors, spilt salt, dead crows, and fallen ladders. Xen’s narrator invites the reader to explore the possibilities beyond the traditional conception of superstition.  —Court Harler 

    The first omen I broke was a mirror, and I swear it screamed.

    A thin, silver sound, high and startled, before the glass webbed into fractures. My reflection split into a dozen versions of me, each one staring with a different expression: warning, pity, hunger. One shard caught the light just right and made a tiny rainbow across my wrist. It felt almost deliberate.

    I should have looked away.

    I leaned in.

    Bad luck did not come.

    Something else did.

    The next omen was the salt. The shaker toppled from my hand, spilling white grains in a crooked, broken circle. A boundary. A warning line.

    I did not throw any over my shoulder.

    I stepped through it.

    Something stepped with me.

    At first it was only a second set of footsteps, slightly behind mine. Then a breath on my neck when I turned off the lights. On the third night, I saw her in the corner. Girl-shaped but wrong. Spine bent. Fingers too long. Eyes reflecting moonlight like wet stone.

    Not a ghost.

    Not me.

    Not not me.

    She pointed toward the window.

    A crow lay there the next morning, neck snapped clean, wings arranged like an offering. No blood. No struggle. As if it had been removed carefully from the sky.

    After that, omens cracked around me like knuckles.

    The ladder in the alley fell the moment I passed beneath it.

    Doors sighed open before I touched them.

    Streetlamps guttered when I smiled.

    People began stepping away from me in public. They did not know why. Instinct, maybe. Animals sense rot before it blooms. My stomach twisted sharply the first time someone flinched from me. I told myself I was fine. I probably wasn’t.

    Then the moon split itself open, rending into a thin crescent. A curved blade hanging above the rooftops. The night went still. Even the thing in my corner held her breath.

    She was not haunting me.

    She was studying me.

    Growing clearer each time an omen broke.

    Growing closer.

    The holy water incident happened after a stranger saw something behind me. He flung the bottle at my feet like he was trying to snuff a fuse.

    It burst.

    The mist rose cold and metallic.

    The girl inhaled.

    The man’s face twisted. He ran without looking back.

    I did not chase him.

    I turned to my shadow instead.

    I should have run.

    She smiled with all my teeth.

    I break omens now because they break first.

    Because something in me is waking.

    Because warnings were never meant to save girls like me.

    Only to announce us.

    HANA XEN writes mythic and historical fiction shaped by folklore, from eerie flash to hybrid narrative prose. Her work has been long- and short-listed in writing contests and appears in anthologies and literary e-zines. She believes folklore isn’t superstition but documentation, and lives in the Midwest with a healthy skepticism of both curses and social media.

    Featured image by Jeroen van de Water, courtesy of Unsplash.

  • “Beard” by Eric Machan Howd

    “Beard” by Eric Machan Howd

    In the prose poem “Beard,” Eric Machan Howd explores the very concept of the contemporary ubiquitous beard: what it reveals, and what it conceals. As an objective correlative, the beard represents both living and dying. Through historical touchpoints, the revered beard is placed upon a continuum of irreverence.  —Court Harler

    He lets it grow, curling around dimples and smirks and the places where his father slapped regret into his cheeks. Whorls of silver strands gleaming in the few days of sunlight left before the cold and dark. To be healthy it must be fed regularly; almonds, avocado, carrots, pumpkin seed, spinach, broccoli, and salmon keep it strong, while various oils and balms save the skin beneath and coax new growth. Sleep makes for strong roots. Hair is dead. He hides behind it, covers scars and pox left by shingles and a father who roofed too much. The mouth is grown over. He parts his lips, strokes aside gray flyaways and blond wisps with thumb and index and makes way for fork, cup, and spoon. How difficult eating becomes. A bowl, for instance, must be held outstretched from chin to avoid dipping; it demands attention with soup and cereal, and faith in the steady hand. Pope Honorius III, to disguise his disfigured lip, let his grow, and Saint Peter’s was dedicated to the name of Lutheran churches. Leo the III was the first shaved Pope. He avoids plastics and statics, the electric charge that kills what is already dead. Thomas Edison used beard hair when searching for the strongest filament for his bulb. Someone’s hair brightened the room then burnt out. Combs of wood and horn smooth growth, a natural progression. Soon his lips will disappear. His beard will cover his heart and reach for ground and grave. He is already invisible to some, seen and not heard. Doors are not held for him. He grows it because he doesn’t want to be seen while speaking, because he wants to forget his bugler lips, rusty embouchure, what connects him to his father’s strict rhythm. Small seeds of protein gather in little pockets below the surface, form roots that steep in blood vessels. Hair breaks the skin, passes glands that soften and shine, and by the time it emerges the hair is dead. By the time it reaches his knees he will be alone and sing to the many shipwrecks sunk in it and speak to the dead that rise from its darkness at soul’s midnight. The story of hair growing after death is a myth, it is the skin that retracts from the follicle that gives the illusion of growth. He finds Saint Peter’s beard is now a fabric pattern, Warhol repetitions of His Holiness, dead but in stock across the world. Friends ask if he grows it for religious purposes. He answers: Somewhat, masks don’t work.

    ERIC MACHAN HOWD (Ithaca, New York) is a poet, musician, and educator. Their work has been seen in such publications as SLANT, SLAB, Cæsura, The Scop, and Nimrod. Their fifth collection of poetry, Universal Monsters, was published in 2021 by The Orchard Street Press.

    Featured image by Joshua Harris, courtesy of Unsplash.

  • “Fifteen Shades of Pink” by Christine H. Chen

    “Fifteen Shades of Pink” by Christine H. Chen

    In this sweet satire of a flash fiction, Christine H. Chen asks her readers to rethink the color pink. Put yourself in the “Pink Panther heels” of the “Chinatown girls,” and then ask yourself why society asks young women, especially young women of color, to be so cutely monochromatic? Chen poses this serious question in a way that playfully demands an answer.  —Court Harler

    Chinatown girls dream of poster Barbie Pink in a mermaid emerald skirt who whirls on her Hot Pink seahorse with bobbing Baby Pink jellyfish, carpets of jade waves weaving on her Blush Pink seafloor; China Rose pearls caress her Salmon Pink skin, her chest twinkles with Flamingo Rose cockles oh how Chinatown girls pine for Barbie Pink’s blond curls, how Chinatown girls bleach their black hair to yellow goldfish, how they nibble on white rice to carve curves, paint eyelids and cheeks Barbie Pink, line lips Neon Pink, how they squeal oh-my-god to each other when they wear tiaras of Crêpe Pink cloudy beads with plastic Piggy Pink peonies, how they strut imaginary catwalks on Pink Panther heels, Peach Pink conch and Punch Pink jingle shells jiggle on bony hips, their footprints like Ballet Slipper Pink limpets clinging to evanescent TikTok dreams wind blowing on sand, oh how Chinatown girls dream of Barbie Pink who gazes on from her Pastel Pink poster until paper turns to puffs of planet dust.

    CHRISTINE H. CHEN was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Madagascar before settling in Boston where she worked as a research chemist. Her fiction has appeared in CRAFT, SmokeLong Quarterly, Space and Time Magazine, as well as the Best Microfiction and Best Small Fictions anthologies.

    Featured image by Girl with red hat, courtesy of Unsplash.