The Loud Aviatrix (1957)
In the foreground, a crowd of well-wishers plug their ears and wince. A number of young girls seem particularly excited, judging from the jaunty angles of their novelty aviatrix caps, to witness the aviatrix’s arrival. The aviatrix, in her pink jacket, white jodhpurs, and lighter pink scarf, her pale skin and blue eyes hardly visible under a cascade of strawberry-blonde ringlets, waves from the bubblegum-pink cockpit of her Cessna 172 Skyhawk. Her mouth is wide open. This scene was inspired by a memory from ______’s youth: a parade in his hometown of Davenport, Iowa, where he saw a famous aviatrix, whose plane was carried on a float, and whose voice was astoundingly loud.
The Torsion of the Dwarf Reporters (1962)
A tight cluster of very short reporters bends at odd angles over an airport barrier, photographing and questioning a notably taller individual. What the canvas implies, and what prompted ______ to paint it, is open to conjecture.
The Jungle of the Telephonic Communications (1970)
The eye fixes on no one feature, but glides along a web of crisscrossing, overlapping, and repetitive lines, formed by bromeliads, rising steam, receivers, cords, mouthpieces, and lianas, all stacking, all tangling, all striving toward an unseen canopy. This vivid and chaotic scene dates from ______’s Manaus period, when, bored by what he called “the tiny world of dwarf reporters and loud aviatrixes,” he relocated to the Amazon. He made only one excursion to the rainforest, joining a group looking for traces of the famous Fawcett expedition, which had disappeared decades earlier in search of a lost city. Fawcett had learned, over many séances, that the city was once inhabited by enlightened beings, of whom he and his party were reincarnations. No trace was found, but a tantalizing passage in ______’s diary describes an occasion when a commercial airplane was forced to bail overhead, dropping telephone equipment into the trees near his camp.
The Restaurant of the Doppelgängers (1979)
The interior of a bustling restaurant: checkerboard tiles, potted palms, red tablecloths, waiters rushing with aprons hanging from their waists. The head waiter is a tall, bald man with a mustache and a round face. The other waiters, and all the patrons, look exactly like him. This scene was inspired by a visit to a restaurant where everyone was identical.
Addison Zeller lives in Wooster, Ohio, and edits fiction for The Dodge. He has contributed to many journals, including BRUISER, Epiphany, 3:AM Magazine, and minor literature[s].
Image: Alican Leblebici, unsplash.com
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Heavy Feather Review 