May 10, 2021 - By Edward Clifford
I want to tell you an unlikely story. I d find it hard to believe if it hadn t happened to me, so I ll understand if you choose to take it with a pinch of salt. I assure you, however, that every word you re about to read is true. I hope you ll be able to take what you need for your own life from this tale. from Bele & Zozo, Volume 62, Issue 1 (Spring 2021)
Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
A few years ago I found a school binder with a story I (aged 7) had no recollection of penning. It was the story of a girl who went to a funeral where everybody in attendance died “of pity and sorrow” except her. Then, at the funerals of all those people who had died in the first funeral, people in attendance also died “of pity and sorrow.” This girl always survived these deadly funerals (she attended several, the same thing happened over and over). Eventually she found herself alone in the world, puzzled, walking through innumerable
Brooklyn, NY, June 19, 2020.
Volume 62, Issue 1
SPRING FORWARD, FALL BACK. As mnemonics go, one of the best, as equipment for living, not the recipe we need. Though this issue hits the bookstands the day after we spin the clocks ahead, if springing forward is what you’re looking for, you’ve come to the wrong place. Many things must change, given where we’ve been, yet none of that will happen unless we come to terms with what we’ve learned. And it isn’t the lies, the self-dealing, the rancor, or even, at some level, the damage done, the lives ended, the fortunes ruined, the friends and family lost. All of that still burns, how could it not, and nothing will be forgotten, because how could it be? Yet what is truly essential, what must at last be confronted, was delivered to us drop by drop during this interminable succession of isolated days, a truth that 2020 hindsight cannot not reveal. Though elsewhere there will be other versions, in the US that truth is simple: this co