AFTER THE FLASH
:: SD SHARDS

Almost lost on a forest path leading to the dunes, I’m searching for my friends - they said they would wait for me about something urgent.

My journey is interrupted when I feel my feet getting wet and sticky in a kind of shiny, green mud infused with seeds. I begin to blame myself for my clumsiness, speaking to myself in the supposed privacy of my consciousness. But my flow of thoughts is stopped by a second voice, babbling incomprehensible words over and over. Weirdly, I understand it wants to be found.

Not without difficulty, I try to follow the path of this strange matter, looking for its origin. In the distance, I notice an odd blue light emanating from behind a bush. The closer I get to it, the more I feel like time is slowing down. It feels like the forest is wrapping me into an ultimate comfort, a peaceful serenity, as if it was opening its heart to me with full trust.

The blue light comes from a peculiar object. An intricate entanglements of vines, tendrils and moss, half-buried into a rich soil. Around it, a swarm of water droplets, leaves and tiny crystals float into the air, as if they were dancing to the melody of the forest heartbeat.

I get closer, completely bewitched by such a beautiful spectacle. I want to dance with them too. Upon my approach, the floating elements make way as the object’s light pulsates calmly - I feel welcomed. 

My gaze gets lost into all the details with which vines, branches and mold found a way to coexist around this unique relic, forming complex patterns of growth that probably span over centuries. The scent is actually wonderful, like a raw shot of vital energy.

I slowly approach my hand to the mossy surface. Upon contact, I can feel the fabric of time tearing out in shreds around me. The voice I heard before... I hear it again. It’s calling me. Stronger than ever.

I don’t know how, but the relic is able to communicate feelings.
Not visions. Not hearings. Not words. Pure feelings.

I feel torn but connected. Spread over the land.
Not one but multiple. Whole by the numbers.
A lively entity whose body evanesced into oblivion.

I also feel pain, sadness and suffering. This coalition of sensible entities makes us able to breathe, touch, hear and cry over the complexity of our host, the land itself. But it only feels partial, like a bland memory from a distant path. As if a cloudy veil were covering our shared perceptions.

Suddenly, the object glows stronger. The entangled vines start to retract. The floating leaves and droplets spin faster and faster around us. The entire soil seems to swell and deform. But I feel at peace, protected by this relic which unveils its true form : under the moss-covered rusty metal plate lies a piece of flesh. I can’t say if it’s alive or not, but looking at the sharp edges of the metal plate, I understand it's a fragment of something bigger. Something out of this world - or at least what I know of it.

But the fragment feels threatened. It seems to panic, to lose its trust towards me. I feel obsessed with this piece of flesh. My hand mechanically reaches for it. I want to know what the skin of a god feels like. As my hand gets closer, I can feel we’re not alone anymore - the voices of my friends echo in the distance. They’re looking for me.

The fragment glows once more. It feels like time stops again. My consciousness completely dissolves into aether. Is the fragment absorbing me? I’m not sure, because I also never felt that strong. Beyond the boundaries of my own body, I feel eternal. I can see it all. I can feel it all. My friends looking for me, the weaves of their clothes, each and every droplet of sweat covering their bodies, the leaves they step on, the sap flowing through trunks, the myriad of insects populating the grass around us... I am one, I am whole. I live forever. Beyond my own finitude.

The fragment sings to me again. It wants me to go deeper within its psyche. Not sure I would come back, I still follow it. I’m not afraid anymore.

In a storm of thoughts, everything comes to me too fast to be able to process it. I catch grasps of situations and objects in circumstances unknown to me. Drawings, texts, sounds, images, but also memories, people, objects, conversations and feelings, all entangled into a branched network of flowing information. A last hope of remembrance. It was as if each described a possible state of the world, perhaps events from the past or mere distant possibilities

Then emptiness. A black thick enveloping void.

Am I dead?

The fragment hums. A farewell lament as I feel escorted out of its mind, back into the fabric of reality I am familiar with. I hear my friends again. But the light is no more, and the vegetation has covered the relic back with strong thick vines. I can see no more floating leaves, no more crystals. Not even the sticky mud that led me here in the first place. I get up with the fuzzy feeling that there should be other relics like this one, where I could find the missing pieces of the incomplete portraits shared to me. With my humble existence, maybe I’m also part of the puzzle?


:: SHARD_#02

| - Found in : Central Europe
| - Aura : organic, rhizomatic, swarmy
| - Whispers :

(̷ ̷  aboutmyblank  ̷)̷

01、METAMATICS - Giant Sunflowers Swaying in the Wind
02、EVIL NINE - For Lovers, Not Fighters
03、CARIBOU - Webers
04、ADDRESS - 213.xx.200.xx:01
05、MAROW - Inter 3
06、ROBOHANDS - String Feelings
07、YOLABMI - Huge
08、IMOGEN HEAP - Cumulus
09、BON IVER - Perth (YUNG GUD remix)
10、JAMIE XX - Sleep Sound
11、SAU POLER - Non Plus Ultra
12、THROWING SNOW - Subtitles
13、ABOUTMYBLANK - Enter at Last (ZIYIZ Remix)

(̷ ̷  Ziyiz ̷)̷

14、SOPHIA LOIZOU - Shadows of Futurity
15、SKY H1 - Air
16、RIAN TREANOR, OCEN JAMES - The Dead Centre
17、LEE GAMBLE - She’s Not
18、ZIYIZ - ?????
19、LANARK ARTEFAX - Flickering Debris
20、ZIYIZ - ?????
21、KATE NV - xyo EAR
22、VISIBLE CLOAKS - Lost Lake
23、ZIYIZ - ?????

| - Reviewed by : GUN
| - Submitted to : LYL RADIO
| - Visuals by : aboutmyblank