s w i f t s  &  s l o w s: a quarterly of crisscrossings

A Split Second
Valeriya Gaysinskaya & Leonard Kogan

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It was as if in a setting of Tarkovsky’s Stalker, except, it was more like a city instead of a zone. Like a zone, it had no people except for the two of us – perhaps deserted perhaps abandoned. I could not tell how recently the people left. We are on some hill and we need to go down, but there is no safe way, I know that with all the melancholic force of an inevitable realization.

The only choice is to take the sandy windy slope down. A thought that the sand is somehow false in its apparent density and will betray and engulf us crosses my mind suddenly. You are calm, as if all is fine, as if our surroundings are natural. You push me to take a different route I have not considered, an obviously more dangerous route and I wonder why.

Elusive columns along the path first appear reassuringly concrete, but they are not and I sense this before I see this. Some of these pseudo-columns are soft like a crustacean, others, well-organized into polymers. As the structures shatter under my feet I realize they are glass and giggle sickly and otherworldly.

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Valeriya Gaysinskaya is a biologist and a poet. Her work has appeared in Burp, Elephant and Oz-Burp zines.

Leonard Kogan is a visual artist whose works were exhibited internationally, including at the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art; Janko-dada Museum, Ein Hod and Andy Warhol Factory, New York. Leonard’s art has been featured in a number of literary and art magazines including The Tishman Review, Crab Fat Magazine and the Little Patuxent Review.Valerie and Leonard currently live and work in Baltimore, MD.

To see more of Leonard Kogan’s work you can go to:
bakerartist.org/node/15599