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Marla Cordle won the Spring 2008 flash fiction contest for Up the Staircase. Her story, "Contemplation of an Artist," was chosen best story
and best accurate depiction of Robin Appleby's photo. Marla won our 50 dollar cash prize as well as the bragging rights of winning Up the Staircase's
first ever contest. Thanks to Marla for submitting such a beautiful story and to Robin Appleby for letting us borrow her lovely photograph.  Contemplation of an Artist by Marla Cordle She equates the spray of saltwater to the stinging words of a sudden argument; hesitates with camera in one hand and the weight of a moment in the other. Perhaps, it is a small thing, her rationalization of artists being slaves to the thoughts between pictorials. Today, she quibbles over the envisioned viscera of the sea and the long dock she stands beneath, and she feels infinitesimal. Waves are but shouting children around her legs. They thrash about the crusty, cement beams lined up along the corridor of her vision. They erupt and fold in. In the near future, they will strike up like militants and batter each buttress. She doesn’t believe water is ever haphazard. It is responsive, always answering. Never has an ocean been without moon or quake or weather, and neither has she, come to think of it. She and water are respective clients of: what is. Each to each. Her respiration mixes with the pungent splash and how good it is to merge with something. The filaments of her hair and the sea pulp are mineral rich as she takes her camera into both hands. How capable are the bones in her fingers, how intricate the shells between her toes. |