Flash Fiction Archives - Aster(ix) Journal

Cecilia Vicuña’s painting from 1972 “Amaranta"

The Amaranta Project

Featuring 6 micro-fictions and 5 poems inspired Cecilia Vicuña’s 1972 “Amaranta” which was “lost and reborn” when found in 2021. The Chilean artist-poet-activist writes simply as an introduction to her work, “My work dwells in the not yet, the future potential of the unformed, where sound, weaving, and language interact to create new meanings.”

Combination of Cecilia Vicuña’s “Amaranta” (1972) and photo by Ankhesenamun

Awake

“When you sleep your life away,” she continued, pointing at me with her garden gloved pinky, “you miss the world, you go someplace else.”

Combination of Cecilia Vicuña’s “Amaranta” (1972) and photo by Larisa Birta

Germinates

But the next day, against all expectations and formalities, she grew, her limbs narrowed, her torso expanded, her chest widened, her mouth opened, her tongue saw the light and her voice made itself heard.

Combination of Cecilia Vicuña’s “Amaranta” (1972) and photo by Elena Kloppenburg

Answer

One day she flew to Australia. She understood that there was no such thing as an island. She returned. She felt better in the air, out of reach and already deafened.

Combination of Cecilia Vicuña’s “Amaranta” (1972) and photo by Jr Korpa

Your Daughter Refashions the Flag into a Crop Top

Cecilia once told me she had to choose between poetry and painting, but she no longer believes this and is recovering what was stolen, rejected, lost. You bequeath to your daughter what was left of the flag, and rejecting its unflattering form, she refashions it into a crop top to show off her midriff. She’s on the verge of something, that beautiful precipice.

Combination of Cecilia Vicuña’s “Amaranta” (1972) and photo by Kirill Sharkovski

Unfading [Story]

Their rage so loud she stopped hearing it. Telephone wires ran through her body and tugged her in different directions the way exile does. The way the world falls and the sea begs when love limps. The way numbers climb the wind like death tolls when oppressors are free.

Combination of Cecilia Vicuña’s “Amaranta” (1972) and photo by Zane Lindsay

Feedback Loop

With each impulse, the current your heart siphons from the phone line will slowly render the vision of Self in vibrant color. Your grey tongue will begin to blush, too. When it swells with the metal-sweet taste of saffron, you will know that this vision of Self is real enough to power its own flow.