Author: Quent Cordair

Alive

Alive

At our local bar, sitting next to two 70-somethings who’ve met here by happenstance. He was here when we came in, wears a medical bracelet. The seat next to him is the only seat available to her. And so she sits. He’s having a glass of wine. She orders a beer. It would be rude not to introduce themselves. They ask the questions, get to know each other. Only bits and pieces of the conversation can be heard, but the emotional undertones are timeless. He used to be in a band? What instrument? Saxophone? Her husband used to play! He taught her, but she was never very good…. Heart rates rise as hopes rise. The cautious, cautious optimism. By the time he leaves, she’s revealed where and when he might run into her again. When he walks out the door, his back is a little straighter, head a little higher. She takes her time, finishes her beer.

***

Thank you!

Thank you!

Thanks so much for each and every review! “A screenplay jihadists will hate and civilized people will love…. Set in Chicago during the holiday season, the story involves a conflict between Husam, a young Muslim man who takes Islam seriously, and his younger brother Jasim. The conflict escalates after Husam is handed a heavy bag by a bearded man and gets on a bus heading downtown…. How is the conflict resolved? In an immensely satisfying way—as fans of Cordair’s work would expect.” — Daniel Wahl, The Objective Standard.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R8QP8NI

Eclipsed

Eclipsed

Eclipsed

Their dance was interrupted
As the handmaid slipped between,
With silent glide, as was her way,
Her creases pressed and clean—
“Pray suffer but a moment, ma’am,
Then I’ll be on my way;
You’ll have him back for seven years
Through each and every day.”
With graceful curiosity
The wife let go his hand
And marveled as his aura’s light
Around the maid did band.
Her blackness moved against his white,
The stars and planets awed,
Till wife in wondering twilight thought
Her wisdom might be flawed.
But promise made the maid did keep,
Her turn but for a spell;
A flash of brilliant wedding ring
Told Earth that all was well.

***
Copyright 2017, Quent Cordair.

I used to live in Charlottesville

I used to live in Charlottesville

I used to live in Charlottesville. Today I’m reminded of this: “All of humanity was reforming into packs, each pack for protection against the others, with the barking and baying growing louder as the collectives circled, sizing each other up. Disassociated individuals were viewed warily, with suspicion, branded as a danger. If you aren’t for us, you must be against us. Choose! In the press and on social media, behind the slanted headlines and sniping innuendo, the snapping and snarling were intensifying, the pretense of civility crumbling as the packs grew and merged, the smaller groups absorbed into the larger. The collectives were circling and coalescing, testing and reaffirming loyalties, choosing leaders, sharpening claws, baring teeth. Self-loathing and fear were turned and projected outward. Homo sapiens was becoming increasingly less sapiens, devolving, seemingly doomed to another round of sub-civilized, tribalistic brutality. How dark would the next darkness be? How long would it last? How red would run the streets? How unexpected the particular details, the extent of the carnage?”

~ from Chapter 15 of A New Eden, Part II of IDOLATRY, from a darker moment of Professor Harris Grant’s thoughts as he sits on the edge of the cliff overlooking Aurum Valley.

A Call to Stand

A Call to Stand

A Call to Stand

One man at war with Man’s deprecation
Calls out to all men to seek no salvation,
To pick themselves up from self-immolation,
To turn from the gods of their own creation,
To stand up and face the day—
To reclaim their birthright to say—
I am that I am, before nothing I kneel;
I mastered the fire, invented the wheel;
I cast the bells true and set them to peal;
I am Man, for whom all else is clay—
I am Man. I make my own way.

 

~ Quent Cordair