The Prison of the Wooden Frame
written by: Katharina Lakomy
The voices scream devastatingly loud in her flat mind. The flickering candle flame distorts her silhouette on the brownish, crinkled paper and lets the shadows dance across her features, making her look like the millions before her. Shaking, she penetrates the surface tension of the darkness with the sharp tip of the feather and lets it be soaked with ink to the maximum of expansion, until the last bit of air is forced out of her lungs. The feather spreads scattered, hasty apologies over the page like pansies and violets splattered on the surface of a stream. All has been written. The voices go silent. The ink seeps deeper into the fibres of the paper, like algae-infested water permeating the cracked skin and dragging the fabric down, down, down. His hands drag her lower, lower, lower. Thoughts are washed away by the tiresome flow of the river and become darkness on the page after the fiery screams of a million desperate voices become all-consuming cold. She has lost them, failed them. I stare at the woman in awe, pen in hand, even though she can’t stare back, because she lacks a dimension. Even though her battle was not mine to lose, the voices started to whisper again at the sight of Ophelia merging with nature.
- The Prison of the Wooden Frame - March 19, 2026
