My short story, ‘Burden’ has been published by Botsotso Literary Journal. It’s a story about desire and obsession and, like many of my short stories, the notion of art fundamentally changing one’s life in ways both profound and banal. Huge thanks to Botsotso’s Warren Jeremy Rourke and Kharys Ateh Laue for their detailed and generous edits.
for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.
– Rainer Maria Rilke
It was a flea-market find, a chance encounter, that led me to the photograph. I was struck by the man represented in it, even if I couldn’t make much sense of him at first.
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The figure in the photograph was a sculpture of a man’s head and torso. He had thick curls, a strong, prominent jaw, and small depressions for eyes. His skin was made of marble and impossibly smooth. His face, turned to the side, exposed his muscular neck and held a permanent gaze that landed somewhere beyond the frame. On the reverse side of the photograph, written in faded blue ink: “The Upright Man”. I carried it home and put it on my desk.
In the days that followed I tried, unsuccessfully, to find out who The Upright Man was, or at least, who sculpted him. I began by searching “Upright Man” on the internet. A documentary on Thomas Sankara, an academic paper on Henry David Thoreau, and a handful of religious texts emerged. A reverse image search revealed nothing but more sculptures, none of them The Upright Man. People in online forums dedicated to establishing the provenance of artworks and antiques, suggested that the sculpture was done in the tradition of Myron, although they couldn’t be sure of the period. Most agreed the man was somebody who the sculptor greatly admired.
The Upright Man’s arms were held in an improbable position — one arm extended in the direction of his gaze, fist clenched, and the other arm pulled back across his chest as if grasping some unyielding thing. Most probably, the complete figure had been holding something like a bow and arrow. To me, the real power of the figure was in his posture and this could not be attributed to any single part of his physique. It was the sum-total of a number of magnificent things: a pair of broad, evenly spaced shoulders, chiselled to a symmetry of the perfect man’s upper body; muscular chest, a lean, flat midsection, and wide, level hips that anchored his body to the earth.
I gave up the search soon enough, realising I didn’t care so much who the sculpture was modelled after, but only that I enjoyed looking at it. The sculpture’s posture was immaculate, so unlike my own. I could tell by the way he held himself that he was an honest man, in body and therefore mind, and unconcerned with matters of pride. He wasn’t posing. Rather, he was placing his body on display for those, like myself, who cared enough to appreciate the unique artistry of the human figure. Strong, upright, and honest; a body that’s capable of shrugging off whatever heavy load life places upon its shoulders. A body that was free of burden.
The full story is available on Botsotso Literary Journal.
