the life catatonic

To Conjure a Menace

It thrashes out of the corn like a storm of skin and limbs. The chest heaves and the arms, crooked branches of bruised meat, hang down to scabbed knees. Jason and I stand motionless on the other side of the combine and peer through gaps in the frame. The breath in our lungs is granite.

Before us it stands, built like something between beast and man. Scars crisscross a torso stitched up into a patchwork quilt. It's naked, and even if it has a gender it's hidden by flaps of skin and coiled scar tissue. The face looks like a cigarette burn. Clusters of veins pulse around the eyes and along the singed ridges of hardened flesh that jut out from the skull.

Jason nudges me with his elbow and directs my eyes to the scratches at our feet. Our work is still there in the dirt. He scrawled a messy pentagram beside symbols from the book he found in his grandfather's attic. Pages where the names of demons had been torn out end in frayed edges, like someone tried to burn them. Curiosity brought us here. We wanted to see something outside this place.

The chapter on summoning said that demons appear in pentagrams. Jason's eyes moon as wide as mine and panic takes us. He hastily drags a shoe across the lines in the dirt.

My eyes can't move from the thing. It ripples forward on a wave of muscle, a starved dog with its nose in the wind. Teeth curl up around its lips – none of them point the same direction. A ragged bunch of hair falls back across its scalp. Long legs end in talons like a bird. Bone-white claws drag it toward us.

I hate Jason and his book. My body doesn't want to move. It wants me to make breakfast and go to school and leave this strange dream behind.

In a flurry of motion, Jason rips my fingers from the cold metal of the combine and pulls me toward the barn. The stars watch us run. I don’t hear anything behind us but the whistle of wind.

The heavy scent of old hay surrounds us. Jason plunges over a stack of bales and burrows in as far as he can. I throw myself toward a ladder at the back of the barn, arms and legs trembling as I drag myself up into the loft. Scrap wood and tools lie strewn about. Jason's shock of dark hair floats down there amidst the hay and I can see him through one of the cracks in the wood. My shaking subsides and I pray the floorboards don't creak. Am I breathing too loud?

From the edge of the loft, I can see the thing walk in. It sniffs the air and passes by the hay bales, slumped forward. A wrinkled neck swivels back and forth to scan the shadows. I dig my nails into palms. The blistered slit of a nose follows my smell to the ladder.

Jason found the book. He drew in the dirt. My fingers close around the handle of a hammer. He yelps in shock when it thuds down against the ground beside him. A claw reaches in and drags him out. Jason lets out a squeak and the smell of piss leaks out into the air. My bones grow into the floorboards.

With a frown of concentration and a grip on either shoulder it shakes him out of his skin. A sudden snap of bones breaks the silence like a line of firecrackers. When the demon drops him, I can see a white knot of spine punch through the base of his neck. It reaches down to pull the book from inside his jacket and flips through a few pages with long fingers. It looks up at me and shakes its head – eyes glare like two boiled spots on the sun. A sound like a drowned man's chuckle crawls out of its throat. Then, it turns and walks out into the night.

Breaking Boundaries: Art and Theater at the GRAM

When you walk into an art museum, there are a few items you might expect to see. Paintings would make sense; a sculpture or two wouldn't be out of place. What about an older couple fast asleep in a bed? As a small crowd gathers around them, staring in confusion, they wake up and stare back, apparently just as confused as their audience. The start of a Twilight Zone episode?

No. It's theater.

An attempt to bring art and theater together, actually, as part of the Grand Rapids Art Museum's (GRAM) 100th anniversary celebration, taking place over the course of the year. For their centennial, the GRAM is devoting each month to a different medium; February was designated as the month for theater. Organized by Austin Bunn, writing faculty at GVSU, and Malinda Peterson of MP Talent, the event included short plays, panels and involvement from local playwrights.

Events at the GRAM took place on Friday nights and offered attendees a new perspective on the art of theater each week. The first week showcased short plays and essays written to celebrate the new Calder Jewelry exhibition, and the next was centered on performances written by local playwrights to complement favorite pieces of artwork in the GRAM, previously selected by guests. These plays, like the example above called Green Relief, “took away the boundaries between performance and reality,” said Bunn. “You get to see the art come alive.”

Other highlights included excerpts of plays written by area playwrights, including Bunn and Stephanie Sandberg, associate professor at Calvin College, and a panel discussion—with a few local directors—about the state of theater in the Grand Rapids community. This entanglement of art and theater “was all about changing the relationships people have with the art,” said Bunn. The GRAM has no stage, is not designed as a venue for theater, so the integration of performance came as a surprise to guests. “It's unexpected, theater in an indeterminate space,” said Bunn, and that confusion of limits allowed guests not just to look at art, but to participate in it.

By involving the strong, art-appreciating audience the museum has cultivated over the years, they were able to engage attendees on a new and exciting level. “It was a great opportunity for two cultures to come together,” said Bunn, “mixing the art establishment with edge writers.”

The GRAM's centennial celebration offers anyone in the area an easy way to become more civically engaged, emphasizing the organization’s goal of community involvement. Writing majors should keep tabs on the museum throughout the year, as April at the GRAM is devoted to poetry and August to film. It's a great way to learn about writing outside of a university environment, and a solid introduction to the Grand Rapids art scene.