You Turn Back – Harvard Staff Art Show

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Comic style drawing with 11 cells. Read as 4 separate pages left down. Figure looks at stuff. Turn back? You don’t turn back. Figure in blank space. Dandelion. You turn back. Narrative reads: You draw closer still to the barrier. Your steps slowing as you reach the last five feet of available ground before the wall. You want to turn back. Turn back. Turn back. Turn back. You somehow ignore the urge to turn back and close the last little bit of distance between you and the wall. You’re close enough to kiss it, if you wanted too.. (what a strange notion. You don’t want to kiss the wall.) It sounds like nothing. Not silence, but nothing. It smells sour…Your teeth ache this close to the barrier. And you know that to reach out and touch it would be a grave mistake. You don’t want the story to end yet. You don’t want to end. You turn back.

by Merlin Butler

Pen and Ink

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