Time is a Fine White Lie

By William Steffey

An Australian shamaness traveling in the body of a Chicago bartender leads to a surreal rendezvous with a presumed-dead rock star. An OkCupid encounter turns into blissful madness when souls connect over a national tragedy. A bloody accident at a city bus stop gives way to an absurdly rewarding feast.

This collection of seven short stories poses the question: What phenomena are occurring under our nose, right now, that appear completely random but are consistent and solid periodic events we simply lack the scope to see, the comprehension to grasp, or the vocabulary to name? Time is a Fine White Lie may be the closest thing we have to a traveler's journal from that latent, ephemeral possibility—at once a tribute, warning, antidote, and gateway—to that which we take for granted.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aquariphone
• Release date: Jul 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393249948

Book preview

Foreword

Phenomena come and go, wax and wane, ebb and flow. Every now and then we got wise to something and gave it a name; in doing so, future everyone was able to refer to the something in a consistent manner, insofar as we all agreed—tacitly, at least—to call the something by the same name. Perhaps only then could the named something become a something suited to our needs and desires.

The seasons reliably follow their apportioned moment, and yet, a year comes around just once a year because that's what a year is, and is so named. In Chicago, Illinois, the year has four seasons: not because of divinity or science, but by virtue of the spot being called Chicago, Illinois, and it being the spot where the four seasons—which we also named—take place.

William's rigorous and disciplined creative process belies his oblique, extraordinary, work; I'm lucky enough to have been his friend since middle school (plus or minus) and have watched or been party to his creative endeavor, no matter the medium, ever since. Back in our middle teens, Halley's Comet made it through our very own solar system; we could see it plainly with the naked eye—I look forward to the day when we're together, in our mid-nineties, to see it again. I often wonder, how long did it take humanity to notice this particular phenomenon, how long did it take to understand we were seeing the same object with seventy-five regularity, and why is it named Halley's Comet anyway?

Ultimately it begs a greater question: what phenomena are occurring under our nose, right now, that appear completely random but are consistent and solid periodic events we simply lack the scope to see, the comprehension to grasp, or the vocabulary to name? Time is a Fine White Lie may be the closest thing we have to a traveler's journal from that latent, ephemeral possibility—at once a tribute, warning, antidote, and gateway—to that which we take for granted.

Andrew Weiss

Urbana, Illinois

introduction

Earth Water Sky Trilogy

I paid the barista using three dollar coins—two Susan B’s, and one of the shiny gold ones—along with three quarters.  I’m getting a little nutty with the dollar coins today, courtesy the Chicago Transit Authority.  The barista looked up and said, It all adds up to the same in the end. 

PART I: LANDLUBBER’S FEEBLE ATTEMPT

I saddle down to a small wood table and contemplate things. The kinds of things rooted in issues deep... so deep that when they are treated to tangible expression, they dare to be contained in one medium.  This journal entry as testament, I’m first attempting to corral these issues into some semblance of writing… a textural convention.  But these feelings are so raw they beg to be released everywhere: across the fertile visual canvas... inside the labyrinths of heated musical polyrhythm... under permutations manipulated in spreadsheet cells with the sheer chill of mathematical accuracy.  I don’t know how better to explain the root issue itself in any phrase other than the human condition.

Metaphor is used by artists for a variety of reasons: to bring alive an idea in the medium of fiction, to reach audiences unable to grasp concepts on the cerebral level, even to deliberately hide teachings in order to pass them through history without raising the brow of intellectually-intolerant tyranny.   It can also be argued that creators are used by the metaphor in many ways.  It is the mark of the natural-born artist to intuitively dip into the subconscious broth to resurrect the most basic of archetypes, manifesting these eternal stories again and again, clothed in literary time and place