About All Ways Open is a publication aiming to tell small stories about place: stories about pigeons and mountain ranges, stories both real and imagined. It's an experiment in opening writing outwards, directing readers towards visual histories and archives. We aim to think in triplicate: to consider past / present / future, visual / written / read, self / friend /community. In this game of telephone, we always begin with an archival image, which a writer interprets, which an artist then reinterprets. Each time the meaning shifts, changes, opens.

All Ways Open is open for submissions.

▲ Matt Flores
▲ The Voice of the I Am no. 1 (Sindelar Studios, March 1936), front cover, Mabry Hazen House Collection.

He Was A Friend of Mine (Ronk's Version): and Still the Cackle of His Laugh Echoes

Eric Sherwood
Matt Flores

From above, I see him.
No tricks
I know what he’s up to, I think.
In his hand, between thumb, pointer, and middle, a piece of charcoal.
Scribing rocky surface.
Shards pop every which way.
That surface is me,
But I can’t make it out.
Erik: What are you writing?
He looks at me, smirks.
GOD: I could ask you the same thing.
Erik: What? You mean right now? These words? I write to connect, aren’t you all-seeing, aren’t you the light?
He ponders my question
GOD: I shouldn’t be, I can’t tell.
His eyes wander
Erik: Oh, well, you must be, I know that knowing is beside the point.
GOD: What do you mean? You confuse me.
Erik: Well . . . it’s just that . . . How about this?
I walk over to the stick of charcoal, like a column in Egypt. Grabbing it as best I can, I walk it towards me and then some, to my left, towards him, and last to my right, I’ve made a rectangle. As I finish, the space inside cuts downwards, going till I can’t see its end. GOD reaches his hand in, hits the bottom.
GOD: Hmmmmm, is that so?
He is smiling.
Suddenly, great facial contortions, tongue stabbed out, acting like the hole pains him, pauses, smiles again. I laugh, we have a moment, it’s special. He pulls the hand back out, completely mutilated. I jump back in terror, in one reality, it’s cut horizontally, from the second digit of the thumb up, there is nothing. In another, cut vertically, between middle and fourth, to where palms press. In one, a fingerless member shakes, laughter, sputtering. In another, peels like a banana, down each end, red sprays as muscle and bone snap. I don’t enjoy either one a bit. Me: Come on, please, that’s nasty.
GOD shoots up an eyebrow, hands thrown up
GOD: What were you expecting?! Have a laugh! You know, Dune, the box of pain?! Come on . . . funEEEE!
It has changed again, now both hands carry either atrocity.
His hands come down to his sides
GOD: Take a bite out of enough mystery unknown, you know, and at some point, it’ll bite back, my friend.

Erik: I’m not your friend, buddy. GOD: Well I’m not your buddy, friend. We scowl at each other.
A bright shine lingers between us. Erik: Like this, it could go on forever. GOD: Oftentimes dear Erik

It does. :’’)