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The title "Triptych" refers to a 3-paneled painting of some religious iconography. Popular during the Renaissance, these types of paintings don't happen much anymore - but there is a reason these three seemingly-unrelated stories all fall under this one larger title...they're all religious in nature!
I became obsessed with different religions and the types of folk tales, anecdotes, etc. that they passed down through their history. I read a ridiculous amount of them. Then I whittled it down to three religions and really honed in. I came up with what you have here.
"Saint Gemma" is a cryptic retelling of the legend of the Catholic Saint Gemma. I liked her because - she was female and a saint...which isn't common. I also liked the legend surrounding her - mostly the part where she bled and vanished into thin air. There was something horrifying and alluring about that. I added in the character of Priyanka to give a voice to the Hindu religion - her personality is modelled after a goddess, so you are left with a Hindu goddess meeting a Catholic saint, and both of them exacting what made them famous in the first place. There is no sense to this story. It is meant to leave you confused and baffled because - that's what Saint Gemma did.
This was the shortest piece in the collection because originally I didn't even want this to be a story - just a glimpse, flash, dash, snort of a scene in a woman's daily life. No beginning, no middle or end - just BOO!/gone. This is panel 1 of the triptych.
"The Night Walkers" is African. I have tried and tried to find my source material and can't - but the gist of it was originally from Kenya (I think), and a story about a man who meets a ghost along a deserted path in the jungle. What caught my attention was the fact that the ghost's attitude the entire time was HELL YEAH I'M A GHOST! I liked that he was proud of being dead, and criticized the living man for not being more ghost-like in nature. There was an Aesop-quality tone to this little African ditty, so I used the arrogant ghost and relayed the center panel of the triptych. The setting for this is a lead-in to the final story and set in familiar terrain. This is the same stretch of highway where MANY others have been set ("The Binding," "The Two O'Clock," "Gardenia Blossoms," "The Day Cassandra Came," and so many others it's pointless to continue)...
"Up The Gump Stump" is originally a Buddhist parable that I just basically raped. There is very little of the original story left in here, but if you look super-carefully, you might find a twinkle in the dialogue between the chicken and the dog. At the core - this is a brains vs. braun story. This was originally much shorter - about the length of "The Night Walkers," but it kept nagging at me so I returned and it blossomed. In this version - it's a much richer, meatier, funnier story that has gone down as one of my all-time favorites. I read this now as if I didn't write it, and everytime that little persnickety chicken starts waddling or back-talking...it makes me laugh.
This was originally published in The Piker Press (2/13/2012) and got favorable reviews. It is included here as the third and final panel of the triptych.
Catholism. Islam. Buddhism.
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$1 for 35 pages of joyous reading bliss - and help yourself to any of the other titles available!
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