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Two Questions for K.B. Carle

We recently published K. B. Carle’s lovely “Dandelion.”

Here, we ask her two questions about her story:

 

1. Dandelions are some of my favorite flowers. They’re so charming and invasive. What made you choose a dandelion to write about?

What I love most about dandelions are the two warring ideas that separate an adult’s from a child’s perception. I’ve often heard my father complain about dandelions sprouting in our front yard, a total takeover that seemed to happen overnight. I, however, believed the legend of dandelion seeds carrying whispered wishes on the wind to someone capable of granting them in the sky. I wanted to write a story that combined something whimsical with this sense of alienation that’s so prevalent in the news today. At this point I envisioned a dandelion, this weed capable of conquering entire yards but also having a fantastical legend attached, making this weed something beautiful in the eyes of children.

 

2. There’s a lot of metaphor at play here. This reads almost like a fable. Is that the feel you were going for?

When I first started writing, “Dandelion” I had no idea what kind of feeling I wanted to evoke. At the time, I was participating in Kathy Fish’s Fast Flash workshop, with a promise and challenge to myself to go beyond my limits. This included writing from the perspective of something non-human. I knew what elements I wanted to include: the inkwell an insertion of my love for antiques, dandelions because they complicate the preconceptions of beauty, and being marginalized by society for being different.

I took my moment of silence, something one of my mentors, Leslie Daniels, taught me to do in order to clear my mind, and envisioned how these elements might come together to form a story. After that, I wrote what I imagined and after several rounds of editing, was surprised to find a story with the tone of a fable appear in front of me.

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Dandelion ~ by K.B. Carle

The Daisies remove their seedling shawls, use their leaves to unfurl tender white petals slick with dew. Whisper greetings to the sun, vying for his attention shown in the warm caress of his rays, before scoping out their new home. They were born of railroad soil, some blossoming amongst pebbles or between the grooves of footprints. Those who blossom close enough to the rails rest their heads upon chilled metal, their roots tingling from the chill.

Dandelion trembles from her place between wooden slats of railroad tracks, losing several of her seedling hairs in the wind. This bothers the Daisies, some reaching to ensure their beautiful white petals remain attached to their yellow faces. All flowers know Dandelions are common things, prone to play with unruly children with false promises of delivering wishes on the wind. Whose leaves claw at unwanted things and that they always travel in hordes, suffocating the innocent who are trying to make a home in freshly overturned soil. Why else would a flower sprout spikes if not to commit acts of murder?

Besides, only Dandelions attract unwanted things.

Dandelion strains against her roots to gain the fleeting attentions of the Daisies. When they continue to ignore her, Dandelion counts how many seedlings comprise her white Afro. Appearances are important to Daisies and a bald Dandelion would be unsightly. Her sigh mixes with a gentle ping, one of her seedlings balancing on the rim of an inkwell, close enough for Dandelion to touch. She is sure the inkwell wasn’t here yesterday. She shoos her seedling from the edge of the inkwell’s lips, begins to ask if any of the Daisies might have misplaced it. But the inkwell glistens in the light, the scent of diesel oil rising from its center.

Since none of the Daisies care about the inkwell, Dandelion decides to claim it for herself. At least, for the time being, since she is unsure of how long she has left between the railroad tracks. She apologizes for her appearance and constant shedding, her barbed leaves, and overall lack of beauty. Dandelion doesn’t believe she’s ugly but knows she is not considered to be beautiful because the Daisies remind her every blossoming season, which is also the reason they refuse to sprout anywhere near her.

The inkwell doesn’t reply.

Because it’s an inkwell and all sensible flowers know inkwells can’t talk.

Dandelion giggles, twiddles her roots over her foolishness. She bends her stem to peer inside, gazes at the specks of glass puncturing holes in the dark. Dandelion remembers a time she was considered to be beautiful with wild strands of gold that honey bees loved to nap on. Weather and wind withered her roots, turning her yellow top into a puff ball that the Daisies can’t stand to view. When one of her leaves caresses the insides of the inkwell, a smear of blue appears. Dandelion thinks the inkwell’s beauty has perished due to years spent drinking oil.

Besides, only Dandelions attract unwanted things.

***

K.B. Carle lives outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and earned her MFA from Spalding University’s Low-Residency program in Kentucky. When she is not exploring the realms of speculative, jazz, and historical fiction, K.B. avidly pursues misspelled words, botched plot lines, and rudimentary characters. Her stories have appeared in FlashBack Fiction, Lost Balloon, formercactus, and elsewhere. She can be found online at http://kbcarle.wordpress.com/ or on Twitter @kbcarle.

Posted on by lokifire

Two Questions for Shane Kowalski

We recently published Shane Kowalski’s excellent “Five Million Beethovens.”
Here, we ask him two questions about his story:
1) So, why Beethoven? Why not five million Chopins or Bachs or Brahmses?
I think it was basically a phrase that popped up in my head: five million Beethovens. What is that? What kind of world is that? It just sounded right. I think there’s something musical about Beethoven’s name, too, in that combination of words. The double e’s sort of push off the double l’s in million. Also: when I hear the word “Beethoven” I think “restless,” “unfinished,” “sad,” and “dog.” And those seem like good things to start a story with for me.
2) I love the line “…they look like Christmas lights on a house where the family dog has just died.” Was that image one that came to you quickly, or was it one you had to spend a bit of time to get right?
This line came pretty quickly. It was kind of a quick, non-thinking improvisation. I was trying to look for a metaphor for “sadness” that you might have in a dream. It’s a sort of weird, almost intangible image to me actually…I’m still not really sure what it really looks like, but also I do…which is what made me leave it untouched and unrevised.
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Five Million Beethovens ~ by Shane Kowalski

This is the highway that leads, no matter how dark it is and no matter how few taillights there are in front of you and no matter which exit you take, to five million Beethovens.

They’re out there, not all doing exceptional things.

One is probably making coffee badly… Another is most likely doing sexual intercourse badly… And yes, of course, there is another Beethoven who is doing his taxes badly.

At night, when everyone else goes to sleep, they go to their composition books and pick up their quill pens and begin composing sonatas and symphonies you can feel in your blood…

One of the Beethovens says he is composing the color blue, for that is what he heard in the dream with the woman with the tongue like a red scarf…

But all of the Beethovens are deaf. They can only hear in dreams. So they can’t hear the other Beethovens doing what they are doing. They think they are the only Beethovens in existence, if they think about being a Beethoven at all. It’s strange and sad. If you watch them just before your eyes soften into sleep, they look like Christmas lights on a house where the family dog has just died.

If you come across a Beethoven that can hear, that means you are dreaming…

***

Shane Kowalski is a lecturer at Cornell University. His work appears or is forthcoming in Electric Literature, Puerto del Sol, The Offing, Hobart, Wildness, and elsewhere.