The Weekly LitWit Challenge 5.7: The Upside-Down Staircase
This is an artwork we spotted at the Tate Modern: a staircase made of fabric, dangling from the ceiling.
Write us a story about it. 1,000 words or less, due on or before Friday, 27 May 2011 at 11.59 pm.
The prize is a stack of hardcover books: 13 Steps Down by Ruth Rendell, Zugzwang by Ronan Bennet, The Foreign Correspondent by Alan Furst, and Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland.
We’re turning the Yucch-meter evaluations into a regular podcast so you can hear your work being discussed! Is that exciting or terrifying?
The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
May 24th, 2011 at 15:10
“We’re turning the Yucch-meter evaluations into a regular podcast so you can hear your work being discussed! Is that exciting or terrifying?”
Go! I wanna hear you burn our works to ashes haha! You can even have Bella Flores or Simon Cowell as guest judges =D
May 25th, 2011 at 12:25
My relationship with my father has always been a tenuous one.
When I was born, he got himself a tattoo of my name wrapped around the face of an angel the size of his outstretched palm. He later told me he ran a high-degree fever for three days after he got inked.
In contrast to my mom who always left a mountain of clothes in the aftermath of her morning primping ritual, my father was extremely neat nearly to the point of OCD. His stuff was always neatly arranged, slacks and shirts crisply ironed, hanging in an orderly fashion together with the leather jackets he kept in his closet. His bike, his guns and his golf clubs were always gleaming – he fastidiously cleaned and polished them after every use. This precise order, he also applied to his children.
Summer vacations in Cotabato were spent entirely within our fortress-like quarters surrounded by six inch-thick cement walls. We were expressly forbidden to venture out: my dad was scared of speeding trucks and stray bullets harming his progeny. His favorite reminder was “be vigilant!”, and he admonished us that every single day.
Oh how I hated how strict he was! I detested not being able to meet new people in those summers when I was a teenager. I wept when I wasn’t allowed to visit my cousins in the next town. I loathed it when he scolded me about my droopy posture and how I heaved forward too much when writing while sprawled on the floor. He once smacked the back of my head and growled “huwag kang kuba! pangit tingnan!”, and added “stop biting your nails!” before walking away. Tiger mom doesn’t hold a candle, my father was a hundred times more vicious.
It was at a local fair when I first felt confronted by my mortality. Watching my friends strap themselves to a flimsy seat before being thrown left, right, up, down and upside down, I became very afraid – and then smug at the thought that I would never subject myself to the terror of dying in a perya accident. “Be vigilant”, the phrase rang in my ear. And suddenly, I missed my father.
I don’t know why but I found myself running where I thought he would be. My feet led me to a pavilion with a balcony on the second floor. I knew he was up there. “Dad!”, I cried out feebly at first. “Daddy!”. Then I screamed at the top of my lungs “Daaadddyyy!!!”
That was when I saw him. Holding a cigarette with raised fingertips, it looked as if he heard my screams in the middle of a conversation. His face only had the slightest hint of puzzlement, like a cat straining to hear the teeny footsteps of a mouse. But then, he looked the other way – he didn’t see me. It was then that I found myself drowning with longing for my father.
I rose from the depths of my bed with a sob stuck in my throat. It took a few minutes before I realized that the image of my father in the balcony wasn’t real, and that image slowly faded like a wisp, a whisper, a ghost in the mist.
I suddenly remembered an orange, upside-down staircase hanging from the ceiling of the Tate Modern. I knew then that that staircase is what I have to crawl through upwards to see my father again.
May 25th, 2011 at 23:12
Renee is not a responsible adult. Proof: the coffee stains on his polo plus the wet spot on his belly where water from the tap splashes while he brushes his teeth. To compensate for his inept immaturity, he downs tons of coffee every day. He sweetens each cup with five sugar cubes. He can’t drink it otherwise — dark and bitter liquid that it is.
Renee has never had an interesting story to tell in his life.
Today though, today is different. An upside down staircase has appeared in his flat. He imagines the stairs as a gateway to a fantasy world — like the Wonderland Alice fell through.
Only it’s not of course.
There’s no such thing as upside down staircases that lead to different dimensions.
There is such a thing as fabric sculptures left behind by an artiste friend.
The mystery behind the sudden appearance of this upside down staircase is that down-on-his luck Johnny Chiver has given up on finding a warehouse that will put up with a fifteen by fifteen feet of big-ass stairs. Also, he couldn’t bribe Alex, his so-called friend, to help carry the thing across Acropolis Avenue, down Main Street, up four flights of stairs and into their flat.
“There’s no way I’m lugging this huge ass fabric through all that traffic in broad daylight! People would think I’m nuts!” Alex protested.
Thus leaves us to option no. 2: leave the sculpture with good Samaritan Renee. Renee of the buckteeth and cardigan sweaters and Sunday mass and organized revelry for the poor street kids who don’t have a home.
“Renee won’t mind,” John huffed to Alex.
“I don’t care. Let’s just leave this and get home.”
And while Renee certainly doesn’t mind, Rafael of The Triad does. That staircase has a bloody handprint on its side. It can implicate Rafael to ten years of prision mayor if he doesn’t do something about it.
*Day 2 of the sudden appearance of the staircase.*
Renee decides to up and meet some of his friends for coffee. He finishes his current cup of joe, dials Alex’s number and tells them to meet at Starbucks. He changes his slippers to rubber shoes, fluffs his hair, dons on his Konoha forehead protector and locks the door. He crosses over to Second Street to hail a pedicab.
A shadow detaches itself from a telephone post. It’s Rafael. He throws his fifth cigarette butt, stomps on it and gestures to his amigos to hustle. They pick Renee’s locks and peruse the staircase sculpture.
“There’s no way I’m lugging that big-ass stairs around dude.”
“How do we even get to it? We’re down here –”
“Shut up. We just have to remove the bloody handprint that’s all.”
Two hours and a half later of looking for the handprint, proposing to saw off the offensive section and one bottle of Domex later…
“Alright boys! Now let’s –”
The jangle of keys and the boom of drunken John’s voice. “I’m telling you man. That sculpture’s gonna make me rich –”
Rafael and the amigos hide.
Now, a few things about Rafael — he’s a fighter. He has never backed down from a fight and has in fact killed a man or two (the other was a woman).
“This is stupid,” he thought, crouched behind the t.v. Out of his rage-filled chest, he lets out a war-cry: “Aaaaarrrggh!”
Alex, John and Renee gape at him. He clotheslines the three but falls off balance since drunk John fainted before his arm could connect with all their necks.
Rafael’s amigos take this as a cue to exit the scene by opening the windows and leaping to the street.
Rafael recovers his balance, spits his two bloody front teeth ala Bruce Lee and goes on his way.
Renee pulls himself up and helps his two friends to stand. The three of them then stare at the fabric staircase sculpture splotched with the blood of the guy who just attacked them.
May 26th, 2011 at 07:40
Farnsworth and Tallulah follow their guide, Louella, into a white room. The room is almost empty save for a custodian tending to the carpet in one corner of the room. About halfway up the high ceiling, the art piece hangs overhead.
“Look!” Tallulah says. “A staircase of sheer material!”
“And through here,” says the guide, “we have an installation that contemplates the substance and meaning of space…”
Farnsworth couldn’t help himself. “That’s art?”
“Excuse me,” Louella says coldly. Tallulah gives him a pointed look.
“My apologies, ladies.” Farnsworth says. Bending to Tallulah, he whispers, “I think it’s best you go ahead and enjoy the tour, love, these things are beyond me.”
Tallulah smiles back as Louella continues to move towards the exit. “The bold colour clearly attempts to evoke…”
A movement draws Farnsworth’s attention to the far corner of the room.
“Eh.” Farnsworth realises the custodian, who seems Asian of origin, was smiling at him. He excuses himself much to Louella’s disapproving looks.
“Hello. It was beginning to get too stuffy for me,” he whispers.
The man smiles again but says nothing.
“I mean, why don’t I just make a bike out of used empty Starbucks cups then stick them on the wall, eh?” Farnsworth says conversationally. He must be really bored, talking to the custodian. But there it is. “Tally can make a swan using her huge mound of holy hoses at home. Then we can exhibit here, too.”
Louella, in the next room with Tallulah, drones on in the background. “… clearly meant to be a shocking treatment to the senses…”
“Clearly,” Farnsworth scoffs. Turning to the custodian, he says, “I think I need to go now. Too much rudeness in the day, eh? It’s just if this artwork is really artwork, it should speak of all the metaphor crock nonsense to everyone. What does it say to you?”
The custodian gazes at the swabs of fabric thought. And then, “I think this piece tells me a tale of illicit love that resulted to madness. Which brought about the woman seeking help from a professional of supernatural practices as a means to a macabre ending.”
Farnsworth scratches his head and looks at the floating staircase again. “Huh?”
The custodian resumes his tinkering. “Where I come from, this piece would be called, ‘Kulam Beau’.”
May 27th, 2011 at 22:31
Dangling from the ceiling is a staircase leading to the attic. I was reminded of that movie you’re so scared to watch, 30 days of Night, which I found ridiculous given your manliness and love for gore-y type of movies. You said you hate watching vampires with really ugly faces. So when we watched Twilight the following year in Trinoma, I was surprised you got so disappointed you wanted a refund of the tickets. You see, I don’t get you sometimes.
The ceiling has some cracks on it, and the staircase that supposed to be its gateway to the attic seems unstable. Like the jobs you choose to take. Like that rocking chair you’ve been keeping for years. Like our relationship. The pull-down staircase has some dust and cobwebs, similar to the one used by Josh Harnett and crew when they stayed hidden on an attic to survive the vampire slay. We had been planning to meet here, probably to stay hidden as well, from the public, from our common friends, from guilt.
Today I won’t see you coming in here. Not after that car accident that made you give up both basketball and swimming, the two things you love most. They say accidents are prone to happen to a person if it’s close to his birthday or a special day is nearing. I know what you will say next – “Who are these people they refer to as “THEY?” And why do they come up with these stupid sayings?” I long to see you again after 5 years of purely texting, emailing, and Facebook messaging, and listen to you rant on how “THEY” start promoting vanity as something acceptable even to straight guys like you.
I long to see you get back to your love for arts, how you made that purple papier-mâché out of used drafts from our thesis and shaped into a heart the size of my favorite pillow. That you gave to me on our first monthsary. The paper heart now hangs on my bedroom door, dusty and faded.
I climb to find the attic dark and humid. Inside it smells funny, like the old wood had been breathing oxygen out of the dilapidated walls. The window is translucent and there isn’t much light coming in because of dirt. The attic, which used to be a warehouse of kept stack of books, now looks more like a scene from a horror movie, I feel any minute a masked guy would come out of the closet and stab me with a hooked knife. I remember that we used to sneak in here during college to do some “research” and you would find one interesting art book out of the pile of books. We would sit beside each other next to the glaring window, a packet of light reflecting against page 201, where a picture of a fabric staircase hangs loosely off the ceiling. I would find the photo weird, while you would think that it’s the most enchanting thing you’d seen, and it transported you to a place where doors don’t have hinges, and the fridge is colored blue, and love is a like a loose page out of your Divisadero copy.