prompt: ticket, title: arts and the craft in "the next big thing" flash fiction

Pain is not art, of course, and is not where art comes from. It’s understandably confused, though, don’t beat yourself up about it. They manifest in similar places, at similar times. It is easy to fall for these misapprehensions. Millions are eager to convince us of this fallacy, usually to steal our money or to attempt fornication. Sometimes both, especially in LA. What this all comes down to, however, is that we take in life and process it into art and pain, in varying measures. Like a birch tree takes in carbon dioxide and light to give off oxygen and create its own physical form. Like a human body takes in burritos and cheap wine to transmit its labor into someone else’s wallet, and also intermittent diarrhea. Just because road and vehicle work together in the same infrastructure doesn’t mean one’s born from the other. They are comingled in shared processes but that doesn’t mean that pain produces art. The experience of this life digests within us into understandings and understandings generate both art and pain, depending on how focused we are, how well practiced we are, how strong the stomachs, whether from training or birth. We are going to shit, either way, may as well shit out something worthwhile. We bought the ticket, we might as well take the ride.

All of which is to say the Amazing Mitzi had her own theory for why the Hopi mystic’s curse on Los Angeles failed for the crazy, the sky-high or those whose hearts had been broken by the loss of the greedy egoistic fantasies it had encouraged. He’d clearly planned no measure of mercy on the white demons he had failed to destroy in their endless legions. What he couldn’t exterminate, he needed completely suppressed. In her understanding, though, something as huge as The Curse doesn’t just happen. Such undertakings aren’t merely channeled from Above or summoned from Below, they consume part of you along the way. Your essence intertwines with the evocation and you can even die, whether it worked or not. In her estimation, heartbreak and loss would be shot through his spells. Manifestations of gross disenchantment, Mitzi’s overly obvious pun intended.

The awful prophecy he could not prevent. Those smoking metal snakes and rivers of stone. Grief for a squandered life that didn’t change anything. They fed back into his final rite, leaving it with his own flaws. His nostalgia for times doomed but not yet passed, a part of it too. When any spell takes up that much of you, the line between self and magic blurs. That’s why body modifications are so verboten in Mitzi’s traditions. If you change yourself, your connection to divinity changes with you. If you pour too much of yourself into something, something of yours will linger inside, permanently. “Like a fool writing songs about his life in metaphor, because he can’t make literal sense of it all.” Frank concluded. “Or screenplays,” I agreed, “or books or paintings or whatnot.”