Review:
Fear. Power. Doubt. Park evokes the occult by basking, what would be, a simple small town scene with lurid reds and propping them against an ominous void. The use of these dark colours corrupts the Christian symbolism, threatening the integrity of faith itself and weaving a thread of scepticism into the piece. Light reflects off the obsidian lake, offering glimpses at an even more distorted version of the world.
The angle of the photo forces the viewer to look up at the crucifixes, creating a sense of inferiority. Their looming presence judging you. This technique also establishes authority and instils the viewer with a feeling of gnawing dread.
The bareness of the background – or rather, lack of one – paired with the hints of woodland creeping in from the borders also conjures a sense of isolation. Leaving you alone with the structures and almost forcing you to confront their meaning. The natural association of evil through the photo’s ominous colour scheme makes it feel as if you are facing down some sort of other worldly force.
Overall, I highly enjoy the beautiful – albeit, sinister – colours of Parks’ work and appreciate the layers of depth he managed to add to an otherwise rural image; though, I doubt that they were attempting to take any particular stance in spite of the suggested imagery. I believe anyone can enjoy Parks artwork, but it may be particularly striking to those drawn to horror aesthetics or alternatively those who may hold firmer religious beliefs.
Prologue: Faith
(Creative writing exercise)
Talia emerged from a mess of tangled branches and out into a clearing, muddied skin streaked red with her own blood. She gasped and filled her lungs with air, it felt fresh even though it hadn’t changed. The woods just had a way of distorting things.
She stumbled forward, aching legs wobbling with each step, still mindful of the thousands of wooden claws reaching out to her – eager to pull her back into the forest’s gullet. Talia must have run that gauntlet a hundred times by now, and yet she was never prepared for what lay within.
She was never prepared for him.
Her body, a bruised wreck that felt as gnarled as the brambles behind her, begged for respite, but she couldn’t stop now. Not while he was still so close. The reminder sent a cold, yet electrifying, chill up her spine that zapped her muscles back into motion. Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot. Talia walked on with these simple commands looping in her head. It was grease for her body’s gears and a momentary release from the despair that seemed to perpetually lurk at the edges of her mind.
The clearing expanded into a vast plain. To the east hills rolled on for miles and stretching west was a long line of crooked trees, a mass of spiked silhouettes darker than the night sky itself. Talia noticed the absence of stars in that blanket of darkness above her and was even hard pressed to find the moon, for it was nothing but a shrunken slither of white perched behind the forest. The tall grass sprawled across the hills did not rustle with the excited movement of animals on the prowl, nor did the passing wind carry the hooting of birds in their nests. This land was home to none but the trees and their Watchers.
Talia supposed, with crazed amusement, that she was included in that short list of tenants now too.
As she began to scale one of the smaller hills, Talia noticed something off in the distance. Three monolithic-like shapes, so far away that they seemed no bigger than saplings, framed against a speck of red bleeding out into the void. A stab of dread pierced her heart, yet. . . she still felt inexplicably drawn to the light. A sense of familiarity, like that which she shared with the forest, coursed through her. Was that a part of the cycle? If so, why couldn’t she remember it like everything else?
With no other options before her, Talia warily pressed on towards the crimson spotlight.
* * *
Tall as mountains, basked in garish, ruby light and oozing with malevolence, the three crucifixes loomed over Talia; their ominous presence an overwhelming weight on her very mind and soul.
Crumpled on her knees, she stared up at the monuments and found that she could no longer move. Whether or not that was from exhaustion or because an occult force was slowly ensnaring her, she did not know. Her mind was preoccupied anyway, as the shroud that eddied about her thoughts finally moved in and consumed what little hope she had left.
Is this what she faced? A perversion of good infinitely larger than her, a speck of dust in a universe that does not even acknowledge her existence. How could she retain faith in her abilities, that she will eventually break free of this cycle and return home – whatever that was now. What was hope without its foundation? How could she. . . go on?
A blood curdling screech suddenly tore through the night shaking Talia out of her stupor. She fumbled to her feet and glanced around with frantic, frightened eyes. He had caught up.
From behind the base of the middle crucifix, a line of cloaked figures emerged – ostensibly materializing out of thin air. Their arms were crossed into embroidered sleeves and their faces were lost behind a veil of inky blackness, only letting through a pair of curled horns. Talia had wondered many times if there was actually anything beneath those hoods.
The Watchers shambled forward, perfectly mirroring the movements of one another. An unsettling synergy reminiscent of a hive mind. There was a deliberate air about them, for they and Talia both knew there was nowhere for her to run. Behind her was an obsidian lake, endless like the plains she walked, reflecting warped images of the luminescent crucifixes peering over it. And in front of her was a line of Watchers she had no chance of muscling through.
Trapped. But that isn’t what worried her.
Her eyes continued to dart about looking for any sign of-
A spindly hand, colder than anything she had ever felt, slinked around Talia’s shoulder – one boney finger at a time. She froze, feeling that icy chill creep its way through her body, paralyzing her. The hand tugged and effortlessly whisked her around, bringing her eyes level with an emaciated chest – milk white skin taught over wide ribs. Against Talia’s baser instincts, she slowly looked up, eyes lingering for a moment on the creature’s towering, slender figure. Then, she finally met his face and screamed.
* * *
The void. An endless chasm of incomprehensible darkness where one’s sense of self is lost forever. A place without location that consumes all. It is not a force, it simply is.
Inevitability.
Would it be so bad to go there? Where one cannot feel the pains of the universe bearing down on them every moment of their fleeting lives. Where conscience does not exist. Freedom from the cycle.
* * *
Talia woke up to the gentle tapping of rain on her cheeks. Twisted tree branches hung over her head, jeering at her and reminding her that she didn’t escape.
With a despondent groan, Talia rolled over and clambered out of the mud, before readying herself to run the gauntlet once again.
Witchers and Witches 