Jerome Berglund

Frankincense

He brought his ladylove back from the other side, but she wanted nothing to do with him. He
reanimated his favorite hound, and it ran straight away. He summoned his departed child from
beyond the veil, yet it too rejected and relinquished all rights, titles or holdings, bonds and coats of
arms linking it to he, wanted no part in his estate or legacy, to the surgeon’s confoundment. So the
good doctor then attempted to assemble new, more suitable companions for him to grow old
beside, take comfort in, find contentment via. But they never came together quite right, fashioned
from too many disparate pieces of ill-fitting shapes and sizes. In the end, one after the other of these
unfortunate, misshapen constructions fell to pieces, came apart at the seams in great sticky heaps
before his very eyes. But the scientist was obstinate. Quietly, with admirable patience and fierce
determination he continued at it in his candlelit laboratory, trying one eclectic combination after
another, convinced that he was right on the cusp of succeeding, that with a bit of additional effort
he would possess the family and heir he deserved, yearned in his heart of hearts for, might like a
demiurge conjure from the air if he could just get the combination of ingredients correct, their
proper order discerned, the optimal temperature to cook them at discovered through trial and error,
diligent application of the scientific method. His neck was always cracking, hands chafed, nails
perpetually caked with dust and dried fluids. However, that came with the territory, indignities
whose bearing was only another price he could reservedly endure. By his lonesome the builder
continued to saw and stitch, pour and stir, crank open the hatch on stormy nights and pray fervently
and continuously that the ideal bolt of lightning found purchase and brought new life and
satisfaction stirring across his cold and lonely, dusty manor.

light a legend
unverifiable
bottom feeding

Jerome Berglund graduated from the University of Southern California’s Cinema-Television Production program and spent a picaresque decade in the entertainment industry before returning to the midwest where he was born and raised. Since then he has worked as everything from dishwasher to paralegal, night watchman to assembler of heart valves.  He has exhibited many haiku, senryu and haiga online and in print.  Jerome is furthermore an established, award-winning fine art photographer, whose black and white pictures have been shown in New York, Minneapolis, and Santa Monica galleries.

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