Keystroke Journal

I remember being asked by my professor in literature class about my interpretation of Van Gogh’s Starry night over the Rhone painting. I’ve seen the painting before but never did I really scrutinize it the way I have to in an English class. The painting depicted an illuminated sky with the shining stars, the bright city lights, a calm river, a couple walking ashore and the two boats docked along the river bank. If only I could describe the painting then I have already answered the question. But to know the correlation of each visual imagery with one another, why bother? With no background knowledge as to why Van Gogh painted this while in a mental asylum , I dug deeper and let myself be enthralled by the painting for a moment. “What was on Van Gogh’s mind when he painted this picture?” I silently asked myself. “We’re supposed to be in a literature class, not in an art appreciation class,” I added while my eyes laid still upon the masterpiece, “So what is my professor tryin...

After washing my face last night, I looked at the mirror above the bathroom sink. I saw a familiar reflection and I smiled. Then my gaze focused on the rectangular shaped cabinet and thought of examining what’s behind it. The medicine cabinet has a fixed frame, mounted against the wall; immovable, like hardwood furniture. Unless much effort is exerted, it won’t open freely. But after some aerobic-like stretching stints, the cabinet produced a shrill screeching car brake sound as its door-like metal exposed its contents. Voila! Something came out in the air but it was too fast to even remember what it was. Then I saw two rows. On the lower row, the first thing that caught my eye was the nail polish remover. It was still half-filled. There were three other plastic bottles of rubbing alcohol beside it: two colorless liquid of the same brand but in variable sizes while one bottle has a mint green colored solution. I reached out to smell each bottle but it seemed as if the bottl...