LUNA’S NOT TIRED
By RAIN CHUDORI Illustrated by NATASHA GABRIELLA TONTEY
Luna’s Not Tired © 2011 Rain Chudori Illustration © 2011 Natasha Gabriella Tontey Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of tis publication may be used, reproduced, stored, transmitted or copied in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise) without prior written or permission, except the case of short excerpts embodied in critical articles and reviews. Every effort has been made to trace accurate ownership of copyrighted text and visual materials used in this book. Errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions, provided notification is sent to publisher.
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LUNA’S NOT TIRED
by Rain Chudori Illustrated by Natasha Gabriella Tontey
Preface
Luna’s Not Tired is a collaborative effort featuring the literary skills of Rain Chudori and the illustrations of Natasha Gabriella Tontey. A 21st Century cooperation, the two honed the content of this unsettlingly somber tale of a maladjusted little girl in less than a month without ever having to meet face to face thanks to the available technology. The speed of communication has become so rapid that a seemingly disconnected collaboration could produce a coherent and cohesive work quickly and have it published via the web instantly. Chudori’s writing is rhythmic with it rhyming and the varying densities of her sentences. Anticipating the rhymes ending each thought, from the beginning of the story phrases stretch; making the readers hold their breath as they wait to meet the end of each sentence. The story isn’t so one that goes from point A to point B, it is a spiral that begins on the outer most edge and circles its way to the center with every thought revealing another detail that ultimately gives you the complete description of the disturbing occurrence in the house. The imagery Chudori provide is complete, ranging from the tangible to the intangible, conscious to the unconscious, with the combination creating a thoroughly upsetting experience.
Like Rain Chudori’s mixture of words and phrases, Natasha Gabriella Tontey’s collages fashion their own sense of unease to Luna’s Not Tired. A collage inherently put on display the juxtaposition of multiple images, and Tontey’s illustration for this story clearly present this. Contrasting renaissance with neo-impressionism, 19th century art with modern photography, there rarely is a moment where the disparity is subtle. Coupled with her choices of objects, Tontey’s art is unsettling in its discordance. Together the two artists’ work complement each other well. Both literature and art could easily stand alone as separate entities, but combined more potent as it is a perfect symbiosis.
Ken Y. Jenie Whiteboard Journal
For The Gashlycrumbs Tinies
for years luna told everyone
of her father’s death all in one string of exasperated breath. it was true that the atmosphere she brought everywhere was of a girl with no affection though we thought it was only a matter of a heart dissection.
We avoided coming to her house that held the lingering scent of masculinity left by her father on throw cushions and a glass of milk prepared with no passion, scuffed shoes and her arms filled with bruise,
The itch on her throat that came from a cry and the porch light where moths came to die. Even when she had tried to hide it behind her speech,
Even when she had tried to erase it by bathing in bleach.
Every year for father’s day we’d see luna at dawn caressing her hair like an undone lawn. under the pine tree she’d sit cross-legged with her eyes that begged, for her father to come back tomorrow and then idly watch the fire lick the remains of her sorrow.
But no one knows what happens after the sun has bid goodnight and we’ve sunk our consciousness like burnt light. It was luna’s best kept secret, and perhaps only one. That her father’s death was fiction, all hints lied in her diction. that her father still existed in the realms of the house, though his voice was reduced to of a mouse. that he knew not of father’s day as he spent it with fingernails scraping the gray. that luna’s father was not dead, but it was that exact state that he wanted to tread.
“are you tired yet, Luna?” he would ask“can i die yet, Luna?”