Paulette Pagani
Bio
I seek beauty in the transient nature of life. I privilege color and erase the limits of shape and form to express my personal life-story, my love for nature and cross-cultural personal experiences. I move between art and photography.
Stories (10/0)
Purple Clouds
Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky. And I loved watching them intertwining with each other, and creating playful figures. Sometimes a cat playing with a ball, sometimes a fire-breathing dragon… so cute but so ephemeral. They would shape-shift every five seconds or so. I wondered, are the clouds alive? Are they sentient beings? Because I cannot imagine this level of movement and dance and ebullient creativity not being orchestrated by creatures that have a will of their own…
By Paulette Paganiabout a year ago in Fiction
The box
It had gotten tangled in a nearby bush filled with white roses and thorns. It kept whirring furiously, as if trying to extricate itself from the prickly branches. The noise was bothering me tremendously. I walked out of the house and followed that insistent and infuriating noise. I looked left and right and finally saw something onyx black glinting in the summer sun.
By Paulette Pagani2 years ago in Fiction
Iri -
This is the best part of my day, soaring very high, up close to the clouds, engaging in my favorite pastime, which is to swoop down as fast as I can to earth and frighten any unaware animal and human, getting a kick out of the noises they make and their startled jumps and leaps. Oh what fun I have! Innocent fun, because I don’t really do any harm. All of a sudden I see something glinting in the meadow down below. What is it? I wonder. I have to go and see what it is. Is it a small puddle of water among the tall green grass? Is it a jewel a beautiful lady has let fall after a picnic, for a suitor to pick up and have an excuse to visit her? I wonder… Me, a grown dragon, interested in something that glints? I must have too much time on my hands… anyway, let’s go find out…
By Paulette Pagani2 years ago in Fiction
Living with dragons
There weren't always dragons in the Valley. I mean, there weren’t always red and black dragons in the Valley. The original dragons were golden. The town villagers had begun to mine for precious metals, and extra chemicals leached into the water sources the dragons used to drink from, thus causing these creatures to shed their outer skins. Underneath their old, discarded skins, iridescent-colored skins would emerge, which shone in the sunlight in hues ranging from baby blue to petroleum blue; pearly whites, shimmering pink (especially the female baby dragons)… and metallic silver colors.
By Paulette Pagani2 years ago in Fiction
Living with dragons
There weren't always dragons in the Valley. I mean, there weren’t always red and black dragons in the Valley. The original dragons were golden. Then, due to the climate changes and extra minerals in the water they drank, leached by the activities of the town villagers who were mining for precious metals, the dragons began to shed their outer skins and scales more often than previously, and underneath their old and discarded skins, some would show iridescent colors that would shine in the sunlight: blue hues ranging from baby blue to petroleum blue; pearly colors, shimmery pink (especially the female baby dragons – those were the cutest and my favorite)… when they would fly back to the caves they lived in, at dusk, what a spectacular sight those mother, father and baby dragons made in the sky. The grandfather and grandmother dragons had grown a woody film on their bodies which weighed them down, so usually they were too bogged down and therefore too tired to fly, and spent their days close to the caves, bathing in the bubbling thermal streams and brooks and foraging for medicinal flowers and plants to ease the pains in their aching wings and claws. Sometimes they would rub up against the nearby metamorphic and rough granite rocks, to slough off parts of that heavy, brownish shell they were getting encased in, and which made their lives so much more difficult in every way.
By Paulette Pagani2 years ago in Fiction
Francie
Francie This is a true story about a very exceptional and wonderful dog. About 15 years ago, my beautiful basset hound Sheba, who was 13 years old, died. I was so very sad and upset and distraught that I vowed never to have another dog, because I had loved her so much and her absence hurt me so much. Soon after, we found a very fierce, angry, ugly, sick puppy in our garden. She was about 6 months old. I was so afraid of her because she was quite aggressive, but I could see that she was suffering from a disease called mange. She was in a terrible state. She had a broken foot, which I imagine probably a car had run over, and had twisted her right leg which was not treated in time, so it stayed twisted. She was living in our garbage box and was extremely thin and dirty. So my sister and I tried to get the animal association of the location where we live to come and take her away. We called about 20 different private and government associations, without any luck. We truly thought that she needed to have some professional help to put her to sleep as she was suffering too much. I began praying to St. Francis of Assisi, the Patron Saint of animals. Then a boy, who was working for us as a gardener, started giving her food from the meals we would give him, and clean water, and began talking to her and being friendly, showing her some love and affection. But the dog did not allow him or anyone else to touch her. Little by little, she became less aggressive. After a few weeks the gardener boy was able to rub her all over with burnt car oil, which is a local remedy for mange and this caused all of her hair to start falling off. She looked like a little pig ! But soon she was cured and started being very friendly with us. Good food, love and attention worked! Her hair grew out and was a lovely orange-brown color. We decided to keep her and named her Francie, after the saint we had prayed to her about, as we felt that the prayers were working.
By Paulette Pagani2 years ago in Petlife
Kilo
Kilo Tough looking, but a softie inside Kilo is a dog that is part pit bull and part American bull dog. He came into my life a bit over two years ago, just a few days before the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown was enforced in the United States of America, and specifically in Florida State. He’s a big dog that looks black but when you see him in daylight he’s actually very very dark brown. His previous owner was at the wrong place at the wrong time and was put in jail for a crime that was allegedly committed when he was around the scene. Nobody knows for sure if he is guilty or not. But he’s still in jail. Nobody in his family could take care of the dog which was about 2 years old by then. We offered to take care of him for a little while. He was brought to us in a big cage and a few toys. Some members of the family did not take to him because there already was a stray ginger cat in the house which was being “adopted”, who would stay with us during the day and leave, to prowl and hunt, at night. The cat was very afraid of the dog and tried to avoid it as much as possible, and the dog did not approach the cat at all. I took a liking to Kilo immediately. The first month, Kilo would sit next to me and would shiver and shake uncontrollably. I was very sad about that. I was sure something terrible had happened to this mighty dog, to get him in such a state of fear and anxiety. I had a totally different concept of what pit bulls were like. I started studying and analyzing him and his actions and realized that, whenever anybody scolded him for anything, he would put his head down and be very subdued. I had a kind of intuition or unspoken words with him and saw that he really is a very sensitive and soulful dog, the most sensitive dog I had ever met in my life… and I have met at least ten throughout the years. So I took it upon me to pat him and soothe him and make him feel that he is wanted, and give him lots of love and words of encouragement, telling him what a good boy he is always, and making sure he went out to pee as soon as he wanted and making sure his water bowl was always full. I tried taking him for long walks and leaving the leash as long as possible, so that he could sniff and run and walk to his heart’s desire without curbing him at all. But one day, when I let him out to pee, he ran away as fast as he could, and I was very distraught. He ran away so fast that I couldn’t follow him and eventually I lost track of him. Then I remembered that one of his toys made a squeaky sound which he seemed to like, so I looked up “Squeaky toy sounds” on Google on my cell phone and started playing it, and as soon as he heard it he came rushing back at the speed of lightning, with an extremely happy look on his face. Since then, I have used that trick several times because he tends to wander off to places where I’m not comfortable if he’s alone because one night, during a walk, he did try to get into a fight with a tiny poodle and his strength frightened me a bit. Anyway, I love him to pieces and he’s a softie at heart. He comes and lies on top of my toes, which is nice because his body heat warms them up and I feel it as a gesture of love that he wants to be so near to me that he’s on top of me. He is very protective of his toys, which I believe is an indication of trauma sustained when he was a puppy, when he would be left locked in his cage with his toys the entire day while his previous owners went out and about. I have a feeling that his toys are like his way of feeling secure in life, so he doesn’t allow anyone to mess with them! He loves to entertain us by chasing his tail and watching TV very intently with us and he LOVES chicken and smelling all the smells of barbecue and other smells we humans usually can’t smell.
By Paulette Pagani2 years ago in Families
