Nothing changes

His heart was racing and his face was flushed. He couldn’t remember everything he had said, just how close he had been to hitting her. She had walked away so awkwardly, an unnecessary stiffness in her posture that he didn’t understand. He hadn’t even touched her.

She stood under the deluge of hot water shedding silent ugly tears. Stupid cunt bitch. His words stuck to her in ways the soap couldn’t help. She squeezed her eyes shut remembering the moment his eyes had gone wide and his hand hovered an inch away. He hadn’t touched her though.

They pick up their conversation as if the last 30 minutes hasn’t happened. She asks if he needs anything and he mostly ignores her. Her voice is empty when she speaks, no emotion or opinion. His voice is steady, no guilty lit or sheepish remorse. No one apologizes or forgives. The I love yous before bed will not be punctuated with gentle kisses.

Everyone’s changed, but nothing changes.

Blinded

The lurch from crawl to sprint made everyone adjust their footing. As we round a bend in the underground tunnel a blinding light flickers wildly. Temporarily, relieving the grimy semi-darkness. Momentarily, spotlighting a crime against humanity. Before my mind can fully comprehend the broken image a glittery add fills my window. The new image is blurry, but the message is clear. In a consumer nation all things are consumed. I exit the car and am immediately swept up in the tide of commuters. All I hear is “Next stop…” before the subway barrels away. All I know is that somewhere a timer is counting down.

Dark day

I was in it. I felt empty, unloved, and tired. Just a hair’s breadth from the edge where I joyfully burn everything down then languish in the ashes. I needed an outlet. My books had betrayed me and my go to projects all seemed pointless. It was going to be food, drink, or ink tonight. If only I could drum up the energy to choose. I closed my eyes, daring life to take the cheap shot, while I counted to ten.

Food had arrived first in my muddled mind so I followed the rising noise towards the smell of deep fried sins. As luck would have it I was able to hit two birds with that particular stone. So I sipped at pitch black stout between slugs of sweet Jack while you placed my order. You smiled more than once, and it tore at me. I know I stared, but I didn’t have a reason to look away.

During dessert I had to blink away double vision, but it didn’t stop me from finding the pen in my bag. Letting myself fill napkin after napkin with wry and sardonic quips. Writing you was as cathartic as it was narcissistic. I couldn’t tell you what I wrote that night, so sure I would never see you again, but I would bet it was truth. Hard truths that make most people cringe.

I have no idea what you thought when I stumbled away from that bar. Would you read my words wrapped up in your tip? Did you know that your smile brightened my dark day? Even if you never read those words…

Thank you.

Your kind eyes and the sympathetic tilt of your head saved me last night.

Solstice

It felt overcrowded. The dark chill of the longest night always made Bianca claustrophobic. As she lit the large three wick candle sitting on the window sill the room shrank even more.

One for Fear.

Another for Doubt.

The last for Hope.

The brightness of the light against the cold dark pane seemed false to Bianca like all summer promises in the face of a winter storm. She tried to quiet her mind and make herself present, still Doubt tugged at her. Bianca slowly opened her eyes only to find Fear stared back. If her breath hadn’t caught Bianca would have blown the candle out, suddenly preferring the oppressive dark to the stifling light, but the warmth of Hope washed over her.

She checked her watch, settled a blanket over her shoulders ready to wait out the night, and when dawn finally trailed through the window Bianca drew an easy breath.

“And so the wheel turns again.”

It was already over

Fall rolled in like a thunder storm, dark and ominous. In New England the changing season was more than a damp heaviness in the air, it was an assault to the senses, and it sent the many inhabitants of Concord into frenzy. It seemed to Abigail that the riot of color came with a warning call only the busybody could hear. In her limited experience, it seemed, people’s minds got smaller when the nights grew longer. As if the dark could shrink a person’s world view.

She had seen the hold fear could have during the last smallpox outbreak, which had taken her mother and Daniel two winters back. It still woke Abigail in the night, the way hatred had filled eyes and soured words when she had begged for help that never came. Her Father had preached forgiveness and fortitude of spirit, and she had done as she was bade, but now he too was gone. His last breaths rolling out as the fall thunder rolled in.

It was hard for her to define the venom in every word cast in her direction, but after he was buried Abigail could sense it. While the ire of the town chafed at Abigail it did not stop her. She tended the geese and family plot earning coin with her own hands.

Abigail might have felt put out if not for the pleasure of providing for herself. All the while thinking that the dreadful future Reverend Burroughs had spelled out for her after the funeral was disappearing. With each successful endeavor Abigail became more certain that independence suited her and that she did not need to take a husband. She was not just surviving hand to mouth she was thriving, with no time for mournful thoughts.

Abigail had dismissed the town’s importance.

And the town was infuriated.

It happened in an instant. One second, she was harvesting the last of her wheat by the light of a full moon. The next, she was in the commons surrounded by the light glinting off their unyielding stares. It was in their bright eyes that Abigail finally discovered the emotion’s name. Paranoia. But it was too late.

If she was honest she would have admitted it was over long before the end. When they force-fed her the tooth they plucked from her jaw, it was already over. When her joints snapped as she tried so hard to avoid the touch of their hot irons, she was beyond salvation. It wasn’t until they tied her to the sugar maple, and piled the branches filled with flame red leaves around her that finally, wordlessly, she called to me.

But I offered something other than salvation.

Blood, tears, and gasoline

The tears tasted clean after the blood. So she resisted the urge the wipe her face or control her sobs. Maybe this was nature’s way. Maybe we cried to heal ourselves, like so much sap running to seal over the gaping wound of a lost branch. She only realized the tears had stoped when she heard her own hiccuped breath breaking the silence. Cringing internally and struggling externally she tried to quiet herself.

“Take your medicine,” he’d said before it started. Maybe he’d known. Maybe he could sense the brokenness inside, and wanted to shore up the weakness one broken bone at a time.

The chill of the concrete floor was all encompassing. Tiny shuddering trimmers ran though her like lightning strikes. She was so cold without the warmth of her tears. Till his prone shape shifted upon the couch, breaking her internal focus. Smallness hadn’t been the answer an hour ago still she felt herself trying to draw inward. All of her went silent. The trembling stoped. Her breathing slowed. Time unwound itself in lazy circles.

His footsteps filled her ears till his hot breath on the curve of her shoulder drove out any other sensation.

“Ready for more?”

The question hit her harder than his hand had, and for a second despair leaked into her soul. Maybe when he pulled her upright something snapped. Maybe he either hadn’t heard or didn’t care, but the residue of his rough hand on her arm had left fire not ice. It surged through her veins causing her to flush and made her breathing ragged.

“That seems like a yes,” he jeered.

She met his eyes for a second before reacting. “It’s a no actually!” She punctuated her words with a sharp knee thrust before running for the door. Her bare feet slapped against the asphalt shredding more with each step. She only slowed down enough to throw herself into the first open door she could find.

She could feel everyone’s eyes on her judging and predatory. Maybe she’d run from the pan to the fire. Maybe it hadn’t been steal that clicked into place when he’d pulled her up to him. She walked as quickly as she could towards the bartender pulling at her clothes wishing she was better protected. His eyes moved in an up then down appraisal before they went dull and cold, the smile gone from his unshaven face.

“I…”

The small bells over the door rang, announcing the newest patron. She didn’t have to look to know what she’d find. Not a single pair of eyes would meet hers, and those looking her way held themselves in postures of disdain not concern. She froze like a deer in headlights as he cracked jokes at her expense while the bartender, an obvious acquaintance, laughed along.

The sound followed her into the night and haunted her every step. Each block she put between herself and the known danger seemed to put her a block closer to the unknown dangers lurking just out of sight. By the time she made it to the police office her feet throbbed in time with each side stabbing breath. Her progress was watched by the unblinking eyes of surveillance cameras and measured in dirty footprints by the age-worn police officer at the front desk. He waited for her to approach his counter never once offering assistance.

“I need to report a crime.”

He scoffed, lifted a phone, and requested assistance. Ignoring her completely he started to fill out paperwork. Each second he refused to acknowledge her and every line he scratched on to the form tore at her resolve. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe tears make you invisible, the salt slowly eroding anything of value till nothing remains.

“Jerry from The Stoop called awhile back,” he said while filling out page two of the form. “How’d you think this would play out? Drinking alone. Dressed like that. People shouldn’t be surprised when they get what they ask for.”

Frustration blazed down her spine. Shame flamed in her heart. Conviction seared through her veins. This time the tears wouldn’t sooth. These tears were gasoline, and she wasn’t going to stop till she burned the whole institution down.

Image as seen on WritersCafe.org

How much longer?

I’m dying.

That’s the only explanation that makes sense. Hell, it’s the only thought my chaotic mind seems to be able to latch hold of. If I’m dying then the crushing defeat seems right. The helplessness. The desperate resignation. The hollowness just south of my heart and north of my navel.

Is it bad to want this, to smile through the tears in an attempt at grim humor? Will that smile remain once I finally give up, or slide away like so many other things I’ve lost? How long till nothing’s left?

How many drinks till none of this matters? Till the whiskey burn is all I feel. Finally warm where the nerves are shot and the dull ache throbs.

How much longer till I give in?

The spinning stops. The silence is everywhere. The cold seeps back in just as the color leeches out.

As seen on https://www.aubreymarcus.com/blogs/aubrey-marcus/depression

A lifetime of night

As I rose in the dark a small part of me felt relief.  The dark was… familiar by now, almost comforting.  A lifetime of night had left me always drawing back from the light, in fear, rather than inching forward, but my family could never know that.

“I wish it would have worked darling, I want you to truly see me.”

I smile my crooked smile in response unable to say the truth, I do not want to see you in that way, because, “I’ve always truly seen your heart dear, and that’s more then enough for me.”

As seen on curtishallblog.com

This is a 100 word challenge for grown ups (100WCGU).  The prompt is …as I rose in the dark…

You get 100 words plus the prompt.  To submit your own take on the prompt follow this link.

Zoie in Awe

This is neither the story of what happened to Alice, she never existed here, nor is this about going through the looking glass.  This story takes place in Awe, firmly locked within the heart of the mirror.  Where up is down and right has left.  If you find yourself in this land of wonder be warned, tread lightly and escape quickly, for Zoie does not let all who trespass back up the rabbit hole.

Who you may find yourself wondering though why may be more prudent, please allow me to explain.

First things first.  Awe.  Awe is a place where the expected never occurs.  No life like hue or Technicolor persists instead we have only the dull washed out tones caused by overexposure.  Majestic trees and lush gardens awash in hundreds of different shades have become stark spindly things thinned out into a single green tone.  Though the light may appear to shine with more vigor here I assure you that is nothing more than illusion.  For as any magician can tell you what lies at the surface never really speaks to what is truly going on below. 

You see below the highlight is a contrasting shadow, so dark the word black hardly does it justice, and it is there that Zoie has made herself at home.  Zoie is gorgeous to behold a fragile wisp of a thing in her dress of midnight with full dark eyes hidden behind her child’s fringe.  Don’t let her doll-like appearance fool you.  All of the most cunning creatures know how to blend and deceive, but this wolf in sheep’s clothing is Awe’s judge, jury, and executioner all in one.  She follows her own logic and holds a moral campus which has never known north, but her wit is rapier sharp as is her Vorpal blade.  The eyes you think you see in the night, the sound you cannot be sure you heard, and the tingle running down your scalp are her’s.  Best hope she doesn’t find you wanting.

Alice & Zoie

A Better Question

Davey's view

Heavy was the right way to describe it Davey thought to himself as he allowed a shallow breath past his parted lips.  Almost like it was water he thought as he lifted his right hand.  The resistance Davey felt in the empty night filled space above the arm of the rocking chair was foreign to him.  Turning his hand palm up he slowly rubbed his fingers together.  Collecting in minute beads a viscous liquid started to puddle in his cupped hand.  Davey’s eyes went skyward using the moon for illumination he could see…something.  Just a wisp of fog his brain reasoned, but the hair at the nape of his neck rejected that thought immediately standing on end.

The many childhood hours Davey had spent soaking up Hollywood’s post apocalyptic possibilities surfaced shouting for him to not leave the semi-safety of the covered porch, but tonight was about answers.  Since there was no burring sensation where the dew like droplets of oily liquid condensed he ruled out acid rain, still deciding on some iota of caution he pulled his shirt over his nose before walking out into the night.

Only a few steps and he could already feel the heat leaving the valley.  Growing up in the mostly dry climate of the desert Davey knew how fast the heat would drain back out of the sun baked rocks departing as if it had never been there leaving a chill that was hard to shake.  As the mercury plummeted the wisps in the air turned to more of a foggy haze, but rather than rising from the recently hot ground like steam it seemed to be sinking. 

Frozen in place, torn between the porch and the high ground he was walking towards, Davey noticed the watery light of the full moon catch in the mist throwing eery rainbows into the inky shadows.  Before he could react the dense cloud settled over him.  The greenish tinge of the fog gave everything the appearance of being viewed through night vision goggles,  but it was the weight of the fog which increased as its haziness gave way to opaqueness that Davey found the most disconcerting.

Within seconds he found himself face first in the dusty sand choking on the stifling cloud, his eyes streaming, every inch of him listless.  The lethargy made Davey almost not care that he had asked the wrong question, what instead of how, but then he heard the groan of the fog pressing down on his rocking chair and he smiled a drowsy smile.  He had his answer, if only he had thought to ask a better question.

Reader Note:

This is a continuation of my story A Heightened Sense of Things I hope you enjoy it!