Fiction Five Hundred

The Past Burns: Hidden Marks

2012-01-04T09:00:00.000-05:00

'How can you tell where the fire started, if it all ignited at once? How can you know where the poison entered the body, if it pours out everywhere?'

A horrible poem, I throw the book down in anger. The thing doesn’t even make sense for fuck’s sake. It might as well just be a whole load of nonsense. I wouldn't be able to understand it even if it did make sense, my head has been elsewhere of late. I can't concentrate on a single thing, it's so frigging annoying.

I wish I could just do something and all this bullshit with my mum would go away. As I think about it all I see the book has flipped to a different page when I threw it on the floor. I sighing, I push myself off the bed, and slowly bend to pick it up. I turn it over in my hands, studying it, remembering all the hours I'd spent scribbling in it. I was quite sure that it hadn't changed page when I hurled it at the wall, but apparently it had.

This page was covered in ornate designs. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it, I was so sure that I had never drawn anything like that, never even attempted to draw anything so amazing. I could never imagine it, so delicate and frail. It startled me with it’s immensity, even though it’s only lines on a page. It was confusing, like some sort of labyrinth - but with tiny pictures. I stare at it for a little while and the lines blurred together. A curl here, a swoop of some long forgotten pen there. All joining together to form something beautiful. A single image, one entire symbol, made up of thousands of intricate smaller ones.

I blink a couple of times, a bit moved by it, feeling a tear roll down my cheek. I watch it slowly fall and land on one of the rough pages. Frowning, I stand back up from my - less than comfortable - stoop and carry the book back to the bed with me. Lying my stiff body back down onto the bed, lifting the book above my head, I try to find and clue of the maze, looking for the indentations on any of the pages. Despite searching for almost a quarter of an hour, I find nothing and give up, I put the book down on my lap.

‘What the hell...’ I murmur, squinting at the pages, I lean in closer to make sure I’m not seeing things. I run my hands over the pages and it’s still the same. Nothing. It doesn’t make any sense. If someone made the lines with a pen, then there must have left some sort of mark behind. But it’s clean. Even the lines are starting to disappear, curling in on themselves to become nothing.

-- written by George and Cat Lee

From The Shadowy Mists

2011-10-31T09:00:00.000-04:00

My only friend; she’d talk to me every now and then, in better times past, when I lived in paradise. Well past the final breath of the bell, we used to wander the high school’s lonely halls. The struggle of learning and its draining burden was thrown off our shoulders, I no longer alone. In isolation, by the dying light of sunset, we would meet and patch our wounds and ease our troubles. I would waltz with my lover, to the lonely piano and violins of a solitary man, each step another sliver of arrow shaft driven into my heart, bleeding passion for blood. Each note magnified the seductive smile of my partner, I playfully resisting her advances. She would take it in good fun, knowing I was hers. Then, love knew no bounds. We were equals, comrades in arms; two lovers, thrown together by fate. I knew not her origins, but we quickly bonded. She would giggle as the light of the dying sun would catch my silver rings when I flourished fingers as we spoke. Through her, I was taken into a different world. Though I saw naught but a dim hallway, we witnessed judgments cast upon us by mute shadows; looking on as we used dance slowly, gracefully, as I caressed her skin. Holding each other close; her soft flesh against mine, hearing nothing but the silent cries of existence, but listening to our private symphony, I lifted my cares; each struck snowy key, each bowed brass string, syncopating my steps.

Such was life around me:

Hallways full to bursting,

Groaning under the strain

Classrooms, barley containing

The young minds of this generation,

Wishing for the weekend so desperately desired,

Wandering, some anxious, some careless, some lost in dreams

A moment two hours past, captured by the open mind

Lying on the lounge couch, plush beneath my fingers,

We cared for nothing in the world

It was in such bliss that we lived in such days. But I knew not; each note slowly wove my hangman’s noose. It was then, with the final thread, the world fell from under me, and she stood there, smiling.

I awoke in the same hall, standing, empty and alone: once welcoming shadows resented my presence; a once warm safe-haven turned into an eerie wasteland. Not a trace could be found of her. No one ever knew.

I never saw her again; from the misted void she came, and to the misted void returned.

-- written by Paolo La'O

Two-Day Weekend ~ Day Five

2011-10-14T09:00:00.000-04:00

We joked about it for years. When life nearly broke us, the e-mails would start. “Let’s just leave it all behind and run away,” you’d write, “I’ll come pick you up.” I’d smile when the words appeared on my computer scream, my heart skipping a beat because part of me wanted that. And badly.

“Sure, I’ll pack the food and music,” I’d reply. We’d banter back and forth. It would ease us back from the edge, the despair softened for now.

Soon enough we’d conquer the crisis of the moment and move on. Because we are both strong women.

Last Friday you e-mailed and started with the usual words, but the tone changed quickly. I felt that in some way I did not quite understand, this time was very, very different. My heart was in my throat.

Because my face was flushed, and my skin clammy, when I made excuses to my boss that I felt awful and needed to leave there was no question.

You said this time you were coming and I believed you.

In the silence of the house, I moved quietly but quickly through the rooms, stuffing a backpack full of comfortable clothes, rummaging for piles of food, stuffing a tote with music.

I had just hung up after talking to my husband when your car pulled in. Your long black hair tousled, your smile radiant, your eyes shining with a sultry mix of desperation and adventure. I had told the truth. “I’ll see you Sunday night,” my voice assured him with a confidence I did not entirely feel, “Thank you for understanding.”

That phone call was five days ago. We have not returned.

In the early afternoon I am driving. I know we are in Nevada, but am not entirely sure where. The wide-open desert landscape is very different from our East Coast home. You are dozing in the passenger seat. I glance over, and am once again stunned at how beautiful you are.

We have spent the past few days driving by whim. We stop whenever the mood suits us. We have spent endless hours relaxing by a lake or a park. We read, we nap, we eat, we talk, we just sit.

In a local hotel every night we bring in our backpacks, but never unpack as if this is just casual and temporary. From the first night we have clung to each other in the darkness. Every night and every morning we make love. This feels entirely normal yet could not exist outside of now. We do not discuss it.

Tonight our fingers intertwine with unspeakable intimacy as I am once again shattered and brought whole by your touch. I kiss you lightly as we drift towards sleep. I understand in my soul this will not last. That soon you will simply turn the car for home and drop me off to the silence of my house and the arms of my patient husband.

Or maybe you never will.

Then what?

-- written by Moonspun

And Now

2011-09-26T09:00:00.000-04:00

If that fucking phone beeps again, she thought, I’m going to lose it.

The tinny notes rang out a split second later, loud enough to be heard over the movie they were watching in surround sound. His hand was lightning fast as he reached out to the coffee table and grabbed his Blackberry.

Disgusted, she threw the blanket covering her lap to the ground and walked out of the living room.

“Babe! Come on! It’ll only take a second. I just have to…”

She heard his pleas fade and the clicking of the keys begin as he responded to whatever emergency required his immediate attention. She began emptying the dishwasher, shoving Tupperware and plates and utensils in their cabinets and drawers.

She made sure she slammed a few, too.

Ten minutes later the kitchen was clean and she had run out of steam. It was a battle she was tired of fighting. She had, after all, known what she was getting into when she married him. They met when she was a paralegal and he a young associate fresh out of law school. She was young and impressionable, caught up in the fancy cars, expensive lunches and high-profile clients. Marrying a lawyer seemed, at the time, romantic. And it was the only way to ensure that her future would be nothing like her past.

Now, four years into their marriage, it was nothing like she dreamed. She quit her job as a paralegal when they got married. She had all kinds of plans to decorate their house, volunteer, focus on school, and enjoy being a housewife. For the first time her life, she didn’t have to work, and she had wanted to take full advantage of it.

She had all the freedom and money in the world, and she was miserable. Bored, even. He was never home. He was always on that damn phone and her weekends were filled with stuffy dinners and events at the country club, where she was forced to make small talk, pretend like she cared who was fucking who at the firm, and where the other wives made it clear that all the Vera Wang dresses and Louboutin shoes couldn’t scrub the trailer park off her.

Now John wanted her to have a baby.

Little did he know she was still on the pill. He thought that after six months of “trying” they should be concerned and have a talk with the doctor. She didn’t know how to tell him she couldn’t imagine having a baby with him.

She walked past the office and hesitated at the door. The computer sat there, its screen a beacon in the dark room. He was on the other end. Just a few clicks and keystrokes away. Him, the one who still made her heart pound and stomach flip-flop. She could open the chat and be carried away. He… who was not her husband.

-- written by Kristina

The Hospital

2011-09-12T09:00:00.000-04:00

I’m supposed to tell you the first thought that ran through my head when I woke up was ‘Where am I?’ or ‘What happened to me?’ but, honestly, it was ‘What the hell is that beeping noise?’ I was in a hospital, you see. I had no memory of life before this room. But while we’re here, let’s start from the beginning.

I woke up one boring, normal day in a room with four walls, a bed and the usual medical paraphernalia with this high pitched beeping ringing through my head. All I could see was a redness, a million suns burning in front of my eyes - etching their endless tongues over my vision. Blinding me. For hours I was stuck there, slowly being driven insane by this incessant noise. Luckily for me it was time for my daily doctor’s visit - if you could call it luck. Slowly, the fire parted in my eyes, to be replaced with a blurry mess. Colours mixing freely, distorting my world. I wanted safety, I wanted the fire.

‘Hello Mr. Rawke, I know you’re there. Your vitals have changed. Would you care to speak?’

‘Beeping,’ I croaked, the air rasping through my throat, ‘stop the beeping.’ Some fumbling followed and finally, peace. ‘Thanks,’ I muttered, feeling something well up deep in my throat. ‘Water?’

‘You’re very demanding, Mr. Rawke.’ The doctor chimed, annoyingly cheerful. ‘But I suppose I have to treat you well, someone up top’s taken a special interest in you.’ Finally I felt something cold run down my throat - filling the valleys of my mouth, subduing the monster trying to burst out.

‘Thanks,’ I said. More powerfully now, ‘can you help me up?’

‘Well that’s more of a nurses job, you know.’ But I saw his shadow turn, and slowly move. Strong hands gripped me, shifting my body, dulling the fire. I tried opening my eyes again and found it tolerable.

‘Who are you? I asked.

‘You may go now, doctor.’ A voice interrupted before he could answer. Rushing out, he turned back. Obviously frightened, he mouthed one word.

‘Fight.’

-- written by George Lee

Before The Dawn

2011-08-19T09:00:00.000-04:00

There is a girl. She stands on the edge of the fall, in flowing silk and satin. Her hair cascades down her back and over her shoulders in ebony spirals, thick as forest and holding secrets, and shells and braids and beads. She turns to me and her eyes flash. They sparkle, mesmerising. Their deep blackness seeming to pull you in. Her head tilts, there is no hint of a smile as she lifts her hand to caress my face.

I put my hand on hers, her dress shimmering in the moonlight, the silver diadem, glinting. She glitters as she moves, flawless beauty evident in her every step. She whispers, her lips barely moving, barely breaking their perfect form,

‘You’ve done this.’ she’s pained, I understand. I know the riddle, I know the omission.

‘I had no choice.’ I say. I can’t help but see the hurt in her eyes. It is what I will see to the end of time, what I’ve done to her.

‘There must have been another way,’ she replies, starting to raise her voice, ‘you could have chosen some other way!’ she says, finishing by shouting at me, exasperated.

We’ve had this argument from Dawn til dusk through every day, and I fear we will even though the reckoning comes so soon. There is no way to resolve it, no way to change, what’s done is done, there is nothing that can take the terrible fate away, off our hands.

We chose this. We chose it the moment we first kissed, the moment our bodies touched, the moment we became one. Eternal. But I can’t help but think it was my fault, my fault that we ended up like this, my fault that we had this destiny thrust into our open arms. We had no place, she was a flawless beauty, she was a perfect hyperbole of all that is pure.

I cannot escape her, wherever I look, whatever I do, I see glimpses of her, small tokens. A lily on a pond, the lonely snowbell, it’s head bowed in denial of it’s true meaning. She will never accept, though I tell and tell, the truth is not as blatant for her to see as for me, or any other soul who peeks at her, shying away in awe.

I am nothing. I stand next to her and do not deserve. She is a fool, a fool to accept me, a fool to love me, I speak to her of this, but she waves it away, certain she can do no better. The woman is blind, but she chooses me, day after day, she chooses, so I gratefully stay, cling to her in honour.

I brush a loose curl behind her ear, her whole body shimmering white in the night,

‘My love, there was no other way.’

We are gods.

-- written by Cat Lee

The Endless Battle

2011-08-01T09:00:00.002-04:00

Beginnings.

The dark sky stretched out before me like a velvet carpet, studded with glittering pearls. There was a gash of purple streaking the sky, a scar running down the length of its back, almost like it was crippling the sky. The moon sat on its shoulder, a cream sphere, keeping its children, a pearly bead, a pendant on her neck. The trees silhouetted against the skyline, a lumpy mattress on which she rested her head. A sweet wind blew through their limbs, melancholy, and longing to be up in her arms. Longing to be held in her breast. The sun dipped, fleeing the moon’s reign, their feud long from over and eternal. A strip across the skyline burnt like flames in the distance, bleeding into the deep blue of the sky above. Their battle commenced, every night, but every night the moon always won. Her glow overthrowing the sun and their lights entangling around the atmosphere. Connecting and sparking everywhere they could, but the moon’s children sprang to the surface, each one defeating a small part of the sun’s reign.

As the sun disappeared behind a golden haze, the frosted night descended. Sending the world into darkness, the shadows gripping the land with talons of ice, and slicing the earth with claws of fear and black stallions. The midnight lake washing against its starlit shore, and the moon bathing in the cool of dark. All was silent and calm, as if the world was saving itself, savouring the peace after the rush of day. Soaking up the delicious night in wait for the new day to come, for the sun to rise up against the moon’s shimmer and blazing the cold away. Melting the fortress that protects her and beating the moon into submission.

The moon falls, bleeding into her endless night, her stars swirling around her, desperately weaving tears of silver thread to her wounds. They fear for her, every night, the battle she must face, the wounds she must recover from. They fear.

There is never enough time between the fights, the sun sits, triumphant on his golden throne, smug at the thought of his lover's demise, but victory never lasts long enough. There isn't enough time to burn away every sliver of cool, her beauty still lingers, seductive. He cannot escape her, nor the love they shared before they were condemned to be immortal enemies til the end of time.

Neither can escape the passion, the memories, the heat nor the cool. So they wait, the endless battle raging on, never stopping, never waiting, they must prepare to face one another once again, this time, the outcome may differ, one always adapts while the other changes strategies, both almost perfection. But one must fall.

The new day will rise again, and with it will come the fall of the night.

-- written by Cat Lee

The Fight

2011-07-29T09:00:00.003-04:00

There it was, staring at me. Begging me to open it. Whispering away, gnawing at my mind.

'Open me, open me,' incessantly in my head. Extirpating my sanity. No matter where I went, what I did, it appeared again. Stalking me.

A knock at the door.

‘Hello sir, we’ve been waiting for your reply for ever so long. Have you made your decision?’ I slam the door, running away. Trying to block them all out of my mind.

The letter, you see, is about my death. I’ve known it was coming for years and I found myself petrified; unable to do a thing. No wife, no children, no happy ending. Nothing. I’ve wasted my life away and it comes to this. Fight or die.

You have to understand, our city - if you can still call it that - can’t sustain many people. It struggles to keep the leaders alive. Let alone we ‘lucky’ few left in squalor. We’re left to fend for ourselves and expected to be thankful to the thieving pricks who’ll take it from us without reason. The spiders, we call them. Once they pounce, it’s only a matter of time before you die.

You get a choice, though! Fight for your meager existence or be killed. In this broken place they mean the same thing in the end. The spider’s pawns are always heavily armed. Not one person has ever won a battle before.

I’m not afraid of death at all! You get used to the idea here. The only thing I’m afraid of losing is my memories. Will they stay with me to the end? Will I keep my honour and my composure? I hope so. I won’t let myself die with a bullet in my back.

I stand suddenly, calmly opening the door. My fist drawn back. Screaming, I tell them.

‘I. Will. Fight!’ I laugh as I knock the first to the ground, stepping out into a suddenly bright world. Waking from it’s slumber. They march me into the arena - an old football field - and I grin.

‘I’ve hated every minute of my godforsaken life on this planet. But now I’m at peace, friends. I welcome my death. I will stand for my family. This is the end of the line.’ Running out, I embrace the warmth of my blood as it sprays out in front of me.

Even at my end, they betrayed me.

-- written by George Lee

And Thus Started the War

2011-06-01T09:00:00.002-04:00

"Hey Pal, you're dog pooped in my yard again."

Bruce was being polite. Pal wasn't a demeaning term, just his neighbor's name, short for...well, Bruce didn't know exactly what it was short for. Everyone just called him Pal. So it was a cordial term. His manners, however, were useless in such disputes. He knew that and worse still, Pal knew he knew that.

Still, it was in his nature, to be compromising, to be mitigating, to always find the middle ground. That, however, was the opposite of Pal's nature.

He looked off his deck at the pile of dog crap, shook his head and scoffed, "That's not your yard Bruuuce."

Bruce missed the elongated vowel that wasn't a permanent resident in his name, but only because confusion had a stranglehold over his faculties.

"What do you mean? This is my yard. It's always been my yard, or my father's yard. It's been that way since he bought the house back in May of 1948."

Pal smiled at him as if they were in some understanding, "Yeah, it used to be your yard, but when you were gone, before your dad went into the home, we made a deal. Since he didn't need the extra space in the back yard anymore, he gave it to me, about five feet's worth."

Bruce knew his dad, everyone knew Abe. He was as compromising as the President who shared his name, as attentive to details as him too, and as honest. One thing he was always firm on though, were boundaries. His land was his pride, his home his castle. He neither mentioned the "deal" nor did he hide it, of this Bruce was sure.

"Well, my father doesn't own the home any longer and regardless of what he said, he can't make that deal. The county wouldn't allow it. They wouldn't officially sanction such a boundary change. And since there is nothing official, I'm taking this strip of land back. Clean up your dog's crap."

With the smile erased from his face, he looked down at the pile of dog poop, then back at Bruce and told him, "You won't get it back," before he turned and walked back to his house.

And thus started the war.

-- written by Brian K Hines

Flesh Secrets

2011-05-23T09:00:00.003-04:00

In the dark of the night she curled against her husband. Her body was humming from their lovemaking. She could hear his even breath nearly in tune with the breeze outside. Slow, steady, sure. She was safe.

In the morning light, she watched her husband get ready for work. His blonde hair tousled before he put it into place as he smiled at her. The familiar rhythm of their routine calmed and soothed her. She was content as she kissed him goodbye before they left for work.

During the morning tasks she smiled with the texts and messages that came in from her husband. She was reassured and blissfully loved.

In the brilliant sunshine of the noon hour, dressed in her trim navy suit and sunglasses, she guided her navy car towards an apartment. A place familiar to her, but never spoken of ---to anyone. It was, in fact, a place she rarely thought of with much reflection. It was part of her, crucial to the contentedness of everything else. But not considered. It was unsafe to do that.

Her heels clicked up the stone steps and into the landing. True to form, there would be no need to knock, she let herself in to the dimly lit space. Red sheer curtains were drawn, the sun straining to get through. For the first moment it was silent and she did not move though her being hummed with anticipation as she absorbed her surroundings.

Then he was there, behind her this time, kissing her neck and tugging firmly at her suit so it dropped quickly. She felt his long dark hair slide over her back. He blindfolded her with a silk scarf and led her to the bed. She took in the whispers, rasping breath, murmurs with shocking words her husband would never use. Her body vibrated with need and excitement.

For the next hour she engaged in sexual acts that before meeting him she had never heard of, could not even dream about, and certainly never thought she would do. In the midst of pleasure beyond comprehension, rational thoughts refused to surface. She would not analysis the why and the how. In the glow created by red silk, the blindfold removed, she was driven only by an intense, indescribable need for more. And more. Her limits were stretched and still it was not enough.

Eventually the hour had to end and the suit zippered, wrinkles smoothed, sunglasses adjusted. There were few words between them, mere murmurs of want, promises for more—always more.

She had created this routine easily, slid into the wickedness of it without looking back. It had become a part of her life so crucial to her existence, she could no more conceive of giving it up anymore than she could think of leaving the husband she loved so much.

Back in the office she smile as her husband’s tender voice slid her easily back into reality and out of forbidden flesh secrets.

-- written by Moonspun

One Last Night

2011-05-13T09:00:00.000-04:00

The emphatically coloured eyes seemed to glare directly at him. The light brown slowly became darker. The colour then started spilling out of them. The blood slowly dripped down those white cheeks; and the drop slid down his wrist. The gash on his hand seemed to deepen and the eyes slowly dissolved into darkness.

A cusp between Sagittarius and Scorpio, he was an undecided blend of fire and water. Every night, his features softened, his neckline plunged, his trousers got tighter and his gait became more graceful. This duality often left him flustered early in the morning. The numerous wounds that he had inflicted on himself had threatened to taint his only tool - his body. He now sometimes regretted those careless dives for a cricket match that left him with bruised knees and marks that never faded. While he turned his fiery brown eyes into gentle blues every night, he saw his mother's misty eyes looking back at him. He remembered those eyes as they watched her youngest son grow from a boy to a young man who had stopped caring. He remembered those eyes from the time he left her at the doorstep with a plate that wasn't eaten from. That sight lasted. So did the one of her lying down in the one room apartment, clad in white, devoid of mourners.

The protective younger sibling of an older sister, he struggled to be protected from mishaps every night. He was a little boy with no vices and a carefree life, who was forced to grow up and take charge in the span of a night. With the death of his mother, his father's turn towards spirituality and the concomitant disregard for his family compelled him to live a life obscured by the darkness of the night. He tried his best to lie to himself. It was easier to pity his own life, but the fact was that this was a faster source of income than daily labour work; and he needed quicker money to get out of this life. But whatever money he got never really seemed to be enough. That little aspirant cricketer was now constantly in and out of police stations. Drug abuse now joined the list of numerous crimes but it was more of a necessity than a choice - heroin reduced pain. In those nights behind bars, he was looked down upon and threatened not only by the authorities, but also by the fe male prostitutes whose daily living he was snatching away.

But the pain today would not get reduced by any drug. Through the layers of colours that covered his face, he saw just grays. The darkened room swiveled with the muffled tears in his eyes. The smell of alcohol overwhelmed the perfume in his clothes that now lay at the bedside. While he spent the night with a man who picked him up, his sister waited for her husband. The gash on his wrist would be deeper tonight.

-- written by Shruti Gokhale

Morse Code

2011-05-11T09:00:00.008-04:00

Rain taps staccato on windowpanes and rooftops, a hundred thousand Morse code messages falling unheeded against the night. The houses on Trumbull Lane stand like silent sentinels, protecting their inhabitants from what may be creeping in the shadows. Somewhere in the expanse of spruce and firs an owl cries out inquisitively, but there is no response. On nights like these, there never is.

Trumbull Lane is a dead end. The road widens and forms a circle at it's culmination to allow wayward cars a place to turn around. At the crest of the circle stands a mailbox denoting 22 Trumbull Lane and the name Gerald Perkins.

Gerald Perkins is, among many things, an insomniac.

The amber glow of a cigarette brightens and flares as Perkins inhales, standing motionlessly on his front porch. Rain trickles down through the holes and gaps in the roof. The beams and supports of the entire house are swollen with moisture. It's been raining for two days, and the interior walls are weeping. Down to the filter now, Perkins plucks the cigarette from his mouth and tosses it into a rusted coffee can filled with rainwater.

“I'm going crazy,” he says aloud. It's the first time in days that he's heard another human voice, and even though it is his, he jumps at how foreign it sounds. He closes his eyes and tries to relax.

He opens his eyes suddenly and cocks his head. He hears something. A heavy tapping, drumming, banging sound. He turns around and opens the door to enter his house and investigate, and the smell hits him like a wall. The instant reflex to vomit stops almost before it begins as something shifts in Gerald's mind.

Gerald Perkins is schizophrenic.

To his altered state, the oppressive smell of decomposition and wet rot are favored fragrances. He walks inside, closing the door behind him with effort. A trio of guttering candles offer dim light for the room, casting dancing shadows of him on the walls. He rubs his hands greedily together and walks toward the sound.

The sound is the loudest at the door that leads down to the dirt basement.

Gerald opens the door, and a flurry of mice burst out from the yawning darkness. They flee to drier places in the crumbling house, and as the sound of their scampering feet fade, Gerald notices that the tapping sound had stopped.

“Hello?” a female voice cries out. There's the sound of splashing water. The basement must be flooded. “Gerald, is that you?”

He steps heavily down onto the first stair. “Gerald's gone, precious. It's just you... and me.”

“Please, no!” she screams. “Don't hurt me anymore, I can't take it! I just-”

The stairs groan under his weight as he descends into the dark. The woman's screams are stifled as the door closes behind him.

The owl sounds out again, always asking, but on nights like these with no witnesses, there is no one to answer.

-- written by Badass Geek

A Beautiful Day

2011-05-03T09:00:00.001-04:00

The music blared in her ears. She carelessly cleared the wooden floor of the many empty alcohol bottles. The smoke that clogged the windowless room made her feel that she was finally among the clouds.

The anesthetics, the alcohol, the music, her life; something had deadened her so much that she couldn’t hear someone pounding on the door. Her thoughts traveled back to the clinic where she had gone to abort her first child and her first sibling. There she had the last glimpse of her mother. Her mother had offered to take her away forever but she had refused. She couldn’t recollect why. Maybe she expected her mother to insist, to take her in spite of her refusal; she didn’t remember.

She was brought back to the present by a sharp sensation of pain. The weak latch of the door had given way and her enraged father stood in front of her, fist raised to deal another blow. She instinctively cowered barely listening as she was blamed for her mother’s death, her father’s loss in business and now, her stepmother’s departure. Everything was a blur after that.

She woke up the next day sprawled on the floor with a swollen lip and bruises all over her body. She had to find a way of concealing her swollen lip; the excuse of allergies and insect bites was used too often. As she got ready, she noticed that her father had already left. She smiled to herself – it looked like a good day. She then got a text from her boyfriend. As she texted back, she remembered a particularly violent kiss and found an excuse for the swollen lip. She smiled again for the second time since morning; there was something exceptional about the day.

She had completely forgotten that the mid-term results were to be announced that day. She had topped the exam which didn’t come as a surprise to anyone. The teacher told her to collect a scholarship form from his office. When she went there, she was a little taken aback when he told her to shut the door behind her. A bird perched on the window caught her attention and she could faintly hear the teacher saying something about her being an adult, some scholarship, some recommendation. She then felt an arm on her legs. She turned to feel a wheezy breath on her face.

Her hand flew to a pair of scissors on the table and she brought it down on the hand touching her. She stabbed the man repeatedly; on his chest, face, arms, back. With every stab she avenged every wound ever inflicted on her. She then stood straight looking at the mangled body lying in a pool of blood. She smiled again, for the third time since morning; today was a truly beautiful day.

-- written by Shruti Gokhale

Kathmandu's Finest

2011-04-27T09:00:00.001-04:00

Across from my hotel stood a small shop with a sign outside that made even the most disinterested traveler’s eyes widen ‘Buff Momo’s – Kathmandu’s Finest ‘. As I walked in and found a corner table there was a small book placed on the table, unsure of whether it was left by another customer I looked around to the tables around me.

Content that there was in fact one sitting proudly on every table and convinced it would be another 15 minutes before I could enjoy ‘Kathmandu’s Finest’, I picked up the book and got lost in the literature that lay in front of me for the book didn’t tell stories of undercover spies and superheroes but it was a brilliant representation of a women’s struggle in Nepal. It told of a woman who was forced to leave India at the age of 12 with her parents and settle in Kathmandu, unhappy to be growing up in a country she didn’t consider her own, she soon became a rebel. It was only as she began to grow older and her eyes opened to the atrocities the Nepalese people were burdened with as a result of India’s wielding power over the country did she begin to write for the freedom of her country. However merely a school level education and no experience whatsoever as a writer prevented any publishing house from taking her seriously. It wasn’t the love for her country but rather the hatred for the place she long considered as her own that propelled her to write to begin with.

Just as I reached the last page I happen to overhear a conversation from the table by the side of me they too were discussing the book and the sad tale that this woman had to encounter. However what struck me about the conversation was something that wasn’t mentioned anywhere the book, these two men spoke about large amounts of charity that the women from the novel had being doing over the last five years. From providing shelter and clothing to homeless people that had settled in front of her house to being the campaign manager behind her husband’s run for office she seemed to have left no stone unturned in her ultimate goal to ensure freedom for her people and country.

Convinced that till now these stories were a work of fiction I was eager to meet the woman in all the stories so I walked up and enquired from the men sitting at the side of me as to where I could arrange a meeting with this women, they’re reply came as a pleasant shock to me. For the lady I so earned to talk to was now walking up to me with a pen and paper in hand and an apologetic look for keeping me waiting.

The buff momo’s that evening were delightful but Kathmandu’s Finest didn’t come in a plate, it was instead standing behind a counter the entire time.

-- written by Sean D'Mello

The Red Tree

2010-11-12T09:00:00.001-05:00

It's that damned book's fault.

It called to me. Seventeen months ago, in that poorly lit used bookstore down on the corner of Elm and Hackett streets, it called to me. It caught my eye as I passed through the aisles, standing at the end of a rack, cover facing out, bound in a peculiar yet familiar shade of gray. It bore no title, and printed off-center on the cover in a rusty color that reminded me of dried blood was the image of a bare tree.

I had stopped and picked it up almost without realizing it. The volume of maybe two hundred pages was heavy yet comfortable in my hands. Whether it had been cut expertly from the book with a razor or had been omitted altogether, there was no title, author, or publisher name printed inside. I was intrigued, so I tucked it under my arm.

The cashier was full of idle chatter as he rang in my selections. All talk ceased when he saw that gray-bound book. His face turned instantly pale, almost translucent. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down and he swallowed with effort.

He told me that I didn't want that book. I told him that it intrigued me, but he insisted. He told me that I could have any other book in the store at no cost, just not the book with the red tree on the cover. I persisted. He then hit a key on his register, grabbed a handful of cash, and held it out. I told him to knock it off.

I should have listened.

I've been reading the book ever since I brought it home that day, but I don't dare describe what it's about. I fear for what it might do to others. Hear me: I do not exaggerate when I say that no matter how many pages I read, hundreds of pages still await me. I've passed through thousands of pages, but the end of the book is still just as far ahead of me as the day I started. It's been driving me to the brink of my sanity, page by endless page.

Once I discovered what the cashier was trying to protect me from, I went back. The store was empty, as if it had never existed at all. In frustration and in fear, I threw the book through one of the windows. I screamed when I found it laying on my kitchen table upon returning home.

I cannot stop reading. Eight thousand pages now.

In the grips of hungry fire, the book doesn't burn. Instead, the fire gutters and then winks out like a birthday candle. I have no choice. Tonight I will finish it. I will finish it and paint my walls with a peculiar yet familiar gray color, and I will draw my own red tree in the rusty color of blood.

The barrel of my revolver tastes oily and metallic, but that's okay.

I'll only taste it for a moment.

-- written by Badass Geek

Halloween

2010-11-05T09:00:00.001-04:00

As I sat there with the candy bowl clutched in my lap, watching Halloween re-runs, I let my mind wander.

Princess. Cat. Pirate, ninja, scarecrow. I was all of them and more. This year, a witch. My hat wobbled on my head as I wished a happy Halloween to a cherubic fairy as she came to my door. I chuckled as she raced back to her dad (who, admittedly, looked bored by the whole affair), a full size candy-bar clutched in her hand.

I watched as more came up the path. Older kids now, as it was starting to get late outside. I looked down at my grandchildren’s jack-o-lanterns with pride – they were my only decoration this year. My arthritis had been flaring up, so I hadn’t been able to spread the gossamer-thin webbing on my porch as I had in years past.

A part of me mourned its absence.

I missed Earl, my husband. He was always by my side, and we so loved this time of year. We’d watch the leaves turn, and we’d sit in as the nights turned cold, leaning against each other for warmth.

He passed away last December.

A teenager came to my door. Black ski mask, black clothing. I puzzled as to what he had dressed up as – perhaps a video game character?

It was then that I noticed the gun clutched in his adolescent hands.

Black creeped in around the edges of my vision as he shouted and waved the black monstrosity at me. And then…and then I don’t remember.

I woke to sirens. The police were investigating – my home was a mess. My television was flipped over, its face shattered into a million shreds. My couch had been flipped as well – why had he done that? I wondered.

My purse was gone. My money, my credit cards. My jewelry. Material things.

My neighbors huddled outside in the cold. I could only imagine what they were saying. I wanted to invite them into my house, into the warmth, and then I remembered – I had just been robbed.

My house was not fit for company.

And then, just as suddenly as it had happened, it was over. Everyone was gone. A police officer - I think his name was Brad – left me with a card, and his assurance that the force was on it. They’d call if they had any details.

And so, as I looked around my house, destroyed though it was, I couldn’t help but wonder to myself…

What had he dressed up as?

A teenager? A robber? What was the costume – his robber façade, or the face he wore when he saw his parents every night?

Was I his cry for help?

-- written by Nyx

Bob in the Land Beyond

2010-09-27T09:00:00.001-04:00

Laden with their cargo tonnage, the hulking Octo-Cycloids thundering on my flanks threw sprays of rainwater at my transparent enviro-shield. Streaming down the 12-lane MegaHighway, the corruption and misery of the Black Fortress faded quickly in distance, but regrettably not in memory.

I am a writer: not a greying sage high up in his ivory tower, but your hungry, faithful scribe, posting my stories back to more peaceful worlds from the chaos and poverty of this benighted dimension.

I was born in the Compact Housing Grids of the northern sectors, the likes of which I could look upon from the seat of my personal transport module, through the blurring media of greasy plexiglass and honest, manly tears. Here, oily smoke plumes mark the daily collisions of jet-boy racers’ chromed machines with reinforced concrete; here the gaping facades of vacant retail properties line every approach. I would sincerely hope, dear reader, you will have no reason to become acquainted with such a place.

It was she, when I was first came to Centre as a young man apprenticed to the Guild of my profession, who first showed me the truly magnificent possibilities of life beyond the great vacuum of the outer districts. She too was then newly a scholar, but foremost a princess.

At first trepidation held me back from the edges of the circles she moved in, but riding high one night on spirits and branded caffeine infusions, I finally made her acquaintance. In spite of her regality, she looked beyond my poor Sprawl-boy exterior and embraced me, undeserving, as her equal.

We united in our love of the analogue-pop of the rag-tag Guitar Kids in their independent clubs, and in our alignment with the rebel bloc fighting against the iniquity of participation by our Imperial troops in aggression against the Oriental territories, but these superficialities only presaged far deeper emotion. We spent nights ensconced together in the warmth and security of her Royal Fortress, safe against the viral smogs and hordes of narco-zombies abounding in the urban zone beyond.

How can I relate, to those who never known it, the ecstatic foreknowledge that an eternity of bliss awaits you and your beloved in the rejuvenation vats? But this gleaming future was stillborn, diseased like the offspring of Clone-Tank Plague – poisoned! by her consort, Darren, the Islington Tax Accountant!

Now, cherished reader, I am driven to the Land Beyond. The journey will be hazardous and unending, but the blasted nuclear wastelands will perhaps lack the hollows and crannies in which the memory of her face might flourish.

The module’s radio communicator trills through my reverie! Gingerly, I punch ‘Accept Call’.

Bob? I know you can hear me, Bob. I’ve been ringing your phone for hours. Please listen to me. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Please turn the car around and come home so we can talk. Bob, I -

-- written by J. A. Davies

Her First High Heeled Adventure

2010-07-07T09:00:00.000-04:00

She paced up and down the marble tiles; Ms Desai below was praying that she would soon make up her mind so she could finally get some sleep. Sam looked at her watch again 21:30; he was going to show in 10 minutes she had to make up her mind. She stood for the umpteenth time in front the mirror the dress looked perfect. It didn’t show too much so her mom wouldn’t ask a million questions and it didn’t cover that much to make him guess that she picked up a form to join ‘The Celibacy Sisters’. Yet she continued to stare her eyes fixated on the pair of heels in the back near the foot of her bed.

It had been a week. She was sitting alone with a can of Red Bull and her copy of ‘Julia and Juliet’. The sanctuary of her room was barely ever breached but that Monday her mom came rushing in almost like the neighbor from across the road saw her with her another guy. She yanked her hand pulled her up out of the bed one look at what she was wearing made her realize that it was sufficient and continued to drag her out through the living room and to the car below. It was here that she explained there was barely a week yet and knowing her daughter she was aware she was in no rush to but those first pair of heels. Sam was well aware that this was inevitable so was very subtle in her protest. Three hours seven shops and countless open boxes later they found a black pair of heels that seemed to suit which ever dress she would finally decide to wear. That week like many others Sam barely left her room, but this time she drew the curtains and double bolted the door. No this wasn’t her attempt to finally take a quick glimpse those racy websites that she heard her seniors talk about; why in her eyes it was far worst. You see for that entire week Sam used to try on those heels.

Now a week in heels can’t do any good to your feet and the blisters the size of small rocks was evidence of it. But right now all this didn’t bother Sam she had to make a decision. Was she going to go with a pair of flats that never really did anything for her dress? Was she going to risk wearing those heels and cross her fingers and hope she never took a tumble. Just then she remembered a picture she had kept from when she was little it was when her mum left alone one November afternoon. Thoroughly bored she found a pair of her mums’ heels and walked around for an entire hour completely oblivious to the amount of tumbles she took.

Suddenly it all became very clear she slipped into the heels and left the house to begin her first high heeled adventure.

-- written by Sean D'Mello

His Lucky T-Shirt

2010-05-31T09:00:00.000-04:00

BANG BANG.

He woke startled. Stupid cats he knew better than to keep the plate so close to the edge of the sink, Ryan was always a light sleeper. And this sort of noise was enough to wake him from his near perfect dream. As he looked at the small alarm on the side of the table the fluorescent light blinked 6:55 PM. So the cat robbed him of just five minutes of his sleep, he could forgive the poor feline. Today was a big day for Ryan and it all started the very same morning when he got a message from Sarah asking him to meet her at their favorite spot at 8 that very evening. Sarah was Ryan’s ex, though Ryan would hate using that word when people asked what happened, it almost made him believe things were over between them. He stopped to look in the mirror as he was leaving the room he should shave; it had been a while since he last did. He grabbed his blade on the way into the shower. He stood under the hot shower for about five minutes. As he was standing he began thinking about the past month. Since their break up things hadn’t been the same. He had stopped going to college her sight itself troubled him; she had gotten into his mind. Her smile, infectious laughter and her stupid jokes. It all ended a week back, he had forgotten one of their dates and just has it happens the rain gods decided to look down on their city that very day. She was wet angry and annoyed. It wasn’t until later that evening that he realized his mistake.

The phone call that followed was filled with a lot of shouting and arguing and before he knew it, Ryan found himself clutching straws but it was too late. It was all over. Ryan was now out of the shower he was glad he decided to shave. He put on his lucky t-shirt, he remembered how much she liked the t-shirt the first time he wore it. Ryan now caught a rick and soon reached ‘The Spot’. He looked at his watch it was 7: 55 he was five minutes early. He sat down looking at the water, he remembered the first time he came here how beautiful the moon looked shinning on the river. Soon an hour passed. Ryan was now sweating, he was thankful after last night showers that the rain wasn’t falling tonight. Another hour passed and now Ryan was getting restless. Just then he got a text it was from Sarah.

“Two hours Ryan. Two hours I waited for you that night. I wanted to see if you would do the same. I was counting on the rain greeting you as well. Anyway I’m glad you waited Ryan. Go home now it’s late now. We’ll talk tomorrow. Don’t worry I promise you’ll be smiling. And oh Ryan, NICE TSHIRT.

-- written by Sean D'Mello

Fog - Part Two

2010-05-17T09:00:00.002-04:00

(Part One)

I felt the backend of my car want to whip me around in a harsh 180. My knee-jerk reaction of slamming on the brakes had caused them to lock up, rendering them essentially useless. My tires screamed, the sound slicing through the still night air. I could taste bitter adrenaline in my mouth.

With both of my hands death gripped on the steering wheel, I had no way to pull the emergency brake in a last ditch effort to avoid hitting the man standing in the road ahead of me. I don’t even know if the thought even crossed my mind. My mind repeated the same question. Why isn’t he moving out of the way?

There was less than a dozen feet between us now, and I was still hurtling towards him at twenty miles per hour. I pulled one hand from the wheel to hammer the horn. It blared loudly. I had a moment of clarity and let off the brakes. My car bucked unsteadily, the brakes unlocking. I slammed down on them again. The nose dipped down towards the pavement, and to keep from hitting my head against the wheel I locked my elbows.

In the last second before I hit him, I took one last look at the speedometer. Fifteen MPH. I looked forward again. There he stood, his face passive. I braced myself for impact.

The front of my car cut neatly through him, but there was no gore, no blood. The instant we collided the man shifted into some kind of visible air. I don’t want to call him a ghost, but I suppose that’s what he was. He slid neatly through the windshield as if there was nothing there to separate us, and his eyes locked with mine.

There was something in the way he looked at me that nearly drove me mad. He seemed to look into me, through me, like he was looking for something. Something he wanted to take before he stole off into the night. His mouth gaped, baring sharp looking teeth. He raised one translucent arm towards me, and I worked my throat in an attempt to scream. There was no air in my lungs, and there was no way to escape his grasp.

Just before his hand latched onto my arm, I blinked. The apparition flickered, like bad reception on a TV set. I blinked again. He leaned his head back in a scream. Then he was gone.

I don’t remember coming to a full stop, but I know I did. I don’t remember being thrown against my seatbelt hard enough to leave a diagonal bruise across my chest. I remember sitting in my car for minutes afterwards, trembling, crooked in the road with twin streaks of rubber trailing my tires like balloon strings.

What I remember the most is the way the ghost looked at me. His eyes burn like embers in my mind, and some nights, when fog blankets the road, I can hear him scream.

-- written by Badass Geek

Unfamiliar Territory

2010-05-03T09:00:00.001-04:00

One eye opened to take in the surrounding area. Tucked away under the covers, the other eye observed the powder blue darkness of unfamiliar sheets. Her eyes fluttered and shut out the light coming through the window to fend against the revelation that she was asleep in someone else’s bed.

Finally, releasing it from the coils of covers, she dragged her right hand up her thigh and found that her skirt and tights were missing. In a rushed panic, her hand grabbed where her underwear should be and found them intact. But as the hand glided up her smooth torso it confirmed that her top and bra were missing, she pulled the covers tighter.

The ears discovered the other inhabitant of this space. A toilet flushed in the near distance, water began to run… maybe the sound of teeth being brushed followed. What would she do once the owner of this place returned to observe their captive?

If only she could remember better…

The light of day blinded her eyes as she seized her final opportunity to get a grasp on her surroundings. As she lifted her head from the feather pillow agony overcame her senses. She propped her body against the headboard and placed her head in her hands. The door opened, but she didn’t dare look. Matt… Sam… Josh… none of these names sounded right. None of them were the appropriate label for the male figure that had entered and discovered her.

“Mel, are you okay?” He was so concerned. “Did you take the aspirin I left on the nightstand?”

Next to her side of the bed on a makeshift table were a glass of water and two aspirin sitting on a little note: I hoped in the shower. Take these. –Thom

“You ‘hoped in the shower’? What did you hope for?” Her mind was still a jumble. Her words were unclear. She spoke so softly that she thought he didn’t hear.

“I hoped you wouldn’t leave before I came back to my room, smart ass. Now take your aspirin.”

Thom… She remembered now. Their chance encounter at a mutual friend’s party. Their attempt to catch up over the pounding bass beats coming from the speakers. And their eventual decision to leave for a quieter space.

…The rest was only slightly fuzzy… They had talked, but the talking included soft kisses laid upon her neck. The space between them on the couch had become none existent…

“Thom, did we…?” She couldn’t bear to ask. The words were stuck in her somewhere.

“No, I promise.” Could she trust his sincerity? Did it deserve a reward? She finally spotted her bra and top in a corner on the floor.

“Modesty is such a strange inclination… Will you hand me my top?”

He let out a little laugh that let her know he had seen the twins before. But she put the shirt on and released her top half from hiding.

“Feel better?”

“Only slightly.”

-- written by Loren Kmp

Sanity

2010-04-21T09:00:00.000-04:00

I feel the most sane when the rest of the world thinks I’m crazy.

I see things. Things that would make the minds of the most infallible men run briskly past the limits of their personal definitions of sanity. Things that should only exist in lucid nightmares and campfire ghost stories. Things that defy reality and the laws of physics by their presence in our world. I say “our world” because no kind and loving God would allow such unspeakable horrors to walk among the fragile human race.

It’s hard to explain exactly what I see. Ever since that damn movie came out in 1999 about the kid who could see dead people, whenever I give in to the need to tell someone about my secret ability I am always met with laughter. I always laugh along with them because that’s what is required of me when a joke is told, no matter how much truth lies behind it. Every now and then, when the laughter is fading I notice a brief gleam in the eyes of the person with whom I just entrusted my secret. Life experience suggests that it’s likely nothing more than light reflecting off of their corneas, but that glimmer tells me that part of them wants to believe me. If only I could show them without driving them mad.

What I see is not nearly as pleasant as the dead people portrayed in that movie, where the dead walk among us decked out in cleanly pressed suits and gleaming shoes, offering gestures of comfort to their loved ones. On the other end of the spectrum, I don’t see people as they are depicted in horror films, with their entrails hanging like grotesque sausages or with entire sections of their skulls missing.

Oh, how I wish the latter were the case.

What I see was borne in a place worse than Hell. From the window at my desk where I sit writing this now I see a man standing on the street corner, the skin melting and dripping from his face and arms like tallow. The streetlamp above him doesn’t cast a shadow because he doesn’t truly exist in this world. He senses me looking at him and turns his head, and I see his deflated eyes are leaking a milky fluid. His face contorts into a loose smile, and a maggot wriggles out of one gaping nostril. He knows who I am just as well as I know who he is, or what he is, but I’ll get to that.

I’ve been able to see these things, these creatures, for as long as I can remember. My parents, who loved me fiercely but did what any parent would do, blamed it on an overactive imagination at first when I told them, in my limited six-year-old vocabulary, what I saw. When that thought process failed, they blamed a learning disorder. They eventually resorted to therapy and then medication, which made everything worse.

It made everything disappear.

-- written by Badass Geek

A Late Night Affair

2010-04-19T09:00:00.000-04:00

She waited till the light was finally put off and they retrieved to their bedroom. She knew they wouldn’t be long now putting away the remaining pieces of their Scrabble game too lazy to put it back on the shelf. She heard the door slam shut and soon meticulously began negotiating her way to the front door. She quietly left a piece of cardboard jammed within the door to leave it ajar and made her way down the steps. It was something she had watched her brother do for years before when he needed a late night rendezvous that interfered with his curfew and she knew exactly how not to get caught.

Normally she wouldn’t need to sneak around, times had changed and her parents would have been a little more lenient to letting her meet a certain friend even at this unearthly hour but she often wondered how open they really would be if they knew it was girl. It had began just a few weeks back when jokingly a number of her friends had described how perfect it would be to be comforted, loved and looked after by one of their own seeing as how they knew exactly how they felt when people from the other sex reacted to their so called drama. Shruti however began exploring this concept more deeply than the rest, she had been of the back of a pretty ugly relationship that her friends had running bets on how long it would last, and Cynthia won with 3 weeks.

But what no one ever knew was the truth that lied within her heart. She couldn’t care if there was a single difference between the two, it never really mattered “who got her” or who made her smile the reason behind this wild ride she jumped upon was sheer defiance. She always walked the road that was well layered, always sang songs that were popular, danced with her feet frozen to the ground and never broke a curfew in ten years. She was easily ignored and always taken on a fantasy trip only to end up with her chocolate stolen by the end and her dress stuck in its gates. This sort of behavior put on her the map made ex boyfriends question their decisions and made other guys sit up and take notice.

It’s funny what we all do to get noticed some may find solace in an emotion status messages others may believe a permanent scar will always have peoples ears perked up every time they pass while some just believe in pushing the boundaries at the first opportunity they get.

“And she finally stopped playing their song, when she realized she was dancing alone.”

-- written by Sean D'Mello

My Best Thing

2010-04-14T09:00:00.003-04:00

There was a thunderstorm the night I left my daughter at the psychiatric hospital. It seemed apt; like a dreary, hazy rain at a funeral. The lightning split the sky with violent cracks followed by vengefully loud thunder; thunder that would not be ignored. Or was that just the sounds of the heavy metal doors slamming and locking – my daughter on one side of them and me on the other?

Maybe I was making a mistake. The nurse who had done her intake interview had asked her, “Does you have any urinationary difficulties?” Could I trust her in the hands of someone in a position of authority who thought urinationary was a word? Could I trust her in the hands of someone who began a query with “Does you…”?

It was too late for consideration. I had left her. I had left her without shoelaces or drawstrings. I had left her curled up on a little bed in a sparse room with an open door, looking small and sweet and vulnerable. I had left her with a kiss and a promise that I’d see her the next day during visiting hours. I had left her.

A few more doors, a few papers signed, and I was on my way home in the rain. It was 6:00 in the morning and I hadn’t been to bed yet. People were heading to work, the sun was rising; it was a normal Monday morning. And I had left my daughter in the psychiatric hospital. “Yes, yes, I’m fine to drive,” I’d told the intake social worker.

Led Zeppelin on the radio – I smiled through my tears – through the rain. I’d sung this song to her as a baby, a lullaby of sorts: “If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you. If the mountains crumbled to the sea, there would still be you and me…” I remembered being happy that she was a girl, because I could sing almost all of the love songs to her without changing the lyrics. Her little hand would curl around my finger and I would see all of her potential. The world was hers – the future could be anything. I never envisioned her lying in that bed – behind all of those locked doors. All of those closed doors. She was my best thing.

The rain left with the darkness; the sun rose and the birds sang. Somehow a new day had come. Somehow I hadn’t drowned in the rain. She hadn’t either.

-- written by Tammy

Alma

2010-04-12T09:00:00.000-04:00

Alma thought that where she was looked very surreal, almost as if she was stuck in some parody of the world. But she recognized the swing set at Linden Park, she could hear the laughter of children, and she could feel the breeze as it wafted slowly across her skin.

She wasn’t quite sure, but there was something very, very wrong. Something off-kilter, an intangible thing that weaved its way across her skin and elicited goose pimples down her forearms. Shuddering, she clutched her wrap closer.

Why was she there? She didn’t remember walking there, or arranging to have someone drive her. Shrugging off her confusion, she continued her journey through the park.

Children gallivanted around her, paying her no attention. Daffodils peeked up from the vibrant green grass, smiling at her as birds sung of the day’s praises overhead. As she crested a hill, Alma saw the funeral home across the street.

Someone had died.

Nosy as always – that was her late husband’s biggest complaint about her – Alma drifted closer. It appeared to be a modest turnout of respectable folk dressed in varying shades of black. The church bells chimed the seventh hour of the day as they filed into the cathedral, noisy and unrelenting and ominous.

Alma’s feet began to carry her closer of their own violation. As she slowly walked closer and closer, the color began to bleed out of her world. Shades of grey began to replace the vibrant greens and blues, and the sounds began to dull. The sun set, and as Alma walked she distinctly felt the cheerfulness of the day turn into a sense of foreboding.

She walked into the church, paying the mourners no mind. Halfway crazed, heedless of who would get into her way, she walked towards the front of the church – towards the casket.

A stifled scream of disbelief welled in her throat and stuck. She felt paralyzed as she gazed down into the face of the dead woman.

Her face gazed back at her; eyes closed in what was supposedly a peaceful expression. A purple suit-jacket enclosed her figure, and flowers laid on top of her casket. The flowers seemed to smile as she backed away.

Nobody noticed as she ran down the center aisle of the church, screaming her fury, her confusion, her terror. As she passed the mourners, she realized that she knew them.

Didn’t they see that she was alive? Didn’t they see that she wasn’t in that horrible box?

She tore her gaze from the mourning face of her cousin and realized that there was a sole figure at the back of the church. Steady broad shoulders and a confident stance. As she approached, she realized that she knew him as well.

Just as suddenly as it had engulfed her, terror eased its way out of her being. Comfort flooded her, and she embraced the stranger.

Their matching wedding rings glinted in the sunlight.

-- written by Nyx