Hey you all,
I turned twenty yesterday, and jeez aren't we old? So old only our families remember - actually my parents thought I was turning 21. lol.
I just wanted to wish all of you good luck on finals and Happy Holidays whatever they may be. Make sure you spend time with your family, genetic or otherwise. If I don't see you all - I'm going up to my grandparents - know I'm wishing you the best of the best.
Sincerely,
Sarah
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Jasmine: little bit
I have one essay, three tests, and six days standing between me and those I love. So few things to do, so little time, but I hate it. I want today to be the nineteenth and the world be damned for those twelve days in-between.
My body is in pain… still. I can feel muscles all over it squeal when I shift my weight while sitting in this chair. Lower back, trapezius, deltoids, triceps, the brachialis on my right arm. My ass hurts, but not like a bruise, like my one of the gluteus muscles is angry with me, the gracilis, and my gastrocnemius was hurting from even before Saturday. When I breathe I can still feel someone’s arms around my chest crushing the air out of it, and when my face moves in an expression my right eyebrow complains.
Laptag was amazing, just how amazing will depend on how many days I’m in pain. They are directly proportional. The next laptag is on the nineteenth, Doug comes home on the nineteenth, if the weather cooperates Meghan will be home on the eighteenth, I’m done with finals on the seventeenth, so many good things in so few days. I don’t know how I’ll manage to contain my happiness, one of my neighbors might stroke out from the blowback. We’ll see.
My body is in pain… still. I can feel muscles all over it squeal when I shift my weight while sitting in this chair. Lower back, trapezius, deltoids, triceps, the brachialis on my right arm. My ass hurts, but not like a bruise, like my one of the gluteus muscles is angry with me, the gracilis, and my gastrocnemius was hurting from even before Saturday. When I breathe I can still feel someone’s arms around my chest crushing the air out of it, and when my face moves in an expression my right eyebrow complains.
Laptag was amazing, just how amazing will depend on how many days I’m in pain. They are directly proportional. The next laptag is on the nineteenth, Doug comes home on the nineteenth, if the weather cooperates Meghan will be home on the eighteenth, I’m done with finals on the seventeenth, so many good things in so few days. I don’t know how I’ll manage to contain my happiness, one of my neighbors might stroke out from the blowback. We’ll see.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Doug: I hate you. Leave me alone.
I never find time to do this anymore. Course, not having a computer will severely limit your myfacetwit/blog/webcomic/porn time. Like, seriously.
Dear whatever God I have recently offended,
Please stop fucking with my shit. You've already taken my computer, my husky card and the peace and quiet in my household. I have an eight page paper due tomorrow, a test Friday, and two more monday and wendsday. I'm too poor to afford rent. I don't have time for people, so, naturally, they're mad at me and to top it all off it's so cold that I am in literal pain when I step outside of my house. This wouldn't matter, if I didn't have two days of outdoor PT left. But I do, and I'm not looking forward to frostbite.
So. Could you give it a rest?
kthnxbai!
-Doug
"Those that claim they want the attention of the gods have never felt the crushing, terrifying weight of that attention."
-Gen "The Thief"
Dear whatever God I have recently offended,
Please stop fucking with my shit. You've already taken my computer, my husky card and the peace and quiet in my household. I have an eight page paper due tomorrow, a test Friday, and two more monday and wendsday. I'm too poor to afford rent. I don't have time for people, so, naturally, they're mad at me and to top it all off it's so cold that I am in literal pain when I step outside of my house. This wouldn't matter, if I didn't have two days of outdoor PT left. But I do, and I'm not looking forward to frostbite.
So. Could you give it a rest?
kthnxbai!
-Doug
"Those that claim they want the attention of the gods have never felt the crushing, terrifying weight of that attention."
-Gen "The Thief"
Saturday, December 5, 2009
That Guy: Comedy
Maybe it's the fact that we're all standing in the bitter, angry cold. Maybe it's the fact that our bodies tell us we should be in soft warm beds, curled with loved ones, stuffed animals, blankets. Maybe it's the fact that we all know what has to be done, and even though it's not that bad, it sucks.
Whatever the case, there is not a single person here who couldn't be a comedian.
Maybe we're all just looking for something to make it a little easier. No one does this job because it's what they love. It's work, plain and simple. Whether we have bills that have to be taken care of, whether we're putting our kids through college, whether we simply can't get another job, we do what we must.
"What's the most confusing holiday in Espanola?"
"Fathers Day"
Whatever the case, there is not a single person here who couldn't be a comedian.
Maybe we're all just looking for something to make it a little easier. No one does this job because it's what they love. It's work, plain and simple. Whether we have bills that have to be taken care of, whether we're putting our kids through college, whether we simply can't get another job, we do what we must.
"What's the most confusing holiday in Espanola?"
"Fathers Day"
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
That Guy: Candlelight
A tiny, flickering flame.
Breathing in the air around it.
Absorbing the oxygen. Growing softly. Growing gently.
Snuffed away. Diminshed into nothing.
Live each day like it's your last.
RIP Kris
Breathing in the air around it.
Absorbing the oxygen. Growing softly. Growing gently.
Snuffed away. Diminshed into nothing.
Live each day like it's your last.
RIP Kris
200
Doug: 200
I’m going to show off my geek here. Stargate SG-1’s 200th episode was the main characters all sitting around making inside jokes and reminiscing. I thoroughly enjoyed it, being an SG-1/sci-fi geek. Anyone not in on the joke was probably really bored. But screw them. They’re not in on the joke.
That’s pretty much how I feel about this two hundredth blog. We started this thing for a couple different reasons. Keep in touch, post our writing, get closer to one another, because we’re all close friends, and a million other reasons, stated and otherwise. Over the last year and some change we’ve managed to post a novel’s worth of blogs about everything from the indiscriminate slaughter of annoying roommates to true love to requiems for those we’ve lost.
We’ve changed. Like the stars we’ve drifted a little, gravity and motion pulling us apart. This blog has seen darkest moments, greatest victories. Funny stories and bitter loss. I have seen more of the soul of The Fearsome Fivesome than I ever thought I would. I have learned things about my best friends that I would never have had the privilege of knowing without this medium. So, even though the bodies drift apart, the bonds between us remain strong.
This is a grand experiment. I am proud to have been a part of it, and to remain a part of it. I do not know where this is going. I know not what adventures await us in the future. I do know that the Curse of Heron Lake will inevitably drag me back there. I know that the origin story of Abe and Doug will be continued. I know that Sarah will undoubtedly speak of the mysteries of Love. And I know that Jasmine will eventually find the road to Immortality, and share it with all of us.
For now though, this is our Immortality, this Fivesome.
-Doug
“It was a beautiful day
Don't let it get away”
“Beautiful Day” U2
Abe:200
Doug. You've done a fantastic job of summing things up. There is no way to express what all we've been through together. Science says every time you remember a memory, it fades just a little bit. Here's one way to make sure those memories never fade.
We will ride again. And soon.
Meghan: 200
“GOD DAMN IT DOUG!!!” I stomped into his throne room, practically giving of licks of flame in my rage. His attendants scuttled out of my way, crouched down in a bowing retreat.
Doug lounged on a huge, ornately carved throne. Luxurious furs draped over his shoulders and onto the floor. His hands lazily twisted apart a new weapon that had been brought to him.
“Meghan? What’s wrong?” he asked innocently.
I halted in front of his chair, baring my fangs in anger, “What’s wrong? You send an army into Quorbec and you ask me what’s WRONG!?”
He clicked ammunition into his new toy, “Oh relax, I was just playing with you.”
“That is not playing, the city is mine.”
“For now.”
I growled and placed my hands on the arms of his chair, leaning down inches away from his face.
“Don’t fuck with me.”
His mouth twitched, “But darling, that’s what we do.”
I grabbed the assembled weapon in his lap and slammed it across his face. It might have knocked the head clean off of a human man, but Doug’s face just showed the barest blush of red from the blow. He turned his face slowly back to look at me.
“Ow.” He said.
“Oh you baby, it’s only a—“ I stared down at the twisted metal in my hands, “a…metal bludgeoning thing.”
He made a strangled noise as he took the shattered weapon from me, “This was the newest in design from the central province! And you…” he stared at me with heartbroken eyes.
“Now we’re even?”
He stood up and glared down into my eyes, “We will never be even.”
I grinned at him, “Fine. Prepare to eat fire. Same stakes as usual?”
“Of course.”
“See you at the next summit meeting.”
He ran a hand through my hair, fingers catching on the random braids woven into it, and pulled me to him. I kissed him fiercely and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. Eventually we broke for air, and I kissed him again lightly before walking back out of the room.
“See you later.”
“Are you going to see any of the others?” he called after me.
“Yes, I’m making the rounds.”
“Say hello for me will you, and…you know.”
“Of course.”
His attendants stood awkwardly in the background as I blew out of the room. They were used to the strange ways of their lord, but that didn’t mean they understood them.
“GOD DAMN IT JASMINE!!!”
Jasmine’s eyes rolled up to see me as I strode into her chambers, “Do you always have to enter that way?”
“I just like it.” My breath caught as I looked at her, or, more specifically, the thing in her arms.
His head lolled to the side, and the bindings that held him to the chair were probably the only things holding him upright. His shirt was torn into long ribbons and a delicate wound in his neck poured blood. Jasmine wore a mask of red that covered her jaw and neck, and dripped down her chest. Her hands stroked her victim gently, as if soothing him to sleep. My back was pressing against the wall before I even realized that I had backed up. My breathing deepened as I watched the blood drip slowly from his prone form.
I swallowed, “One of yours?”
Jasmine let him go and walked towards me, “A spy, a traitor. He was caught selling information to the States.”
She held her glistening hands out to me, “You want?”
I shuddered, but not from disgust, “You know how I get on blood, if you want him alive it’s not such a good idea.”
“It’s okay,” her red face hovered in front of mine, “I got what I needed from him.”
I pressed myself against the wall, “You’re sure?”
“Sure.” She slid a finger into my mouth.
The ecstasy of the taste is impossible to describe; rich wine, sweet berries, chocolate, nothing could compare. I quickly sucked her finger clean then picked her up and kissed her with a little growl. Her hands and body glided the blood over me, the smell driving me nearly insane. I licked and kissed along her jaw and neck, falling onto the bed with her. Small moans from beside the bed made me freeze and slowly turn my head in their direction. It was the man in the chair.
“Help me,” he whispered, “Please—“
“You really should have stayed quiet.” Jasmine said.
My eyes focused on him and my muscles tensed to spring. His eyes widened in fear and I was on him, falling forever into that sweet taste.
“Hey Abe.”
“Hey…Meghan?” His eyes narrowed suspiciously as he looked me over, “You didn’t break down my door and start yelling. What’s…?” He took in the relaxed posture of my limbs and the lazy cast to my eyes, “Oohhh…So you finally got some.”
I glared at him, “I have been getting some for a while now.”
“Not that,” he waved a hand, “The blood, I heard you were going cold turkey.”
I rubbed my arms uncomfortably, “No. Well, kind of. I just wanted to try it. I mean, we’re old enough now to go without right?”
“Right, technically, but you’re kind of irritating when you go without. It’s easier on the rest of us if you’d just feed.”
My mouth twitched as I recalled the number of times I had broken things in my friends’ homes since my fast began. Maybe he was right…
“Well Sarah—“
“Wait, Sarah put you up to it? I knew it, did you happen to visit her during your little time of self denial or were we the only ones who suffered?”
“Yeah I visited her. Hey, I do have free will you know, I can choose to go off it if I want to.”
He snorted and took a long pull from his cigar, the smoke circles he blew clearly telling me I had no idea what I was talking about.
I blew out a lungful of air and turned to leave, “Believe what you want. I’ll see you at the meeting next year. Oh and Doug wants to know if you want to start another war with the coastal countries, and Jasmine said to stop eating her human sacrifices. Ciao.”
I paused outside Sarah’s door, wondering if I should start breaking things to disguise my uncharacteristic good mood. In the end I decided against it, she would know that I had hopped off the wagon, even if I tried to hide it. I could only hope that she wouldn’t care too much. I walked silently through the trees of her forest, looking around for signs of life. I sort of knew where her home was, but the location seemed to always be changing. Finally the trees broke and I was walking on the edge of a sparkling lake. A family of swans trumpeted angrily at my arrival, just in case their master didn’t already know I was here. A castle loomed at the lake side but I kept walking, taking in the scenery, and knowing that I would run into Sarah eventually.
“MEGHAN!!!” I heard her tiny voice scream from very far away. I looked around, and was caught off guard when she slammed into me, carrying me several dozen feet before we stopped.
“It’s great to see you; you haven’t been by in forever, how are you?” She said in rapid succession.
“Can’t—breathe.” I choked out.
She snorted, not relaxing her grip an inch, “We don’t breathe dummy, you can’t get away that easily.” She proceeded to tow me in the direction of her castle, “Come on, we have to have tea.” I made a token effort to walk on my own, but was ignored as usual. We sipped from china that she set out in her kitchen herself. Having shunned the presence of humans for a while now, Sarah lived in her castle without the edible entourage that the rest of us kept around. Part of her abstaining thing; none of us really got it, but that was Sarah.
“So what are the rest up to?” she asked as I sipped the warm herbs and sighed in contentment.
“Oh the usual.” I felt a guilty drop in my stomach, “blood, mayhem, inter-city warfare.”
She sighed and set down her cup, “I know you’re off the wagon Meghan.”
“What? How?”
“I can smell it all over you,” She laughed, “Don’t worry; I’m not mad, just a little…disappointed.” I fidgeted in my seat like a guilty four year old, “I just wish there was another one like me, you know?” she said wistfully. And I did know; my vegetarian sister needed someone just for her. To live forever without someone to share your soul was a terrible thing. I couldn’t be her soul mate, but as her friend I should at least be able to not eat people with her.
“You…“ I cleared my throat cautiously, “you could turn someone to—“
“No.” She said sharply, “We’ve talked about that, it’s impossible, I can’t. I won’t.”
I pulled my hair back from my face in a gesture of frustration. She was lonely, but she wouldn’t bring anyone over to break the loneliness. It was an endless cycle that just ended in emotional turmoil and chocolate binges.
I sipped my tea again, then set the cup down with a click, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do; I’m going to turn someone. There’s nothing you can do about it, I’m going to turn someone and sick him on you, so you might as well pick someone you like for me to turn so it won’t be too unpleasant.”
She made a face, “The others wouldn’t let you.”
I glared at her, “We’ll see.”
She sighed and looked dreamily into the air, running her fingers through her long brown hair and pulling out leaves that had interwoven into the strands.
“I’m waiting for him.” She announced after a pause.
I frowned, “Waiting for who?”
“For that person who is my other half, for the one I’m willing to kill for so that we can stay together. That’s who I’m waiting for. When I find that one, I’ll turn him.”
I blew out a breathe, “Honey, when was the last time you even saw a human?”
She blinked, “I saw one. A few years ago…maybe a couple decades? Not long.”
“Uh huh, so where is this magical man of yours going to come from?”
“Maybe he’ll wander in and…” She hesitated.
“And you’ll kill him on site because you can’t restrain yourself from the blood?”
Her lips twisted and she took another sip of tea.
I stood up and grabbed her wrist, catching the cup as it fell from her hand, “That’s it, we’re going out.”
She made a sound of alarm.
“Yes, out. No, you have no choice.”
She looked at me with terrified eyes, “Meghan, I can’t!” She clawed at my grip with the terror of a wild animal but I didn’t let go.
“You can learn to control it.” I said carefully, “You can learn to not drink.” She stopped clawing at me and eyed me suspiciously.
“A lot of time has passed since we were children, we’re not controlled by our thirst anymore.”
“It’s possible not to drink? To see them, touch them, talk with them and not kill them?”
I shrugged a shoulder up and down, “Yes. It tends to turn the abstainer in question into kind of a bitch, but it is possible. And with your control? I would bet on it.”
She smiled at me, the barest slip of teeth glinting from her lips, “All right then, let’s go.”
I linked my arm in hers and led her from the castle where she had spent the last half-century.
“A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.”
-Meghan
Sarah: 200
665 Days have past since Graduation
A Proposal – We all need to hang out. SERIOUSLY. Like, in person. I miss you guys. So however it happens; it needs to. Tis how I feel.
Tea and Love
For it has been said that love eludes us. It confuses us as a pleasant leash that leads us to different places in our hearts; joy, jealousy, pain, loneliness, contentment- are among the pit stops along the highway of life. They remind us that we are human and we are meant to feel. That we cannot help but feel. However, for all that has been said about love, we often find it where we aren't looking for it. We often expect it to be in a lover. But really most love isn't romantic. Its something better. For me its in a brother, a tea-lover, a cat woman, and a Jew.
I've found it in Meghan who will call, cry, and talk with me, sharing our feelings over carrot cake cupcakes and tea. Who can travel to Europe with me and put up with 200 clocked hours of the exact same Dashboard Confessional album. Who will shop with me for cute underwear and girlie things, destroying any resemblance of hesitation or shame I had about things I didn't understand. Lastly she is the best friend who never ever fails to rescue me from castle surrounded by a fire-breathing dragons that I've locked myself in.
I've found it in Doug, a brother who I ate white fresh baked Smith's bread in the cab of my truck, who was there for me through thick and thin, who made summer night trips to Hinkle, who screamed when he discovered tampons in my backpack our freshman year of high school (like a girl).
I've found it in Jasmine, who fights with me but also fights for me, who may occasionally bother me but never ever says anything less than the truth. She helps me focus my emotions instead of wallowing all out on my own. She shares secrets and listens to mine. We talk, and we laugh, and we miss "her people." We do it together.
I've found it in Abe, too, back in the day. Between the walks to the park, or Smiths, hanging with Doug at Hinkle, speech and debate (kicking his ass at impromptu btws), or the long phone conversations from his old prison, there was friendship. Even now, it may seem like we squabble, and there may be some deep hurt in both directions, but while we fight, I care.
Friendship. Its a love that we can understand, that we do have, and that is a bond we'll always share.
Sincerely,
With love,
Sarah
The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart. ~Elisabeth Foley
In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. ~Albert Schweitzer
Jasmine
“We're weird,” Meghan finished ladling the last of the gravy into the gravy boat and walked it to the table.
“Meh, weird is relative” I carried a tray of baked yams slathered in a brown sugar sauce topped with lightly toasted marshmallows. They were going to sit next to me even if I had to move someone’s green bean casserole, I wanted those yams.
“Explain.”
“Well, compared to some, like your brother, yes were very weird, but compared to others like Michael Jackson, not so weird.”
The table was large for five people. But we’d covered it with food. From one side to the other the only blank spaces were the empty plates in front of each chair. Doug and Abe were already sitting. I smiled at Abe and he narrowed his eyes at me knowing he would be doing dishes in a couple of hours. Doug was too distracted by the food he couldn’t touch yet to realize the danger he was in.
“Michael Jackson’s dead…” Doug looked up briefly from the gravy.
“Yes and one day you will be too.” Sarah had finished placing a napkin and was looking around for something else to put on the already overburdened table.
“That’s the spirit! One day we’ll all be dead and on Jasmine’s table.”
“I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the bird for being dead and on my table.” Everyone gazed longingly at the half carved golden bird of fat joy.
“Everything’s done. Let’s eat.”
“You sure?” Sarah hesitated.
“Yes. Put your ass in that chair so we can eat.”
She grudgingly sat, and then began to smile at the piles and piles of food.
“Do we say grace?” I asked no one in particular.
“No?”
“Ashes to ashes, dressing to dust, turkey turkey, we’ll eat till we bust, cause we hella want to.”
“Yes Abe, beautiful.” Doug was already reaching for the mashed potatoes.
A large spoon flew from Sarah’s hand smacking Doug’s hand out of the way. “What the hell Sarah, if you wanted them first you could have asked.”
“No, we have to say what were thankful for… it’s tradition.”
“Well I recently saw a show where they did that and then the father tried to kill everyone. So I’m okay with skipping that part.” I thought back to that episode of Dexter… god I need to get a life.
“No TV references for forty-eight hours, you promised.” Meghan looked as sad as I felt at my lack of life. “Now we have to start over again.” We’d been trying this particular game for almost a week now. But she hadn’t made it two days without mentioning Hera either so we were even.
“Forget the TV guys, this is tradition. Jasmine you go first”
I looked around the room making sure that this season’s killer wasn’t actually lurking behind the clock waiting for me not to mention him in my thanks so he could strangle me while my friends watched. He wasn’t there.
“I’m thankful to have you four. In my life I’ve never made many friends. I’ve met a lot a people and maybe liked a quarter of them, but many fewer than that have I ever managed to care about. Doug, Meghan, I love you, you are probably the two people in the world who know me the best, and you’re still there, so I guess that means something. Sarah, we may never be as close as you and Meghan, and you hope never as close as me and Meghan, but I care about you, I care when you are happy and sad, even if you vacillate between the two a lot, and I will fight for you when the time comes. Abe, we’ve never been close, I don’t know you half as well as Doug or Sarah, but with what I do know about you I care about you, and I respect you, maybe because of Doug and Sarah. You are someone who will be there if he can, and that is more than a lot of people I’ve had in my life can say. Thank you for being my friends.”
I’m going to show off my geek here. Stargate SG-1’s 200th episode was the main characters all sitting around making inside jokes and reminiscing. I thoroughly enjoyed it, being an SG-1/sci-fi geek. Anyone not in on the joke was probably really bored. But screw them. They’re not in on the joke.
That’s pretty much how I feel about this two hundredth blog. We started this thing for a couple different reasons. Keep in touch, post our writing, get closer to one another, because we’re all close friends, and a million other reasons, stated and otherwise. Over the last year and some change we’ve managed to post a novel’s worth of blogs about everything from the indiscriminate slaughter of annoying roommates to true love to requiems for those we’ve lost.
We’ve changed. Like the stars we’ve drifted a little, gravity and motion pulling us apart. This blog has seen darkest moments, greatest victories. Funny stories and bitter loss. I have seen more of the soul of The Fearsome Fivesome than I ever thought I would. I have learned things about my best friends that I would never have had the privilege of knowing without this medium. So, even though the bodies drift apart, the bonds between us remain strong.
This is a grand experiment. I am proud to have been a part of it, and to remain a part of it. I do not know where this is going. I know not what adventures await us in the future. I do know that the Curse of Heron Lake will inevitably drag me back there. I know that the origin story of Abe and Doug will be continued. I know that Sarah will undoubtedly speak of the mysteries of Love. And I know that Jasmine will eventually find the road to Immortality, and share it with all of us.
For now though, this is our Immortality, this Fivesome.
-Doug
“It was a beautiful day
Don't let it get away”
“Beautiful Day” U2
Abe:200
Doug. You've done a fantastic job of summing things up. There is no way to express what all we've been through together. Science says every time you remember a memory, it fades just a little bit. Here's one way to make sure those memories never fade.
We will ride again. And soon.
Meghan: 200
“GOD DAMN IT DOUG!!!” I stomped into his throne room, practically giving of licks of flame in my rage. His attendants scuttled out of my way, crouched down in a bowing retreat.
Doug lounged on a huge, ornately carved throne. Luxurious furs draped over his shoulders and onto the floor. His hands lazily twisted apart a new weapon that had been brought to him.
“Meghan? What’s wrong?” he asked innocently.
I halted in front of his chair, baring my fangs in anger, “What’s wrong? You send an army into Quorbec and you ask me what’s WRONG!?”
He clicked ammunition into his new toy, “Oh relax, I was just playing with you.”
“That is not playing, the city is mine.”
“For now.”
I growled and placed my hands on the arms of his chair, leaning down inches away from his face.
“Don’t fuck with me.”
His mouth twitched, “But darling, that’s what we do.”
I grabbed the assembled weapon in his lap and slammed it across his face. It might have knocked the head clean off of a human man, but Doug’s face just showed the barest blush of red from the blow. He turned his face slowly back to look at me.
“Ow.” He said.
“Oh you baby, it’s only a—“ I stared down at the twisted metal in my hands, “a…metal bludgeoning thing.”
He made a strangled noise as he took the shattered weapon from me, “This was the newest in design from the central province! And you…” he stared at me with heartbroken eyes.
“Now we’re even?”
He stood up and glared down into my eyes, “We will never be even.”
I grinned at him, “Fine. Prepare to eat fire. Same stakes as usual?”
“Of course.”
“See you at the next summit meeting.”
He ran a hand through my hair, fingers catching on the random braids woven into it, and pulled me to him. I kissed him fiercely and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. Eventually we broke for air, and I kissed him again lightly before walking back out of the room.
“See you later.”
“Are you going to see any of the others?” he called after me.
“Yes, I’m making the rounds.”
“Say hello for me will you, and…you know.”
“Of course.”
His attendants stood awkwardly in the background as I blew out of the room. They were used to the strange ways of their lord, but that didn’t mean they understood them.
“GOD DAMN IT JASMINE!!!”
Jasmine’s eyes rolled up to see me as I strode into her chambers, “Do you always have to enter that way?”
“I just like it.” My breath caught as I looked at her, or, more specifically, the thing in her arms.
His head lolled to the side, and the bindings that held him to the chair were probably the only things holding him upright. His shirt was torn into long ribbons and a delicate wound in his neck poured blood. Jasmine wore a mask of red that covered her jaw and neck, and dripped down her chest. Her hands stroked her victim gently, as if soothing him to sleep. My back was pressing against the wall before I even realized that I had backed up. My breathing deepened as I watched the blood drip slowly from his prone form.
I swallowed, “One of yours?”
Jasmine let him go and walked towards me, “A spy, a traitor. He was caught selling information to the States.”
She held her glistening hands out to me, “You want?”
I shuddered, but not from disgust, “You know how I get on blood, if you want him alive it’s not such a good idea.”
“It’s okay,” her red face hovered in front of mine, “I got what I needed from him.”
I pressed myself against the wall, “You’re sure?”
“Sure.” She slid a finger into my mouth.
The ecstasy of the taste is impossible to describe; rich wine, sweet berries, chocolate, nothing could compare. I quickly sucked her finger clean then picked her up and kissed her with a little growl. Her hands and body glided the blood over me, the smell driving me nearly insane. I licked and kissed along her jaw and neck, falling onto the bed with her. Small moans from beside the bed made me freeze and slowly turn my head in their direction. It was the man in the chair.
“Help me,” he whispered, “Please—“
“You really should have stayed quiet.” Jasmine said.
My eyes focused on him and my muscles tensed to spring. His eyes widened in fear and I was on him, falling forever into that sweet taste.
“Hey Abe.”
“Hey…Meghan?” His eyes narrowed suspiciously as he looked me over, “You didn’t break down my door and start yelling. What’s…?” He took in the relaxed posture of my limbs and the lazy cast to my eyes, “Oohhh…So you finally got some.”
I glared at him, “I have been getting some for a while now.”
“Not that,” he waved a hand, “The blood, I heard you were going cold turkey.”
I rubbed my arms uncomfortably, “No. Well, kind of. I just wanted to try it. I mean, we’re old enough now to go without right?”
“Right, technically, but you’re kind of irritating when you go without. It’s easier on the rest of us if you’d just feed.”
My mouth twitched as I recalled the number of times I had broken things in my friends’ homes since my fast began. Maybe he was right…
“Well Sarah—“
“Wait, Sarah put you up to it? I knew it, did you happen to visit her during your little time of self denial or were we the only ones who suffered?”
“Yeah I visited her. Hey, I do have free will you know, I can choose to go off it if I want to.”
He snorted and took a long pull from his cigar, the smoke circles he blew clearly telling me I had no idea what I was talking about.
I blew out a lungful of air and turned to leave, “Believe what you want. I’ll see you at the meeting next year. Oh and Doug wants to know if you want to start another war with the coastal countries, and Jasmine said to stop eating her human sacrifices. Ciao.”
I paused outside Sarah’s door, wondering if I should start breaking things to disguise my uncharacteristic good mood. In the end I decided against it, she would know that I had hopped off the wagon, even if I tried to hide it. I could only hope that she wouldn’t care too much. I walked silently through the trees of her forest, looking around for signs of life. I sort of knew where her home was, but the location seemed to always be changing. Finally the trees broke and I was walking on the edge of a sparkling lake. A family of swans trumpeted angrily at my arrival, just in case their master didn’t already know I was here. A castle loomed at the lake side but I kept walking, taking in the scenery, and knowing that I would run into Sarah eventually.
“MEGHAN!!!” I heard her tiny voice scream from very far away. I looked around, and was caught off guard when she slammed into me, carrying me several dozen feet before we stopped.
“It’s great to see you; you haven’t been by in forever, how are you?” She said in rapid succession.
“Can’t—breathe.” I choked out.
She snorted, not relaxing her grip an inch, “We don’t breathe dummy, you can’t get away that easily.” She proceeded to tow me in the direction of her castle, “Come on, we have to have tea.” I made a token effort to walk on my own, but was ignored as usual. We sipped from china that she set out in her kitchen herself. Having shunned the presence of humans for a while now, Sarah lived in her castle without the edible entourage that the rest of us kept around. Part of her abstaining thing; none of us really got it, but that was Sarah.
“So what are the rest up to?” she asked as I sipped the warm herbs and sighed in contentment.
“Oh the usual.” I felt a guilty drop in my stomach, “blood, mayhem, inter-city warfare.”
She sighed and set down her cup, “I know you’re off the wagon Meghan.”
“What? How?”
“I can smell it all over you,” She laughed, “Don’t worry; I’m not mad, just a little…disappointed.” I fidgeted in my seat like a guilty four year old, “I just wish there was another one like me, you know?” she said wistfully. And I did know; my vegetarian sister needed someone just for her. To live forever without someone to share your soul was a terrible thing. I couldn’t be her soul mate, but as her friend I should at least be able to not eat people with her.
“You…“ I cleared my throat cautiously, “you could turn someone to—“
“No.” She said sharply, “We’ve talked about that, it’s impossible, I can’t. I won’t.”
I pulled my hair back from my face in a gesture of frustration. She was lonely, but she wouldn’t bring anyone over to break the loneliness. It was an endless cycle that just ended in emotional turmoil and chocolate binges.
I sipped my tea again, then set the cup down with a click, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do; I’m going to turn someone. There’s nothing you can do about it, I’m going to turn someone and sick him on you, so you might as well pick someone you like for me to turn so it won’t be too unpleasant.”
She made a face, “The others wouldn’t let you.”
I glared at her, “We’ll see.”
She sighed and looked dreamily into the air, running her fingers through her long brown hair and pulling out leaves that had interwoven into the strands.
“I’m waiting for him.” She announced after a pause.
I frowned, “Waiting for who?”
“For that person who is my other half, for the one I’m willing to kill for so that we can stay together. That’s who I’m waiting for. When I find that one, I’ll turn him.”
I blew out a breathe, “Honey, when was the last time you even saw a human?”
She blinked, “I saw one. A few years ago…maybe a couple decades? Not long.”
“Uh huh, so where is this magical man of yours going to come from?”
“Maybe he’ll wander in and…” She hesitated.
“And you’ll kill him on site because you can’t restrain yourself from the blood?”
Her lips twisted and she took another sip of tea.
I stood up and grabbed her wrist, catching the cup as it fell from her hand, “That’s it, we’re going out.”
She made a sound of alarm.
“Yes, out. No, you have no choice.”
She looked at me with terrified eyes, “Meghan, I can’t!” She clawed at my grip with the terror of a wild animal but I didn’t let go.
“You can learn to control it.” I said carefully, “You can learn to not drink.” She stopped clawing at me and eyed me suspiciously.
“A lot of time has passed since we were children, we’re not controlled by our thirst anymore.”
“It’s possible not to drink? To see them, touch them, talk with them and not kill them?”
I shrugged a shoulder up and down, “Yes. It tends to turn the abstainer in question into kind of a bitch, but it is possible. And with your control? I would bet on it.”
She smiled at me, the barest slip of teeth glinting from her lips, “All right then, let’s go.”
I linked my arm in hers and led her from the castle where she had spent the last half-century.
“A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.”
-Meghan
Sarah: 200
665 Days have past since Graduation
A Proposal – We all need to hang out. SERIOUSLY. Like, in person. I miss you guys. So however it happens; it needs to. Tis how I feel.
Tea and Love
For it has been said that love eludes us. It confuses us as a pleasant leash that leads us to different places in our hearts; joy, jealousy, pain, loneliness, contentment- are among the pit stops along the highway of life. They remind us that we are human and we are meant to feel. That we cannot help but feel. However, for all that has been said about love, we often find it where we aren't looking for it. We often expect it to be in a lover. But really most love isn't romantic. Its something better. For me its in a brother, a tea-lover, a cat woman, and a Jew.
I've found it in Meghan who will call, cry, and talk with me, sharing our feelings over carrot cake cupcakes and tea. Who can travel to Europe with me and put up with 200 clocked hours of the exact same Dashboard Confessional album. Who will shop with me for cute underwear and girlie things, destroying any resemblance of hesitation or shame I had about things I didn't understand. Lastly she is the best friend who never ever fails to rescue me from castle surrounded by a fire-breathing dragons that I've locked myself in.
I've found it in Doug, a brother who I ate white fresh baked Smith's bread in the cab of my truck, who was there for me through thick and thin, who made summer night trips to Hinkle, who screamed when he discovered tampons in my backpack our freshman year of high school (like a girl).
I've found it in Jasmine, who fights with me but also fights for me, who may occasionally bother me but never ever says anything less than the truth. She helps me focus my emotions instead of wallowing all out on my own. She shares secrets and listens to mine. We talk, and we laugh, and we miss "her people." We do it together.
I've found it in Abe, too, back in the day. Between the walks to the park, or Smiths, hanging with Doug at Hinkle, speech and debate (kicking his ass at impromptu btws), or the long phone conversations from his old prison, there was friendship. Even now, it may seem like we squabble, and there may be some deep hurt in both directions, but while we fight, I care.
Friendship. Its a love that we can understand, that we do have, and that is a bond we'll always share.
Sincerely,
With love,
Sarah
The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart. ~Elisabeth Foley
In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. ~Albert Schweitzer
Jasmine
“We're weird,” Meghan finished ladling the last of the gravy into the gravy boat and walked it to the table.
“Meh, weird is relative” I carried a tray of baked yams slathered in a brown sugar sauce topped with lightly toasted marshmallows. They were going to sit next to me even if I had to move someone’s green bean casserole, I wanted those yams.
“Explain.”
“Well, compared to some, like your brother, yes were very weird, but compared to others like Michael Jackson, not so weird.”
The table was large for five people. But we’d covered it with food. From one side to the other the only blank spaces were the empty plates in front of each chair. Doug and Abe were already sitting. I smiled at Abe and he narrowed his eyes at me knowing he would be doing dishes in a couple of hours. Doug was too distracted by the food he couldn’t touch yet to realize the danger he was in.
“Michael Jackson’s dead…” Doug looked up briefly from the gravy.
“Yes and one day you will be too.” Sarah had finished placing a napkin and was looking around for something else to put on the already overburdened table.
“That’s the spirit! One day we’ll all be dead and on Jasmine’s table.”
“I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the bird for being dead and on my table.” Everyone gazed longingly at the half carved golden bird of fat joy.
“Everything’s done. Let’s eat.”
“You sure?” Sarah hesitated.
“Yes. Put your ass in that chair so we can eat.”
She grudgingly sat, and then began to smile at the piles and piles of food.
“Do we say grace?” I asked no one in particular.
“No?”
“Ashes to ashes, dressing to dust, turkey turkey, we’ll eat till we bust, cause we hella want to.”
“Yes Abe, beautiful.” Doug was already reaching for the mashed potatoes.
A large spoon flew from Sarah’s hand smacking Doug’s hand out of the way. “What the hell Sarah, if you wanted them first you could have asked.”
“No, we have to say what were thankful for… it’s tradition.”
“Well I recently saw a show where they did that and then the father tried to kill everyone. So I’m okay with skipping that part.” I thought back to that episode of Dexter… god I need to get a life.
“No TV references for forty-eight hours, you promised.” Meghan looked as sad as I felt at my lack of life. “Now we have to start over again.” We’d been trying this particular game for almost a week now. But she hadn’t made it two days without mentioning Hera either so we were even.
“Forget the TV guys, this is tradition. Jasmine you go first”
I looked around the room making sure that this season’s killer wasn’t actually lurking behind the clock waiting for me not to mention him in my thanks so he could strangle me while my friends watched. He wasn’t there.
“I’m thankful to have you four. In my life I’ve never made many friends. I’ve met a lot a people and maybe liked a quarter of them, but many fewer than that have I ever managed to care about. Doug, Meghan, I love you, you are probably the two people in the world who know me the best, and you’re still there, so I guess that means something. Sarah, we may never be as close as you and Meghan, and you hope never as close as me and Meghan, but I care about you, I care when you are happy and sad, even if you vacillate between the two a lot, and I will fight for you when the time comes. Abe, we’ve never been close, I don’t know you half as well as Doug or Sarah, but with what I do know about you I care about you, and I respect you, maybe because of Doug and Sarah. You are someone who will be there if he can, and that is more than a lot of people I’ve had in my life can say. Thank you for being my friends.”
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Jasmine
It was cold that night. Hell it’s been cold all week. But that night it was cold and stormy. As if the sky cried just a little from watching the people cry a lot.
After someone dies there is a lot of standing around and a little sitting down. People don’t like to sit because it makes them feel like they are doing less even when no one is doing anything at all. Sitting is passive, standing is at least active. So they stand around a house or in the street waiting for someone to tell them what to do. Every once in a while someone who knew the deceased better than they did will pass and they’ll give them a hug and tell them how sorry they are and they will feel better about themselves because they got to do something more than standing and much more than sitting.
But it was cold that night and people filtered out of the street and into houses. They sat and they stood around the living rooms waiting for something to change.
The first change came when the police took the body away. It meant that they could go into the house now, the house of the deceased. But only close family went at first. The second change came. A car rolled up and out spilled more crying people and suddenly the standing people had something to do again.
Everyone bundled up and wandered through the house not wanting to touch things because they belonged to someone that was dead and they might mind. It was a mild form of chaos with people coming and going and coming again, and when it was over everyone left. Some left to be with their families. Others left to tell the story.
Everyone grieves differently but we have learned to treat them all the same. We pull on our sad eyes, maybe even leak a few tears. We take the bereaved into our arms and we tell them that the dead led a good life, that they were taken too soon, that they will be missed. This isn’t always the case but it is how we treat death.
Sometimes the person in question died after being in horrible pain for months on end. Their death is actually a blessing. Other times the dead were utter bastards while alive, a parasite on society. And sometimes the dead was a mother of four, a wife, a niece, a granddaughter. Not a perfect person, one who made a lot of mistakes and was just beginning to correct them. Sometimes the world doesn’t take them soon enough and sometimes it takes them too soon.
After someone dies there is a lot of standing around and a little sitting down. People don’t like to sit because it makes them feel like they are doing less even when no one is doing anything at all. Sitting is passive, standing is at least active. So they stand around a house or in the street waiting for someone to tell them what to do. Every once in a while someone who knew the deceased better than they did will pass and they’ll give them a hug and tell them how sorry they are and they will feel better about themselves because they got to do something more than standing and much more than sitting.
But it was cold that night and people filtered out of the street and into houses. They sat and they stood around the living rooms waiting for something to change.
The first change came when the police took the body away. It meant that they could go into the house now, the house of the deceased. But only close family went at first. The second change came. A car rolled up and out spilled more crying people and suddenly the standing people had something to do again.
Everyone bundled up and wandered through the house not wanting to touch things because they belonged to someone that was dead and they might mind. It was a mild form of chaos with people coming and going and coming again, and when it was over everyone left. Some left to be with their families. Others left to tell the story.
Everyone grieves differently but we have learned to treat them all the same. We pull on our sad eyes, maybe even leak a few tears. We take the bereaved into our arms and we tell them that the dead led a good life, that they were taken too soon, that they will be missed. This isn’t always the case but it is how we treat death.
Sometimes the person in question died after being in horrible pain for months on end. Their death is actually a blessing. Other times the dead were utter bastards while alive, a parasite on society. And sometimes the dead was a mother of four, a wife, a niece, a granddaughter. Not a perfect person, one who made a lot of mistakes and was just beginning to correct them. Sometimes the world doesn’t take them soon enough and sometimes it takes them too soon.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Doug: Spin State
To establish artificial gravity on a space station one really has only one option.
Spin the station. Centrifugal force forces objects inside the station to the edges. Spin the station fast enough, the force sucks you to the outer edge of the station at something approaching normal gravity. All this depends on if you got your math right. If you didn’t, it’s probably not a big deal, you might get a little bit more or less gravity, but nothing too noticeable. If you really screwed the pooch, you’ll end up squished on the outer edge of your creation, blood pounding in your skull and the feeling of an elephant sitting on your chest until you die of asphyxiation or the station shakes itself apart around you.
But I don’t really care about the gravity. The gravity is just a consequence of the spin.
I care about the spin.
And this is where you really have to get your math right.
Spinning a top on any planet eventually results in the top falling down. There are too many variables, friction, gravity, surface consistency; everything possible robs your top of its momentum causing it to topple.
But in space, there is nothing. No gravity, no air, nothing. If Ken Griffey Junior grand slams a fastball in space it will theoretically go on forever and ever, taking a slow tour of the universe, never accelerating or decelerating, just going on forever.
Space stations are like that if you got the math right. They spin and they spin and keep gravity nice and normal and everyone can keep going around and around in their little hamster wheel.
Unless you forgot to balance out the station’s spin so that it’s even at all points of the circle.
Then you’re fucked.
The station will accelerate around what it decides its center of gravity is going to be, putting stress on supports, braces and everything holding it together.
Eventually the stress will add up, metal will fail, bolts will part. Centrifugal force rips pieces of the station off and casts them out into the black abyss of deep space like the Babe smacking one clean over The Green Monster in Fenway Park.
Around and around it goes, out of control, pieces flying off as the station slowly fails. Eventually, the actual fuselage tears itself open, tearing into multiple pieces that charge into the black.
A few pieces of the station will remain in roughly the same area, some nuts and bolts. Nothing bigger than a table.
Reach for the stars kids. Just don’t screw up the math.
-Doug
“Entropy is a universal constant.”
-Augustus “Wolf Star
Spin the station. Centrifugal force forces objects inside the station to the edges. Spin the station fast enough, the force sucks you to the outer edge of the station at something approaching normal gravity. All this depends on if you got your math right. If you didn’t, it’s probably not a big deal, you might get a little bit more or less gravity, but nothing too noticeable. If you really screwed the pooch, you’ll end up squished on the outer edge of your creation, blood pounding in your skull and the feeling of an elephant sitting on your chest until you die of asphyxiation or the station shakes itself apart around you.
But I don’t really care about the gravity. The gravity is just a consequence of the spin.
I care about the spin.
And this is where you really have to get your math right.
Spinning a top on any planet eventually results in the top falling down. There are too many variables, friction, gravity, surface consistency; everything possible robs your top of its momentum causing it to topple.
But in space, there is nothing. No gravity, no air, nothing. If Ken Griffey Junior grand slams a fastball in space it will theoretically go on forever and ever, taking a slow tour of the universe, never accelerating or decelerating, just going on forever.
Space stations are like that if you got the math right. They spin and they spin and keep gravity nice and normal and everyone can keep going around and around in their little hamster wheel.
Unless you forgot to balance out the station’s spin so that it’s even at all points of the circle.
Then you’re fucked.
The station will accelerate around what it decides its center of gravity is going to be, putting stress on supports, braces and everything holding it together.
Eventually the stress will add up, metal will fail, bolts will part. Centrifugal force rips pieces of the station off and casts them out into the black abyss of deep space like the Babe smacking one clean over The Green Monster in Fenway Park.
Around and around it goes, out of control, pieces flying off as the station slowly fails. Eventually, the actual fuselage tears itself open, tearing into multiple pieces that charge into the black.
A few pieces of the station will remain in roughly the same area, some nuts and bolts. Nothing bigger than a table.
Reach for the stars kids. Just don’t screw up the math.
-Doug
“Entropy is a universal constant.”
-Augustus “Wolf Star
Monday, November 9, 2009
Sarah: Pain in the Membrane
Pain in the membrane,
the cerebreal membrane,
got another migrane,
driving me insane
Pound Pound Scrunch Scrunch
What did I eat for lunch?
Wish I had a hunch,
of what would make me feel better,
Write a letter,
Feverfew, what to do
Maxalt, migraine halt,
Ibuprofen, racemic mixture potion.
Sleep.
Ugh.
~Sarah
the cerebreal membrane,
got another migrane,
driving me insane
Pound Pound Scrunch Scrunch
What did I eat for lunch?
Wish I had a hunch,
of what would make me feel better,
Write a letter,
Feverfew, what to do
Maxalt, migraine halt,
Ibuprofen, racemic mixture potion.
Sleep.
Ugh.
~Sarah
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Meghan: Don't fear the Reaper
“I-I don’t understand.” She tried to draw her robe closer around her narrow shoulders, voice shaking with age and fatigue, “You said it was gone.”
“It was.” The doctor said softly, “But it came back.”
“But…But you said that the medicine would get it all?” The statement was both accusatory and desperately questioning. The doctor flinched a little in response, the tension in her shoulders so small it would only have been noticeable to someone who knew her.
“Nothing is guaranteed.” She tried to be kind, but there was no kindness in what she had to say, “You had excellent chances, but sometimes it just isn’t enough. I’m sorry.”
She fled the woman’s questions in a cloud of distracting medical terms, just wanting to be gone, away from the death and on to someone who still had a chance. Where she was needed.
She pulled her long hair back in a tie with a heavy sigh. Almost at the end of her shift, she always found that those last few hours just seemed to crawl by. God she would kill for a cup of—
“Rough day?” The rich creamy voice slid across her skin like velvet and she turned to see a man holding two cups of steaming coffee.
With a smile that could melt diamonds, he offered her one, the smell of cinnamon making her deliciously dizzy.
Ignoring the offered cup, she growled low in the back of her throat, “What are you doing here?”
“’Thank you’ is a more traditional reply.”
“Get the fuck away from me D.”
He chuckled warmly, the sound making a group of passing nurses glance over and nearly swoon, “As if I could leave you alone.”
“Try. Try hard.”
She spun on her heel and walked in the other direction, but he followed, sipping his coffee without spilling a drop. Scowling blackly, she stormed into the elevator and pushed the fourth floor button impatiently. The only other person with them in the elevator was one of the general secretaries. He eyed the angry doctor nervously, like she was going to pull out a shotgun and blast away the hospital in a fit of rage.
“Don’t worry about her,” D said soothingly, clapping the man on the shoulder, “Her Uncle just died, she’s a little upset.”
She whirled on D, glaring at him with a question in her eyes.
He held up his coffees in defense, “Kidding! I was kidding, God, you take things too personally.”
She snatched a drink from his hand as the elevator doors dinged open, and left him behind.
“Oh, you just take my paltry offering and run, is that it?” He said, still only a pace behind her. She stopped and turned around, fast enough to crash into him but he danced back easily.
“I have patients D. Right now, people who need me. This is not the time to talk.”
“I will not leave unless we talk; you have avoided me long enough.”
She sucked in a breathe and blew it out, “Meet me after my shift tonight, we can talk then.”
“Good.”
Before she could blink he grabbed the collar of her lab coat and slammed her against the wall. It didn’t hurt, not really, but it blew the breathe out of her lungs and her heart raced in surprise and fear.
“We will talk little one. We have let you run free long enough.” He twirled a piece of hair that escaped her ponytail between his fingers, “Don’t even think of running.”
And then he was walking down the hall, calling back over his shoulder, “Enjoy the coffee.”
She pulled her clothes straight with shaking fingers, and raised the cup to her lips.
Delicious.
“Who was that delicious little bonbon you were talking to earlier today?”
After his year in culinary school, the only thing Chris had picked up was the irritating tendency to refer to things he liked by food names. Now he was surviving his residency on nothing but ramen and the occasional meals she brought him. She was convinced he would die of malnutrition any day now, all she had to do was stop feeding him.
Now she half laughed-half sobbed at his calling D a bonbon, “I really don’t think he’s your type.”
“Really?” Chris pursed his lips, “Sad. Ah well, his loss.” They walked out of the glass doors of the hospital’s entrance.
“See you tomorrow.” Chris said as he walked off to where his car was parked, shoulders hunched against the cold.
“See you.” She said aimlessly. She wrapped her scarf snuggly around her neck and stared up at the stars. She knew that when she got home he would be there; she just wanted to be free a little longer.
Her keys clattered as she dropped them into the bowl next to the door. She looked around her apartment, not seeing any signs of him. She walked cautiously down the hall and into the living room, still not seeing anything that would indicate whether he had been here. Of course that didn’t mean anything.
Arms glided around her waist and a warm cheek rested against hers, “Miss me?” his deep voice rumbled in her head.
She sighed and leaned against his chest, “No.”
“Hmmmm” he hummed and slid his fingers through hers, “Somehow I doubt that.”
She sighed and stepped away, “You wanted to talk, so talk.”
He caught her hand and twirled her around facing him, “So direct, aren’t you? Where’s the fun in that?”
She glared up at him as he slid a hand around her waist, “Stop it.”
“Why? You know how I love to dance.” He stepped and glided elaborately as she followed flawlessly. He chuckled as they moved, “After all, we’ve been dancing for years.”
She twisted out of his grip, “And years is long enough. I’ve given enough, let me go!”
Like before, he was on her in a blink of an eye; he snatched at her clothes, ripping, tearing. She cried out and raised her hands to try to ward him off but he was everywhere at once, yanking her scarf, stripping off her coat and shredding her shirt. She fell face down against the couch, only her pants and a few scraps of shirt left. She tried to rise on her arms but he gripped a fistful of her hair and held her down.
His movements turned gentle as he peeled away the last of her shirt.
“There you are.” He purred, fingers caressing a tattoo that swirled across her back. The flesh surged under his fingers as she tried to rise, screams strangling in her throat as he forced her down.
“You are marked.” His voice grew cold as he pressed a hand over the mark in her skin, “You are one of mine of your own free will, calling to me yourself to bring you where you are today. And you think that now that you got what you wanted you can just forget your debts? You can carve this mark from your skin, you can run as far as you want to, but I will collect. So I’m going to ask you again, and for the last time; are you ready to talk?”
She made a muffled sound and he raised her head from the couch pillows, “Yes.” She choked out.
He released her hair and she slid off the couch to sit on the floor, looking dazed. He got up and gently draped a blanket around her before settling comfortably on the couch.
She clutched the blanket around her shoulders and looked up into his eyes, “So how does this work?”
“You performed the ritual when you were a grad student; you had to have read about the strings attached.”
“I did,” She shrugged, “I just…”
“Thought you could get out of them like every other stupid mortal out there.”
“I didn’t think it would work.” She said sadly, “Some of my friends tried it; nothing.
“I was waiting for just the right little thing to come along,” he said smiling, “the ritual only works when I want it to.”
“So I’m yours now?”
“Darling, you were always mine, just now we’re not going to bicker about it.” His eyes gleamed, “Right?”
“Right.”
He stood up from the couch and stretched, “All right, now that it’s all clear, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She scrambled to her feet, “Tomorrow? What’s going to happen tomorrow? What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to kill people.”
Her lips moved wordlessly for a few seconds before she spoke, “Kill? But—but I’m a doctor, we save people, we don’t—“
“Save?” He laughed uproariously, “The main part of a doctor’s job is killing people. You save them and you kill them, you can’t be naïve enough not to know that.”
She still gaped at him in wordless horror and he laughed again.
“See you tomorrow. If you see me standing by a patient, you know what to do.”
“I can’t kill—“
“You don’t have to; you just have to not save them.” He slid his hand under her blanket and caressed her tattoo, “And remember, we promised not to use words like ‘can’t’ and ‘won’t’ anymore.”
He picked his coat up off of a chair and strode down the hall, “Bye love. See you tomorrow.”
“D—“She said, but he was already gone. She ran down the hall and threw open the door to see him walking down the street.
She ran after him screaming, “D!” He kept walking. “D! Death!”
He stopped and turned around, smiling, “I was wondering when you’d finally start calling me by my real name.” he said as she panted in front of him.
“Death, how…How can I do this?”
“You can and you must.” He kissed her on the forehead, “Besides, you don’t really have a choice. Now get back inside before you catch cold.”
And he was gone, not walking away, just gone.
“See you tomorrow.” She said softly as she turned back to her apartment, wrapping the blanket tighter against the cold.
"All say, 'How hard it is that we have to die' - a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live." ~Mark Twain
-Meghan
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Jasmine: Black Nails
“Why are your nails black? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you paint them.” Janey had a tendency to ask exactly what she was wondering at any particular moment in time. It’s a point in her personality I’ve always liked.
“Yesterday my three o’clock had her nails painted like this and I thought I would try it.” I smiled a little remembering my three o’clock. Eyes wide and dark, pale skin with the black of her nails looking soft and wet against it. I had pale skin but I didn’t think that the black nails looked as good on my as they had on her. I probably wouldn’t pain them again.
Janey tried to hide the cringe but only managed to isolate it in her eyes. But that was understandable. She was a nurturer, she was supposed to leave her three o’clock happy and healthy, focusing on their longevity and ability to do their work. Nurturers appointments tended to survive. But that wouldn’t keep me from liking her as I thought it didn’t keep her from at least trying to like me. even now I watched her fight down her revulsion and show a shining smiling face to me.
People tend to flock together with their workmates, finding comfort in spending time with people who know exactly what you do every day and why. Give me someone I don’t understand, give me a puzzle to untangle, unravel until every swirl of personality was bright shining and uncovered for me to see. When we’d reached that point of our friendship it would be time to find someone new. Maybe one of the miners, I befriended one several years ago, but individuals tend to vary even in their specialties.
It was coming close to that time with Janey, she was after all a very simple being and I felt secure in my ability to recognize the thoughts and feelings that crossed her face. Soon I would break ties and she would feel a combination of sadness regret and relief at not having to deal with me anymore. She would return to her fellow nurturers and be welcomed back. They would pat her on the back and in a week her stay with me would be forgotten. Until then we were walking back from lunch together.
“My stop, see you at dinner Janey.”
“See you then.” She didn’t linger in the hallway. We were taught not to lest you hear something scaring. But of course I had and so had every one of my order.
I opened an airlock and walked into a control room. There were cameras set up to record each of the sessions and five rooms had been prepared for after lunch. I could see the individuals tied up each in their own rooms each in some particular fashion. The one to the left was tied face down with her legs and arms spread apart. She was naked except for a black hood covering her head.
I opened a second airlock to get into the room and the woman immediately started screaming.
“shhh shhh it’s going to be okay, I’m going to get you out of this.”
I pulled off her hood. She turned her head and looked into my eyes.
“Thank you.” The relief and hope there was amazing. People were so trusting.
I smiled “Just kidding, but please don’t scream, if you scream I can’t hear my music.”
Her eyes widened in horror and she started whimpering. Whimpering was okay. I clicked a button on the wall and a soft melody filled the room.
“Now let’s get started. Now as I understand it you’re a nurturer?”
“Yesterday my three o’clock had her nails painted like this and I thought I would try it.” I smiled a little remembering my three o’clock. Eyes wide and dark, pale skin with the black of her nails looking soft and wet against it. I had pale skin but I didn’t think that the black nails looked as good on my as they had on her. I probably wouldn’t pain them again.
Janey tried to hide the cringe but only managed to isolate it in her eyes. But that was understandable. She was a nurturer, she was supposed to leave her three o’clock happy and healthy, focusing on their longevity and ability to do their work. Nurturers appointments tended to survive. But that wouldn’t keep me from liking her as I thought it didn’t keep her from at least trying to like me. even now I watched her fight down her revulsion and show a shining smiling face to me.
People tend to flock together with their workmates, finding comfort in spending time with people who know exactly what you do every day and why. Give me someone I don’t understand, give me a puzzle to untangle, unravel until every swirl of personality was bright shining and uncovered for me to see. When we’d reached that point of our friendship it would be time to find someone new. Maybe one of the miners, I befriended one several years ago, but individuals tend to vary even in their specialties.
It was coming close to that time with Janey, she was after all a very simple being and I felt secure in my ability to recognize the thoughts and feelings that crossed her face. Soon I would break ties and she would feel a combination of sadness regret and relief at not having to deal with me anymore. She would return to her fellow nurturers and be welcomed back. They would pat her on the back and in a week her stay with me would be forgotten. Until then we were walking back from lunch together.
“My stop, see you at dinner Janey.”
“See you then.” She didn’t linger in the hallway. We were taught not to lest you hear something scaring. But of course I had and so had every one of my order.
I opened an airlock and walked into a control room. There were cameras set up to record each of the sessions and five rooms had been prepared for after lunch. I could see the individuals tied up each in their own rooms each in some particular fashion. The one to the left was tied face down with her legs and arms spread apart. She was naked except for a black hood covering her head.
I opened a second airlock to get into the room and the woman immediately started screaming.
“shhh shhh it’s going to be okay, I’m going to get you out of this.”
I pulled off her hood. She turned her head and looked into my eyes.
“Thank you.” The relief and hope there was amazing. People were so trusting.
I smiled “Just kidding, but please don’t scream, if you scream I can’t hear my music.”
Her eyes widened in horror and she started whimpering. Whimpering was okay. I clicked a button on the wall and a soft melody filled the room.
“Now let’s get started. Now as I understand it you’re a nurturer?”
Friday, November 6, 2009
Doug: Mother Nature
Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt.
I hear my phone vibrating and come slowly and groggily to the world of the living. The sheets are soaked and my throat feels like the parched desert I call home. I try to mutter, 'I guess the fever broke' but my mouth is tha sticky mess of awful that comes from too little water and being sick.
SNAPSNAPSNAPSNAPSNAP!
Finally my brain registers the sound which had been pounding through my window like artillery fire. I cannot believe I did not notice it before, both because it was so loud and so familiar.
Mark 240 Squad Automatic Weapon. Light Machine gun. Someone outside is shooting a weapon.
More importantly, I can hear loud screaming outside, both male and female. Someone outside is killing people.
I am so sure of this that my neurons, which had previously been firing at the same rate that molecules moved somewhere around absolute zero, reached something approaching the speed of light in the space of less than a half second.
Self preservation and something almost resembling combat reflexes take over.
I roll out of bed, forgetting for a second that I sleep in a loft. I somehow manage to land without impaling myself on the ladder, the my desk chair, or the box of movie cases that I use as my bedside table. My head slams into a pile of clothes, and I realize that not doing all of my laundry last night has saved my life.
I am up and moving, adrenaline telling all the aching parts of my body that their pain could not and would not fuck with the gunfight I was getting ready for. I snag my phone off the ledge of the window while using my right hand to peek through the blinds. The window is fogged up. The heat of my room and the feezing cold of the outside has made my only portal to the world a hazy unreality.
I yank on the string to bring the blinds up, opening up my closet and grabbing my rifle. I breifly remember that i'd taken the sights off when I was cleaning it, and wouldn't be able to hit anything outside of ten yards with any accuracy. Marines make do.
Movements are decisive, the lock on the bolt comes off fast and easily and I grab a magazine and place it by the window. My left hand fiddles with the latch and the window slides open with a little difficulty.
I am prepared for carnage. I am prepared for blood and gore and murder and destruction. I am prepared to watch the world burn down around me while keeping everyone I can still alive.
I am greeted by something I am completely unprepared for.
The hail is coming down in torrents. Tiny pellets the size of ball berings are bouncing off cars, windows, the people screaming in joy and dancing below me on the street.
I am in shock. I saw this much hail once on top of a mountain while hiking with the scouts, but never in a city. It looks like more than an inch of ice balls had piled up in the space of less than five minutes. Thunder crashes, lightning illuminates the scene.
No Mark 249 SAW. No crazed gunman. Only seattle weather and loud fratpeople.
I glance at the clock. It is eleven thirty eight. I fell asleep around forty minutes ago.
The adrenaline drains from my body and I feel like ass again. I've been sick for the past day and a half, and it got bad that night. Fever, shakes, pounding headache. I have been sicker. but not very often.
Breifly I wonder if there really is an emergency, like god deciding to flood the earth with hail. I glance down at my phone. Message from That Guy. I text him back and he tells me a funny story. I breifly relate my apocalyptic hopes without relating the whole story of my almost full blown halucination. I can tell he approves.
I put the lock back on the bolt of my rifle and return it to my closet. Sweatpants are next. I step out onto the balcony and realize there is a good inch and a half of hail on the ground. I am impressed by mother nature's penchant for going completely apeshit. it was like, sixty degrees out earlier.
But not impressed enough to stay up and watch it.
I crawl back up to my bed, grunting with the effort. I beg my body for the adrenaline it provided earlier, and it responds with a dizzying wave of nausea. Fuck you too body.
Fuck.
You.
Too.
I fall asleep to the sound of "gunfire" and "screams".
-Doug
"This is Sparta."
-Abe
I hear my phone vibrating and come slowly and groggily to the world of the living. The sheets are soaked and my throat feels like the parched desert I call home. I try to mutter, 'I guess the fever broke' but my mouth is tha sticky mess of awful that comes from too little water and being sick.
SNAPSNAPSNAPSNAPSNAP!
Finally my brain registers the sound which had been pounding through my window like artillery fire. I cannot believe I did not notice it before, both because it was so loud and so familiar.
Mark 240 Squad Automatic Weapon. Light Machine gun. Someone outside is shooting a weapon.
More importantly, I can hear loud screaming outside, both male and female. Someone outside is killing people.
I am so sure of this that my neurons, which had previously been firing at the same rate that molecules moved somewhere around absolute zero, reached something approaching the speed of light in the space of less than a half second.
Self preservation and something almost resembling combat reflexes take over.
I roll out of bed, forgetting for a second that I sleep in a loft. I somehow manage to land without impaling myself on the ladder, the my desk chair, or the box of movie cases that I use as my bedside table. My head slams into a pile of clothes, and I realize that not doing all of my laundry last night has saved my life.
I am up and moving, adrenaline telling all the aching parts of my body that their pain could not and would not fuck with the gunfight I was getting ready for. I snag my phone off the ledge of the window while using my right hand to peek through the blinds. The window is fogged up. The heat of my room and the feezing cold of the outside has made my only portal to the world a hazy unreality.
I yank on the string to bring the blinds up, opening up my closet and grabbing my rifle. I breifly remember that i'd taken the sights off when I was cleaning it, and wouldn't be able to hit anything outside of ten yards with any accuracy. Marines make do.
Movements are decisive, the lock on the bolt comes off fast and easily and I grab a magazine and place it by the window. My left hand fiddles with the latch and the window slides open with a little difficulty.
I am prepared for carnage. I am prepared for blood and gore and murder and destruction. I am prepared to watch the world burn down around me while keeping everyone I can still alive.
I am greeted by something I am completely unprepared for.
The hail is coming down in torrents. Tiny pellets the size of ball berings are bouncing off cars, windows, the people screaming in joy and dancing below me on the street.
I am in shock. I saw this much hail once on top of a mountain while hiking with the scouts, but never in a city. It looks like more than an inch of ice balls had piled up in the space of less than five minutes. Thunder crashes, lightning illuminates the scene.
No Mark 249 SAW. No crazed gunman. Only seattle weather and loud fratpeople.
I glance at the clock. It is eleven thirty eight. I fell asleep around forty minutes ago.
The adrenaline drains from my body and I feel like ass again. I've been sick for the past day and a half, and it got bad that night. Fever, shakes, pounding headache. I have been sicker. but not very often.
Breifly I wonder if there really is an emergency, like god deciding to flood the earth with hail. I glance down at my phone. Message from That Guy. I text him back and he tells me a funny story. I breifly relate my apocalyptic hopes without relating the whole story of my almost full blown halucination. I can tell he approves.
I put the lock back on the bolt of my rifle and return it to my closet. Sweatpants are next. I step out onto the balcony and realize there is a good inch and a half of hail on the ground. I am impressed by mother nature's penchant for going completely apeshit. it was like, sixty degrees out earlier.
But not impressed enough to stay up and watch it.
I crawl back up to my bed, grunting with the effort. I beg my body for the adrenaline it provided earlier, and it responds with a dizzying wave of nausea. Fuck you too body.
Fuck.
You.
Too.
I fall asleep to the sound of "gunfire" and "screams".
-Doug
"This is Sparta."
-Abe
Saturday, October 31, 2009
That guy: Beep
That semi-fallacy of living. Pushing with so much effort.
I charge on, gasping for air, burning my body to nothing.
The tiny little annoyances in my ears bring me into the zone. My comfort, my pain, my skill, shivers in my spine. My hands clench. I can feel my back tighten, my legs seize.
and here we go
I sit recovering. Worn. Beaten.
And that hellacious beep.
It wont stop.
But then.
It doesn't have to.
Because the world does.
Sometimes it's nice to remember what living is like.
:)
I charge on, gasping for air, burning my body to nothing.
The tiny little annoyances in my ears bring me into the zone. My comfort, my pain, my skill, shivers in my spine. My hands clench. I can feel my back tighten, my legs seize.
and here we go
I sit recovering. Worn. Beaten.
And that hellacious beep.
It wont stop.
But then.
It doesn't have to.
Because the world does.
Sometimes it's nice to remember what living is like.
:)
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Doug: Do ya?
“You ever get that feeling?” he asked, cocking his head in an odd direction, eyes focused far away, as if they saw something no one else in the room could see.
“That feeling, that, well, you just want to strangle EVERYONE around you?” a hint of life comes back to the eyes. But it is not life in the way normal people think of life. There is no hope here, nor friendship, or kinship, or any of those other ships. The life in these eyes is sort of a manic glee, a horrible joy that sends shivers and chills down your spine.
He refocuses, swinging his head around the room. “Strangling someone is really satisfying. It’s so personal. All you have to do is grab the windpipe and squeeze.” His voice changes with the last word, deeper, huskier, putting a lot of emphasis on it. “Too bad it’s not really a spectator sport.”
“There are other satisfying things too. Like baseball bats… and crow bars. You gotta love the solid sound that makes when it hits something soft on the outside but with a crunchy center. Like an arm. Or a leg. Or a skull. I love the hollow sounds skulls make.” He has gotten up from his reclined position, and is prancing around the room, feet carefully avoiding dark red puddles.
“I’m not sure what I love best. The tactile feelings, or the lovely sounds.” He frowns. “But nothing that comes out of the mouth. No one ever has anything USEFUL to say… It’s all: Please no! or threats.” The frown deepens. “Or they invoke some god or another…”
Finally, a shrug and the smile returns. “Oh well, no one ever comes to help out.” He looks over to a huddled form in the corner. Wrists tied, head cast down, shaking uncontrollably.
“You ever get that feeling?” The Philosopher sidled up to the Prisoner smiling uncomfortably. “Do ya?”
The Prisoner looks up, catches sight of the other bodies tied to the wall all around the room and vomits on the Philosopher’s bare feet. His grin widens.
“I liked those shoes.”
“No.” the Prisoner manages to choke out through the bile.
“No what?” The Philosopher is examining his feet bare feet. “I really liked these shoes.”
“No. I never get that urge.” The Prisoner looks up, bile dripping from the grim line that is his mouth. One eyeball is gone, and his features are hard to distinguish under the swelling. The look on his one eyed face is defiant though. “Just get it over with you sick bastard.”
“I’m not the sick one.” The Philosopher said, “You’re the one who vomits on people’s shoes.” He then formed his right hand into a scoop and grabbed the Prisoner’s long hair with his left hand. “I may pickle this one. I like the color.” The scooped hand plunges forward.
Screaming accompanied by a wet tearing sound.
The Philospher steps back, plugging his left ear with his free hand, the right holds something spherical and dripping. “Can’t you stop doing that? Ugh. This is why I hate forgetting the duct tape.”
The screaming just continued unabated. Finally, the Philosopher, quick as a snake, snapped his left hand out to the Prisoner’s neck and squeezed.
The screaming cut off, followed by the sounds of a scuffle as the Prisoner struggled against his bonds. Finally he quieted down just as the life was extinguished from his body. The Philosopher dropped the hand. “I was hoping to save you for a little bit longer…”
He sighed deeply, then looked down at the eyeball in his hand, the brown eye gazed back at him unblinkingly, almost quizzically.
“No one understands me.”
He tossed the eyeball at its former body and surveyed the gore spattered room. Eight bodies, four males and four females, all completely naked, all in various states of carnage, lined the walls. He took his time, looking at all of the individually, enjoying his masterpieces.
A half hour later, he splashed gasoline like a painter, struck a match with a flourish, and left.
“No one understands me.”
-Doug
"Torture mothafucka, torture."
Wu-Tang Clan
“That feeling, that, well, you just want to strangle EVERYONE around you?” a hint of life comes back to the eyes. But it is not life in the way normal people think of life. There is no hope here, nor friendship, or kinship, or any of those other ships. The life in these eyes is sort of a manic glee, a horrible joy that sends shivers and chills down your spine.
He refocuses, swinging his head around the room. “Strangling someone is really satisfying. It’s so personal. All you have to do is grab the windpipe and squeeze.” His voice changes with the last word, deeper, huskier, putting a lot of emphasis on it. “Too bad it’s not really a spectator sport.”
“There are other satisfying things too. Like baseball bats… and crow bars. You gotta love the solid sound that makes when it hits something soft on the outside but with a crunchy center. Like an arm. Or a leg. Or a skull. I love the hollow sounds skulls make.” He has gotten up from his reclined position, and is prancing around the room, feet carefully avoiding dark red puddles.
“I’m not sure what I love best. The tactile feelings, or the lovely sounds.” He frowns. “But nothing that comes out of the mouth. No one ever has anything USEFUL to say… It’s all: Please no! or threats.” The frown deepens. “Or they invoke some god or another…”
Finally, a shrug and the smile returns. “Oh well, no one ever comes to help out.” He looks over to a huddled form in the corner. Wrists tied, head cast down, shaking uncontrollably.
“You ever get that feeling?” The Philosopher sidled up to the Prisoner smiling uncomfortably. “Do ya?”
The Prisoner looks up, catches sight of the other bodies tied to the wall all around the room and vomits on the Philosopher’s bare feet. His grin widens.
“I liked those shoes.”
“No.” the Prisoner manages to choke out through the bile.
“No what?” The Philosopher is examining his feet bare feet. “I really liked these shoes.”
“No. I never get that urge.” The Prisoner looks up, bile dripping from the grim line that is his mouth. One eyeball is gone, and his features are hard to distinguish under the swelling. The look on his one eyed face is defiant though. “Just get it over with you sick bastard.”
“I’m not the sick one.” The Philosopher said, “You’re the one who vomits on people’s shoes.” He then formed his right hand into a scoop and grabbed the Prisoner’s long hair with his left hand. “I may pickle this one. I like the color.” The scooped hand plunges forward.
Screaming accompanied by a wet tearing sound.
The Philospher steps back, plugging his left ear with his free hand, the right holds something spherical and dripping. “Can’t you stop doing that? Ugh. This is why I hate forgetting the duct tape.”
The screaming just continued unabated. Finally, the Philosopher, quick as a snake, snapped his left hand out to the Prisoner’s neck and squeezed.
The screaming cut off, followed by the sounds of a scuffle as the Prisoner struggled against his bonds. Finally he quieted down just as the life was extinguished from his body. The Philosopher dropped the hand. “I was hoping to save you for a little bit longer…”
He sighed deeply, then looked down at the eyeball in his hand, the brown eye gazed back at him unblinkingly, almost quizzically.
“No one understands me.”
He tossed the eyeball at its former body and surveyed the gore spattered room. Eight bodies, four males and four females, all completely naked, all in various states of carnage, lined the walls. He took his time, looking at all of the individually, enjoying his masterpieces.
A half hour later, he splashed gasoline like a painter, struck a match with a flourish, and left.
“No one understands me.”
-Doug
"Torture mothafucka, torture."
Wu-Tang Clan
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Meghan: Hell?
She stretched the muscles in her hands and arms elegantly, light gleaming off of her skin in a slippery glow.
“One more time?”
The girl she was addressing hung limply on a wall, suspended by coarse rope. She spat out a mouthful of blood in reply, “Go to hell.”
The glowing girl danced with laughter, heartbreakingly beautiful and a sharp contrast to the other; battered, broken, and bleeding.
“But Anabelle, we’re already there.”
“Don’t call me that.”
The glowing girl drew her fist back as if to strike her and Anabelle flinched away, but she just reached forward to stroke her cheek.
“You’d prefer I call you that blunted name, Ana? You have a beautiful name, and I will use the whole thing.”
Anabelle’s jaw rippled in anger and the glowing creature kissed it.
“Mmm, I love the taste of rage.”
Quick as a snake, Anabelle’s head darted forward but her teeth only clicked on the empty air where the creature’s throat had been.
Smiling, the glowing thing grabbed her face in one of its hands and smashed her skull on the stone wall behind her. Anabelle gasped as pain burst in her head and eyes, feeling the barest trickle of blood running down her back.
Again, again, and again her head was bashed against the wall, while she could only choke and bleed, not even having the strength to pull at the bonds that held her upright.
Then the pounding stopped and she was left to hang while the thing looked at her, smiling.
“Don’t worry, you won’t die.”
She tried to fit her lips into an answer but words seemed like a faraway dream.
“Wh-who?”
“Who what?”
“You.”
“Who am I?” another bright laugh, “Darling, I should think that’s obvious?”
“Hell, you said. Hell?” Anabelle’s vision was starting to clear, “Are you the devil?”
“Hmmm…well I wouldn’t say that’s an incorrect statement. The religious symbols are so hard to keep track of these days…”
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“Well—“
“Why am I here, I don’t understand! Why—“
Anabelle froze as the devil’s fist flew at her face again. This time it didn’t stop and she closed her eyes and prepared for pain. But when she opened her eyes she saw the being’s fist buried in the wall next to her head, stuck to the wrist.
“If you could just wait.” She said softly, “I will tell you.”
Anabelle swallowed and the thing extracted its hand from the stone.
“You’re here because it’s what you want, love.”
Anabelle’s mouth worked in confusion and horror, unable to reply.
The devil slid her arms around the girl’s waist, “You were such a good girl, weren’t you? Always helping people. And then your life on earth ended protecting the life of another. Such a sacrifice is not taken lightly here, and we are prepared to give you your worth in happiness.”
“But that’s heaven,” spluttered Anabelle, “What you’re talking about isn’t hell.”
“Oh.” The glowing thing looked around the room, “Perhaps I mixed up my words. Your religions are very confusing.”
“This can’t be heaven.” Anabelle argued.
“Why not?”
She half laughed, half cried, “Then you’d be an angel?”
“I suppose so.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Why?”
“Heaven is supposed to be full of happy things, not pain and…” she looked away
“Pain is not happy?”
“No.”
The angel slapped her across the face and the sting of it rippled through her mind.
She gripped Anabelle’s jaw in her hand and raised her face to meet her eyes, “You can lie to yourself all that you want Ana, but don’t you dare lie to me. I can see into your soul, you are my charge and this is your heaven, whether you like it or not.”
Anabelle panted and stared into the flaming eyes of her captor, “Call me Anabelle.”
The angel smiled,
And drew back her fist.
-Meghan
“One more time?”
The girl she was addressing hung limply on a wall, suspended by coarse rope. She spat out a mouthful of blood in reply, “Go to hell.”
The glowing girl danced with laughter, heartbreakingly beautiful and a sharp contrast to the other; battered, broken, and bleeding.
“But Anabelle, we’re already there.”
“Don’t call me that.”
The glowing girl drew her fist back as if to strike her and Anabelle flinched away, but she just reached forward to stroke her cheek.
“You’d prefer I call you that blunted name, Ana? You have a beautiful name, and I will use the whole thing.”
Anabelle’s jaw rippled in anger and the glowing creature kissed it.
“Mmm, I love the taste of rage.”
Quick as a snake, Anabelle’s head darted forward but her teeth only clicked on the empty air where the creature’s throat had been.
Smiling, the glowing thing grabbed her face in one of its hands and smashed her skull on the stone wall behind her. Anabelle gasped as pain burst in her head and eyes, feeling the barest trickle of blood running down her back.
Again, again, and again her head was bashed against the wall, while she could only choke and bleed, not even having the strength to pull at the bonds that held her upright.
Then the pounding stopped and she was left to hang while the thing looked at her, smiling.
“Don’t worry, you won’t die.”
She tried to fit her lips into an answer but words seemed like a faraway dream.
“Wh-who?”
“Who what?”
“You.”
“Who am I?” another bright laugh, “Darling, I should think that’s obvious?”
“Hell, you said. Hell?” Anabelle’s vision was starting to clear, “Are you the devil?”
“Hmmm…well I wouldn’t say that’s an incorrect statement. The religious symbols are so hard to keep track of these days…”
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“Well—“
“Why am I here, I don’t understand! Why—“
Anabelle froze as the devil’s fist flew at her face again. This time it didn’t stop and she closed her eyes and prepared for pain. But when she opened her eyes she saw the being’s fist buried in the wall next to her head, stuck to the wrist.
“If you could just wait.” She said softly, “I will tell you.”
Anabelle swallowed and the thing extracted its hand from the stone.
“You’re here because it’s what you want, love.”
Anabelle’s mouth worked in confusion and horror, unable to reply.
The devil slid her arms around the girl’s waist, “You were such a good girl, weren’t you? Always helping people. And then your life on earth ended protecting the life of another. Such a sacrifice is not taken lightly here, and we are prepared to give you your worth in happiness.”
“But that’s heaven,” spluttered Anabelle, “What you’re talking about isn’t hell.”
“Oh.” The glowing thing looked around the room, “Perhaps I mixed up my words. Your religions are very confusing.”
“This can’t be heaven.” Anabelle argued.
“Why not?”
She half laughed, half cried, “Then you’d be an angel?”
“I suppose so.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Why?”
“Heaven is supposed to be full of happy things, not pain and…” she looked away
“Pain is not happy?”
“No.”
The angel slapped her across the face and the sting of it rippled through her mind.
She gripped Anabelle’s jaw in her hand and raised her face to meet her eyes, “You can lie to yourself all that you want Ana, but don’t you dare lie to me. I can see into your soul, you are my charge and this is your heaven, whether you like it or not.”
Anabelle panted and stared into the flaming eyes of her captor, “Call me Anabelle.”
The angel smiled,
And drew back her fist.
-Meghan
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Sarah: Find it On Your Own
The sun set on the city of Albuquerque, in the way it does to turn the Sandia mountains a soft shade of pink against the dimming deep blue sky. Down at the Century Rio 24 Theatre everyone from young children to lovers to seniors entered and left, as the movies played. Around the city middle-aged men were in for another late night at the office. Cars milled about the road in a way that makes the city look like a well oiled machine ready for a break. Mothers and children walked home from the park. Tables were set for dinner. Grade schoolers returned home from grabbing a Keva, or Starbucks, or playing video games, with their friends. It was dusk.
Jasmine sat on the bed in her apartment. With her cat constantly acting as a distraction, she attempted to read and work on homework. Another Dawson's Creek episode played across her computer screen. Then she ate, fed Loki, chatted online with loved ones, and fell asleep.
Across town, Abe sat behind the counter of a Fedex Office store. He texted his girlfriend while they both worked. A regular was using the internet. He looked up from the quiet desk, while laminating a few cards. A customer came in for copies and to ship a package. He tended to him like he tended to all the other customers. As the man left, he could see Abe through the window, laminating and texting.
Sirens wailed; it was a typical busy night. At least that's what Sarah figured from inside her cozy gated apartment. After hanging out with her boyfriend, she decided to shove off homework and watch an episode of Veronica Mars. Three episodes later, her quiet roommate told her that she was going to bed. Sarah stayed awake, watching.
Somewhere, thousands of miles from the city, Meghan was fast asleep with her cat. Raleigh, N.C., although a busy city, became a quiet and still as the sun fell. Meghan has an important exam the next day. Books were spread across the floor along with an empty cup of tea and a tea pot. In a few hours, she will wake up, study, and head to class pencil in hand.
On the opposite side of the country, Douglas stands in the kitchen of his apartment. The rain is pouring in Seattle. He is hungry. Like most college students, he pulled some noodles from his cabinet, boiled them, and opened the Prego. He thought of his mother's cooking briefly, then finished off a bowl of easily made spaghetti and marinara. His roommates were in the living room watching a movie, trying to relax after the rainy, albeit, busy day.
As each of these five actively or passively lives their lives, the end of the day for each of them signals only one more day passed and one more day to come. The setting sun holds no promises, no opportunity, no fate, and no large significance. These, they will have to find on their own.
Jasmine sat on the bed in her apartment. With her cat constantly acting as a distraction, she attempted to read and work on homework. Another Dawson's Creek episode played across her computer screen. Then she ate, fed Loki, chatted online with loved ones, and fell asleep.
Across town, Abe sat behind the counter of a Fedex Office store. He texted his girlfriend while they both worked. A regular was using the internet. He looked up from the quiet desk, while laminating a few cards. A customer came in for copies and to ship a package. He tended to him like he tended to all the other customers. As the man left, he could see Abe through the window, laminating and texting.
Sirens wailed; it was a typical busy night. At least that's what Sarah figured from inside her cozy gated apartment. After hanging out with her boyfriend, she decided to shove off homework and watch an episode of Veronica Mars. Three episodes later, her quiet roommate told her that she was going to bed. Sarah stayed awake, watching.
Somewhere, thousands of miles from the city, Meghan was fast asleep with her cat. Raleigh, N.C., although a busy city, became a quiet and still as the sun fell. Meghan has an important exam the next day. Books were spread across the floor along with an empty cup of tea and a tea pot. In a few hours, she will wake up, study, and head to class pencil in hand.
On the opposite side of the country, Douglas stands in the kitchen of his apartment. The rain is pouring in Seattle. He is hungry. Like most college students, he pulled some noodles from his cabinet, boiled them, and opened the Prego. He thought of his mother's cooking briefly, then finished off a bowl of easily made spaghetti and marinara. His roommates were in the living room watching a movie, trying to relax after the rainy, albeit, busy day.
As each of these five actively or passively lives their lives, the end of the day for each of them signals only one more day passed and one more day to come. The setting sun holds no promises, no opportunity, no fate, and no large significance. These, they will have to find on their own.
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