Fiction 440: the performance

Tonight was such an exciting night. This was the first time that I’ve actually read a piece of work I’ve written to an audience of more than my closest friends, who I more or less often pester into listening to me read to them. While this was not my first time talking about my work in front of a bunch of strangers (I did a TEDx talk last spring, in front of more than 2,000 talking about my novels, and my personal analysis of them as a collective), it was the first time I was reading something that came from the creative hole inside of me. And it was an amazing experience. Everyone was so kind, and so welcoming. They clapped for me because it was my first night reading, they laughed at my jokes, and people came up to congratulate me on my work. The community of writers, whose ages spanned the entire spectrum of the human existence, was so warm and wonderful. They were welcoming, and really made me feel comfortable sharing my work. I encourage everyone who writes to share their work at an open mic like this! And if you’re not a writer, I would still encourage you to find a community that embodies your passion, and participate in it relentlessly.

With that, let me apologize for the video quality. But yay for catching it on camera!

 

 

Let Them Eat Trout

Jan 25

Keywords: Trout, Shiv, Ankle bracelet

It was somewhere between the beginning of summer, and the end. Between the north side of the river that ran through their tiny tourist town, and the mouth of the lake that it fed itself into. Somewhere between the ages of 9 and 13, before ankle-bracelets were traded in for apple watches, before imagination was outdone by Angry Birds, she was a panther. And the mighty jungle cat was stalking her prey.

She crept through the deciduous, midwestern jungle, her face streaked with mud stains that she wore like victory medals. Her hair adorn with orange autumn leaves, she waded through the river waters to wait for him. Her brothers never took her fishing. They always said that fishing wasn’t something girls should do.

She clutched her weapon, the carefully constructed shiv on a stick that was to be her warrior spear. It felt like an extension of her arm because of how long she’d spent throwing it into the ground, watching it more or less hit her intended targets. Sometimes more, often less. Her toes grew chilly as the waters rushed around her.

Today was the day she proved them wrong. Today, she was the hunter. She was the fierce, Amazonian warrior woman. Today, she was Joan of Arc, waiting to take down her final enemy– trout.

Trout was all that stood between her and redemption. He was the answer to her injustice, the key to her inclusion, and all she could think was how sweet it would taste, like victory and river water.

She spent all afternoon waiting for him. Time and again, he evaded capture. He was more skilled on these battlegrounds than she. He commanded more troops than she, more speed. But she was relentless. She was determined. She heard her parents calling her from a distance, asking her what she wanted for dinner, and all she could think was trout.

Suddenly, in a flash, the battle was upon her. His scales shimmered in the dying sunlight,  he was aiming for the heavens with this jump. She pounced upon him. She corralling him in a corner of the river. He thrashed. She thrashed. He thrashed again, as she let out an inhuman howl. She plunged her spear down. It bit into flesh, and she had won…

Somewhere between now and then, irony worked its way into her vocabulary. She took a life to claim her own, as though it could protect her from feeling hurt, and betrayal, and rejection. But to prove someone wrong, and to be proven wrong are really two sides of the same river bank, and it doesn’t really matter where you’re standing. And it didn’t really matter so much that her brothers told her she was good enough, as long as she was good enough for herself. She didn’t need them to tell her to know that it is true. To know that she was a champion, and had been all along. Champion, of all the trout.

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This is a submission for a local event called Fiction 440! Every month they select three random words to be used in a story, and then people write, and share their stories. This is my submission, and I’m actually so excited to share it with a bunch of strangers. Then again, I suppose that’s what I’m doing here. I’ve very rarely read my work aloud, on a stage, in a presentation format. I think this story is a good place to start learning how. It’s funny, and silly, and I find myself just wanting to read it to everyone, so that’s good right? Haha, I hope you enjoyed! Wish me luck!

 

Thaddeus Jackson’s Daughter

At this point, I am overcome with hesitation in sharing a story that doesn’t belong to me. It isn’t mine to tell, but as part of a running investigation, I felt obligated not to conceal the facts of such an intimate story.

Regardless of who it might condemn.

Without further digression, I will present my testimony of Thaddeus Jackson’s daughter, Alexandra, who was not a young woman, and not a child, but caught somewhere in between. There was a time when she didn’t resemble a human being, but was more of a ghost, and crept around the house on silent toes, as not to disturb her father at any given point of the day, torn between her fear of anything louder than a whisper, and saying the wrong things to him. I spent many an afternoon in their dining room, indulging in drunken pleasantries and merriment with Thaddeus, and only once did I hear her speak.

Thaddeus’s daughter was an ordinary girl, and when I first met her, it was at the age of six, when she peered around the corner of the door frame to put a face to my unfamiliar voice. Her skin was a beautiful, pale fleshy color, but unlike most children in the middle of summer, her complexion was almost white. It lacked the sun-kissed freckles that frequented the faces of July-happy children. Perhaps I should emphasize the fact that even from a young age, she was capable of vast changes in personality and form. As a child, she was often sweet and cheerful, but as she aged, could sometimes appear to be an ungrateful girl, who often broke dishes and dropped plates simply to irritate her father. There were ugly nights where she would appear in the hallway outside the living room, thin and skeletal, with eyes sunken deep into her cheeks, but just as many other nights, beautiful nights, where she would parade around in her newest dresses, kissing her father happily on the cheek. Her face was flushed, and her hips had grown rounded and womanly in adolescence. She was a girl who, on some occasions, looked too little like her late mother, and on others, too much. One might say it was difficult to believe she was the same girl, one week to the next.

The causes of these changes were due to none other than the force of Thaddeus Jackson himself. He would praise her or demean her to greater or lesser degrees of self-worth, depending upon what suited him after his fifth or sixth glass of scotch, and by the end of the night, she had a fair chance of being either the best daughter, or the worst. Following his impulses there were nights that Thaddeus Jackson would really look at her, his eyes would fill with tears and he would tell her he was a lifetime’s worth of proud. There were just as many nights where she didn’t dare come down the stairs.

It seemed to me that things had gone well for the pair at the beginning of their life together. She had been a child plagued with nightmares, and Thaddeus, content with her need for him, would allow her to sleep in the same bed on the nights they did occur. She would close her eyes, her breathing would slow, and within minutes, she had drifted into a restful, undisturbed sleep. It was after nights like this, sitting in the dining room and nursing our drinks, that Thaddeus would tell me the wonders of having a daughter.

Then, after several years, their relationship began to degrade. It was about this time that the girl actually began showing signs of adolescent independence, and the development of a personality that, while as enigmatic, differed from his own.

Thaddeus fell ill to a shameful disease, a subtle monster that devoured his days, hour by hour. It started with one drink in the morning, just after he woke up. Then another drink at twelve, when the air was hot enough that anything on the rocks was an appealing notion. That hours between one and six would hold as many as ten drinks, depending upon his mood that day, and of course there had to be wine with dinner. We would sit in the dining room, as he poured himself another scotch and would lean towards me to say, “So, my friend, you see what lay at the hearts of young women; driving a man to the bottle, time and time again, as to have enough calm to know what to do with them.”

I’ll make this quick, in part because I know we all have places to be, but also because the details of the period before that final night are slowly blurring together, their lines not nearly as distinct and defined as they once may have been.

The years went by, and Thaddeus Jackson’s distaste for Alexandra became palatable, although his love for his daughter did not show any signs of faltering. It was as though he much preferred the idea of his daughter to the woman she could, or was becoming. It was on that final night that the war in his heart between affection and aversion for her seemed to tear him apart, so much so that he had become quite emotional. His eyes scanned the room, as though Alexandra might appear from out of thin air, the way she use to do as a child, shouting at him to put down his drink, or worse to try to take care of him—as though he weren’t still enough of a man to do it himself. The strangest impulses appeared that night, accompanied by the most irrational fears. He spoke to me of Alexandra more and more often as the night progressed, worried that she would leave him, worried that she would suddenly disappear right in front of him, accusing her of unthinkably cruel things. In this I could not follow him, nor reassure him in any way, as my time spent with his daughter was limited to short sightings in the hall way.

“Believe it or not, my friend, she’s aging.” He would say to me, over and over again throughout the duration of the evening, taking my hand as if my presence alone was enough to move him to tears. “Do you know where my daughter has gone?”

The tragic climax came rather suddenly; it was the last night I spent in the living room of their house, Thaddeus Jackson poured me another glass and made a toast. He became rather agitated unexpectedly, his state of mind clearly not in its best of forms. His physical condition was even more upsetting, his body seemed weak and sickly, his stomach distended and his face had become a little grey. He stood up once, only to sit down in his chair again, only then to stand once more and pace around the room. He twisted his hands together anxiously, wiping sweat from his brow and stopping only to take another drink. Suddenly he called Alexandra into the room, and returned to his chair.

She came like a vision, standing just to the inside of the door frame and immediately he began to nudge me, bragging like a child with a new toy, “Look at her, my friend, there she is!” He pestered me with questions about her eyes, her face, her lips, as though he could point out something to me that would make her beauty more recognizable. He asked me if I wanted a wife, asked me if I wanted to marry his daughter. As well-intentioned as he may have been, behind it all one could feel his repugnance, his disrespect for his daughter. She disappeared into the kitchen, tears playing on the edges of her eyelashes.

There was silence in the living room for a moment, before Thaddeus Jackson too, burst into tears. He took my hand for a second time, and begged me to put an end to it all, muttering: “How can such a thing be happening to me? I can’t take it; I can’t take losing my little girl. How much of this is a man expected to take?”

The splintering of fine china rang out from the kitchen, and Thaddeus Jackson leapt up furiously, letting go of my hands and disappearing from his seat, disappearing from the living room all together. I heard his angry shouts through the door as though they were my own thoughts, and then I heard it: her voice, so beautiful, so foreign to me.

“Who are you to be yelling at me?” She demanded.

“Damnit girl, I am your father!”

“You have never been my father! You have only been my agony!”

The crash of more china came as a surprise, and I heard her scream. I rushed into the kitchen as a second plate hit the floor, narrowly missing his face, but the palm of his hand did not miss hers. I wished to stop him, wished to put an end to this cruelty but, and I do not know why, I didn’t have the courage to speak up. Outraged, he grabbed her wrists and pulled her towards him, struggling with her tiny limbs as she fought against him until she bit his forearm, and he let her go. She scurried to the cupboard like a wounded animal; only to retaliate with plate after plate throw in his direction until he’d had enough, grabbed an empty wine bottle from the counter and brought it down upon her head. She fell, cracking her head on the corner of the counter on the way down, and her body lay limp on the linoleum floor, sickening silent and still.

I don’t know exactly how long Thaddeus Jackson and I stood there, waiting for her to get back up until we realized that she never would.

I thought I heard him whisper. He crossed himself, with his left hand of course, before picking her body up gently and exiting the kitchen. I couldn’t help but follow him, dragged forward by some morbid fascination that I hadn’t known existed in me, until we reached his bedroom and by some moral reasoning I stopped, just inside the door frame. He placed her in his bed, pushing the hair out of her face and closing her eyes, as though she had only fallen into a blissful, exhaustive state, the way she used to when she had nightmares—as though all of this had only been her nightmare.

Analysis of a Free Falling Body

The shoot chimed its same annoying, but familiar cry as a new someone else entered the room. Malkin looked up briefly from the daily paper, took off his glasses and placed them on the desk where his feet had been only moments before. He leaned forward in his chair, stretching his back before getting up to walk over and greet her.

He could tell she use to be pretty, with short, cropped blonde hair and bright red lips. There were some notably unusual birthmarks on her left shoulder, and a watch on her right wrist. All business, he mused to himself.

“Well, how are we doing today?” He asked, more to the empty room than to her directly. He washed his hands and threw on a pair of gloves. He chuckled to himself, and turned back to her with a shrug. He brushed a loose strand of pale hair away from her face. “That’s alright,” he said softly, “not the best circumstances for a conversation, is it.” He imagined she’d have brown eyes.

He made a short job of examining the rest of her, the black dress, the bouquet of flowers in her hand pressed against her chest as though it were a lifeline that hadn’t done it’s job properly. Her earrings were pearls; their milky white color matched the complexion of her face. The skin around her fingers was worn, and deep purple from a lack of blood circulation. Heart disease was the reason she was with him here today.

After the laser tool cut the death date into the glass above her face, he turned to his desk and flipped open a notebook. He watched her for a moment with a scrutinizing eye, scribbled something in the book and shut it. He only knew the common scripture for blessing the dead, but he said it anyway. Then she was gone, with only the loud thunk of the shoot behind her.

He was alone again, something he was use to. The company around these parts didn’t stay long.

A man came in, a few minutes later, following the sound of the shoot signalling someone new. Malkin looked up from the daily paper, and took off his glasses. Flipping the light switch on the whole way, the small room became bright and sanitary like the inside of a hospital. Usually he kept the lights low, and he burnt a candle to keep the smell of lilac in the air.

The man was smartly dressed, with a red tie and an ironed black suit. His black hair had been recently cut, and it curled only slightly around his ears. His facial hair had been trimmed and cleaned up around the same time as his hair. It was probably the last haircut he’d ever need. He reminded Malkin of a man who would carry a brief case, with important papers inside. He had a watch on that only reiterated his rather expensive lifestyle, and Malkin would bet his first heart that this man would have been a popular one with the ladies.

That was, until he saw his left hand and the simple gold band around the ring finger. Malkin smiled at this, picking up the hand gently to look at the ring. There was nothing inscribed, which meant his wife was probably a sensible woman. That seemed to suit the man. The shirt puckered above the wound that left his stomach distended, and his feet were bare without shoes. His eyes were closed, but Malkin supposed they were green.

The man’s name could have been Derek, or Mark. It was very possible that he graduated high school, and married his girlfriend three years later. He could have worked as a lawyer, or a cop and was killed in action by protecting his parner. Malkin imagined that he would have been brave.

He could have had one daughter, and an older son who he played baseball with every Tuesday night. He could have been the type of man that listened to his daugther’s tea party stories, as her mother braided her hair. Malkin bet his wife’s name was Sara, and that they would sit together and whisper sweet nothings to each other in front of the fireplace of the two story house after the children went to sleep. They could have had a big black dog that would have groaned happily at their feet, exposing his belly to the warmth of the fire.

At least, that is what Malkin imagined the man’s life had been. Being a galactic undertaker allowed Malkin the ability to idealize whatever he wanted in people. Their lives were his story books, where he read the ending chapter and pieced together the rest of the story.

His co-worker received all the paperwork, the I.D. and death certificates. The stories behind the conclusions he saw every day practically offered themselves to him, yet he refused. He wanted to see the good in people. Optimism was an occupational hazard, with death specifically written into the bi-lines. There had been a reason they’d put such a big emphasis on life in his interview. He’d been expected to be jovial and smile often. As if any of that were really important, because bodies aren’t expecting to be greeted with a smile. Once being given the job, he could see how it might be necessary to hire someone with a good handle on the living. People easily depressed or flustered from long nights alone should look for other employment. After awhile he realized he’d taken the job so he could feel good about the fact that he was still breathing.

He configured the laser for the man’s death date, and finished his examinations. Afterwards, he opened the combination lock on the shoot, and transferred the glass casket. Returning to his desk, he scribbled words down in the notebook, and spoke the same scripture over the body of Derek, or Mark, before the wife, the kids and the dog, the brief case job and the expensive watch, as well as the man, all disappeared.

He returned to his desk, dimmed the lights and leaned back in his chair. He placed his feet on the table top, and put his glasses back on his face. He didn’t reach for the paper this time. He sat motionless in the dark, listening to the whirling machines underneath the floor, and finally he heard the quiet click of the springs being shut, and the titanium shoot being emptied into space.

He let out a soft sigh, and closed his eyes. The best post-mortem disposal services in the sector, for prices lower than the cost of your living room furniture. He checked the clock; fourty-five minutes had gone by. The candle on his desk finally burnt out, leaving him in complete darkness. It had been a gift from his mother-in-law, so pleased to have had her only daughter married once, the circumstances of drunken eloping or their mutual divorse a week later didn’t stop her from sending him a candle once a year for his birthday. It dumbfounded him how she always managed to find his address, year after year.

London Studies #1

I built forts as a kid. I would go out into the woods that were my back yard and spend hours of the day constructing a home out of sticks and leaves, sweat and tears, even though I had a perfectly good home a few feet away from me. Now, I use my job to explain away a lot of my quirky behavior.

Being caught in a rainstorm is just as good as a shower in my opinion. I spend a quarter of my year living in the woods, and being sunburned and mosquito bitten is basically a constant state for me at this point. I am most at home with my bare feet on dirt paths, staring into woods that disappear around the closest bend in the hillside. Yet here I am, living among concrete structures that long ago challenged the trees for their height, breadth, and elegance. The buildings here stretch farther into the heavens and with more frequency than what I’m use to, and claustrophobia often encroaches on me if I’m not being careful. It’s a point of personal pride to be able to make a home wherever I am, and this does feel like home. It really does, except that I would never walk barefoot here.

I am a long distance hiker. So, by nature, traversing central London on foot is a thrill for me. Strolling through it’s streets in the morning, I have fallen in love with this historical architecture, and how superimposed into the city it is. It is an intoxicating combination of old and new, ancient and innovative, and it is as essential to this city’s culture as the intertwining system of roots in a forest. They are inseparable. These mighty buildings have withstood the heaviest rains and coldest snows, the most debilitating heat, all of history, and of course, humans. Their red and yellow brick faces have faded in vibrancy, and their white trimming might need to be repainted, but they loom protectively over the people in their streets, who come and go without as much as a second glance at the beauty around them. It is as though they are some equivalent to the majestic forests I have left at home. They span miles and years into the past, and to walk amidst them is as good as strolling through history itself.

There are other parts of London that remind me of home. For a city its size, it doesn’t squander its parks the way other cities seem to. It doesn’t take me more than a few blocks to find one, snuggled up between the crevices the building have left them, each one different and unique in their own ways. There are parks with gates, and parks with playgrounds, and this morning I even found one that had been created out of an old cemetery.

Similarly, coming off the Tube is like finding a break in the tree line, when I come upon a sunlit field in the early morning, and I know exactly where I are again. The cool air hits my cheek, and it’s refreshing rather than stifling the way the air in the underground is. I enjoy the momentary feelings of being lost before I find my bearings, eventually recognizing St. Pancras, with its unmistakably castle-like quality and high rising steeples, the Starbucks across the road, or the corners of streets I’ve walked on before. There are people, so many people everywhere, and each one of them is rushing to get to where they need to be. They flit from station to station, like birds from one branch to another, except birdsong has never sounded alien to me, the way these people do. I listen to a pair of them as they pass me, and although they are speaking English, their conversation is filled with Northern accents, and British slang that make me feel as though I’m listening to another language entirely.

Yet, as familiar as London is to me in these instances, I am homesick for a wind on my face that isn’t from a passing bus. These buildings don’t hug silence against them the way a forest does. Instead, each and every noise seems to reverberate out from them. The skies above my head are empty of stars at night, and there seem to be just as many people as there are pigeons here. I am yearning for a breath free of city air and other people’s conversations. When I feel lost amidst the overwhelming sea of people and expectation in my life, I look for myself in the uninterrupted horizon, where the ground reaches up towards the sun to kiss it twice a day, once for good morning and once for goodnight. I look for myself in the spaces between sea and sky, but there is no ocean here. My uninterrupted horizon is dotted with buildings that look beautiful as silhouettes in the setting sun.

How to Keep a Traveler

Girls who travel are unexpected creatures. They have sun-kissed faces, and unkempt hair. They have aged scars and dirty feet. They probably haven’t showered in days, and more awful than that, is that they probably haven’t cared. They laugh at things you wouldn’t think to laugh at. They find beauty in places you wouldn’t think to look.

You’ll recognize a traveler when you see her. It’s in her eyes, those wide indistinguishably curious beauties that gleam over the titles of travel guides. It’s in her stride, the way she carries herself across a crowded airport is the way you walk at home when you’re alone. It’s in her face. See the daydreams? They’re flown in on planes from places farther away than you or I have ever been.

Whenever you find her, you’ll find her smiling. Adorned in the same carefree attitude and the homeless, worldly traveled attire that she wears so well. Trust me, its better than the tight dresses and drunken sweat that accompanies the company of upscale New York nightclubs. It’s better than the varicolored lights of smoky Midwestern bars that house girls who laugh long after you’ve ditched the punch line. It’s so much better than the way she’d look in your bed at the end of the night.

Try not to make her a conquest.

Save yourself the heartache.

Stay away from girls who travel. They’ll distract you from your studies, try to educate you in ways your university never will. She, who has napped on the steps of the temples at Machu Picchu, went dancing with gypsies on the summer solstice, who has steered gondolas along the river streets of Venice, and skinny-dipped in the caves of the Philippines, has a vocabulary capable of elucidating the innate beauty of a world you’ve never experienced. Hers is a vocabulary that encapsulates effervescent and vibrant adjectives; besmeared with names of cities you only just now need to see. She’s seen enough of the world to know the difference between the specious and empty rhetoric of love from the boy who wants to tame her, and the delicate articulations of a man who wants to keep her.

If you date a traveler, you’ll never really have two feet on the ground of your relationship. Her wild, animalistic charisma will seduce you into quitting the job you hate and joining her on the beaches of Normandy. She will be everything you’ve been taught not to want, foul-mouthed and independent, opinionated and without roots in societies norms. Listen to the things people say about her, travelers are selfish and irresponsible. Obviously, this is why she never took college seriously enough, why she’s always out of money. Listen when they say she idealizes the world, and that it’s a bad thing, even if you don’t believe them.

However tempted you may be, don’t buy her a beer. Just don’t do it.

Don’t ask her about the places she’s been. She will describe for you the food she’s tasted, the people she’s met with such heartbreakingly perfect detail that you won’t be able to avoid reliving it with her. You will bask in her enthusiasm. You will let it inspire you. You will want the things you hear for yourself.

And when you fall in love with her, understand that it will be on borrowed time. Borrow her company, her passion, borrow her love for as long as you are able, and know that someday you will have to give it back. She doesn’t really belong to you. In return, she will find sanctuary in your arms. You will be the home she’s never had, and she will appreciate you. She will love you in all the ways she knows how, but you will share that love with the wildness of adventure. She will whisper her most intimate thoughts to you, the way the wind whispers its love to the trees. She will curl against your body at night, your arms rocking her to sleep the way the ocean rocks boats in their harbors.

She may never want to get married. She may never settle down. Her dreams are her children, nurtured by her ambition and drive. She will cry at things you don’t understand, be moved by things you find ordinary. Let her take your hand, and lead you through the world in a way you’ve never looked at it. You deserve a life of adventure and possibility as well, something simple and unexpected. Something effervescent and vibrant. This is where you’ll find joy. Let her find it with you.

Relish in her restlessness. See the world through the same eyes as you see her. Love the easy way the ocean kisses the shoreline, as though it were her lips upon your neck. Laugh when she bargains over the aisle seat with you, so she can be sure you’re looking out the window. Learn to crave the world the way she does. This is how you keep your traveler.

And if you find you are too grounded in life, then learn to let her go.

Day 2:

Prompt: “If you lie, you must never again return to this forest…”

“If you lie, you must never again return to this forest.”

As if she were looking into a mirror, her reflection stared back at her, crystal clear and totally unrecognizable, from the still body of water. She watched her reflection as the lips moved, although she wasn’t the one speaking. Her face was streaked with dirt from her ordeals, her clothes had small rips from where the trees had reached for her.

“Where have you hidden your daughter?”

“Somewhere safe.” She answered herself cautiously, picking her words out, one at a time, the way she use to pick flowers from the ground and weave them into Amelia’s beautiful, white blonde hair. Although her current activity had a far more menacing agenda. She had vowed that night, what felt like so many moons ago, that she would keep her daughter safe from the monarchy. She had heard the stories of what their king did with special children, locking them away from their parents and those that cared for them, training them up to be soldiers in his armies, fueling their abilities with hate, and betrayal, and abandonment. Not her daughter. Not over her dead body would her daughter end up a slave.

“And where is that? The Witch of the Western Woods wouldn’t have taken her far from you.” Her reflection was more beautiful than she was, as though she had been preserved at the prime of her beauty, and rather than growing old, had aged like fine wine. It was dark magic that could preserve someone like that. The Witch had warned her about still water, but she hadn’t understood her warning. Now she couldn’t seem to break away from the eye contact of her cursed reflection – more of the King’s doing, she was sure.

“Honestly, I have no idea. I have nothing to give your king.” She snapped. She could feel her own anxiety rising, towing the lines between truth and falsity. I cannot lie. The words repeated themselves like a mantra in her mind. I cannot lie, I cannot lie. I cannot lose Amelia, but I cannot lie. Her reflection’s perfect face was marred with vicious disdain. Her feline eyes scorched holes in her soul, and her reflection hissed at her through barred fangs that were more predatory than what was actually in her mouth,

“Remember, lies by omission are still lies. Our King will know when you committed treason. He always knows.” Her own voice dropped as it spoke, until it no longer belonged to her, until it was the deep threatening rumble of her ruler himself. The reflection rippled like a rock had been thrown into the lake, and she was released. Suddenly, everything in the forest clearing stopped moving – even time. There was a stillness in the air, as though someone had halted the cool evening breeze. She heard the soft whicker of a mythical beast, and slowly turned her head to look.

The unicorn was white, it’s coat glowed the most pure color of white, like moonbeams before they filtered down from the heavens. The soft padding of it’s cloven, silver hooves coming towards her was the only noise for miles, except for the comforting sigh from it’s barrel chest as it breathed in and out. The sound reminded her to breathe as well.

It stopped a few feet away from her, shook it’s beautiful, wild mane and whickered at her again. The single horn atop it’s head was spun in pearl and ivory, and from where it touched the land, tiny shoots of newly born plants sprung into life. Without thinking, she reached her hand out to it, but it did not scare. It stared at her for a moment, blinking it’s beautiful deep brown eyes, that somehow seemed familiar, and moved its velvet nose to touch her palm.

It was in this moment, in this gentle touch, that she knew how the Witch had promised to keep her daughter safe, and she felt despair. Unicorns were illusive, and more than that, they were always alone. She hadn’t wanted her daughter to grow up alone. A wave of sorrow overcame her, as she crumbled to the ground, her forehead pressed against the dirt as if she were praying, but she didn’t have anything to say. Tiny blooming flowers appeared out of the earth before her, and she felt the velvet nose against her cheek. She looked up into her daughter’s face, her hands reached out to stroke her cheeks the way she did when she was very little. Her elegant, long nose had a bluish furrow on either side that traveled up to surround her eye sockets in a melancholy shade. Her glorious eyes, encircled by this shadow, were so full of kindness and loneliness, peaceful and nobly tragic, that they killed all other emotions except love.

31 Days of Writing Prompts: Day 1

Prompt: Start a story with the words, “The sun didn’t set that day. It fell.” End the story with the words, “But if anyone asks about us, just tell them we are fine.”

The sun didn’t set that day. It fell—but if you asked anyone about it, it’s like they’d made a pact not to notice. You’d think the general populous would be invested in something like the ending of our solar system.

Jeremy and I seemed to be the only ones were paying attention, and that’s a stretch, because all we seemed to pay attention to these days was the taste of each other’s lips, or the way his teeth felt against my neck. It was his ability to  press his body against me in just the right ways that had a lot of my focus, or sometimes it was the way I smelled after spending the entire afternoon on the floor with him. It was entirely physical, at least…that’s what I kept trying to tell myself.

He had pressed me up against the window in my living room, my hands and chest up against the panes of glass. He was delicately brushing the hair off the nape of my neck when I noticed it. The sun, I mean, as it seemed to plummet out of the sky.

“Jeremy, look.” I said, slapping his hands away from me.

“What, what am I looking at?” He mumbled, pulling himself slowly out of our lust induced trance.

“Use your eyes, idiot.” I heard him curse under his breath as he realized what he was looking at. What we were looking at.

The sun was setting far faster than it should have been, and it was getting bigger ever second. The beautiful array of autumnal oranges, pinks, and reds were exploding across the sky, and for a moment I seriously considered the idea that the Earth was going to ricochet off the sun, collateral damage in its eternal plummet out of space. After a minute, it began growing smaller and smaller, until it settled beneath the event horizon, and disappeared forever.

“Did we just witness the mother fucking end of the earth?” Jeremy asked, as I rushed over to turn on the 7 o’clock news. No one was talking about the sun. No one was talking about anything. The newscaster spent ten minutes describing an accident on the corner of Garfield and Suburban street, where a mutt had run into traffic and caused three cars to collide in hopes of not hitting the mongrel.

I checked twitter. Nothing.

I checked Facebook, and Google. Nothing. Nothing.

The entire world had missed it’s demise because it couldn’t be bothered to look up from it’s phones.

“I don’t want to be alone tonight.” I said finally, my voice trembled a little as I spoke. I closed my computer, and turned to meet his gaze. His eyes reflected my feelings of terror, and more than that, the longing I felt to be connected to another living thing. It burned inside of me, like a hunger that I’d never be able to satisfy. He was a good person to be connected to. He moved to me, knowing exactly how I wanted him to wrap his arms around me, and I instantly felt safe. It was naive to feel that way, I know, in light of what we’d seen. We closed the blinds, and locked the door. We lit a fire in the fireplace, and laid before it together, even though the warmth of his forehead pressed against mine was all the comfort I needed. We settled in to wait out the night together, whatever it might bring.

After an hour or so, he got up to get the phone.

“I’m just going to make some calls, let my parents know I love them.” I nodded, knowing I should do the same.

“Tell them I say hi.” I said, “but, if they don’t know, don’t tell them what happened. If anyone asks about us, just tell them we’re fine.”