Resignation of an Angel

We're working on short stories in Creative Writing. My obsession of late (I go through periods of obsession. For a while it was dragons. Then birds.) is angels, so, naturally, I wrote about angels. 'Course, it didn't start out that way. Initially I thought I was going to write a story about Chinese dragons. Funny how that happens.

But I was lacking in ideas (usually I have a brainful of them), so I decided to go through some old art. Here's what I found:

Angel Pox (Eva). 8.5x11". Graphite on paper. (c) Alexa Ke 2011

Perfect, I thought. Just the right amount of angst to make a good story. So multiple drafts and edits later, here's the story of Eva, a very disgruntled angel.

(As always, this is a working copy, so if you have any edits to make or questions please make them known. :) )

Resignation of an Angel             

            “Today’s my last day!”

            Lucy, absorbed in her work, didn’t hear the announcement until a hand on her shoulder shook her out of her concentration. “Huh?” she said, bewildered, as though she had just been roused from sleep.

            “I said, it’s my last day,” Éva repeated, exasperated. Her robes swished and her wings rustled dryly as she sat across from Lucy. “I finally got the guts to leave. Put in my resignation two weeks ago.”

            “I thought you said you would give it another couple of years,” Lucy said, surprised.

            “I can’t wait that long. This work is driving me up the wall! There’s nothing to do but sort files and run the shredder!”

            Lucy hmmmed. “Well it’s not a prestigious job or anything, but Record work has its perks.”

            “Like what?” snorted Éva.

            Lucy didn’t have anything to say to that, so she hmmmed again. “Have you found a new job yet?”

            Éva’s voice frowned. “I looked around for a while, but with the labor surplus there just aren’t any good jobs anymore. In fact, the only place that’s hiring is Admissions, but they’re even worse than Records! Dealing with all the newly fledged… no. Not for me.”

            “Well, I suppose you could always go into Christmas or Easter Celebration if all else fails,” Lucy said ironically.

            “Yeah. Right. Because you can totally imagine me being a Christmas angel.” The idea was amusing. A chronically apathetic cherub escorting the King of Kings would provide an interesting contrast to the celebrations. “Besides. Joy Larker is head of Celebrations, and that woman is so sweet it gives me a toothache. I’d be out of there before I even got past the doors.”

            Lucy sighed and shuffled some papers. “Well you’ve got to do something, Éva. Maybe you should just stick around here until you’ve got something lined up, otherwise you’ll get Guardianship.” She shuddered. Éva agreed.

            They were silent for a long time; the only sound was the rustling of papers and feathers, clacking typewriters and filing cabinets slamming shut.

            “By the way, your halo’s crooked,” Éva said with a quiet cough to break the silence.

            Lucy blushed. “This darn thing! It won’t stay on straight no matter what I do! And it’s so hard to put on in the dark.” She reached up and adjusted the radiance that floated behind and about her head, but it still tilted off to one side.

            “How do you saints keep those things on, anyway?” Éva asked, trying to carry on the conversation. “My stupid angel’s ring is hard enough to keep straight as it is.”

            Lucy shrugged and the conversation died once again.

            “I just think… There’s got to be something else out there for me,” Éva finally said.

            “Everyone’s got their calling, Éva,” Lucy agreed. “You’ll find yours.”

            Éva’s voice was dark, confused. “No, that’s not what I mean. I mean… maybe I’m not meant to be an angel. I just… I’ve changed. There’s nothing left here for me but menial chores and—mediocrity.”

            Lucy’s voice was thin. “What—what are you saying?” She choked, swallowed. “What do you—”

            Éva touched a finger to the Lucy’s lips and leaned close to her ear. “I’ve decided to go away,” she whispered, her voice tremulous, wary.

            “Yes, you said that before—”

            “No. Away from Heaven.”

            Lucy jumped out of her chair and slapped Éva’s hand away from her, scattering paperwork everywhere. “You’re doing what?” she cried.

            The clattering of the typewriters petered out. One last filing cabinet quietly rolled closed. Papers fluttered to the floor. All were listening intently to the scene.

            Éva muttered something. When asked to repeat herself she was no louder, her voice low.

            “Éva.” Lucy’s voice shook like leaves. “What did you say?”

            Éva was silent except for her quiet breathing, which steadily grew louder until she broke out, “You know what? I’m sick of this! Keeping my feelings secret, living a lie. It’s my last day! I can say whatever I want!” She whipped around and faced the crowd of listening angels. “I hate it here! I hate it! I hate this job, I hate this life, and I hate all you! And especially you,” she spat at a shocked Lucy. “I just hate!”

            She brushed away into an office and slammed the door. Just as suddenly the click-clack of the typewriters struck up again, as though Éva’s tirade had been nothing more than a noisy rest between movements of a symphony.

            Lucy stood with her mouth numbly hanging open. Blindly she gathered the scattered files together and set the mess on her desk, then steeled herself and followed Éva.

            Éva kicked a desk, fuming. Through the dark of the room, Lucy reached out for Éva and put a hesitant hand between her friend’s wings, but flinched away. Éva’s skin was ice cold.

            “Éva, are you well? You’re freezing!”

            Éva laughed through her anger. “You really are blind, aren’t you?” Her voice was poison. “I’m just as well as I’ve always been, Lucy. Nothing’s changed. I’ve just finally got the guts to admit it.”

            Lucy grasped for the chair next to her, sat and clasped her hands in her lap. “You aren’t happy here,” she sighed.

            “I never have been,” Éva replied. “Not from my day of fledging. Not ever.”

            Lucy’s was confused. “But that can’t be. A Merciful God would not suffer you to be somewhere you can’t be happy. It’s one of the fundamental laws of Heaven. He should have found you a job you like—”

            “There isn’t a job I like, Lucy,” Éva muttered. “Employment has stuck me in every opening they could find. I even served a Guardianship for a few years. My boy died in a car accident while I wasn’t watching so Employment pawned me off to someplace I couldn’t screw up. Records was my last chance and now I’ve blown it.

            She paused. When she spoke again her voice was distant. “On my day of fledging, while I waited outside the Gates, I looked out to the side, down that little corridor between Heaven and Hell. It looks like it goes on forever, but it has to end somewhere. It has to, doesn’t it?”

            Suddenly Lucy understood: the depression, the chilled skin, the unhealthy rasping Éva’s feathers made as they rubbed against each other. “You—have the Pox, don’t you.”

            Éva hesitated before solemnly answering, “Sinner’s Pox? Yeah.”

            Lucy sucked in her breath, biting back a cry. “But—for how long?”

            “Since day one. My wings came like that, with little black specks all over them. They weren’t noticeable at first, but as time went on the spots got bigger and darker. I didn’t know what to do about it so I just hid it.”

            “How?”

            “I bleach my feathers.”

Lucy flinched, imagining the pain.

“It hurts, yeah. Every movement sets my skin on fire, and I can’t fly anymore, but I have to… I have to do it. In my weaker moments the stains show through, and when that happens I have to pluck myself. Or if I wait long enough the feathers just fall out by themselves. They die once they’re completely black.”

            “Éva—” Lucy choked. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped you.”

            Éva’s voice was as black as the feathers that stained her back. “There is no helping me,” she said. “There is no hope for a sinner in Heaven.”

            “Why you? You never did anything that bad, did you? Why do you deserve this?” Lucy didn’t understand, couldn’t understand.

            Éva swallowed back the lump in her throat. “When the Admissions officer was weighing my good deeds against my bad, the scales wouldn’t settle between Heaven or Hell. I was nervous and I didn’t want to go to Hell, so I—I begged him to let me in. I promised him I’d be the perfect angel, I’d follow all the rules and make up for my sins. The lines were getting longer and I wasn’t taking no for an answer, so he admitted me, but—I met God on my way in. I couldn’t fool him; He could see every sin like sores on my skin. As punishment for cheating my way in, He gave me this curse to remind me of what got me here, and—I just can’t take it anymore. The pressure. The guilt.”

            “So… you’re leaving?”

            “Yes.”

            Lucy frowned. “But—where will you go?”

            Éva was indifferent. “I don’t know. All I really know is that this Heaven isn’t meant for me. I could go to Hell, or Home, maybe.” Her voice became distant again. “Or maybe… maybe I’ll just toe the line and see where I get. Walk along that corridor for a while, see where it leads. It has to end somewhere. Maybe—I’ll find my Heaven out there, somewhere beyond this, this—black-and-white, Heaven-and-Hell world.”

            She stood, sniffed, brushed off her robes, brushed past a silent Lucy. Hand on the doorknob, Éva turned back to her stunned friend. “I don’t hate you, Lucy. I just… I have to move on, and—saying I hate you makes it easier to leave.” The door creaked open. “I hope the best for you.” Then she was gone.

            “And for you the same,” Lucy whispered, then broke into tearless sobs. Lucy, patron saint of the blind, had no eyes with which to cry.

            A myriad of black-spotted feathers fluttered through the air behind the retreating Éva, who held her head high past the legions of staring eyes. Out the doors, down the steps of the Records Hall, through the gold-paved street; not an eye turned away from the Fallen angel who smiled with freedom.

            Shouldering her way past the bewildered Gatekeepers, Éva hesitated at the Golden Gates. Her once-white wings had been reduced to ashy feathered stubs protruding from her shoulder blades, marking her as a Sinner. But she did not care.

            Slowly she turned to face the awe-struck crowd of angels, a twisted smile gracing her features. Thoughtfully she reached up, grabbed her halo, and shattered it against the pavement.

            With arms held wide open she faced the Gates to embrace Fate, Oblivion, whatever awaited her. They swung open, unleashing a blinding light. Joyfully, Éva stepped through.

            The Gates slammed shut, the light blinked out. Dark fell back to the streets once again like curtains drawn. A single black feather floated to the ground where Éva had stood, spotted with steadily growing white streaks.

EDIT (12/13/11): Updated to a more final draft.

The Mind Is a Blank Slate

I love children, but I don't know if I'll ever have any of my own.

There, I've said it. My greatest fear: having children.

I'm still young. I've got a while to grow out of it, but sometimes I worry. I worry that I'll be... forced... into something I don't want. Certainly I want to find a man, but after that... then what?

I never was the child who dragged a baby doll everywhere I went; in fact, I was terrified of them. When my family stayed in hotels on vacation, I insisted that my sister get rid of her baby doll before she got in the bed we shared.

Growing up, my friends wanted to grow up, get married, and have twelve children, and they had already picked out names for each and every boy and girl they intended to produce. I never participated in such conversation. Actually, I found playing "superpowers" with the boys more enjoyable than associating with girls in any way.

I think that's kind of what helps me empathize with the character in the story you're about to read. It's a major work in progress, like all the short stories I start and never finish. This one's different, though. Something about it makes me want to write more...

The working title is "Blank Slate." Chapter 1.2 is still majorly in progress, as is chapter 2, and the preface needs work. Try not to be too critical.

Have you ever loved someone enough to kill them? I’m not asking about a sick pet or an ancient many-greats-grandmother who’s been confined to life support for the last few years, and I’m not speaking metaphorically. I really mean to ask: Have you ever cared about someone so much that you took it upon yourself to…

I think I’m starting this off in the wrong way, because already I’ve made myself sound like a—no.

I mean to say, you’re probably wondering why I haven’t—well, never mind.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that right now I’m very emotional, and the words I’m trying to say aren’t coming out right. But that’s the funny thing about writing from the heart: even though it hurts, I know I still have to do this. I still have to tell this story, and I have to tell it properly.

Today my son is dead. Carter did not die of natural causes, nor was it accidental, or suicidal, and it wasn’t murder. Carter died because of love, and the best way to explain that—well, there’s two ways, and I’ll tell you both.

The first way to explain it is that when you love something—or someone—very much, you have to let them go. That’s how I explained it to Carter when he lost his stuffed toy. I’m not sure that was something he could understand, but it made me feel better about leaving his toy at the doctor’s office. I’m sure some other kid is having a better life because of it.

The second way to explain it will take longer to tell, but hopefully it will help you make a little sense of what I’ve done.

1.2 
“Angie, have you ever thought about adopting?” She asked me.

“No,” I said automatically. That was my natural response, but in reality, adoption was the thought foremost on my mind. I just didn’t know how else to answer her question. She was obviously looking to educate me on the matter.

“Oh. Well, I’m working on the red tape for my third. He’s a little gem from Ethiopia.” She waved her lettuce-laden fork as though to emphasize this fact. “My husband and I have been working it out for five months, but the end result is worth it.”

She took a bite, then looked up at me curiously. “You’ve worked here for, what, five years? And you really haven’t tried out a kid? I hope you don’t mind me saying, but it’s a bit beyond me.”

Well, it would be for you, I wanted to say. Miss married-at-twenty, two-adopted-kids-and-another-on-the-way—it would seem strange that someone like me doesn’t want all that. But what I really said was, “That’s nice, Bree.” I sucked in my breath and glanced at my phone. “Ooh, sorry. My break’s over. Maybe we can talk later.” I feigned a smile and walked off, leaving her staring after me a little stunned.

I don’t know why I always let her get under my skin, but she was so... Naïve. The words came flying out of her mouth before she could wrap her brain around them, and she didn’t seem to notice the friction they caused. But despite her abrasive nature, she was one of my closest friends when I could stand to be around her.

She chatted about her “hubby” and kids ninety percent of the time she talked, which only reminded of the things I didn’t have. I wasn’t married. I didn’t have kids. Up until that point, I had never desired either, but I felt something growing inside me. I don’t know if it was my natural motherhood instinct suddenly kicking in or an errant rush of hormones, but I wanted all that: the husband, the kids, the sense of belonging.

My office seemed suddenly empty, devoid of life. Unlike all the others, I had no family pictures to deck the walls. In fact, the only photos I had were a baby picture, a picture of me with my parents, and the portrait from my senior prom. I don’t know why I kept that picture. I didn’t date the guy past prom night, and it was hardly a treasured memory of mine. I suppose it was just wishful thinking, or maybe a pathetic attempt at fitting in with the rest of the agency.


2.
“Are you sure you can handle this?” Alison, my supervisor, asked.

I flicked through the file in my hand, not sure how to answer her question. Could I handle this? Was this the right thing for me to be doing now, or would it pull me under?

Alison shifted in her seat across the table from me and cleared her throat. “Listen, Angie… I mean, I know this is a big dream of yours, but do you really think you can take care of a kid on your own? Especially this one!” She gestured to the manila folder in my hand. “Do you realize how much help he needs?”

I did. The boy had been bounced around a few foster homes before finally ending up back here, just three weeks after his arrival. The circumstances of his upbringing were… interesting, to say the least.

“Yes, of course I do. I’ve only read his file, what, a thousand times?” I placed the folder on the desk and let out a deep sigh before meeting Alison’s eyes. I could feel rebellious tears springing up in my eyes. “Alison, I just… I know he’s the right one for me. I can’t tell you how many children I’ve looked at, and none of them make me feel the way he does.”

Alison echoed my sigh. “I just don’t want you to go into this too quickly.” She picked up the boy’s file and replaced it in a stack on her desk. “Give it a week,” she said, standing up to leave. “If he’s not in another home by then, we’ll talk.”

“Yeah… yeah, all right,” I mumbled, swiping the tears away from my face.

I slipped into the ladies’ room to check my makeup. The blotchy, tear-stained face that stared back at me from the mirror didn’t seem like my own. There was a desperation behind those green eyes that I’d never seen before. Never had I wanted something so badly, and the thought that this boy might go to another family almost made me sick. I had to have him.

My mind was in a fog as I walked down the halls of the agency, and I was so deep in thought that I passed the door I wanted before I realized where I was.

I could almost feel a dark curtain lifting from my brain as I entered the playroom. There he was, sitting off to the right with his back to the door: my son. I couldn’t help myself; I ran over and scooped him into my lap.

“Hi, sweet boy,” I murmured into his ear, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “How are you today?”

As always, he made no response. His blue eyes looked anywhere but at me, his fingers twitched, and his only sound was quiet breathing. But for me, I could swear he smiled; that was why I was in love.

“I brought you a friend, Baby Brother,” I said. Baby Brother was his temporary name, as his father had never bothered to name him. In my mind I had already began to list the names I wanted for him: Ethan, Jackson, Cooper, Carter, Isaac. There were more, of course, but I had narrowed it down to those five then.

I reached into my purse and produced a stuffed lion, yellow with a brown yarn mane. Its eyes matched Baby Brother’s: empty.

“His name is Lionel.” I shook Lionel and the bell inside of him tinkled. “He’s very kind and brave, and he’ll always be a good friend.”

 Do you agree? Is this a worthy pursuit? And am I alone in my fears?

Shhh...

This is top secret. You can't tell my dad I wrote this.

I'm supposed to be writing for contests this summer (according to me padre), but I couldn't resist a little "splurge" on a story prompted by Myself of Through My Eyes. My prompt was (the image is backwards due to Myself's webcam):

If you don't have a mirror on hand, it says a library, a creature from another planet, and  a character finds a treasure.

Huh. Well apparently I should have used a mirror, because I thought my plot was "a character solves a problem." ...I'll just pull a Spielberg: the treasure is knowledge. (Anyone? Anyone? Movie line game?)

That's okay. Myself, you don't hate me, do you?

P.S. It has no title, so I'm calling it Lipgloss. (That's a bit of an inside joke that no one here will ever understand. Hahayou.)

“So your assignment over the weekend is to research the inhabitants of another planet,” the teacher finally concluded after a 3-hours-long lecture on intergalactic relations. “Your reports will be due on Munsdie.”

                Xxy%ten gathered his various writing tablets covered with doodles of aliens, then fell into line behind Ybegr#n as he marched out the door.

                “Hey, Ybegr#n,” Xxy%ten said, tapping the taller P’kenfris. “Where are you going for your study?”

                “My grandma’s house,” replied the other without looking. “She’s so old, she’s practically from another planet.”

                “Oh…” Xxy%ten wished he’d thought of that, but since someone else was doing that he didn’t want to copy them. “Well, I was thinking I’d fly around and stop at any planet that catches my eye.”

                “Well, have fun with that,” said Ybegr#n as he climbed into his cruiser and flew out of the schooling-port. Xxy%ten did the same.

                “Computer!” The little P’kenfris cried, smacking the touch panel of his vehicle.

                “What?” The computer voice whined.

                “Examine inhabited planets within 20 lightyears of here.”

                The computer proceeded to flash various planets on the screen: large, small, flaming, and even a planet no larger than a dust speck, found on the surface of another, larger planet. The latter piqued Xxy%ten’s interest, so he set coordinates for the larger of the two: a blue-green planet called “Earth.”

                When he arrived, the first place he examined was something his computer told him was called a “Library.” At the schooling-port they called “libraries” information download ports, but, after all, this was an alien planet.

                “How can I help you?” The controlling alien asked when Xxy%ten approached it. It did not look up at him as he approached, but that was something the P’kenfris was accustomed to. He was so impossibly short, as his parents had described it, that he was always looked over.

                “I’m looking for a planet that I’ve been told exists somewhere on the surface of this world. If I remember correctly, it is called… Hoovil.”

                The controlling alien sniffed and shuffled some papers. “Hmph. Well, I would check the children’s section.”

                Xxy%ten nodded and thanked the alien before turning to locate the children’s books. The first book he examined, however, attacked him most viciously, causing his finger to bleed and throb.

                “Excuse me,” the P’kenfris said to the controlling alien. “Your information log sliced my finger. Is there perhaps another method of knowledge transfer?”

                The controlling alien sighed and cleared its throat hoarsely. “Try an eBook, then.”

                “Brilliant!” Xxy%ten cried. “Can it be accessed with POL?” (POL as in P’kenfri On Line).

                “Yeah, sure, whatever,” the controlling alien muttered.

                Nursing his injured finger, the P’kenfris darted happily out of the information download port and into his ship. When he logged onto POL and accessed the Earth networks, he discovered that Hoovil was not an actual planet, but a fictional destination dreamed up by an alien Earth-dweller who went by the name of Dr. Seuss.

                With that report, Xxy%ten passed intergalactic relations with full marks. Ybegr#n did, too, in case you were wondering.

The Man of My Dreams Is a Tree?!

In other news: I'm feeling a little better, all. Inspiration has once again sprung forth, and I also couldn't wait to share what I've been working on the past few days.

I realized that the reason I was feeling so yucky about blogging was that I had a set schedule that was putting way too much on my plate. Hence I have decided to throw out the whole posting schedule, and am now going to post once or twice a week.

Now that I've got my head back together, here are some things to look forward to:

• More poetry: Poems on internet love (I'm making fun of people who have asked to date me on the internet and stuff like that), fish, and my soulful aversion to prose.
• Stories: Chapter-by-chapter postings of unfinished novellas, including a story about a puddle and another about a society of maneaters.
• Short Stories: Including a seven-year-old comatose mother of two, a blank-slate-child, and today's story of my dream-boy (he's also a tree).
• More Features: As promised, EAL's feature will be posted tomorrow! Also remember that I am always looking for other poets, prosets, and artists. :)
• More Art: Including a tree-man (for today) and a tree-woman (for later), broken eyes, birds and bird-people, and watercolors.

For today, I have a piece I wrote based off a dream I had two nights ago.

Have you ever had a dream in which you meet someone of the... opposite gender... and somehow yo know that you're completely in love and you'll never find anyone else like them in real life? That's the kind of dream I had last night, except the man of my dreams was part tree.

Can I say, WUT.

But it's true, and now I find myself condemned to search my entire life for a man who's also a tree so we can get married and have little tree-babies.

Crap.

Anyways, I couldn't help but use this as a bit of inspiration leverage. I assume you'd like to see what this dreamboy looks like? Well, here he is:

He's still a bit of a work in progress. Those are the flat colors, and later on I'll add  shade and dimension and probably a background. He has bark for skin, his eyes are ice-blue, and his hair shines pale-green in the sunlight. Do I know too much about this non-existent man? Um... Yes. Yes I do.

So there he is. One big hunk of woody hotness. He was really fun to draw, especially since I almost never draw men. When I started putting bark on his face, my sister was like "Why are you giving him a freaky skin disease?" I've learned that to avoid earning snarky comments from my family, I need to draw (and write) in privacy.

So aside from the characters in my dream (him, me, and some other dude (I think he was part bird, and he might have been funny, also)), the plot went something like this: I fell in love with a tree-man, and then some army marched by and I told him to hide and pretend he was a tree.

Goodness, I'm original, telling a tree-man to pretend to be a tree. I promise the story I'm writing is a little less obvious. Here, I'll even prove it. I've only written one little bit of a scene because writing in chronological order depresses, bores, and bores me. It's boring. So here's a little excerpt from my dream-turned-novella:

Something caught my eye—a movement apart from the rhythmic motion of the tree limbs swaying overhead and the wind swirling below. It was a seedling, and I would never have picked it out from the undergrowth were it not for the alarming rate at which it was growing. Such things were normal occurrences due to the State-of-Things, but even this was a bit of an oddity. Within seconds as I watched, the tiny sprout of green became a sapling, and the sapling a tree, with innumerable branches and leaves as green as emerald. And while certainly I was surprised to see a tree do such a thing, I was not prepared for what it did then.

As the rate of its growth slowed (by then the trunk was probably too large for me to wrap my arms around), the rough bark just above my eye level shifted, swirling to form some shape, a pattern. As I stepped closer, the image came into focus: it was a face, round and soft like a baby, but hewn out of wood. I staggered backwards, startled.  As I did the face shifted again, its features becoming harder, more refined. I stared, unable to tear my eyes away from this spectacle, as the face in the tree grew quickly older, the lips becoming thinner, the cheekbones more pronounced. Its eyes remained closed through all of this, as though the being were asleep, or perhaps dead.

Despite my fear and shock, somehow I was drawn to this strange creature, as though someone had tied a string to my heart and was slowly pulling me in. Without any thought I reached out my arm and gently ran my fingers across the surface of the bark, tracing the outline of the jaw, the brow. As I passed my fingers over those closed eyes, they opened, and suddenly I was staring into ice-blue eyes as real as any human’s.

I shrieked, jerking my hand back, yet those piercing eyes never left mine. I stood frozen, waiting for the apparition to pass, or for me to wake up from whatever dream this was. When neither happened, I again cautiously reached out my hand.

Suddenly, the rushing stopped. The face closed its eyes, and I could swear I felt the tree take a single sighing breath.

“Lisbeth?” he said, as it was apparent that the voice belonged to a man. My name was spoken accompanied by whistling leaves and water, as though the entirety of nature was saying it in unison.

“Yes?” I answered, finding my tongue able to speak.

“Help us?” He made it sound like a question, but I knew it was a command more than anything else.

His eyes opened again, shining so brightly it felt as though I was staring into the sun. I staggered back, released from my paralysis, shielding my eyes. The rush of the wind again filled my ears, a shrill cacophony of rustling leaves and shrieking voices, desperate and, it seemed, in pain.

I squinted through the light, trying to discern what was happening. To my amazement, the tree was not growing as it had before; rather, it was returning to a smaller state, the immense trunk growing steadily smaller and strangely misshapen. The towering branches fell, landing on the ground around me, as though sheared off; the roots tore themselves up and shrank back. And the face… I would have expected him to be in pain, but he was… smiling.

At last the transformation was complete, and before me stood a man, his skin gnarly and wooden like the bark of a tree. Leaves sprouted from his face, parting his wind-blown hair away from those mesmerizing eyes. Like snake’s eyes, I realized. You can’t look away.

He reached out a hand for me, his fingers thin and decorated by budding leaves. Every movement was filled with grace, yet there was a sinewy power behind those bark-covered limbs. Before he could take hold of me, though, he was on the ground, his eyes rolled up in the back of his head.

All I could think was, What in I’Soul’s name just happened?

Suggestions? Confusion? Constructive criticism? Let me know. c:

The Rains Came Down, and the Flood Isn't Far Behind.

In news: Hey look! I've written 20 posts! Yay! *confetti and streamers*

In other news: Apparenly he "" key on my keyboard has gone on srike, so if his senence doesn' make sense, ha's why.

It's been raining at my house for about a month now, and mind, I live in a desert. Literally. There hasn't been this much rain for about 20 years, and the flooding is going to be very bad when it happens. I live quite near to the river, which is already flooding, and no one has flood insurance. My grandparents live right smack-dab on the banks (why builders decided to put houses there we'll never know), and they don't have flood insurance, either (not that they could afford it anyways...) The whole valley is holding its breath until the snow on the mountains melts.

Today's prose piece was inspired by this unfortunate set of circumstances. For a long time I've wanted to write something similar to The Sea of Ashes, as it's a style of writing I really enjoy. Be warned, it's pretty rough, and I'm probably not done with it yet. Hence, constructive criticism in the form of "Hey moron! You spelled 'the' wrong!" would be appreciated. c:

Urban Oceans 

       When will the rain stop? The last human words I heard before the winds broke in were “Severe Storm Warning,” broadcast in an imperfect loop on the radio. But ever since the power cut out, I’ve only heard the clouds calling out to one another.
       It’s been months since I’ve seen the sun. The sky is always as grey as the thirsty concrete which drinks up all this “heavenly” precipitation. The ground remembers growing green before, having trees and flowers burst from beneath it, until it was suffocated under streets and sidewalks. Now as the rains pour, it calls on these memories to break free of its concreteskin prison.
       They’ve told me to stay dry in my half-rotted-roof house, while the rains keep coming and keep coming and keep pouring. Through the holes in the ceiling, on the street, incessant; I think it shall rain forever, and I will just have to wait as my basement floods and gets my feet wet.
       I’ve seen people floating past on cobbled-together boat houses, like war-torn refugees escaping on the Atlantic. A part of me wants to join them, to ford the river on my bedroom door, but I’ve been told to stay here and let the Chinese-water-torture-rain drip on my head and make me forget. I dare not disobey.
       Or perhaps I will dive in head-first, because waiting for these urban oceans to quit creeping in on me seems so pointless.

The Archives: A Really Horrible Short Story

I wouldn't post this if I didn't know that Rachel would kill me if I didn't, because really it's a horrible story. Rachel insists it's a really, really good story, but I have my doubts. So if you trust her, you can read it, but I would recommend you just skip over it.

But on the other hand, I guess it must have some merit if I'm posting it at all.

This hurts my brain. Here, just read it. Or don't. I don't care either way. And you can also tell me how wonderful it is or how much you hate it. Really, I'm indifferent. This is "Rat."

Rat

She was eight years old when she first heard the creature speak to her. Holding that slightly serrated kitchen knife in her hand, staring at her reflection in the blade, a spider on her shoulder whispered into her ear:

“Put the tip to your chest.”

The child bit her lip. "Dad said I shouldn't."

The spider tickled her cheek as it responded:

“I didn’t say to push it in.”

She contemplated the blade a moment and began to pull it to her ribcage, but stopped and shook her head. Mom and Dad would miss me. Slowly, she placed the knife in the cutting block and continued with her chores. The spider said nothing in protest, but did not leave her shoulder. It sat in wait for five years, patiently anticipating a tragedy.

When next it spoke, she was thirteen. Her father had just killed himself last week, and she was left lost and alone. Though her mother tried her best to console her daughter, there was a hole in the girl's heart that could have only been filled by her dad. A mouse put its dry fingers on her chin and wrapped its tail around her neck, lifting her eyes to look into its face.

“Put the tip to your chest,” it crooned. “You don’t have to push; just hold it right here.” With one claw, it pointed to the aching space in her heart. It smiled a yellow-teeth smile. “I promise it won’t hurt. In fact, you’ll feel better.”

Gulping back tears, the girl obediently brought the blade to her ribs and held it there, feeling the cool metal through her shirt.

“There…” the mouse purred, swiping a tear from her cheek with its paw. “Doesn’t that feel better?"

“Yes,” she choked out. “Yes, it does.”

“And if that feels good,” the mouse went on, “think how good it will feel if you push…”

She initially tried to protest, but the vermin tightened its noose around her neck so she could neither move nor speak. “It will make you feel better,” it insisted, digging its claws into her face, teeth like needles bared.

Crying out in fear, the girl swatted it away with her free hand, the knife clattering to the ground. She slowly backed away from the writhing creature, her face twisted in pain. “No, I can’t," she whispered. Gathering her courage, she screamed at the mouse, "I can’t do that!” She retreated until it was out of sight, never taking her eyes from the creature's.

It followed her, realizing that it had pushed too hard too soon. It would have her, though, even if it had to wait five, ten, thirty years.

Again a spider, the creature crept back onto her shoulder, stepping lightly so she wouldn’t notice its return. Every once in a while it spoke a few words, ever so quietly so as almost not to be heard:

“I know it hurts.”

“I can help.”

“You can feel better.”

Just as before, the beast’s patience paid off. She was sixteen, crushed under stress and on the verge of insanity. With trembling hands, she clutched the slightly serrated kitchen knife, staring at her tear-streaked reflection in the blade. The spider whispered into her ear:

“Put the tip to your chest.”

Without hesitation, she pulled the knife to the aching space in her heart.

“You can feel better,” the mouse hissed. “It won’t hurt. Just push.”

She tried to blubber something through her tears, but the creature couldn’t wait. “Just push!” The rat snarled, wrapping its claws around the blade and pulling it closer. The girl resisted, pushing it away, but her assailant only grew louder and larger.

“It will feel better! Just—”

The rat choked on its words, its hold on the blade slipping. A trickle of blood escaped past its needle teeth. As the creature fell to the floor in a pool of blood, the girl looked through her tears into the eyes of her mother, who clutched a bloody pen and her daughter's diary. She stared at the twitching body of the rat, then the mother gathered her little girl into her arms. A moan escaped the daughter’s lips.

“I didn’t do it,” she wept, clinging to her mother as a lifeline, her words almost swallowed in her sobs. "I didn't do it."

“Shhhh,” whispered her mother, rocking her back and forth.