Angel Curls and Other Fun Stuff

So, clearly you've all been waiting with bated breath for my next piece of actual writing. Well, take a breath, ladies and gentlemen, because here it is! This was one of the pieces I wrote for my Writers Craft exam. I still don't have the dialogue one yet (well, I have about half of it), so that won't be posted for a while.

Also, one of the novel ideas that has fastened to me so strongly is one including the characters from the Promises To Keep collection. The plot is surfacing slowly, but I have a good idea that it includes the shadow people that live in Gabe's head. I will likely post an excerpt before too long, because I'm really happy with it.

Anyway, without further nonsense, here's the story. Please keep in mind that this is a character speaking. Not me. Also, the story is a bit disturbing. A bit of language and possibly morally offensive subject matter.

Angel Curls

I can’t believe what I’m considering. What sort of monster am I? She’s my little sister, for fuck’s sake. She deserves better than being sacrificed for my own gain. God. I want that power. I want to be better, stronger, more interesting than everyone else. Is it worth it?

She looks like a goddamn angel. All those perfect, white blonde curls. That perfect, beautiful face. She’s even smiling. Why can’t she look like a brat when she’s sleeping. I want to do it. I want to take my knife to her throat and watch crimson splash across the pale marble of her skin, stain her hands and her hair and her blue eyes to become cold and distant. I really do want to.

I’m sick. She’s a little girl! How can I even think that?

And yet, the idea fascinates me.

I watch the way the orangey light from the street-lamp outside plays across my hands. Unremarkable hands. Too short to properly play the piano. Too clumsy to catch a ball, or to throw one properly. The nails are all bitten down, the skin red and raw.

Are these the hands of a murderer?

I look at her hands, curled around a fold in her blanket. Her fingers are as long as mine already, and she’s only seven. She’ll never have any trouble spanning an octave. She plays catch with dad on the weekends, and she rarely drops the ball, rarely throws it short. How is it that she’s less than half my age, and she’s already more talented than I am? The only similarity between my hands and hers are the chewed nails. She picked up that habit from me.

If I killed her- No, sacrificed her, I could be more talented. I could be beautiful and powerful. I could have golden curls and an angelic face. I could have blue eyes.

But I couldn’t ever have my little sister back.

Nick says it’ll be worth it. He gets this gleam in his eye when he says it, this hungry look. I know he wants the power as badly as I do. Maybe even moreso. But it’s not his little sister we’d be killing. I wonder if he’d have as hard a time as I’m having, making this decision.

I shouldn’t have this problem! I should be evil enough to want the power no matter the cost, or I should be good enough that I would never even consider it. I don’t need to waste my time feeling so fucking conflicted.               

I’ll do it. It’s worth it. She’s already lived more fully than I have.

Who’s fault is that?

I only have myself to blame. I still have time, though. I can work harder at school, make more friends, and break up with Nick. I can. I don’t have to have that power to feel whole, and happy and good about myself.  I can make an effort to be better.

But I’m still going to want it.

Forever.          

Slowly, I reach over and brush my hand across the silky smooth curls that have fallen over her forehead. She doesn’t wake up, and that’s well enough, because I’m not sure what I would do if she did. Because I’m willing to be a bad person. Not tonight, maybe, but soon.

Comments and feedback always appreciated! Thanks for reading!

Martinis, Girls and Guns

 Fast Cars

He kept his well-polished shoe pressed against the gas pedal. The car itself was well accustomed to the speed, but the model had never been designed for it. The needle on the speedometer was  as far right as it could go. The roar of the engine was left far behind him, leaving the interior of the car eerily quiet.

His hands gripped the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles glaring white from his tanned hands. Those hands were scarred, too, covered in the remnants of fights he shouldn’t have been able to win, hasty escapes and covert entries. Hands, broad and square, that would better suit a criminal than the well-dressed, elegant man that they belonged to.

His lips were pressed together tightly, his eyebrows frowned, and the blue eyes behind the dark glasses glared at the road in front of the car. Empty roads like this left him with no distractions from the heavy press of the past. No beautiful woman sat beside him, no deadly gunman chased him down. He was left alone with his thoughts, and he didn’t like it one bit.

Another day, another dollar. Another clip of bullets unloaded into the chest of some hired lackey. Another brief love affair, ended with a bang. Another few people to add to that growing crowd in the back of his mind.  Another set of accusing eyes.

He took one hand off the wheel and slipped it beneath the edge of his suit jacket. He briefly gripped the smooth handle of his gun. He kept one bullet in his pocket, inscribed with his number. Three digits that he’d become so familiar with. A bullet from an encounter a long time ago. A bullet sent to him because he’s the best.  He didn’t really know why he kept it with him. Maybe because he had a perverse fascination with the idea of loading that one bullet into his gun and pulling the trigger on life.

A bitter smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. He’d never really do it of course, but He’d heard that somewhere, everyone had someone who has a bullet with their name on it.  He didn’t have to worry. He already had his own.

Yeah, I'm lame. I've been watching too much James Bond lately.  But that's too bad. It's a sort of interior mind set thing of a hard-bitten spy.  Maybe I'll try an action sequence soon.
Dun nuuun DA NAAA

The Water

This is a short story that was entirely inspired by this song. Not much else to say about it.

The water

I’ll sink in my skin and my bones

The surface of the water is so far above me, I don’t believe I’ll reach it before my lungs explode. There’s no way that mirrored surface will shatter and let me take a much needed breath. I’m going to die here, so far from the air that I took for granted, and the sun, and the sky that I gazed at so often. The soft breeze that so often floated across the fields and ruffled my hair like an affectionate older sibling might. 

I kick hard, but already I feel as though my legs aren’t connected to me. I feel nothing except for my lungs, and they burn like all the fires of hell. I give up on the thought of reaching the surface, and breathe in the cool, clear water. It makes the flames sizzle out, but my vision fades to blackness. I can hear a rushing in my ears. I slip away from my body even as strong hands lift me from the lazy current of the lake and pull me aboard the boat.

I watch with interest as they work to make me breathe again, to rid me of the water that has soaked into my lungs and killed me. I’m dead. I know it. I feel no connection to my body anymore. It’s like I don’t exist. I wouldn’t even think that the pale, washed out creature lying across my mother’s lap was me, if I hadn’t seen that face in the mirror every day. 

I drift off before my parents give up on me and break down into tears.  I don’t want to see them cry over me. Enough moisture has seeped into my life, I don’t need to see more of it fall from their eyes. I couldn’t stand it.  No more water. Please.

And yet, when I drift away, I drift down, pulled by the current into the water. Into the deep. 

The water sustains me

Without even trying, the current pulls my spirit down into the deep, dark center of the lake. The strange creatures come out to look at me, this strange invader interrupting their cold and secret lives. They stare at me with their empty, fathomless eyes, silently judging me. I feel mildly ashamed, as though I’ve intruded on something I was never meant to see. The lake weed is strangely beautiful, drifting lazily in the deep currents. I imagine that my own hair would look the same, but then I remember that I don’t have hair anymore. Not hair or fingers or eyes, really. But how do I see then?

The water around me gets darker as I near the bottom of the lake. I look up, and the water above me grows too murky to see through a few feet up. I touch the bottom, which is surprising, because theirs technically nothing to touch to the bottom. But I do, and the world shifts.

The water thins and clears, and the world dries up and changes.

The land I knew is a dream

Suddenly, I’m standing on a dirt path in a forest, and the water is entirely gone, except for what drips from my skin and my clothes. I walk down the path, confused and disoriented. At the center of the lake, there was a darkness that I knew was for me to figure out, and I think I belonged there, where the larger fish creep and the current drifts around like a light breath. But this forest has none of the peace I think I should get at this point. I’m dead. Let me rest.

But I follow the path deeper into the trees. Fine dust lifts into the air at my passing, and pastes itself to the dampness on my legs, on my face, in my hair. I’m covered in a thick layer of grime by the time I notice the heavy scent of flowers. A bee buzzes past my ear. I recognize this place at last. Peering through the trees ahead, I can see flashes of blue. Whether it’s the sea or the sky, I don’t know. I know the sea is near, however. I have visited this place often enough in my dreams.

There’s a little cottage here, and, sure enough I can smell the sharp, salty tang of the sea. I leave the tall trees behind me as I walk into a garden. The flowers are all in bloom, and the heavy scent of the blooms almost overpower the smell of salt. I walk around the side of the building and come to a halt. 

The artist has run out of paint

The colour on this side of the building is desaturated, the bright hues become gray and bland. I look back towards the garden, and the gray is slowly eating up the colour, destroying the beauty killing the plants. The petals drop to the ground. 

I look down, and the gray is slowly moving up my legs. Maybe this is what should happen. I’m dead. I shold let this happen. Let myself be leeched of whatever is left of me. Something else tells me to move, to flee. So I pick up my heavy, graying feet, and I run.

And the big yellow sun leads me home

I run towards the sky, towards the sun. The ground ends abruptly below me, and I leap as far as I can into the air. My outstretched arms strain to catch hold of something. I wish to sprout wings that could carry me up and away. Instead, I fall toward the dark blue sea that stretches beneath me. I stare towards the horizon, where the blue of the sea meets the sky. 

The wind streams through my hair, and I laugh, one glorious breath stealing exhaltation before I hit the water. The cool seawater stings my eyes, but washes the dirt off of me and makes the gray dissolve. I swim down and down. I breath in the water as easily as I would air. As solid as I feel, I’ve dispensed with my body and the nessecity to breath air like I should. 

I twist and turn, laughing. Perhaps deep rest is not what I want. I’d rather live, even if I’m not really alive. I watch a shoal of silver, darting fish flash by in a gleam of light. I turn towards the sky, where the water reflects the light like a mirror. I swim up, and I can see myself reflected above, a pale, wraithlike creature with luminous eyes.

I’m everywhere now

I touch the barrier between the sea and the sky, and my hand dissolves, not into the deathly gray that I’d run from before, but into golden sparkles that float away on the waves and foam. I push my whole body through the light, and I fly up into the air.

The wind of each breath by and by

The soft breeze carries my away, towards the sun. The light swallows me up, surrounds me like the water once did. 

 I'm done with my dying

Comments and feedback are always appreciated.

Zephyr

The last of these particular stories. This one is definetly one of my favourites, and I plan on trying to see if I can take it further, perhaps turn it into a novel or something. It's there, in the back of my head still, so I figure there's more to tell. Maybe some of the other characters from these stories will turn up too.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this. Tomorrow will be something different. Comments and feedback are the best. I just wish that there was a way to reply to the comments properly.  I also apologize for the uncoloured picture. I have two coloured versions kicking around somewhere, but I don't know where they are.

          

         The slight breeze gently stirred the dust from the ground, circling the ankles of the two girls who traveled barefoot down the path.  They were almost identical, both with long brown hair, both sunburned and freckled, both wearing similar expressions of guilt and mirth.

          “We should go back to school.”  One of the girls said. She was only distinguishable from the other by her more organized appearance, and her red and yellow-gold beaded bracelet.

          “Don’t be a wuss.” The other replied dismissively. She wore a similar bracelet, but without any tangible pattern or colour scheme. “We’re not missing anything.” She grimaced and spat at the side of the road. “Them schools don’t teach us nothing anyhow.”

          “Oh, stop it, Gen,” The neat one cried. “You know your mama doesn’t want you speaking like that.  She taught you to speak properly.”

          Gen glared at her, her expression that of a Queen who has just noticed that her favourite courtier didn’t follow the laws she had set down – Angry, surprised, and a little sad. “Jilly, we are having an adventure.” She said flatly. “And on this adventure, I’m gonna to speak any goddamn way I like.”

          Jilly nodded solemnly. “But aren’t we just going down to the creek? That’s hardly an adventure. We go there all the time.”

          “True enough.” Gen shrugged. “And a good idea to boot. Let’s get ourselves off the road then.” She spotted a path that branched off of the main road and dashed down it, leaving Jilly standing alone on the road.

          “Gen, we’re not even wearing shoes!” She cried.  Jilly looked up and down the road and then at the path again. “Gen, come back!”

          Gen reappeared on the little path. “Don’t be a wuss, Jilly,” She scolded. “Hurry up.”

          Jilly sighed and stepped down onto the path. “Do you even know where this path leads?” She asked.

          A strange light appeared in Gen’s dark eyes. “Yeah,” She said simply, gabbing Jilly’s hand. “I seen it, and it’s beautiful. You’ll like it.” She started to walk, eager to get to their destination, but Jilly dug in her heels, resisting her cousin’s pull. Gen looked back at her, not comprehending Jilly’s reluctance,

Jilly frowned. “Genevieve Margot King, you tell me what’s down that path,” She ordered looking fierce.

Gen sighed and leaned towards Jilly. “Fairies,” She whispered.

Jilly gave her cousin a suspicious look. “You haven’t been drinking Granny’s homemade cider again, have you?”

Gen rolled her eyes. “Course not. This is real.”

“Gen, you’re a bit old to believe in fairies,” Jilly said gently.

“I didn’t believe in ‘em till I saw ‘em with my own two eyes,” Gen retorted angrily. “And maybe you don’t believe in ‘em, but I don’t lie to you about anything. They’re there. They’re real.” She gave Jilly a wild look. “I’ve talked to them a bunch of times. They like me.  I thought they’d like you too.” She hesitated a moment, a frown knitting her eyebrows together. “I thought you believed in spiritual stuff. Fairies, even.”

“That doesn’t mean I want anything to do with them.” Jilly countered. “They’re not nice, Gen. They don’t think the way we do.” The breeze sprang up again, pushing them away from the road. “That’s a west wind,” She commented. “Grandmother says that strange things happen when a zephyr’s in the air.”

“We have the same Granny, and she’s never said that.” Gen gave Jilly an impatient look.

“Not Granny. My other Grandmother.”

“The crazy one who lives in the boonies?”

Jilly nodded.” She knows about stuff like that.”

“One of them’s named Zephyr,” Gen mused. “Maybe you’re right. Not today.” She sent a wistful look down the path, and then turned towards the road, decisively. “We’re still going to the creek though. You can’t get out of that.“ She laughed and danced back up the path.

Jilly. The wind called mournfully. Jilly.

“No.” Jilly said, her voice firm.

“What d’ya mean, no?” Gen asked, looking confused. “We planned to go there all along.”

“Not that,” Jilly explained. “Let’s not come back, not today, not ever. Spirit people don’t play nice. We’d just be play toys to them.”

Gen stared at her cousin, feeling as though her world had suddenly shrunk. Jilly was right though. The fairies were different. They looked at Gen and saw something more like a doll than a person. “I guess you’re right.” She admitted. “I promise I won’t come back today or any day, unless we agree together to go.”

Jilly nodded and repeated her words. They shook hands on it, and Jilly removed her bright red bracelet. “We’ll seal it by swapping bracelets.” She suggested. “And if one of us wants to break the promise, we have to return the bracelet. That way we can convince each other not to do it. A final safety.”

Gen removed her own bracelet, a zany collection of multi-coloured beads. They swapped them with an odd sense of ceremony. “Let’s get going to the creek.” She said. “We’re wasting daylight. Unless, of course, you want to go back to school?” She gave Jilly a saucy look and danced back up the path to the road.

Jilly stood where she was for a moment. The wind still pulled at her hair and clothes, trying to bring her away from the road. Then she turned and followed Gen to the road. “School isn’t worth it anyway,” She told Gen, which earned her a grin from her cousin.

“You see?” Gen laughed, punching Jilly playfully on the shoulder. “I am getting through to you.”

Jilly laughed too, trying to shake off the strange sense that they being watched. She followed her cousin away from the little path through the trees. It was probably just her imagination when the wind called her name anyway.