The pastel colored walls seemed mocking to me, such bright happy colors in such a dark dismal place. I was led past a couple putrid paisley colored rooms and dropped off in a light yellow one with daisies all over the walls. The chairs were bright green and plastic, like those in a kindergarten classroom. I sat down and stared at the floor because the fluorescent lights were burning my eyeballs. I tried to remember why I was here, why I came. But I couldn't remember anything, all I knew was I was waiting for something. Something big. It all made me want to puke. I suddenly regretted my big breakfast this morning as the nerves fluttered through me. Wave after wave of pure panic crashed into me and I had to remind myself to breath. In and out, in and out. There was a clock directly in front of me in the waiting room. It ticked down the seconds unnecessarily loud, so along with my shaky breathing there was a TIK TIK TIK pounding in my head. Making the wait even more excruciating. There was a screen in the corner of the room and I craned my head to look at it, using my hand to shield my eyes like a visor from the glaring lights. On the screen was an image of me, when I was a young girl playing tag with my friends. The screen flashed and another image appeared, this time of me as a young teen eating icecream at a mall with my parents. More and more images flashed by faster and faster, moving so fast my brain spun. I got older and older until it suddenly stopped, on a picture of me today. I was walking my dog Chloe and I looked scared. A car was coming at me, fast. I didn't remember this part, I just remembered taking my dog out. My brain had a pounding headache as I tried to recall what happened earlier that day but before I could figure it out a video began to play. There was no sound, but my head provided the sounds for me. I watched in absolute horror as the car made no attempt to stop. I opened my mouth to scream and Chloe took off pulling me down. Right in front of the car. Only then did the driver notice me but it was too late. Too late. I tried to force my eyes away but all I could do was look at my broken body laying on the ground. The video stopped and I tore my eyes away, I was shaking now crying uncontrollably. A man came into the room, wearing a maroon sweater and jeans. He looked nice, he smiled sweetly and came over to hug me. I embraced him as he smoothed out my hair and told me that it was okay.

"What happened?" I gulped out sounding like a fish gasping for air.

The man let go and cocked his head at me. He gestured toward the screen, "Isn't it obvious my dear? You died." He smiled and suddenly it didn't seem so friendly it seemed almost sinister as the walls around him lost their bright color and faded to black. Or maybe that was my vision fading. The last thing I remember was him saying, "Welcome to Purgatory."

Challenge

Challenge of the Month VIII

Running. You are (or your character is) running from something. Or running to something. Or maybe you just left the faucet running. The theme this month is running. Fiction or non-fiction, poetry or Prose. $100 purse to our favorite entry. Outstanding entries will be shared with our publishing partners.

TheWhat

34 reads

What Might Have Been

The door fell from the hinges like a rag doll swinging by its last string in the hand of a child. Ghosts of children raced through the house chasing jacks and dodging fists. The man stood at the dark threshold waiting for anything to fuel better feelings than the fear and disgust stirring inside him.

Orson wasn’t the little boy conspiring with his sister to fool daddy to think he finished all his drink last night. The last of daddy’s drink being poured down the sewer in the brightest morning sun before daddy woke, but daddy didn’t need to know that.

He came home looking for something every child born to a man of failed ambition and lapse temper modulation has sought, answers. Not from daddy. No. His father’s chance at redemption died 15 years ago on the bedroom floor of a neighbor woman.

He ran the morning of his father’s passing, well, not quite. The neighbor woman didn’t bother to call anyone until her sister came over two days later. Daddy was on the floor with a red satin sheet draped over him, his work boots jutting out from under the sheet. Orson ran the morning after everyone learned of daddy’s passing.

Fuck. He wasn’t one of these men who blamed everything on his soul crushing childhood. But he jumped from one shit pay job to the next hoping the next city, the next girl, would chase the frightened boy in him away. Orson knew other men with similar lives and not one became anything but a sad fucking country song. Men to mock, men to avoid, men in prison, Orson wasn’t one of these men. He built a life for himself. He found a girl willing to love the darkness when the light wasn’t found.

The problem when you kill a past life to start anew is you kill the good with the hell. Orson killed more than a bad childhood. He hadn’t spoken to his sister since two months after he ran. On that day, he asked Molly to send him all the illegally acquired movies and television shows he burned to discs on his friends computer after school. He hadn’t seen Deep Space 9 in too long.

Molly hadn’t avoided the sad life. She moved in with her aunt after daddy’s passing. But

Molly’s aunt didn’t provide her with any furnishings of a loving home. Molly had a twin mattress in the corner of the basement and on the occasion her aunt remembered, a donut on her birthday. The years passed and Molly became the bitter, the disgusted.

Orson couldn’t stay at his condemned childhood home. He came back to find Molly. He planned to offer her a job working at the daycare his wife owned. He folded his arms and leaned against his black Camaro LS. The ghosts of his past life raced in and out of the darkness beyond the broken front door of his childhood home. The text came with a metal storm ring from his phone. An old friend texted Molly’s address.

Two lost children stood face to face on a dark front lawn. How do you apologize for the sin of abandonment? Siblings will be there when your parents and your significant others are no more. What they don’t tell you is below the surface, when your siblings are all you have left, every scar, sprained ankle, slammed door, broken ego, and shared tear will be there too.

Molly stood with her arms folded, her fortress building new walls every second. Orson opened his arms for a moment and closed them. “I wanted to see. I’ve tried to contact you but you’re not an easy girl to find.”

“The right people know how to find me,” Molly looked away from her brother.

“I wanted to know if you’d like to work for Alison? You could stay with us until you find your own place.”

Molly dropped her arms to the side. “Why are you here?”

“To see you. We’re still family. When dad died I couldn’t hand--”

“When you killed dad,” Molly’s soft voice resounded, funneled around her brother, words heard exclusively by the two lost children standing on a dark front lawn.

Molly knew. The whole town must know.

A better father, a mother who lived, a sister not abandoned, Orson spent every day these past 15 years hoping for what might have been. He stood in the twilight between two lives terrified of both.

Orson hurried to his car. He did what he did another life ago. Orson ran.

Challenge

Create something by only using the first letter for ea. word (ex: S snake, slow, slitter)

Sadwinistic

88 reads

Wishing

Wishing we were who we wanted.

Wondering where we went wrong.

We wonder why we wish when - when we wished - wishing would walk with wondering, with wrongness.