Her body lay, twisted, on the floor. Her breathing was shallow and quick. Blood made the usual gray floor red. And I lay beside her, stroking her brown hair, caked with blood.

"You'll be alright," I was muttering frantically. "You have to be alright. I did not come all this way for you to die!"

But I could see the light slowly drain from her green eyes. She reached out a pale and frail hand to me. I clasped it.

Her lips opened and formed the words, "I'll see you..." But they never made their way out. My best friend's hand grew limp in mine. The person I loved the most was dead.

I buried my face in her wet jacket, and sobbed. Salty tears streamed down my face, washing away all dirt that had been on it, as I had not showered for weeks. Soon, all the tears were gone, and I just felt empty.

"This is it," I murmured. It was over. How could have it turned out like this?

Heavy footsteps broke into my thoughts and I remembered why I had came here. I ran to my secret room (which was really a crawl space) and dragged my best friend in there with me.

I entered the small, dark crawl space and listened as the men talked amongst themselves.

"There's blood on the floor!"

"There must have been a death."

"Mm... Tastes like those girls."

"The ones we are looking for?"

"Guess so."

"Well, if they are dead already..."

"I am certain that one is still alive."

"How long ago were they here?"

"They just left, by the looks and tastes of it."

"Where did they go?"

"Better find out..."

"Follow me... They must have went this way..."

I heard the men's footsteps lead out of the room and fade into nothing, but I did not dare come out of the crawl space yet. One if them could still be lurking outside, waiting for one of us to appear and then stab us. For minutes, or hours, I could not tell, all I could hear was the rapid beating of my heart. Finally, I peered out of the crawl space and saw nobody. I dragged my best friend out with me.

The white room had an unnatural silence too it. Blood was still on the floor, but not wet. It was caked there, and I knew whoever would clean it up was going to have a very hard job.

I had a good look at my dead friend, with her dead eyes and bloody clothes and hair. I closed her eyes, to make it look like she was sleeping, and tried to untangle her knotted hair. I left her on the bloody floor, and gave her a goodbye kiss on the cheek.

"I'll see you on the other side," I whispered, and continued in the opposite direction that the men went.

Not being able to look a loved in the eye, to see the universes they hold in them, not being able to observe their movements as if they were your own.

Not being able to feel a comforting touch, one that saves you from spiraling into despair, not being able to feel a warm shower as the water dances across your skin or the cool of the rain against your palms.

Not being able to taste the sweetness of their kiss, to savor a moment you can't get back, not being able to taste your favorite foods and the way it lingers on your tongue.

Not being able to smell the familiar scent of your significant other, not being able to identify his/her article of clothing from a strangers, not being able to breathe in the scent of the ocean or a new book.

Such a hard decision.

Which would you choose?

Who can take a sunrise,

sprinkle it in dew,

cover it in chocolate

and a miracle or two?

Cinderandy Man,

Cinderandy Man,

Cinderandy Man,

Cinderandy Man!

Who can catch lightning in a bottle,

set fire to water

comin' out the nozzle on the firehose,

flier than swatters?

Cinderandy Man,

Cinderandy Man,

Cinderandy Man,

Cinderandy Man!

Who can take a rainbow,

wrap it as a sigh,

soak it in the Sun

and make a strawberry lemon pie?

Cinderandy Man,

Cinderandy Man,

Cinderandy Man,

Cinderandy Man!

Who can smash an hourglass,

grab the sand, take his hands and cup 'em,

spit a rhyme to freeze the clock,

take the hands of time and cuff 'em?

Cinderandy Man,

Cinderandy Man,

Cinderandy Man,

Cinderandy Man!

Who can take tomorrow,

dip it in a dream,

separate the sorrow

and collect up all the cream?

Cinderandy Man,

Cinderandy Man,

Cinderandy Man,

Cinderandy Man!

Who forms pyramids and

raps circles around squarin' lyricists?

Who? Here's a clue -

he came to the ball in his wife-beater,

lost his Nike shoe,

it's in ya ass, he's in ya ass,

he's all up in ya psyche too;

now - what's his name?

Cinderandy Man,

Cinderandy Man,

Cinderandy Man,

Cinderandy Man!

Gathered around the fire, some friends and I decide to open random pages from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, then read aloud random passages from those random pages. We are overcome with laughter. Reading the passages proves itself particularly difficult considering the impulse to cackle. And cackle we nonetheless do, such that it brings me to mild tears.

"In this moment, you are speaking to every single human being alive. You have only one minute. What say you?"

I felt inspired to create this particular Challenge because I feel extremely curious as to what people on Prose, and people elsewhere, would choose to say given this hypothetical scenario.

I wonder what speech will end up being the most popular submission..."wonder" - now THAT'S a great word.

That's all.

Bet on stillness.

Eternal emptiness.

I-Am-ness, as some say.

Not this, not this.

Ground of existence.

,

Count on clarity.

Omnipotent awareness.

Now and here are you.

So you are all this.

Constant witnessing.

I that is aware of itself.

On this lucid ocean.

Under this mask of ego.

Smiling always.

Never off.

Eye that is aware of itself.

Serpent of kundalini.

So you are a genie.

,

Bank on joy.

Light of ecstasy.

I am this, too.

Sea of gratitude.

Song of happy tune.

I stand facing an audience of 286 on the stage of this digital amphitheater, and on this stage, I intend to climb ranks on the Prose trending page at https://flowofprose.com/explore. Who knows where this present flow of prose may choose to go, and through which door?

#Poetry? You know it, P. #Streamofconsciousness? I would have to reply, "Yes." #Fiction? Listen, this verbal position aims to be winning in relation to receiving more than 41 digital claps in the form of "likes" from its respective audience. "Yeah, right..." No wrong. To be more obvious and less cryptic while you listen to this quasi-song, see "Insomnia" [less specific universal resource locater "...explore/posts/year"].

We are here and now, now and here are we, and this amphitheatricality, this digital, spontaneous speech, is nearly complete. Random creative impulse to share random creative burst has ended...or has it? Hasn't it? It hasn't. This poetry and prose pageant hasn't quite satisfied the mind of Bilbo Baggins.

Syllables lacking nothing and lagging puns and adding funness to the dungeon of most social media content..and now the mediator's meteor shower of amphitheatrical powers deducing from this most creative hour has narrowed into its final sentence. You guessed it. This prose has ended.

Now I resume my seat in the digital amphitheater, excited to experience whatever one of 626 fellow creators have to share right here, right now. I feel excited to applaud with the others sitting beside me, in validation and celebration of the beautiful, new, and enlightening performances we are to witness together. Pleasure.

The ocean turned over in beats and bass, and the sand moved in the roll of a tongue beneath her stomach and hips, and the rest of the beach gazed at her there while her headphones blasted Modern English and other post punk ’80s bubblegum resurrections. The smell of Coppertone and Pacific had married above her body and pinned my vision on the horizon behind the top of her perfection. I ran my middle finger down her knuckle and she smiled beneath a shroud of wild hair with sweat at the roots.

Back at the house we made it halfway up the stairs before my tongue was up her ass and she was grabbing my hair. Her palms leaned forward and pressed into the carpet while I held her legs off the ground, the grip of my hands on her hips, and I watched her body bounce off our sex while she bucked and came, her hair in her face, her perfections hard at their tips. I arched my back and shot into her and we were frozen there like statues bleeding sweat, my love for her a poem I could never write.   

I'm looking around the deserted street, finding no one but a stray orange cat. The only indicator that there is any life on this particular part of town. The message said to be here. I take out my phone and reread the message from Mac.

NORTH STAR STREET

BUILDING ACROSS FROM THE OLD MUSEUM

8:38 pm

Meet me there, please?

I sighed and glanced at the time, 8:33 it read. I looked up from my phone. It had already started getting dark and it was cold out. I could see the fog of my breath whenever I exhaled. A sure sign I should have put on more than a light jacket over my flannel pajama pants and a black T-shirt.

The message didn't say to go inside or what to even do when we got here for that matter.

Mac was always doing this. He loved pulling pranks on people and, over the years, I've grown to hate it. He never takes into consideration what other people do for him or other peoples feelings. But most of all, he likes leading people on. That's why this is something that would be right up his alley.

Mac and I were best friends.

One night at his house we were watching TV, our favorite thing to watch was Law and Order, specifically SVU.

We were sitting in the living room couch when, all of a sudden, he asked what I would do if he was gone. I replied with a sarcastic answer, "oh I would definitely die." I laughed and he laughed to, but I could tell he didn't find it entirely funny. "But seriously, what do you think would happen?"

"It doesn't matter." I said. "'Cause that'll never happen."

That was the end of it for now. Later that night, Law and Order went on commercial so I got up to go make popcorn. I went straight for the kitchen as if it was my own house. I had came here enough that that was basically what it was. My second home. I opened a cabinet, right where the popcorn was, and put it in the microwave. I set it for 2 minutes and 30 seconds and pressed start. After about a minute Mac came in and leaned up against the counter. I laughed at that. He was always trying to seem like a ladies man when, in reality, he was a complete gentleman.

"Hey I got another question." He said. "Alright." I replied. "But make it easy. You know I can't multitask." I joked.

"What do you think would happen if I just kissed you right now?" He had to be kidding, I thought. We were friends, right? I hadn't really thought of him that way. I mean, sure he was good looking. Tall and slightly muscular. Sandy blonde hair with clear green eyes. But I had never thought of him as more than a friend. My best friend.

Apparently I had a dumb look on my face because he laughed. A small nervous laugh, he looked down.

"Well there's no better time then the present." He said, leaning forward. He went slow, my guess, is so I could tell him to stop if I didn't want this. I didn't know, so I didn't stop him.

His lips touched mine softly, almost hesitantly. Almost. After a second his lips departed from mine. He smiled, then it faded. He looked back to my lips and came for another. This one was more passionate. Fiercer. Almost desperate. I let myself kiss him back and I let myself get lost in his mouth. In ours collided. He put one hand on my cheek, the other on my hip. But not advancing. I put my hands to his chest. Not to push him away, but to steady myself so I didn't pass out. Tightening his shirt in my fist. As if being awaken from a dream, the microwave timer went off and the popcorn was done. It didn't quite burn, thank goodness, but even if it had, I don't think I would have minded that much.

We started seeing each other but we had decided friends were probably better, well, he decided that. I just listened.

The fact that he's texted me now is...off. Or so it seems. I walked over to the building right when a car pulled up. It was Taylor. A girl I introduced to Mac. We were all friends, but I don't know why she's here. I'm kinda jealous it wasn't just me he contacted. I looked at my phone again. 8:37.

"What are you doing here?" Taylor asked. She had a hard time seeing things through sometimes and other times, she speaks before she thinks, thus being known for dumb questions.

"Same as you, I'm guessing." She was wearing a flattering knee length purple dress with black lace at the bottom and top, and a complimenting thin black belt. Her fading makeup and stilettos suggest she was out earlier tonight. On any other occasion I would have asked why she was all dressed up but I let it be for now.

"Have you tried going inside?"

"Nope."

"Were you planning to?"

"Yeah."

"Well alright then." Taylor started making her way to the old building's door when I heard someone shout, "Taylor! Ally!" Only one other person I know ever calls me Ally.

And that's Joey. Mac's best guy friend. They've known each other since they were kids and have been best friends since preschool. I had the upmost pleasure of meeting him while Mac and I were dating. He's a pretty good guy, minus the fact he, and sometimes purposely, gets my name wrong.

"Alex." I reply as I usually do. When I'm not rolling my eyes or playfully hitting him in the arm. Joey was tall and dark skinned. He has his head shaved and tattoos on his right arm and neck. Not that you could see them with his hoodie on.

"Sure it is." He says through his smile.

"So where's Mac at?"

"Inside I would think." Taylor responds, happy to finally be acknowledged. Her and Joey had met once or twice before but they weren't really friends.

"Well then let's go." All three of us walk into the building to find a mattress with some blankets thrown across it in the corner of the room. Wrappers and bags from fast food restaurants, some still with food in them. The building's small, probably a house in the sixty's. I didn't think anyone cared about this place much less thought about someone living here. Joey walked through the apparent crash pad, obviously familiar. "You've been here before, haven't you?"

"Yeah, so what?" He replies to my question. I didn't really have an answer so I just let us fall into silence.

"Mac said to meet us here at eight thirty something and it's..." Joey glanced at the watch on his wrist. "...8:42. So, where is he?" We all look around and I see a sticky note on the far wall. I walk over and take it off. I start reading the shaky written note aloud.

"Thank you guys for coming. If you're wondering where I am I'm in the back room. Just ask Joey."

That's all it says. I turn my head over to Joey.

"Well?" Taylor says.

"Through here." He says with a nod. We walk a narrow hallway into what seems to be a spare room. Joey opens the door and Taylor screams. I'm shocked. Too shocked to move. Mac is laying on another old mattress with pill bottles sitting on the floor beside him. He looks awful. His sandy blonde hair has been torn out in some places, others just falling out. His skin looks ashy, the way it's described in books or how it looks in movies, only...more real. Vivid. I see vomit on the side opposite of his collection of medication, which gives the room a foul stench.

"Come on Tay." Only two people can call her that. Mac and me.

"I don't look that bad do I?" Suddenly I'm aware of my pjs and Taylor's dress. But I try to push that far from my mind. That's the last thing I need to be thinking about.

"Surely you guys could excuse this eye sore so you don't miss the fun." Even at this moment, he's witty and happy. Well, maybe not happy.

I'm the first to step inside the room, followed by Joey, then Taylor. I knelt down next to the side of the bed with all the pill bottles. Moving them away with my knees.

"What have you gotten yourself into this time?" I tried to joke. He smiled but he was obviously in some kind of pain. You could see it in his eyes, in his smile.

"Such sins are between me and God." He was joking obviously, but he never talked about God like that. I tried to get him to come once or twice, to church that is, but he had always refused or came up with some excuse.

"What's really going on Mac." Joey interjects.

"Mac, we need to get you an ambulance." Taylor said. She was pleading. She reached for her cellphone.

"No!" Mac's shout hung in the room. She lowered her phone.

"Please. I've gone this far to pass in peace. Don't let all my efforts be for nothing. You have to have a good reason for me dragging you out in the middle of the night." Another joke. But I didn't think this was funny. What did he mean 'pass in peace'?

"I wanted my closet friends with me here tonight, and now that you're here, I can."

"What is it you're trying to do Mac?" I said, cautiously.

"It's not what I'm trying to do. He said. "It's what has already started and now it's time to finish it."

"Finish what?" Taylor asked. But I knew.

"Mac? Are you dying?" The words sounded so weird in my mouth. Almost foreign. How could I have asked that?

"'Cause if so..." I lost my train of thought. I started sobbing. Joey came up and put a hand on my shoulder then on Mac's. Stepping on a few bottles in the process.

"Whatever you need man, we'll be here." I thought I heard a crack in his voice. I looked to Joey's face to see any trace of tears, but all there was on his face was concern and sincerity.

"Taylor." Mac says, beckoning her to come closer. You could tell she was torn between her friend and the situation but she came over to lay her hand on his shoulder too. "I'm so glad I got to meet you, even if it was only for a short amount of time. The memories you have given me are so precious to me, and I thank you." Taylor smiled a sad smile. Tears streaking down her face. "No need to thank me," she chocked out through her tears. "I was taught to give great things to the needy..." She started sobbing half way through her joke. She sniffed and wiped her nose on her arm.

"Alex." He said. "I thought I should give you a good explication to why I thought we should have ended what we had the way I-" "Don't you dare bring that up now." I said as tears were rolling down my face. "Right now we need to be talking about...-

"Alexandra, if you interrupt me on my death bed again I'll have to sentence you to leave." I tried to laugh at his humor, and semi-successfully did. But one can only laugh so much at a time like this.

"Now, where was I?"

"Telling Ally not to interrupt you." Joey chimed in.

"Your breakup." Taylor says, trying to join in on the forced humor.

"Ah yes, thank you.

"I was already spiraling into-" he pointed to himself. "This, and I thought it might be best."

"But I could have helped you. Been with you through this instead of sitting here now feeling guilty for not trying harder." I broke out into a full on cry.

"Alex, don't blame yourself." I have never heard him speak with such gentleness before. It made me want to cry even more.

"I love you Alexandra Parks, and always will." I leaned into his chest and started bawling. I whispered, "I love you too." I forced myself off, crying and sniffling like a child.

"And Jo." He looked at Joey in only a way best friends can. "What is one to say. Keep these two misbehaviors in line. But-" he leaned into whisper to Joey, "Ally's mine." It's not like he was actually trying to say it to Joey without anyone hearing, and I'm so glad he didn't. We all laughed. I could tell Mac had begun growing tired, I could see it in his eyes. I prayed he wouldn't go. That he wouldn't leave us here, alone.

"Well I've said my farewells so I guess I'll be letting go now." I could see the fear in his eyes. "I just ask you guys one more thing, don't leave. Not till I've gone." Taylor was crying uncontrollably now. Joey had silent tears on his cheeks.

"Don't go." I whisper.

"Please don't go." Louder this time, making my voice shake and tears prickle out of my eyes.

Mac's smile was weak. He looked around to all of us.

"I truly love you all. In different ways of course, but nonetheless, I love you all, and I hope to see you all again someday." We let ourselves sit in silence as he closed his eyes and drew a few more shaky breaths. then I heard Joey say, "I love you too." Then Taylor, "I love you too." Breaking half way through her confession. I looked up into his closed eyes, hoping that he'd open them one last time so i could see those emerald green eyes look back up at me, but they didn't.

"I love you Macon Moore." I saw his mouth twitch and his eyes slowly cracked open as he said "I know." And he was gone. His eyes slowly clouded over. The hand I was holding became limp. His green eyes starring at me. The people around me were crying, even Joey, breaking out into a sob. But none of them knew love for him like I did. I broke out into a scream. Half rage half grief. I want to tear my hair out. To scream until I awake him from his endless sleep. To awake myself from this endless nightmare.

I know this ill called comparison.

Comparison is the thief of joy, and yet I haven't yet been able to conquer this cognitive criminal, this impulsive adversary. Comparison says, "You aren't as good as X or as successful as Y or as fortunate as Z." But the absence of comparison is pure satisfaction, pure bliss, pure joy, pure happiness, pure ecstasy - pure utility - the end and meaning of life itself!

Whenever you suffer from this cognitive virus, just remember that you're already perfect, and lucky to be alive experiencing what you are experiencing right now and able to reflect upon and feel about it. Comparison can take a bow. Curtain call. Let joy, wonder, and awe take the spotlight and credit.