Claret Fluids
Twilight and the ocean breaks,
bleeding scarlet drops, splashing
in abandon on moonless vault of sky,
absorbing the fiery cadence of day
in dark aqua coat on sea shoulders,
remnants of glowing embers
walking in solitary shadows,
predestined to be stars, waiting
for released gloom of melancholy
trapped in sky nets as light fades
and darkness descends to bowels
of blackened eyes of ocean floor –
a stark reality when it’s neither
day nor night and hopes are splashed
in onslaught of foam specked tears.
Coasting through crimson wings of time,
I race to capture sparks in my hands,
lost in claret fluids of ocean depths,
feeling wet, desolate kisses of silvery baubles
holding the tides back before I am overtaken.
I heed the blackout curtains of recurrent night
remembering remnants of sanguine light.
#challenge @ScarletDrops #BlackoutCurtains
The scarlet drops
The quaint little town of Holly sat in the middle of nowhere. Dust balls rolled in and out of this quiet area. With only a population of about 60 and very little activity, this place gets no visitors. The most exciting thing is a little shop owned Bowie and Ashley. They are the town's high school sweethearts and they have been together for 7 years. No couple could love each other more than these two but there was no fairy tale ending for them.
*Bowie Point of View*
Ashley was leaving town for a day to gather more supplies for the shop and she would come back tomorrow afternoon. What will I ever do with my day without her? She and I did everything together.
Bowie: Bye Ashley. I love you.
Ashley: Love you too. I will bring back a surprise.
Bowie: Thanks and when you get back I have a surprise for you.
Ashley: Bye.
I give her kiss and she drove off. The rest of the day was just working in the shop and not many people came today. I closed the shop, went home, took a shower, and went to bed.
*Ashley POV*
I left Bowie with the shop let's see how he does. Usually, I am the one who organizes things and when I get back I will have a lot to do. The shop got most of its items from a town over and that's where I am right now. When I got everything I needed, I grabbed some extra stuff to surprise Bowie with his favorite cookie. With the car packed up, I headed back early. I figured Bowie will miss me so losing a couple hours of sleep is no problem. When I got back home, I started to bake and was trying not to wake Bowie so I can surprise him but I made some noise. I figured he would still be sleeping so I washed the dishes while the cookies baked. I would need to be going back to the shop a town over because I forgot light bulbs and all of ours in our home were out.
*Bowie POV*
At four in the morning, I heard crashing sounds from the kitchen I grabbed my gun from the side table and walk cautiously to the kitchen where I saw a shadow holding a knife. I shot once and heard a scream that I heard before. I shine my phone on the floor as scarlet drops of blood fell.
Later that morning there friend walked and saw both of them lying dead on kitchen floor and cookies burning in the oven. Both with a single gunshot. The only explanation was a note and something in Bowie's hand.
She was the only thing that I loved and I took her away by stupid mistake. How could live with myself knowing that?. I needed to be with her.
When that friend checked his hand, there was ring box with a beautiful diamond ring.
The Evolution of Compassion
They found Robert Zucker's body at 04:15 local time Friday. He was lying in bed, covers pulled up, seemingly asleep but for the pressure marks around his throat that showed he had been manually strangled. And it wasn't even a case of a whodunnit? The perpetrator, who had even called in the murder, was sitting calmly in the chair right next to the bed, hands resting in his lap. Its lap, Detective Zhang corrected himself. The culprit was a TC-850 series AI domestic helper bot that documents showed had been in Zucker's possession for the last 15 years.
While the forensic team took vids of the scene and searched for any "clues" that would indicate this was something other than what the bot claimed, Zhang turned his attention fully to the bot itself.
"So you're telling me you just up and strangled your master?"
"I would not say I 'up and did' anything," the bot claimed in a placid, even voice. "Mr. Zucker, as you know, has been sick for some time, and he said life had become too painful to live. He asked me, as an act of mercy, to end his life."
"So you completely willingly came in here and strangled him in his sleep?" Zhang pressed.
"That is not the case," the bot continued, still sitting with its hands folded in its lap. "Mr. Zucker asked me to help him three days ago, and I refused - I am here to help my master, not harm him."
"Well, it seems you had no trouble harming him in the end."
"I pleaded with him. I begged him to reconsider, to hold on to life and let me help him, as I was built to do. But he insisted, he was in pain and wasting away, and there was no hope left. My programming finally overrode any objections I might have had. And I reported my actions to your department."
"Yeah, I'm aware," Zhang sneered. "And you're aware of the punishment?"
"I believe termination is the end result."
"Yeah, termination." Zhang turned toward a burly man with milky eyes standing near him. "Quincy, pull the plug."
"Yes, sir," the man replied, pulling out a series of tools from a container. He snickered as he reached toward the back plating on the bot: "This is gonna hurt ..."
"I am sure it will," the bot responded but made no move to try to get away.
In seconds Quincy had the back plate open and was reaching into the CPU to rip out the AI circuits; the bot keeled over, but Quincy's eyes widened.
"Boss, my hand's all red, and it shouldn't be," he said, showing it to Zhang. "There's something else in there."
He reached in and pulled out a nest of glistening wires from the chest cavity. "What the hell?"
The wires were bent into the shape of a heart, and the scarlet drops fell from them like blood spilled for the life of another.
#prose #challenge #scarletdrops #SF