I don’t know what it is, but it’s black, and it’s filling him up. And if I could I would pull it from his body. If I could I would eat it as my last meal. And I fly to him just to try. I hold his hand and hope that my pressure and my voice can drown the darkness. I hope I can pull the damned thing from him and swallow it myself. Snuff me out but please don’t take him. I supplicate as though I could coerce my light to fill him and banish what has taken him over. His words come as lilting breaths. Something just short of a whisper, yet still carrying his cadence. And he wants to leave. But I cannot let him. And I hold onto him, though he assures me I must let go. I must let go, though I crave to carry his contagion. His contagion, my very own albatross. And as the shadows overwhelm him, ragged and shallow breaths struggle to sustain him. But it is only a murky twilight leading into the complete void of midnight. And I don’t know the last time my eyes were dry, but I know it was dark just before. I know I held his hand, and the blackened disease circled our wrists. And that darkness never left him. It consumed me, but it somehow never left him. And I don’t know how, but it took him instead of me. And here I am. And everything is black.

It has been one hundred years since the day I stood in the doorway with the wind clawing its fingers through my hair and turned, finally, into its hungry embrace, deciding then that I would never look back at you.

It is the anniversary of the day I fled into the woods surrounding our cottage, woods that used to protect me, but now suffocated me, the trees lashing their branches together and spitting water down upon my shoulders as if they mourned for me, but still could not let me go.

I ran until my feet tracked blood behind me along with the remains of my soul, unspooling from me like silver thread still caught between your fingers.

It has been one hundred years since I stumbled through the rain, and the edge of the chasm yawned before me, and I closed my eyes, expecting to feel the fall, but I never did. Instead, when I opened my eyes, the stars swam before me like rungs on a ladder, and I tangled my fingers around their sharp edges and pulled myself upward. Their light lodged beneath my fingernails and my blood stained some of them so red, the astronomers peered up in shock and could not explain their unexpected jump to supernova.

When I reached the overarching dome of the universe, I banged my fists on the glass, crying for entry, but I was just a soul trapped beneath the ice, and I couldn't climb any further. The dust of the cosmos lodged in my throat and with its bitter taste in my mouth, I swam back down towards where you waited.

I lived in the branches of the trees above where you walked, I wove the stems of flowers together into crowns to adorn my hair, just to have something mortal still about me. I watched you grow older from afar, watched the life bleed out of you naturally, not like mine, not like the knife wound in my shoulder the night I fled.

When your soul shed your body like snakeskin and, shaking itself, began its own upward climb, I watched the stars until their molten silver dripped onto my cheeks like paint, allowing me the facade of tears. I saw you swim through the dome that's trapped me for, now, one hundred years. Kneeling above the Milky Way, I knit crowns out of stars, and sometimes, when I'm moved to, I place the stars in the eyes of mortals who remind me of who I could have been.

There is stagnant, noiseless still.

It is a silent, internal chaos that I am barely managing to control.

I need to know what comes next.

I need to know if it was just a momentary dream turned reality.

I can’t find my next step.

I don’t know which map I’m trying to follow.

I don’t know if I’m trying to make a home of an island or take to the skies.

Am I flying or stalling.

I know that I’m falling.

Slipping.

Missing.

You and me.

Missing you.

Missing me.

But mostly just tripping.

Mostly, I’m missing.

Me.

Like mostly I’m missing.

Like mostly.

You make me miss you and me.

And is it the skies or is it the sea.

Some days I remember how I tattooed you across my lungs.

It’s then that I know why I can rarely breathe.

It’s then that I know the oxygen never hits my bloodstream.

Stops just short,

catching on your fingertips.

Burning and branding instead of filling and spilling.

It’s then that I remember how you’ll be choking me from inside, eternally.

Never letting me catch my breath.

Always just shy of full.

And now I breathe shallow,

just like you.

I tore off little pieces of my soul,

and wrote them on napkins, gum wrappers, and shitty hotel stationary.

I gave them to you, little bits at a time, for safe keeping,

because I wanted you to have them, I thought you needed them.

I gave them away, all of them.

I don't know if you kept them.

You never asked for them, and you never gave me any words back.

I thought if I gave you enough, if you had the only parts of me worth having,

that I would be enough. That the little papers, tattered though they were, had words that were pretty enough to make your heart sing. That you would sing for me.

It's so silent here, and I've run out of paper,

there's no ink, and I cannot write.

So my soul has withered, and I've forgotten all my words.

I should have left it at Lost, but the bottle was opened

My noggin was tossed into the lions den, broken

Caught on eating bees buzzing bright epiphanies

Honey dripping streams out of false apologies

Insincere, everclear, taking gulps to settle fears

In my walet, letters merely work to provoke heavy tears

Stepping into my casket, basket case how romantic

Frantic phase fully manic, panic buttons in the cabinet

Now let me down the nice way

Dont make a sound till someday

But everyday when I think of you

Feels like a far away bullet just speeding to my brain

The rain soaked through my cotton sweater

The pain felt so much fucking better

After all, call me a masochist

My elaborate plan is to carve my wrists

And starve myself of happiness

Feast on something poisonous

But just enough to make my stomach sick,

My eye sight blur and my fingers twitch

Because death is just too good for me

Suffering and agony

Stuck in love with agony, madly slamming my head on trees

Right now I've got time, time to take

Down and out but I rarely break

Piece myself back together when my seams betray

I've got my reasons but can't really say

Dropped my lucky pennies in a wishing well

Watched em twirl and twist like they were free, till they fell

That's a lot like you and me, do you agree?

Or we can fight like we use to

Remember the punches pulled?

Well you can let em loose

December's around the corner but

This hearts been cold since June

They say your body is a temple

Mine's trash; tattoos

Too many years of whiskey and abuse

These days it's Mary Jane just to get me through

One moment I don't wanna lose my head

The next I'm mumbling 'Off with it'

Left my heart on a sleeve from a tee

Out to dry in a hurricane

Watched it blow away

Never did catch her name

So now my soul is old

From pulling both their weight

Please forgive the way I come off

It's been one of those days

Pretty sure tomorrow

Brings more of the same

Under cover of the night my

sanity creeps out

I'm like, 'Man, where were you in times of doubt?

Keeping brave company while I thrash about?'

Reaching out a hand while I drown with only rocks to pull me out

So I made myself stone, skin to bone

Stood right up and took my throw

Now I'm sunk beneath these waves

Flashes of my life, watch me rush to my grave

While fearing death all the way

Feel on trial inside my brain

Never switched my ways

Stayed in my lane

So why do I feel insane today?

Will tomorrow bring more of the same?

One moment I don't wanna lose my head

The next I'm mumbling 'Off with it'

Left my heart on a sleeve from a tee

Out to dry in a hurricane

Watched it blow away

Never did catch her name

So now my soul is old

From pulling both their weight

Please forgive the way I come off

It's been one of those days

Pretty sure tomorrow

Brings more of the same

Puff, puff, pass it before I lose my way

THC the only thing that keeps me straight

When all the voices whisper ‘I know a better way’

Let the rage tear the page, add a match now bridges blazed

Sorry for the flames me and my demons be getting crazy

It’s a battle daily to make sure the devil doesn’t take me

Aviators for the haters they don’t phase me

Won’t let my mistakes make or break me

One moment I don't wanna lose my head

The next I'm mumbling 'Off with it'

Left my heart on a sleeve from a tee

Out to dry in a hurricane

Watched it blow away

Never did catch her name

So now my soul is old

From pulling both their weight

Please forgive the way I come off

It's been one of those days

Pretty sure tomorrow

Brings more of the same

We walked for a while.  That time we spent in our woods.  The woods the world had forgotten.  The woods we grew up in.  We really didn’t have the words and both knew our twin flame was out of control again.  Our strides eventually slowed and as we turned to face each other, we paused to survey our woods. 

We paused, as it could be the last time we laid eyes on this place, the place no one knew, the place we first shared each other completely.  Our woods were on fire, a raging inferno of swimming flames throwing bellows of smoke as high as the sky could manage to stretch overhead. 

Our woods were on fire again.

That’s when our pause ended and you turned and walked away.  You never looked back.  You never did.  I loved that about you. You were always strong enough to walk away when we needed it and never looked back.  You walked hard and true away from us every time as confident as ever, albeit who else would notice the tremble in your knees as you turned away.  Your hair, a glowing fan of sass that followed the unmistakable rhythm of your boots as they met hard soil and bark beneath your feet. 

You never looked back to prove to yourself that you were strong enough to do it.  Strong enough to know you were still free and in control in at least that moment of your destiny and the flame you carried within did not dictate this existence you fought through brutal campaigns to justify. By the sway of your hips and bounce in your steps I could venture to assume there was a part of you that also never looked back because you already knew that damned look I’d have on my face. 

That look of pure terror in the eyes held in good company with a sly grin.  The grin you knew when game recognized game.  You knew I wouldn’t take my eyes off you until you met the horizon and it empowered you.  I think it empowered me too.  Your beauty, your confidence, the love I could not deny and your determination. 

You never looked back so we could see each other again.  See each other as we should; without the pain and fear we always had just before our flame exploded and fucked our world up.  As your figure disappeared up the hill toward the great oak tree, I whispered “I’ll see you in a couple chapters, Love.” 

Chapters…that thought brought a smile.  It was familiar as our destinies were intertwined.  This was a part of us and a pattern documented In the chapters of our past.  A part we understood through the pain.

That’s when I noticed that trickster was free.  I saw my shadow for the first time, free from yours, in years.  And it was dancing in our flames.  I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony…because you would have encouraged me to go ahead and dance “let it out babe, play - I’ve kept your shadow locked up for too long”.  I would have retorted something clever about you knowing my shadow always gets me into trouble…and frankly we both knew my shadow was more a monster than I could ever be.

I always looked back. 

The sight from the top of our hill where the great oak tree mused was… It was beautiful.  It was a painting of earthy tones savaged by reds and swirls of darkness.  The flames danced to the heavens as the sun was setting perfectly behind our woods.  It looked like we had set the world on fire.  It reminded me of your beauty.

Related write:

https://theprose.com/post/217553/run-free

Related write:

https://theprose.com/post/218075/remember

Coagulated clumps beneath his bench

Metallic strikes across the skin

Slices as fine and thin as paper

But as deep as the ocean's floor

Seperating the veins

Creating new pieces

New fragments

New bits

An unrecognizable beast

Suffocating the body

between thick plastic sheets

Labeling, marking, organizing

the kill

Thumps on metal as they make their way on the cart

screeching wheels and the smell of mildew

Breaking through to light

between two double doors

Selling beef is such a chore.

(This is based off a true event and was written in my diary a few years ago, I have changed details)

The tear in my curtain guided a sharp ray of moonlight directly into my barely sleeping eyes. It was only 10pm at this time, but the moon was at its highest, shining brighter than ever. Sitting up I watched as the shadowed silhouettes and flashing lights travel across my bedroom walls, illuminating the busy night life. This city never sleeps, each night the sound of screeching cars and brawl outbursts interrupts my once peaceful evenings. Well I guess ever since we moved out of our family home into this rundown rental flat nothing is peaceful anymore.

Moving houses wasn’t as cruisey as we all expected, especially the night before my birthday. Living with eight people in one home doesn’t help either. There was moutains so stuff. But not all of it got to the new house in nick condition. Two tables were smashed, boxes of items were squashed and containers of things lost. It took the movers two whole days to get all of it to the new house. It’s a 25 minute drive to and from my new school with good traffic, walking home however takes me at least one and a half hours. I'm not looking forward to it...

...Walking home from school is torturous. The cold wind slaps me in the face cracking my lips, drying my eyes and ripping out my once needly pinned hair. I needed to get home ASAP. I push my legs as fast as they can, barely walking but not quite jogging. My calf muscles on fire.

I see the street signs becoming more and more familiar. My neighbourhood at last. In what? Only an hour, best time yet.. But before I could celebrate I hear the plaintive scream of sirens penetrate my ears, getting louder and louder, ringing inside my head. I feel my body whip around without my mind's permission to see nothing more than the flashing blurs of blue and red glows masked by the rain. Two cop cars, three cop cars, all racing in my direction. What the hell are they doing here?

“Sorry Hun, you’re not allowed to come past here, for your own safety we need you to not come onto the street okay.”

“Why? I live in there.” I questioned the young officer.

“I need you to leave right now, do you have a mobile phone?” she asks me, talking as if I was a baby, “Would you be able to phone your parents and ask them to come and pick you up, or do you need one of our officers to take you home?”

“I’ll call them” I bluntly respond.

Storming off back down the road I watch as officer’s dash into my street and block off others around it. What is going on? I knew the only way I would be able to find out is if I waited for the news to give a rubbishy, undetailed report. Or, see for myself.

That's it.

I race round the side of a small car wrecking property on the corner of the two streets. Climbing up into a thick-trunked tree, all the way to the top, scanning the area.

I knew someone was dead before the crack of the gunshots reached my ears. The sound of the bullets sliced through the air, startling the life out of me, making me loosen my grip of the branches. Regaining my stability I spin around to the direction of the shots, I couldn’t even identify what was happening before a blaze of fire explodes into the air, the flames towering over the car wrecks and dry trees in a backyard just a house away from where I'm hidden.

Jumping out of the tree I race out of the property. Sweat, rain and tears covering my entire body, stinging my eyes. I didn’t want to know what had just happened, I didn’t want to hear the news.

#surprise #truestory #shortstory #prose #gunshots #fire