The writer

Every night, a quarter till the midnight hour; I hear them howling. Their desperation is unmistakable and their pain could be felt deep within my skin. I wondered about many things while listening to their cries. I wondered if they were cold, if they were hungry and I wondered if they wondered about other things as I do. Maybe they didn’t care about the world around them. Maybe their desires were so loud that everything else faded in comparison.

80 words, so I run...I wondered then, what it would be like to run down the road on all fours; to feel the cold pavement beneath my hands and feet was something that I was currently contemplating.

I know that they call to me. The thought just made itself known and proved to be the fact of the matter. We all want to be free, and contrary to popular belief; we all want to run, to bay at the moon and to become something else entirely. For without this desire, we die empty. For we all die alone and the pack will leave us to rot.

195 words and counting, my fingers tap tap tock on the keys till the joints ache. After 30 minutes of howling, the dogs next door have grown tired. My mind grows tired with them and I have all but forgotten about my running on all fours. I have grown older and the thought burdens me deeply. I know that If I open that door, I will run. I will leap upon the bannister and drop to the earth; sniffing the wind like one of those other beasts. I will run. I will be as a flicker of light among the shadows; dancing with the torment of the days before. I will run. I will climb into the trees and rub my face against the rough flesh of the pine. I know this way, I flee from man and I run.

321 words and I am still running. The dogs have begun to bay at the moon again. Their eyes shine in the night like demon sentinels. My laughter greets them momentarily and I stop by the fence so that I can see them. They pace back and forth-back and forth; in with the rhythm of their captivity. At once, we all bay at the moon again. With my greeting so is my depart as I take my leave of the muts. I run.

I run past the church on the corner with the steeple that touches God. I giggle at the insanity of my sins spread before me. I wonder if I shall ever bind the wounds of my descension. I wonder again and then pass on by. I run past the park with its Eagle encrypted pathways; so I take a deep breath and trace the design of the intricate sidewalk twists and turns. I see the beauty in the community artwork…but I grow bored. And so, I run again…past the hills and the lanes-past the railroad track and the biker bar. I feel like I have run the world over. I am not tired, I am not of strife.

I see the small town lights and let the hostage breath find freedom. The mist curls up before my nose, making pretty swirls in front of my eyes. I see the whole world for the thing that it really is and so I squat upon the ground in reverence. With my palm upon the skin of the world, I close my eyes and say a prayer for my humanity.

591 words…just shy of 600…and so I run again.

 

4. Going Hungry (she was always hungry, always...even when she took a bite, she wanted more..her evolution continues)

His voice permeated through the thick fog and I heard him say that name again. He said Cassandra and the others raised hands with something in them. I heard Owen’s voice commanding and strong. I heard the others and their voices. They were not happy with each other. I felt this much more than I heard or say it. And then I heard a very sharp noise like a needle piercing fabric. I heard the bones of my neck pop and my vision moved swiftly up to the ceiling then the ceiling fell away and the floor came up beneath me. A great echoing sound reverberated through me. All I saw was white.

I heard screaming and more sharp noises like many of those needles popping through fabric. I smelled something and it reminded me of something else. I was hungry again.

I still wanted to move, in fact, I still wanted to walk. As I stared at the white surface, I realized that I was hungry and I wanted to go for a walk. Walks were soothing to the stomach. I reached up to touch my face but I could not feel my skin anymore. There was nothing, no longer a slight sensation. There was absolutely no indication that my hand had reached my face; except for the fact that I could just barely make out my fingers in front of my eyes. I started to reach for the white surface in hopes that it would help me find my way outside. My hands grasped at the white ocean of nothing. I pulled at the air until I heard that beautiful sound. The one that sounded like a blooming thing inside me. The sound that momentarily made me forget my hunger.

“Cassandra” he spoke and moved into my line of vision. Owen’s face obstructed my view of the white thing….I think it was the ceiling, yes that was it. He was frowning and he has splatters of something on his face. He spoke again, “Cassandra, are you….I mean, I have to get you out of here.”

I didn’t feel his hands grasp me but my whole body registered the pulling sensation as the ceiling turned into the wall and the wall turned into Owen’s face again. I realized that I must have been lying down. Something was wrong with the left side of my head, I stumbled and fell back to the floor.

“Cassandra, get up!”

I just watched his face then. My vision started to clear and it made me gasp. Could this be, could I be getting better? I saw a clear for once since I had woken up. I saw the contours of his face, the hairs of his mustache and his stern eyes. I felt like I was smiling but I had no idea how to do that anymore. I heard the sounds around me; they sharpened suddenly and I could hear everything. I heard strange moanings coming from somewhere close, I heard the alarm clock going off in the other room and I could hear Owen’s breathing…it was sensual. I reached toward his face and my hands were no longer stiff. It was a miracle. I was alive again.

My stomach growled angrily. I was hungry. I was so very hungry and it was making my head hurt. I realized in that moment that I could feel. A burning flew through my wrists and up into my arms. My head began to pound. The pain intensified to a point where I felt like crying out.

“Cassandra, your eyes are clearing!” Owen spoke excitedly and smiled. “We have to go now. We have to get out of here. I have done a really bad thing.”

I looked around Owen and saw the man and woman that he had arrived with. They were both lying on the floor in pools of crimson. I swallowed a knot in my throat. My mouth was livid. I forgot about the dead people on the floor and went about the task of turning my jaws this way and that. I opened my mouth wide and stuck my hand inside.

I watched the confusion in Owen’s face. He was quiet, studying my face as I was playing with my mouth. My arms started to ooze from the wrists. I had smeared the dark liquid all over me.

Owen pulled me to him and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. I rested my flexing jaw on his shoulders. I was so happy that I could barely contain the words.

“I….I……I’m A…aliveee” I stammered.

Owen run his hands over the top of my head and sighed very deeply. “I know you are, Cassandra. I found you. We must go and find a safe place where I can clean you up.”

I said nothing more. I was thinking of things…fragmented things. I was still hungry.

“I have to find the guns that your brother left. Do you know where he stashed the guns?”

I said nothing because I was so fecking hungry.                                                                        

“Cassandra, I need to know where the guns are because we have to go out there again. Those things…they…they do bad things. They are zombies, Cassie, real life zombies. I mean, I guess. I saw them attacking people.”

I could feel the warmth of his flesh as it radiated against my cheek. I hadn’t felt like this since before. His smell was intoxicating and delicious. I was so damn hungry, when was he going to feed me?

“I was so worried about you, Cassie. I thought, I thought they had gotten to you.”

Owen pushed back from me and looked into my face. He frowned and spoke, “Oh dear god, we have to get you some medical help, Cassie, your head is bleeding. That bitch actually did graze your forehead. “

I just stared at him. I felt the oddest feelings coming over me. It was like how you feel when you know you are about to have the best sex ever. My thoughts were clear, my mind was not clouded by anything. I suddenly remembered my birthday, his birthday, I started to remember quotes and things from movies. I realized that I hadn’t been this intelligent in life. I was absorbing something from Owen.

“Ow,,,Owwen, I …..I’m…I’m hungry.”

Owen smiled and spoke. “well, have you no food here?”

I just stared at him and all I could say was, “I am hungry, Owen.”

Owen frowned because he saw something in my eyes. “Cassandra, something is wrong.”

I lay my head back onto Owen’s shoulder and I could smell his flesh and it smelled like nothing I had ever smelled before. It was better than the drugs, it was better than hearing my own name bloom inside my mind and it was holding me there with him. I wanted to be no where but here with Owen. I rubbed my lips against his shoulder and realized just how very ravenous I was. I was hungry. Oh god in heaven, I was starving.  I saw pictures in my head of our kisses, our lovemaking from the past. I started to kiss his shoulder then up to his neck.

“Cassie, what are you doing? We really don’t have time for that now and you are a mess.”

I ignored his words and continued to nibble his neck. I found this to be the pinnacle of my desires.

I stopped and pulled away. I found myself staring at his flesh and wanting more. I had no second chances in that moment. I had no regrets and no wasted moments. In fact, suddenly and without warning, my intelligence faded and the fragments of everything returned. Owen’s rambling words that we should leave this place; they disappeared into the fog of my brain. The only senses remaining to me was my sense of smell and sense of taste. I tasted bile in my mouth and a little blood. I had nothing left to say, I was hungry. I hungered and hungered and hungered for Owen Bartholamew.

I opened my mouth and put it against his flesh. He jumped slightly and let out a surprised yelp. But it was a little late for that. I clamped my teeth down shut on his throat and wrapped my arms around him.

I must really love Owen but I ate him. I mean, I took bites out of him. He shoved me away but it was done. I had ripped out a big part of his throat and he just didn’t make it. His face was odd. I could barely see him but I could just make out questioning glance that wanted to know why.

I was so hungry…god I was hungry. Funny thing is, I am still hungry and I have the overwhelming urge to just take a walk.

Maybe, just maybe my vision will clear again and I will understand things . I want to understand what I am. It seems like I was something else at one time. It seems like there was someone else. I have this suspicion that there are others who are not like me.

I have to walk, I have to eat. I am so hungry. Something is terribly wrong.

3. Going Hungry (The dead girl has a short day, but a fulfilling one when she stays hungry and her boyfriend finds her suicide note.)

My suicide note was taped to the fridge. I ran my stiff fingers over the blurred mass of letters and wondered if I could type anything. With that thought, I shambled to the bedroom and found a black square on the floor. I bent to touch the black thing and realized that it was indeed my laptop.

I wanted to write these things that were happening to me and so I tried my hand at it. Before I got started, I heard a car screech to a halt in my driveway followed by shouting. Owen's voice stood out above the others. I heard a women's voice, muffled but high pitched and something else. I thought the other voice must have come from another man. I stopped with the computer and sat it on my bed. I waited.

Something odd happened. It was as if a flower had bloomed within me. A sound came floating through the air landing on my ear. It made me smile a little. I listened closely to the sound; I liked it very much. I knew that word.

I heard it again, he said my name.

"Cassandra!" Owen yelled once more, right before he busted through my front door. Three voices flooded my ears and the ringing started again. I ran into the bathroom and locked the door. The sounds grew louder but more muffled. They bled together and sunk into my brain.

"Cassandra! Please baby, tell me you are here. Tell me that you are okay!" Owen pleaded from the living room. Other voices mumbled.

Footsteps thundered on the floor like huge cotton elephants. I grinded my teeth because the sounds were so hungry. My fingers had lost some of the stiffness, so I plugged them into my ears. I was hungry so I listened carefully to what was happening behind the door, because I was hungry. My stomach growled and I knew that I had killed myself because I was hungry. Being hungry meant hunger was hungry and I am hungry and I have to eat before I grow too hungry. I felt the hunger come near my hungry and so I hungered for the hungry to help me to hunger and be safely hungered in hungry. I was hungry.

My stomach growled very loudly. I stood, took my fingers from my ears and unlocked the door.

"Owen?" I stood in the hallway and watched the three figures standing before the refrigerator. My boyfriend, Owen was holding my suicide note and he wept. The other two, a tall black man and a really pretty oriental woman; they stared at me. Owen turned and took his first look at his dead girlfriend.

All I could think of was how hungry I really was. Everything would be okay, If I could just eat something.

2. Going hungry (the girl is still hungry and she still wont die, then she goes outside to see the miracles)

I heard those morning  birds singing and it sounded like they were underwater. They garbled and cooed away in some distant land. I thought of chicken, smothered in cream sauce with mashed potatoes. My stomach rumbled.

 I found some canned beef but I dropped it several times while going for the can opener. I only ever used the hand held ones and so the ordeal was  impossible. I couldn’t open the can for my fingers being so stiff. So, I threw the can instead, into the hallway mirror. The sound was like a thousand pillows falling. I ripped open a bag of chips and proceeded to eat those instead. Proceeded, I might mention, is the keyword.
 

My mouth opened and my jaw popped loudly. I could only get my lips apart enough to cram small broken pieces of the chips  between my lips. I thought of Cookie Monster and how many cookies he wasted; I grew angry at my face. My skin was growing numb and it reminded me of some far away place where they stick needles into your face. I saw visions of faces peering down at me and smiling. Long instruments poked and prodded at my lips then drew away. I tried to open my mouth wider and my jaw popped again. This time, I managed to get a handful of full sized chips into my mouth.

They didn’t taste good at all. In fact, I had no idea how to taste them. They crumbled and cracked between my teeth but they had no texture or form.

Memories flashed through my brain. I saw visions of people eating from bags of chips, talking and drinking things from cans; I was jealous. They laughed at each other from some joke I could not hear. I drew near to them in my vision. I wanted to understand why my food had no taste. I wanted to ask them a question. I saw them turn in my direction and smile. I saw the skin on their faces, the eyes, the lips; they were interesting. I watched the muscles ripple beneath their flesh. My stomach growled. I put the chips in the trash and spit the rest from my mouth.

10:00 am

I stayed in the bathroom for a while just trying to see myself in the mirror. My eyes had not cleared but I could see my face just a bit. My skin was very pale and my eyes were dark all around the sockets. Dark circles like trenches hung beneath my stare. I tried to see my eyes up close. I drew closer and closer but my vision was no better than it was hours before. For one moment, fleeting and confusing, I saw my eyes. They were no longer green like before, they were pale and opaque. I saw that the disease that had stricken my vision was covering my eyes with a milky film. I shook my head and drew away from the mirror. I was horrified by what I saw. I turned away, making my neck creak loudly, then turned back.  I pushed my face to the mirror again.  I had to hold the sink to keep from falling. I grew faint, sickened about  what I had done.

 I was crippled, maimed and probably damaged for the rest of my life. My failed attempt at suicide had turned me into something that resembled a monster. I hated that fact that among all things in life that I had failed at, I also managed to fail at this too. I was truly and undeniably a loser and now the world would know just how pathetic I really was. I knew that I had to call someone, tell someone what I had done. I had to ask someone to help me, maybe reverse the damage. I wasn’t still dying, I was damaged….even more than when I had begun this journey of self destruction.

I walked to the front door, opened it and went out onto the porch. I watched as two people shambled down the road toward my house. One was a man that I didn’t recognize: tall and thin. The other one was Mr. Richards who should have been in his wheelchair. This time he was walking:but not walking very well. He looked up the hill toward where I stood. His looked angry. I was frightened and so I went back inside, shutting my door.  I thought of Owen and remembered that he was supposed to come by this morning. It was almost 8:00 a.m.; Owen would be here in  half an hour. Maybe he would bring me donuts. Suddenly, I grew queasy. My stomach lurched pre-empting a series of dry heaves that put me on my knees. I thought of Owen and wondered if he could help me.

My stomach growled loudly and my boyfriend's face flashed in my memoires. The pictures were scattered and made no sense.

Something was very wrong.

1. Going hungry (the dead girl that just wouldn't die and how hungry she was in the little house with the odd windows)

It didn’t work.

 It took a moment for my eyes to focus on the room. It was night time and I knew this because those high windows above my bed were completely black. Dangling skeletons swayed in the slight breeze of the Air unit, as did the ruffles of my makeshift curtain which didn't even cover the windows. I watched those things move and they moved in a staggering rhythm; if visualized things had a rhythm. I couldn't think in order; I think they had rhythm.

 It was different in the light; those days that I would smile instead. During the day, I loved to lie there on my bed and watch the leaves of the trees twist and shake in the wind. The blue sky beyond was magnificent contrasting the green of the leaves, then the red and brown as autumn came. I looked up and out of that window almost every day until I fell into a revere. I even began to float above it all, dancing among the leaves with my pretend wings, letting the air ruffle my feathers. Then, I would come down again and enter my mortal body. I would always be shaken from the experience; somehow filled with a new fire. I would be rejuvenated with  life to go on.

But, It was dark now, so I focused on the black that filled both rectangular window panes: and I fancied myself in a dream.

My arms were weak. The blood had dried upon my wrists. I didn’t understand it; there was no pain. As I stared at my arms, my vision  began to clear; but not entirely. It didn’t feel normal at all, my vision, nor did it completely go clear. There were cloudy corners in my eyes and when I would look up into foggy areas, my eyeballs would start to shake; then they got stuck. I immediately wanted to pull them down with my fingers. My hands made claws reached up in habit: I shook my head.

“Uggh” I grunted. I squinted my eyes.  I opened them again and they were moving as normal: all normal but the groggy corners. I looked around the room and held both arms out in front of me. The blood crackled and broke loose when I bent my wrists.

2 hours later

I sat upon the kitchen floor, propped against the cabinets; and I cried. I thought I cried but I guess the tears has all gone dry from the night before. I looked at the gap, 5 inches in length below each hand. My wrists had been opened up, wide open, like mouths. There were no scabs, no dark bruised patches; there was nothing but slits that grew wider when I bent my wrists. My vision was still not clear. My panic grew with each moment that I realized my vision was not clearing; the groggy corners had spread to cover most of both  my eyes. Everything resembled a painting by monet, dappled and blurred and filled with fading color. I saw floaters, speckled spots that raced to and fro in front of me.

 I screamed suddenly; over and over, bringing from the bowels of my being, a wretched screech.

The echo of my screams announced my lonliness and all was quiet again.

 I noticed my hands growing stiff, my neck followed suit.

 

4 hours passed

 

I knew something was wrong besides what should have been wrong. My deed lay undone and I realized I had flubbed it all. I failed miserably and now I had contracted some sort of infection from the blade or some flu.; I would say that I felt horrible, but something prevented me from feeling anything but confusion. My mind was chaos, madness; nothing made sense.

 Or maybe the pills has some awful blinding side effect. I could barely walk from the kitchen to the living room without things popping and  scrubbing around my bones. My whole body was affected by my stupidity.

 I thought about the meds, wondering and trying to remember the after affects. I took 5 Hydrocodone and shook the contents of Acepaminaphen, Tylenol and Bactrim bottles down my gullet. I didn’t count those other pills though. I knew it was enough, or was it? Apparently, it hadn't been enough to kill me. I thought about it again and my thought patterns suddenly shifted.

 For one moment I was considering the fact that I still may be in the process of dying; then I thought of food.

 I was hungry.

I felt  a hunger pang, deep within my stomach. It rumbled softly at first then it built into a audible thunder.  I heard it with my own ears. The noise reverberated on my ear drum making strange echoes. I grabbed my ears and realized the sound hurt them badly. My ears started to ring; loudly at first then dying down to a low hum. Everything was going haywire, my system, my brain; I was losing touch with reality and at a very fast pace.

And, then the awful wrenching silence crept in taking the place of all other things. I thought for a moment that I heard my own breath but I was mistaken. I pushed and strained for air to come out of my mouth but there was nothing. I opened wide, my nostrils; flaring them and scrunching my face.

I could not breath and yet....I lived....or maybe I didn't live at all. I was going mad.

I thought once more with logic. It was true, I just wasn’t done dying yet. But I was torn. There was only one thing that made me second guess that thought; I was hungry. My stomach had no idea that I was done for. It kept rumbling on like some deranged starved thing. As I rubbed my abdomen and made to shush my growling gut, the fingers of my bones popped and grinded at the joints. But there was no pain....

 

cept for the undying pain of my starvation

so be it. :)

I left it all behind; just as simple as that, I sat it down and walked away.

 In the midst of it, I was in love; it was no love that had ever been fathomed. Unfortunately, It was  like a faucet. I turned the feeling off and on like it was nothing, just a tap. I walked from the room and turned the light off. Oh, I offered a goodnight, a farewell; but my heart resorted to beat on its own now, so I needed no more pain, I welcomed it not. I drove the spike so deeply into the heart that I felt it burst like jelly filled gum.

 I hear him sigh and his eyes strove to look away; but he didn’t. He held my gaze and desperately tried to hide the fact that he was not sure. I watched him, calculated his next move; so I lay back down on his chest. I heard his heart go “tam tam…tam tam”, and I smiled.

“I know that I surely love you; because love makes all things beautiful.”

He smiled, pushed me up to look into my face. He spoke softly “yeah? How’s that?”

I lay back  down , my lips grazing his ear; I ventured to speak again. “yeah, because even though you are an asshole, I still love you and I always will.”

It all changed then, I felt it deeply as his eyes found mine. I knew that my truth had no place in his envisioned idea of what he thought we were supposed to be. I could not be a pawn in his game. I watched his eyes with mine carefully navigating, moving along the surface of that place. I smiled, for I knew that it was time.

I felt every crumbling piece as it fell to the floor. I did feel sadness as well; a great flooding in on my heart and a mass confusion in the brain, but it would be done. I had rehearsed this scene so many times before, driven the knife in over and over with fervor. I knew the routine and so I smiled.

I didn’t want the play to end and so I said my lines, as timid as I might have been; and I closed the book.

I watched him walk away and stood alone with me.

I suppose (poem from my blog, Bad Wine)

Suppose that I had dreamt of this
and it happened not at all
suppose there was one heated kiss
hands upraised against the wall

mouth to mouth and skin unending
hands to flesh and flesh to soul
gasping with each moment sending
pleasure with this thing we stole

and suppose the heart would follow
with the mind that knows all truth
and with this pain I swallow
numbed of loss and learned with proof

should we try to know the reason
why some things are never done
let us try our mights with seasons
under moon and under sun

should we break that which is broken
making good of things twere tainted
shall we honor all those tokens
which has deemed to make us sainted
painted a picture thus...

We should be dead
as we tread upon morality
duality finding compliance...


we will dream no more in silence
keeping treasures locked within
we will open up this mindless
unsettling, searching...lust born sin

and as each endearing moment
gathers dust and stills the time
we will make believe our torment
is but just another rhyme

...and is just within the mind...

finding solace in those glances
quick and ending but salvation
eyes of water, taking chances
eyes of earth, the navigation

I am in love with melancholy (poem from my blog, Bad Wine)

I'm in love with melancholy
enraged by the thought of
I am drowning, suffocating 
and dying for dark love
no light gives me rise
and no blessing excites
only death and desire
both perplexes, ignites

deep within the night's

embrace...
my love is a disgrace

give me scissor and knife
and the feel of the blade
give me portion and portion
of this hell that's been made
I need  crimson and blackness
and hurt dripping down
to walk in this bleakness
 in this hate I could drown

I have found...
turning round and round

A love of depression
so demonic and sad
a scolding from momma
a beating from dad
a shovel I grip tight
and desire runs right through me
My love for the melancholy
suicidal and free
In this I have found
a love of it all
in love with the thought of
the thrill of the fall

even sun has a blackness
 black spot on blue skies
even your love is tactless
when you close those dear eyes
even your love is hurting
and death would be kind
for in your love I'm drowning
in the depths of my mind

I am in love with melancholy
wrapped in pure mourning madness
I walk the earth wailing
and enduring this sadness

The End (Poem from my blog, Bad Wine.)

the end,well it creeps and it makes itself known
the end it was bargained, its soul  it has shown
those words that I said to you quite as you dared
not knowing the face of the  dead as you stared
it waited until you were gone, fast asleep
it waited for dawn, but till then it would creep
the end, it was ragged, and bitter and torn
the end was unbearable, and love did it scorn
I felt the cold end as it gripped me with hate
moving to nothing my thirst would not sate
the end was so hollow, so numb and so dry
as the end placed the penny upon my dead eye
the breath was released as the moth flew away
the end was like  nightfall, gave finish to day

Of my distress

laying them out: one, two and three. They were as pristine as the little satin costumes that they wore. Emerald smiled down at her emaculate  collection of dolls. One was of her husband, one was of her father and one was her long-time enemy. She didn't know which one was more
dispicable. These were the tangible signs of her failing, she mused. Carefully, she picked her father from the line of dollies and held him
to her breast. He was the most ancient of the three. His eyes were red rubies.
"You...You have given me love beyond that which any other could possibly fathom." Emerald held out the diarama of her father and thought for
 a moment. " I see the love in your eyes, even, but I see the darkness as well. This, my dear father, is why you are here amongst your
breathren."
Emerald replaced the dollie of her father in its central spot among the rest. She then picked up her husband. His face was ashen gray
porcelin with pink daisies for eyes. Emerald shook her head and pursed her lips. Her heart ached in its blackness.
"My sweet sweet dear, I saw you there with her. I saw you in many places with them all. I saw you and what you did with them. This, my dear,
is why that good girl, here, died." The tainted girl held her husbands doll very close and pointed to her own breast. "I died so very long
ago, and something else came back to haunt me." Emerald swallowed the hard knot in her throat and put her husband's doll back down on the
left. She shook her hand as if fire had burst upon her skin. "You shall be first, my long time companion." One more word toward her husband,
then she turned to her long time enemy.
The little dollie lay looking at Emerald with its big black eyes and golden hair. Its hands were boney skeletal hands and its dress was
black. "I tried so hard to have no enemies, but you insisted. For this, I have included you within my hall or horrors. My dear dollie, you
are just the perfect example of why some of us do such terrible things to each other. I heard your laughter, I tasted your words and my
dear, I felt the blade that you left in my back. This is why I have to repay you in kind."
Emerald then put down the last of her three. She leaned back in the broken chair and ran one hand through the silk of her red hair. Her
thoughts raced as they often did. She thought of torn and bleeding feelings. She thought of all the reasons why she should turn the other
cheek but then she remembered how her cheek was covered in blood and bruised badly from the blow. Her heart grew venomous with retribution.
The windows rattled from the great north wind that wanted inside. All through the house, moaning phantoms and creaking wood shifted and
contorted. Emerald saw their shadows run from cupboards to doorway and then shift back into the walls. Her heart raced like the palpatations
of a tiny baby. Time passed slowly as her brain, again, entertained various thoughts of pain and desperation. She felt her justification
crawling up her spine. The serpentine thing tickled the nape of her neck, wrapping its tendrils of bitterness tightly around her medulla
oblongata. Her face lit up making her eyes look like feiry black beacons. Emerald knew it was time, it was dead time.
The old blue clock struck 3 am and they came. One by one, the dolls pulled themselves from the marble top counter and began to dance.
Emerald watched them parade across the cool surface of the counter top; and she giggled uproareously. Her red curls fell into her pale face
like lacie blood ribbons. She didn't mind her tattered dress, she didn't mind her soot stained fingers; Emerald just wanted vengeance. As
the dance twirled into a maniacal piroette, Emerald grew angry. She rose from her broken chair and slammed her fists upon the counter.
"Enough!"
As it had began, it ended abruptly. All dolls fell haphazard upon themselve. Nothing moved, nothing made a sound. Emerald watched hard for
quite some time, then sat back down upon her rocker. Her hands caressed her knees, she licked her lips and exhaled in finality.
"Now which one of you would like to feed the flames?"
The Reaper laughed in the distant winds. Emerald smiled to herself.