Honors 211 Project Idea

So I've had this idea simmering around in my head for a while. It's an idea for a coffee table-style book I hope to pitch to the right publisher, or in the event of no such suitable publishing house, self-publish.

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I did not grow up in the area I currently live in. I've been here give-or-take four years. And I know it just well enough to know that I hate it.

But love it or hate it, I'm here. And because I'm here, I'm influenced by it. And regardless of my opinions, it's a very naturally beautiful area. We've got some of the oldest old growth forests in the nation. The ONLY national forest in Ohio is right in my backyard, less than minutes from my doorstep. Nature is around me.

And so is the decay of man. Everywhere I turn, signs that man has created well-placed IV lines into the earth...not for the purpose of saving the natural beauty, but for the succinct and precise art of killing her.

Everywhere signs that man has tried to triumph over nature. And everywhere signs of failure. I've been writing a series of poems on the subject for...oh, give-or-take four years now.

But what I want to do, my "vision" if you will, is a series of meaningful and poignant photographs from around the region paired with suitably appropriate well-taken photographs.

I think the capstone assignment for English is a perfect test run for this idea. Something that, if I find I'm actually somewhat decent with photography, I think I would take even farther. Right? I mean, once you get going with a good piece of art or literature, you can't just let it languish. It needs care and attention to live. It's not like a mushroom - stick it away in a damp, dark, moldy corner and it will die.

And this is one idea that's been bouncing off the tin-can walls of my addled brain for a while now. This is not to say that school work is any less valid than commercializing my work - god knows I'm sick of writing to pay the bills. Buuuut....if I have the opportunity to present this multimedia project in a critical but supportive environment, why shouldn't I take that opportunity as a dry run or test subject for a larger project of the same scope, probably incorporating those images and words?

Now, to add "learn photography" to my never ending list of "things to do when i get copious amounts of free time." Riiiiiiight.

Ramble On....

Just a mild-mannered (ha!) collection of fragments and snippets that have been winding around my brain for a few days now. Keeping them on hand for possible later inclusion into other works of art/garbage.

I don't wanna be the one whining along with the mindless lyrics - I want to be the one who grabs life by the balls and writes her own lyrics; full of meaning, sound and words that express feelings millions of angsty teenagers can't quite seem to commit to paper. Hell - do teenagers even know what paper is anymore? I hear it all the time: "I'm so sad...I don't remember what it's like to feel." The problem is, you never really learned to begin with. Hop off of your computer, your cell phone, your IJunk and your whateverthefuck and grab a pen and just start writing. You'd be amazed how much you feel when you just put the ink on the page and get it over with...

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He walked in with a death sentence hanging over his head. You'd never know it by looking at him, but he was a tough, vibrant dog - full of life and energy in his day. Today was not his day and he was here to die.

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I'm always on the lookout for that Humane Society Worker Jackpot(tm). That golden ticket to actually changing the world. I'll keep my eyes peeled as I'm working my way along the winding country roads and rural routes in drowsy little hamlets all over the county, just looking for that box of unwanted, discarded puppies or kittens. The sad thing is, years of doing the same bloody, painful, mind-numbing work have taught me one thing: People aren't kind enough to give their unwanted kittens and puppies even the courtesy of a cardboard box. No, people are much more cruel than that. They trade away their eco-friendly three-times recycled cardboard for a plastic bag. A plastic bag. Something that costs less than 10 cents to manufacture and no thought at all to throwing out. These people who are so keen on saving mother nature and curing the planet of all her ills don't even see fit to give these animals a fighting chance. Instead, they write that unwanted litter off as just one more loss, tossing them out the windows of their green little hybrids, zooming along these lonely country roads at 100 miles per hour. And you wonder why I've lost faith in the human race.

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It isn't the blood, the guts or the gore that bother me. It's that unmistakable, undeniable smell of death. It clings to your hair and skin, hiding fast behind a veil of slick, green disinfectant. The smell of total obliteration that even the stiffest drink and strongest shower can't wash away. It burrows in tight beneath your fingernails, digging in its claws, the pungent aroma of rot that seemingly begins even before death and lingers on long after. And it sticks with you, searing images on the front of your eyeballs that can't be undone. Some days I wonder if I didn't pick the wrong fucking profession.
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We're not given the courtesy of flashing red lights to indicate that we are doing something important, that we are on our way to save lives. Instead, we're consigned to late-night runs on major highways, driving down forgotten routes hoping to God or anyone who is listening that we'll make it to the clinic on time. And hoping we're not noticed - not noticed by the stars, the gods, the heavens above and most of all, unnoticed by the state highway patrol who don't see the cause as just or noble. To them, we're not doing anything important. We're not saving lives. Around here, in little old middle america, we're just another schmuck doing 30 over the speed limit at 4 AM. We're watching the clock as they write the ticket, hoping they'll just save the roadside lecture and wrist slap for another time: To them, it's just another dog. But we know different: to us, it's an old friend come home at the worst of times in the worst of shapes. An old friend begging for help. And we're the only ones who listen.
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Sometimes I feel like giving up, giving in. And then I realize: I've got nothing left to give. I've given it all away. I give it all up every day for others who have even less than I do and I spread myself so thin that it's a wonder I don't rip into two more often. How can you give up, give in, when you've got nothing left to give? You can't. So you do the only logical thing: Keep going.

Free write, August 30, 2010

In the off chance that you're reading this, the world looks funny today. Green looks like red and yellow looks like green. And in the off chance you're hearing me, the sound of your voice reminds me of a pickle. It's sour and briny with just a hint of tart, the perfect beginning to a late afternoon meal consisting of sour cream and nachos with a pitcher of tea that's been brewing all day to wash down the acrid words. And in the off chance you're not listening, I'm not hearing you quite correctly because everything sounds like it's underwater and you're muffled and funny and not quite right but I love you anyway. And in the off chance you see me, consider carefully that you just don't look the same. Your ears are too big for your head and your head is too big for your neck but the whole thing is dwarfed by the rest of your body so it doesn't really matter anyway because your ears are proportionate with your torso but not the rest of your head which is too tiny to fit anyway so it never looks like it quite belongs, kind of like you and me because we're never sure we quite belong so we sit and we think and we plod along the edge of a ballfield or the public square, wondering if we should be here or go because we never feel like we quite belong but for different reasons, you and me, we feel both awkward and entitled. You feel different like you don't belong because you do belong here - you've belonged here all your life and know the ins and outs of the system, the basic hustle and bustle of the everyday life of the general Nelsonville native. I feel like a big fish swimming around in a tiny plastic bag - both too big for the bag and the small supply of water that's been dumped uncerimoniously in here for me to swim around in but also like i might suffocate to death very slowly if someone doesn't let me out of this damned plastic bag soon. I feel like a goldfish because my memory is failing me, baby. I can't quite seem to remember - is it me or is it you? Do you remember the first night we met? You said you'd never met anyone quite like me. I'm telling you now, darling. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone quite like me because I'm a genetic abnormality, an abberation that never quite should have happened and doubtless will happen again. I'm more than one but less than nothing and everything around me seems to suffer in the process. It really is just better if you put me out of your mind, out of my mind, and cease thinking about me altogether because when people get involved, people get hurt and when people get hurt it's usually my fault even though I don't mean for it to happen, I'm just off like that. And even now, when I'm trying to write, have BEEN trying to write because writing is what pays the bills, even now as I try to write and keep my INTERNAL EDITOR out of it all, I can't quite seem to manage. I tell myself to just keep typing, just keep going, just keep writing but I find myself going back to fix glaring mistakes in the words, fix the words that aren't right because I edit as I go. But the problem is I keep miswriting words because my brain moves faster than my fingers and I can barely keep up with it - if my mind starts plodding along at a soothing 1000000 billion million gazillion miles an hour, I can't stop it, can't shut it down, but also can't keep up with my fingers. I leave out words, letters, I get sloppy and the meaning is changed. And it's all about the meaning, right? So if I leave off the words at the end of a paragraph, forget the articles and helper words and leave off the letters at the ends of words, does it really all still mean the same? That's why I get pissed off when you half-ass your way through everything and everything still manages to be okay - because I can't just skip parts and leave them out and have everything be okay - it bugs me and irritates me and I end up ripping it all apart to do over again 100 percent, but you take shortcuts and everything's alright - just ask little red riding hood how taking shortcuts ends up.It isn't good man, and one of these days it's gonna kill you. If I don't first from the frustration of it all. Does doing a good job matter anymore? Does doing things right, taking your time, putting yourself into the work, putting pride in your work and actually WORKING matter anymore? Or is it half-ass slacker city where the bums rule the show and those of us who actually give a toss about anything get slobbered on because we're the ones in the wrong? Tell me, why don't you?

My Internal Reporter's Questions and Answers

Do you know who you are - you, who whispers so silently among the trees?
Do you know where you go - where, in the light of day no footfalls can conquer?
Do you know how you work - the ins, the outs, the inbetweens?

I don't know you anymore, the faded echo of a broken dream
I don't know where you have gone, except to say you're never here.
I don't know how you work - you've changed the rules on me, it seems.

How did we get so far from here, our mouldered slice of the American Dream?
What did we do to earn out share, a piling heap of misery?
When did I cease to know you anymore?
Who did I become, when I failed to know myself?

I don't have all the answers - I don't know how far we've come.
I don't know where we are anymore - I didn't care to look.
I don't know how time crept upon me, obscuring my line of sight,
I don't know what I was thinking, when I let my mind take flight.

Where are all the answers? I truly want to know.
How do I find the source of these pains, the ones I can't even show?

Don't ask me. I'm just a girl with some questions.
But if you'll oblige, I'm dying to know.
Let me get a pen....

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to just not care any more? Wondered what it would feel like if just for a moment you could let go of it all - your school, your work, your family, your friends, your pets, your obligations, your responsibilities and your restrictions - if you could let go of it all and do something entirely unthinkable that would send everything up in a cloud of ash and smoke?

I do.

Did you ever wonder what it's like to have something, some big giant glowing sign that tells everyone else to back off? That you're trying your hardest? That you feel like a drowning man trying to grasp air, breaking the surface for a mere fraction of a second before being pulled down again? Did you ever wonder what it was like if you didn't have to maintain decorum and just tell people what you really thought? How you really felt?

I do.

And did it ever occur to you what you might look like if you finally let what was on the inside show through to the outside? Did you ever want to express all the pain, hurt, rage and uncomfortable, angry truths that are boiling inside because it wouldn't be okay, wouldn't be polite to let them out?

I sometimes think of it. And I'm pretty sure I'd look just the same as I look now - worn out, tired, scarred. Scared. Miserable. Feeling lost, hopeless, alone and without a friend in the world. Because the people I thought were friends really aren't....the people I thought I could trust really aren't trustworthy. It's something I've been learning over and over again for the past four...five...six...seven...eight years now. Because just when you're certain there are people you can rely on, depend on, count on, trust and confide in.....it all goes to shit.

And you're left standing alone. Labeled. Put into a nice neat little box and forgotten about because you aren't worth their time unless there's something wrong.

Maybe my problem is I've been valuing the people in my life who are worthless and not paying enough attention to those people who, time and again, have proven that they're with me for the long haul. Maybe I need to open my eyes a little more and figure that out.

Maybe I just need to wave a big fuck you to everyone and jump off the face of the planet for a while.

How can I trust myself to figure out who I can trust if I can't even figure out the simplest things any more?

How can I trust you if I can't trust myself? How can I trust myself if I am continually let down time and again by those I put my trust in, making me question why I trust in my own judgment ever?

Why does it feel like a big, cyclical, circular logic puzzle that I'll never figure out. The same phrase bandied about by angsty teenagers time and again, scribbled in the back of notebooks and posted on bedroom mirrors - people are shit and the only person you can trust is yourself. So why am I trying to pull other people out of the mire? Why am I trying so hard to keep ahold of the things that are hurting me?

Seriously, why?

My Pedigree Hails From Mechanics

Thud thud kerthunk kerthunk
The sounds the old clunker of an engine -
the remains of my oil-rotted heart beating
so heavily in my chest as I hoist your words
from a piece of heavy machinery,
trying to dissect, to discern, to theorize and postulate
what exactly I did wrong.

Your heart is purring like the engine
in a well-maintained collector's
fifty-nine Cadillac.
The noise and rumble is entirely different
than the fading beats of the Model-T
that takes up long-empty garage space
in my chest cavity.

I imagine God is much like a small boy
with a set of toy cars to play with
and brightly painted inter-locking track
with which he plays out our lives
as nothing more than a game,
setting us up on a miniature collision course,
our two cars humming for disaster at every turn
and squealing and giggling with delight as we slam together
at the most awkwardly constructed loop on the course.

And on the worst of days,
I feel like you've resigned me to my fate
and retired me to the junkyard
for people to pick over my body for parts,
varied and sundry amusements and accouterments of days gone by.
Hands of strangers poking and prodding,
wondering if my leather interior is real.
Of course it is.

And an oil leak that will never cease
keeps pouring out from under my hood,
lubrication flows freely
as you rev my engine,
taking me out of neutral and all the way into overdrive.
Motor mount tears fall to the asphalt,
as you drive on without me.

It Was Only Because I Loved You

You:
You are the Arthur to my Morgana. You are the promises broken and the skies turned gray, heavy with clouds. My tears burst forth, oozing a thick, pendulous sadness that lingers in the air around me. What am I to say to you? What left is there to say, but to recall better times of bitter memories with a sorrow so sweet it tastes like cherry cordial on my lips?

Howling to the moon in anguish, I am an elm tree on the exterior - smooth bark and twisting trunk, holding steady at the root, trying to keep it together because I'm just as much of a danger to you as you are to me. Inside, rotting away, picked at little by little by these termite-like thoughts. I am not as strong and steady and rooted as I may seem: A caress just as well as a kick could knock me to the ground.

And how can I say this to you? My lion, my pride? How can I play these words off my tongue so as not to offend, so as not to cause you any more agony than I already have? How do I say these words that I have said not once, not twice, but so many times before? How can I make these wishes true, how can I make a spark come alive, when you want nothing more to do with me than a living body to warm your bed on the cold nights when my soul howls like the coyotes, a plaintive plainsong that echoes through the corridors of my very being, rattling me? How can I say this all to you when your eyes lay elsewhere?

Not once, but many times, I have felt your hands upon me. Not once, but a thousand times have you whispered words in my ears that could make a courtesan blush and a priest bow in humility. Not once, but forever, you promised I would have a spot in your heart - yes, a spot, my love. Something to be scrubbed at time and time again, a blemish on an otherwise perfect life - a spot that won't come out no matter what bedamned way you try.

And maybe I did myself in - maybe I fell too hard, too fast. Can you blame me? You're so full of yourself sometimes, your life so full of promise as you look onward past me, toward her, toward your new life, that you fail to see what you leave behind: and listen close, I will admit this only once - you leave behind the saddened little girl who is frustrated, hurt, angry and confused because she is being denied something that worked so well, when she tried to behave so good.

In moving on, you leave me behind - clutching the tattered strings of a tapestry quickly unweaving around me, the threads pulling and bursting as you walk and run faster, and farther, away from the life we could have had -- had only one of us been brave, had only one of us spoken up. But which of us did that burden fall to? I cannot say, I cannot lay fault. I won't.

My eyes well up as I write this....you're always so near and it stings and pricks at me, my blood buzzing in my ears like a hive of angry bees. You don't even know what we could have been, because you wouldn't even try.

And now I must let go - I know I do. I guess, somewhere, somehow, I always knew I would. I always knew, in the back of my heart, in the back of my head, that you would find any reason that I would be unsuitable for you. Wrong age, wrong weight, wrong religion, wrong touch, wrong love, wrong feeling, wrong everything and anything. It could have been anything and you would have found a reason -- because I am not the one you wanted and I never was.

I'm just sorry I ever allowed myself to admit that I wanted you in my life in a way you would never understand, with a maddening desire you only felt the most barbed, poisoned tip of. I'm sorry that I let myself open to you, feinted when I should have parried, and never ever struck back. I opened parts of myself to you that no one 'fore or since or again will have...the more esoteric pieces of my being and more of the physical ones as well. I offered you the world, but the world I offered wasn't well enough - and I can understand that, I suppose.

I remember those words you whispered in my ear, those tearful moments of confessions, of words not wanting to be spoken but pouring out anyway. Deer crowding the highway, you confessed. And so did I. And those words I can't take back haunt me, because if I could, I would steal them and horde them away, a dragon with a treasure in the most cliched manner. But I am left empty - in heart, in body. My soul aches. It all aches.

My heart is sliced to pieces now, ribbons to sway in the chilled wind that forces its way through my veins, ribbons floating on air where I used to harbor so much warmth and love. I'm sorry for the hurt I caused......it was only because I loved you.

So...Where Do You Live?

"So...Where Do You Live?"

My apartment is the penthouse suite of a fortress in a post-apocalyptic wonderland. All around me, buildings crumble and vines seek to claim what little territory was once theirs – it's true, the earth takes back her own. Brick and mortar and steel and tin all combine in a cacophonous amalgam that reminds me of a cancer on the land – a boil left to fester years ago, now infected and diseased.

Walking out of my neighborhood is easy – two blocks to the front, keep your head down and your gaze averted. Retrieving supplies is simple if you have a vehicle – few of us do. We would make it, if we could work together. Though we share close quarters in our block, we regard each other as strangers. And strangers are a threat, treated with wariness and suspicion.

Necessary functions are made infinitely harder by the security measures we've managed to amass. Walking out – that's the easy part. It's getting back in that's the problem. Walking the dog – the preferred personal security system of the masses – is a tedious chore. You can get out – but can you get back in? It's always a concern that one of our own will be hurt trying to perform a simple, everyday task, struck down by those who take it upon themselves to guard our world.

Upon reentry, you're faced with darkness. The darkness isn't so overwhelming when you're leaving the block. It isn't so apparent as you put the decay behind you. As you walk into the foreboding mile, it overwhelms you – consumes you. Years ago there were streetlights. They're still there – at least, a few of them are. Of the few that remain, only a handful still give light. I think the electric system feeds on despair – the lights always shine brighter in a moment of fear.

Out of the darkness comes the plaintive cry of a kitten or a newborn child – all too many of both litter the streets, barely finding shelter. Out of the darkness comes a band of vigilantes – wielding sharp words and even sharper glass bottles. Are you one of us? Their stares ask the question. One wrong gesture, one wrong movement, one wrong look and, even if you ARE a resident of the block, you might be mistaken for Other. And that means trouble.

The screams don't bother me so much any more – they did when I first moved onto the Block. All night, I could hear the screams. A woman, a child. And dogs, a symphony of howls and cries. Human or animal, the cries are still the same dull groaning of needs unmet: shelter, food, water, safety, love.

Tip-tap your shoes on the bricks, once pulled and molded from the river that still runs through town. Listen to the noises echo, and for a second, you feel the wonder of a child. The world becomes hazy around the edges, and sometimes I think it might not be so bad. Then I open my eyes a little wider.

The bricks are crumbling. The ground itself is sinking. The forest moves in, striking when and where it can. The gaping maws of broken windows turn toward the world. The beckoning sigh of an abandoned shed wafts through the night, settling a little deeper into the resignation that it, too, will soon be gone. Above it all speaks the groaning of the foundations of buildings that should have been condemned long ago – if only there were someone to decree such.

One false step and you will break your neck. I say this out of concern – it's happened to me all too many times. My neck is intact, but I'm worse for wear. There is a constant, drenching dampness in the air, accompanied by the smell of mildew. It might have been the river – but the river is too far off to smell. It's the ground, trying to swallow our Block whole. And I can't blame it. If I were Mother Nature, I'd want to erase my world, too.

The current of fear in the air is palpable. You can reach out and grasp it. The stench of rot hooks you by the nostrils and refuses to let go. Roaches skitter and screech, searching for anything living they can grasp. They, too, have needs. I suspect the needs of the cockroaches are better met than the needs of the residents here in our peaceful little Block. Still, the roaches scatter when you approach them. They're better at this survival game than we are.

It's worse at night. During the day, the sunlight shines on our little slice of the world. It provides illumination, but doesn't diminish the darkness. Even at noon, the despair blocks out the light, giving every house, every person, a forlorn, worn look. Rough edges become rougher. Deep furrows become deeper. And still, the fear and hatred toil on, effortlessly throughout the day and night.

I don't live in a developing country. I don't live on another planet. I don't come from the future and there was no apocalypse. During the day, I live right down the road from a quaint little midwestern Public Square – not so changed from the past that you might expect a square dance or cattle auction to take place at any moment. Or a hanging. Tourists come, but not as much as they once did. We were a disposable city – once the coal dried up, the people stayed. Stayed to suffer.

I don't live in Israel. I don't live in Afghanistan. The armed militants aren't carrying bombs. I don't have to dodge bullets (usually) in fear of my life. This isn't an inner city – it's not the harsh world painted for the streets of New York, London or Tokyo. I live in Ohio. And this is poverty.

Fire Demon's Lament

"The Fire-Demon's Lament"
A short story of righteousness and pyromania in Upper Manhattan

Tell no secrets. Admit no lies. That was the creed Feathol lived by. Or was it admit no lies, tell no secrets? After four thousand centuries, he couldn't quite keep the words straight in his pea-sized brain. No matter. After such a long time, the fire-demon's lifestyle had settled into a comfortable lull and he figured he was doing just fine for himself. Just fine indeed.

His mornings began with a romp through the neighborhood's incinerators. The silly people of Manhattan were always burning something. His afternoons were spent sunning his incorporeal body on a rock in Central Park. Sure, it was a rather reptilian thing to do, but fire was fire – no matter what the source. And the big glowing ball in the sky provided plenty of it.

Nighttime was when Feathol truly shined. He would hop from flaming trash can to flaming trash can. The homeless men and women of the city streets would catch glimpses of him through the corners of their eyes, an occurrence that happened usually by the fire-demon's choice, sometimes by accident.

It was one such accident that landed Feathol in his current predicament. Flames whipped around the central core of his essence. Sparks tapped along brick as his fingertips examined the prison in which he was confined. He could hear voices afar – though in truth they were no more than three feet away.

“How was your day, dear?” The sweet, heady voice of a young woman shimmered through the glass front of Feathol's prison cell. He looked outward, toward the world. The fire-demon saw a playground of flammable material – skin rugs, wooden walls, papers and enough Naugahyde to satisfy his burning for days.

By a stroke of bad luck, Feathol had ended up trapped in the fireplace of one of the wealthiest couples in Manhattan. All he had done was tip the trash can of some poor schmuck trying to get some heat. It was all a bit of fun and all in a day's work for the conflagrant spirit. Feathol hadn't quite caught up with the times. The man stood up, and looked right at the fire-demon.

It hadn't occurred to Feathol that this week might have been the perfect time to lay low in his favorite hideout – the local hibachi restaurant. On Tuesday there had been a mass excommunication of priests, accused of all manner of atrocities. Some of them were innocent. Most were not. With no place to go and no home but their Mother Church, these men had flocked to the streets by the dozens.

Feathol could tell by the light in this man's eyes that he was innocent – guilty of no crime, save perhaps over=zealousness, a crime which Feathol knew God didn't look too kindly on anyway. It was that very same crime that had landed him this combustible gig in the first place.

The aura of righteousness ablaze around him, the priest uncorked a half-empty wine bottle and poured the contents to the ground, a mock libation to whatever deity would listen to the cries of a holy man stripped of name and title. Mutter, mutter, grumble, grumble. That's all these priests and holy men ever did. Most of the time the words meant nothing....few of them spoke the Old Language anymore. Unfortunately for Feathol, this one did.

The world began to whirl on its axis, turning faster and faster. The one solid constant was that damnable priest and his Boone Farm bottle, sticky around the edges from the cheap blue vint. Turning ever faster, swirling and pivoting, the world came alive to the cries of the man's passions. Pirouetting like a toy dancer on a string, the world eddied and gyrated until Feathol couldn't see any longer.

The priest had hurled the bottle at one of the older homes in the city, hitting just right so that it shattered in the chimney. He had a hell of an arm, that priest. Feathol thought he must have coached little league at one point. There was no sport more holy than little league, except maybe hockey. But hockey, by and large, wasn't a sport priests cared to encourage. The holiest things weren't for everyone, you know. It was one of the first things you learned, priest or demon. Hurtling toward the fireplace of the family's abode, Feathol lost consciousness. “GOAL!” His mind screamed. “TWO POINTS!” The man upstairs certainly had a sense of humor, narrating the score of this trivial game.

And he'd woken up here. In hell. Was there such a thing as hell? Feathol didn't rightly know. It should have been something he did know, after all, he was a fire demon, but it hadn't been included in his welcome seminar and it didn't seem appropriate to ask – his trainer, a demon so old he'd walked the earth when the grasses still struggled to bloom, was a right asshole. It just didn't seem worth the torture he'd bear to get an answer.

Feathol watched the scene through the glass-front cell. Tapping his ethereal fingers against the bricks around him, Feathol saw a family in the room. They weren't looking at him. They didn't even notice he was there. The fire-demon pounded the walls, shook the bars, rattled the glass. And still nothing. After some time, he settled.

“Dear,” that infernally sweet voice spoke again. “Don't you think it's getting to be too warm to keep a fire? It's nearly July.” The woman leaned over the Naugahyde chair and kissed the man sitting there. He nodded his agreement.

“Yes, sweetheart, I do believe you're right. Have Ilsa extinguish the fire for us, would you?” Feathol's flaming eyeballs widened. He pounded the walls, shook the bars and rattled the glass even harder. The woman left the room.

The strange man stared directly at the fire, directly at Feathol. “You know, not every homeless person is homeless by force. Some of the ones you torture do have families, some of them do have recourse. There are some who choose to live as they do. My brother did the right thing sending you here. We're going to get you the help you need.” A demon intervention? Feathol thought it was passing odd. His panic quelled but for a moment before the bucket of water was poured on his essence.

The last thing Feathol remembered was the kindly chimney sweep who pulled his tattered and worn spirit from the fireplace floor. Washed away down a drain, Feathol wondered in passing if there was a job market for slurry demons. Surely there had to be a waste management plant somewhere in need of a resident spirit.

Last Request - Flash Fiction

This was written as an assignment for my creative writing class (Shoutout to my instructor Denise! Thank you for the inspiration!) We were challenged to write a piece of flash fiction, a complete story between 10-1000 words. I took it a step further and used a prompt generator on Seventh Sanctum, the random "Writing Challenge" generator. The original prompt read "The story must involve a quilt in it. A character is thirsty throughout most of the story."

I hope I've managed to catch the gist of flash fiction writing and fulfilled the additional challenge I set for myself. I also hope I've managed to paint a picture in your mind and inspire YOU just a little bit as well, reader.

And without further gilding the lily, I present...

"Last Request"

The penultimate wheeze of death rattled through the sun-melted room, shaking the dust from the peeling wallpaper and disturbing the mice who sought to take refuge within the aging walnut armoire in the corner. Curtains the color of moldy teabags seemed to sigh in resignation as Margie McClellan committed to one last act.

“I am going to die.” Her spittle-thronged words spoke to no one, save the old gray tabby in the corner. That old gray tabby – she, too, wanted to be left in peace. “But first I would like a glass of water.” There was no one around to hear Margie McClellan's words, no one nearby to stroke the beads of sweat that formed on her withered forehead in the scorching summer heat.

Stale air carried the scent of death as she exhaled again. Her wizened fingers touched the quilt that shielded her from the world, despite the stifling heat that blanketed the room. Rheumy eyes could no longer discern the colors and shapes of the quilt, but her fingers knew each square, each stitch. Each block told a story. And why should she not know? Margie McClellan made that quilt herself.

The feel of worn green cotton told Margie the story of the time her boy fell out of a tree, his body twisting to match the branches. They'd had to cut the shirt from his body and he spent the better part of six months in a full-torso cast. Margie smiled at the memory.

Soft grooves of blue corduroy whispered words of Mr. McClellan, passed away some years ago while working in the train yard, killed by a drunk conductor pulling the trolleys in for repair. The plush fabric comforted her, soothed her as she entered her last hours.

The wail of a child rose to old Margie's deaf ears. Coarse, moth-eaten lace over a square of satin recounted the birth of her first grand-child. Her daughter Susie spent three days in labor. Sandra was born with a full head of hair and her grandmother's hazel eyes.

Caressing her death shroud, Margie McClellan wondered if it would one day be part of a quilt. Would anyone care enough about her life to see that her last moments were remembered? No one had shown up for days. And where was that glass of water? She was thirsty. So thirsty. No one would come to cut the muslin shift from her body and make it into something new, something useful. Her body would fertilize the flowers, but her clothing would be left for the rats in the walls. With one last dispirited rale, Margie McClellan gave up and died.

The door to the musty bedroom creaked open. “Mom?” the lilting female voice inquired permission to enter. Permission that would be neither granted nor denied, save for the agitated meowl of the old gray tabby in the corner.

The Journey of Sancta Sophia

The sorrow I felt was ever constant, bubbling just beneath the surface of my heart, my inner landscape an uncertain world, quicksilver ever evaporating and reforming in a mercurial menagerie. But this sorrow grew less as the days wore on, and I replaced each living piece of myself with a hardened block of stone. I killed myself, the self that I once knew. I sat content among my rocks and admired my stones, my boulders and my cliffs. I ached, but I sat alone.

One day, carelessly, I allowed a small weed of compassion to begin growing among the cracks in one of the smaller rocks.

And that was my mistake.

I did not tend to this little plant, but sat by with idle curiosity as it grew, content to sit strewn among the pebbles of my undoing. I watched and took no action as this tiny little flower blossomed, grew and strained toward a sun that hadn't touched that land for years. The flower grew. The flower lived. The flower died.

A swift and chilling breeze came soon after, blowing the skeletal remains of that little sun-seeking flower away. I sat and watched. I took no action as the seeded remains of the petals flew on the wind.

That was the first night the rains came. And with the tiny little droplets, a cool and subtle breeze stirred the warm, cloying air. The raindrops felt sweet, so sweet. The warmth felt good, suddenly not as oppresive as it had once been. I turned my face to meet the spray. As those raindrops, warm with the first kiss of spring showered my body and caressed my face, I came to realize I was crying.

And I did not know why.

With a loud crash and a startling clap of thunder, the largest of the rocks was swept away in the crash of a salty ocean wave that arose from nothing, springing from nowhere to shatter my existence. This ocean arose, the bitter product of tears long left unshed and pain long left untouched, buried beneath the stones and waiting to one day re-emerge.

I cried to the sky. I beat my fists upon the stones. All those emotions came back to me, with a rage, the kind of which had not been seen. Self hatred, and hatred toward those who had hurt me without ever even knowing. The ache inside my heart was immense. I scraped my hands on the sharp, rocky outcroppings that formed when my heart of stone broke into a million pieces.

I ached.

I screamed so loud to be heard, the winds no longer touching me with gentle fingers and a soft caress, those once sweet winds and rain now a bellowing gale. And for the first time in a long time, I felt.

I felt.

And what I felt was fear and anguish. The loneliness of a thousand nights spent in solitude and the hopelessness of a thousand more to come.

I do not know when I heard the whisper in my ear. I do not know when my tears could no longer fall. I do not know when they ceased, for they seemed endless. I did not know where my tears ended and the rains that wracked my heart began. I did not know her name, the kind and gentle mother who rescued me from the edge of that barren cliff.

She held me there for a time, and nestled me to her breast as though I were a small child. She took my tears, and kept my pain. She took all I had to give and more.

Sancta Sophia.

The name of the divine mother. She who once sat beside God himself, constructing the world with He in a playful manner and the compassion of all. She who walked beside Christ and she who was forgotten just the same. Sancta Sophia, a figure long since relegated to the worlds of fairy stories and child's tales, remembered only in darkened corridors and dusty manuscripts. Demonized and vilified in the eyes of her children, all of whom sprang from She, the first to be loved and the first to be hated.

Be Not Afraid.

Her whispers came in soothing murmured tones as she carried by battered and broken bod across the ravaged landscape.

Do Not Shy Away.

I awoke the next morning in the landscape of my heart, that same place where I began and the same place I felt I would end. Where there had once been stone, there now existed a spray of fragrant blossoms. Where there had been a sea of salty sadness now sat a fresh, clear well of hope, compassion and love.

Her light was blinding.

And I fought not to squint against the harsh light of day. My eyes long unaccustomed to her illumination. I cried out as the warm rays touched my tender skin, shielded so long from the warmth by a layer of stone, dirt and cold.

Drink of me.

She said, an unseen force guiding me to her well. I kissed the ground, marvelling at each living thing, my hands touching the ground as a child does, exploring the world in the only way it knows how.

I knelt.

And drank from the well of Sancta Sophia. I realized for the first time I was thirsty, so thirsty. I was parched, my tongue rasping like the scales of a snake against the bark of a tree on which it hides. I was thirsty. I had not known what was missing, but here I found it.

I drank.

I lapped at the cool, clear waters, as gentle as a lover and as tender as a friend. I drank from the well of Sancta Sophia and felt as she.

Pure.

Unknown to all but those who seek her grace and wisdom. Known, but not tainted. Wise, but not spent. Bold, but not spoken. Kind, but merciless in her justice.

Renewed.

And my heart began to break once more. But this time there was no rock on which to break, there was no sea in which to drown.

And in that moment, I lived only for her.

Sancta Sophia, guide my hand.

"Sophia brings up her own children, and cares for those who seek her.
Whoever loves her loves life.... for though Sophia takes them
At first through widing ways, bringing fear and faintness to them,
plaguing them with her discipline until she can trust them,
and testing them with her ordeals, in the end Sophia will
...lead them back to the straight road, and
reveal her secrets to them. (Ecclesiasticus 4:11-18)"