Autumn Snow
The dry leaves shake as I am flung into the bush.
I push the twigs out of my face with my raw cold fingers.
The air mumbles as it flutters away.
It does not want the hot breath,
The chilling sweat,
or the crimson blood pouring from the cracks of my lips.
Lashes scar my arms and wrists, cut only through the surface of the skin.
Skin is peeling like paper flying in the wind.
The ice of the air settles in my lungs.
Thorns claw on my back.
I stand up.
The earth is cold beneath my feet.
I cannot feel.
My body is numb.
The blood continues to flow and my fingers swell in their warmth.
Snow is falling.
Finding it’s way out of the clouds.
Twirling through the air.
Freezing and harshly white.
It comes unnoticed but makes its presence clear.
Armies of snow soldiers pour slowly,
skydiving.
They land on the dead
earth.
The brown and faded decay of autumn.
The soldiers hide the death and bring in the life.
The dead life.
The white wispy ghosts.
The chilly bitter stillness is deafening.
Questions, but no answers.
Mysterious.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
get up
She clutched the floor, even though there was nothing to hold on to. The ground beneath her quaked and her body fell into a ditch. All she saw was the pink shadows hovering in the corner of her eye, and all she felt was the soft fleece underneath her..and the stabbing pain on her side. He kicked her ribs again and sparks grabbed at her bones and cracked them to splinters. They blew away from the cold floor. Icy. As cold as his eyes.
His black legs were like swords, and she whimpered as she tucked into a ball, dropping, dropping, down. Millions of explosions exploded and became bigger explosions, her breath became wheezing as she gasped for air, and everything collided into one big flow of pain and tears and waiting. Waiting to brace for the next hit, and the next merciless impact.
A voice whispered in her ear just after she gasped at another strike shot hard and fast, like a bullet ripping through the skin and shattering to shards of glass. As the sound died away after the last piece of glass sounded to a quiet death on the cold floor, she heard warmth buzz from her ear. She heard it now. Loud and clear.
Get up. Her heart tingled like spider legs across the skin. Get up, it said again. She stopped whimpering now. She stopped trying to fend herself as ridiculously as she had been doing, playing dead, immobile, lifeless. She stopped holding to all that she had left. She laid still. She listened.
She looked at the floor of the room, at the place where it met up to the wall. She saw a little ant climbing up the enormous wall. Her head cleared and flowed into a stream of shallow waters pouring the light of realization as she saw the ant climbing up the wall. With a hard stare at the floor and her tongue peeking out of her mouth, she pushed herself up in a whirlwind of warm colors that melted the coldness away. The ground beneath her became as springy as a trampoline. He yelled and tried to push her down, but the ground sprung up, and she stood steady on two feet. Her eyes could see the pink floating all around her. She stepped toward him and he stepped back. Fear was now in his eyes. Pink streamed through the air and enveloped her in a fury of sparks that emanated the power that had been hiding in her the whole time. She had power now and it exploded like fireworks.
Then she heard the voice. Now, it said.
She struck. All the fear brought about hate and all the hate brought about revenge and they all knocked into each other, flashes of light as painful as the glare of the sun, and as countless as droplets of rain. She had brought him down to finally feel the bullets ricochet and to take the blow of a million explosions at once to ravage and curse his disgusting body.
A golden light was alive and her hands were thrumming and proud, taking in the shock and the pleasure and the hate in one comet shooting across the sky.
There was no love, sure, but there also was no pain.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Portal to Light
The immense hallway caves in on us as we run like there’s everything to run for. Green light fumes silently, watching our every move. The tracker lights up. Red blinds our eyes. I yell as the red grinds into my pupils. Freddi swears. A deep woman voice talks and falters, echoing and filling our ears with her message.
The door is thirty feet in front of you.
Elliot huffs as he pushes on with his stride, “We're almost there.”
We run a little more. The hallway seems to keep going on and on. I start thinking that we’ll be stuck here, running and running, like we're stuck on some type of swampy treadmill. Yeah. Swamp. Our feet splashed in dirty water that had little stuff floating in it. Don’t ask. I don't know and I don’t want to know.
Our footsteps slow to a halt as we come to a clearing. Hidden by lonesome shadows, shiny blue doors appear in front of us. We whoop. Blue never looked so beautiful.
I laugh as Freddi celebrates,“Thank the Lord and bless my soul, come to mama!”
God that girl.
We enter the doors, each of us feeling a fistful of triumph as we get even closer. But as we close the doors behind us, we hear them. Metal clanging on metal. Predator looking for prey. Looking back into the never ending hallway of creepy green, we see five guards. Five frickin guards. Adrenaline starts up it’s engine and courses it’s way through that race track they call veins. I suck in a strangled breath.
“Dammit, we gotta pick up the pace you guys.”
We get the hell out of there, taking a left turn by instruction of the tracker. We hear the doors opening and let our fear take us, striding by the mile. Our feet slam into the ground so hard and so violently it sounds like a machine gun, fingers pushing the trigger, rapid fire. But while the rest of our feet keep slapping madly against the concrete floor, we hear a pair of feet stop. As if she was slipping out of consciousness and losing her total frame of mind, Maxine starts running towards the guards like a maniac, her skinny green legs peeling away from us like strips of mint gum peeled off from the wrapper. I can’t believe she’s even doing this.
“Maxine! What do you think you’re doing!?!?”
“Why are you going back!?!”
“Maxine!! You can’t!!”
She doesn’t slow down or hesitate. She screams with her back to us, her brown ponytail bobbing all the while.
“You guys go on! I’m getting rid of these bad boys!”
“Maxine! Are you kidding me!?!?”
“Don’t mind me!! Just GO!!!”
We hesitate but continue on, knowing that time was wasting away like grains of sand.
Freddi whispers under her breath, “She never really was scared of anything.”
I just look at the floor. There’s no going back. The only thing to do is to keep going forward. It’s a chase. And in a chase, you never stick around waiting to get caught.
As we jump down from a platform, we hear an explosion roar from behind us. Blue light flicks off in millions of tiny fireworks and gray smoke rises to the ceiling. The wall starts breaking free from the mortar and crumbles into pieces, leaving dust hanging in the air. My lungs start feeling like decaying carcass and I start coughing like nails are clawing through my throat. Dust is filling up my airways. Oh god, I think I’m suffocating.The tracker lights up and beeps. We groan from the bloody brightness.
Turn Right.
I exhale in exasperation,“I don’t think I can take this anymore.”
Freddi shakes her head from side to side, “Don’t even get me started.”
Elliot shouts and starts running faster, pulling ahead of the group, reaching the shiny metal plumbing in front of him.
“It’s right here!” He reaches a niche in the wall and enters an open door, twiggy black legs disappearing.
Freddi and I catch the light of the moment even before it flashes. Mesmerized by the rush and compelled by his enthusiasm, we follow after, catching scent of the honey and ready to lick the rest of the hive clean. Heck, were frickin thirsty for this thing. It’s like it hadn’t rained for a thousand years.
We catch a glimpse of Elliot running towards the left side of the room, and even as the explosions continue to ravage the building behind us, we can hear the insistent beeping of the tracker.
Find the closet. Find the closet.
What closet? I didn’t know about any darn closet.
As we navigate our way through the sea of tables, we catch sight of Elliot stopping in front of a door. He tries for the knob, and finding it locked, kicks the door while hitting it with his fist.
“Crap, it’s locked!”
“Shut up!”
“What do you mean it’s locked?!?!”
“I’m serious. It’s locked.”
“Are you kidding me?!?!”
“It can’t be locked. No... no... NO!!!!!. It can’t!!!!!”
The tracker cuts Freddi off, and we fall silent as it starts vibrating. Yellow light, not red, illuminates from the tracker. Elliot lets go of it, screaming at a piercingly high pitch. Dang, I thought I was at an opera or something.
“It’s moving!!!”
The tracker falls to the floor, scratched but still intact. As if it had a life of it’s own, it starts moving like an animal, crawling across the wall and climbing up the door. At this point, my heart is lodging itself out of my throat. It’s little legs tap against the door and all we hear are it’s little feet tap, tap, tapping. I shake my head. I’m out of my mind. The beeper is a frickin living spider.
We do nothing but watch. It slides over the knob and attaches itself on top of it. It flashes a single vibrating yellow, and we shout as the yellow blinds us. I’m getting sick of all this light. Seriously.You would think I’d be blind by now.Gray static starts ingraining into my mind. We hear whirring in the background. Aw, crap, it hurts my ears. Metal starts clanging from behind us. They’re here. Just as the yellow flash stops melting through our eyes, we hear a small explosion. All of a sudden we feel shrapnel flying towards us. Fast.
“AArghh!”
‘Holy--”
“Duck!!!”
Instinctively, we kneel down to protect ourselves. Our bodies seem to get lost in the dust. It’s a smoky gray world. I can barely see anything. I catch a figure, though. Peeking behind from a piece of door, Freddi somersaults herself onto her feet, her hoodie fitting itself onto her head in the process. She crawls away from me. I hear men's voices rumbling across the shiny walls. They have guns. And they’re not afraid to show us they want kill. In your dreams, *******. Not on my life.
I turn my attention back to Freddi. Muffled by the blasts, she points to an open hole in the wall.
“Check it out you guys!”
“The talking woman blew it open!”
Hair flying in wisps over her face, her eyes start crinkling in the cutest way possible. I’m not kidding. I mean, cute with a capital C. Honestly, I think this is the happiest I’ve seen her today. Elliot waddles his way towards her, celebrating.
“Yeahh!! This is where it’s at!!”
Smiling, I follow behind him, crawling on my knees. This is where it’s at.
Entering the closet, I find that it is very dark. I notice that Freddi and Elliot are standing in front of some type of machine. Holy crap. This is it! Thinking a million different things at the same time, I rush over.
“Wait up, you guys!”
They stand still, looking at a bright green light, awestruck. I gotta admit, I’m a little awestruck too. I mean the whole situation: it’s all wow factor.
Metal clangs and more gunshots fire. Meh. They think they’re all cool and that. What buddy? Think I’m scared? Think again.
I step in between them, pushing them aside.
“What are you guys waiting for?”
Elliot shakes his head.
“I don’t know. It’s so real.”
I nudge him.
“Shi*, yeah, it’s real!”
Freddi yells.
“Somebody press it soon, ‘cause the ******* are going in!”
We look behind and see an arm wriggling its way through the wall.
I cluck my tongue.
“Goddamit.”
I look at the green light again. Green. You are the color to another world. My heart’s racing. Let’s get this party started.
“You guys ready?”
“Ready when you are!”
“Let’s just go! Come on!”
Not hesitating any longer, I raise my arm and slap the button.
---
I think I’m floating in a dream.
We are transported to an empty space. Green fireworks explode. The world darkens. We see nothing. We feel nothing. We hear one last gunshot in the distance. Metal clanging. Glass shattering. Emptiness.
Then, all of a sudden, I feel every muscle in me freeze. I am frozen in place. I am frozen in time. I don’t even see Freddi and Elliot anymore. I don’t even know where they are. I feel like I’m in a third dimension. I am merely floating. Existing. Being. Nothing.
Then, in that one brief instant, I feel a wind rushing. Playing through my hair, whipping at my face, and tugging at my body, it pulls me in forcefully. I gasp. I cannot move. I am completely powerless.
Then, I see something. Far off into the blackness, beyond my clear vision, I see a smidgen of light. Blinking. Pulsing. Heck, it may be even twinkling. Quickly, it gets bigger and bigger. I realize that it’s moving really fast. Better yet, it’s moving towards me.
As it comes closer and closer, I feel my body easing out of it’s frozen state. I can feel myself move again. The white light keeps approaching and approaching, and it comes so close, it completely eats me up. It engulfs me. I don’t know what’s happening. All I know is that the white is so pure and milky it almost seems as if I can feel it. It feels like silk, I think. Smooth.
And then, like thousands of boomboxes sounding through a concert hall, a deep male voice resonates into my ears. No. No. It’s so loud, it’s like he’s in my ears. Thundering in my presence, my heart pounds rapidly. I am sinking and sinking into the deep pit of his voice. It’s so thick. It’s overpowering me. I’m so loaded with shock right now, I can’t even think.
“There you are.”
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
What the--
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