Labyrinth

Sometimes, you sit on the floor of the shower and breathe steam until you can cry. Sometimes you breathe steam so you can go back to breathing air. Sometimes, you chew your nails to rags and avoid looking at the razor hanging on the wall.

You can sleep for twenty hours a day. You can sleep for twenty minutes. You can feel the panic-rat scuttling around the corners of your mind, digging in with its surprisingly adorable claws until the chest pains begin.

You go for days, weeks, months at a time, in recovery, feeling strong and capable and positive about where you are headed in life; feeling the old power rising in you whenever you say no. Whenever you say yes. Whenever you say what you really want instead of temporizing, hedging because you are worried about what the inquiring person will think.

And it's okay, when you make it through these days, even if you wake up the next unable to breathe or think or see, even if you did it to yourself, trying to re-educate your brain on the subject of abuse. It's going to be okay. Some days, it is not okay. And that is fine, too.

But in every minute and every breath, there is the possibility of fear rising in you. Irrational and rough and blood-warm, or acid, or colder than you've ever felt before. At any given moment, you are vulnerable to surprise, to the wrong word, to a stray thought or idea. You fear being brittle, or too inflexible, too pliable. Too broken.

You are not broken. You are going to be okay. Even on the days you are overwhelmed by all this feeling? We get through. One breath at a time. One step. One word.

Every part of you is a victory. You have breathed steam and air, you have given tears and thought and time. You have eaten, you have hydrated and rested. You have not cut. You maybe cut only a little. You thought very seriously about hurting yourself and decided against it? You win. It is okay to make mistakes, and you will. Because progress is not a straight line, or a race, or a contest.

Every time you think, "It could have been me," you can also remember: You are still here. You are important. You are alive and you matter and you will, eventually, leave all this behind for whatever you want of normality.

Leaving things behind is not bad, or heartless, or cruel. It can be necessary to breathe steam instead of smoke, more oxygen than nitrogen. Leaving things behind can be a necessity. You can still remember with love, but you do not have to carry them with you.

I am not a role model, I am only stubborn. I sit on the floor of the shower and cry, and I have to remember to breathe, and I think, "it could have been me."

But it wasn't. And I do not think I will ever allow it to be.

Menu

An isolated heart is a terrible thing. You can salvage it in several ways. My favorite is sliced, thinly, and grilled. Serve with hot mustard.

If your morning is tedious, you can use this recipe as filler while performing other tasks. After grinding chocolate, throw in the day's spices. Your heart will be much improved with proper seasoning.

One heart cannot serve two without some tricky maneuvering. Be sure that you account for all guests, and have a warm, damp cloth at the ready for each.

Today's recipe calls for the following ingredients:
one heart, washed, pressed, and emptied,
one cup hot chocolate, ground and fashioned from the shards of dreams that woke you in a sweat,
one kitchen, cleared of sharp physical objects,
one knife, rescued from the aforementioned clearance and sharpened, carefully, on your tongue.
Assorted spices, extracts, and impossibilities.

Cut bravely around the heart, severing its grasping tendrils without paying attention to its cries. Pat it fondly and wipe your hands clean. Sip chocolate thoughtfully while you gaze out the window, wondering why the birds have gathered in that one tree, and why you cannot accomplish the things you have set out to do. Grind teeth and notice you have left marks in the cutting board with your fingernails, again.

Set your heart on a figured platter. Figures of Bosch seem appropriate in most cases, but a willow-ware platter can be quite elegant with a few garnishes.

Season your heart thoughtfully. Spice is a very subjective thing, but several testers agree that the combination of vanilla, ground coffee, assorted chiles, and coarsely ground black pepper is a fine and traditional flavor. Do not be afraid to experiment or try something new. Cover the heart with banana leaves and allow to rest in a dim room, with a tolerable red wine and a well-loved paperback.

When you are tired of waiting for your heart to quiet, remove your salvaged knife from beneath the pile of lifestyle magazines and test it by scoring a single line on the wall. Do not lose track of time while contemplating the number of lines indicating every dour morning spent questioning your existence. Set this fever aside, and move on.

Slice the rested and spiced heart into an equal amount of thin strips. Each person should receive the same amount; if an odd number, consume the extras over the sink, silently. Tears are optional.

Arrange heart thoughtfully and with care.
Serve raw, with bread and wine, after the salad. Do not be offended if a guest refuses your heart; after all, it is bitter.

Bitter.

--
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175754

Changeover Cue

Possibly triggering; mildly graphic, domestic abuse, sadism, uncomfortable situations.

smokescreen

it's a goddamned miracle,
your face in the morning,
rising into an evening of shredded song.

if I dare touch a fountain pen, dark words
fly out, iridescent black feathers
drifting down to lodge in my hair

where last night's sunset is still sleeping.
you remember a mirror image, I know.
you see silver-sharp and frail

when I am bone and ink and ember.
I am all of these, steel and amber,
shimmering oil on restless water, pushing impatient

at the struck match burning so slowly
toward your long fingers. I can let
the past reel out behind us like copper wire. I will not forget,

but I can still breathe you in,
old words tattooed in crimson
stitched into my skin.


Written for Marian's musical prompt at the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads.

What Lies Ahead

between the bones

Lemon-peel sour

and sharper than kitchen knives,

that taste in my mouth.

I burned us to ash, swallowed

charred silence and empty years.

Eurydice at Dawn

 "'Oh, I don't know,' he said. 'Πελλαίου βοῦς μέγας εἰν Ἀίδη.' This was something to the effect that, in the Underworld, a great ox costs only a penny, but I knew what he meant and in spite of myself I laughed. There was a tradition among the ancients that things were very cheap in Hell. " --Donna Tartt, "The Secret History"

I know all the things you've never told me. I know the late nights and the gnawing feeling in your chest, the dreams from which you wake, clawing your way out of tangled bedclothes. Gasping for air.

I know the jobs you've taken and the ones you've refused. I know the desperate twin chains of inertia and fear, the fear of hurting someone who truly cares for you. Sitting up at night, you think of me, but only when you can't distract yourself. I'm still waiting, though. I've been down here a long time, but I'm doing okay. Getting around only costs me a penny, and everyone in this place knows just what I'm going through. I'd never leave you if I had any say in the matter, you know.

Some nights I think you'll find your way home to me, follow your heart down here. Then I could make my escape. I could touch your hand and all the years we've been apart could dissolve into nothing more than the swirling rainbow film on a puddle of water in the parking lot. I could make you remember. I could make you forget.

I remember you, upright in that leather jacket. I played at vegetarian disgust and secretly longed to be folded into your arms. I didn't actually care that you were wearing a dead cow. I have this thing for writers and percussionists. The craziest guys come down here, and it's true, I have my fun. You're not here, so, it's true. Every time I close my eyes, though, it's you. Always you. I wake up from my dreams in tears, muffling myself in the pillow so I don't disturb whichever one is in my bed this time. They don't matter, only the dreams. I dream of you and your hollow days, pushing on in denial. Other times it's of the past, of the comfort of apples, the weariness of love.

I think you are refusing my calls, refusing to believe that I could still be here, burying yourself in the meaningless pursuits of the upper side. Cowardly, clinging to the sunlight you never loved. You don't even play your music anymore. You never write to me, for me, of me. I think you've given up hope. I think you've sold the dream for her scraps of passion, and worse.  Even in a Hades market, I think you're selling the dream too cheap.

--

For this week's IndieInk Writing Challenge, Billy Flynn challenged me with "Selling the dream cheap", and I challenged Diane with "Old Scratch and El Salto del Colacho.  Make it funny if you can--if you can't, make it terrifying."

There is an interpretation of the Orpheus myth that colors him a coward, afraid to die to be with Eurydice forever.  Instead, he defied the gods to retrieve her, because he wasn't ready to leave the upper world.  I find this rather less romantic than you might think.

The Lazy Fisherman

In a certain place, at a certain time, lived a fisherman and his wife. They were a poor but happy couple whose home was quite near the Imperial compound. The only characteristic that marred their marital bliss was the unfortunate fact of the fisherman's laziness. The fisherman's wife did her best to keep it a secret, but the neighbors all knew, and pitied her.

"What a hateful thing, O husband," she would wail upon his return each night. "Today the noodle vendor told me of a thing that I would believe impossible! And yet, it is true." The fisherman's wife would tell her husband of a different celestial punishment visited upon the lazy each and every night, until even her deep well of invention began to run dry. It made no difference, alas, and her husband continued to be known all through their village as the lazy fisherman.

At the same time, gossip reported that a small pond in the shrine next to the Imperial compound was close to overflowing with large and fat fish, the likes of which had never been seen. It was said that this was proof that the kami favored the masters of the shrine, and that luck was sure to follow those who visited and paid their respects. One afternoon, as the fisherman remained abed, he heard a conversation from outside.

"So many fish I have never seen in all my days! The smallest one was as large as my forearm," said the noodle vendor, whose forearms were wide and bulging with the exercise of pulling the stock of fresh soba and udon. "I offered a coin to the shrine and on my way out, an enormous carp leaped into the air, its golden scales shining like the sun."

"I, too, visited the shrine last week," interjected the salt woman. "The fish were leaping in greeting, and the shrine maidens were dancing with joy. A more beautiful sight I have never seen."

The lazy fisherman sat bolt upright. The long walk to the lake in which he was usually forced to cast his nets would be no more. If only he could find a way to fish in the shrine pond! He was not a man who was much concerned with the gods, and not one to think about consequences.

The fisherman leapt out of bed and began to check his nets for holes. His wife, startled by this unusual flurry of activity, hurried out of the kitchen.

"Husband, you have risen! And a full two hours earlier than usual! Can it be that you have decided to honor the gods and live a more fulfilling life?"

"Cease your intemperate noise, wife, and sit with me. We must repair all these nets by sunset. I go to fish in the shrine's pond this evening, and with such a heavy catch, they must remain well-knotted."

His wife sank to her knees, her mouth agape. "Have you lost your mind, O husband? If you dare to kill the living luck of the shrine the gods will surely curse us all!"

Scoffing, the lazy fisherman continued his work without her help. He repaired his nets long into the twilight, while she wept and wailed about ill luck and disaster. When the moon rose, he bundled his belongings upon his back and set out on the short walk to the shrine, still ignoring her warnings.

At the top of the hill, where the road split between the forest and the shrine, a large rock marked the fork. As he passed the rock, he began to hear a soft weeping, and turned in surprise to see a beautiful girl sitting in its shadow. Her soft black hair swept down in long waves around her slender hands, which were pressed against her face as she wept. The fisherman shifted his weight from side to side as he thought about the large catch awaiting him at the shrine, but his conscience, usually so silent, spurred him to stop for a moment.

"What is wrong, O maiden? Can I be of some service?" He was careful to address her respectfully, as her clothes were of the highest quality. He began to wonder if she had accidentally wandered out of the Imperial compound. "Though I may be unworthy to speak to you, I do not wish to leave you unattended in the night. Pray, O maiden, lift your head and let me know how to serve you," he begged.

The girl turned away, still weeping into her hands, and her shoulders began to shake even harder. "I cannot tell you, fisherman, for I see you are on your way to a heavy catch," she whispered.

The fisherman gritted his teeth and attempted to sound insouciant. "I have more time to help than I have to fish. Please tell me what is wrong."

"Very well, O fisherman, I shall reveal to you my secret," she spoke, only a little louder than before. "I mourn for the fish you are about to slaughter, for I am the guardian of the shrine pond!" As she said these words, she dropped her lovely hands from her face, and the fisherman fell back in horror, for the front of her head was as smooth and featureless as an egg. With a shriek, he dropped his nets and ran for home.

As he dashed down the main thoroughfare of the village, his feet tangled in each other and he fell, sprawling, at the feet of the man who ran the ramen shop.

"There, friend, where do you run with such speed?" The ramen vendor reached down to help up the lazy fisherman, his wide, friendly face round and smiling. "Your wife has been weeping and worrying all night. Come into my shop and rest before you go home, or you will frighten her even more!"

"Oh, thank you," the fisherman panted, unaccustomed to such exertion. "You will never believe what I saw tonight!"

The ramen vendor placed a bowl of soup in front of the fisherman, soup so hot and fragrant with red chili oil that the comforting aroma drove away the fear in the fisherman's heart. As he sipped the soup, he began to tell his strange story, slowly relaxing under his friend's familiar gaze.

"Your wife warned you about intruding on the peace of the shrine," the ramen vendor laughed. "And you were lucky enough to meet with the guardian before you killed the fish, weren't you?"

"Well, yes, but have you ever heard of such a creature?" the fisherman asked.

"Oh, my, yes. I've heard of a spirit who can take on the face of a familiar person and one who can wipe it away. There are many spirits in these hills, you know," the ramen vendor continued. A strange feeling began to rise in the fisherman's throat. 

The man's hand rose to stroke at his chin as he began to tell a tale of the vengeful Noppera-bō, the faceless ones. The fisherman watched in dread as, with each stroke of the hand, the ramen vendor's once-familiar face disappeared before the fisherman's horrified eyes.

The fisherman fell backwards out of the ramen shop, still-hot soup spreading across the counter, a red sheen of oil staining his hands and clothes. He scrambled away crabwise as the ramen vendor approached slowly. The faceless one drifted closer, his feet no longer seeming to touch the ground, and a low moan emerged from the blank skin.  Just before it came close enough to touch, the fisherman's nerve broke completely, and he jumped up and ran home.

He collapsed onto the porch, where his wife was still sobbing about ill-luck and curses. His heart was pounding in his chest like a taiko drum and he was covered in the dust of the street and still-fragrant chili oil. His wife arose in a hurry and ran to comfort him, but upon hearing his tale, jumped away. 

"You failed to heed the guardian of the shrine?" She raised her hands to her face in shock and it melted away like cold fog on a sunny morning. A shriek issued forth from the pale and empty oval of her suddenly formless skin, and the fisherman's heart finally gave out.


This is a famous Japanese folktale, though I've cobbled together a few iterations of it.  Editing help was kindly given, when I ran into a pronoun situation, by Maren and Wendryn of IndieInk.org.  Our forum rocks. Thank you so much!

Good Samaritan

George didn't stop to think much about it, when he saw the girl in the dress. Looked like she'd been left out in the middle of nowhere by her prom date. He didn't know much about dresses, but he could tell when things were expensive, and this girl was wrapped in a good chunk of change along with some flowy purple stuff. He pulled right over, because if he'd ever had a daughter, he would have wanted someone to do the same.

"Hey, you okay?" He stepped down from the high cab of his rig and held up his hands. "I saw you walking, and I don't think a lot of cars come through here. You need to use a phone or something?" He was careful not to advance on her. With the rep some long-haul truckers had, he didn't want to scare her into the woods. "I've got a cell. You don't have to get in the cab or anything, or talk to me if you don't want to. You just looked like you could use a hand."

She frowned up at him, heels half-sunk in the mud of the shoulder. "I don't even know where I am," she confessed. "I was with Johnny and then the car broke down, and Mom's not answering her phone."

He relaxed a little. "Well, can I do anything for you? I know they say never ride with a stranger, but if you've got a phone and no one's headed out here for you I can at least get you to the 24-hour diner in Bucker. There'll be lots of people, and you can wait for your parents there, maybe?" He was worried about coming on too strong, but he really didn't want to leave a teenager on the side of the road so late at night.

"I just live off Exit 94. It's pretty close to the diner. I don't know why no one's answering at home," she fussed, pulling a surprisingly big mobile phone out of her little purse. "Is there any way you can just take me there? It's a pretty well-maintained road and I know my dad will give you gas money."

If he doesn't shoot me first, George thought, but merely said, "I can definitely take you there, no gas money needed. Do you need to call Johnny? Should we pick him up, too? How far away is the car?"

She shook her head. "I'm never talking to him again. He can find his own way home, he's probably got the car running again already." She picked her way over to the cab of his truck and glared at the display on her retro phone. "I can't believe I missed my senior prom because of this!"

George tried not to smile as he climbed back into the truck. "Well, your parents will be glad to see you home early, I guess." He leaned over to help her into the cab, her small hands gripped tight around his large one as he pulled her in. "Hey, you're freezing," he said. "Let's get you some heat." He started the truck, its patient rumble overwhelming his hesitation at having a strange teenage girl along for the ride. He cranked up the heat and, with a muffled exclamation, eeled around to rummage in the back. "Here, I knew this was kicking around somewhere," he laughed as he handed her a huge yellow-checked down coat. She took it, smiling, and wrapped it around herself like a blanket.

"Thanks. It was getting kinda chilly out there, huh?"

"Yeah," he replied, and busied himself with adjusting the heat. He signaled his turn onto the road as if there were twenty cars waiting and pulled back out. The familiar lull of highway driving soothed his nerves, and after about fifteen miles, he absentmindedly flipped on the radio. Ole Hank was singing, and George glanced quick over at the girl to see if she might mind the twang, but she had put her phone away and was leaning against the big window. He thought she might be dozing and turned the radio down a little. It was just a few more exits. He could wake her up once they got closer to the diner.

"I'm not asleep," she muttered. "I hate sleeping on the road. I told you where I live, right? It's about a mile past the diner you mentioned." After she gave him directions, they fell silent once more.

Ev'rything's agin me and it's got me down, Ole Hank sang plaintively into the night as George crossed the Big River bridge, just one exit away from the girl's. If I jumped in the river I would prob'ly drown. He looked reflexively over the guardrails, the moonlight shimmering on the fast-moving river, and shuddered. No matter how I struggle and strive, I'll never get out of this world al-- Grimacing, George reached over quick and snapped off the radio.

"Not such a good song for a moonlight drive, huh?" He grinned and looked over at the passenger seat, only to slam on the brakes as he realized the girl was no longer there. He backed up as fast as he could without fishtailing and jumped out of the cab. He ran frantically over to the bridge, leaning over the guardrail and scanning the river for some sign of her. His coat, her flowing dress, anything. She'd have to be visible. But he'd never heard the door open, he hadn't heard anything! He ran back to search the cab of his truck, and found nothing. In a daze, he climbed back into the cab, buckled his seatbelt, and headed on into town.

George was jolted from his reverie when he realized he'd absentmindedly followed her directions straight to what he assumed was her home. For one frantic instant, he thought about peeling back out of there, but it was too late. The house was lighting up. It looked as if they'd heard the truck and were looking for the source of the commotion. With one helpless glance at the still-empty passenger seat, he stepped down from the truck and walked up to the porch.

"Can I help you, son?"

George started, unnerved by the voice from a seemingly empty porch, and there was a chuckle.

A man probably ten years older than George himself stepped out of the shadows and down to the walk. "I'm Erica's dad," he said. "That's why you're here, isn't it?"

George began to sweat. "Well, I don't know her name, I mean, yes sir, but--"

"Don't worry, son. Happens every year," the older man said. "Picked her up outside of Bucker, right?"

"Well, yes, I mean, she said the car broke down. I didn't want to leave her," George said plaintively.

"Her ma and I would sure appreciate that, son. It's all right. Then you went over the Big River bridge and she was gone?"

George opened his mouth to answer, but no words followed. He stammered for a second or two, and blurted, "This happens every year? What the hell?! Is this some kind of joke?"

Erica's father rubbed at his eyes with a slightly trembling hand and sighed. "My daughter was killed in a car crash ten years ago, son. Her boyfriend was taking her to the senior prom and someone ran them off the road. I guess he was killed on impact, but the paramedics said Erica had been trapped in the car. She tried to call us on her new mobile phone, too. Hell of a thing, to hear your baby girl breathed her last calling you for help, and you didn't hear."

"This is a joke," George growled. "I don't have time for this, I'm on a schedule." He began to stalk back to his truck, fuming.

"I wish it were a joke," the older man said. "It ain't all that funny to talk to people every year as swears they were giving your girl a ride home, only to find she's disappeared partway home." He shook his head dolefully.

"Hell of a thing," he repeated as he turned back to his porch and tottered slowly up the stairs as George fumbled with the keys to his rig. 

 "Wait a second, son," he heard a moment later, and the older man came rushing down his porch stairs again.

George saw him coming and rolled his eyes. He wasn't going to be taken in by whatever scam these hill folk were trying to pull. And he was out a pretty pricey down coat, too, however this stupid trick worked. He was willing to bet he'd never get it back, either. The old man was tapping on the truck door now. Ridiculous, he thought, but grudgingly rolled down his window.

"Churchyard's just a mile down, you don't believe me," the older man panted. "You go on over there. My Erica's in the back left corner. Got a little rosebush behind the stone. You go on, you'll see."

I am sure the hell not going to go poking around in a graveyard at this hour, George thought. Then again, it's on the way to the Interstate, and I could call in a report on these people for fucking with my schedule. Why the hell not? He backed onto the road and gunned it for the church.

Thirty seconds later, he was poking around the overgrown graveyard, emergency flashlight in hand, when he spotted them. First the rosebush, white roses, really pretty but kind of creepy under the full moon's light. Next it was his yellow-checked down coat, folded neatly on the grave.

--

The month of ghost stories marches on!   I hope I didn't stretch the prompt too far, as this was the first thing I thought of upon reading the challenge...

For the Indie Ink writing challenge this week, femmefauxpas challenged me with: "It had all happened exactly a year ago.  Or had it?"

I challenged Sarah Cass with "Knife skills."

Foreboding

The moon is full, white and wild,
its bony smile malice-taut,
all a-brim with ill-laid plans.
In its hands, a bubbling pot

foretells quick death. Cats and kings
alike hear it sing its song,
its ode to chill havoc wrought
with grievous thought, bleak and wrong.


This rather overblown and Octoberesque awdl gywydd was written for this week's Format Challenge.  Check my post at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads for the rules and link up!

Ex Machina

"There was nothing for it. I could see them approaching, exactly as I expected! I simply had to act on my impulses or else I'd--"

I shook my head impatiently. "Computer, stop program. Run diagnostic level theta six."

The computer chimed quietly. "Level theta six diagnostic complete, Ben. No errors detected."

"Well, that can't be right! Listen to the dialogue. Run diagnostic again."

Another chime followed. "No errors detected, Ben. Program has not degenerated. Dialogue intact."

I jerked my head out of its resting place atop my arms and glared, hot-eyed, at the terminal. "This is ridiculous, computer. Find the source of the dialogue and retrace." As my desktop hummed quietly, I pulled out my hard-copied notes. I'd gone over these a million times but this time, a footnote caught my attention. Gregor Samsa, The Metamorphosis. By an auteur designated "Franz Kafka". "Never heard of 'em," I muttered. The computer heard me and thrummed expectantly.

"Source confirms dialogue's accuracy. Continue playback?"

"Oh, fine--yes, computer, continue playback. Please."

"There I go again, being overtaken by an urge. What now? Will I really? But then, won't I become nothing more than a criminal? But just what is a criminal anyway? And--"

"Seriously?"

"I don't understand the query, Ben."

"Computer, identify source of current dialogue."

"Yes, Ben. Source of current dialogue is Web user Drusil Renfield, ID 2308/507WWIA53233, designation GregorInsekt. Affiliation unknown. On lockdown until 41013.7 for assault on a senior officer. Your file is cross-referenced with the prisoner's as a result of your position as counsel for the defense. More?"

"Thank you, computer, I am well aware of my reasons for having to listen to this tripe. I still think it's gone garbage somewhere in the copying. Skip to the end and let's get this review over with."

"Last paragraph, Ben. Going to record of defendant's testimony. Voice and video available."

"Yes, computer--show the video, instead. It's not that you don't have a lovely voice..."

"Affirmative, Ben. Video replay beginning."

The screen leaned haphazardly against my wall, waiting for me to install it properly. Its serene blue glow was shortly replaced by the visage of a deeply unfortunate-looking human. Unfortunate-looking, how, I couldn't tell you. It was something in the skewed geography of his face, the planes under his skin, maybe. 

 His grey eyes bulged impossibly from his face, and his skin was patchy and coarse. His hair frizzed out at all angles, and his mouth gaped horribly, silver drool collecting in the trough of his wasted lower lip. I could see no humanity in this man's eyes. He looked like a burnout, or worse, a spaz, a person so invested in life on the Web that he'd let his real life shrivel into nothing. 

 He was talking, I guess, but it was more like a string of unrelated words. Not gibberish, exactly, more like very convincing lorem ipsum, and every few words, a flood of saliva spilled from his mouth. He'd jerk his withered arm up and swipe at his chin, the clawed hand affording him a few dry moments and a few more mouthfuls of outlandish statement. He jabbered through all of the paragraphs the computer had already read to me, and the computer was right--there was no degeneration in the file. It was all in this creep's head.

"If desperation comes knocking on your door...what wouldn't you do to keep yourself sane? If indeed, this could be called sanity. In this world of chaos, busy laneways and cobblestones, anything could be called sane," he pointed out.

It seemed this was the end, and I was leaning forward to key in a rewind, when his butcher's eyes snapped forward, as if they were focusing directly on mine. Disconcerted, I jerked back and fell awkwardly into the chair. I felt his gaze like a punch to the midsection, so real that it took my breath. That was the end of the cast, though. Wincing, I thumbed off the screen, resolving it into its normal calm glow. The computer hummed quietly on the desk behind me, and I found myself convulsively wiping my chin.

"Anything could be sanity," I said. It felt different, voicing his crazy diatribe, letting it take shape on my tongue for a reason unknown even to myself. The more I parroted it, the farther it penetrated. It felt plausible. It felt familiar. I looked down at the notes on the desk and smiled for the first time all evening. 

I'd been freed from the computer and reborn into a new host. In this world of chaos, anything was possible. Even me.

For the Indie Ink writing challenge this week, Tereasa Trevor challenged me with 

"There was nothing for it. I could see a person approaching exactly as expected. I simply had to act on my impulses or else I'd...

There I go again, being overtaken by an urge. What now? Will I really? But then, won't I become nothing more than a criminal? But just what is a criminal anyway? And if desperation comes knocking on your door...what wouldn't you do to keep yourself sane. If indeed, this could be called sanity. In this world of chaos, busy laneways and cobblestones, anything could be called sane."

I challenged  Reinaldo Martinez with "the physician of last resort".

Eternity

"My hairbrush is gone again," she said, through a mouthful of bobby pins.

"Hmm?" He wasn't really paying attention to anything but the squat glass in front of him, squarish and green with numerous imperfections, cradled in his hands with a pool of slowly warming, caramel-colored whiskey nestled in its base.

"My brush. You know how I just bought another because I thought I'd lost the first? Well, this one's gone, too, and--"

She was off on another tirade, probably about the maid service or his brother or any stupid thing. I could see the careful lack of expression on his face from my hiding place in the corner. I remembered that expression. I knew it well from all the times I tried to speak to him as soon as he returned from the office. She was fighting a losing battle here. I could almost feel sorry for her. Almost.

She stabbed the last pin into her chignon and kept talking. It's really quite marvelous, I think, that he keeps picking these tiny tank-like girls, who are so adamant in their organization and their requirements for attention. Do they remind him of me? I don't think I was ever quite so needy, but they say everyone is blind to their own faults until we see them in others.

"And then Elizabeth said that she'd seen a girl who said that her cousin used to work for you and your second wife, the banker, right? Anyway, this cousin said that your second wife's belongings went missing in the exact same ways while she worked here, I think she said her name was Maria? Well, they're all named Maria, aren't they? And you switched maid services and she lost her job, yes, another sob story but I was wondering..."

Was that all in one breath? He's not even looking in her direction and she's talking like she'll be paid by words per minute.

Finally he looks up from his drink and I come out from behind the vanity. I know he sees me. He always has. His hands tighten around the glass, nearly hard enough to break it, and he tosses off the last swallow of whiskey in a rush. When he sets his glass down, hard, on the corner table, I drift over to stand next to him. I smile at him, and staring deep into his blue eyes, I begin to unbutton my dress, the high neck and ribbon collar sweeping down over my collarbone, the livid rope burn still standing out like a brand on my pale skin. It undulates like a finger of seaweed in a tidal pool with my silent laughter, moving up and down across my vocal cords.

It does still hurt, God knows why, but it's all worth it, every long night of moving stupid things around, all these years of having to stay so close to the man who threw me off the twenty-third floor with a nylon rope knotted clumsily around my neck.

It's all worth it, then, because his jaw tightens and in the next instant he interrupts her neverending flow of words and questions to bark, "I don't believe in ghosts." He's still looking at the mark around my neck and the best part is, she wasn't even talking about her missing hairbrush anymore, she's moved on to the weekend's social flurry, and now she looks as if she's wondering if the stories might be true.  If the suicide of his first wife might have driven him a little crazy.  Or if the other stories are true, and it wasn't a suicide at all.  

I steal a couple of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket and touch him on the back of his neck.  He jumps slightly, and the sweat starts to bead on his temples.

"I'm going to the bar," he says, cutting her off again, and nearly running for the front door.  She just stands there with her well-bred little mouth clamped shut, and I pick up a lighter from the hall table, because after all I've been through?  At least I don't have to worry about lung cancer.   

Green Harvest

"Jesus said, 'I am the vine, and you are the branches,' but I am in a position to tell you this statement was not entirely accurate. The Old Testament brings up vines a lot, the Chosen People being vines and wheat ears and, I don't know, whatever else the writer was eating for lunch that day. Ridiculousness. Even if you leave the Eucharist out of this, we still go back to the Greeks, all the way back to whichever tribes settled down and planted. I probably don't have to tell you about wine as the sacred blood of Dionysus--unless they lost or dropped that aspect of the Mysteries? I don't keep up with current events in archaeology, to be perfectly honest. Even with the internet, I've been so wound up with business for the last forty years that I only have the sketchiest of ideas about what you people think you know. Not even mentioning the amount of sheer physical effort that running this place still takes.

I mean, it's a big family, it's not like I have to do it alone, but someone has to be in charge, right? Well, I've always been assertive. It was one thing when we got here to build the vineyards and kick back, and another one entirely to start harnessing all our fruit and manpower to manufacture this business. Of course I'm proud of it. My whole life's tied up in these vines...

...Pressing the grapes for the first time was hard. It was like raising children specifically to take and sell, a slavery of sorts..."
                        --from the final interview with Moriah Landsdown, 1996

She is, or was, a thin brown woman with eyes the color of the underside of a leaf on a stormy day. She looked (or looks) about forty, and had for the last six hundred years. She said that she settled on forty because she was tired of being harassed by so-called gentlemen, and at that time, hitting on a forty-year-old woman was like molesting your grandmother. She was arrested and tried as a witch approximately sixteen times, due to occasional mistakes with the neighbors or knowing things she shouldn't, failing to take part in searches for missing persons, and the general run of "she cursed 'em" accusations. Of course, this was a long time ago, and records would show that it's not the same woman we spoke to, because that would be impossible. Regardless, these days, the only neighbors are all closely related.

The Landsdowns own most of the parts of California, Arizona, and Nevada that the government doesn't. The P&A vineyards are not the sort of wineries that give tours. You can call ahead and see if they'll show you around, and if one of the daughters (it's always one of the daughters) is not out in the fields, she'll talk to you for a while about irrigation and terroir, hybrids and tannins. She'll talk to you about inconsequentials long enough for you to get bored, drink some wine, and thank her profusely. Then she'll talk to you all the long walk back to your car about the details of winemaking, shake your hand in both her strong, blunt-fingered ones.  She'll stand in your wake, wave good-bye, smiling widely all the time, and you'll go home vowing never to set foot on their property again, lest they talk you to death.  You go home as fast as you can.

Unless you don't. A surprising number of visitors to the family vineyards immediately decide to move away, to take jobs overseas, go on spiritual retreats, take holy vows. Those visitors abandon their previous lives quickly and quietly, and most are never heard from again. Wine can have that effect on some people.

The vines in their vineyards are not the scraggly, stick-like things you see tethered to posts in other vineyards. They're green, more green than you would ever believe, and they are unbound. They run riot, winding in incestuous tangles all up and down the hills, all coiled snakelike in the field, their violet-black grapes modestly covered in brilliant leaves and guarded by the swirling of the vine. They make a wine as rich and dark as sin, red as blood. It's salt and slick in your mouth and ends thick, burning caramel on your tongue with lingering sugars. The family jokes about a superstition that if too many visitors come onto their lands, the wine will become thin and bitter, and they'll tell you, this is why they discourage tourists.

They're pretty good at staying under the radar. They've been producing wine as Peel and Ampelos for centuries, the family growing and extending tendrils across the globe. It's nothing new to them, the wine business, and the matriarch of the family usually heads up advertising and publicity. When Moriah gave her last interview, they were able to keep most of the controversial stuff out. Though, as it turns out, it didn't really matter. She'd been called crazy long enough that the interview was heavily edited, and all the incriminating bits were laughed off, or worse, pitied as the first signs of dementia.

It was easy.  There's no reason to believe she's sane if you do hear the original. She talks about leading the missing people into the field under the dark of the moon, allowing them to lie down beside the vines. She talks about the sound the vines make as they draw the people into their embrace, the sighing sound. It's so clear, the way she imitates it.  She can tell you about the ecstatic moans of the visitors as they are absorbed into the rich dark soil, or the occasional shriek of terror as they rouse from the afterglow of their orgasm only to realize they are being consumed. It's an odd thing to listen to, the longing in her voice. It's a compelling thing, that interview, her café au lait voice reaching through the tangle of websites that sprang up when she disappeared. You can still find clips of the oddest parts of her diatribe, the pain and pleasure parts, mostly dubbed over S&M videos by fetishists and disseminated through forums and porn sites.

Every now and then, she'll become a sample in an indie band's song, the near-whisper of her explanation being pushed further into the grasp of myth, the lascivious anticipation in her voice raising the hair on the back of your neck or the ghost of a nipple against your t-shirt, right before the drums crash in tribal ecstasy and the guitars begin to wail like cats in heat. She draws that kind of music. Some people just have that gift.

I still have the tape that she spoke so clearly into, her dark green eyes boring into mine as I took notes, simultaneously terrified and aroused by her clear interest in the pale skin showing above my too-low neckline. I went in thinking I shouldn't have taken the assignment, and I was right. I never took another. I never told anyone that I kept the original tape, that I mailed in a copy out of some obscure desire to hold on to that sultry whisper, to keep her in my hands.

Me, I don't know what happened to Moriah Landsdown after that interview. I don't want to find out. I stay in the Midwest on the shores of dirty lakes, far from viticulture, deep in city centers and industrial pollution. I erase myself from the internet religiously. I am learning to avoid notice by example, using tactics from the very competent family that became Peel and Ampelos International.

Last night, I read that 75,866 km² of the world is dedicated to the cultivation of grapes, that the area dedicated to vineyards is increasing by about 2% per year. I tossed and turned all night, thinking of white bones desiccating under a riot of grapes, feeling the sweat rise on my skin at the thought of her voice only to shiver when the chill of unsought knowledge turned my own hands, hovering at the juncture of my thighs, into the grasping of her many daughters' sweetly callused fingers.

I don't want to go back, I don't want to go to their home place. I don't want to go into the field at the dark of the moon, but I have these dreams, you see.

iron

Sweat and blood, I come
as if from war. I fill my mouth
with rum and grin, I swallow with
my teeth bared.

This is how we survive,
regardless of opposition.  We
bear down, we spite.  There
is no question,

we go on.  With wine spilling
like fountains from our mouths
and burns rising like red ghosts
on our arms, we go on.  Of all

the dictionaries I've eaten, the
one definition I could never stomach
was the meaning of surrender.
Skull-grinning, clenched teeth,

until it kills me, I go on.

Homecoming

"Darling, let me in, let me in."
I hear the words through shutters frail,
as if from a kinder night. He's
fresh into port, home from the sea.

Urgently his voice comes now,
"Let me in, darling, let me in!"
His fervent grasp, those scratching nails,
the latch rattling in the door.

Our lovers' knot, it has become,
his plea and my refusal plain.
"Let me in, darling, let me in,"
his whisper colder than the wind.

There were no bodies found that night;
all hands were lost at sea. And yet?
Before the dawn, he comes to growl
"Darling, let me in. Let me in!"

This week's format is the quatern, a four-quatrain poem with a repeating--but moving--refrain.  Sounds trickier than it actually is, right?  Sure, except that each line must also be a scant (for me) eight syllables!  I loved this format and we may have to do it again--I think I need more time with it, might even do some stealth editing here if my brain gives me some more effective words.  
So...we have the usual suspects.  Me, of course, and the lovely runaway sentence., whose offering is here, as well as a crystalline entry by A.F. (a non-blogger).  I believe we also have some new additions.  Are you participating in the weekly format challenge?  Let me know and I'll add you to our tiny linkfarm.  This week...prepare yourself for the pantoum!

Gray Lady

This hunger always takes me unaware,
pulling me along on reluctant feet.
The wind tangles her fingers in my hair
as I head out to sea.

I conquer navies though I command no fleet,
my strange artilleries comprised of simple air.
Still, your lover prays we might never meet.

If some lonely night, you see me there?
If you're entranced by music sweet?
Shut up your ears, whatever else you dare,
as I head out to sea.


This week's format is the roundel, and mine was inspired (very loosely) by low-country ghosts like the Gray Man of Pawleys Island, SC.  Of course, sirens figure largely in my world, as well...
The lovely runaway sentence. is also participating, even graciously allowing me a few extra days to get my nonsense in order.  You can read her roundel here.  Next week we'll be tackling the quatern.  A quatern is another multi-quatrain French form, but to my relief?  No rhyming required.  Stay tuned.