Overrated.

Cause I feel absolutely terrible for forgetting to post this. I honestly was carried away with endless critiquing to realise that I had yet to blog it. ^.^ And thus, without further ado;

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 The room is light blue.

It looks cold, it feels cold, it smells cold. Everything in it seems to shiver and pulse and sob, whimpering;

Help me. Save me.

Love me.

But even with the air conditioning going, the windows cast wide open and the blistering Winter cold spreading itself beneath my clothes and under my skin, he sits there, rocking back and forth.

It’s hot, he repeats over and over. It’s hot. It’s hot. It’s hot.

He says he wants a fix. He says poets have been smoking opium for centuries.

He’s a poet, he says. He’s a poet. A poet. A poet.

Yeah, I know. I know because his room is filled with scrapped pieces of paper. I know because his ashtrays are overflowing and he’s still staring at a clean page.

I know because I know everything about him.

The local rehabilitation centre. All you can hear in this closed up little space is room after room of junkies crying, despairing with their zombie friends and zombie hallucinations enclosed within their quarantine of self-destruction.

You won’t find anyone in here who doesn’t hate themselves.

Everyone here found love in some form but paid the price of for it.

Some will tell you it was worth it, others will tell you, well.

They’ll tell you otherwise.

He smokes entire packs of cigarettes to make up for what he can’t have. His room is a cloud of asthma, glue ear and Cancer. Some of the staff in this place call it ‘productive suicide’, it’s supposed to be an ice breaker for family members sick of visiting their failure brothers and sisters, their disappointment daughters and sons.

But he’s no son of mine.

He pulls out a parcel from within his cocoon of blankets. He says that he went clean for an entire week to afford this, I pull away the newspaper gift wrapping and reveal a red toy aeroplane.

He smiles. It’s hot. It’s hot. It’s hot.

Back in Primary school, all the parents used to say to stay away from him.

He was bad news, that boy was. His mummy had magic mushrooms in the kitchen. His daddy was in jail for killing a man. But, I’d been curious because he’d only ever read.

Yeats, Shelley, Byron; he loved the Romantics. We became friends and he’d brought me to his house where showed me how to drink and taught me how to smoke.

“You see, the thing about spiders is they eat their company,”

He’d tell me

“My mummy tells me I’m a spider, I’m poison. I’m alone all the time and whoever I meet I destroy.”

The aeroplane was painted red and dazzling. It even had my name written on it in big, bold letters; ‘Richard’.

I wanted it painfully, but my father only worked in a toothpaste factory and my mother spent all day looking after my little sister, Lucy. She was dying.

“One day I’ll buy it for you.”

He whispered when he caught me staring, as if it was a secret. Or a promise.

We’d just been in a fight with two of the older boys at school; they’d left our clothes ripped, our teeth chipped and our souls alive. They’d said Jimmy’s dad had a real British gun, but we knew Jimmy’s dad was a Nazi, everybody knew that.

We stood there in the damp autumn air, staring into the candy coated window of the toy store. I thought to myself how sugary the glass would taste and what it would be like to be rich enough to go inside.

“You know, I reckon you’ll fly one when you’re older!”

He declared, suddenly, grabbing my arm and shaking it rigorously,

“You’ll fly you and me right out of this dreadful town!”

Then, without another word, he bolted down the foot path. I chased him, running as quick as I could, all the while my heart pounding faster against my chest then my feet against the shattered pavement.

I slowed as we neared the river, waiting for him to leave me behind, but he stopped and ran back.

‘I’ll not leave you, Richard!”

He exclaimed theatrically,

“You and I are two one legged men, Bonnie and Clyde! I’ll not leave you behind; you’ll fly us both out of here!”

Then he grinned, wide and honest, and I saw blood seep through the cracks of his broken smile.

He sits there, poisoning me with his cigarettes. It’s winter and everything is dead but his beauty is feverishly alive. His dark brown hair untamed and chocolate against his honey coated skin. His fringe falls over one of his eyes casting a dark shadow over his thin, tired face. This whole time he’s biting his wine-stained lips and smoking.

Nervous. Alert. He is an alley cat, a stray, never living here or there but always moving. Always running away. But this place has him trapped. This town has him jailed in.

He asks me if I like his gift. He tells me; happy birthday, Richard. He loves me so very, very, very much. He wants me to be happy. And he’s so sorry. So very, very, very sorry.

I’m sorry too, I tell him. I love him so much, I tell him, and I forgive him.

It’s not my birthday.

The nurse tells me that maybe I should leave and I sigh and stand. Clutching his present in between my hard hands,

I start to walk away, and on my way out I hear him chanting;

It’s hot. It’s hot. It’s hot.

The hall is light blue. It looks cold and I can sense the distance of everything around me.

I feel the ticket for one in my pocket. This is my way out. This is it. I push the unsaid farewells to the back of my mind.

The hall is light blue. In the corner of the floor I see a spider curled up, lonely and poisonous.

Trapped in its own clumsy web.

-- Mikee Sto. Domingo 

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It is honestly wonderfully written, whatever beliefs for or on the contrary you may have, Mikee. 

:P

The Casual Flit of Remembrance.

I don't like that last one, I'll probably change the perspective, since it is quite misleading. Now, on a more happier note. I've been waiting forever to write a type of wistful romance, so here it is...

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Gossamer silk cascaded about her petite form, accentuating the subtle rose stain on her soft cheeks. Her long, chestnut hair had been loosely coiled and twisted into an elaborate bun that fell about the nape of her neck. The forbidden necklace hung encircling it - the locket, with all intent and purpose, lay tucked within her bodice.

As she walked about the euphoric ballroom filled with guests of honorable disposition and their secretive fetish for scandal, she felt more solitary than ever. Various men looked her way, believing they could seduce her through the smokey veil they produced from their freshly bought Upmanns.

But to no avail - there was only one man that could ever hope to capture her attention tonight.

“Izzy! How good it is to see you! It has been too long,” a voice called to her from across the dance floor. People stared in incredulity at the bold woman walking her way.

“Gabby, why it has been a while, hasn't it?” Isabelle responded with a detached air as Gabrielle Harrington of Devonshire came to exchange the customary kiss-on-the-cheek.

“Oh yes. I have much to tell you! Paris was simply exquisite. You have to come with me one winter, it is true. The city is most beautiful at that time.”

“So I hear.”

Gabrielle, puzzled by her friend's aloofness, decided to pin it to excessive fatigue. “Izzy, your father isn't press-”

Isabelle abruptly cut her off. “No, why would you think that?”

Gabrielle stood more baffled than ever at Isabelle's odd behaviour. “Oh, it's just that you don't seem to be entirely here. As if you're off on some other planet.” A planet filled with much more entertainment than this one, apparently, she added under her breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, nothing dear. I'll come find you later, I must go greet Thomas and get a sip of that delicious wine,” she ended with a suggestive wink as she embraced her friend and left to set on her next pursuit.

Isabelle just stayed there and stared in awe, bewildered at the short exchange, and emitted an infinitesimal giggle at Gabrielle's antics.

“Whatever is so humorous, I am so deeply thankful to it. Oh how I adore your smile, love.” Her breathing hitched. Her heart stopped its beating and restarted with a painful thump at the words being whispered into her ear from behind. That voice. Ah, the voice that she had been longing for, for what seemed like eternity.

He took her gloved hand with undeniable care and lead her swiftly out the door held slightly ajar for the few that felt like a stroll in the starlight. The moon beamed its light upon them, letting them know that their world was never entirely theirs. They walked for a while in silence, tension held aloft all the while, till they reached the only place they knew the could not be seen.

He turned to her and, with a light touch that made her shiver, he caressed the side of her face and leaned in to kiss her.

She missed this.

She dreamt about this moment for so long, it was hard to believe that this was true and not simply one of her hallucinations. But it was real, it really was. She could feel it in the marrow of her bones, in ever fiber of her quivering frame. His lips were so soft, yet filled with such an intensity that she felt like she would scorch from their fire.

At last they parted, betrayed by their need to respire. His forehead on hers, he closed his eyes and smiled this perfectly crooked smile that was all his own. Isabelle's elation lifted her, made her feel as light as the air surrounding their intervened bodies. She slipped the glove off her right hand and touched his golden halo of hair; moved her fingers to his temple, over the ridges of the lightly protruding scar that was surely found there, to his cheeks – flushed with the cold – until they finally reached his lips. He was so beautiful, an angel.

“Isabelle,” he sighed her name, and it sounded like a lullaby. So sweet on his lips. “My dear, dear Isabelle.”

“Yes?” She panted, not having yet regained her breath from their passionate kiss.

“Isabelle, you nearly gave me a coronary when I first saw you. You're heartbreakingly beautiful, you know that?” He smiled his crooked smile once more, than kissed her nose gently.

“You're not so bad yourself, handsome.” She smirked and he chuckled. She abruptly pulled him in for another kiss that grew in urgency. He bought his hand to her face and ran it down her neck to the necklace that resided there.

He pulled their lips apart and whispered, “You kept it.”

“Of course I did. It is the most precious thing anyone has ever given me.”

“Strong words.” He mumbled in a distant tone as he brought out the ancient locket.

“Yes, and they are every bit the truth.”

He smiled, as did she.

“I have kept that locket close to my heart, every night, you know. I kept faith and I prayed for fate to bring us together again. I read the inscrip-”

He put a finger to her lips. “Shh, love. Can you hear that?”

She listened. For a while, all that could be heard was water colliding with rock from the river nearby. But then, a small chirping came to and a whole harmony of sounds, as if an orchestral composition began to unfold among the desolate ferns.

“It's beautiful, Jasper.” She stared in contempt at the night sky and breathed it all in. She wanted this all memorised before she had to be sent back home.

All the while he just stared at her. He would give up everything in this world to have her be his. Thus, with the faintest whisper, he spoke to her soul. “Run away with me, Isabelle, and this could all be ours. Away from the binds of our parents. We could be together, Isabelle. You and me. Free.”

Those alluringly tempting words wormed their way into her heart, but the fight of logic prevailed.

“I can't, Jasper, you know that. I have to obey my father's wishes. I'm the only one he has, after mother-”

He took her in his arms. “He'll be alright. He has the ever-evident aristocrats of society and his seldom-sober poker partners to keep him company. He doesn't need you. If anything, he is trying to destroy that girl full of hopes and dreams inside you that I cherish so, for his political gain. I'm not going to let him do that to you, Isabelle.”

“But-”

He felt a tear denounce his despair. “I will not let him take you away from me. Not again. Not this time. I-” his breath shuddered. “I love you.”

She smiled with those characteristically sad smiles of hers. A tear trailed down her cheek. “I love you too. So much. But what happens when father finds me? What if love is not enough?”

And he replied with a resounding finality. “Remember when we were little, you ran to find me and I read you that book you found that you thought looked pretty, because you couldn't read yet? Remember how Peter took Wendy to Neverland, that place where no adults were allowed and where all your cares were carried away with a cloud? You remember when you told me you wanted to see what it was like and I promised you I would show you one day? Well, I think it's about time I did.”

He smiled at her and Isabelle felt herself smiling back as they began to slowly fade away.

--Ani.

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*blushes* I'll go away now.

Reflections.

The clouds, so numerous and uniform in their bleakness, march alike Sassoon's sleeping soldiers to the ends of the earth. A lone bird, obscured by the dark outline of sky, flits across her span of vision. She sits up and feels the subtle shift in pressure of the trampoline. Over the white fence, she sees the light post of the street slowly flicker to life, the chimney of the house behind smokes and veils the tall fern beside. It has long since forgotten its nicotine patches.

All this activity in a world that is so quite, yet she feels nothing. She does less than the immobile objects on either side of her. She does nothing.

Sometimes, she just wants it all to stop.

She wonders what it would be like if the predator would stop short of catching its prey. Would take a minute to listen to its surroundings. She wonders what the outcome would be then. Or if a corporate driven marketeer would stop and see the damage he has created in his wake. Would he even bat an eyelash?

Somehow, she feels we have moved so far out from the selves we used to be. Are we not all robots moving day to day in monotony? She asks vainly to herself. Or maybe it just seems this way to just her because she feels like a robot.

And she doesn't want to feel this way. She fights like hell to not be this way. To be precisely the opposite. But it is so hard when people are constantly screaming and unloading their problems with the world onto her as their sole constant. When the media taint any positive outlook she manages to procure.

It's like saying “50 people died today in a grand massacre, but don't fret. Smile, darling. It's all you've got now.”

She doesn't get it. Maybe she never will. But even if the humans of our generation taint this world, they'll never taint its skies. She finds hope in the stars.

They're the pure sprinkled beauty that won't ever be tamed. The innocence that won't ever be touched by the fatal chokehold of the human.

So she writes and writes, in futile ambition to redeem the day, fingering the strings of her ancient acoustic while he paints her wondrous visions of a world that no longer exists. And they stare in awe for a while as they slowly feel themselves fading away, like the smog you see outside your bay window, wondering why it ever chose to stay.

--Ani.

-------------------------

Sigh. The man gave me the courage and audacity to write this.

Thus, The Men Who Chase the Dreams.

She was falling. Falling forever, held prisoner, chained to the colourless oblivion that seemed a contradiction to her elation the day before. Like Peter Pan, Skyler brought her to a Neverland that seemed irrevocably in reverse.

Arms wrap around her torso and her first instinct is to run.

“No. No. Shh. It's okay, it's fine Vi. It's me. It's Aaron. Shh. You're going to be okay. Just breathe.” His voice, so soothing, seemed to ail her further and she immediately felt horrible for bringing him down with her as her breathing exceeded the norm and sent her gasping.

“Come on,” his determined, strong voice shook and penetrated into her brain. “Come on, Vi. Breathe. Breathe. In and out. In and out. Come on, say it with me; in and out, in and out, in and-”

“Out.” She managed to breathe out.

He sighed in contempt, and kissed her forehead so lightly, that she would've missed it had she not been noticing everything with a strange new intensity.

“That's my girl,” he whispered and caressed the side of her face. To the ordinary observer, with their conventional eyes, her face would seem to be a picture of perfection. A most beautiful collage. But he could see the cracks and blotches of where glue had not been applied and where it had been spread in haste.

Through those imperfect scars Skyler left her, he could see the raw flesh and bone throbbing, grasping for something complete.

Violet's chest rose and fell in uniform succession as she steadily succumbed to sleep. Whatever relief felt, he knew, would be short lived. This would happen again. Tomorrow night. Perhaps the next. But he wouldn't ever leave her. He would always be there to bring her back from the cliff's edge. To keep her feet firmly planted on the ground.

Because if he let go, maybe she'd slip and fall peacefully into her own abyss, but he would drown.

And for that reason, he stayed up that night, like he did every night, feeling the bags protruding above his cheeks that were now a part of him as much as the eyes they were under.

He would protect her from herself and love her with all the affection she deserved in delicate hope that maybe, just maybe, one of these nights, she would wake up from her nightmares and would hold on to him with as much of herself as what he'd given her.

--Ani.

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Hmm. Inspiration credited to Brand New. Hmm.

The Flight of Time.

The clock and the bell

Alight and swell

Are beating upon the hour

Her quivering hands, skin stretched tight over bone, grasped the rocking chair's arms. They unintentionally betrayed the raging turmoil she was battling inside.

This did not just happen. This is not true. She chanted over and over to herself, hoping for a favourable resolution. It is simply a wildly, incredibly drawn out piece of fiction my run-of-the-mill imagination made unnervingly real.

Besides, it has happened before.

But this time didn't feel like the last, nor the one before. The nostalgia in the air was tangible to the touch and hovered all around. Everything had the air of a very real reality. A sick and twisted reality. The atmosphere smelt of acid.

The hand that now lay surreptitiously atop her own felt cold and unfamiliar. Something she could surely never imagine. And then she knew that it was real. This cruel truth staggered her and caught her by the throat, inducing her to say it. Admit what was the truth. To exit from her made-up worlds and acknowledge the present.

“I'm so sorry,” his words cracked the fictitious landscape in her mind and she saw it. She finally saw it.

“Madamoiselle, h-he was brave and strong. He did not suffer for long, I-our troops out in the fields and Lieutenant Garret made sure his last hours were spent in the blissful sleep he deserved. Pete- Monsieur du Beurette told me to give you this.” The awkward soldier, silhouetted in the early morning dawn, reached inside his navy blue tunic and emerged with a worn, earthen envelope that was noticeably once a pristine ivory.

On the front, in beautifully slanted script, read “To my dearest Élodie”.

Slowly, as if to delay the inevitable, she opened the envelope to reveal an equally worn, earthen letter.

Seeing the overflow of emotion in her eyes as she stared for immeasurable time at the letter, to the soldier seemed too intimate for him to stand guard for any longer. He had done his job. He delivered the letter. The Lieutenant General was waiting for him to make their peremptory voyage back to the barricades. This he told himself, over and over and over. But something kept compelling him to stay, if just a little while longer. If he was a lesser man, a man of foolish stature, maybe he would have. But he had a commitment. And by God, he would stand by it.

With that he turned to leave the forlorn maiden with as much stealth as he could muster, recalling what he learnt while in training to perform surprise attacks on the enemy from behind. The deadliest and least expected, he reflected in black irony.

But as he took the first step, his foot weighing down on the porch's weathered boards with an ominous croak, he heard a small voice beckoning.

“Antoine?”

How did she know his name? Curious, he turned with a skilled swiftness and waited.

“I'm sorry, I... I know you must be a very pre-occupied man, and in your own right, but could you please read me the letter?” She spoke in a soft but determined tone that was at odds with the slight sight of her. Her eyes were already brimmed with the ripe tears of mourning and he was afraid that if he read the letter to her, they would cascade and crumble away with her.

“Madamoiselle, I'm so deeply grieved for you loss, but I-”

“Oh, no. I understand.” She produced a sad half-smile. “It... It's fi-” Her voice caught and she started to breathe erratically, the hand clutching the letter slumped down from the arm of the rocking chair and her head bent back on her spine and against the chair's back - trying in half-heartened attempt to recapture the stolen fresh air from her lungs. To breathe new hope into her broken body.

The lone soldier -with his navy tunic, his cotton trousers and his various embellishments- felt utterly out of place and at odds as to how to conduct himself. He had not been trained to deal with grief or despair. Rather, he was told to discard it. Those feelings only taint the victorious mind, the Lieutenant General once told him.

But his father taught him chivalry.

He walked to the frail Élodie and lifted her now unconscious form up from the chair and carried her through the doorway of the house beyond. The entrance was dark but his gaze caught a door held conspicuously ajar by a wooden right-angled object and he decided to enter it. To his relief, it looked to be her chambers. He carried her to the modest bed and lay her down, caressing her gleaming forehead. Absentmindedly, he traced the lines of stress already evident on her lovely, youthful face.

She looked almost at peace in her unconscious state. Her face transformed into Peter's and he found himself looking back at his dead comrade.

Something wet appeared and spread on the cotton of his trousers. It took a while for him to comprehend that he was crying. He had never shed a tear in his life. Not when his father beat him with wooden cane for taking a forbidden cookie. Nor when his mother died of cancer. Nor when he killed a man -a man that meant something to somebody- in battle. Never.

Élodie's serene countenance did nothing to lessen the violent blow of his suppressed collision of emotions. There, his back to the edge of her bed, he sat in reverie for a very long time. Élodie never came to.

In his despair he pounded on the dust-veiled floor, when he noticed an earthen paper. The letter. In all his contemplations, he never noticed it.

He took it in shaking hands and regarded it's entirety. Here and there, he saw a smudge of ink, which could only be tears.

“My dearest, my love.

Do you believe in fate? I like to believe so. I like to believe that God put us on this planet for a specific purpose.

I've never been good at anything. I cannot climb the trees like you can. I cannot tell stories straight out the imagination like you. I cannot aim a rock to hit a clear target even with the aid of a sling-shot. (Which really makes you wonder why in the world I got registered into the army.)

And so, as I sit here in these desolate barricades, and look over my talents (or lack-thereof), I realise that, my love, my purpose her on earth is not to climb some tree, nor to hit a target in perfection, nor even to tell the most wondrous story. My purpose is you.

Now, I know, if you have been handed down this letter by Antoine, (he can be a little cumbersome, as he surely knows, but his heart is in the right place. Be sure to pass him my thanks for his troubles and his loyalty to me in my dire circumstances) and that you have read thus far, you would have learnt of my demise. But do not cry, oh how I hate to see you cry. Do not taint that beautiful face I love so much with those ugly monsters they call tears, because this is not goodbye.

You hear me, Élodie? This is not the end. Remember what I told you before I was sent away?Remember the bird? We'll fly away like that bird, Élodie. Away, we will.

And when you're ready. When you feel your work is done, and there is nothing else you feel you need to live for; you just spread your wings and I'll help you fly. We'll fly our way through the heavenly skies with the stars as our guide and stay with the clouds and the moon forever. I promise.

I'll see you soon, my love. I'll be waiting,

Peter.”

She read it.

Antoine picked himself up, gathered his bearings, turned on his heals and slowly looked down, and he smiled a knowing smile at the lifeless face of the girl. The girl who flew away and never returned.

Time flits by

Oh how it seems to fly

But oh, how it also devours 

--Ani.

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Midnight rush/product of Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles. Très inspiré.

Ode to Lua.

Fingers slip through the silk, leaving a residue of water on his finger tips. Bitter cold. Glacial, almost. The wind bites through his thin sweater and into his back. His fair hair sways and veils his ocean eyes.

-And I'm not sure what the trouble was, that started all of this.-

The lyrics of their song plays endlessly in his mind. Coiling and fusing with the neurons in his brain to the conspicuous tendons of his fist. Haunting him, inexhaustibly.

The wind increases in magnitude. He hardly notices as he falls back onto the dock. The corroded wood is painted with various holes of all proportions, through which he can see the unusually clear, watered down banks of the old Mulberry river.

-The reasons all have run away, but the feeling never did.-

He sighed. How much longer? He asks of himself, as he tilts his head to the west. His eyes meet the sun's as it floats down behind the towering hills, bidding him farewell after their short rendezvous.

Ten minutes.

He shifts his head back to its prior position, facing the already evident stars. It feels as if gravity has swelled to an intense degree, driving him into the unyielding timber. As he lays there, he starts to contemplate things. Things that a young heart such as his shouldn't have to be troubled with.

The stars give him a blank stare, lacking in expression for once. No longer questioning, as if they can already outline the pathway to his fate. And that scares him.

-It's not something I would recommend, but it is one way to live.-

Ah. Pain shoots through the left side of his body.

Two.

He sits up with steady precision and folds his arms across his chest, hoping for dear life that the pain subsides. At least for another two minutes. Then his body is free to do as it wills itself to.

His palm feels through the dips and crevices of the rough wood and touches upon something smooth and solid. He grabs it by the neck and settles it on his lap. His fingers flit across its strings with skilled yet abnormal detachment.

-Cause what is simple in the moonlight, by the morning is so complicated.-

The words, now in sync with the chords he plays, resonate in the clearing as he sings along. His voice, clear and soft, caresses the willow beside which sighs in content. It has heard him play before, but never so beautifully. Never did such a raw emotion evade his customary calm air.

Like an angel, she used to say. You play to the soul, not just to the head. That's what I love about you.

-Cause what is simple in the moonlight, by the morning never is.-

One minute.

The moon observes him with a sympathetic eye. Poor boy.

The boy turns away. He doesn't need the moon's pity.

She'll come. She'll come, she'll come. She has to. She'll come.

-Cause what was simple in the moonlight...- “Cosette! Come on! Sing with me! Please, you know this!”

-Cause what was simple in the moonlight, so si-

“COSETTE!”

There is no one in the desolate gloom, save for himself.

A suppressed sob escapes his lungs and he feels like he can't breathe. But he must, he must. He must finish the song. For Cosette, if for anything at all.

-So simple in the moon-light..-.

And with that the chords collapse into the watery abyss.

She's gone. She's not coming back.

He feels the surface of his cheeks. Wet with the salt of his tears, having spilled from the over-brimmed recesses of his irises.

“ARGH!” His scream reverberates and deafens the hooting of the Eagle owls nestled close by. His out-cry resembles the cry of a condemned man burning at the stake.

Using his arms as leverage, he jumps up onto the tips of his tethered Converse-clad feet and grasps the neck of his acoustic guitar. He walks away from the edge of the dock in reverse with new-found determination saturating his convulsing frame. Without a moments hesitation, nor thought, he runs to the edge and sends the acoustic into flight.

His body follows suit as it hits its water-bound resting place. I will be with my love once more is his last coherent thought as the water engulfs his entire being and lulls him into its oblivion.

A raindrop thus falls from the heavens, as the obscured moon slowly fades away, taking leave of the still atmosphere.

--Ani.

-----

I'm wayy too obsessed. It's becoming unhealthy. :s

He Looked Like Spring

He looked like spring. All the boys and girls that had kissed him told me he tasted like blood.

I’d known he was there in the room before I’d even seen him. There was some shift in the light or maybe the staleness in the church air disappeared when he walked in, but I knew he was there. My ears tuned into his foot steps, light and leisurely, I could hear as he dodged people in his path and the hushed mutters of apologies as people parted for him. Then, I’d seen him. And he looked like spring.

His hair was a reddish blonde color that might’ve been ginger once; he was pale and speckled with that same faded cinnamon across his nose. He wasn’t tall but he seemed to tower over everyone, moving at his own pace, unaffected by time and company. His kaleidoscope grey eyes shifted from shades of blue to green in the clear autumn light. The air in the church was musky and claustrophobic but his breathe was cold and lonely. When he blinked it looked as if he’d never open his eyes again, his eye lashes curling and spreading outwards like sunshine against his porcelain eyelids, tiny delicate pink and blue veins etched just beneath. Something was living under his skin. And it was stealing him. It was taking him away from everything.

He smokes Marlboros and breathes toxic into the air, but there’s no way anything out of his mouth is poison. Or, maybe all of it is poison.

“Haven’t they told you to stay away from me?”

He smiles and blinks, for a second I hold my breath, because I swear he’s gone.

“The church wears only beige every day and black on special occasions. You should’ve seen their shock when I came in blue to his funeral. Oh, poor Friedrich Creswell, his son won’t even wear black to show respect.”

His lips are chapped and stretched over; I can tell he hasn’t slept in days. A red line the night before drew beneath his eyes almost makes him look like he’s been crying. But he hasn’t been. The whole funeral he was somewhere else. Somewhere far away from the church and he wouldn’t take anyone else with him. Not even his dead father. Not even me.

The women in the church, superstitious old hens; they say that he’s turning into a demon. Ever since his mother died something in him began to rot and decay. Something was becoming foul and it was beginning to show. He never eats these days. Doesn’t sleep or drink, and only talks when the weather is as morbid as he is. As angry as he must be.

“But, I’m the happiest boy in the world.”

He says this, then he smiles, big and bright and sad.

--Mikee Sto Domingo

------

Bravo. ^.^

Uhh, Yeah.

So, this is something that I stumbled upon, that I wrote around the middle of last year. Truthfully I can not recall. All I know is that it was written quite a while a go, while obsessed with classical literature.

The Jester's Last Bow

His smile downcast, the jester was quite the strange creature he dressed himself up to be.

His shoulders sit lodged in an uncomfortable hunch as if a great weight has been strung upon them for what seems to be years.

As he sips the cool drink – which was once, much like he, warm – he hardly acknowledges the curious faces probing at his disheveled form, sitting crippled on the ancient, worn out rug by the fire. His eyes, never having shed a tear nor a true emotion; were now asunder with the most unusual tenants – pain and regret. Those deceiving eyes... once so alight with intriguing amusement, were now impossibly tainted.

He stares at his cup a while. His lips form the silent words of a lullaby he once knew, reciting them with each swirl of the dull concoction. His actions seem to be of no avail to his sunken features. His inaudible chantings serve a different purpose; they seemed to be more of a foundation, a sort of common ground establishment in this world that shakes with uncertainty.

How had life found a way to corrupt the most alive of its kind?

What could have infected such a jolly soul as the one of the jester?

He lets out a suppressed sigh that tells of his exhaustion. His breath shudders as it re-enters his crushed chest.

Time seems to be no vital element to him.

He boasts the countenance of a man with a greater worry than that of inconsequential time.

He sits still, more statuesque than human. His eyes cloud over, obscuring the view of his raw emotions to leave them in an almost dead state. Rock hard in a glacial abyss; leaving no room for his soul to creep through.

There is one lesson he did seem to have learnt this evening - his heart could not be trusted.

He felt utterly confused and helpless at the swarm of new emotions. All he ever knew of was fake and superficial to what he was. He just could not deal with this. This was simply too much. Too much, too soon.

So, in livid response, he locked them away; in his mind miming the key to those inconceivable feelings away, away into the dark unknown. He would not feel anymore. Nobody would ever know.

His resolve was clear in the rod straight amendment to his posture and the blank stare he returned to those now brave enough to question his well-being. He was determined. He must escape.

With that he stood up. His hands, dusting off his bright vest, then reached for the crown of his head. He touched upon something coarse, and with a skilled flick of the wrist, he tipped his hat; recovering dignity and grace as he bowed to the casual onlookers. Jingles from the hat sounded with resounding familiarity; as if the end of a great act.

He was a jester, after all.

--Ani.