Kittengoo
Isn't it easier to just say "she was getting what she deserved"? She was drinking alcohol, after all (let's not discuss the man who saw an incapacitated girl and decided to take advantage). She was wearing provocative clothing (let's not discuss the man who decided to take them off against her will). She was out late at night (let's not discuss the man that waited at night for a girl to be alone). So it's only fair that what happened, happened: what goes around, went around. Right? Wasn't she getting what she deserved?
Wasn't she?
Walls. Each brick is a rule, a stricture, a guideline, a suggestion. And it feels as if the sun is shining directly between those cracks, but obscured: so you can only catch glimpses. But as you grow, you realize the necessity of the rules-- that the motivation behind them is more important than the rule itself. That the bricks exist to hold the mortar, and not the other way around. So get on your sailboat and float to that cross to watch the rising sun; take your brick and toss it into the water. It sinks into the shrapnel. No more allowing what you're "allowed" to do form a wall around you, and block out your sunrise.
Small, bedraggled lumps of soaking wet rags. The children crouched beneath the bridge, and through the scope of my military-issued sniper rifle, I could even see the way the light glinted off the tears sliding down the bridges of their noses.
God. God. I can't do this. I can't. It feels like it's raining, but I realize: it's tears. I'm sobbing. The drops slide down my grizzled, scarred, unshaven face; they snag in the bristles of day-old stubble.
I squeeze the trigger.
Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.
Eighteen times.
When I get home I'll put the barrel in my own mouth.
Flames burst behind us as we skid around the corner in the belly of the volcano.
"This must be the MOST harebrained, ILL-conceived, ILLOGICAL plan you've ever pulled me into!" screams my partner, hair singed.
I harrumph, ducking around a falling stalactite. "EXcuse you, all of my plans are equally as harebrained, ill-conceived, and illogical, thank you very much!"
"I feel like at some point your values got disfigured," says mom, tossing her pans into soapy water.
I look up abruptly from the kitchen table, offended. "What? What is THAT supposed to mean?"
"It says on Netflix you watched eight hours of Pokemon: Indigo last night. Have you even got your homework done?"
"I've... gotten it to the acceptable level of doneness that will keep me from getting in trouble tomorrow!"
He was like a fisherman, reeling in women left and right in his nets. She didn't mind so much, because it was more of an accidental tangling where he kept blustering around and tripping over his own feet and trying to shake them off: he only had eyes for her. She'd never really wanted one of the men who got all of the ladies; it was too much work, too much competition, and besides, she wanted to be the pretty one in a relationship. But he-- he was alright. He made her smile.
Everywhere else is kept gardened and neat, lush and green. Tangles of red roses wind throughout the black wrought iron fence that encloses the little paradise beyond my back porch.
Except for in the back, in front of a cluster of pine trees. A patch of brown soil, newly churned. One of the shoe boxes is missing from the closet, and a sign in the front yard advertises "baby clothes: never worn".
Coughing and waving her hand to clear the smoke, the sorceress stumbled in the wreckage of the desk she'd been thrown into. Or, more aptly put, thrown through.
"That... could've gone... better." Still hacking, she adjusted her robes. Reviewing the destruction of her office space (previously so well-organized), she couldn't help but give a frustrated "tch". Spells were finicky and touchy as a new lover; even someone as well-versed as she sometimes caressed them the wrong way, and then THIS happened. An acrid smell belched from the black scorch mark in the center of the pentacle painted on the floor.
"You know, you're very... colorful." I try not to sound offensive with this observation, but Ida, being Ida, whips around.
"So, I like my patterns," she sniffs, and then billows out her apron on the dining room table so I can see them all. The stripes and checks and pinks and yellows and reds and just the general brightness, all stitched together willy-nilly. "Can you see how it's like art? A square from my rug, a square from a dish towel, a square from a quilt, a square from a cover I was gonna sew for my couch but ran outta fabric. It tells a story.
"And," she adds, smoothing it down again and giving me one last withering glare over her shoulder, "it's damn pretty, too."
I sigh as she heads back into the kitchen. It's hard to argue with that woman.
There's something that is instilled in us from the day we were born
To obey.
***
Are you a boy or a girl?
No, you are a woman.
Good girl.
Now listen to what I tell you. Be good. Follow my instructions. Don't displease me.
***
You feel fuzzyheaded, and want to revolt. The world is easier, clearer when you obey. Maybe you should just obey. You can't obey. It's confusing and hard. It hurts but their displeasure hurts more.
***
Don't displease me.
load more entries