Cheery Tangerine V 3.0

January 2. I started feeling ill today. How strange, for I have been healthy for so long. It started as a nervousness and an annoyance with the most benign things. Then a restless nature set in upon me, like I had forgotten something, or I was late for an appointment. This wasn’t the case, but yet I still found myself pacing around the house, rearranging knick-knacks as if they could relinquish some answer, some sort of knowledge as to my condition. By noon, exhaustion had set in and I tried to sleep. It was difficult, but I did sleep, and when I awoke from my hazy state, I found my jaw hurt. I must have been grinding my teeth during my nap. I shall make an appointment if these symptoms persist to see my doctor.

January 5. Went to my doctor this morning and, not surprisingly, he doesn’t know anything. For three days now I have hardly slept, but he could find nothing physically wrong, or at least nothing “alarming.” He found me to be generally on edge, as he put it, found my heart rate to be above normal and my nerves to be singing the high registers, but he says it’s nothing to be worried about. He gave me a cocktail of some sort for my nerves and suggested hot showers and exercise as a remedy. I took his cocktail along with a shower after returning, and I must admit, I feel no different. Still, I do not despair that his advice will come to help. Another couple days and I am sure I will feel myself again.

January 12. A full week, and still no change. Sleep has continued to elude me, like a slippery shadow created by the moonlight on a cloudy evening. No heat of the shower, nor the doctor’s foul cocktail has seen fit to relieve me of my surreal sleepless nights. I have taken to wandering to the ocean, the waves so beautifully adorned in their diamonds of light and scarves of froth. Relaxing they are to watch, but yet there I stand, my nervous twitches grinding my teeth to dust. Anyone else would find what ails them slipping away like waves, draining out of their bodies as they do of sand, but not I. Curse this sickness I have.


January 19. I finally got a good night’s sleep, just four days ago. What a marvel it was too! I awoke feeling refreshed and renewed. I was a flower who had received a long sought after drink; my leaves perked back and shook loose their wilt. But it was not to last, my suffering had merely been borrowed for the night by some other hapless, sorrowful creature. Within too few hours of awakening, I was feeling the familiar strain on my nervous system. I found myself sad for no apparent reason, and my jaw was beginning to ache again. What was it that was contributing to my bane? It was a beautiful day, and the wind was warm as it swept from the ocean and over the rocks into my bedroom window. By all accounts it was a day to be joyous, not dower. It seemed the smallest, most inconsequential details of the world irked me in some way. Were the clouds slightly too oblong for my liking? Maybe the ocean had been the wrong shade of blue? Whatever was wrong with the day seemed to be falsified by my very nature, and an intense dread set upon me, as if I was the sole purveyor of knowledge of a terrible misfortune about to occur.
That night, as I slowly, finally, began to fade into sweet slumber, something prodded at the edge of my consciousness. It was unpleasant in the utmost ways, like hot needles being run, point down, against the outside corner of the eye. I tried to wake, but could not and found myself terrified by my state. Aware of my slumber, but unable to wake, it created a panic that slowly burrowed through my chest. The burning, maybe not the best but I have no other way to describe it, grew worse until I felt as if my eyes were boiling in their membranes. I tried to scream with more and more force until I finally broke the surface of consciousness, erupting into my bedroom and gasping for air as if I had just barely escaped drowning.
I didn’t sleep again until yesterday.

January 30. Three nights in a row now I awoke to the same intense feeling of burning and drowning. Two weeks this has continued but now the burning is accompanied by strange visuals, psychedelic in nature, and a cacophony of noise. The noise is not of this earth and I doubt many have ever heard anything like it. It reminds me a thousand trains with rusty axles screeching to a halt inside my head, like I imagine Poe’s birds would sound when agitated. It is the symphony played by ghouls with out-of-tune instruments.
Yesterday, while I was cutting bread for my lunch, my jaw grinding away, and my hands shaking, I accidentally cut my finger rather deep. It didn’t hurt, but the feeling of the serrated knife cutting my flesh and sinew made me cringe, and made my mouth salivate, which disconcerted me quite effectively. I watched the blood pool on the counter and seep up into the bread. I traced its route as it dispersed through the porous starch. I was fascinated by its color and found that my jaw had quit grinding and my hands had steadied enough for the approval of a watchmaker. Placing the finger in my mouth, the blood swam across my tongue, warm and viscous. It was fairly delicious, and this thought made the shake return once again and left me with my nervous twitch.

February 8. How long can one go without sleep, I wonder. I guess I have been sleeping, but an hour here and an hour there, that doesn’t seem to be enough. I feel as if I have now met each and every grain of sand on the beach. I have seen individual waves more than once. The moon has shone on me throughout its nightly trek many times.
I went back to the doctor today. He said there was nothing wrong again, but was worried by my loss of twenty pounds, by the marathon my heart runs, and the ocean my sweat glands exude. He told me to eat more, to exercise, and he refilled my cocktail, this time a tad stronger. The same as last time, he said it will help. I am becoming more inclined to disagree.

February 14. The walls of my room were the wrong color when I awoke yesterday. Their cheery tangerine had been replaced by dreadful red. Red like the color of my blood in the bread. Did I paint the walls? Why would I have, I hate the color. I couldn’t imagine doing it and couldn’t find paint anywhere in the house or the shed out back. Was I intruded upon in the night? Impossible, I would have heard something, seen something. Curious to see if the paint was wet, I approached the wall. It was cold and dry, but when I pulled my hand away, it was still there, a shadow or silhouette on the wall exactly where my hand had been. I went to the kitchen and got a knife. The paint peeled off the wall easily, strips as long as my arm and a foot wide fell to the floor around me. Under it, I expected to see the cheery tangerine, but no, I was mistaken. Underneath was more blood-bread red, and underneath that was just more of the same. I was overtaken by panic and began frenetically tearing all the paint off, but the red was still there. I tore until I could not anymore and collapsed at the base of a wall and slept.
When I awoke, all I could see was cheery tangerine.

February 19. No more changing of the paint, but the screeching, I hear it again, loud and clear. It aroused me out of bed and have been following me around all day ever since. Shortly before lunchtime, I made my way down to the kitchen to fix myself something. This sickness that has overcome my mind and soul, has made my body unwilling to make too many treks out of my room, and appropriately, in a sinister way, the journey left me weak and worn. I decided I would bring myself something back so I would have to venture out less.
When I was in the kitchen, the noise that I had almost begun to fully tune out changed and came back to my attention. It relinquished its harshness and shifted into voices, mere whispers, borne on the winds. I could not understand the words, but I could feel their meaning, their maliciousness, and they bit into my conscious self, tearing small parts away and leaving pieces of me to languish on the floor. It was too much. Scarred, and almost blind with imagery, I ran for the stairs, falling up them three at a time. I made it back here, to my room, to my pen. I didn’t eat, and the events of the day have left me tired. I shall nap now, and hopefully when I awake, I will be able to try for sustenance again. My stomach grumbles dejectedly at me as I dot this sentence.

February 23. During lunch today, I could barely eat for the voices had become not so much whispers and wind, but loud militant chants in a language I know not. It shakes my head and the bones in my face harmonize with them silently. They taunt me, like a bully on the playground, unrelenting and unforgiving. After lunch, I took drastic steps to rid myself of their chants, but it did not work. Was the pen not long enough, or sharp enough? Should I have pressed harder? I don’t think so, as I can no longer hear the sounds of my own footsteps falling on the wood, but much more disturbing, I cannot hear the sound of my own voice anymore. I can feel it, resonating inside of my head like bees, but the actual sound is lost to me. A sickly opaque orange fluid seeps steadily out of my ears; I can feel it running down my cheek even now, long after the event.
This pen, the one I am writing with, seems heavy and bulbous in my hands, and it presses against my fingers like it wants to escape, as if it is tired of its job, but I cannot grant it freedom. Writing now seems to be the one tangible left in my existence, the only thing that seems real.
As I sit here scribbling my shaky words, the din in my head threatens to overcome my ability to think and write.

February 28. The voices have left my head finally, but now I hear them, no, I feel them, from everywhere. They seem to be seeping out of my walls and floors, out of the cabinets in the kitchen and out of my dresser in my room. They speak volumes of what, I do not know.
I have been sensing footsteps too, or maybe just their creators, all around the house, on the veranda and the upper balconies. This morning I went to the shed behind the house, during my journey I failed to see the source. The sunlight in the backyard was blinding and the wind was quite nip and harsh. Once in the shed, I filled the wheelbarrow with wood planks and panels, and grabbed a box of nails. The shovel leaning against the door jam seemed to be calling to me. It told me I would need its friendship. Good old shovel, rusting and dry, but a friend I need, so into the wheelbarrow it went.
When I returned I could feel the footsteps more than before, like some silent bass drum being played on my porch. I nailed the wood planks into the front and backdoors, taking redundancy into account. The makeshift locks are strong and they should hold against anything. The windows on the ground floor I did the same, nailing panels into their frames. More footsteps around the house now than before, but they can’t get in here, not after all my work. As a last step, I fashioned a removable block for my bedroom door, effectively barricading myself in, while leaving myself the ability to exit when need be. Why hadn’t I done this earlier, creating this sanctuary has left me feeling immensely better. Tonight, I shall sleep and dream of beautiful, peaceful things.

March 1. I didn’t sleep, of course. Why would I be so silly to think that I could have one good night’s rest amidst the full calendar of sleepless nights? I need to eat, but everything in my house is rotting. Rotting food, rotting flesh, and rotting mind. The maggots spill out of my refrigerator on to the floor where they disappear into the cracks of the wood. I can hear them too, grinding away under the floor, their conversations focus on me, devouring me, ending this once and for all. I applaud them, in their conviction, the dedication to their goal. They will win; they will get me, maybe tonight. I say I want them to succeed, but still this evening, I will maintain a constant vigil with the shovel, although I am not sure if it is the best of defense tools. Its head is rusting and it looks as if the worms may have gotten hold of the shaft. It still has plenty of weight but I fear the shaft will not hold should I, God forbid, be forced to use it. The wood is dry and it may be brittle, but still, I will defend myself as necessary from their disgusting writhing white bodies, their infectious thirst for my blood and meat.

March 4. Four days, and four nights. There is something, or someone, maybe more than one, in my house. I can sense them, moving about and opening my drawers, inspecting my bookshelves, slamming doors. What they look for, if they are indeed looking for something, I cannot comprehend. I find myself locked in my bedroom, awaiting their arrival, awaiting my fate. My stash of water ran out last night and most certainly, I will perish unless I replenish my supplies, but that means an expedition must be launched, an expedition out of my sanctuary into the depths of the house. This is not something I look forward to.

March 5. This morning, when everything was at a relative calm, I mounted my expedition into the heart of the house for supplies. I brought my shovel with me, just in case, but hoping I wouldn’t need it. Everything in the house seemed in order and I made it to the kitchen safely. The sunlight was very bright filtering through the clerestory windows in the kitchen and it burned my eyes. Struggling to see, I filled my jug with water from the faucet. It was so heavy when I lifted it out I nearly dropped it. The grinding in my jaw has stopped but now it is replaced with a near constant chatter and I feared that the sound would give my position away.
Lugging the heavy jug through the hall to the stairs, I was overcome with an intense sense of foreboding, of the darkness pressing down upon the house and pushing out the light, of evil seeping through the cracks of the walls and the pores of my body. I grew cold and dropped the jug of water, spilling it over the stairs. The light fled the room and I collapsed to the floor, clutching the shovel to my chest I began to cry. Peering through the darkness, shifting forms formed in front of my eyes and crept closer to me, drifting in and out of my focus. Shapes like outlines of people, tall monstrous entities with no face or discernible features. They appeared to be hooded and they stood over me, chattering amongst themselves in clicks and grunts, and high wails. I could make out at least six of them plotting what to do with me, how to kill me. I remember now, I had a moment when the fear released me from its cold grasp, and I was able to move again. Swinging with all my might, the shovel passed through their bodies, contacting nothing until the wall, and an un-godly, yet god-like cacophony, filled my head. They moved in for the kill and the darkness became absolute, I closed my eyes and wished it all to be over.
When I awoke, it was in my room. Face down on the cold wood, I slowly opened my eyes and saw the jug, full as it had been before I dropped it, the shovel lying serenely next to it and starring at me with its rusted face. I seem to be no worse for the ware, which leads to questions. Why am I alive, did they let me live? Did I facilitate my own escape and in my panic I blocked it all out? What is going on here?
The events of the day are deeply troubling to me.

March 10. Terrible, it is all so terrible. All I can hear, though I am aware that I don’t really hear, is the constant roar of the voices of the inhabitants of this house, their footsteps and what sounds like nails drawn across a chalkboard, and I feel my own sobbing. Am I even really sobbing, there are no tears, maybe because I am dehydrated. My jug sits here, now almost empty. I have been rationing myself so severely to make it last these five days that my mouth is dry and my skin is gray. I swear the jug taunts me, reminding me over and over that again I will have to venture out to get more, and to get bread, what little I have that isn’t covered in mold, if I am to survive much longer.
I must find a way to escape this prison that has formed in my house, or I will surely starve. My clothes don’t fit anymore and I can feel my bones grinding against atrophied muscles. My time is short; I fear soon I will no longer have the strength to even write.

March 15. I can feel them now, clear as day, right outside my door. They run their hands over the wood and they click amongst themselves, their slow shuffling and dragging of heavy feet grates on my already much-too-wary nerves. Occasionally, they make a push to get through the door and I can see it straining against its hinges and locks and the barricade frowns at me, sad about its pending failure. They have kept me up constantly, I see the door shaking more and more often, and now my water is gone. I have been unable to leave my room to acquire more, and now for four days I have been without a drop. I no longer have the strength to drag myself to the jug, to even lift it to get that last minuscule drop, much less to venture out to get more. Even this pen seems mighty heavy.

March 18. With the utmost certitude, this entry will be my last. My desecration is complete and the door to my room stands open. When it was opened I do not know, nor do I know what they are waiting for. The wood is cold against my face, but I cannot get up
I can sense their approach; the floor vibrates with their movements on the stairs. They are coming for me, the end of this madness is near. I welcome it. I walk towards it with open arms, a smile on my face in the sun, warm and comforting, it caresses me as I fade away.

The Apocalypse Insise of an Orange (V 3.0)

"I am nine years old today,” Molly said to Mr. Madrid and Ms. Paris.
"Well congratulations beautiful, you deserve a tremendous present," Mr. Madrid said; Ms. Paris smiled serenely and winked at Molly.
"Do you think I will get anything this time?" She frowned after saying it, wishing that she hadn’t. Molly didn’t like to ponder such somber thoughts.
"I think you will have the most marvelous birthday you ever had, sweetie. I can feel it in the air." Miss Paris said.
"I hope so, last year wasn't so lovely." Molly remembered her eighth birthday all too well. She remembered her parents yelling at each other, and then at her. She remembered when her dad brought the shovel inside, and she remembered when he had used it to club the dog to death and then bury it in the yard. Her father had told her it was her fault, and this was her punishment. She could distinctly remember the smell of blood.
"Come on, I can smell breakfast cooking, lets go downstairs." Molly grabbed Mr. Madrid and Miss Paris, stuffed them into the front pockets of her overalls, and skipped down the stairs. The house was already beginning to heat up from the bright summer sun, the light piercing at sharp angles though windows with their curtains open. The walls were covered in dirty white paint that was slowly beginning to peel off the walls, like a banana peel, drooping towards the floor in long strips. The house glowed a sickly orange shade. Molly reached the landing with a loud thud, the stairs behind still reeling from her jaunt down. Her father came through the front door, a basket of eggs in one hand and two headless chickens in the other. The twitch of the chickens disturbed Molly, but she wouldn’t let her father see it in her eyes.
"God damn girl, you’re going to make the whole damn house fall on us. Quit making so much noise." Molly's father was a tall, wiry man, his cheeks sunk into his face like pieces of cloth pulled tight across his bones. His eyes were hidden back in his forehead; it was hard to distinguish any color or white in them for his oversize brow shadowed them. He had a sort of Neanderthal look about him.
"Sorry daddy," Molly started, "I'm just happy today." Her words came out innocent, her voice was soft and quivered, as if her words were fragile and teetering on the edge of a shelf.
"Well I ain't, so get out of my way." The look in her father's eyes immediately settled her and she turned away from him, with her head hung low, whispering to Mr. Madrid and Miss Paris.

"I shouldn't have upset him, something bad might happen like last year."
"Its okay honey, it's good you didn't provoke him. You need to be careful though, don’t tread on his toes. He'll warm up, you'll see." Miss Paris always calmed Molly down.
"I hope so." Molly was sad again. The day was not starting off as well as she had hoped.
"You have every right to be happy today, missy. Miss Paris doesn't know what she is talking about. Don't let him stand in your way of fun. You do what you want," Mr. Madrid chimed in, invoking a sense of rebellion in Molly.
"I know exactly what I am talking about. Don't encourage her, Madrid. You know what happened last time she put a finger out." Miss Paris' scolding was harsh and put Molly back in her funk. Molly's mom walked into the anteroom carrying a plate of eggs and sausage.
"Who are you talking to, baby?" Molly's mother asked.
"Just Miss Paris and Mr. Madrid. I wish they would get along better." A look of worry rolled across her mother's face, her long blond locks glowed with sunlight streaming through the windows. She had a halo about her, a sense of angelic charm and charity. She used to be a beautiful woman, and used to be confident and full of what some might call a ‘zest for life.’ This what not the case anymore, and now she was sunken and hollow, her dreams having been put out to rot in the fields long ago.
"Do they have anything good to say today?" Molly's mother asked her.
"Not really, they're arguing again over the best advice to give me. They never agree on anything."
"Honey, I am not sure that taking advice from your dolls is such a good thing. Maybe you should come to me with your problems instead." Andrea's voice was tinged with pleading, encouragement. "Do you want some breakfast, I made it for you on your big day." Andrea leaned closer to her daughter and whispered into Molly's ear. "This afternoon, come meet me by the old tree, the one above your place, I have something special for you." She smiled at Molly and gave her a little kiss on the forehead and a mischievous grin and moved back into the kitchen. Molly's father was sitting at the table cleaning one of the chickens; blood and feathers were strewn all over the kitchen table.
"Jesus, clean this mess up, we are just about to eat breakfast. Do this outside, where you belong. It's Molly's birthday today."
"Woman, don't you dare open your mouth to me like that. I ought to bust your lip for that. And what do I care about Molly's birthday? Just means she getting bigger and needing more food and such. Mind your place, cook and clean, that's what you do, not open your damn mouth."
"How dare you talk to me like that, especially in front of Molly. You have no right to..."
"You need to shut up right this minute, bitch. I have no right to what? You have no right to anything. You're my wife, and you will do as you are told, now sit the hell down." Andrea didn't sit down, she glanced at Molly who was cowering behind her and seemed to get even bigger. A fast movement and Andrea dropped the plates of food. They shattered at Molly's feet, splashing egg on to her overalls. Molly's mother was bent over the table, thick red liquid dripping from her broken nose, mingling with her tears and then dropping to the table.

Molly bolted out of the kitchen and into the fields behind the house, with her father's voice following her out. "You get back up and I will hit you again." She left without her shoes and ran as hard as she could through the hard, prickly straw, heading for a small cave on the other side of the hill in front of her. She was scared but she forced herself not to cry, reminding herself that crying was a sign of weakness. When she was younger, her father had always hit her when she cried, yelling at her that she was not allowed to cry, to show weakness. She was strong and in control of her emotions and sprinted over the hill without issue. She found her cave and sat down to catch her breath. This was Molly's safe place, her panic room. It was small, the ceiling barely high enough for a small nine year old girl to stand upright in. The walls were smooth and black and hard, and Molly had drawn all over them with pastels her mother had given her a couple years ago on Christmas. Most of the pictures were simple, peaceful scenes of a life she longed for. She drew in the greens and blues and pinks that were so rare to be seen in her existence. There were mushrooms growing out of the damp ground, nearly covering every square inch of it. She couldn't hear anything inside the cave other than a soft wind whistling at the opening, and the soothing white noise of hay swaying, like a fan on random intervals. She couldn't hear the shouting and she liked it that way.

"Well guys, should we go, or should we stay here?” Molly asked Mr. Madrid and Miss Paris. “Oh sorry Miss Paris, I didn’t see that." Miss Paris still had egg on her face, and Molly wiped it off gingerly.
"Remember what happened last time we went there. You got us lost and your mother was furious, told you never to go back there if I remember correctly." Miss Paris was right, the last time had been dreadful, but she longed to return. She was needed there, in her kingdom.
"I think we should go. You need to have some fun today, Molly. It's your birthday, do whatever you think will be fun." Mr. Madrid said.
"I am supposed to meet mommy in a little bit, what if we don't come back in time? What if I miss her and she is angry and doesn't give me my surprise?" There were tears in Molly's eyes now. "What if she doesn't love me anymore, and she hurts me like dad? I don't want any more hurts. What if we could take mommy with us, for good, and get away from dad? Is that possible? We could give her the keys too, and then we could all go away together and never come back. I never want to be without her." Molly was sobbing and Mr. Madrid and Miss Paris were looked on helpless as Molly’s stress boiled over the top and sputtered on the burner.

The wind shifted and the sounds changed, the whistle at the opening of the cave gave way to the sound of thunder in the distance and the air smelled of fresh summer rain. There was a short, scraggly tree near the entrance of the cave, and Molly noticed a curious bluebird sitting in its branches, hunkering down against the wind. Molly was sure the bluebird was staring at her. Its blue plumage, so perfect in its shade, was magically juxtaposed against a world that had racist tendencies against bright primary colors. She stared back and slowly stopped crying, her body heaved in deep but slow sobs. Occasionally the bluebird would cock its head from side to side, but it's eyes never left Molly's. She was transfixed. And then the sound reached her mind, a sound of heavenly music; of choirs full of beautiful angels, like flocks of bluebirds singing in perfect harmony. The sound coalesced slowly into words, still in the tones of the heavens. At first Molly couldn't understand what she was hearing, and her eyes were still upon the bluebird, and its eyes were still upon her. She began to understand. It was her mother's voice, and it was telling her that she loved her very much. It was saying that everything was going to be okay, if she just heads for the tracks. There was mention of an orange tree, something about it bringing light to her life. Something else then followed about heading west, but Molly was confused and having a harder time following the words. Again it said that she loved her, and to remember to go to the train tracks. Thuds from above forced Molly to finally look away from the bluebird, and the second she did, it flew off the branch and disappeared into the distance.

The orange tree, still in its burlap sack of dirt, tumbled through the entrance, knocking down Miss Paris, a couple errant oranges rolled across the floor to Molly. Molly's father stood at the door, an axe and something about the size of soccer ball in a bag in his hands.
"Your mother wanted to give you that for your birthday." His eyes were like black holes in the sky, totally devoid of life. Whatever was in the bag was leaking. "She spent the last of our savings on it. She figured you could plant it together. The wretched witch never told me about it. I found it by that old tree over there. I only just found out about it. But she got her comings, oh yes she did." He dropped the bag on the floor and Andrea's lifeless head rolled, landing face down and teetering back and forth on her broken nose. The eyes were still open. Molly stared in shock, her mind filled with white noise, as her father moved towards the orange tree on the ground. Lying under the tree was Miss Paris, and Molly's father reached down and picked the doll up off the ground.
“Now, what’s this? Miss Paris? You wouldn’t want nothing bad to happen to Miss Paris, would you, sweetheart?”
“Please don’t hurt Miss Paris, she didn’t do anything to you.” Molly screamed, she was terrified and hysterical; she had no idea what was happening to her.
“Nah, I guess she didn’t. But your momma did. And your momma gave us you, and without you, there never would have been a Miss Paris. You by all logical reasoning, Miss Paris stands as guilty as the rest of you. She got hers now, but you are going to learn a lesson here.” He set Miss Paris down on the ground in front of him and raised the axe above his head.
“Any last words to your precious Miss Paris?” Miss Paris looked at Molly, she wore a sad smile and her eyes were kind and caring.
“Molly, it will be alright, my darling. Remember what she said. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.” Molly started to sob again as Miss Paris looked at her, her smile never changing. The axe came down through Miss Paris’ head, splintering the plastic doll to pieces; shards of rock stung Molly’s face. She collapsed to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably as her father stood at the mouth of cave, laughing and wheezing. Her father looked around, and stumbled a bit, “Now where’s that other doll of yours, Mr. Whatever, he’s up now.” She still had Mr. Madrid in her pocket and she could feel him struggling to reach the surface, but she wouldn’t let him out, he was all she had left.

“Miss Molly,” Mr. Madrid was whispering. “Miss Molly, now’s our chance, he is distracted looking for me, he’s drunk. We can get away.”
“What if he catches us, he will kill us both?” Molly’s voice was barely distinguishable from her sobs.
“Make sure he can’t. We have to try, he will kill us anyway.” Mr. Madrid was right, and Molly knew it. She took a deep breath and her sobs relaxed a little. She knew what to do.

Slowly she stood up; her mind was clearing out the white noise that had buffered her from the situation. She sprinted directly at her father as he took another drunken stumble around the cave, knocking his head hard against the ceiling. His face clenched and he collapsed to the floor, the axe clanging against the hard rock floor. He screamed a string of obscenities at Molly and the cave and struggled to regain composure. Molly picked up the axe while her father writhed; it was heavy but she could lift it, and manage it a bit, and she buried into his forehead. His writhing and cursing stopped.
In fact, there was no noise at all to Molly as she wiped a spattering of blood across her overalls; she couldn’t hear the wind, and she couldn’t see the walls of the cave. White noise descended upon her, enveloping her like a giant cotton ball, protecting her for a moment from reality. She drifted away from the cave and the horror, finding herself riding the wind like dandelion achenes over endless fields of green grass. It was beautiful and for a moment she felt good again, and whole.

Molly stood in the cave for what seemed like an hour without moving or blinking, lost to the wind and the cotton, nobody manning the cockpit. Mr. Madrid remained silent the whole time. Finally, Molly began to move again as her surroundings became reality again. She picked up the orange tree and brushed some dust from the leaves. The tree was only a couple feet tall and it was skinny and light, and she could carry it with ease. She had one thing on her mind, to follow her mother’s instructions and head for the railroad tracks. The tracks were about half a mile away, and she took her time getting there. Occasionally her or Mr. Madrid would make some small quip, but conversation never developed. She walked the tracks for a couple of hours, crying here and there, and then gaining small amounts of control over her emotions. As the sun was setting, she heard the sounds of a train approaching behind her. She hid behind a bush and asked Mr. Madrid if they should try to get on it. They conversed for a short while before deciding that they might as well try. As the train passed, Molly ran with Mr. Madrid in her pocket and the orange tree in one hand. The train was slow and she had no problem hoisting herself into the boxcar. The inside of the boxcar was lined with soft hay, unlike the kinds that grew in her father’s fields. The thought of her father pained her momentarily. On top of the hay were hundreds of boxes of fruit and vegetables, and on the side the address for delivery was listed. San Diego, California. She sat down and ate an orange off the tree, the last remaining. So sweet and perfect was the orange, but she was numb to it for most of her eating. Slowly, she began to taste it and she became aware that she was sore, the first she had felt physically in a couple hours. She cried as she ate, thinking of her mother the whole time. She really loved me, she thought, as she began to fall asleep. She pushed some hay into a pile and laid her head down upon it and fell asleep almost immediately.

The bluebird flew low over the boxcar, occasionally coming into land on the roof to rest it’s tired wings. The train picked up speed as traveled through the plains of Nebraska and eastern Colorado. The bluebird, sensing it would soon be outmatched for speed, flew in through the open door and came to rest on top of a stack of boxes. Its eyes were kind and as it nestled down to rest, it stared at Molly. The bluebird watched as Molly slept, never taking its eyes off of her.

Cheery Tangerine (Revised)

January 2. I started feeling ill today. How strange, for I have been so healthy for so long. It started as a nervousness and an annoyance with the most benign things. Then a restless nature set in upon me, like I had forgotten something, or I was late for an appointment. I was none of these, but yet, I still found myself pacing around the house, rearranging knick-knacks as if I could garner some sort of answer out of them. By noon, exhaustion had set in and I tried to sleep. It was difficult, and when I awoke from my hazy semi-sleep state, I found my jaw hurt. I must have been grinding my teeth during my nap. I shall make an appointment, if this persists, to see my doctor.

January 5. My doctor doesn’t know anything. For three days now I have hardly slept, and he could find nothing wrong, or at least nothing “alarming.” He found me to be generally “on edge” as he put it, found my heart rate to be above normal and my nerves to be singing, but he says there is nothing to be worried about. He gave me a cocktail of some sort and suggested hot showers and exercise as a remedy. I took his cocktail along with a shower after returning, and I must admit, I feel no different. Still, I do not despair that his advice will come to help.

January 12. A full week, and still no change. Sleep has continued to elude me, like a slippery shadow created by the moonlight on a cloudy evening. No heat of the shower, nor the foul taste of the doctor’s cocktail has seen fit to relieve me of my surreal sleepless nights. I have taken to wandering to the ocean, to watch the waves as they roll in, so beautifully adorned in their diamonds of light and scarves of froth. So relaxing they are to watch, but yet there I stand, my nervous twitches grinding my teeth to dust. Anyone else would find what ails them slipping away like waves, draining out of their bodies as they do of sand, but not I. Curse this sickness I have, why can’t I just be rid of it already?


January 19. I finally got a good night’s sleep, just four days ago. What a marvel it was, too! I awoke feeling refreshed and renewed. I was a flower who had received a long sought after drink; my leaves perked back and shook loose their wilt. But it was not to last, my suffering had merely been borrowed for the night by some other hapless, sorrowful creature. Within too few hours of awakening, I was feeling the too-familiar strain on my nervous system. I found myself sad, for no apparent reason, and my jaw was beginning to ache. What was it that was contributing to my bane? It was a beautiful day, and the wind was warm as it swept from the ocean over the rocks and into my bedroom window. By all accounts it was a day to be joyous, not dower. It seemed the smallest, most inconsequential details of the world irked me in some way. Were the clouds slightly too oblong for my liking? Maybe the ocean had been the wrong shade of blue? Whatever was wrong with the day seemed to be amplified by my very nature, and an intense dread set upon me, as if I was the sole purveyor of knowledge of a terrible misfortune about to occur.
That night, as I slowly, finally, began to fade into sweet slumber, something prodded at the edge of my consciousness. It was unpleasant in the utmost ways, like hot needles being run, point down, against the outside corner of the eye. I tried to wake, but could not, and found myself terrified by my state. The burning, I have no other way to describe it, grew worse, until I felt as if my eyes were boiling in their membranes. I tried to scream harder and harder until finally I broke the surface of consciousness, erupting into my bedroom, gasping for air as if I had just barely escaped drowning.
I didn’t sleep again until yesterday.

January 30. Three nights in a row now, I awoke to the same intense feeling of burning and drowning I have been experiencing on and off for nearly two weeks. Now the burning is accompanied by strange visuals, most psychedelic in nature, and a cacophony of noise. Sometimes, I hear what sounds like voices, men and women alike, screaming in agony and terror. Maybe all I am hearing is my own screams, as I struggle to awake and relieve myself of the torture.
Yesterday, while I was cutting bread for my lunch, my jaw grinding away, and my hands shaking, I accidentally cut my finger rather deep. It didn’t hurt, but the feeling of the serrated knife cutting my flesh and sinew made me cringe, and made my mouth salivate. I watched the blood pool on the counter and seep up into the bread. I traced its route as it dispersed through the porous starch. I was fascinated by its color and found that my jaw had quit grinding and my hands were steady enough for a watchmaker. Placing the finger in my mouth, the blood swam across my tongue, warm and viscous as it was. It was fairly delicious, and this thought made the shake return once again and left me with my nervous twitch.

February 8. How long can one go without sleep, I wonder. I guess I have been sleeping, but an hour here and an hour there, that doesn’t seem to be enough. I feel as if I have now met each and every grain of sand on the beach. I have seen individual waves more than once. To die would not be such a bad thing.
I went back to the doctor today. He said there was nothing wrong again, but was worried by my loss of twenty pounds, by the marathon my heart runs, and the ocean my sweat glands exude. He told me to eat more, to exercise, and he refilled my cocktail, this time a tad stronger. He says it will help. I don’t think it so.

February 14. The walls of my room were the wrong color when I awoke yesterday. Their cheery tangerine had been replaced by dreadful red. Red like the color of blood in bread. Did I paint the walls? Why would I have, I hate the color. I couldn’t remember painting the walls and couldn’t find paint anywhere in the house. Did somebody break in while I slept another sleepless night? Impossible, I would have heard something, seen something. Curious to see if the paint was wet, I approached the wall. It was cold and dry, but when I pulled my hand away, it was still there, a shadow or silhouette on the wall exactly where my hand had been. I went to the kitchen and got a knife. The paint peeled off the wall easily, strips as long as my arm and a foot wide fell to the floor around me. Under it, I expected to see the cheery tangerine, but no, I was mistaken. Underneath was more bread-blood red, and underneath that was just more of the same. I was overtaken by panic and began frenetically tearing all the paint off, but it was still there. I tore until I could not anymore and collapsed at the base of a wall and slept.
When I awoke, all I could see was cheery tangerine.

February 19. No more changing of the paint, but the voices, I hear them again, loud and clear, much more so than before. They aroused me out of bed and have been following me around all day ever since. Shortly before lunchtime, I made my way down to the kitchen to fix myself something. This sickness that has overcome my mind and soul, has made my body unwilling to make too many treks out of my room, and appropriately, in a most sinister way, the journey left me weak and worn. I decided I would bring myself something back so I would have to venture out less.
When I was in the kitchen, the voices that I had almost began to drown out, changed and came back to my attention. They died down into mere whispers; pained and anguished they filled my head with terrible thoughts and images. I could not understand the words, but I could feel their meaning, their maliciousness, and they bit into my conscious self, tearing small parts away and leaving pieces of me to languish on the floor. It was too much. Scarred, and almost blind with imagery, I ran for the stairs, falling up them three at a time. I made it back here, to my room, to my pen. I didn’t eat, and the events of the day have left me tired. I shall nap now, hopefully when I awake, I will be able to try again. My stomach grumbles dejectedly at me as I dot this sentence.

February 23. During lunch today, I could barely eat for the voices were so loud. They taunt me, like a bully on the playground, unrelenting and unforgiving. After lunch, I took drastic steps to rid myself of their chatter, but it did not work. Was the pen not long enough, or sharp enough? Should I have pressed harder? I don’t think so, as I can no longer hear the sounds of my own footsteps falling on the wood, but much more disturbing, I cannot hear the sound of my own voice anymore. I can feel it, resonating inside of my head like bees, but the actual sound is lost to me.
This pen, the one I am writing with, seems heavy and bulbous in my hands, and it presses against my fingers like it wants to escape, as if it is tired of its job. It is far too wide to have served as my instrument of failed relief. Writing now seems to be the one tangible left in my existence, the only thing that seems real. But as I sit here scribbling, the din in my head threatens to overcome my ability to think and write. Something is bound to break.

February 28. The voices have left my head finally, but now I hear them from everywhere. They seem to be seeping out of my walls and floors, out of the cabinets in the kitchen and out of my dresser in my room. They speak volumes of what, I do not know.
I have been hearing footsteps now, all around the house, on the veranda and the upper balconies. This morning I went to the shed behind the house. The sunlight in the backyard was blinding, but the wind was quite nip and harsh. Once in the shed, I filled the wheelbarrow with wood planks and panels, and grabbed a box of nails. On the way out, on a whim, I grabbed the shovel.
The footsteps were louder when I returned, but I still have yet to see anyone or anything. I nailed the wood planks into the front and backdoors, taking redundancy into account. The makeshift locks are strong and they should hold against anything. The windows on the ground floor I did the same, nailing panels into their frames. More footsteps around the house now than before, but they can’t get in here, not now. As a last step, I fashioned a removable block for my bedroom door, effectively barricading myself in, while leaving myself the ability to exit when need be. Why hadn’t I done this earlier, creating this sanctuary has left me feeling immensely better, but I am sure it cannot last.

March 1. I need to eat, but everything in my house is rotting. Rotting food, rotting flesh, and rotting mind. The maggots spill out of my refrigerator on to the floor where they disappear into the cracks of the wood. I can hear them too, grinding away under the floor, their conversations focus on me, devouring me, ending this once and for all. I applaud them, in their conviction, the dedication to their goal. They will win; they will get me, maybe tonight. I say I want them to succeed, but still this evening, I will maintain a constant vigil with the shovel, although I am not sure if it is the best of defense tools. Its head is rusting and it looks as if the worms may have gotten hold of the shaft. It still has plenty of weight but I fear the shaft will not hold should I, God forbid, be forced to use it. The wood is dry and it may be brittle, but still, I will defend myself as necessary from their disgusting writhing white bodies, their infectious thirst for my blood and meat.

March 4. Four days, and four nights. The voices are louder now and I hear things in the house, but I don’t actually hear them. I can sense them, moving about and opening my drawers, inspecting my bookshelves. What they look for is something I cannot comprehend. The anguished screams have given way to maniacal laughter, and I find myself locked in my bedroom, awaiting their arrival, awaiting my fate. My stash of water ran out last night and most certainly, I will perish unless I replenish my supplies, but that means an expedition must be launched, an expedition out of my sanctuary into the depths of the house. This is not something I look forward to.

March 5. This morning, when everything was at a relative calm, I mounted my expedition into the heart of the house for supplies. I brought my shovel with me, just in case, but hoping I wouldn’t need it. Everything in the house seemed in order and I made it to the kitchen safely. The sunlight was very bright filtering through the clerestory windows in the kitchen and it burned my eyes. Struggling to see, I filled my jug with water from the faucet. It was so heavy when I lifted it out I nearly dropped it. The grinding in my jaw has stopped but now it is replaced with a near constant chatter and I feared that the sound would give my position away.
As I made my way back upstairs to my sanctuary I was again filled with an immense sense of dread. The voices intensified and came from just down the stairs behind. I panicked and spun on the stairs and slipped. I fell nearly to the bottom and hit my head hard on the last step. That’s when I saw her. Standing in the kitchen holding a knife, she was starring at me; I knew it even though she appeared to have no eyes, I could feel her gaze burning through me from under her hood, under her black strands of wet hair. She ran towards me and I yelled and leapt up as fast as I could. Having dropped the shovel during my fall I had no way to defend myself against her slashes. She caught me on the arm, the knife slicing my flesh so easily. I fell again and kicked blindly, and my foot landed amidst her midsection. Expecting to feel the crunch of ribs, or at least resistance, I was surprised for my foot seemed to impact nothing more solid than a bag of rotting peaches. It sank into her and I felt something impeding me from regaining my foot, like it was stuck in thick mud. I pulled hard and my foot dislodged from her and I stood and ran up the stairs as fast as I could and slammed the door to my bedroom. With my last strength, I slammed the barricade into place and I think I passed out shortly after, assuredly a result of such strenuous action in my time of weakness. Adrenalin is a cruel woman, giving you everything you need and then leaving you out to dry.
Just now, as I sit here and recall the day, blood dribbles down my arm and blots the page. As I reach for a towel to wrap my arm I can see the knife sitting a mere ten feet away, my blood still on it. How did it get in here, into my sanctuary, is she still in here with me? I cannot remember taking it after our encounter, did she follow me in? I am deeply troubled by today’s events.

March 10. Terrible, it is all so terrible. All I can hear is the constant roar of the voices of the inhabitants of this house, and my own sobbing. Am I even really sobbing, there are no tears. Somehow, over the past few days I was able to re-attain a supply of water. I don’t remember making the trek, and I doubt I would have tried, but I must have for here sits my jug, now two-thirds empty. I swear it taunts me, reminding me over and over that again I will have to venture out to get more, and to get bread, what little I have that isn’t covered in mold, if I am to survive much longer.
I must find a way to escape, a way to trick my captors, or I will surely starve. My clothes don’t fit anymore and I can feel my bones grinding against atrophied muscles. My time is short; I fear soon I will no longer have the strength to even write.

March 15. I can hear them now, clear as day, right outside my door. They run their hands over the wood and they talk amongst themselves, occasionally, they make a push to get through the door and I can see it straining against its hinges and locks and the barricade creaks with the force, whining to me as if I did not already know it was in peril. They have kept me up constantly, and my water is gone. I have been unable to leave my room to acquire more, and now for four days I have been without a drop. I see the knife on the floor, where it has lain since my encounter with the woman. I think it moves closer and closer to me everyday, and I am powerless to avoid it. I no longer have the strength to drag myself away from it. Even this pen seems mighty heavy.

March 18. With the utmost certitude, this entry will be my last. My desecration is complete and the door to my room stands open. When it was opened I do not know, nor do I know what they are waiting for. The knife lies in my open hand as I write this, but I have not the strength to lift it even a mere inch off the floor. The wood is cold against my face.
Now I can hear them coming for me, their laughter echoes up the stairs, it gives me assurance that the end is in fact near. I welcome it. I walk towards it with open arms, a smile on my face in the sun, warm and comforting, it caresses me as I fade away.

The March of The Maggots (Cheery Tangerine)

January 2, 2009. I am sick, no doubt about it—and I was feeling so healthy last month! I have a fever, a terrible fever, or rather a feverish nervous exhaustion, which makes my soul as sick as my body. I keep having this terrifying feeling of some danger threatening, this apprehension of a misfortune on the way, or of death approaching, this premonition that must be the onset of a sickness, germinating in the blood and the flesh.

January 5, 2009. I’ve just gone to consult my doctor, since I could no longer sleep. He found my pulse was rapid, my nerves vibrating, but without any alarming symptom. I must submit to taking showers and drinking potassium bromide.

January 12, 2009. A full week, and still no change. Sleep has continued to elude me, like a slippery shadow created by the moonlight on a cloudy evening. No heat of the shower, nor the foul taste of the doctor’s cocktail has seen fit to relieve me of my surreal sleepless nights. I have taken to wandering to the ocean, to watch the waves as they roll in, so beautifully adorned in their diamonds of light and scarves of froth. So relaxing they are to watch, but yet there I stand, my nervous twitches grinding my teeth to dust. Anyone else would find what ails them slipping away like waves, draining out of their bodies as they do of sand, but not I. Curse this sickness I have, why can’t I just be rid of it already?


January 19, 2009. I finally got a good night’s sleep, just four days ago. What a marvel it was, too! I awoke feeling refreshed and renewed. I was a flower who had received a long sought after drink; my leaves perked back and shook loose their wilt. But it was not to last, my suffering had merely been borrowed for the night by some other hapless, sorrowful creature. Within too few hours of awakening, I was feeling the too-familiar strain on my nervous system. I found myself sad, for no apparent reason, and my jaw was beginning to ache. What was it that was contributing to my bane? It was a beautiful day, and the wind was warm as it swept from the ocean over the rocks and into my bedroom window. By all accounts it was a day to be joyous, not dower. It seemed the smallest, most inconsequential details of the world irked me in some way. Were the clouds slightly too oblong for my liking? Maybe the ocean had been the wrong shade of blue? Whatever was wrong with the day seemed to be amplified by my very nature, and an intense dread set upon me, as if I was the sole purveyor of knowledge of a terrible misfortune about to occur.
That night, as I slowly, finally, began to fade into sweet slumber, something prodded at the edge of my consciousness. It was unpleasant in the utmost ways, like hot needles being run, point down, against the outside corner of the eye. I tried to wake, but could not, and found myself terrified by my state. The burning, I have no other way to describe it, grew worse, until I felt as if my eyes were boiling in their membranes. I tried to scream harder and harder until finally I broke the surface of consciousness, erupting into my bedroom, gasping for air as if I had just barely escaped drowning.
I didn’t sleep again until yesterday.

January 30, 2009. Three nights in a row now, I have been awaken by the same intense feeling of burning and drowning I have been experiencing on and off for nearly two weeks. Now the burning is accompanied by strange visuals, most psychedelic in nature, and a cacophony of noise. Sometimes, I hear what sounds like voices, men and women alike, screaming in agony and terror. Maybe all I am hearing is my own screams, as I struggle to awake and relieve myself of the torture.
Yesterday, while I was cutting bread for my lunch, my jaw grinding away, and my hands shaking, I accidentally cut my finger rather deep. It didn’t hurt, but the feeling of the serrated knife cutting my flesh and sinew made me cringe, and made my mouth salivate. I watched the blood pool on the counter and seep up into the bread. I traced its route as it disseminated through the porous starch. I was fascinated by its color and found that my jaw had quit grinding and my hands were steady enough for a watchmaker. Placing my finger in my mouth, the blood swam across my tongue, warm and viscous as it was. It was fairly delicious, and this thought made the shake return once again and left me with my nervous twitch.

February 8, 2009. How long can one go without sleep, I wonder. I guess I have been sleeping, but an hour here and an hour there, that doesn’t seem to be enough. I feel as if I have now met each and every grain of sand on the beach. I have seen individual waves more than once. To die would not be such a bad thing; at least I would sleep again.
I went back to the doctor today. He said there was nothing wrong again, but was worried by my loss of twenty pounds, by the marathon my heart runs, and the ocean my sweat glands exude. He told me to eat more, to exercise, keep taking the potassium bromide. He says it helps. I don’t think it does.

February 14, 2009. The walls of my room were the wrong color when I awoke yesterday. Their cheery tangerine had been replaced by dreadful red. Red like the color of blood in bread. Did I paint the walls? Why would I have, I hate the color. I couldn’t remember painting the walls and couldn’t find paint anywhere in the house. Did somebody break in while I slept another sleepless night? Impossible, I would have heard something, seen something. Curious to see if the paint was wet, I approached the wall. It was cold and dry, but when I pulled my hand away, it was still there, a shadow or silhouette still on the wall exactly where my hand had been. I went to the kitchen and got a knife. The paint peeled off the wall easily, strips as long as my arm and a foot wide fell to the floor around me. Under it, I expected to see the cheery tangerine, but no, I was mistaken. Underneath was more bread-blood red, and underneath that was just more of the same. I was overtaken by panic and began frenetically tearing all the paint off, but it was still there. I tore until I could not anymore and collapsed at the base of a wall and slept.
When I awoke, all I could see was cheery tangerine.

February 19, 2009. No more changing of the paint, but the voices, I hear them again, loud and clear, much more so than before. They aroused me out of bed and have been following me around all day ever since. Sometimes the voices die down to mere whispers, pained and anguished they fill my head with terrible thoughts and images. Still, even in their clarity, I do not understand what they are saying, but I feel it, I can feel what they are saying. It is terrible, and it makes my head hurt and my vision fail.

February 23, 2009. Still they taunt me, like a bully on the playground, unrelenting and unforgiving. I took steps today to rid myself of their chatter, but it did not work. Was the pen not long enough, or sharp enough? Should I have pressed harder? I don’t think so, as I can no longer hear the sounds of my own footsteps falling on the wood, but much more disturbing, I cannot hear the sound of my own voice anymore. I can feel it, resonating inside of my head like bees, but the actual sound is lost to me.
This pen, the one I am writing with, seems heavy and bulbous in my hands, and it presses against my fingers like it wants to escape, as if it is tired of its job. It is far too wide to have served as my instrument of failed relief. Writing now seems to be the one tangible left in my existence, the only thing that seems real. But as I sit here scribbling, the din in my head threatens to overcome my ability to think and write. Something is bound to break.

February 28, 2009. The voices have left my head finally, but now I hear them emanating from everywhere. They seem to be seeping out of my walls and floors, out of the cabinets in the kitchen and out of my dresser in my room. They speak volumes of what I do not know.
I need to eat, but everything in my house is rotting. Rotting food, rotting flesh, and rotting mind. The maggots spill out of my refrigerator on to the floor where they disappear into the cracks of the wood. I can hear them too, grinding away under the floor, their conversations focus on me, devouring me, ending this once and for all. I applaud them, in their conviction, the dedication to their goal. They will win, they will get me, maybe tonight. I say I want them to succeed, but still this evening, I will maintain a constant vigil with the shovel, and I will defend myself as necessary from their disgusting writhing white bodies, their infectious thirst for my blood and meat.

March 4, 2009. Four days, and four nights. The voices are louder now and I hear things in the house, but I don’t actually hear them. I can sense them, moving about and opening my drawers, inspecting my bookshelves. What they look for is something I cannot comprehend. The anguished screams have given away to maniacal laughter, and I find myself locked in my bedroom, awaiting their arrival, awaiting my fate. My stash of water ran out last night and most certainly I will perish unless I replenish my supplies, but that means an expedition must be launched, an expedition out of my sanctuary into the depths of the house. This is not something I look forward to.

March 5, 2009. This morning, when everything was at a relative calm, I mounted an expedition into the heart of the house for supplies. I brought my shovel with me, just in case, but hoping I wouldn’t need it. Everything in the house seemed in order and I made it to the kitchen safely. The sunlight was very bright filtering through the clerestory windows in the kitchen and it burned my eyes. Struggling to see I filled my jug with water from the faucet. It was so heavy when I lifted it out I nearly dropped it. The grinding in my jaw has stopped but now it is replaced with a near constant chatter and I feared that the sound would give my position away.
As I made my way back upstairs to my sanctuary I was again filled with an immense sense of dread. The voices intensified and came from just down the stairs behind. I panicked and spun on the stairs and slipped. I fell nearly to the bottom and hit my head hard on the last step. That’s when I saw her. Standing in the kitchen holding a knife, she was starring at me; I knew it even though she appeared to have no eyes. She ran towards me and I screamed and leapt up as fast as I could. Having dropped the shovel during my fall I had no way to defend to myself against her slashes. She caught me on the arm, the knife slicing my flesh so easily. I fell again and kicked blindly, and my foot landed amidst her midsection. Again, I stood and ran up the stairs as fast as I could and slammed the door to my bedroom. I think I passed out shortly after assuredly a result of such strenuous action in my time of weakness.
Just now, as I sit here and recall the day, blood dribbles down my arm and blots the page. As I reach for a towel to wrap my arm I can see the knife sitting a mere ten feet away, my blood still on it. How did it get in here, into my sanctuary? I am deeply troubled by today’s events.

March 10, 2009. Terrible, it is all so terrible. All I can hear is the constant roar of the voices of the inhabitants of this house, and my own sobbing. Am I even really sobbing, there are no tears. Somehow, over the past few days I was able to re-attain a supply of water. I don’t remember making the trek, and I doubt I would have tried, but I must have for hear sits my jug, now two-thirds empty. I swear it taunts me, reminding me over and over that again I will have to venture out to get more, and to get bread, what little I have that isn’t covered in mold, if I am to survive much longer.
I must find a way to escape, a way to trick my captors, or I will surely starve. My clothes don’t fit anymore and I can feel my bones grinding against atrophied muscles. My time is short, I fear soon I will no longer have the strength to even write.

March 15, 2009. I can hear them now, clear as day, right outside my door. They run their hands over the wood and they talk amongst themselves, occasionally, they make a push to get through the door and I can see it straining against its hinges and locks. They have kept me up constantly, and my water is gone. I have been unable to leave my room to acquire more, and now for four days I have been without a drop. I see the knife in the floor, where it has lain since my encounter with the woman. I think it moves closer and closer to me everyday, and I am powerless to avoid it. I no longer have the strength to drag myself away from it. Even this pen seems mighty heavy.

March 17, 2009. With the utmost certitude, this entry will be my last. My desecration is complete and the door to my room stands open. When it was opened I do not know, nor do I know what they are waiting for. The knife lies in my open hand as I write this, but I have not the strength to lift it even a mere inch off the floor.
Now I can hear them coming for me their laughter echoes up the stairs to me, it gives me assurance that the end is in fact near. I welcome it.
I have no longer any tears to shed, for am I nothing more than skin and bone.

The Precipice

The lights reflected in the wet pavement, leaving me with a feeling that I was walking on glass. They were beautiful, magical hues like candy of every color and shape, creating my playground of light. I walked down the narrow streets with the neon glaring all around me, looking in the windows of stores as I passed. Anything you could ever want could be bought here, from the ordinary to the exotic, the mundane to the extraordinary. I love this city, with its old world charm and its new age techno-glaze, where history collides with the iceberg of technology and slides beneath the surface. This is my city, my reality, and I know every nook and cranny and secret it contains. I should, of course, because I created it.
I continued down the street, observing the people and wondering about their lives. Where did they all come from, how did they get here, to my city? I didn’t create all of them; there wasn’t nearly enough time for that. The people were all ordinary, drab faces and drab dress. So unlike me now, but similar to how I used to be. They all walked on, perhaps a destination in mind, or not. I couldn’t tell and honestly I didn’t care. I had a destination, and it was the liquor store. Bourbon, not whiskey, but bourbon, is good for the soul, I say. It’s treated me well over the years anyways.
I found the liquor store, my usual haunt, tucked deep within a recess off the street. I hadn’t uncovered the store at this location before, and was surprised when it led me there. I got my usual 12 year bourbon and paid the man behind the counter. Like usual, the clerk said nothing and hardly moved except to place the bottle in a bag. I exited and walked a little ways down the alley before turning around to look at the store once more. Just like always, when I looked back, the store had vanished, surely to move on to a new location close to wherever I would be when I got the itch for a drink again. How did it always know, it was remarkable.
The night was as deep as ever and the rain stung my face, forcing my head down into my collar, as I made my way towards the corner to hail a taxi. There were none in sight, typical, so I reached into my pocket for tobacco to roll a cigarette. As I smoked, I looked around and took in the sights of the city. Again, I found myself drifting into the playground of light and I could have sworn my feet left the ground. It was beautiful and calming and made me feel at home, right there on the corner. The colors of the lights contrasted maliciously with the drab grays and dark blues that almost everyone seemed to be wearing. The people were expressionless and boring to look at, but against the light play all around them, they stuck out like a red rose in a field of white. Of course, my own wardrobe was not so boring, my body swimming in a cream tuxedo of the finest quality. As if I would ever be seen in such a state as to get lost in the crowd. I am too important here for that. This is my world after all.
Finally I sighted a taxi and hailed the driver. Another emotionless life form, just as forgettable as all the others. My world was populated with the clean canvas of humanity, except there was no one to paint the picture. I got in the back, leaned against the seat and pushed my foot against the no smoking sign. Cracking the window just enough to ash out of, I gave the driver my destination and he crept out into traffic. He drove well and quickly, threading his way through the rush hour traffic, the sea seeming to part for me.
Without warning, the driver pulled over to the side still fifteen blocks from my destination. I looked out the windows searching for a reason but all I could see was a cloaked figure leaning towards the driver’s window. I couldn’t hear what was being said but the driver had animated slightly and was engaged unflinchingly. The back door opened opposite where I sat and the woman stepped in.
“Wow, it’s really coming down tonight, and cold.” She said as she turned and looked at me. “You don’t mind sharing this cab with me, do you? We’re going the same direction. I just couldn’t manage in this weather, it was too cold.” Her eyes, the first I noticed, were a vibrant blue, and they glowed not unlike the neon smearing across the rain stricken windows. They were alive, an entity on their own, not entirely hers.
“You couldn’t have taken one of the other thousand cabs in this city? I like my privacy sometimes, you know?” I said. “Why should I be inconvenienced because you were cold?”
“Well holy shit. You really are a bundle of joy. You scared of a beautiful woman?” She really was, beautiful, that is, and to the highest degree. She exuded elegance and she was different. She was alive, really alive, in a city full of facsimiles of life. Maybe it was her glowing blond hair, or the tight flaming red dress she wore, under which her snow-white skin attempted to shine through.
“I am not scared, just annoyed.” I said. This woman was pushing on my boundaries, interfering with my life. I leaned into my corner and gazed out the window, trying to push her out of my mind, she was still looking at me, I could feel it. Blocks went by and I tried to press further into my corner away from her. Why was I so tense with her starring at me, she had no power. But she did somehow, she was affecting me, the world wasn’t so crystal clear and mine anymore. She had invaded. Finally, I broke.
“What do you want? You haven’t stopped starring at me since you got in. Who are you?”
“What do you care? All you have done since I got in here was be an asshole and try to pretend I wasn’t here. Very chivalrous of you. What if I was the woman of your dreams? You just going to let me slip out the door without ever trying to see what I am like? I can tell by the way you have treated so far that you don’t have a woman at home, nobody to love. So, I ask, what the hell is your problem?” Speechless, I tried to utter a response, but all that came got lost in my throat somewhere. All I could do was choke. I was weak, and scared, and felt like I had just been born, brutally, sans finesse, into a terrible world. She leaned in closer, across the middle seat and I could feel her breath on my cheeks; still, I couldn’t look at her.
“Am I the wrench in your spokes?” Her voice was soft now, airy, like fluffy cotton clouds. “What about me is setting you off?” There, she had said it, the same thing I had been asking myself, and then the cascading lightness of discovery set in upon me and loosed me back upon reality, clear minded and wide eyed.

She was completely unlike anyone I had ever met in the city. All of the other inhabitants were impersonal shells; no real life behind their eyes. Where had she come from? I couldn’t remember creating her; I seriously doubted I had. But yet, here she was, in my cab, running her mouth and getting ever closer to my face. She exuded this energy and the closer she got, the more it permeated my world. Looking out the window, the smear of neon grew dim and the city seemed to ripple, and I figured out what she was. She was an outsider, someone from somewhere that was not my reality, and she had somehow snuck in.
“Oh.” She said. “What is it? Did you realize something? Is something not right?”
“You. How did you get here? You shouldn’t be here, I didn’t let you in.”
“You couldn’t have stopped me, honey.”
“Yes I could have. I own this place. It’s mine, not for public consumption.”
“You don’t own this place, you merely inhabit it. The world wasn’t good enough for you, so you checked out. Fabricated this world on top of the real one.”
“There is no real world anymore. This place is the only world there is. Besides this is so much better than what else there is.”
“True, this place is beautiful, in a way. But it’s missing something crucial. It’s missing people, a sense of life, the unknown. This place is your ghost town playground. You can’t escape your life forever. While you exist in here, the world continues on the outside, passing you bye, losing you more each day to this prison you have created yourself.”
“So? The world wasn’t good enough for me. Here, I am God, and nobody can take that from me.”
“The world wasn’t good enough for you? You weren’t good enough for the world, and nothing has changed here. You aren’t even good enough for the world you created. Look around you, nobody notices you, says anything to you. This world is exactly the same to you as the real world, except, there isn’t the opportunity for you to be proven wrong. In here, you are nothing more than the warden for soulless husks of life, a game keeper.” She was right, but all I wanted was to throw her out of the cab, run over her body as we sped away. She was upsetting the balance, and again the world rippled, this time with greater force than before. Edges of buildings became seams and some began to bulge and split, and daylight shone through.
Daylight. When was the last time I had seen daylight? I couldn’t remember. As far as I knew, daylight had never been an important part of my life. I always found that the night held so much more for me. The night was old, and it held thousands of years of history’s cries. Daylight was fresh, and it was like forgetting the past every time the sun rose. The sun was the world’s eraser, allowing us to almost erase our transgressions of yesterday, and to write a new chapter into our lives, ignorant of consequences and reality. Also, in the night, nothing is ever quite what it seems, including me, which is why I was so drawn to it. And that was why I had neglected to give my world a sun.

The taxi rocketed along the streets, dodging cars and pedestrians, and still the woman leaned ever closer to me.
“I came here tonight to find you,” she said. “I want to show you something. It’s not far, I promise.” She leaned away from me and towards the driver. I could see her lips moving but whatever she said was inaudible to me. The driver nodded his head and made an abrupt right turn on to a street I had never seen before. The street was skinny and there were no neon lights here, tiled buildings and cobblestone had replaced them. It was skinny, barely wide enough for the cab to make its way without catching the mirrors on the walls of the building. Ahead of us, the street seemed to be constructing itself in a haphazard manner on the fly, seemingly pointless curves and hills forming in front of my eyes. The driver navigated his way through with the effortless nature of someone driving home just as they had a thousand times before.
We began to climb, the buildings giving way to cliff sides cut out of stone towering over the road. The rain had stopped and the stars shone brightly. The woman leaned in her corner, her legs crossed and her head lightly resting on the palm of her hand. She was still staring at me, not as if she was intrigued by me, but more like she was just merely taking it all in, giving me no thought. We exited the cliffs and entered into a beautiful white field of hay, long strands rising gracefully from unseen dirt, each one dancing a slow solo to the beat of the breeze. The air was cool and crisp, it felt light in my lungs, such a stark contrast to the city air. I found myself floating slowly into a state of bliss, of unbeknownst comfort and peace. I too leaned into my corner, gazing out the window and allowing myself to steal short peeks at the woman.
“Where are we going?” I asked, after we had traveled for nearly an hour into realms unknown to me. I had never created spaces like this; I was a city person, my world expanded only to the edges of the city, where one could find themselves wandering endlessly through a sea of the same two blocks. I was leaving the sanctity of my filth-ridden city into something of a higher power. It was immensely beautiful.
“We are going somewhere so I can show you something. Don’t worry about it.” She said.
“No, why don’t you just tell me where we are going.”
“That’s not going to happen. Just relax, nothing bad will befall you.” I detected a fleeting sniff of sarcasm, riding the last tiny bit of air as she finished speaking. Maybe it wasn’t quite sarcasm, maybe, just maybe, it was a bit of mischief. I glared at her for minute, willing her to give a hint of some kind as to where we were going.
Further still we climbed until we were skirting the edge of a beastly white cliff, shining bright as day in the moonlight. Against the rocks below I could see foam alight bobbing turbulently and splashing into the air. It was cold here and I could taste salt on the wind. We began to slow down as we made our way around a shallow turn, and I could see we were heading for a precipice of rock jutting out towards the sky.
“Do you see?” The woman asked.
“I do, but what’s so special, it’s just a rock.”
“It’s not the rock, it’s what you can see from the rock.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You will.”
Our taxi pulled up next to the rock and slowed to a stop. The woman pulled some money from somewhere in her dress and paid the man. He drove immediately, screeching the tires across the cobblestone pavement.
“But…” I said.
“Don’t worry, we won’t be needing him anymore. Look.” The woman led me up the rock, gracefully traversing the rough surface with her stilettos. The wind and salt stung my face more as I got closer to the edge and I could see the ocean stretching out far beneath me. Fighting the sky for space on the horizon, a bright orange glow could be seen. It was mesmerizing with fingers of light reaching up from the ocean to pet the sky.
“That’s the real world. Not your world, but the actual world.” She said.
“Who are you?” It was all I could get out.
“You don’t recognize me?” I turned to look at her and I could see tears in her eyes. I looked deep into her eyes and something clicked in my memory. I buckled to my knees as the memories came flooding back into my head. There she was, with me in New York, running amongst the trees in central park. Again, standing on the banks of the Seine, watching the sunrise over Notre Dame. Dancing in circles in a field in each other’s arms, each memory more vivid than the last. I did recognize her; she was Sam, my lost love, my savior.
“You do.” She said as she took me in her arms. The world rippled again, the sound of the waves and wind replaced by the rush of the city, of car horns blaring. Drab sunlight rained down upon us.
“You know I have always loved you.” She said. I understand why you came here after I was gone; it was just easier. But now it’s time to go home, back to the real world, where you have no control, but you have a life.”
“There is nothing for me there, not without you.”
“Yes there is, you just need to open your eyes to the world around you. There is plenty for you.” I stood up and backed away from her, just trying to put distance between us.
“How can there be, you’re dead.” I screamed. She stood as I took one more step and teetered on the edge of the precipice.
“Come down here to me, and let me take you home, so you can wake up from this horrible nightmare you have been living so long.” Another memory rocked through my head, my last memory of her. She was standing on the railing of the pedestrian walkway of the Manhattan Bridge. I was running across the lanes of traffic towards her as she stretched her arms out. I screamed but made no sound and then she was gone. I made it to the edge only to see the tales of her red dress billowing behind her as she crashed into the water far below.
Back on the precipice, she was running towards me, and my world buckled and strained against its seams. My foot slipped over the edge and the world shattered around me, the noise of the city deafening in comparison to the peacefully din of the cliffs. I looked down at my feet as the fence of the observation deck on top of the Empire State Building rose behind me. I was falling and as I turned over I saw that she was not there, nor were the cliffs. I was back, out of my world back into the real. The warmth of the city wrapped me up nicely and as I fell I looked at the city. It was beautiful and refreshing, the vibe of the city seeping in through my pores. I could see people, real people, everywhere on the sidewalks below and the traffic hypnotized me. It was good to be back. As the street came up to greet me, I smiled and closed my eyes as the city and real life embraced me, once more, for the last time.

The Instance of Now

The craggy fields stretch out in curves from my windowsill to the sea. The wind is bold and chilly, and it speaks to me through my walls and roof. I listen to it, most days, if my mood agrees. Beyond the fields, the sea collides with the cliffs, filling the wind with substance, and menace. I like the cliffs, watching the spray from the waves. Some mornings, when the wind is calm, I like to throw small things off on to the rocks below. I listen to the sounds they make when they hit the rocks. And then, just as the sounds become music, the wind howls again. I feel the wind, and I imagine myself splitting into ten million snowflakes, borne on the gale, swept from my fields to Reykjavík, To London, and then to Paris. To Marrakech as rain perhaps. I imagine some of me misting into the Sahara. A particle of me lands in Madagascar, bringing nutrients to a fledgling flower, just now pushing its head above the soil of the rainforest floor.
I am alone here in my home still. My home is more of a shack with a leaky roof and shaky walls than a real house, but it is home nonetheless. I didn’t use to be alone, I used to have a wife, but she died some years back. I have no calendar to tell me when it is now or when it was then. She slipped over the edge of the cliffs, and I couldn’t catch her. But she wasn’t really my wife, not technically; we were never officially married. We talked about it frequently but never got around to it, there was too much else for us to do to waste time on something like getting married. It didn’t matter that we weren’t married, not to us anyways. Our relationship was beautiful and filled with purpose, like a rushing stream carving and meandering its way through fields of flowers and forests of bamboo. Wandering, but with a purpose, and a destination.

It was Sunday when she died. Her second trimester was about to become her third.

That Sunday, the wind was fierce and more menacing than usual. The wind came and swept her off out to sea. The village just down the road, of which I now merely pretend to be an inhabitant of, tried to console me, and brought me food and more grief, more apologies for my loss, as if it was their fault. As if I didn’t have enough of either food or grief, they kept showing up everyday for two weeks. Eventually I quit answering the door, but it didn’t stop them. I stopped getting up when they arrived, quit acknowledging them at all, and eventually no more came. But the habit stuck me in its grasp, like a cigarette smoker dying of lung cancer, but he still smokes a pack a day. Except, I am not dying, and this is a serious problem for me.
Right here, and right now, is the only now there is. What wife? What child on the way? That wasn’t life; that was something else, a dream maybe, or a movie I saw and forgot about. My life is simple now, much more than whatever may have come to pass, and I wait, everyday, for my final to come. The final day of a life. What would you do if you knew it was coming? What would you hope it to be if you had no idea it was your last? Does any of that bullshit even matter? And so, you may think about what your last day would be like, if it went perfect, movie-perfect even. Mine? It would be something like what snow experiences as the sun returns it to its liquid state. We could all only hope to be returned to our liquid states, to the earth, so gracefully as snowmelt. It is now day god-only-knows-how-many after the death of my love and child, and some things never change. But then again, some things do.
I haven’t seen anyone except the grocer in as long as I can remember, which is why the knock on the door was so unexpected. I remember it well, it was a cold and brutal day, and I had been conversing with and cursing the wind all morning. I can still see the water dripping through the roof, a ring of ice growing steadily larger around the hole with each pitiful drop. Outside my window the snow was in a blind rage, banging against the glass and threatening my warmth. And then the knock came.
It was a heavy knock and it startled me out of my suicide fantasy, one of my favorite ways to pass time those days. I always wanted my last day to be perfect, movie-perfect. So I would fantasize about my perfect end-of-life, end-of-misery day. It was always cloudy in my fantasies and the wind was always brutal. The wind would sting my face with razors, slicing it to strips of meat. And I would feel alive, truly. I haven’t felt alive in the absence of pain since she died. If I were to die, I wouldn’t need pain to feel alive. But I have a problem; I can’t pull the proverbial trigger. Am I scared? No, I must be missing something, maybe the whole point of it.
I sat in my chair trying to bring myself out of the fantasy to understand the magnitude of the possibilities of the events about to transpire. Is it Sarah? Or maybe my child? Am I dead? No, I am not. Too bad… It must be someone real, someone not missing from this life. I got up slowly and opened the door. The man was large, and cloaked well; I could not see his face. The amount of snow clinging to his cloak made it obvious he walked quite a distance to be here now. How strange, someone had traveled a great distance by foot to see me. He had somehow survived the harsh weather for a long time. This was a strange man to be sure, and he had yet to say anything. Perhaps he was a wanderer, frozen to the core and desperate for warmth. This I believed to be the most probable and I let the man in without so much as a word between us.
After years without seeing another soul outside of the grocery store, the man now standing by the fire was a wraith to me. He was fiction, interjected unnecessarily into the biography of my life, a bad editing mistake. There seem to have been so many of these over the years. My editor is probably laughing at me behind my back. The man still hadn’t said anything, and all I could do was stare as he warmed his hands. Finally he dropped the hood and looked at me. The eyes I remember more than anything. Black and cold, but with a light behind, and white snow surrounding the iris, they were unlike anything human. They had something, something that could only be called mystique.
Mysticism was never part of my life until Sarah died, but I have found nothing more real in my life since. The world is a mystifying place if you look at it properly; the way the snow moves in the wind, or the sound of the leaves in a breeze, is this not art or music? The art of the gods. The earth is a canvas on which the gods experiment with their art. How else can you explain the beauty and diversity of the earth?
The man’s eyes had mysticism about them that was wholly natural and not at the same time. He looked deep, almost through me and finally, I was the one who broke the silence.
“Did you walk here?”
“Of course not, don’t be ridiculous.” His voice was cavernous, a cacophony of echoes like you would hear in the caves.
“What are you doing here? Who are you?”
“I am here for you. To serve your greatest need. At least, what you think is your greatest need.”
“I don’t need anything, I don’t need anybody. Who are you, again?”
“You do need something, you know you do. I am here to show you the way.” The man moved toward me, and he seemed to drift, like weight or gravity was of no concern. He had such a strange way of him, and I remember I couldn’t grasp it. There was nothing to hold onto about him, as if he were a fleeting dream. I had no idea what he was doing there, but he had a purpose and a mission, even if it was lost on me.
“You can’t give me what I need.” I said.
“No, I can’t so much as hand it to you as I can show you what you need to see. I promise you, it will be unpleasant, but it is necessary.” The man moved closer still, and then I could smell him. Lilac, maybe a hint of jasmine. More art of the gods. The world is a riot of sensory overload. How could a man who appeared to have been wandering the world smell so sweet? I remember he said one last thing to me that night.
“Tonight is not the night. Tomorrow will be the beginning of the end of your nightmare, of this era of your life. A new epoch begins tomorrow.” I don’t remember what happened after that moment but I do remember a feeling I had. It was like the sun emerging from 30 days of night in the dead of winter and spilling its warming life giving rays all over me. I felt warm and calm and I had a sense that he was right. I don’t remember going to sleep, but I do remember waking up.
The wind was again the first thing I heard, just like every morning. Yet, it was different this time, the wind’s cadence had changed. I remember it well because it shook me awake faster than I had bothered to get out of bed since she died. It was beautiful the way the wind harmonized with the sun and beat syncopated rhythms into my walls and roof. The day was different, and I felt alive and comfortable, a combination unheard of. I listened to nature’s symphony for what seemed like hours without ever thinking of the man. I had forgotten about him, he was nothing more than a figure in a dream, a fading specter in my mind. But if he was nothing but vapor, why was this day different? I hadn’t killed myself, this wasn’t heaven, and this wasn’t hell. What had changed?
I was lying on my back in bed, still drowning myself in the music of earth when the door opened and the man in the cloak walked into my room. Again, he seemed light and ethereal, and even in the daylight his eyes jumped out at me.
“It sounds different, doesn’t it?” He asked me. He was still here, and he was very real. His gaze was a car accident on my life, and I couldn’t help but look. I wasn’t even upset that this man was still here in my house and I couldn’t remember what happened last night.
“I love this music.” The man spoke again. “The earth is a composer of the utmost genius. Reminds me of Mozart during his most impressive moments. Anyways, today is the day.”
“I still am a little confused. Who the hell are you?”
“Never you mind. Come with me.” The man held out his hand and I took it without reason or thought. His skin was soft and warm and it smoothed the roughness of my own. He took me into the living room and stopped, turning me around to face him.
“You want to know why I am here?” The man asked. “I am here to take you to Sarah, to where those who are missing lie. I am going to kill you. This is what you want right? You want to see her again? Tell her you love her maybe?” It was what I wanted, all I had thought about through all these years, wasting away alone here in my cabin. How could this man do that? Was he for real?
Death… I had fantasized about it so often and now here was the way, and how, and quite possibly the why. What did I have to think about? It was simple, really. Just say yes and your fantasies come true. It was all too easy.
The man took me into the kitchen and sat me down at the table.
“Are you ready? Are you ready to see her again? To leave all of this misery behind and leave this place forever? Are you ready to leave these walls to their stories, free from you?” I was and I told him so. It was time and there was nothing left for me here. The wind would continue on, and so would the snow. The cliffs would still exist and the waves would continue to batter them. I had heard enough music in my life, and was ready to give up everything for the chance to see her again.
From under his cloak the man drew a long knife and held it out in front of me. He told me to take it and I did. It was a beautiful thing, its curve smooth and its blade sharp. I rested the blade on my wrist and hesitated. I couldn’t do it. Once again, I found myself unable to pull the trigger, to just opt out of life. It was so simple and easy, and all it would take was a fraction of a second and the damage would be done. Why can’t I just leave this life? What is keeping me here; there is nothing for me?
“You can’t do it, can you? Are you unsure of you want? This is the way to her, to salvation. Just do it.”
“I can’t. I’ve never been able to.”
The man grabbed the knife from me and slashed my wrist. It opened and bled, and the world fuzzed around me.

She was just as beautiful as I remembered, maybe a bit younger looking. Her hair danced in the warm breeze coming onto the beach as large thunderheads formed behind her, rumbling slightly. She buried her feet in the grey sand and looked at me, her eyes more vibrant blue than I could ever remember.
“You are early. What are you doing here, love?” Sarah’s voice was gorgeous, just as it had always been.
“I am not sure, I couldn’t do it. But I tried, I tried so hard so many times to get back you. My life is nothing without you.”
“But you shouldn’t be here. The now of our reunion is not now. It is much later. But I promise you it will come.” Her body began to fade as she danced into the waves, looking at me still.
“Remember honey, I love you.” She said. “Today is today and tomorrow is tomorrow, but there will never be a tomorrow without today. We will be together again, when the tomorrow after the right today. Now, go home, and live today so there may be a tomorrow.”

When I woke up, I was still at the table; a knife lay next to me, an ordinary kitchen knife, and someone was standing over my shoulder. It was the grocer, rapidly talking into a cell phone. She looked down and saw that I was awake. I tried to move and found that my arm hurt terribly and when I looked down, I saw a bandage and a large puddle of blood, now starting to dry. The grocer hung up sat down in front of me.
“Your awake. How are you feeling? I came over to deliver you some extra cheese we got and when you didn’t answer I got worried and came in. I found you just as you did it. I have been fighting with emergency services for five hours to send a chopper all the way out here to get you and take you to a hospital. They said the storm was too bad and I agree. My car is buried outside from the blowing snow all night. What the hell is wrong with you?” I found I could still speak, even though I was weak.
“Nothing. Nothing is wrong with me. I am okay, I’ll be okay.” Again, I began to hear the wind battering my home. It sounded as I remembered it, beautiful and raw. “Was there someone else here when you arrived?” I asked.
“No, it was just you, bleeding out and talking to someone named Sarah. Who was Sarah?”
“Huh? I don’t know any Sarah’s.” I looked away as I began to cry.
Eventually, an ambulance came and I went to the hospital. They fixed me and sent me home. Now here I am again, alone in my house, and still I talk to the wind. I haven’t seen anyone since that night. I guess I am back to my old habits. Some things never change, but some thing’s do. I know now that I’ll be with her again. The world is too beautiful and mystical a place to miss. Today is now and tomorrow is an illusion. And now, I am alive and alone, and that is all that there is for me now, but maybe not tomorrow.