It's not even a pretty diamond. Just a crystalline mound, really. Disgustingly large and cut unevenly to preserve every piece of it, more of a testament to the rarity of the find than a show of elegance or use. But if value comes from scarcity, it's the perfect score.

I hook my rope to the skylight and begin to slide down. Ten minutes before the mansion's security systems reboot, no matter how thoroughly my forced power surge took them out. If these cameras catch me, the police station lineup will be little more than ceremony.

I turn on my flashlight as I near the ground, careful not to misjudge my landing in the almost pitch black room. I hate the sound when my own boots strike the tile. It's the sound of a pressure plate, a sensor. An error. Close calls batter one's nerves.

So does the figure across the room.

I choke back a startled noise and level my flashlight at it. But the fear devolves into irritation when I recognize him.

"Oh, don't balk at me," he says with his insufferable British accent and his ridiculous toothy grin. "Surely you knew I couldn't ignore this find, either. Donbury, out of town overnight? An empty house? It's irresistible."

I glare. "Ryker, stay out of my job before I put a hot ball of lead through your chest."

It's the windup to a punch I can't land, and he knows it.

"Don't play, Tonya. You can't hide a body in ten minutes. Settle with me, and you can go home to your quaint little dugout with ten percent profit and no prison. Deal?"

I don't let my shoulders slump. Five minutes left on the clock, and I'm tired of running. If he doesn't bend, we both go out.

"Ninety."

794. I said to myself as I blew away the excess dust from the tally mark I had just finished carving on the wall. 794 days I’ve been down here. The air smelled wet, and dense, like a muddy puddle near a sewer drain does just after a long rain. There were no windows. Just a vent that sometimes blew hot air from the outside, or maybe from an air conditioner, it’s hard to tell. Twice a day, light would radiate through the vent, just enough to dimly illuminate the horrific environment I was trapped in. Once at midnight and the other at noon. I knew this because every time the light would shine in, I heard the faint sound of a giant clock bell being rung in the distance. I had been down in the dark so long that even the dimmest of light was too much for me. It was as if I had been staring directly into the sun without blinking.

Making that small tally mark everyday was not as easy as you would think. The walls were made of solid concrete, as was the floor. I used a steel rod, one from the small vent that had fallen out somehow, maybe from the prisoner before in an attempt to escape. As I pulled my arm away from the wall I let out a loud sigh. My breathing was heavy and my frail arms were tired. Carving into that concrete was the only physical thing I did, and it had been this way for almost three years. That was pretty much all I could do. My arms were cuffed at the wrists to a chain that came out of the concrete, as were my legs, at the ankles. The metal was thick, heavy, and cold. It smelled like the rust of an old car being pulled from the ocean. My legs were just as frail, and were always shaking. Like an elderly woman, I leaned my arm back so that my hand lay flat on the wall to help support my body weight as I slowly sat back down on the cold, hard, floor. And thus was my entire day. I didn't eat, or sleep, there was no need. If I did close my eyes for a while, it was only in effort to see something different in my imagination; or in hopes that when I reopened them, life would be as it was three years ago. If only I could be free again. I often thought to myself. I'd never let my keeper down again, I'm much smarter now.

In order for you to understand me, you first have to understand how I got here. Even more important, you have to have an understanding of my keeper, Annabelle; what a sight to be seen. Everything she touched radiated, glowing like fireflies in the darkest of nights. Anyone who met her, instantly fell in love. She was a creature unlike any other. Her skin was flawless, and felt like the finest, hand-threaded silk. She had long, thick, auburn hair that glistened and smelled like fresh jasmine. Annabelle's smile could warm even the coldest of hearts– and it did. But we'll talk about that later. Sometimes you could catch her outside, tending to the garden, singing to the flowers. Her voice was angelic, even when she was just speaking. If you were lucky enough to get to speak with her, you quickly discovered that she was also smart. Her beauty was breathtaking, sure, but her mind; her mind is what made her irresistible.

The years went by and Annabelle grew older, her beauty growing with her as well. Every boy who laid eyes on her wanted her for themselves. But their love was not sincere, and only caused her heartache. Smart as she may have been, when it came to love, she always listened to her heart. But her heart, she said, seemed to lead her blind every time. The first one was the worst, as first loves often are.

Like most girls not yet tainted by the lies of men, she hung onto every word he said; every promise he made; every lie he spewed from his mouth, mistakes she would not make again. The pain she felt in her heart when he left her, was unbearable, unlike anything she had ever felt before. Not only had he taken her innocence; he nearly crushed her faith in love. Everyone told her to give it time, her heart would heal, and it did, eventually. But she never forgot the lies and deceit. Love; it seemed just wasn't in the cards for Annabelle. Time and time again, she would give herself to another, refusing to give up, but time and time again, she would be made a fool. Each boy claimed they were different than the last, promised that they would never hurt her, and each time she believed them.

Annabelle's heart had begun to darken. She vowed to protect what was left of it for the rest of her life. Never again would she let her heart endure such pain; or so she thought. Boys became men, and Annabelle became a woman, still as beautiful as ever. Surely a grown man can not be as cruel and manipulative as boys were, she would often think to herself. Perhaps I shall give love another try. So once again, she found herself letting down her walls and giving someone new a piece of her heart. And once again, she found herself with torn down walls and a piece of her heart missing.

The walls she could repair, and she did just that, this time higher, thicker, sturdier.

Her heart, however, could not be mended as easily, if at all. It was missing far too many pieces. Darkness filled the holes where the pieces used to be and ice began to form around what wasn't missing. Out of the cold and darkness, a rose bush appeared. Beautiful black roses were always in full bloom; they were breathtaking, but like her heart, they were guarded. Razor sharp thorns protected the roses and covered every inch of the walls she had repaired.

“Only a fool would try to make his way to my heart”, she said aloud in a sinister tone. So. What does any of that have to do with my incarceration?

Well, Annabelle did everything she could to protect her cold, dark, heart from being touched by man again. But she forgot about the parts that still live, healthy, beneath the ice and darkness. You see, deep down at the center of her beating heart, is me. When Annabelle built that impenetrable fortress around her heart to keep the pain of man out, she trapped me in. I live in the deepest, warmest part of her heart. I never thought she'd hurt me, I trusted her as she had all the men that hurt her. It seems as though I have been forgotten. Left here to wither away. If only she would remember me.

I mailed a bag of shit to my landlords. I didn't want to do it. I felt I owed it to them. I was living with my younger brother and his new wife in this apartment complex, my own first marriage having just imploded a couple years prior, and I was working this late-night, boring, cubicle job, and I guess I needed a bit of excitement in my life.

The thing that happened, the property managers of this place, they started letting tenants have dogs in there. Now, I love dogs. But this just wasn't the place for them; especially not the way these tenants were letting their dogs shit all over the little communal grassy area right below my brother's apartment and not cleaning up after them. I had to walk across that grass to get up to the apartment after work. I got home late at night. I couldn't see the little landmines to avoid them. So I was always tracking in dogshit into my brother's apartment. He's a lot neater of a guy than I am. HE'd sure notice. And he did. The next day, I'd always catch hell. This made me feel like even more of a loser than just my marriage imploding, and even more of a loser than not knowing what the hell to do with my life other than work this boring-ass, night-shift, cubicle job.

So one Saturday after I'd just been yelled at by my little brother, I got the brilliant idea to mail some of that dogshit on over to the landlord people to let them know: Hey Folks? Dogs? Not a good idea. Not here. There's shit all over this lawn I gotta walk across.

I suppose I could have just called them--but what fun would that have been?

So early one Saturday morn, I dug through the kitchen trash and got out a used popsicle stick, I had a bunch of bubble-mailer envelopes from selling my gag cartoons out to magazines back then for a few extra bucks on the side, and I got one of those envelopes with me, and in my longjohns and slippers or whatever the hell I woke up out of bed wearing back in those days, and I walked on downstairs and out to that little patch of dogshat-upon grass, searching out some fresh, steamy coilers.

They weren't that hard to find, not when it was daylight out. I soon found a few, bent down, whipped out my trusty popsicle stick and scooped up some of that fresh, brown goodness into the envelope. I tamped it down in there good. Then I got some more. When I felt the heft of it grow to a meaty fullness in my hand, I tossed the stick in the outside trash bin over there--and I almost licked the damn thing closed before I caught myself and did a "Wait! What the hell am I doing?" So I went in and dabbed my finger under the kitchen faucet to close it, and I put a piece of tape over it just to make sure. I didn't want want that thing busting open in transit; I wanted that thing and its contents open and scattered all over the cubicle of some wage-slave, underling lackey over at that property management company. I wanted him or her to suffer. I wrote the property management company''s address on there, and for a return address I put a fake name--Jim and Betty Salisberry or whatever—and I made sure I gave just enough description to know that this envelope originated right from that little community, grassy knoll right there that they'd know about. And I mailed that sucker out, making sure the postage was adequate, and all the rest of that weekend and on that next Monday and Tuesday I felt so giddy in my outstanding cageyness and aplomb. Several times over the course of those four days I broke out in a sort of mirthful reverie and lost track of whatever it was I was doing, imagining what it would be like to be that guy at that cubicle to unwittingly open up that package and have that dog shit spill all over that desk of his, and who the heck poor bastard was gonna have to clean THAT up?

Come the very next Wednesday, when the landscaper-gardener guys or whatever came again, they did a real funny thing this time. They actually picked up the dogshit, too. From the Grassy Knoll. And from thereon out, they always did remember to pick up the dogshit before they left.

And so that was the first day ever that started me off to thinking that I was, after all, a genius. I had solved a big problem. Just like that. A unsolveable problem that was negatively effecting the lives of everybody in that community. No longer was I a loser whose marriage imploded, stuck in a dead-end job, stuck living with my younger brother and his new wife, stepping in dogshit after work each night, having him yell at me next morning. Thenceforth, I had made something of myself in life. I had really arrived.

It's embarrassing to admit, but I am a sucker for romance

for tales of passion and love and vows of "til death do us part"

I always swooned over fictional men coming to save the day

sweeping their girls from situations like a hawk does its prey

I was so into them to the point my head was the place to be in

a refuge I created to take the edge off of my poor aching heart

but then again, who am I kidding,

I know that there will never be a knight in shining armor waiting for me along the way

No mafia boss to scoop me out of my misery and show me what love is all about

No lonely wolf to claim me as his mate despite all odds and come to be the partner I deserve

I know deep inside that my pain is mine to heal from and mine alone to sustain

That my hurt is all in my head and no one will ever come to taste even a droplet of its poisonous nectar

But despite it all, I guess my mind in a way still is a refuge I would choose out of my own will

That no matter how tough life can get, I need to man up even though I am no man at all

That being a soft romantic is nothing but a weakness in this time and age

That girls like me, might in fact not be made for love, to love and be loved

I mean, how could I?

When I can barely come to love myself as I am

I am a pro at finding faults within me like no mother-in-law can

I am the best at finding all sorts of reasons as to why people hate me, and none as to why anyone could come to love me

You see, I don't know when it all started,

Was it when I started to notice how I was never anyone’s first choice, not even the second or the third?

Maybe it was when all I heard was of how I should act and behave like so-and-so and never be like myself

Or perhaps it was when all throughout those years, I was constantly told to tone it down, to stop being weird and maybe act like someone else

You see, it's hard when during the years your identity is supposed to come to be,

All you hear and see is of how you should be anything but you

It does something to your soul at one point

I am broken, but no shards of me can ever be found

It's as if there was never even proof that I was once there, and that the shards have disappeared into thin air

Like me, like who I am

They say you crave the things you do not have or own

Maybe that could explain why I crave love so bad lately

Should I laugh at how ironic fate can be sometimes?

Aching for something you know fully well can never be yours, or that you are not made for

But if I am not made to love or to be loved, then how come it’s haunting my soul ?

I’d rather not feel a shred of hope over this endless torment of knowing what’s to come

I'd rather be submerged in my loneliness and not even gaze at the faint ray of light

I don’t know really,

All I can say is I am lost

I am tired and burnt out

But somehow despite all of this

A molecule within me keeps banging on the gates of my once romantic heart

Shouting!

"Let me out, let me love and be loved "

"Let me hurt and get hurt"

"Let me taste the nectar of the forbidden fruit "

"Just let me out !!"

-READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED-

It’s been three years and still, I can not drink water out of a plastic bottle. I can no longer stand the sight of empty spaces in the center of living rooms. I was never a fan of wooded twin sized beds but since March 28th, 2020, I refuse to look at one and much less, sit on one. “She lived a good… long life,” they said. “She needed to rest,” they said. “At least she is at peace, now…”, they repeated over and over… and over. They just don’t know.

Her scent still lingers.

Her last days were spent in pain and agony with no appetite. She no longer ate out of joy, but merely to stay alive unwillingly. Once brown, indigenous skin, succumbed with IV scabs and pale patches from her diagnosed anemia, diabetes and cancer. For years she complained about leaving us. She prayed for God to be merciful and to release her from her pain. But no one understood that the pain she felt was from deep within. Ninety-three years on Earth, professing love and devotion to your husband and children, will do that to you. When your lover is taken to the skies above and your children grow old and reproduce, what do you live for? Self-love isn’t taught in the fields. Even when she sold Mexican Cal to her village, who was that for? Not her.

She had been denying food for nearly a week and hospice reassured us she was fine. I guess we didn’t understand what hospice truly was. I remember the nurses name.

Anwar.

For days, she had been hearing homilies in song. Joy would flood her tired face when she would ask, “Do you hear that?”. At 5:00 a.m., she woke up to tell my mom that the kids had been messing with her eyelids all night and were giggling. She kept trying to shoo them away but they wouldn’t stop. The kids weren’t there, they were tucked in bed, and no music played over night.

At 6:28 a.m. she was cold and unresponsive.

I cleared the house, leaving my mother, father, myself and my dead Mexican Queen to endure this pain alone. My mother was never able to control her emotions and today was no different. She freaked out and relinquished control to me, as she always does when things get too tough. Being my father’s mother who was laying lifeless in the twin sized bed, he was mute and officially scarred for life… as was I. I called 9-1-1 and was prompted to lay her down in an open area and begin CPR. She had a DNR but who keeps track of those documents anyway.

“How do you know she is no longer alive?” the 9-1-1 operator asked. Well, she was cold and wasn’t moving. What kind of fucking question is that? “She’s not moving and she was 93 years old. She was under hospice care. I need help, I can’t lift her alone.” I said. As if I was the only one in the home. The home that has now claimed two souls.

Husband and wife.

My father and I mustered every ounce of strength and moved her from the wooden twin sized bed to the spacious living room floor. For a 98-pound lady, she was pretty heavy.

We laid her down as the 9-1-1 operator instructed me to perform CPR. I repeated that she had a DNR but she did not care. My father looked at me. His eyes and mouth, “Please, keep her alive, I’m not ready.” My heart was torn between hurting her soulless body and keeping my father at ease. I obliged. Her ribs cracked at the first and only pump to the chest I made. The sound of empty water bottle shrinking and scrunching dramatically as the last drop swims toward the back of your esophagus.

She wore a light blue night gown that my mother had bought her to make changing her diapers easier. I had grey sweats, black pumas and a red sweater I bought for Valentine’s day. My mother wore a stripped black and white t-shirt with blue sweat pants. My father changed after the paramedics arrived; blue plaid button-up. Black dressing pants and Dockers.

Her name was Maria Trinidad Del Castillo Lepe.

A legend.

1926 - 2020

A temperate rush of blood through my veins

is spiking my pulse.

My heart thundering thuds in waves that are muted by my ribcage...

This feeling is fear.

Sudden trepidation as if I’m grasping out in thin air,

stepping timidly to what's unknown.

Teetering on unsure, I’m prone to need to be reassured. I am cautious as I go at a stolid pace. I had been wandering for so long in this place before it happened.

I had been wondering the points I felt were eluding me. Those points missing in my answers for existing realistically, and I was dead wrong when I kept insisting that I wanted answers given to me for my questioning.

I found the truth to be a sharp chill, enveloping and cracking me, at the end to my curiosity. Now my only defense against this cold was the innocence of my younger view that was the best of me, lost too soon.

If only I'd known naivety whilst within it, Id have know I was being pursued by such harsh truth and perhaps I could have avoided this minute of untimely realization.

Time is an adroit foe, no fare-weather friend, and it is in it's shadow that my glowing nescience flickers, and fades to black..

Devoid of this precious glimmer, the deep dim of the scene I'm seeing is setting grim my view and fading out that which I now lack. Much like a dream I once had, only I want to forget this idea as a last grasping breath of this unbeknownst grace gone bad.

I’m more aware now, as by terror and dread I am seized. Clutching my chest, fist to my heart, my face is weaved with a tightened grimace. I slowly sway on my feet.

It feels like a loss, like a menacing release. What I imagine the departure of my beings quintessence would be, but that didn’t happen and I fell to bent knee. I’m a mass that's hollow and at a loss, but honestly I was sated.

I am not proud now, just asphyxiated, and that is why I cannot speak, but tell me..

If knowledge really is power, then why do I feel weak

The older I get, the fewer friends and loved ones I have left.

Time is more precious than money.

I still feel like the lost little girl waiting for my mommy to come pick me up, but she never comes.

Every house I move into never really feels like home, it’s just a place I’m visiting while I’m waiting for my mommy or my granny to come and get me so I can feel safe again.

But no one comes and even when I drive by my parents house, I can’t go

in …

They aren’t there. It belongs to somebody else now.

My Great Aunt Kathryn, my grandmothers youngest sister, is non responsive now since yesterday morning in her bed at home.

She is the last of our women from that time, from my family, and I am so grateful to have known such a kind and gentle soul. I regret not sharing more time with her.

You disgust me

You're as shallow as the make-up that you wear

You invite people over to your house when you smell of gluttonous, unwashed ass after a raw pounding

Anyone can tell by the smell that neither you nor your fornication partner drink enough water

It's disgusting

And we're all expected to hang out and smile about it, pretend we don't smell it

It's offensive

You're so shallow

The mirror is a deep space to you

but when it comes down to exploring feelings and reasons behind things, you're only interested in the the trivial

But when it's time to talk about your habits, suddenly, you're all about feelings

But your depth is artificial, like your beauty

Once you run some water on it, it all washes away and all that's left is the stench of your terrible personality

You are disappointed in your family because you are the disappointment as if that redeems any of your poor choices

You want everyone to be there for you when you need them, but you are never around for anyone but yourself

You, the human race, the generation of our day, disgust me.

He probably got lost on the way to his next class, but he didn’t even know what class it was. He stumbled across the room by accident, but some unseen force lured him in, made him walk down the long, dimly lit hall past the rows and rows of seats, made him ascend the stairs to the stage, made him sit down half-consciously on the sturdy oak bench. His fingers automatically reached out and felt the cool soft touch of the smooth white keys. He closed his eyes, wandered in his mind. He was back to somewhere familiar, but he couldn’t see just what yet.

He thought of Swan Lake. He picked out the melody, slowly, one note at a time. Notes morphed gradually to chords, the fingers on his left hand began to wander down the scale, add depth, he gathered speed, gathered intensity. The energy beat to the rhythm around him. He played heart and soul. He could hear the violin harmonizing in the background even though it wasn’t there.

Then he found himself lapsing into just the harmony while the violin emerged, playing the dramatic tune, hauntingly beautiful, sounding more and more real every rendition. He could see the lake, could feel the tension in the air as the poor cursed princess fell in, once again a swan, and the prince called desperately for her to return. He never felt more alive. Before he could so much as draw breath, he finished. His hands jerked from the keys as if they had electrocuted him, and he breathed heavily. That was awesome. He became aware of a strange stinging sensation in his eyes, one he hadn’t consciously felt for years. He hadn’t played piano since before he ruined his mother. It felt good to be free again. And the violin had sounded so real, like her….

He jerked around, startled. The violin was not in his head. It was as real as the girl from dodgeball standing beside him, who held a tiny stringed instrument in her hand looking very much like one.

“It’s called a pochette or kit violin,” she said softly, staring at the ground, “I take it with me everywhere so I can play whenever I need to.”

Silence fell. Oriole continued to stare, still mostly delirious from last night’s panic attacks.

“You play well,” she continued, “I remember when you used to do it before, but it was always joyful then. Now I hear only your pain.”

After a long while, Oriole opened his mouth and said flatly, “You knew me before?”

The girl looked at him, not shocked, but pitying. “Ori,” she said quietly, “It’s me. I was there when it happened.”

The memories swirled faintly back. A knot formed in his stomach—that was a time he wished never happened.

She went on, barely audible, “At your 8th birthday party.”

More silence, then she spoke again, even more gently, if that were possible, “Ori, look at me.”

He didn’t know why he obeyed. He felt inexplicably compelled to. As soon as he did, it registered. He began shivering all over. She was right. He did know her. It was a long time ago, in the life before now. She was from the life he wanted to forget ever existed. She was the best part of that life.

“Harpie?” He breathed in astonishment.

The girl nodded, smiling. “That’s right, Ori. It’s me.”

* * *

Harpie…Harper Collins…the girl next door in Spring Hill, Kansas…the girl who sat entranced in the window sill while he and his mother played sonatas…she, the angel on her grandmother’s violin…he on their dark maple and rosewood piano…“The combination of maple and rosewood is magical,” she had said…she was right…Swan Lake was her favorite….

All these thoughts and more whizzed through Oriole’s head in that one split second of recognition, much like a subway whizzing through a tunnel, each car bringing on the connection that lead to the next. So each thought brought on another, a torrent of memories long, long forgotten that seemed all the more precious for being so.

He couldn’t stay. He must have ran from the dark, stifling room as he wished to flee from his dark, stifling mind, for the next thing he knew, he was blinking in the sunlight, vigorously walking laps around the track. No one was out. It was just him, the sun, and his cascading fruit basket of emotions.

"Hello Kitty."

"Hi Doc."

"What brought this on?

"You know. Most if not all of it. My parents. My whole family. Their parents. Their family. Their crummy genes. The abuse, religion. All used as excuses to hit me so they could feel better. Never loving me they way they should have. My uncle loving me but not the way he was supposed to. Damaging me so no one could ever love me, no matter how hard I tried...and tried." Her voice started to rise as she added to the list, remembering reliving each hurt and placing blame to each incident. She began to tear up continuing, "Getting so tired of trying. Getting so exhausted from life. Wanting just to end it all. The pain. This endless illness. The uselessness of me."

He was silent. Writing on his yellow pad. Eraser tapping. Waiting for more.

"You know this you have a whole fucking file thick with every detail. We've talked it to death but it never goes away." Pleading for some sympathy.

"Have you been taking your meds?"

"I flushed them down the toilet 3 weeks ago. They made me fat and stupid. Why should I have to be shackled paying for the rest of my life for what was done to me?" She was angry, agitated, shaking. "Why can't you see...I was a child. A tiny little girl.  Defenseless. I couldn't tell if love was being beaten or held too tight with fingers in the bad places. I was harmed. Harmed beyond my ability to forget.  Abuse I live with every day still.  So unfair, so wrong."

"You are quite the victim, huh?"

Why would he make fun of me, now?

"You're not funny."

"I'm not trying to be humorous. You know better. I'm trying to get you to think. Who's to blame for you this?" Pointing to the blood-soaked bandages around her left wrist.

"Their's. It's their fault."

"So Katherine is damned to be some dysfunctional damaged misfit her whole life because she grew up abused, wounded and genetically predisposed? Right?"

She was quiet. She didn't know what to say, “My name is Kitty, not Katherine. That’s what they named me. I told you to call me Kitty.”

“Okay…am I right, Kitty?

"These things happened.  I didn't deserve them. I never asked to be born."

"So you're damned?"

She was up on the examining table.  Her eyes focused on the blood turning from red to brown on the gauze wrapping her left wrist soon to be another in a craze of hazy Xs. "Yes, I suppose."

"Well then, we might as well name this ward after you because you're going to keep going in and out of here for the rest of your life. However long that may be. Slashing your wrists. Gulping pills. Driving off bridges. And someday they'll haul you into the emergency ward and you'll be dead...and you will have shown them how flawlessly they ruined your life. Right? Right?"

He was shouting at her, his face too close to hers. Hot breath on her face,"And you know what I'm going to say when they bring your body in?"

He leaned over her, his voice very soft and tender, "I'm going to tell everyone that THEY didn't do it. She did.”

He paused, straightening so he was again looming over her, his eyes shifting from steely to sadness, "And she did it when she had everything in the world to live for."

“But I don’t...I can't help it. All these things HAVE happened to me. I can't get over the pain."

"Up until now."

There was a long silence.

"What happens after now?"