~ ~

p e r c h e d

within eve’s tree;

sky’s grass and

f r e c k l e d

flowers; dandelion

m o o n

~

PHOTOGRAPH BY J. DAVID AKE/AP PHOTO

Six thousand breaths of air later, Chloe sat in Amy's room again. Why did she have to die? Why did she have to be taken from this world - because Chloe could not believe she had committed suicide? And, who was Harvey? Why had she never met him?

So many questions, too many questions... and not enough time. Her lungs had months. Maybe days. She'd be dead within the year, that much was sure. Not nearly enough time. Not enough time to find the truth, to convince the police there was more to her death. Not enough time. There was never enough time.

How to find the truth?

Her watch beeped. It was time for her doctors appointment. Should she tell, of what was on her mind? Or should she stay silent? Fear of being labeled insane kept her quiet. She went in, she came out.

Hope was what she needed right now. Hope was what she needed.

And, just like that, she ran into Harvey.

"You knew Amy?" Chloe asks in a hoarse voice. Harvey looks up as if struck by a bolt of lightning.

"Y-yes... who are you?" Chloe does everything in her power not to glare.

"I'm her mother." He awkwardly bows.

"I'm sorry about what happened to her. I wish I could...."

"Wish you could what?" He stops suddenly, as if realizing he'd made a mistake.

"I wish I could have saved her. Before she... took her life." Chloe is hit by a sudden crippling burst of pain, making her double over. accompanied by her anger. SHE DIDN'T COMMIT SUICIDE!! Of this she was sure. But, the question was, how could she prove it?

And, how could she survive the process?

"Ma'am, are you okay?" She gives a curt nod.

"Fine," she rasps, standing upright again and starting to walk home. "I'm fine." She can feel his eyes on her back as she walks off.

Amy, Amy, who is he? Why are you dead? Who... who killed you? The word dead and the word killed linger in her head like a migraine. So much pain. What to do with it?

Home was cold and empty without her daughter, so she went back to her room. Amy would be back.. she'd be back... she wasn't dead... she was.... at college, at college, that was it. She'd be.... back.

"Mama, mama, don't cry," Amy says, putting both arms around Chloe. "It's college, I'll be back..." Tears streamed down Chloe's face, uncontrolled. Her sight was trapped in a memory, but her mind was in another time, in the future, where her daughter would never come home from college.

"I love you.. Amy," her voice says. "I love you. Be safe. And remember... I'll always love you."

Amy nods, with the innocence of a five year old, the maturity of a forty year old, and the ebullient joy of being on one's own.

"Yes, Mama. I'll be back to visit soon!"

She'll be back, thinks Chloe. She'll be back.

You asked tonight if I hate you.

I still do not know if you were kidding.

You kid a lot.

We both do.

But you especially.

I was surprised.

I asked what made you ask.

You shrugged.

Something about a bad vibe.

Something about earlier.

Something about my eyes.

I combed through my memory.

I had purposefully avoided you,

So that I did not have to watch

you and her together.

But you must have been paying

very close attention to have

picked up on a vibe from that.

And when I did see you,

we talked and we bickered playfully

in soft flirting tones

like always.

Something about my eyes.

I told you that no, I do not hate you.

But there was a lot that I didn’t tell you.

Because of course I don’t hate you,

I couldn’t.

There are other things I hate.

I hate that she steals you away.

I hate that even with her boyfriend

only a couple of hours away,

she is pursuing you, worming her way

into conversations, cutting me out of

your circle.

I hate that I was identified as a threat,

I hate that this means she pounces

every time you come my way.

I hate that she feels she has a claim over you.

I hate that you’re too good to tell her

to get lost.

I hate my pride.

I hate my stubborn pride.

This proud wall I have up.

I hate that I will choose my pride

over you

over anyone

every time.

I hate that I can’t just tell you

that I’m fairly certain I’ve been

in love with you

since the first second I saw you.

My friends ask,

how hard could it be?

Just say it.

But my pride,

remember?

So I settle for a

no, of course I don’t hate you.

I ask if you hate me.

You laugh. No. Not even close.

Good.

I let my eyes linger.

Yours do the same.

Something about my eyes,

wasn’t that what you said?

Jenny and Miles were fourteen when they first met in 1947, and they became a storybook couple. The stuff dreams are made of.

Shortly after graduating high school they were married. A year afterward, they had their first of three daughters. Soon after, Miles went to Vietnam but when his tour of duty ended, he returned home without injury and it wasn’t much longer before a second daughter came into their lives. It was a home built on love. Two years later, a third daughter came into the world where Miles remarked, “No man can say I don’t have the best-looking women in the world that love me.”

Jenny and Miles worked hard to provide for all their “girls” and to make sure their daughters had a good education.

Time marched on and the years flew by. His daughters married, had children of their own and blessed Jenny and Miles with many grandchildren.

Then on a night no one suspected, Jenny had complications from a routine surgery and was placed in a hospital and a few days later was under Hospice care. Shortly after that happened, their daughters found Miles collapsed on the floor.

It wasn’t long, after initial treatment, Miles was reunited with Jenny.

One of the daughters, Melanie said, "If you have someone you truly love you should fight for it. They fought for their love every day."

It was like a scene straight out of the film, ‘The Notebook’, a storybook romance -from kissing in the rain, to the movie's iconic last scene in which they both die peacefully holding hands.

For Jenny and Miles, this wasn’t a movie. It was very real for them. After fifty-six years of marriage, Jenny and Miles died within hours of each other, holding hands until their last breath.

And it is stories like these, however sad it may seem, that give hope and reasoning to what love can do for people.

__________

This is based on a true event that happened recently, March 2nd of this year. Will and Judy Webb died on their 56th wedding anniversary in Michigan, together, and happy.

Agent Reed's head started pounding as his exhausted eyes opened. He sat up on the check-up bed, plastic crinkling with each movement. He found himself in a normal doctor's office, posters depicting human anatomy and disease decorating the white walls.

Before the sigh of relief could escape his lips, the door opened on its own. Reed jumped, afraid a supernatural being was about to reveal itself to him yet again.

The director walked in, cold eyes dark as coal, staring into Reed's soul.

"What time and day is it?" Reed asked frantically, remembering what he had seen. Had he been in a nightmare?

"That is not important now," the director stated blankly. "Tell me, did you speak with Darkness?"

Reed was confused, but he managed to stutter. "W-well...I don't know, I'm not sure what happened...the voice did call itself Darkness, I think."

"Yes indeed, the Darkness has chosen you, Agent Reed, as it chooses all the lucky ones."

"What do you mean by 'chosen'? What is this 'darkness'?"

"Ah! The perfect question!" The director's eyes shone with a maniacal twinkle, but only for an instant. "Darkness is the ideal mentor, teaching us how to navigate in a world of hardships and falsehoods. Through us, Darkness can spread its power and wisdom over the cosmos. We are all it's instruments and it trains us to sing, but only a certain few, like you and I, are chosen for the real performance."

Reed was terrified by the director's answer, and hastened to change the topic. "What happened to the mission for Matthew Davidson's extermination?"

"Our plans are on the right track, for Matthew is listening to Darkness' choir, and is learning to play its notes. He has potential to become the star of the show."

The director flashed Reed a sinister grin, his charchoal eyes afire with madness. A shiver ran down Reed's spine, for the director did not seem human at that moment.

"Don't worry, Agent Reed. Trust in Darkness to guide the song."

The night sky filled with stars

makes me imagine so many

slight, twinkling things.

The day sky with its one big star

informs my one great imagine.

I always have her... at least.

She gets brighter and warmer

like summer drawing near.

I see the colors she puts

all accross the heavens.

And the sky which she fills

with shapes, shades, & textures.

They all reflect in my eyes.

She comes to me again

while I wake, sleep, breath,

and shocks me when, finally,

she exists in my reality.

It's overwhelmingly like

the sky is falling on me!

.

“Just like a flower wilting away without care”

Eleonore’s flat, late evening. Present time.

I walk away from the window and drop on the couch. I sink into the pillows and attempt to think clearly, trying not to turn off my emotions again. The nightmare messing with my mind. All the dark places that I so neatly put away were now resurfacing with double force. All those images once again taking over. The things that I wanted to forget the most; it was just like having daggers constantly sinking into your flash, or maybe just into the brain. In my already confused thoughts, I couldn’t tell the difference anymore.

I close my eyes for a moment and focus on something positive. Charlie was here today, he helped. He cared about her well-being, about her health. She was no longer alone in this. The woman in the hospital, somehow her presence seemed to be helping the older woman - God knows why, but it did. For the first time, she could relate to someone’s pain, instead of just experiencing it. And not something that was bestowed on her without permission or consent. She could choose to let these emotions in, and not feel like her body and mind was being shredded, piece by piece.

But what more could she do for Clare? Could she do something for others as well? Was there a way for her to actually do something good with her life? And not just cause self-destruction to herself and hurt to the people she cared about most? A long sigh fills her lungs and escapes into the air; there were less and less of those people. She made sure of it. Not because she hated the world, but because she didn’t want the world to hate her. She caused enough damage as it was. 

Eyes closed, and I could still see those images of Clare Wilson’s past. Her memories seeming that of my own, silent pictures of the past. What was her role in all of this? She couldn’t figure it out yet, but she felt that with the touch and the visions overflowing her mind, she also somehow managed to take some of the older woman’s grief away.  All those emotions and pain still traveling through her veins. She could sense them, slowly moving but not harming her, instead, gluing some pieces together.  She didn’t exactly comprehend what was going on with her, but there was this strange faith, that it all had a deeper meaning. That she met that older woman for a reason. I sigh, feeling a bit defeated. But soon something changes.  I sense my thoughts getting more tense, darker. My body temperature seems to drop. I blow some warm air into my hands and look up.   

My mind strays to my bedroom before I can control it; crawling inch by inch to the place it shouldn’t. In my head, I see a chest of drawers next to my bed. I see the stack of clothes and the box hidden under them. I close my eyes and think what day it is. I get up, get my bag and roam around for the phone. I check the calendar and flinch. Less than 3 weeks. I want to ignore what’s going on in my head and the reason why my jaw is clenched, and why all my organs seem to shrink somehow, turning into one tight ball ... but I can’t, not anymore. Now that my entire focus is glued to just one image. The bag lands on the ground with a low thud and I don’t even know what I have done with the phone. I don’t look for it, instead, I move slowly to my bedroom, not remembering how I got there or how I was able not to hit any walls or hard surfaces on my way.

I walk into the room and cross my arms as if physically wanting to stop myself from any further steps. “Don’t do it, it will only get worse if you do”. I shiver but step closer to the wooden drawer. I look for the thing that is already in my mind. I know exactly where it is. Shoved into the back, perfectly in the middle. I search for something soft and in the shape of a cube. My fingers trace pass different fabrics and finally find what they were looking for. My body freezes for a moment, but I make myself move, though it seems like the biggest mistake imaginable. Just do it, no one is watching you, no one will know. They won’t see you fall apart. Not this time.

I pull out a little silver ring out of a box. The painted daisy on it has faded by now, but it still holds meaning to me. I put it on for a moment, slowly slipping it on my middle finger as if I was afraid it would fall apart and turn to dust. I look at it for a long while and nothing happens. But just when I think I have gained some control my hand starts to tremble, and a deep sob escapes my throat. It’s so painful and loud that I feel like someone was ripping my lungs out, and then my heart and soul with it.

My lousy remains. Time passes and it gets dark in the room, yet I cannot feel the passage of it. Reality avoids me as the pain takes over. Finally the howling and tears subside, I manage to breathe again. And when the only feeling left in me is the hollowness, a round void filling me up to the limit like water in a ceramic vase. But it does not overspill, it just mutes everything. I’m done.

The ring lands back in the box and in the chest of drawers. Second drawer, deep under all my clothes. I bang it shut and try to breathe. It was almost that time. The number I had feared the most. The first year of loss. The real sound of sorrow. Bringing me back to that moment, to a dark pit of excruciating pain. A day that changed me and broke me. Something that made me stop believing in the purpose of it all.

I still missed him so much, each day equally surprised that I could exist without him. Only the thick layers of denial allowing me to breathe and function in the normal world.

There was this small part of me that hoped that with time it would get easier, but it just got different. The pain in my heart replaced by that in my head. By the whispers and shouts of those with all flavors of anger, loss, pain and the ones that shouted the most. The polluted voices that forgot what it was to feel the good and compassion. Those turned my mind upside down and threaten my fading sanity. The process made me weaker. Just like a flower wilting away without care.

Until I had met Charlie, I didn’t realize how much I had needed the water. Somebody’s selfless care and help. I locked myself away from the sun and air. I was waiting for death, but he found me and brought rain with him. Now I could fight, even if only for myself.

________________

Last 3 chapters

10. https://theprose.com/post/242510/action-reaction-kind-of-thing

11. https://theprose.com/post/252230/the-sounds-of-sorrow

12. https://theprose.com/post/260169/beauty-within-things

next chapter :

https://theprose.com/post/268834/captured-moments

Technology – Part I

When time first began,

the elements told us all.

Now, it’s computers.

Technology – Part II

The moon, sun and stars,

gave life direction, meaning.

Cell phones do it all.

Technology – Part III

Family, friends, and work,

gave reason for a future;

control, alt, delete.

Technology – Part IV

That does not compute.

I repeat – does not compute.

It does not compute ….

I see no reason to cease my writing

to you, that is at least to the idea of

you, the you that I once knew;

I’m writing to what remains.

I’m sorry for letting you see

the mess that I really am.

What remains of the bloody and bruised

work of art on my back has

faded away with time.

I used to worry that my brother

or Mom would see what I’d done to myself,

the shame I’d brought to their name.

The bruises and welts have left my world,

in much the same way you have,

leaving behind a canvas with only

the memory of what occurred.

I barely hear the screams of my knees

and the groans of my lower back these days;

they’re insignificant compared to

what I’ve done to myself.

I guess I’m doing better.

I’m not exactly alone anymore, but

there’s nothing wrong with being alone.

I can do with the absence of those around me,

but it’s the absence of you...

it’s the absence of that woman

I once knew and fell in love with

that kills me on the inside

more and more each and every day.

You tore away at the trust and love that

I was capable of giving. I will never be

the same man you said you loved

in much the same way

you will never be

the same the woman I said I loved.

I’ve got to work with what remains of me,

and hopefully contribute something to this world

before there isn’t any of me left.

You still da best.

#poetry