He kicked a stone into the shrubs that hovered over the path he followed. “It makes sense when I think about her,” He thought. He breathed shallow, rapid breaths and the feelings of boredom had left the moment he heard that monster scream. They were replaced with the thrill of the unknown. Now that he saw the world, it’s emptiness and death, he couldn’t help but reach, reach for that other place inside.
It was at the river, where they met. She stood, yards away from it and he walked. He was steady, coming nearer, over the river until he was there. He was by her side and she looked for a way to say what would be said, in a normal world. No time for her, because when she turned back to the river, he thrust his hands through her hair, whispered something, and took her hand, leading her up the river. “If this world made music, I wouldn’t hear anything else.” she told him.
“I can feel it.” He laughed.
When bodies are old, they weigh more. They move farther in order to get where they go, but it’s not like that when you’re young. You’re smaller, and a second away, you’re already expressing the feelings that come, or that’s if you believe in magic.
He took her other hand into his and spun her around, until her eyebrow creased and she feigned exhaustion. Then he spun by himself, tore off his clothes and dove into the water. It was deeper here, he’d known it all along.
She knew. Another day she might have frowned, left him there and walked back home, but today she knew. It was a chance for her to be the human humans where meant to be. The child that never leaves, no, and she was in love.
So she walked and walked. Her fingers brushed against the green leaves of plants all around her and they spilled their color over onto her hands, down their vines and into the sand. Her hair was brown as the bark of a maple tree; it blew under her lips and she sang, she sang as she walked. The river was nearer now and the sound of its water pounding over hard, brutal, but horribly still rocks mingled with her song.
There she sat, Metilda, feeding the chickens like she always did- when she had the time. Her other chores were to scrub kitchen pots, black with layers of filth, wash sheets and wipe down dust boards. In fact, she spent so much of her time doing the little things around the house that the grass in her yard was nearly overgrown, and bees had built huge, unmolested nests in every corner of her house.
She didn’t linger while feeding her chickens, but she certainly fed them quite often, so that most of the chickens were inordinately large, with eyes that bobbed with their heads, searching for food and squabbling when they discovered it.
Metilda stood up and ran back into the house. It was morning, but almost noon, and she had somewhere to be. “I wouldn’t mind a walk to the river,” she told herself. “I might need a few berries for the stew tonight.” There was another reason she wanted to visit the creek that ran down the shady green hills about ten minutes’ walk from her house. She felt a peace there. It drifted through the woods and rested on her when she sat, moved with her when she walked and hardly left her until she’d returned home.
She poured water into a freshly washed pot, measured in some beans and hauled it onto the stove. She tossed in some garlic gloves and flung herself through the doorway and escaped into the wild.
A strange creature watched her disappear into the shadows of the forest. It was brown, with enormous eyes; they hardly looked natural in such a small head with such a small body. Little wings, like those of a sparrow carried it from branch to branch. It followed her, twitching its head back and forth, its eyes never leaving her path.
“Look, it’s a spirit” She whispered. “He’ll just sit and watch, like a rock. The leaves blow and we walk and talk, but he’ll just sit; it doesn’t matter. Like a thousand pounds, but firm to the ground, he’ll just sit and watch.”
Brandon ran through the alleys, jumping over metal tubes and throwing himself past corners. He could barely think, but picked up his pace and pushed with his feet as hard as he could. It struck him as ironic that his thin body, small and nimble, could barely keep ahead of a roaring monster three times his size, in a narrow maze of dark alleys. He came upon a thick metal gate and unlatched the handle. He swung it open, stepped through, and slammed it closed just in time to hear a sickening crash as the monster flew into it.
Sunlight spread over the green hills that surrounded Brandon and he could hardly believe that a second ago, he had nearly met his fate. The sound of the monster’s snarl came close from behind the gate and the monster grated his claws across it. Brandon bent over, his arms on his legs, breathing hard. Then he looked up at the wall. “I would still be running if that wall were only ten feet shorter.” Or worse. His body ached.
A piercing cry rang through the air and dozens of others joined in from miles around.
“What is this?” He shook and stepped back from the wall.
A fury of wails and angry howls broke through the still, dusty city. His playground, one of the king’s many factories, was now overrun with a host of unnatural creatures unlike anything Brandon had ever heard of.
Foolish boy. He looked down, his legs swaying across the side of the wall he sat on. He kicked the tin sheet to his right with a loud shimmering bang. Once, twice, and again, waiting a few seconds each time. “Here I am,” he thought and breathed deeply. “It’s not that I’m bored; but I’d like there to be more, just a bit more.” He gave the sheet one last kick and jumped off the wall, rubbing off his stained hands and staining his white t-shirt in the process. He walked through an industrial yard, through passages between tall cement buildings and past locked gates. There were puddles on the ground, but he didn’t step in them. Not because he disliked the wet, but because when one’s shoes are wet, they make an awful squeaking noise.
Suddenly, from behind a corner that he never noticed, there came a loud bellow. It was like the bark of an angry dog, but as wicked as a crocodile’s hiss. Then came the thudding of huge feet. Not much later he saw it: A huge form- it was some kind of a beast. It had hair all over. And when I say all over I mean that the beast was almost entirely made of hair. There were some longer patches and others that barely hid the its dark, hard muscles. Hair covered its eyes and nose, but a wide, parted mouth was bare and dripping with foam.
As the boy turned to run, he heard a light chuckle and felt a breeze blow over his neck and ruffle his hair. “You asked for it.” The voice whispered.
I’m ready to take the pill.
The man walked through the cracked wooden doors into the building that stood touching the heavy, dark blue clouds above. He came into a large room, much different from the outside of the building. It was clean. Spotless. The walls were bare, except for a telephone and a fire extinguisher. There were counters everywhere; they lined the room and filled the open spaces, leaving pathways of polished white tiles. He looked over to the corner, where a bed was propped against the wall, and a large light hung over it, next to a cart full of medical instruments. A door he hadn’t noticed opened to his right, and a man wearing a blank white coat walked quickly through. The doctor shook the man’s hand, then walked over to the sink and washed his arms and hands, drying them and putting on gloves. His hair was black and his jaw was firm. He was energetic, but calm, and walked with a precise step. “We can get started right away. Are you ready?”
“Oh yes.” Said the man.
The doctor grabbed a folded blue gown from under a shelf and handed it to him. “You can change in my office, and then we’re set.”
A few minutes passed and the man was dressed. The doctor motioned to the bed in the corner. “Just lay down, I’ll be over in a second.” The man lay down, and looked at the room. Would he really say goodbye to himself- the only self he’d ever known, at least, ever since he could remember? He was ready. “So ready.” he thought to himself.
He blinked and the doctor was standing over him, putting on a new pair of gloves. “Take this and I’ll give you the shot.” He handed him a small paper cup, with a pale grey pill in it.
After years of confusion, he was finally holding the answer. He’d thought about this moment many times since he made the appointment, but never had it been this real. This close. One pill, filled with the powder that would soon flow in his blood, through his veins, into his heart and his mind, changing his very emotional makeup. He raised the cup to his mouth and swallowed it. Then he sighed. Reclining on the bed, he waited as the doctor dabbed his arm with alcohol and stuck in the needle, injecting the clear red fluid from the syringe that pressed against his arm. “This will help your body rest, so that the pill can take effect.” The doctor’s eyes were full and confident, and it was obvious that there was nothing to worry about. The man couldn’t help feeling like it would be nice to have just a few more minutes to think, to let go. “No, I’ve had years to think, and to curse myself and my disease.” He thought, as he forced his eyes to close. Seconds later, he was lost in the darkness, and the chemicals worked in his body, changing what he could never change on his own.
“That’s it. You’re done.”
He heard the voice and opened his eyes. He was drowsy, but clear headed enough to see the doctor, dressed in regular clothes and holding a tray of food. “You can go change now; it’s over.”
So the man dressed, ate, and barely had time to think until he was walking to his car. He looked up at the sky, now bright with the bronze light of the sun. It was evening, around 6 o’clock, but to him it was the start of a new life, a new existence.
The man that drove me over quiet, misty hills wore a black cap and a black jacket. It was certainly not all I would have expected. We were in a low, black car, not a white van and I wasn’t surrounded by overweight male nurses. Everything was still but the soft sniffing sounds from where I sat. I wiped my tears again and looked out the window to my left. I wasn’t scared… I wasn’t even sad that I was going to prison. I was sad because I wouldn’t see Sherry for at least another year. Something inside of me wished this drive would never end, but I knew that life doesn’t work that way.
So he walked by, wearing a striped gray jacket. A pencil balanced on his finger, he turned his face. I saw the blond hair from behind, thin and soft. He kept walking and before I knew it, he was gone. I looked away and let out a breath. It’s different with him, I thought to myself.
The next few months passed like birds, flying around my head and into the sky, leaving nothing behind but clouded memories and whispered words. I hardly recognized the faces that watched me while I lay in the hospital, and I don’t think they recognized me either. I heard them say “I never saw it coming”, or “What was she thinking?”, and I’m glad I was covered with tubes and unable to speak, or I would have been forced to come up with an answer I didn’t have. The reality is, in life you don’t see it coming and you don’t always know what you’re thinking, much less why you’re thinking it.
Soon after I was able to walk, I received a letter that marked my life forever.
The court date was scheduled for August, the 14th, and I was under house arrest until the proceedings. The charges were attempted murder. Of myself. I’d never realized it was illegal to commit suicide, but my mind was in such a state that I wasn’t shocked. My family was horrified, and my apathy only made that worse. If I could have thought clearer, then maybe I would have cared, but all that I could process were strings of words and lonely sentences that left and never came back.
The morning before the court gave its verdict, I lay in bed, unable to sleep, with Johnny Cash playing on my old stereo. Pale blue light filled my room, thick like the blankets over my legs. My window was open, letting the mist curl my hair into short, dark ringlets.
I hadn’t left my house in ages it seemed, but I really didn’t mind. Seeing the same four walls every day made it easier for me to numb the pain and ignore the questions that screamed in my mind when I least expected them. They got louder when it was silent, so I always had music playing, often the same tracks, repeating themselves over and over, comforting me and ushering me into the few minutes of untroubled sleep I could manage. Another song mingled with the one playing on my stereo. My mind tried to put them together and they made a sort of gross, sugary melody that made me smile. I checked my cell phone; it was Sherry. “Put on a sweater and come out, I’m waiting for you.”
I jumped out of bed and grabbed a sweater, then ran down the stairs and out of my house. There she was, I hadn’t seen her since the year before. School had taken her away from me, making my life all the more miserable. The last time I’d talked to her was the night I tried to kill myself, she had begged me to not give up. I ran into her and she held me. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I had to.” I sobbed. “Hush.” Her voice was calming to me. After a few minutes she opened the car door and we left. I held her hand and when we’d passed the boundary, the thick black band on my ankle started to beep. She drove me to an open field and we walked into the middle of it. “There, Natalie. Do you see the sun?” “Yeah.” I answered, looking at the gold gleaming out from over the horizon. It changed the sky from faded indigo to a brighter blue. “Do you see the flowers?” She asked. I answered again and felt the purple and red wildflowers around my feet. “Good.” She finished. That was all she said that morning, and when a police drove up behind us, she walked me to the car and never let go of my hand until I was off, looking behind me at her black outline, surrounded by the bright, enormous sun.
