It Was Not Yours

It was not yours, the night breathed old onto your cold new skin,
It was mine, the moon shone in my created eye.

I knew how you would feel, selfish and divine,

new, believing it was yours alone to love.

You spoke outward, voice caressed atop the harsh waves,

crashing onto jagged rock, broken bones of my battered body. 

I floated away on the salted grave you sang, then stopped,

spread out on the mountain meeting the moon, I let light melt from my heart. 

Life reaped, pooled and poured, your finger depressed a print on the sand,
a strange being to forge life from ruins of death in the depth of all. 

You were mine. Alive. I swallowed your lies whole until only hollow love remained,
echoing, yearning. But you were mine. 

Dreaming of the End

For the first time, I had an apocalyptic dream that scared me. Usually I enjoy apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic dreams because it's one of my favorite genres to read/write/watch and I love getting new ideas or in the weird way that dreams allow you to, feel the emotions of what's happening.

But this one was different. There was a huge storm last night, we've been getting a lot of strange and crazy storms lately which is in itself a little disconcerting and concerning, and our power was having a hard time staying on - constant brown outs. We were in bed sleeping when  I woke up to constant lightning and then a roar of wind and rain. I told myself it was OK and slowly went back to sleep, asleep to a dream that was too similar to the half-awake state of what I was thinking.

The Dream:

My husband and I were in the car on our way to the store when suddenly the entire road in front of us dropped down and all the cars, trees, poles, buildings and people disappeared into the giant hole ahead. We frantically backed up and turned our car around and came home, but the thoughts flying through my head were why go home, what will be left of our home? This is something other than a horrible storm, this is more, we need to do something other than hide in a place we think is safe but will probably not last the next 24 hours. I don't know what to do. 
End.

Those thoughts and feelings are horrible. To know your pet is probably gone. Everything you own, gone. Everything you know gone. There is nothing and nowhere you can go for help. Cellphones and internet down-no way to find out what is happening and if there is anything or anywhere you can go for safety or where you know your loved ones will be. All you have is yourself, at that moment, and that is the only guarantee you will ever have again.

It wasn't a long dream, but it was potent. I woke up in the morning to find that some disaster had struck our town. A straight wind had uprooted immense trees and destroyed some roads, our power is still a little wonky and I don't know, nor really do I want to find out, if people's homes or lives were destroyed.

I wanted to write this down so I can go back to it and understand that feeling for a future story. I've had a lot of similar dreams but this one for some reason, I guess it was the timing, had me waking up with my mind racing.

One of my favorite apocalyptic dreams was where I was on my way to my parents, driving by myself, and the sky viciously and suddenly went a dark dark grey, not quite night, but more intense than a storm, and these flashes of light hotter and whiter than lightening blazed through the sky. Then trees fell everywhere and a huge fire started in a field to my left and without anything to really indicate it, I knew aliens had arrived and humanity was in the quick process of being taken over.

The one thing about most of my dreams where I come up with story ideas is how I just suddenly know what is going on or about to happen. There's no finding out, no proof or realization over time where evidence presented itself subtly. Just me thinking "Aha! I know!" And that's it. So every time I want to turn a dream into a story I have to figure out that HUGE major part, that is, essentially the whole manuscript - ha!

The Peculiar Girl and the Wood Table

Gnarly wood with knots and holes, divots and rings in shades of pale sand to roasted walnuts ran smoothly under Stay’s finger tips. Her porcelain finger caught in a deeper groove before jumping back on track with the rest of her hand lazily tracing the ancient lines. The wood table appeared roughly made; wide, uneven patches of wood set together with pegs, the grains not matching as her eyes jumped from one panel to another. Stay could only assume her mother, or possibly the father she never knew, had made it before she was born. Sitting strong in the center of the kitchen, the table had always held what was post important: a place to fold cranes, to build cakes and skin rabbits. She had bled onto the table, coffee rings almost created a pattern like a dream catcher created filigree along the edges. Gouges in the wood from an angry knife stabbed deep while shallower points were created to hold the blade in thought.

Stay imagined the wood holding onto her memories.  With no mother, father or people to remember or create memories with her, the table was the only one she could imagine capable. Once a living thing, growing strong and tall, reaching for the sky in an endless craving for life, it understood.

Reminiscent and in need of a friend, Stay brought out her old friends. The porcupine bones were still tied together with string being held together like puppets ready to dance and run with her. Stay admired the contrast as she set the bones on the wood table. Smooth creamy bones against rough woods. The combination screamed time and life at her, life gone and time always going. The tree had grown into the earth, sinking roots into the ground while branches spread into the sky. Bones of the porcupine held the life and structure of the animal while the beast remained unaware of its skeleton, the only part of the creature left. The wood and the bones would continue to live on in death, time deepening what they once were. Everything was backwards. The tree and porcupine they were dead but in death remained alive forever, they held age as time went on. Both so beautiful and so different.

Stay craved immortality in bones.

She imagined her body lying on the long kitchen table. Her form slowly decomposing and the wood soaking up what it could of her body, allowing her soul and essence to become part of the world until years drift by and it would only be her bones left on the table. Creamy, slender and elegant cradled by the table, her small bony fingers settling in the grooves of the wood, her skull pitched back to rest along a worn knot in ecstasy.

Stay rubbed the back of her head, feeling the gentle curve of her skull bend in toward her spine, the delicate balance of her entire being resting at that pivotal point. She couldn’t help wonder at how easy it would be.

Standing up and pushing away from the table, Stay shoves those thoughts away. Thinking of life and death and the potential immortality of death is dangerous. Though she never knew what happened to her mother for certain, she felt it in the center of her heart; her mother was dead.

Stay’s mother had problems. One of the comforting things Stay read in her many books was every single person had a multitude of problems. They could have problems that were solved but created new problems, problems that followed them through life and problems they never even know they had. That was the kind of problem Stay’s mother had. The kind of problem that ate away at her happiness and told her she wasn’t ok the way she was until she didn’t know how to feel. She thought the only way she could feel normal again was through pain. Stay had seen the scars forming on her mother’s arms and peeking under the hem of her shorts on her thighs.

The life left her eyes until she looked at Stay with nothing buy greyness. There were moments when Stay thought she was ok again, when her mother would fold cranes and line them on the sill in the kitchen, she would bake a strawberry tart and dust it with powdered sugar, blowing it like a cloud over the table and smiling through the cloud at Stay. The times of momentary rightness were quickly shadowed by hours, sometimes days, of stagnation. Her mother would sit in the living room staring out the window, barely moving. No more cuts, only staring into the woods as if waiting for something. Was she waiting for Stay’s father to return? Was she waiting for a reason to live?

Her mother had a problem she didn’t know she had and she couldn’t fix it. Pills might have helped her. There was a pharmacy in town and an old, kind doctor Stay saw once as a child when she had a fever. But, her mother didn’t go. She went to the market and bought food and other necessities as if she could bake it all away.

Now Stay glared at the table that held the confections of her mother’s love. The table that taunted her with life and death, making a mockery out of all Stay knew. The table soaked in their life and love and acted like its support was enough to give in return. Did it keep her mother alive? Did the hard-hearted table stop Stay’s mother from hurting herself? Did it offer support when Stay cut her finger off? Perhaps 18 years with this table was enough, maybe it was time for her to move on from the problems of her mother and make this home her own.

 Stay wanted to stay alive. The table sucked the life out of her. It would stand like an unmoving stone as a constant reminder of the pain her mother held, making it her own. It would cut at her heart making her wonder at her father and hold resentment toward her mother.

The house had an unused landline she could dust off to call information and get a technician to install internet. Then buy an old laptop from the resale shop and purchase a new table online. Stay wouldn't have to leave the house often. She could remake the home she had into anything she wanted, a Parisian coffee shop or a Buddhist temple.

With the decision made, Stay took her porcupine pals and hung them from a hook above the kitchen window. Opening the window allowed a breeze to pulsate through, the bones becoming chimes as they gently knocked on one another like laughter.

The table would have to go.

© Ash Huntley

RD for scene in MS: White Lies

Essa pulled Anne through the emergency EXIT door on the far end of the room. An empty stairwell devoid of windows and prying eyes met them. Essa impatiently yanked the slow moving door shut.

"You have to get out of here."

"I can't leave."

"We'll find a way, together." Essa pleaded, taking hold of Anne's arms.
"No, Essa." She insisted "I won't go."

"What?" Essa squeezed Anne's arms in earnest  "You'll die if you stay!" She yelled at her.

"I'm going to die anyway" Anne whispered, refusing to meet Essa's gaze.

Essa stared at Anne, a crease formed between her brows.

"I...I have cancer." Essa could barely hear what Anne said. She stared in shock, unable to comprehend the words of their world's formal evil. "I found out just before the Rapture  The doctors said I had two years to live." Tears welled in Anne's eyes, "My family wanted to go to a Tower immediately after the Rapture began, but we waited and hid from the panic. We locked ourselves in our home for two months. It was horrible." Anne's voice broke and she slumped to the ground. Essa held her, crouched and horrified at the thought, remembering her own experience. "Bodies and blood everywhere. Most homes were ransacked or burned to the ground. Everything was torn apart.
If it weren't for the Ones in White searching for survivors, offering shelter, we would have stayed hidden forever. We wouldn't have survived long." Anne looked into Essa's eyes, "I wanted to stay with my family. Running from this," she gestured with her hand behind her: to the door of the rec room "Would have been pointless. Making my family watch me suffer and die, just so they could be denied what they truly wanted?" Anne shook her head, "Have them watch me wither away? I couldn't do that to them."

Anne's eyes pleaded for understanding, searching Essa's face before continuing.

"I'm so tired. I'm tired of being sick, of my parent's looking at me with fear in their eyes. Fear that I might not make it. I'm tired of remembering all the bodies lying in our front yard. Of wondering how we made it out alive. Maybe it was God."

Essa didn't know how to respond. She sank to her butt, leaning against the wall. She continued to hold Anne. Anne's cold skin pressed against her's, sharp elbows poking into Essa's stomach.

Essa squeezed her eyes shut, remembering the vibrant healthy girl Anne used to be.

"They gave me a place to stay while we waited, they gave me meds and made me comfortable. Despite the lack of hospitals, they have some pretty advanced stuff. They don't use it on us folk much, but they took my pain away."

"If they have such advanced stuff, couldn't they cure it?" Essa's hands clenched around Anne's shoulders.

Anne gave her a funny look, "You know they wouldn't."

Essa sucked in a breath at the reality. Anne was right, they wouldn't. If they had the cure to all human diseases, they would never give it to someone who was in line to go to Heaven. They would only use it for their elite group, the Officials and their teams. They would be the ones to survive the Rapture, start a new world. Everyone else would have to die, one way or another.

"Now what? You're going to just, give up?"

"If that's how you want to think of it, I gave up a long time ago. I've been lucky to have more time with my family. Please, Essa, don't be angry with me. It's better this way, I'm happy to go pain free with my family." Ann straightened, leaving Essa's clutched embrace. She brushed away the run away tears from her face with her fingers. She gave Essa a small smile.

Essa stood too, unsure what to do.

"What...kind?" She asked Anne.

"Does it really matter? It's everywhere now." Anne sighed, "That was the first time I admitted, well, everything."

"I don't want to leave you." Essa's voice croaked as tears threatened to spill again. She could feel their time coming to a close, she couldn't bear to say goodbye.

"Oh, Essa, I'm so sorry. Maybe it would have been better for you if we never met again, if you never knew. But, know that talking to you, seeing that you're alright and not like them helped me. I can say goodbye to someone. You can get out of here and...remember me." Anne's cheeks again ran with tears.

"Of course I'll remember you." Essa whispered, looking away.

Anne hugged Essa. Her ribs pushed onto Essa's stomach, her thin arms popping against Essa's back.
Essa's heart broke, it tightened in her chest as she fought the scream building in her throat. Tears blurred her vision as Anne whispered in her ear "Goodbye." She gave Essa a kiss on the cheek and turned to leave.

Then she was gone. Through the door, back to the rec room. To perish from this Earth in a matter of days. Essa waited a heartbeat. Then another. She couldn't move. With her hand on the cheek Anne kissed, she vowed to always remember her.

Essa roughly wiped her face with her sleeve before forcing herself to hurry through the door. She kept her head down and walked fast to the other side of the room. If she saw Anne again, she would fall apart in the middle of the floor.

She ignored the shouts of Mr. Clipboard as she breezed past him. Her destination was only steps away.
Bursting through the door, in the vestibule between the rec room and the elevators, she made it. The moment the door shut, Essa fell to her knees, sobbing. Alone again.

With a thought, her heart leapt violently.

Are there cameras?

Essa composed herself again, jamming the elevator button to go down. She desperately needed to be in the privacy of her room. She couldn't risk being seen so emotional. If there cameras in here, they would surely know about her now.

© Ash Huntley

The Peculiar Girl and Dreams of Cranes

Origami was one of the few things Stay had that connected her to her mother. A woman she barely remembered. Her face a pale blur haloed in dark brown. Slim fingers and soft hands deftly folded colorful squares of paper into animals for Stay to play with. Stay would lay on her stomach, chin in hands, watching paper fold and fold and fold. Feet kicked in anticipation.

Purple giraffe, pink and brown paisley hippo, blue lion, polka dot fox and every color cat. Every pattern in every color imaginable took the form of cranes. Cranes adorned every crevice and nook of Stays room, slowly spilling out into the house and sometimes outside. A mobile of them circled above her as a baby, the mobile which now collected early morning dusk in her childhood room, rarely ventured into.

Cranes in corners, cranes in socks and cranes soaring down from an open refrigerator. Cranes lining a path to the frozen lake on a bright January day.

Footprints followed the cranes to the lake, Stay followed both. A child skipping, giddy for a surprise, grinning, hair flowing out behind her. Bare skin against the cold winter wind. A childhood whimsy at what she might find.

An empty frozen lake with a small jagged hole. A soft ripple spilled out, then receded.  Then again. Slower, slower. Stay never saw her mother. Stay returned home. Young, cold, old, alone, to a home filled with empty-hearted, color-filled cranes.

Stay dreamed of cranes. Cranes crying frozen tears. Cranes drowning in bright sunshine. Cranes flying with her upon the wings. Her dreams filled with cranes until she could not stand the loneliness of them. She spent years dreaming of cranes and  morning after morning folding them. She made hundreds of them, placing them together to create one larger than life.

Shades of purples, greens, and blues. Oranges and aqua, yellows and reds. And two large patches of black for beady eyes.The towering crane stood ten feet tall and fifteen feet long.

Spring time and a confused young teen, Stay lifted the large crane easily. The smooth paper warm and comforting on her skin, the smell of paper and ink hugged her as she took it to the lake.

Setting it on the edge, Stay peered out to where her mother disappeared. Face to the sun, she took a deep breath of wet greenery and new light. The wood and moss full of life and sounds of beasts roamed around her. Eyes filled with rainbows and cranes, she gently shoved the memorial into the water, a final goodbye.

© Ash Huntley