River Voices

642 Things to Write About: You are about to take a nap by a river, and as you are dozing off, the rush of the river begins to sound like words. What does the river say to you? What does it want you to do?

Spring arrives by thawed rivers and lakes, in the flowers blooming in every yard. I stroke the soft, cool, dark green grass and close my eyes. I feel myself drifting like the lazy river winding around me. Then I hear it. The bubbling, rumbling of the river over rocks sounds like a voice. Oh no, not here too. I'm napping on the riverside to escape the songs and voices that mumble through the box-fan at home.

I groan and try to ignore it, concentration instead on the suns' heat soaking through my lids.

"Sopphhiieee..." a voice whispers up like mist from the water's rippling surface. I don't open my eyes and I don't dare move. "Sophie," it says again, "I know you can hear me now. All this time I was trying to contact you through the fan. I should have known a more natural approach would be more successful."

I must be dreaming. I open my eyes and look around, I'm alone. There's a swirl of water spiraling in the center of the river. I swallow and take a step away. The swirl lifts up from the water and the voice returns. "You're the only one who can help me."

The Girl Who Saw the Universe

642 Things to Write About: you meet a girl who, when she closes her eyes, can see the entire universe. Tell us about this girl.

She hovers over the ground, toes pointed down, skirting the floor. Sparks, like stars, sprinkle in her wake. When she closes her eyes her body goes still and her lids light up purple and blue, rapidly swirling and morphing from one color to another. She opens her mouth and lets out a breath filled with spiraling galaxies and clouds of stars. Her eyes twitch under her colorful lids and her cheeks turn rosy.

She opens her eyes. She smiles and stars fall to her feet, floating above the ground with her.

She is the girl who can see the universe.

Magnetic

642 Things to Write About: One morning Jessica wakes up and realizes she is magnetic.

Fingers tingled again. All of Jessica's skin buzzed with something she could only describe as electric. Why did she keep waking up with such a strange feeling? When she reached for her metal framed alarm clock, always a hair's width too far to reach, it seemed to jump into her hand with a cold slap.

Well, that didn't happen the previous morning. Jessica turned the alarm off and shook it out of her hand. The buzz stretched out from her fingers like an electric shock from too much friction.

When she walked down the stairs, her mom humming in the kitchen, the keys on the walkway table rattled, fell to the floor and skidded to her feet.

"What the...?"

Jessica kicked the keys away and ran to the kitchen, only to have her stomach smacked by a spoon. Her mom turned around to see Jessica pulling it away and it stick to her fingers.

"I see it's started," her mom said with a glee, a smile wide on her thin face.

Peculiar Girl and Snow

The snowflake lingered on Stay's outstretched hand. It didn't melt upon contact, turning into a regular drop of water to be collected in a minuscule vial and placed on her shelf of rain. It remained full and intact. A tiny, delicate cut of the world, a piece of shattered cloud fallen merrily to her hand. Stay had been outside in the snow for hours, cooling her hands for just this.

The icy design sat on a knuckle. The flake was a cathedral of ice, filled with spires and dancing light - a thing to pray to. another flake joined it, this one more rounded, with delicate cut-out pieces and swooping lines from point to point. The flakes faded. They could not last forever on her skin that insisted on being warm for short bursts of time.

No matter how long Stay stood outside, surrounded by sugared trees and bushes caked in ice, no mater where she stood, whether by the lake as it creaked under the pressure of heaps upon heaps of snow, luxurious and soft, or standing on the roof of her house, slick like an ice slide seducing her to her doom, she could not become or remain cold enough. She remained strong and steadfast, standing tall and sure either at the edge of the ice on the roof or at the lake. But neither place made a difference. Her blood would take the tiny sting, as the flakes landed, away. She would always enjoy it from afar, the snow, dusting the world in a haze of melted lines and cold calm.

Cold and calm. That is how the snow made Stay feel. She preferred the cold. To let the warmth from her blood leech out into the dry air like a wet huff, an exhalation of glorious remorse. She could stand, still as an ice sculpture, as the world pushed down from all sides.The cold took it all away, in a hush of white-noise. Every time it snowed she stepped out into it and it fell on her like a hug. A hug from a friend she always looked forward to seeing.

© Ash Huntley 12/2013

Peculiar Girl and Cat Teeth

Cat teeth and a wolf claw, a skunk tail and assorted legs from raccoon, possums, and squirrels. Stay didn't have many bones on her mantel, but her collection grew nearly ever time she walked through the woods. They found her, in the form of a glint of yellow-white poking from brown leaves, a puff of fur nearby; sings she looked for. The only full skeleton she had were her porcupine bones, strung together and flying in front of a window. The rest lay random on the fire mantel, now with the fire silent beneath, in red and orange, mirroring autumn crawling through the windows, warming her naked toes.

The cat teeth were stacked in a small jar the size of her thumb. Molars, canines. Kitten and mature. Sharp and some with blood still clinging to the root. Ever so tiny, strong and capable. They seemed much too small to mean so much to such beasts.

Bones were strange, beautiful puzzle pieces to life. A thing most never saw while living, a beauty that only showed itself in the age of death. Stay wandered the woods and picked up the smooth bones among twigs and leaves. She marveled at the life they had, and at the energy returned the creatures returned to the world; except for that one bone.

Stay imagined assuming the role of Frankenstein. She would put the teeth on white linen, lined up in swooping rows, almost lost against the weave of the fabric. Stay watched in her minds eye as she cut her finger on a tiny tooth, the blood becoming the tooth's blood, the animal's life. The skunk bone would lye on the opposite end of the linen, ensuring a touch of the unknown, of wild mystery. Other beasts would bring her creature strength, stealth, and ferociousness.

Thumbing the bottle, stay gave it a small shake. The teeth jingled on the glass, music of life and death. A molar stock to the bottom of the cork top.

She would be no Frankenstein. She would never be able to care for an animal. Cleaning bones from the outside and dusting them, she could do. Feeding, loving and caring for a living creature other than herself, she could not.

Uncorking the jar, Stay pooled a few teeth onto her palm. How different some looked from others. Spikes and mini mountains, some with pits and others with ravines. There could be a whole minuscule world among these cat teeth. Oh, how Stay would love to live in such a world among calcified mountains.

Rivers would dig deep and trees would grow wide until they all connected, their branches grafted into one mutated web: a tree of life. The sky would turn green and the rain would be leaves. Milk flowers would grow beside the mountain and the river's water would be warm and pure from the tree's roots. This world would be free from disease. Stay imagined living in this world, alone, with no need nor desire to build separate shelter. To block out and hide away. Her bed would be moss, her cup would be bark, her shade would be the great tree of life.

Stay stretched her neck, it gave a lad pop. She had been looking so intently at the teeth in her hand a cramp had formed, snapping her out of the day dream. She carefully placed each tooth, one at a time, back into the jar.

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. 

Dust of Danika - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

These people were obsessed, what a nuisance they were creating for the world around them, a waste of news time and a waste of tax money making these two bored cops sit out here in the blistering day because some people needed to find something out of nothing. The desire to find something other-worldly from the shooting star or UFO or meteor or Alien Sight or any other name the people were calling it as Danika and Brett weaved through the people sitting cross-legged on towels, blankets and cushions. Danika understood wanting to be part of something, for a sense of community and belonging to a niche culture, this was absurd and a little crazy.

Denial rang through her mind. She probably would have tented out here with a few friends for a good time and to see what other people would do or say in the light of cameras. This situation was connected to her, was a part of her and she a part of it. She was not an outsider wondering what had happened and hoping for a peek beyond the yellow tape. Danika was not looking to mingle with other curious minds, no, she was here to eavesdrop, to listen to the incoming reports and theories. She was an insider.

“So what’s the plan?” Brett whispered as we dodged yet another man wearing a tin hat roughly shaped into a point that stuck a foot into the air.

“This was your idea?”

“But this is your thing.”

“And your idea.”

Brett stopped abruptly, causing a cluster of girls in tight t-shirts bearing green aliens giving peace sign salutes to cuss at him before circling around and continuing their wait to a food truck serving Extraterrestrial Chili, “We should have some semblance of an idea on what to do next before we actually do it.”

“Agreed.” Brett gave me a withering look. We found a shady patch of unspoken for grass and settled down.

“Hi! Do you want a t-shirt?” A bubbly petit girl with wildly curly blonde hair and heavy plastic glasses in a forest green with lenses so thick her eyes looked like a real alien's, bounced in front of us with a stack of neatly folded shirts in black and grey. The black one on top featured a night sky with a girl flying through the air, her legs melding into a shooting star like a mermaid tail.

“What other desings do you have?” Brett stood to see the other shirts the girl brought over.

“Do you know what’s going on?” I asked, nodding to the newly arrived news van setting up next to the other two. Two guys hopped out and hurried over to the group of newscasters already formed in a circle near the caution tape.

The girl looked up from the mound of t-shirts she had displayed on the grass. Crouched down, she peered through the throngs of people and shook her head slightly before turning back to Brett.

“My boyfriend just made these designs and we had them screen-printed in just a few hours, based off what people said they saw. They’re probably all crazy but…”

“I’ll take a men’s medium of the girl with the comet tail.” Brett interrupted the girl.

"So you've heard them talking?" I asked.

"Not really." The girl shifted her gaze from Brett pulling out a $20 from his wallet to the commotion of newscasters getting ready to do a new report.

"These designs are based off what people here claimed they saw? Was it your boyfriend who talked to someone and drew the design accordingly or did you just overhear a conversation and used your artistic liberties to create something to sell right back a them?

"Well everyone here is a little," the girl made a circling motion with her finger around her temple, "you know? They're all babbling about a girl falling from the sky, how original, sounds like that one movie." She took Brett's money, piled up the shirts and sauntered away to another set of people.

"Fell from the sky..." She hadn't really said that. People weren't really saying that. 

"I don't know what movie she's talking about, but it's a cool idea." Brett's smiling face turned to her, new shirt proudly on his chest, the girl was fair but there was no detail in the face, no indication if she was scared, happy, or afraid. His smile faded as he looked at her.

"That's what the men in the building said. They said I fell from the sky."

“You didn’t mention that before.”

“Did you want me to tell you every last detail? I’ve only known you for half a day.”

“Yeah but telling me you killed two men is fine.”

“I didn’t know them babbling something crazy like I fell from the sky, was important information to remember or divulge. I thought maybe being scared I killed them was more important.” I said. I groaned at the image on Brett’s shirt. A depiction of me, the girl who fell from the sky. That’s insane.

“Danika.”

“What?” I said.

“What?” Brett gave me a puzzled look.

“You said my name.”

“I didn’t.”

“Oh, I must’ve imagined it.” I sat back down on the ground, giving in to observing the commotion with the newscasters.

“Danika.” I definitely heard someone say my name. I looked up to Brett who was settling down next to me. His face was blank, playing with a twig on the ground.

“Brett, I think I’m hearing things.” My heart began to race at the idea of not only having amnesia, thinking I fell from the sky, but now hearing things too.

“Danika report to command now.” The voice again, it wasn’t quite like a man’s voice, but it definitely wasn’t a woman’s. It had a slight robotic sound to it, like two voices layered into one. I know longer see the parking lot ahead or the grass and leaves under my hands. I can feel them the dirt at my fingertips but I see a blue room and a metal table at under my hands. The voice is there again, “You understand your mission, you will be deployed today.” The carrier of the voice was pacing behind me, I knew it then, I could feel it now, but no matter how much I tried I couldn’t turn my head around to see.

“Of course.” My own voice resonated in the blue and grey room, my hands folded in front of me, determined and ready. Then it disappeared and the parking lot, trees and dirt appear again before me. Brett is staring at me with wide eyes.

“That was insane.”

“Did you see it too?”

“See? Did you see something? You were glowing, you almost looked like a hologram, straight out of star trek.”

Dust of Danika - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

My hand stilled mid-stroke on the couch cushion, a dash of blue a shade darker than the rest where I smoothed the fabric in opposing directions. Holding my breath I waited for Brett to hold me still and allow the police to bust in to take me away. I would let it happen, I deserved to be taken away. When Brett didn't move I looked to the door in anticipation. 

Knock-knock-knock,  “Brett Anderson open the door or we will use force.” 

“Danika, go to my bedroom closet.” Brett hissed at me as he stood and looked around his apartment as if everything needed hiding. He brushed a hand through his hair and gave me an urgent look.

I jumped off the couch and shuffled to the larger of two bedrooms at the end of the hal . His bedroom was tidy with a black and grey striped rug stretching across the floor, a bed made in dark grey sheets and books scattered on a metal bedside table. I sighed with relief as the closet door opened quietly. I pushed the hanging clothes aside, closed the door, and sat on a pile of shoe boxes.

The wall of the closet shared the wall of Brett’s living room. I pressed my ear to the plaster and listened as Brett opened his apartment to the police. Mumbling and incoherent conversation, a pause, and then Brett’s raised voice, “Not without a warrant you're not." Then his door closed and I heard someone enter the bedroom. I held my breath and shrank back into the dark of Brett’s clothes. I tucked my feet up, making myself as small as possible.

When the closet door opened and Brett pushed aside the clothing, I couldn’t release my fetal position. I stared up at him, fear cascaded through my blood and my heart thumped loudly in my ears, I swear he could hear it too.

“They’re gone.” Brett turned and sat on his bed.

As I crawled out of the closet I realized how fast things seemed to be moving. Brett and I weren’t friends, he had no need to protect me and every reason to give me to the police. He should never have brought me to his home. He was caught up in some kind of romantic notion and must be regretting it by now. I needed to leave.

“They were looking for you.”

“I’m sorry.” I stood in front of him biting my lip.

“Apparently one of my neighbors saw us come in. The police are looking for a girl in a tattered blue dress who was seen fleeing a crime scene.” His green eyes were cold.

“I’ll leave.” I said.

“Where will you go?”

I shrugged, “I have nowhere to go but I can’t stay here. You have no obligation to help me or protect me from the cops. I shouldn’t have come here with you.” I remember how my head spun when police knocked on hid door a moment ago. My mind had flown into accusations that Brett had turned me in. I didn't trust him either.

“I can’t just throw you out.” Brett bit at his thumb nail.

“Listen Brett, thank you for trying. Thank you for giving me fresh clothes and pushing the police away. But I’m not your problem and we don’t know anything about one another. I don’t even know anything about myself, we can’t build trust let alone a friendship like that. I think we both feel weird and it would be best if I left.”

I left the bedroom and hurried toward his front door. I grabbed a pair of flip flops sitting with his other shoes on the way out, silently apologizing and thanking him. Before Brett could even leave hid bedroom, I was out the door and down the hallway of the apartment complex. In the elevator I put the large flip flops.

The elevator grunted its way to the ground floor. Something smasheed into my head. I yelled and fell into the metal side, images flashed before my eyes. A face peering into mine, a bright light ahead, my eyes squinted as I attempted to make out other blurry shapes. Then a sharp poke in my arm, I gasped and tried to struggled free but I’m paralyzed. The memory was gone. I’m leaning against the elevator wall, the door opening. No sign of anything having fallen and my head no longer hurt.

I cautiously stepped out into the lobby. I squelched the thudding of the pain and fear from my memory. Brett burst from a door marked STAIRS. He barreled at me, I took a step back wondering if he changed his mind and called the police to come back and get me.

“I thought about it and you should stay with me.” He’s out of breath and sweat glistened on his brow.

Biting my lip I nodded.

Back on his couch I confessed, “I know you shouldn’t trust me because who the hell knows, but, I’m having a hard time trusting you too. It seems awfully convenient that you were at the park right when I needed you, that the police showed up and that you keep offering me help.”

“There’s nothing I can say to make you trust me but I hope my actions, for a lack of a better term, speak louder than my words.” Brett gave me a small smile but the term meant nothing to me. His smile faltered as I my face remained still.

“I think I had a memory.”

Brett sat up straight, “What?”

“I was in the elevator and I swear something hit me in the head and then it was like I was there. I was lying down and a someone was above me, looking at me, with a bright light above them and I felt a poke in my arm but I couldn’t move.”

“hmmm.”

“What do you think?”

“I think it sounds clichéd but I believe you. It’s not any more bizarre than anything else you’ve said.”

“Don’t you think you should be more freaked out about everything? You found me in a park, brought me home, I told you I killed someone, the police show up, people are freaking out about aliens, and I don’t know who I am.”

“I think it’s kind of cool.” He shrugged.

“Well I’m freaking out.” Tears build again, my lip hurt from biting on it so hard and my leg began to throb from my constant jittering.

“We should go!” Brett stood up suddenly, excitement pouring off him. He grabbed his coat and sunglasses.

“Go?”

“To the site where the loons are camped out. To where the meteor supposedly landed. See if we can find anything or if anything else comes to you.”

Brett routed around in a closet by the door and pulled out a pair of grey converse with dirty laces, “Here, these were my sisters, I think they’ll fit you.”

“Were?” I go over to him and put them on. He was right, they do fit. He shook his head at my question, not meeting my gaze. I dropped the subject and stood back up, feeling exposed in the short shorts, baggy shirt and shoes. “Ok, let’s go.”

The parking lot crowd had tripled in size since I saw it on the news. Food trucks and merchandise, tents set up along the edges and police tape encircled the building. I began to feel queasy as we approached the crowd, wondering if somehow people would know.

No one did.

© Ash Huntley

Dust of Danika - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“Did you hear about this?” The guy who brought me to his place, who told me his name was Brett, gestured to his muted TV where a newscaster spoke in front of a clip playing over and over again at different speeds. Sometimes zoomed in and sometimes zoomed out of what seemed to be a meteor flying through the night sky, blazing white with a golden tail and then disappearing behind a cluster of trees.

At first I wanted to give him a look to remind him I didn’t remember who I was let alone an event that made it to the news. But as I turned to give him a stare, my eye caught something else on the repeated video. The building I ran from less than a dozen hours ago sat in front the trees where the meteor vanished.

I dropped the cup of tea I was holding, the mug shattered on the tiled floor of Brett’s kitchen and warm milky tea sloshed on my newly cleaned feet and splashed on my bandaged calf. The shorts of his sister and large t-shirt of his own he gave me to wear were safe from the tea. I stepped forward, closer to the screen to get a better look, to make sure. It was definitely the building. I just ran across that parking lot, had been tied to a chair inside that building.

When I looked to the meteor flying through the night sky a strange feeling washed over me. A flush of hot filled me at the center of my stomach and my extremities began to tingle as if numb with cold. I stumbled back in shock and hit the island of Brett’s kitchen. Everything happened in seconds, from dropping the mug to stumbling back. Brett rushed over and held me steady by the elbow.

Before asking what was wrong he grabbed the remote from the counter behind him and unmuted the TV. He gave me a questioning look then turned the volume up. While the woman on television spoke, Brett grabbed a dish towel and picked up the tea and mug mess I made.

“Police officials urge anyone who saw or heard anything in the area to call 911. Again, the impact measured at 1.2 megatonnes but there is no sign or evidence of a crater. We ask the public to remain calm as there is no reason to panic or jump to conclusions.”  The image changed to a live video of a small group of people gathered in the parking lot of the building. They held signs with pictures of aliens and gathered around small campers with food and tents, some even wore tinfoil hats.

Brett muted the TV again. He gently set the remote down then turned to face me. Leaning on the counter, arms taught, he waited patiently. Closing my eyes I felt it again, the intense heat at my center. The sensation of weightlessness suddenly took my breath away. I snapped my eyes open and steadyied myself in Brett’s cool green gaze.

“Danika” I whispered. I didn’t know what it meant or where it came from. It popped into my head and felt right; the meteor, the heat in my gut. Danika.

“What?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember it exactly. The name sort of slipped into my mind. At least I think it’s my name but I have no context around it, no faces or voices saying it, nothing visual. Just a feeling.”

“Danika.” Brett repeated. He pulled out his phone and tapped for a few seconds, “It’s polish for morning star.” He looked at me then back to the television screen where the footage of the meteor played again. I shrugged. “You reacted pretty strongly to the video footage.” He said.

“I wasn’t lying to you about what happened to me last night. I woke up tied to a chair in that building,” I pointed to the screen.

“You’re telling me the truth.”

I nodded, “The men thought I was an alien.” I can barely get the words out. My hands began to tremble as I watched the video loop over again and the weightlessness returned. Familiarity, loneliness and grief.

“What are you trying to say? You think you’re an alien?”

“No. Of course not. I don’t know. Jesus I don’t know anything. I woke up tied to a chair with men preparing to torture me because they thought I was an alien. They said they watched me fall from the sky! They called the police.” Sweat prickled up at the back of my neck.

“Ok. Ok. We need to calm down. I feel like we’re freaking out over nothing. We don’t know who you are and for some reason we want to jump to outrageous coincidental conclusions.” Brett turned the TV off and went to his couch. He plopped himself down and stared ahead of him - out the window of his high-rise apartment.

“I’m sorry. I’m freaked out about it. I want to know who I am and after last night... and now this on the news…”

“Come here,” Brett patted the cushion beside him, “Let’s sit and chill for a minute, enjoy the view. Maybe once you relax you’ll remember something. Any tiny detail will help us help you.”

I agreed and sat beside him. The warmth of his body, his arm barely touching mine as I sat down and the smell of soap wafting from the bathroom didn’t feel like a scenario I knew, but it seemed like one I should. I tried to relax, sitting back and feeling the soft blue material of the couch cushion.

“Did you say the guys called the police?” Brett said.

“Yes but they weren’t interested.”

"The men or the cops?"

"The cops."

“I think the police are interested now.”

They probably were interested in the girl in tatters that two drunken men said fell from the sky. With multiple videos showing the same image of a meteor falling from the sky, the shake of the earth in the area and lack of evidence to show for it. Now if they went to the building and saw the remains… I took a big breath, I was in serious trouble.

“Why did you decide to help me? Kind of strange to take a dirty, barefoot girl to your apartment, I might be a crazy.” I needed to change the subject away from what happened to the men, I wasn't tell Brett that much.

Brett turned his head and opened his eyes to look at me “You are a little crazy." He smiled, "I couldn’t not sit next to you. A pretty girl who looked in desperate need of someone or something. I couldn’t walk on by only to spend months wondering what had happened to you. Regret comes from not doing something, so I did it.”

“I think I killed the men in the building.” I blurted out. So much for keeping it to myself  that last for all of five seconds. I needed him to know, I needed to know if he would continue to help and trust me with all this craziness surrounding me.

Brett coughed, “Excuse me?”

“Oh god, I was tied to the chair and they were about to slice my neck and I was so scared. I closed my eyes and there was light and a weird sound and then they were gone and my ropes were burned away. I think I did it. I wanted it done and it happened.”

“I’m sure they’re not dead--“

“I saw their body pieces strewn across the floor.” I interrupted him before he could try and convince himself otherwise.

“Shit.” Brett brushed a hand through his hair.

“oh god oh god oh god.” The reality of what happened started to sink in. My stomach clenched and I thought I was going to be ill. Brett placed a hand on mine.

“It’s ok, they were trying to hurt you. Even if you did…kill them, it was in self defense.”

There was a knock on the door. “Brett Anderson, this is the police, we have reason to believe you have a dangerous person in your home, open the door.”

My head whipped around to stare at the door, then to Brett. My eyes wide brimming with tears and my mouth agape in shock. Did Brett call the police? 

© Ash Huntley

Dust of Danika - Chapter 1

I became aware of myself before I knew what it meant. I knew some things but other things remained foreign. My arms and legs were tied tightly to a wooden chair with rough coiled rope. The pressure of a cold hollow room pressed upon me, the emptiness profound in its nothing. Voices echoed off the walls, ringing in my ears in an empty vibration as if I too were hollow. Voices echoed sharp and angry against thin metal sheets and fell flat and hostile on the dry cement ground.

My eyes struggled to see into the enveloping darkness facing me. I saw a towering ceiling as my eyes adjusted, at least 20 feet high, and the room spanned out in front of me until the pitch swallowed the twinkling light leaking through the cracks between the nails in the tin ceiling. Grime covered windows lined the top of the walls.

My feet were bare, the heels covered in dirt and a few fallen leaves sat beside them. My toes glowed in pale cleanliness while my heels hid in murky shadows, giving the appearance of the German version of the fabled Cinderella when the ugly sister cut off her heel in order to fit into the glass slipper. I rubbed my feet on the concrete, convincing my fear soaked mind they were whole. A knee length, deep blue cotton dress fell in tatters at my knees.  It shifted softly on my thighs like a slip. The weight of my heavy hair brushed my shoulders in comfort but I had no idea if it was blond, brown, or red.

I struggled against my bindings. I pulled and tugged at the rough coiled ropes at my wrists and feet until they were red and raw.  I tried to shake the chair to the side, but found it bolted to the ground. Not knowing why or how I got here didn’t matter, it was clear I needed to get out, and fast. My heart rate picked up, beating loud in my chest until I thought I would pass out from the force of it. I continued to struggle at the ropes on my wrists, urgently trying to loosen them before the people who owned the angry voices showed their faces.

Then they arrived.

My stomach clenched when two men appeared out of the dark. Their heavy boots thumped against the concrete floor with purpose. With new fervor my arms yanked at the restraints. I screamed in frustration and fear filled my throat with hot air. Tears itched at the corner of my eyes before releasing into a steady stream down my flushed cheeks.

Being tied to a chair meant interrogation. Interrogation meant information. These men wanted information from me but I didn’t even know who I was.

“It’s awake.” The taller of the two men growled.

They came toward me but stopped a good five feet away. Their shifting gazes and pause told me they were scared.

“Please, let me go.” My voice croaked.

Salt slipped onto my lips. I licked them, the flavor strange and wonderful, new yet strangely familiar.

“Yeh right.” The other man said. He was short and round, his belly shook as he bounced on his heels, staring at me with possession and greed as his hands dove in and out of his back pockets in anticipation. I had to look away from his grotesque form. “Yer not going anywhere til’ we get the government here and get our rightly due money.” He said before giving a great hiccup, the stench of celebratory liquor wafted, and stale smoke rode on the waves.

The sight of these men in their stained clothes and alcohol drenched breath made me lean away, pushing against the wood backing of the chair. They called me ‘it’, what the hell did they think I was?  Clearly I was a confused and dirty girl in a ruined dress. And they called government? Maybe I was a spy and I couldn't remember, maybe I took a pill to forget so I wouldn’t divulge any information.

“First we gone do some tests and stuff, before them cops show up.” The first said.

“But they said they ain’t coming unless it be to arrest us.” The chubby guy said. The tall man yelled in outrage at being talked back to and smacked the short man on the back of the head, causing him to stumble forward, closer to me.

His face shone bright red with anger at being hit. Straightening, he saw how close he stood to her and yelped, leaping back. The other man laughed before bringing out a large switch blade from his belt.

As one man retreated, the other stalked forward while eyeing me like dangerous prey. He crouched low holding his knife out. I flinched as the cold blade pressed against my calf. He pressed the blade harder and slit it along my skin. My breath caught and a squeak of horror slowly inched from my throat. When he did it again I screamed.

The sound scared me as it echoed back like a caged animal. The pain was horrible, it burned my leg and blinded my mind. I coudn't see. I feared the wound somehow broke my brain as I struggled to breathe and think. I sobbed as fear and pain fought for domination. As my vision cleared I saw dark red blood drip down my calf into a small pool gathered next to my foot. I shook, feeling lost to life, and stared in horror as the men looked on in shock at the blood. Disappointment and anger clear on their slack faces.

“You can’t fool us! You might look like a girl and bleed like a human but you ain’t!” The plump man yelled.

The taller man, clearly the leader of the two, shushed him, staring intently into my face. I looked back too scared of what he might do if I looked away, afraid weakness of not meeting his gaze would show guilt of something I didn’t understand. They didn't even believe I was human.

“Please, let me go.” I whispered again, pleading for them to see reason in their disappointment. I widened my eyes, coaxing them to see the truth. Willing them to see into my soul, I was not what they thought I was, how could I be?

“Not until them officials get here.”

They refused to see the logic missing from the statement. When the officials arrived, I would not be let go, rather transferred.

“Tell me where you’re from.”

“I…I don’t know!” I said, my voice breaking, “I don’t know who I am or anything.”

The tall man’s eyes narrowed. His knuckles whitened on the knife as he approached me, rage contorting his face, “You’re a fucking alien! You fell from the sky, you’re going to kill us all or take us over. I won’t let that happen!” he yelled into my ear as his knife slinked up to my throat.

Pure terror filled me. My eyes squeezed shut and through my lids I saw a white light. A high whine followed by a loud pop filled the room. The light dimmed, then silence. I opened my eyes expecting to see government officials crashing through the high windows, swinging on ropes with guns at the ready.

Nothing. No government officials in riot gear wielding guns, no men in suits with dark shades sauntering over, and no drunken men with knives. I felt something slide along my wrists and  glanced down to watch the ropes that held my wrists and ankles fall to the ground, singed black and broken into pieces. Tentatively, I lifted my arms up. The raised red skin encircling my wrists had a fine line of black ash along the top where the rope burned.

I hugged myself for a moment, feeling the relief of being free of the bindings. Then with a start I shot out of the chair and sprung forward, getting away from the imprisoning chair, wondering how long I had been captive to it.

My legs, unused to standing, failed me. I fell to the ground, bruising my palms. I wanted to scream but nothing came out, I had no voice left in me. I wanted to understand who and where I was. I curled onto the ground and sobbed.

Minutes later I stood up feebly, my legs still did not want to carry my weight. I took one small step at a time, expecting to find an exit through the dark envelope ahead. As I stumbled through the dark, I approached a lump on the ground. I avoided my gaze, somehow knowing it would be a gruesome sight. As I continued to walk by more pieces, I experienced what could only be cooling blood congealing under my naked shuffling feet. I ignored it, moving forward. I refused to look, to see blood trickling from the open mouth of the fat man, eyes staring vacantly toward the ceiling. I didn't look but still I saw it. I knew. And, I knew I had something to do with it. I tore them apart.

I told myself I didn’t hear anything but a pop. I lied to myself, I had heard ripping, screaming, blood splattering and then a dozen thumps as body parts smacked onto the cement.

I shuffled faster, away from the bodies. A door with a faint red EXIT sign appeared to the right. I raced toward it, my feet adjusting to my balance as I leaned forward, pushing toward the sign. Eager for the fresh night air outside the door I was unable to stop my momentum and smashed into the door. My head thumped on the cold metal, rocking me backward. I groaned and placed my palm to my forehead. My knees began to shake with the effort of holding me. I look down at the door to see it had a horizontal handle along the middle segment, a metal push lever to open it. I smashed into it, the force of my body flinging it open.

The night gloriously held clear heavens filled with bright stars that pinpricked the deep velvet of the sky, calming me as I continued to pick up pace across an abandoned parking lot. The lights of nearby stores and street lights flickered off as I passed.

My soft feet ached as I trudged along. Cuts and blisters formed on the soles of my feet. I winced with every meek step. The air rushed through me, the dress flapping at my knees. I had to get away, further away, off the warm tarmac and onto cool grass.

Dawn began to approach as I burst into a park far beyond the reach of the building where I was held. Towering trees guided me through crisscrossed paths to a bench beneath a large oak. There I watched the pinks and purples of the sun in the distance. I reluctantly said goodbye to the night. A strange feeling of losing a friend. I could not place the feeling, except it had a deep heart wrenching of loss.

I took a final look at the last star visible in the lighting sky. It blinked at me, winking, before disappearing with the rest. I had the vague idea I somehow belonged to that last star, that we knew one another and now I wouldn’t see it ever again.

I glared at the edge of the sun, bringing light onto me. Taking away all I thought I knew. I wanted the night. I may not have known who I was, but I knew the first time I was aware was nighttime. I wanted to sleep in night’s welcoming dark warmth as the stars winked secrets in the portal of my eyes.

I had no idea what to do next. Soon there would be nothing left in me and I would shrivel up and crumble to the ground like misplaced trash. With no idea where I was, where I was from or who I was, I couldn’t come up with a place to go. Even if I did, I wouldn’t know how to get there.

Without my approval, tears again pooled down my cheeks. I brushed them away roughly. The cut at my leg throbbed and I knew I had to get it cleaned and bandaged. I could walk around hoping to find a hospital but I would have no ID to give them. I had no money and so no means to help myself.

I looked up to the tree, the leaves so still not a single one rustled, yet I shook like a leaf. With the shock of what had happened, I began to hyperventilate. Even as I put my head between my knees and tried to regain control of my breathing, I grew annoyed at knowing what hyperventilating was, and how to stop it, yet I couldn’t even remember my own name or age.  Amnesia took away the most important part of a person.

As I sat with my head between my knees, cursing myself and crying into the grassy ground beneath me, I noticed a pair of feet sidle up next to mine in worn black vans. The slight depression of the bench beside me gave me a start and I stopped breathing. Head between my legs, not breathing, I hoped this person would not engage me in conversation. Maybe if I stayed absolutely still, they wouldn’t see me.

“Are you ok?” A young man’s voice asked.

With an internal grown I sat up, pulling my dress down and crossing my legs. The man was young, mid-twenties. He had black hair speckled red in the sun. His dark green eyes gazed down at me, concerned and so large they were all I could see of his face. The man indicated to my bare and dirty feet and torn dress.

“Rough night?”

“The usual kidnap, tied to a chair and amnesia.” I mumbled, betting the truth sounded more like a dismissal.

First he looked confused bordering on amusement as his lips curled up, but wonderment got the better of him as his eyes narrowed. He straightened and leaned in closer.

“Are you ok?” he asked again in hushed urgency as his eyes bore into mine, “Should I take you to the police?”

I nodded, then remembered the men in the warehouse; their deaths and how they called the police because they thought I was an alien. The same police this man would take me to. They would want to question me then detain me when I could not answer the questions they sought. It would lead to psychiatrists I couldn’t pay for and then a strange hospital.

Shaking my head I told him no, not the police. The guy didn’t question me or demand a reason. He simply nodded and remained silent and by my side for a good ten minutes. I fidgeted with the hem of my dress, pulling on a loose string, unraveling it further. The deep blue thread was silky. I wrapped it around my finger in an endless spiral.

The man reached out and placed his hand on mine, stopping me from further ruining the dress. I stared at his hand on top of mine, my heart pounded in my ears. Looking up at him I saw him staring at me, kindness and concern lined his forehead. He removed his hand but deftly took the thread and yanked quickly, snapping it short and close to the dress.

I was left with an inch of the silky thread dangling from my wrapped finger. I took the excess string and tucked it under the wrapped segment on my right middle finger. The wound blue thread reached from my first to second knuckle. I stroked it, a part of the night still with me.

My head became fuzzy, black dots started to build up from the bottom of my vision. I could feel my body wavering, swaying from side to side as I tried to catch my breath. Holding my head with one hand and onto the bench with the other, I willed my mind to stay awake, to not pass out.

“Right, you’re coming with me.” He said.

The man stood from the bench and held out his hand. Unwilling to outright trust him I stood on my own and faced him, trying to figure out his intentions. I started to sway again, unable to keep my balance. The guy hesitated, in that moment I knew he didn't want to touch me or help me as much as he now intended to. He didn't know me, after all. But he lifted my left arm around his shoulder and I begrudgingly let him.

“You don’t know who you are, have no place to go, and are about to pass out.” He said. "I want to take you to my place so you can get cleaned up, eat and get some fresh clothes. Once you’re rested and refreshed, we can figure out what to do. But, I can’t leave you out here alone and beat up.” 

With nothing else to lose and only help to gain, I looked into his inky green eyes and let him lead me with most of my weight on his shoulders.

© Ash Huntley

The Peculiar Girl and Glass

"What the--"

Stay nearly tripped over a box at her front door. Jumping over it she huffed and threw a glare over her shoulder at the stationary brown box neatly taped without a label, sitting perfectly intact on her porch. What the hell was it doing there? She hadn't ordered anything and nobody ever sent her things. Stay didn't know anyone who would.

Someone placed this box here. Someone walked up her front steps and set it down. The item inside given to her with purpose. The person who left it and left knowing what they wanted her to do with it. The whole moment felt surreal as she stared at the box and her throat swelled with the confusion. Stay walked around the box, going back inside to the safety of her home. Sitting down on her entryway rug she stared at the box with the screen door between them.

Stay lost track of time, as she sometimes did, staring at the box. The sun traveled across the sky, rising up and over the house wrapping its warm light like a hug. Only a hazy deep orange ray crept toward the box while the rest sat in cold shadow. Stay didn't touch the box. She got up from her spot, legs sore and aching at the knees from sitting cross legged - she stretched and cracked her spine. With a final glance at the offender, Stay closed the heavy front door and locked it.

* * *

The box lay open on the old wooden table of the kitchen, each flap pulled over and bent to display the object inside which now sat beside it. A glass crane. Not a crane made of glass that was chipped away and polished smooth. A crane made of folded glass pressed carefully as if it started as paper and turned to glass at the makers command. It was the size of a small bowl and heavy enough that it required both hands to lift.

A note inside read "How high is your sky if you only love it from the sea?" written in careful print with a blue fountain pen on handmade paper dotted with bits of seeds and petals. The crane and note sat on the table for days, untouched. Stay tried not to think about what it meant and who had left it for her.

Yet the crane beckoned her. She stroked the smooth folds and pressed her thumb upon the sharp beak. Her porcelain finger clicked gently against the thick, fragile, gleaming glass. The note now placed on the fridge with an old beaten magnet that showed up in the mail over a decade ago as an advertisement, and she set the crane on the kitchen window sill. It glowed with the light of the setting sun, splaying a rainbow across the floor and wall. Blue and green then purple and red.

Each day Stay went to her porch in hopes of finding another strange gift or cryptic letter. Hoping to find a reason or explanation left for the gift that meant so much to her that only her and her mother knew. Who else could possibly know about the cranes her mother folded? Was it coincidence? Could there be such a coincidence so large and meaningful left on her porch in an unmarked box?

Sitting at the table, tapping her fingers on the old grains staring at the crane glowing orange she wondered endlessly, losing hours and forgetting life. Was the crane pointing left? Didn't she put it up with the face pointing to the right? No, that couldn't be possible.

With a huff Stay sat up and began to pace the room. How dare some stranger give her a stupid letter with a crane she couldn't stop thinking about. The crane kept her up thinking of the dreams she had of it swimming on a frozen lake at night, cracking the ice in its wake until it broke off into a million pieces that reflected the sky. making it look like it was broken and the lake had stars. Then the crane became her mother standing on a slab of ice. She walked to the shore stepping onto the little pieces of frozen water, the dark water creeping and lapping over the white ice onto her mothers naked feet as she made her way to Stay.

© Ash Huntley

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