A Day of Ice

Peculiar girl would have loved it outside today. She would have loved walking in the woods, the trees and every little bit of twigs and stuff covered in ice, like cystals, always with the impending danger of the weight of the ice causing giant branches and whole trees to snap with the force. At any second she could be crushed. There would be a thrill, for her, amidst the silent white of the icy world. 

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 Rain

Stay corked the small vial containing a handful of raindrops. It would go on the shelf with a hundred other vials, some identical, others vastly different. Some were huge and others tiny, with only one drop inside. Each represented a different rain. If it rained for days continually, it would be just one vial. A vial for each unique storm or rain; something that came and went and could never return as it was in that moment.

Constant. Sometimes it was constant. Water falling from the sky in grey sheets, blurring everything in its nothingness. The world becoming out of focus, except for the rain. How could the sky hold so much water? Why were the clouds not falling down? Stay supposed that perhaps that was exactly what the clouds were doing - falling. The rain pours, thunders, smashes and pushing on the windows, demanding to be let in. Leaves swirl to the ground softly, without a sound, like a spring rain. When winter crawls through the drops, it howls and snaps at your heels, taunting.

Stay could live in the rain. She never felt uncomfortable or in danger from storms. No mater the ferocity. No matter the height of lightning nor the breadth of thunder, the rain was beautiful. Even if the strikes of lightning took away her lights inside, she could always use her oil lamps, hanging in abundance along the hallway walls. If the thunder shook her home with a deep crack and knocked something down, Stay wouldn't mind. She didn't mind when it shook a cobalt blue and ivory plate down, shattering it into a dozen little pieces. She made it into something even more beautiful than when it was whole. She drilled a hole into each piece, tied string to it and created a wind chime. Each storm after, the wind chime danced and trilled.

Storms make everything dull and grey, heavy and drooped. The life of the world naturally wanted to reach up and spread out. In the rain, nature told everything to hush, be quiet, calm down. Rain was forever nourishing. Water gave life to everything on Earth. It was smooth, clear and shiny. Small droplets or immense, forever spanning oceans. Stay wanted to see an ocean. A love affair between water and salt. It allowed fishes to glow in vibrant pinks and blues and for people to float happily along their beaches. The ocean was a place full of tears.

Stay once read about a pink see. Made pink from a certain algae that also gave the sea a high concentration of salt. It was the most buoyant place on earth. Pink waters, white sands, what a strange and wonderful place that would be to sleep in the waters.

Now, Stay sat on her porch step, a thin metal roof over hanging, keeping most of the rain off. She didn't mind getting wet though. Each time lighting flashed, Stay felt the smile on her face grow. There was no joy quite like watching lighting crawl through the sky. Like the roots or branches of a tree, or the veins of her body. the fundamentals of life lay in a storm: water and veins. The energy cracked with a force, blinding her, showing her home in a brilliant light, like a splash of day in a deep and dark night.

She didn't mind baths or showers, but she preferred to bath in the lake. It took her years after her mother's disappearance to bring herself to back in. When she did, the water lapped around her waist, coaxing her to go further. Her skin bumped in tiny dots as chills ran down her arms and spine. The sun slowly warmed her, told her it was ok. The lake was still, clear. Stay watched her toes wiggle into the clay, kicking up small bursts of clouds, and pebbles rolled away, tumbling on top of each other, tickling her feet.

Stay put her head underneath the surface and opened her eyes. It was like she had finally awakened. Finally understood. Her mother was not returning. Stay was alone, and that was ok. A fish swam by, skirting close to her hand.

When she resurfaced, it was raining. She had always loved rain. Stay and her mother used to dance in it, the used to wash their hair in the rivulets running down from the roof in great streams, like their own little waterfall. The sound would per her to sleep, when she finally manged to go to bed. Then, her first visit back to the lake, it had become something more. A sign. She was alone, yes, she was only as alone a creature could be, surrounded by the constant life that was earth.

The storm wasn't' different from any other, except it was its own. Stay corked the vial contain a handful of raindrops. The rotting leaves and moist earth intoxicated her, a smell so familiar it was like being washed away. The clear vial in the shape of a circle with a hole through the middle, like a donut, would join the other hundred vials of varying sizes, shapes and colors. Many were small bottles, some old test tubes. Most she found in the dirt, hiding like the bones on her mantel, or dredged from the lake. Brown and red apothecary jars, clear chipped test tubes and others she didn't know their past sues. The ones from the lake were her favorite. The lake spanned out further than her eyes could reach, she imagines those bottles and jars came from all over the world.

Still, many vials were bought online. She quickly ran out of her found pieces. Stay picked out bottles that spoke to her in some way. Whether unique or plan, she knew each one belonged to her when she found it, she knew the rain belonged to them.

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 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

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

Yukaton River Part 2

NOTE: This is unedited and the story will change. I haven't posted in a while so I thought I would share this rough draft.

The boat is packed with vintage cases in burnt orange, brown, and the occasional pink. Hard plastic with metal clasps, the luggage takes up far too much room. There is barely room for the couple to sleep. They don't mind, Timothy can sleep anywhere on anything, allowing Pen to sleep in the only comfortable soft spot.

They packed their lives into these cases. Books, clothes, stuffed animals: Pen's penguin and Timothy's tiger. Both their parent's took a strange liking to alliteration, and it featured often in both their lives. They also packed love letters, bottles of perfume, their favorite pop, and Tim's article collection on UFO sightings. Pen also packed complete new outfits thanks to her paranoia of not having the exact right thing for any weather or situation.

Other cases contained survival gear: tents,nets, fishing poles, matches, wood, mini canisters and hiking gear for cooking, rope, fishing line, extra shoe laces, many pairs of socks and underwear, bottles of water and a purification system, handful of towels, soap, nail file and clippers and scissors, two single sleeping bags, a king size wool blanket, and copious amounts of toilet paper.

As the sun rose on the land and everything appeared on fire, the neighboring town folk bustled outside Pen and Tim's tent, which sat among the ruins of Rim. Kids ran in circles singing a tune about fire and death. The echoing shatters of hammer on steel roused them from their tent. Upon sticking their wary heads out they saw a canopy had been lifted then nailed to the ground. A bonfire blazed outside it with meat skewered above, roasting. People sat on the ground beneath the tent, basking in the shade. Women and children played hand games: clapping, slapping, thumping, while men beat drums and danced, hopping from foot to foot. It was a celebration to say goodbye.

As the couple stepped into The Blessed Express an hour later, the party continued full tilt. Few came over to wave them off. Children gathered leaves from the giant river trees and threw the waxy green bits at them. A carpet on the boat.

The moment they untied the boat, it propelled forward. Silence fell and not a single hand waving could be seen from the party. They we're alone along Ash River.

© Ash Huntley

Yukaton River: Edit

Name: Yukaton River.

Commonly known as: Ash River or The Dead River.

History: Hundreds of years ago the largest town of the area, Rim, lived along off Yukaton River's widest point.  Mysteriously, and suddenly, the town burned to the ground. It is said cracking and popping of fire and the screams of the inhabitants could be heard on any given June 13th at 11:15 PM.

Legend: Ashes of the people mixed with ashes of the town blew into the river. Blackened and thick, heavy with the ash of the dead, the river slowed until finally it stopped. With the river filled and stilled, trees and plants withered and died, and animals fled. Soon after, everything grew back tenfold. Lush and deep green, the trees grew tall, leaned in, and created a dense canopy over the river.

Today it is eerily clear and deadly still. Yet if you set a boat upon its surface, it will move south at a quick pace, as if a strong current had taken hold. It is believed spirits of the dead protect those who travel upon the river. But if they disembark before the river reaches its destination at Tamishi Sea, great bad luck will befall them. They will not survive their next 48 hours.

Pen (whose name is Penelope but finds it cumbersome, shortens it as much as possible, and does the same to others) and Timothy (whose name Pen actually likes and only calls him Tim on occasion) go to the ruins of Rim on June 13th. They arrive precisely at 11:15 PM. 

Pen and Tim hear strange howls and creaks from the large trees settling with the wind.

Natives help the pair lower a large, fully packed canoe that sleeps two, into Ash River. Luggage piled high, the boat sits deep. They rest at midnight.

The canoe, The Blessed Express, is named to give safe voyage to those aboard and thanks to the blessed spirits who guard the river. The nearby town nicknamed the boat Be in reference to the Beatles song Let it Be. 

The town doesn’t have much in the way of modern technology, only what visitors give them. One of their most prized possessions was a gift from a set of sisters who traveled there many years ago; a record player. Though they don't much, they dance and sing. They especially love vinyls of The Beatles, as there is an abundance of their music. They have a fascination with the western world and often consider it to be a place of fantasy. They frequently put on small plays with rag dolls accompanied with tunes of Hey Jude and Paperback Writer to depict the strange magical realm they imagine.

The following morning the entire town congregates, blesses, and stocks The Blessed Express with their food, love, and prayer. They hide painted beads of glass and clay, dried plants, and purple flowers among the couple’s luggage and within the cracks of the boat's panels.

A grand farewell party takes place.

© Ash Huntley

Good Ole Days

Suddenly and without warning, it slips into your mind as you touch a long forgotten book or CD. You try to ignore it, avoid it from occurring but it pushes in until it has drenched your mind. Eyes blur as you look to the past of a life you know was yours but feels foreign, like it belonged to someone else and you only read it in a book. You remember some parts and forget others. You wish you could remember it all. Who were those people? What were those things you did and said and loved?

You try to change the station and leave this surreal feeling behind. Tears well as you crave for the time you knew. Fear of the unknown future clenches your heart. Stuck in a time, a limbo of in-betweens.

Press on, this feeling almost over. A draft in your heart. Drowning in nostalgia.

It’s always going to be the good ole days.

© Ash Huntley

The Peculiar Girl and A Prickly Thorn

Admiring the thorn bush she didn't recognize Stay reached down. Stay plucked a thorn from a bush she didn't recognize and rubbed the smooth thorn between her fingers. She pressed the soft flesh of her finger to it, her skin indented, swallowing the plant until her skin gave in.

A bead of blood bubbled up, burst free from the thin skin. It took up a spectacular amount of space and volume compared to the pinprick that allowed it forth.

Bright as the morning's sun, the sport of red hovered in the cusp of the world at the edge of her finger. A gust of air rattled through the trees and shoved the bubble. It broke from its tension and seeped down her finger into her palm.

A moment gone.

© 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

The Peculiar Girl and Her Shoe Predicament

Her name was Stay, and that's what she did.

Stay wasn't bothered with going places, public places, walking on even cement in dull tones wasn't for her. Nor were the narrowed eyes and hunched shoulders curving away from her view. Pain of rejection wasn't something to get used to, it was something to bear. She wore it in black lines scattered on her arms, dots in deep blue and plum ran down her fingers. Reminders of those who snubbed her, Stay only had herself.

Stay was not self sufficient. Craving companionship was heartbreaking. The desire to grow crops of corn - paper cuts of green as she stroked their leaves, wheat - haze of gold in the rising sun bleeding through her windows, strawberries - hearts dotted with seeds to give life, treasures to hold in handfuls, and pumpkins - seeds to bake and a shell to, carve faces and line drive, was devastating

Land surrounded her, but it was not her own. Stay could not grow her self sustaining nature. Instead she relied on the small markets that opened in town every Sunday morning.

Blending in was easier. Strange folk came out of the woods to buy strange things. Strange folk sold strange things. Stay tried her best to appear less strange than them, but the town knew her. She was not just strange with broken teeth or dirty hair. Not just strange living in a wooden box with no electricity or plumbing. Not just strange eating small beasts over a small fire. Not just strange, but peculiar.

Sunshine sprinkled in, creeping along her pale wood floor, casting colors of bright red, green and blue from her glass window depicting a beheading. Time for the market.

Except, where was her other shoe? Stay had few shoes. Preferring to be barefoot she abstained  from wearing them. They were tight on her feet, pushing on her toes and weighing her down. They were necessary.

A mint green shoe with red laces. She found the left foot hanging from a ceiling hook in a closet full of nets where it belonged. Scowling at the shoe, she sighed and set it down. A final glare before she plopped down on the worn brown rug in front of the closet and tugged the shoe onto her bare foot, "Where's your fellow?" she asked the shoe, cocking her head as she tied a bow.

The shoe was pristine. Only wearing it on well worn trails on Sunday mornings, the colors were vibrant and the sole barely used. Stay scrubbed her foot with a hard bristle brush in the bath before putting them on.

Left foot on, Stay stood and hopped around the house in search of the right. She did not hop on the shoe, but on her bare foot. The weight of the left shoe like society crushing her into a skin that wasn't her's, into an idea her mind couldn't comprehend.

"These damned shoes and this damned place!" Stay hollered as she hopped from one room to another. The silence called back, "Hush".

© Ash Huntley

6/642 Things to Write About

What a character holding a blue object is thinking right now:

What am I supposed to do with this?, Jay wonders, holding the object up toward the light. Staring at the creamy sky blue glass eye as the shop's bare bulb casts a yellow sheen over the oddities of the store, giving the white of the eye the appearance of suffering jaundice. Jay's stomach rolls, the churn echoes through his emptiness.

He stares into the eye, through the pupil and to the other side of the sphere, What is this? A wonder creeps through his mind and tightens, he can think of nothing else. A dark blue tints the world. Jay holds the cold eye closer in hopes of getting a better look. The musk of mold on the walls, the dust coating all but the eye no longer matters. Further he pushes, harder he pulls the eye closer to his own, captivated by the shades and shapes of blue the glass eye has turned world into. He presses the eye against his own, it numbs and melds. Harder and harder he pushes until he falls right into the inky pool.

The eye bounces on the tiled floor with a ding.

© Ash Huntley

The Peculiar Girl and Porcupine Bones

Porcupine skeletons danced on moon streaked ice, propelled by fishing line stretched over the lake and to the hands of a girl. She twirled her fingers and flicked her wrists, watching the ghosts skitter and hop, joyous in their lively endeavor.

Fissures ran along the surface, chasing one another as they bounced beams like twinkling Christmas lights on a decked home of cheer. She imagined smiling faces shining through the window as laughter spills like smoke up the chimney and ribbons spin around the tree on red and green foil boxes.

This was not the girl's first time. Her peculiar interests left her alone and isolated. The time she spent in public was time spent with people giving her side long glances, where skittish whispers followed her shadowed footsteps, leaving echoed impressions in the snow. Reactions that only pushed her further away from furrowed brows and turned backs. It pulled her deeper into her strange hobbies, allowing her to have solace in the only friendships she ever had.

As a little girl, roaming the dense woods with a butterfly net she collected small bones of small beasts. She dreamed of bringing them back to life. Grateful to her, the beasts would never leave her side, trailing her wake as faithful furry friends.

The closest she came was watching them prance from afar, an illusion she was happy enough to indulge in.

The floating bones gleamed and paused. The girl threw the lines to the ground, something swelled in her chest like a balloon until she couldn't breathe. A wind charged over the ice, pressing and pushing the snow off branches to fall heavily atop her head. Wrapping her arms around herself, she shook with an urgency to stay warm as tears spilled on her cheeks and a forced breath steamed from her frozen lungs. Joy

© Ash Huntley