Peculiar Girl & Tick-Tock Clicking

Peculiar Girl and Tick Tock Clicking

Click, click.

Stay taps her finger. Click, on the metal sink as she stares out the wood bordered window of the kitchen, her eyes multiplied and gleaming in the glass crane on the sill.

Click, on the claw foot tub, water gone cold, toes pruney.

Click, click.

The sound of her heart, locked up behind tall, icy walls of skin and bone. Click, click, her heart ticks on. No thump or bump, pound or beat. Click, click, like a clock, second hand itching toward endless minutes, caged behind arctic glass, marking down numbers and moments.

What did Stay’s heart click down to? What waited for her at the end of her tick tock heart?

No more ticking, clicking or tocking, Stay thought. She knows what this is about. She knows what has come to haunt her.

Stay, alone, never experienced loneliness. With the click, tick, taping of her finger echoing through the empty home, loneliness began to echo in her tick-tock heart, creaking and cracking through frosty ice.

How? How could this be? Her friends dance in porcupine bones and swim in paper cranes. Her love and life live in collecting leaves and bones and deceased bugs hiding under brown leaves. No room for loneliness, no space to give.

Yet now she understood, loneliness ticked in her with every tock, tapped on every surface, scratching the blue flowers from her delicate finger. A finger not hers. A replacement, cold and aching, without true sense of feeling. Stay felt like the finger, in her home, in the world. Not truly a part, barely connected, sticking out. Cold, as the blood of life did not beat to her. Breath made no difference. All she had was click, click.

Alone, a loner, all one. Stay is one. Perhaps she was just one even when her mother was around. One amongst a thousand paper cranes, one among her vials of rain, and snow creatures built in the winter. One, even when she knew she was not.

Is this growing up? Is this a passing, fleeting, tick tock moment? Perhaps tomorrow it will be gone. Minutes will have ticked and clicked it away, dissipating the loneliness, the oddness, the bloodless finger feeling.

Click, click.

For now it goes on. Second after second, her soul a mechanic meaning, her thoughts are gears and drives spinning for something, working to get somewhere. Click, click.

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."

City Raccoons

642 Things to Write About: Write a story from the point of view of raccoon. What is the city like at night? Why do you knock over garbage cans? Do you get along with other raccoons?

Fortunately, I belong to  small tribe, the City Racs. It's easier that way. The lonely ones receive no help, they stick out and become loathed. They give raccoons a bad name, knocking over cans, causing commotion, mayhem, and awareness.

In a group you can create a raccoon ladder, quietly climb up the fury bodies of your fellow raccoons and remove thrown away food in a quiet and more dignified manner. Not that all is swell in the City Racs group. There are a lot of squabbles over scarps and fights to earn more stripes.

Not all are cut out for city life, either. It's busy and crowded. There's a lot of struggle for territory and a constant need to feel part and protected by and in the group. I wasn't always part of the City Rac group. I know how it is to be a loner out there. That's why I'll do anything to stay here, among the group. I'm the bottom of the ladder, I'm the bandit of the bunch.

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.

The Hummingbird

642 Things to write about: A bird has been following you everywhere you got for a week. Why is it following you?Whom does it work for?

Is it the same bird again? How many could there possibly be in my apartment on the 11th floor, and in the city? I only ever see it in my peripherals when I'm not thinking about it, when I turn my head to get a look I see a flash of green and it's gone. And of course, I hear it all the time, like a large bee buzzing on my shoulder, driving me slowly, ever further, into insanity.

In the elevator on my way down to the street I feel a sharp flutter on my neck, like a mosquito bite. I don't even have the urge to swat or smack it. When I turn my head to look, a long, thin beak is pointed up at me and a tiny green and blue body shuddering with the energy of its wings. A soft blur. A hum.

I'm staring at it in awe, my mouth open.

Then it speaks. "I knew it, I said to them, I said you were the one. They had me follow you all week to make sure but I knew and I was right." The bird's voice was a mixture of song and whisper

"What?" I said, dumbfounded.

"The majestry of birds, of course. She is looking and I found you. You're the one, I knew it. I can smell it on you like sweet honeysuckle in your blood. You're the heir."

Things of 2013 (not really accomplishments....)

I usually do an 'Accomplishments' list at the end of the year. But, given my accomplishments are low, I thought I would do more of a 'things I did/things that happened' this year...

• Visited the Smoky Mountains!
• Kiri passed away
• Saw Potted Potter
• Bought a recurve bow (then my husband did and we love archery)
• Adopted Luna!
• Visited Grand Rapids (twice)
• Had an in-depth tour of a TV station
• Wrote a novella
• Started the third edit on my novel
• Lost 20 pounds
• Began going on walks again (in woods etc)
• Didn't re-read a single book
• Wrote a lot!
• Paid off our car!
• Continued writing group
• Joined a book club
• Married for 3 years
• Started this blog
• Started and wrote many Peculiar Girls

Our little Kiri monster, poor girl had a brain tumor

The Beautiful Smoky Mountains

I mean look at them! And, this is from the view of our cabin.

Archery! My wonderful bow! Even though I am craving lots of snow so I can go snowshoeing, I am also looking forward to spring (already) so I can get shooting again!

One of many adorable pictures of the new kitty, Luna. She's a big sweetie, loves to cuddle!

Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots.... of writing.

My brother's birthday gift to me, and to James. It happened to be on the day Kiri passed. It wasa very conflicting day. The show was great, and distracting. 

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.

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. 

Sigh

It came with a sigh
A release
Of peace
No retreat

It came with a sigh
Words bubbled
Poured out
Thoughts muddled


It came with a sigh
trickle, a tear
came with an unknowing
Growing fear


It came with a sigh
It left
With a cry
The one who said goodbye.

© Ash Huntley





Novella Complete - kind of not really...

Dust of Danika is done with the hand written portion! Now I just have to type it up, double the length, then edit it a couple hundred times!

I LOVE finishing a manuscript. Even if it's just finishing the very shitty very first draft. I'm not sure how long it is yet. When I finish typing it up I'm sure I'll feel even more like I've finished it. Then it will be three novels under my belt. They all need so much work but I think they're all different and I'm feeling good!

Well! Back to typing it up!

--
Ashley

Oh, The People You'll Meet

I met her in England, in an elderly home where they laughed and played games, had parties every week, and their own rooms with windows to a garden. She sat in bed surrounded by faded post cards and letters pinned to the wall, a vase of yellow flowers and a stack of well read books with half a glass water on her bedside. When we walked into the room she looked up from staring at nothing, a smile grew wide on her face, eyes shining, and life breathing into her sagging skin. I smiled back, reflex of the contagion, we hadn't met but we knew each other. 

I relaxed, at ease with my husband and father-in-law, we circled her bed and kissed cheeks in hello. There were brief introductions of courtesy, no one remembers them now. No, I remember the black and white post cards from Africa and Russia filled with missings and reminiscings in shaky cursive. A love letter gone soft and frail to touch, I had to step away or I would have stroked the blue letters and watch the paper fall, the love in the years disintegrating at my touch. 

Watching me, she begins to tell of her travels, the times and parts of her life she holds most dear. Walking the Great Wall of China, riding an elephant through the forests of India, living under the open sky of Kenya, shoes covered in the sand of the pyramids, scaling Volcanos in New Zealand, making wine in Italy, and hiking the great expanse of Russia. And in between, being a nurse during WWII, getting married and raising kids. 

Her life was amazing, like a book filled with endless adventures while waiting for a sequel. She found adventure in everything. Every day, she said, someone visited her now and she remembered a place she had been, a drink she had had with a friend. I asked her thoughts on America, had she been there. "Oh," she said, "I would never want to go to such a place." I smiled and nodded my head as if I understood She hadn't realized where I was from, but it didn't matter, I didn't mind.  I knew then she hadn't experienced all there was, she hadn't grown as much as I thought she would have from seeing so much of the world. She was another person, amazing, with astounding stories, yes, but human just the same. 

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 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