Wind and needle-sharp snowdust blew something coughing and swearing through Gate 32B. They had opened the door but a crack so that Mark and the other guards would have an easier time of pushing it back into the closed position after their “guest” had entered. The servos were nightfroze again and no one had wanted to open the gate in the first place, but you just did not leave folks out in the cold on a night like this.
(more…)
It began as a fracture, the kind that forms on the thin ice when the breaking point is reached from much too much weight put upon it from above.
Though it was our memory and not ice, there was still the audible crack that could be heard over the firestorm as it raged over us, consuming with words meant to puncture our flesh like arrows full drawn on a great bow. Name calling like thrown stones and razor spite in a cutting rain that fell upon our heads. It was not that long ago that we embraced Mr. Wendell, but the rains came (as they eventually will) and he was given over to the middens for the sake of survival. So much for cohabitation and burning the white sheets…
And so, our memory cracked in spiderweb, the baby screamed, and we saw the cascade of a dream crumble to the dirt in the name of filthy lucre and the pale. You get what you give, they said, and you gave hate.
Perhaps, but we were loving in how we hated.
I wrapped my blind eyes in linen, hung my head, feeling the fracture claw at my own brittle past begin to sunder. I walked away and grew old, unable to hold onto the younger days.
“Can you hear it? The wind is calling to carry.”
She stood away from me, turned away from the buildings, the trees and me, her black hair blowing on the gathering breeze as the skies grew flint to match the color of her eyes she wore before the turning away. I did not doubt her eyes could change colors to match her mood, I had seen it happen many time before. Her mood was that of the coming storms, unsettled, roiling and only barely constrained — and so she now wore flint and heather where most people wore mere eyes.
(more…)
He chased the coffee rings on the formica coffee bar with his fingertip, spreading the thin ensō of liquid into ever broader strokes in time with the acid jazz playing softly overhead. It was past midnight on a work night, he should go home. Instead, he lingered at the late-night coffee joint with the drinks looking for sobriety in the dregs of their cup and not finding much there to give them hope. The stared at their empty cups, debating on if they should risk the drive home or the sleeplessness another cup would bring. The Beacon’s barista could not be bothered to help them decide — the tips had been lackluster all night anyway with no promise of more to come for showing a willingness to serve the clientele another cup.
Mark was avoiding home, with good reason. Along with the futon bed that called his name even from here, his studio apartment overlooking the Sound was otherwise occupied by ghosts.
So he put off dealing with the unwanted, uninvited guests at least until the barista made his last call announcement. Mark wished it was not raining, because then he would have been able to roam the streets until daybreak, when the ghosts would finally take their leave. He thought he might call in sick today so he could sleep for the first time in three days.
If he was lucky, perhaps he would sleep right through the return of his ghosts after dusk. It did not seem likely, but he considered himself an optimist.