Tuesday, September 19, 2006

a little story, chapter 1
The thing is i have no idea for a title. Anyway, this is my story. Its about a semi-vamp, goes by the name of Elena, or Ellie. I have no idea what she is gonna get up to lol.

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The grey sky sat brooding outside my window. It wasn’t going to stay there for long, of course. It was thinking of something, soon enough it will show its temper in apocalyptic storm. Flashes of lightening will torment the forests, knocking down trees of enormous height. Thunder will roar and roll to us like tide to beach and the clouds will gather in an uprising against us and stare down with anarchistic eyes. Meanwhile I will not move, nor stir from my gentle, silent place at the window. The glass may shatter and the curtains may bellow into the room like ferocious, grasping hands but I will sit calm, perched on the buffet like I was nothing but a two dimensional painting of a woman on a stool.

A small explosion sounded and the glass in front of me shattered but the sky outside stayed quietly brooding in its place. The bullet hit a clock on the far side of the room and sent the glass and metal flying in a courtship of twisted, broken figures. The curtains rippled from the small breeze outside and I felt tiny droplets of water splash against my skin. It seemed the sky was to save its anger and only cry for the woman sat silently at her window. Another explosion and the bullet tore past my ear leaving a small rip in the fragile atmosphere of reality which surrounded me. The sound which followed visibly rippled the space around me. Although I won’t move I certainly won’t stay here long. The atmosphere will open and reality will cease to exist. A thousand hands will grasp my still, stone body and pull me back in to insanity and slowly, slowly the woman at the window will fade into oblivion but she will not move an inch. Another explosion and still I sat staring at the sky a silent protest against all that was occurring around me. A part of me deep in my mind was moving its shoulders in a silent, airy laugh at the fact they had fired three shots and only one came close. Another shot fired and grazed my shoulder. Fire erupted through my shoulder and tailed off into my arm, yet somewhere in there I was still laughing at the obscenity of it all. Another shot and this time I found myself reeling back. I sat up and again the burning exploded, eroding my other senses and leaving only the pain. The bullet was in my chest. Yet I managed to sit up and sat at the window, my eye lids half closed and those unreal, cold atmospheric hands stroking at my back. Not yet, I told them, just a few more seconds. Then a shot that ruptured the reality I was in and shredded the atmosphere into rippling curtains. It hit in the centre of my collar bone, slightly above the silver interlaced pendant I wore, slightly below my throat. I glided backwards, my head lolling and my eyes still half closed a slight smile touched my lips. Yes, I told them, I will see you now. The wintry were hands seizing my shoulder, wrapping themselves around my waist and pulling my hands back. I fell onto the hard floor and that was the last I felt of this world for weeks.

I spent the weeks in worlds I had not seen in years, with people long dead, with voices long forgotten. We spoke of current events that had long since been solved, we drank fresh cider from a bottle that had long since corroded and belonged again to the sand. Passed family, past lovers, dead friends: I visited them all, spoke to them, hugged them, kissed them and thrived on the physical contact, not able to believe I was with them. I loved each one, loved so many, yet they were all gone and no matter how much I enjoyed the warmth and the company, an uneasy confusion lingered in my mind as to how it was ever possible. But I knew it was, I had done it before and still the confusion wouldn’t cease.

For all this time I was living in my past. Flitting between years not able to keep a steady time line. One moment I was a child and I was baking with my mother, her loose strands of hair floating about in the small breeze which drifted in through the window while she laughed and smudged flour on my nose, the next I knew I was a young adult, stood with my arms hanging loosely and my hands clasped in front of me, listening to my brother tell a room of strangers about her. It didn’t feel right. I was appalled at the people who stood listening. Stood without a tear to shed or a kind thought to give. Most likely stood there for the gossip, how “Mattie’s poor daughter broke down, she really was close to her mother”. I was appalled at how they would call my mother Mattie, they didn’t even know her. Even those who did called her by her full name, Mattie was for family, those close enough to her to get away with it. I hated them all, the entire room of people. Even the priest, who was talking of God, an entity neither my mother nor her family believed in and really, how could there be a God, when my mother had been taken away from me so soon? I hated how they sang of Him, how they preached to me. As far as I was concerned they knew nothing, of me, of my mother, of my family. Of the life we all lived day in day out and thing they called “God” seemed to me to be just fictitious nonsense. Yet they stood around her, – she was as beautiful as ever, her white face porcelain and her ruby lips as red and pronounced as the roses which surrounded her coffin, of course it was make up but illusions will be believed when they need to be – without a glimmer of emotion, as I wept silent tears. They rolled down my cheeks and glistened like diamonds in the pale light. My brother stood next to me, crying periodically sharp intakes of breath, his shoulder heaving as he breathed.

Slowly, the strangers departed and so did my brother. I was left alone in the small cemetery stood looking down on my mother’s grave. It now felt safe to cry and the tears came like a flood and dropped like rain on to the black varnished lid of her coffin. In my hands I held a small white rose, which I had gripped a little too hard. Blood trickle down the back of my silver ringed fingers while I held my hand over the coffin, my head down and my eyes looking up at the white rose with the red stalk. My fingers moved slightly and the rose slipped then settled upon the coffin among the small droplets of blood and tears. I dropped my arm and began to walk back home. Which would be empty for the first of many times in my life.

My vivid memory continued like this. Showing only the key events which sculpt and mould a person to make a life time. My next memory was of the last time I would see and feel as a normal person.

I stood over her, watching her perfectly still face. Her usual sharp and intelligent expression had been softened by death. She looked pretty and innocent in the dim light of the moon that seeped in through the slightly open door. Her long, black eyelashes lay gently against her cheeks and her voluptuous lips, still disturbingly tempting, even in death, were slightly parted. My hand floated up towards her cold cheek, in one slow, dreamlike movement. With the tips of my fingers I caressed the soft skin there then let my hand drop loosely to my side. At that moment time seemed to stretch for a while, so it became longer than a moment and I was left stood there, helplessly longing for her to be alive, to be well. I stood soundless and still, not even taking in another slow, shaky breath. Then my senses crept back to me, filling me with sorrow and purpose and I breathed deeply, taking in the cold, damp air which surrounded me.
“Oh, Elli,” my voice came out barely recognisable, a slow, airy whisper like a breeze through the small limestone building in which I stood. For a moment I was sure her eyes twitch, like they did when I used to watch her sleep. I could see her now, laid on the stone sleeping lightly and come morning she would wake and I would greet her with a kiss and she would smile sweetly. With this in mind I put one arm behind her shoulders, the other under her knees and hoisted her cold body up to my chest. The contact made me cringe. Her head lolled backwards and I grimaced, not in disgust but in sadness. I then stepped swiftly outside and towards my horse.

I felt sunlight drift over my eyes. I was awake but I kept my eyes closed, faking sleep. I could feel his gaze on me, as if he was really there, as if this was really happening, urging me to open my eyes. I let my eye lids drift open and saw him watching me in the dusty gaze of early sun. A subtle smile played on my lips and he bent down to kiss me. I could feel his own smile through his kiss and my own smile grew large and dumb looking on my face. He drew back, giggling softly. The sunlight played on his face and made his usual dark eyes glisten a light green, his smiled lingered there, in his eyes, and made him look ageless. Cracks of sunlight were scattered on the floor and walls through the large window to the right of the bed. The room was a moderate size and mostly bear. In the corner was a simple pine dresser which matched the bed and the floor and complemented the buttery cream colour of the walls. Specks of dust swirled in the air lit up by the fresh light and the whole room seemed to reflect the calm, contentedness of its inhabitants. I half sat up, leaning on my forearm and he hugged me, putting his arm along the back of my shoulders, for that moment I was almost convinced it was real. Then something happened that was not memory, but dream: he slipped his hands behind my knees and scooped me up pout of the bed. It faded and I was left with the blackness of the back of my eyes.

I was leaning against a warm figure and the air around me was cold. My eyes fluttered and the figure jumped. I looked up to him there, his eyes wide, looking at me as if I had just awakened from dead. I reeled forward and nearly fell off the horse, but his strong arm caught me.
“It’s not you, it can’t be you” I said in almost a whisper, “It just wasn’t- can’t…”
“We’ll speak later. I thought you were...” he trailed off and put his attention to riding the horse. I leaned against him, as I was before, closed my eyes and listened to the horse’s hoofs thud against the soft ground as we rode. I fell asleep once again

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