mindless-little-ramblings

[mindless-little-ramblings]

Frosty Creations

Emma watched, fascinated, as small flakes of frost emitted from her delicate fingertips. They sparkled and twinkled as they floated up, dissipating into nothingness the higher they climbed.

She smiled idly and twirled her fingers some more, the now fully formed snowflakes glowing a faint blue.

The very same shade of blue that resided within her wide and curious irises.

The girl had a mild inkling that she was being called, by her mother, perhaps, but she was too engrossed in her own small and magical world to pay much attention.

The frost at her fingertips spluttered and faded, the minute particles of ice melting into a mere few droplets of cold water.

Feeling daring, Emma glanced downwards to the window ledge and began to lower her hand, brushing the very tips of her fingers to the worn down wood.

Immediately, an intricate pattern of swirls and stars spread across the surface, a blue hue shining above the otherwise icy-white artwork.

Emma smiled, lips parting to reveal neat teeth the same brilliant shade of white as her frosty creations.

That call, again, more prominent this time but still not quite noticeable enough to distract Emma from the ledge of the window, where she continued to lightly prod and poke and send more white constellations swirling across the warm wood.

Warm, from basking in the sun endlessly, forever exposed to the brutal and yet gentle rays of light.

Warm, but the ever so pretty ice art that Emma had conjured didn’t melt.

As long as the little girl focused on her pretty ice art it wouldn’t go anywhere, almost as if her very gaze held the potential bitter coldness or soft breeze, that could freeze a living entity to its very core or merely hint at a mild, pleasurable chill.

[mindless-little-ramblings]

Grey

Sarah wakes up on September 19th, 2022, her 30th birthday, and decides she is going to die today.

It’s not exactly an ‘out of the blue’ decision, really. She’s been thinking about it for awhile. Times, methods, reasons, goodbye notes, that sort of stuff. She figured most of it out, too.

Time- probably at night, after watching the sunset one last time.

Methods- she’s used to the pain of a blade, so a good old-fashioned wrist-slashing doesn’t sound too bad.

Reasons- the crippling anxiety, endless loneliness, chronic depression, etc.

Goodbye notes- well, you need someone to say goodbye to to write a goodbye note, don’t you? Maybe her landlord would get one.

She had decided most of how her suicide would go, except for the date. She supposes the final nail in the coffin (haha) was waking up on her 30th birthday (her 30th) and realising she had absolutely no one to celebrate it with.

No parents, no friends, no children, no partner.

No one.

Happy Birthday, Sarah.

Her bedroom is grey, like the rest of her house. Grey walls, grey floors, grey furniture- you get the gist.

Sarah’s stretches in her grey bed, sits up and glances out of her window. She looks at the world. It looks grey, too.

Her mind wanders back to movies she’s watched about zombies, plagues, apocalypses, dystopian cities. She enjoyed those movies, but she never thought she’d be trapped in one.

Nearly three years of this shit. Covid-19 swept through and destroyed a lot of lives. Careers ended, borders were shut, families were separated, people were dying. Men, women. Elderly, young. People suffered. Countless people. Including Sarah. Though, she often thought to herself she had no right to complain.

She didn’t have much of a life to be destroyed anyway.

Sarah gets out of her grey bed, shuffles down the grey hall, and goes into her grey kitchen. Her cupboard are mostly empty, but she has half a box of Corn Flakes left and that seemed as good of a last breakfast as any.

Soon she’s sitting at her grey table, eating Corn Flakes, and they might as well be grey too.

She turns her phone and reads the time. It’s 10:34AM.

She blinks, and it’s 3:12PM.

The Corn Flakes in her bowl have turned into a pile of mush. She wasn’t all that hungry anyway.

Suddenly she’s standing up and her feet are walking in the direction of the TV. She turned it on. Seinfeld is playing. She sits down on the couch and stares at the screen for 24 seconds, then her eyelids are drooping and she’s asleep.

When Sarah wakes up it’s 6:27PM, and the sun is starting to set.

Sunset is Sarah’s favourite time of the day, after sunrise. It’s one of the only times the world looks a little less grey.

Sarah drags herself off of the grey couch and walks to the window, and looks out at the world. It’s a little less grey.

She sits and watches the sunset, and it’s pretty, but then it’s 7:53PM and the sky is black and Sarah decides she should really be getting on with it.

Her blade is on her grey bathroom counter, because there’s no one to hide it from. She sits on the edge of her grey bathtub and holds the they blade in her hand and then she’s pressing it to her wrist that’s already a bit red and then there’s even more red, and then her head is getting heavy and dark and she doesn’t think it’s meant to happen this fast and then-

Sarah opens her eyes, and the sky is blue. She’s outside and she sits up and there’s wind in her face and sky is blue and the grass is green and her wrist is fine, and she’s in front of a house. There’s a big window in the house and there’s a woman in the window.

The woman smiles, and something in Sarah cries out and she stands up and runs to the window and when she gets there she stares at the woman and smiles back.

The woman looks like her, and Sarah realises with a lurch that it is her, but instead of thirty she’s sixty and she’s alive, sitting in a room full of pictures and memories and a man, her husband, is asleep on the sofa across from her and it’s so damn colourful.

Sarah reaches out and lays her hand flat on the glass, the women does the same.

They smile.

And then Sarah blinks, and she’s lying flat on her bathroom floor and she reaches for her phone and dials 000 and decides, today, she is going to live.

[mindless-little-ramblings]

Hindsight

In hindsight, Lincoln hadn’t exactly planned for the mission to go sideways.

No one ever does, but this kind of sideways was in a whole new ballpark.

It had sounded reasonable when they were all within the safe confines of their camp, guards armed with rifles stationed at every entrance.

But outside in the real world, Lincoln was only now realising just how far-fetched his desperate plan was.

Nevertheless, everyone had agreed to it, albeit begrudgingly.

Even high-maintenance Raven had only swished her fiery red hair and walked into his shoulder on their way out of the dimly lighted tent, and given him a look that seemed to say ‘okay, you get this chance, don’t screw it up.’

Now though, with Raven sprinting beside him, her hair a beacon in the darkness, she seemed to regret giving him that chance immensely.

“Lincoln!” She shouted, her voice nearly getting lost in the wind, “Please tell me you have a backup plan for situations like these!”

Lincoln didn’t answer, instead opting to stare straight ahead, tight lipped, rather than meet her steely gaze.

He heard her swear, and holler to what was left of their troop, “Split up to lose them, meet up at military base three-oh-three and await further orders.”

Lincoln was secretly grateful that the General Smith’s daughter had been sent to assist the troop on their mission.

As a lower ranking officer, Lincoln had had to pull a variety of strings to be able to even pitch his mission idea to the General, and it was a plain miracle that he had been granted permission to carry it out.

Despite being confident in his plan, it was a small relief that someone with experience would be tagging along.

As the rest of the troop dispersed, Lincoln inwardly sighed at the opportunity to evade Raven’s fury. But as he began changing direction he heard a yell, and his heart sank.

“Not you, Lincoln,” Raven growled, “you’re staying with me.”

[mindless-little-ramblings]

Drop Off

The salty breeze ruffled Oscar’s hair, sending goosebumps rippling across his skin.

He exhaled shakily, drawing his knees closer to his chest, wrapping his arms tightly around himself.

The Drop Off was cold during the day, but at night it was frigid. The odd group of teenagers who used to camp here often fell asleep and woke up blue lipped.

Though not many teenagers- or anyone, for that matter- came to the Drop Off anymore. Once the go-to meetup spot for teen and a bottle of booze, the Drop Off was quickly abandoned after one drunk teenager was dared to jump off of the cliff, into the dark depths over a hundred metres below.

He had accepted the dare, always up for s challenge, and jumped without a second thought.

He didn’t come back up.

Oscar remembered the day of the funeral, filled with teary-eyed ex-girlfriends and stone-faced football buddies. He didn’t feel like he deserved a seat at the memorial, seeing as he didn’t even know the boy’s last name, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t cry himself to sleep that night.

Losing a classmate, no matter how unfamiliar they are, is a shock that rattles every student.

Oscar wondered if it hurt.

Did it hurt, dropping like a stone into water at below-zero temperatures? Did it hurt, lungs filling with the icy water and freezing to the core? Did it hurt, being flung against the jagged rocks that jutted through the water’s surface?

Or was it instant, hitting the surface so quickly it became cement, splintering his bones and snapping his back?

Oscar wondered if it hurt.

He hoped it didn’t.

He wanted the last moments of his life to be relaxed and painless, not filled with fear and suffering.

Oscar stood up abruptly, his shaking legs taking him to the very edge of the Drop Off.

He let his mind wander back to the letter on his desktop, for his family.

Oscar accepted his fate, leaving no time for regrets, and jumped without a second thought.

He didn’t come back up.

[mindless-little-ramblings]

Lilac Shoe

Nile was thirteen when the bomb hit.

He remembered the day vividly. It was early spring, the seasonal tulip fields blossoming with colours so vibrant it was like a dream. Bees buzzed lazily around the flowers, under the watchful eye of a pair of sun-drunk kids.

Suzie, recently eight at the time, twirled around in her lilac dress, giggling as the tulips reached out and tickled her legs.

Nike’s heart clenched painfully at the memory. The dress had been a newly received birthday gift from her older brother, paired with lilac shoes.

Suzie had hugged Nile silly when she unwrapped it.

That day wasn’t so unlike today.

Though there may be a significant lack of tulips and children playing in the streets, the sun still shone brightly over the once lively town.

Nile sighed as his bike slowed, and he set it gently on the dirt-covered ground.

He straightened and closed his eyes. If he listened closely enough, he could almost hear the chime of the school bells, dismissing children to play for the remainder of the day.

People weren’t supposed to come into town since the bomb.

It’s too dangerous, they said. Too dirty, too old, too desolate.

But Nile knew they just didn’t want the painful memories that came with it.

He knew all too well.

Although, you couldn’t run from the memories like you run from the town.

When the first snow day after the bomb arrived, Nile had a panic attack in the middle of his class room.

The snow flakes looked uncannily similar to ash.

Nile remember the ash. Remembered the feeling of it coating his skin and clothes. Remembered the taste of it in his mouth. Remembered how it clogged his lungs. Remembered how it burned his eyes as he staggered blindly through the streets, calling for his sister.

Nile let out a sudden sob.

He remembered the sound of screams drowning out his desperate calls. Remembered searching for hours, unaccompanied. Remembered the way his stomach dropped when he glanced at a pile of rubble. Remembered the leg sticking out from it, wearing a lilac shoe.

Nile couldn’t remember the last time he slept but he remembered the look on his sister’s face seconds before the bomb hit. The pure terror and confusion as Nile lunged for her.

Nile remembered his sister.

He remembered her all too well.