#i need to rid of these cringe fear shackles

[jerichothejester]

Wanting to make Bill x oc/Self insert art is so crazy especially with aus of Bill because I feel so bad like that MF is still attached to Ford WTF AM I GONNA DO

[sound-of-the-cosmos]

𝕎𝕙𝕦𝕞𝕡 𝕡𝕣𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕥 𝕨/ 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕗𝕠𝕣𝕥 #𝟛

TW: talking about Suicide and self harm, implications of abuse.

I'm sure if you're looking into whump as a whole, this sort of thing isn't unusual-- however, if you aren't in the headspace for this sort of thing, stay in tune for the next post <3

Take care of yourselves <3

-Sage

It has been about a year since Whumpee has been rescued. Caretaker was kind, supportive-- everything they needed to start to heal.

What Caretaker couldn't see, however, was how the trauma wasn't much better. Dehumanization and breaking one's sense of self down isn't something a year can fix. Physical injuries heal. Mental injuries take much, much longer.

After stepping out of the shower, Whumpee avoids their reflection. Their form was still filthy, and they didn't deserve to shower. Nonetheless, their eyes drifted to the mirror. The scars scattered about their small frame made them cringe. However, their gaze locked onto the brand of Whumper's name. Tears pricked at their eyes, before they turned away, wrapping themselves in a towel. Hide it. Get rid of it. If you can't see it, it isn't there.

Even so, Caretaker was kind enough to help them start a schedule to do it. They were kind, considerate, but they didn't deserve it.

They could see the pain in Caretaker's eyes when they responded with "Sir/Ma'am" out of instinct, then cowering back out of fear as they knew it was wrong. The strain in their voice as they talked them out of a flashback.

No matter how kind their Caretaker was, Whumper's words whispered in the back of their mind.

"Does it kill you, knowing you can't do a damn thing to stop any of this?"

"You were always too soft. Really, you should thank me for helping you to fix it."

“I didn’t make you this pathetic mess of a creature, you were just born that way.”

“You’re a waste of air.”

"No one will ever want you."

“You’re useless.”

Fighting the burning in their eyes, Whumpee pulled the towel around themselves tightly. Whumper was right. They were useless. Worthless. Too soft before all this happened. Pathetic. A waste of space. Warmth trickled down their cheeks, tears dripping onto their legs.

Scars littered them, too. It wouldn't take much to reopen them, would it? Take care of Caretakers problems? After all, they were just a thing to take care of. Not even human anymore. A creature. Nothing.

There was a shaving razor on the edge of the tub. Reaching out with a shaky hand, they bit their lip. Their vision was blurred with tears. Just a few, deep cuts, and it would all be over.

A knock resounded on the door. "Whumpee? Are you ok??"

Their body jolted, and they dropped the razor. Grabbing at their hair, they curled in on themselves. "I'm sorry, I-" Their voice hitched. Pulling at the towel, at their hair, at their own skin, just to become as small as possible. The door opened, and they shrank in even farther.

"Whumpee.." Concern radiated from the Caretaker's tone, but it morphed into the Whumpers.

"Whumpee, whumpee, whumpee... How many times have I told you, this doesn't save you from anything?"

A hand placed on their shoulder made them jolt once more. "I'm sorry, I'll be good, I promise, I wasn't-- I won't--" Hiccupping, their world shifted. The dank, mouldy basement of the whumpees facility wafted into their nose. The shackles biting into their limbs.

"..pee? Whumpee, please, look at me--" A gentle hand on their chin bringing their gaze up stopped them in their place. Caretaker was here. Really here. They didn't deserve them, but yet... they were still with them. Tears blurred the whumpee's vision, but they could feel the Caretaker's tears too.

"I'm so sorry I couldn't get to you sooner... I know you're still struggling, and I'm so proud of you-- you've made it so far, and it's ok to step back a little," They sniffed, and began to hug the whumpee, ensuring they didn't seem uncomfortable before doing so.

"It's ok. I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere. You're safe here. I'll be damned if I let anyone even so much as look at you in the wrong way ever again." They pulled back, cupping whumpee's cheeks in their hands. They carefully wiped away one of the tears, and gave a somber, yet genuine smile.

"I promise. I'm here, and I won't leave you. Anytime you need anything, I'll be right there. When things get tough, I'll be by your side. All I need is for you to let me, when you're ready." The Whumpee finally broke down into a sobbing mess, holding onto the Caretaker.

Maybe Whumper was wrong?

Maybe things would be ok after all.

Only time would tell.

[ficsnroses]

Friends With Benefits Chapter 11 - Keanu Reeves x Reader

Chapter XI ~ Three Daggers.

Part 1  Part 2 Part 3 Part 4  Part 5  Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10

Word Count : 3.8k

Warnings : lots of angst, nsfw mentions. 

Series Summary : What happens when two, lonely friends start seeing each other for sex? A tricky friends with benefits love story, when feelings get in the way.

Notes : Buckle in friends, it’s a bumpy ride from here on out. Chapter 12, [out in the next week or two] will be the end of this fic and I’m already crying thinking of it. It’s been loads of fun! As always, please please do leave feedback, anonymous or not :) your words are what make it all worth it.

Chapter 10 Recap : As Keanu stands outside Y/N’s door, after seeing Matt walk out of her apartment, they both stand in silence, unsure of how to feel. Through thick tension, a series of flashbacks reveal how Keanu and Y/N’s relationship began, and what events lead things to become as messy as they are now. Finally, they decide to talk about the unspoken feelings and things that have been going on between them.

x

“Did you sleep with him?” He stills, expression strained and down casted stare piercing knives at the floor below. His arms rest heavy by his sides, dread of the coming words churn in his stomach; the fire burns in his belly.

“Excuse me?” You return, arms crossing, stance collective.

“Please.” His lip quivers so slight, gravelled, assertion coated tone less than willing to beat around the bush. “Just answer me, Y/N.”  

Your eyes still, connected to his that finally, momentarily find yours. You stay silent for a moment long, and the words that come haunt him. Haunt him before they’ve even settled, had time to absorb in the depths of his train wrecked realization. “Yes. I did.”

The first dagger.

You’ve spent enough nights with his manhood curled inside your legs, to know. Far too many evenings with his fingers dipped inside you; lapping, delighting the honey that seeped just for him.

You know him. And despite you desperately trying to forget,

He knows you. He knows you all too well.

The heaviness to the room suffocates you, claws away at each anticipation scorched crevice of your mind. A resigned silence has fallen across the atmosphere, the mere tick of the clock in the distant kitchen corridors filling the gaping holes. Time moves slow. For the first time, you both stand. You’re both here. You’re here, where nothing but words will heal. Nothing but words will suffice. And when you need them most, when you finally need them, they hinder. They’ve gone. They feel far too heavy, and his shoulders seem far too frail.

For the first time you see, Keanu seems, far too,

frail.

        You feel heavy, weighed down. Open your mouth. Let the truth exist somewhere other than inside your body. Let the words that were made just for him,

        find him.

A candle burns to the right, set on the wooden oaky coffee table. His favourite scent, something he’d left behind. Attention remains focused on the flickering flame as you continue to observe him from your spot, wondering, desperately scraping to know what thoughts seared his mind. What reveries he wondered, if he’d just reply. If he’d just talk.

His eyes scan the floor; you know there’s a brew fizzing inside his mind. Much to your disappointment, his cocoa kissed hair falters in hues; strands, long and lengthy seem matted, messier than usual. He hadn’t been keeping firm care of himself as usual,

You fear you’re the reason. That you did this to him, when all you wanted was to ease the burn. To do the better for the both of you.

You’d nearly gotten comfortable in the silence that loomed, almost forgotten that a storm was coming. It was bound to. So sudden, to the gravel of his tone, your chest tightens in guard. Defence.

“I thought you only sleep with me.” He starts, voice heavy, rid of that certain uniqueness it normally held for you. That gentle softness that usually shone. Perhaps it was still there, hidden in the grim shadows.

Perhaps your morphed mind refused to acknowledge it. Refused to remember, to confess that he’d always been far too good. Too good to deserve what you’d done. The way you both let it be. “Why does it matter?” You ask lowly, barely returning. The words have seemed to die in your throat before fully falling out; as if they never truly wanted to be heard by him. As if they saw right through you.

“Because. I thought that was our thing.” He reasons, tone firm, defensive in return. Crinkled lines of stress embroider his outer eyes, and you feel your insides plunge at the sight.

Your eyes narrow before a slight defence rings your voice, jaw tightening to his confidence. “Since when do we have a thing?”

The lines to his forehead firm, and his spine unravels in a firmer stance. To his jaw’s signal, his heavy head turns so slightly, taking in the words of your return. He’s stunned, upset, disappointed, irate, a cocktail of all negative emotions that had been crawling to the surface as of late. The emotions he’d swallowed down, allowed to burn inside just to have you near.

Solely to have you stay, even if it meant it wasn’t in the way he wanted you.

But now, there was none to lose. You’d been in the arms of another man. Let another man touch you the way he thought only his fingers could, allowed another man to taste the sap that seeped from your lips, the honey of your body the way only he should have been allowed.

Was he being selfish? He wonders, he ponders. But it burns. The burn triumphs, yet again. “We do, Y/N. Are you doing to deny everything?” he asks, thick hearted. “Everything we did?”

“What do you mean.” You release, the pricks of the sentence taking form of a statement more than a question. “We are- were in it for the benefits. Just sex, Keanu. Those were your words.” Your head lowers for a moment, collecting the words you needed him to hear. The defence you needed to fend. “You don’t get to decide what I do and don’t do. You do not control me.” Your teeth almost grit, lip bitten with affirmation. “You don’t get to decide who I can be with.”

The feeling persists as you try to blink it away slowly, little by little, desperately striving to keep your vomit of words from yelping out. It’s become much, far too much. The blades are cutting, sinking into your flesh.

“I get that.” Keanu waves off, understanding, sympathetic almost. His persona stays, yet seems to melt away in the same breath. Softer, milder tones hue his voice, and his words fall warmer. Warmer than the cold he’d been spitting thus far.

Yet, it’s funny how now, they feel colder.

Despite the sound, they’re piercing into each of your built up, sorrowed seams. They’re real. They’re true. “Y/N, you came to me. You wanted this. I understand that I too let it get this way, I too agreed.” Milder, softer, heavier. “But what you don’t have the right to do, is walk out on me when it’s convenient for you. You don’t get to decide when you want me and when you don’t.”

He bleeds, he too, bleeds. From this close, he looks tired, prominent bags shadow cast under his eyes, stabbing your veins with guilt. “Maybe it was my fault for letting you come back and chip away at me. For wanting you still every single time you came and went.” His words prove sharp, the sharp scalpels you’d never thought you’d hear pour from him. Despite great efforts, your eyes fall weaker and weaker to each word, each vowel, each syllable of his tenor. “Do you think it was easy for me, Y/N? When you disappeared for a week without a word? I was a mess, Y/N. I was ruined thinking I did something to hurt you. You made me feel that.”

The second dagger.

“We had something. Don’t you dare take that away from me and don’t you dare stand there and tell me we didn’t. It was never just sex, Y/N.” He feels your heavy stare, the way your eyes flicker with something so unfamiliar. As if the flip of a button, the tension between your aggravated bodies shifts, thickens, feels as if something that was never meant to flourish between you and him.

“We were…we were more. You were more.” He exhales, slow and sad. “You were never just midnight relief for me,” Cringing, he waves off a heavy palm to the sour words, his face scrunched to the thought of you thinking you were ever just physical need for him. Ever just sex. “You were-- you are a friend. Perhaps my dearest friend.” His words sear. They do hurt. Shackled with dread. You are, chained. Held. Composed of nothing but pure, utter, hurt.

He stands there, and even through the ice of his speech, it’s still him. Still that sliver of hope you’d always held, that dearest comfort in tumbling darkness. Even today, in the scorching gray, he still felt like home. And that was the worst part; home. Being torn, fraying away from you.

You wish he was still human, still something normal. You don’t remember when you started looking at him,

        and seeing poetry. A beautiful verse, a well rehearsed lyric, a symphony you remember lipping your tongue.

His words are breaking you, killing you softly. Something surfaces, something you so desperately didn’t want to, but it does. Guard.

    ;The poisons in our mouths burn holes in our tongues; our cheeks.

 The same guard that had perhaps been breaking you thus far. The same guard that made you leave. The same defence that refused to acknowledge out loud that he was more. That he was the one who kept you up at night, the one that crossed your mind each waking of the morning, each dusk of the night. You’d swore the joints in your neck creak when you slant up to the gray ceiling, and the ache at your right temple pounds harder, your veins course with something so icy, so frozen; an agonizing groan barely surfaces before your fingers mould along your temples, the words falling off your lips to an appalling mutter. “No, no, no, no.”

And that’s why you lie. You part your lips,

and lie.

“Keanu!” you almost cry, bones aching, chest hefty and heart pouring. You’re drained, exhausted, the conversation has turned darker than anticipated. The sharp edges only cut further. “We’re no good for each other. We aren’t and we never were.” A slight frown contorts your features.

These words, this stream of misery; you know they’re hurting him too. You know he’s hurting. You’re hurting him.

But they must be spoken. They must be shared. This thread that holds you bound, this cord that draws you back must be shred. Must be broken. It’s what he needs. What you both need.

By now, the river had flowed too far; the water rose far too deep.

 By now, if he’d be a part of you still, you fear you won’t be able to settle. You want one hundred percent of him, in the way lovers do. True lovers; the equities that come farther than physical connection. You want all of him, but you fear he won’t be able to give that part of him. Won’t be able to give you more. Just how much more you needed. And so you suffer, you writhe, and you ache some more as the words fall. You fight back sorrow as the façade falls.

 A river flows from your mouth, falls, pelts, cascades. The substitute of tears, your eyes won’t bare hold. “You were my first friend, my only friend when I came here.” You sympathize. “Of course you were more, Keanu. You weren’t just a quick fuck for me when I needed one, so don’t you dare accuse me of it.” A faint frown lingers to the planes of your face, and your eyes grow something worse than sad. Something full of pure, utter, melancholy. “We made a huge mistake and you know it, Ke.” Confessing, you watch the way his muscles tense under his signature black jacket.

 He’s suffering. You’re killing him.

“We both have issues, and we both have problems.” The ugly truth ultimately falls. But perhaps, you shouldn’t have shed light on it. Shouldn’t have dug up, salted old wounds. “Did we really think sex would fix that?” The truth hurts. It’s sinking daggers into your flesh by each word. You’d never been one to show weakness, yet to him, you let all the vulnerability fall. All the weaknesses that allowed you to get this way. “We made a mistake. And it’s best we just move on.”

 There, in his eyes today, right now, you swore you saw something you’d never seen before.

He’s always been admirable, reserved, but confident. Something about him always seemed collected, as if he’d got the entire world figured out and had came to terms with whatever it had to offer. He held poise, self-reliance.

But today- the emptiness inside your chest throbs and your fingers nimble under his intense stare. He doesn’t speak for prolonged moment, only stays,

numb.

Something in him died today. Something felt like withered flowers and caved ruins.

It’s unsettling to see such a sight before your eyes, to see a mountain before you disintegrate, yet refuse to acknowledge it. Eerie, soul crushing discomfort. You saw it in him,

but felt it in you.

Somehow, these things of his, always come back to you. To haunt you.

Keanu blinks slowly, coming back to the present as his head returns. His thoughts flow, rugged, anything but the usual smooth his collected demeanor was used to. It doesn’t matter to her, everything we did. These thoughts, these words, these feelings; they bubbled. She thinks we’re a mistake. Boiled, churned, gasped to be let out. These words needed liberation. Needed to be free.

Does she not remember? He wonders, he ponders. How could she forget?

Tick.

Tock.

Tick--

Even the ticking of the clock in the distant kitchen seems to drown out, seems to fade away unfinished. A heaviness still suffocates the room; feelings still remain trapped inside the depths of your confined hearts. The silence stretches on, the seconds, prolonged moments of quiet rack and add up, and so does your unease.

His expression carefully falters, devoid of anything that shows how utterly hopeless he continues to fall with each jab you take at him. Something so unreadable. Unreadably broken.

He drains too. His silence hurts.

More than the words you’re spewing; the words that cut, slowly slaughter your souls in a gritting slay. Your own eyes crumble, grip tightening in a balled fist similar to the grip that contorts your aching heart.

You feel disgust rip through yourself like a lightening bolt, the pain comes in shooting bolts piercing

Sharp.

Shrill.

It’s slipping through his fingers. It’s all slipping far too quickly.

“Y/N,” Keanu mumbles, urgent yet soft. Heavy voice weighted, plead drowned tone piercing, like lightening. “You-”

He tries again to talk, yet it proves too much. The way he speaks kills you, it’s murdering you cut by cut. It’s impossible to stomach the look on his face.

Dagger by dagger. You’re not strong enough. This mountain you carry on your tongue, in your bones, deep in each crevice of your physical self; it holds too much history, too much vulnerability. This love that laces in each of your veins for him; if it escapes, and the words kiss his skin, into his ears; you fear it won’t be enough. That it wont turn out the way you’ve dreamt all along.

And that’ll be the end. That’ll butcher you for good.

That will be the death of you.

“No, Keanu.” You voice, head shaken gently to a downcast defeat below. You see him tense, back leaned against the gray hallway wall.

Defeat.  

You’ve both defeated each other today. Both sunk the needles exactly where it hurts the most.

         ;Taking throws at the most vulnerable parts of each other. We’re like fingers on thorns of honey;

        we know exactly where it hurts.

 Ambling up beside his larger frame, you position adjacent; so close to him, where you’d feel lightening in your heart each time you reminisce on being. When you think back to the times when he was this close. When he won’t be anymore.

The hard wall feels cold against your skin, both your eyes intent on the surroundings, anywhere but on each other. Slow, quiet, you sigh a beaten exhale, eyes momentarily shutting to ease the heaviness for just one moment. He slumps, unable to hold the weight of his own two feet much longer. “No.” You mumble, you mutter. You force your tongue to move. Sick to the stomach. It churns inside, the brew of pain, hurt, defeat, agony. The fall in your eyes intensifies, covered by a gloss of realization.

This was it.

This would be it.

Dense, heavy, you glide. Your back slides down the hallway wall as your knees give out, falling to an upright seat on the floor below. Legs crossing with your hands positioned neat in your lap, weary shoulders slump; and your eyes find Keanu’s standing tall above you. Patting the spot beside you with one heavy thump, you sigh.

He swallows thick, before gliding down as well.

        falling, falling, falling.

There, in the quiet walls, you sit together. Insides burning, hearts twisting. Falling.

The silence endures, your tired hearts rest. Overpowered, overwhelmed, you sit together.

         ;I’m erasing you from my skin.

 “Keanu,” you begin, empathizing; limbs limp with exhaustion. “I can’t be with you anymore. I just can’t. It’s draining, it’s exhausting.”

The third

        dagger.

        And this one, would hurt in him constantly. Would burn in him endlessly.

Your every word is cruel. Brutally candid; straightforward. Each and every syllable, each vowel, each ring tears something inside him expertly, like deliberately unhurried knives; merciless daggers sinking in deep.

Keanu’s mind wanders still, the words he so desperately wanted to say to you still bubbling. The conversation hadn’t played out how he planned. This was not what he had planned. This is not what the hopes he came with wrote. The burn is so rugged, so intense, and the words fight to come out. They fight to be heard by you. Fight to save your sinking ship.

But they don’t. they ultimately don’t. They still in his throat. They dissolve in his throat.

He couldn’t put himself out there for you to break down again. Couldn’t hand himself over to you again, only to be destroyed, yet again.

His features falter, realization seeps into his bones. In these moments, everything, each second seems so fragile, so precious.

-She’s slipping away far too quickly-

         She’s slipped away;

        She’s gone.

 Keanu’s head falls back, hitting the wall behind you both with an audible thud. He nods gently with a hefty respire, eyes closing for a brief moment. Slain.

Slow and wounded, he removes himself from your side, standing on his own two somnolent legs. The air around has only darkened, except now, there’s no piercing. No lightening, no bolting.

Just flat, dry, unforgiving air.

He stands tall above you, yet your body stays positioned below on the ground. You can’t seem to move, can’t seem to rise. Can’t seem to rise up from the small. From the low.

        From the feeling of low.

Staring up, your eyes lock with his as he begins sincerely, head shaking. The phantom, the ghost of him leans above you, looming over with guilt ridden, shattered realization.

He begins, apologizing. “I promise, all I wanted was to help. Not to make it worse.” Thick cut sadness, gloom glazes each word. He’d come with so much hope; he’d come to you confident he’d get it right. That this time, he’d hold you for good.

With nothing, he’d be leaving. Nothing but haunting memories of the sweetest love, that never worked. The ghost of a love he’d lost, without ever really having it.

“I care about you so much.” He tells, one last time. “I’m sorry if I said anything out of line. You’re an amazing woman, Y/N. I still admire you and all the success you’ve earned since you came here.”

Gray. It’s all falling gray. The murals of a once bright and crimson passion; a once rosy friendship, a yellow hope. All grayed.

“I still wish you nothing but the best. You deserve it.” He finishes, a gentle nod and half attempted smile your way. A haunting smile, that would forever remain carved inside your brain. The smile of the heart you slaughtered.

           And for a moment; you think, maybe you loved him, in another lifetime. And maybe you promised you’d find him on the other side.

On the other side – and maybe that’s why you can’t seem to escape him, to let him go.

         But today, he is going. He’s leaving for good.

Today, it felt as if the flowers beheaded themselves; the sun burnt to the ground. He’d take them away with him, with each drowning step he took.

        He won’t come back; the whispers of your crying thoughts linger.

        He has to; the weeps of your heart undertone.

And you wonder, that perhaps you don’t deserve good things. Because this, watching him leave with your heart crucified to his chest, felt as if punishment. Punishment for sins you don’t even remember committing.

He shakes his head one last time, before his back turns. Turns to you, leaves you behind as he begins to move away, toward the bulky front door. He’d bid his goodbyes, wished his farewells.

He is the one that got away. And maybe, the one who comes after him; if one ever will; will remind you of how it was always supposed to be. The mistakes that were never meant to be made.

        ~They will taste like the poetry; you wish you could’ve composed.

For from today, blue skies would fade gray, the birds would cease to sing. The flowers would never live again, and the burn would maybe subside to nothing, but, gray. You will stay empty, stay longing for what he gave you.

The corridors of each room will be empty; and nothing makes the room feel emptier than longing for someone to be in it. And long you would. Knowing the man you love would be gone for good.

And even after all this pain, all this hurt,

         His body is still the only one you want to be undressed under.

         His weight is the only one you want resting beside you at your most vulnerable, at your worst.

 The daggers have been thrown. The wounds have been carved.

“Stop saying things like that to me.” Sudden, your voice cracks from below. You’d been unsure of how the word had even escaped, plummeted out, fearing no barrier. As if your pulsing heart’s last attempt to ease the agony, to stop him. They’d fallen out, leaving your mind little to fend your guard with.

He halts in his tracks, merely turning in his steps to lock you a surrendered gaze. Why? his pleading orbs beg, wondering what more could be left to said. Head shaking, with his lips pursing tight and taut to a thin line, he stands with his arms side by side, eyes coursing into your soul.

Wondering. What you would say.

“Stop saying things like that to me. Things that make me feel like you’re the only good I’ll ever have.” You barely manage, swallowing thick, dense, pure anguish. Gaze faltering, you eye the floor below, unable to lock stare with him just yet. You whisper, audible yet to his ears with an ultimate connect to his earthy orbs; your own filling with seared, stinging wet sheen.

And the words that would fall from your lips from there on out-

        Could never be taken back.

➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴

My taglists will be posted in reblogs from now on. Let me know if you want to be added or removed from either this series, or the permanent!

[oneacosmist-blog]

Story I wrote for school

He had realized he thought of himself as a failure of the human race. Pathetic and miserable, he thought, a shuffling coward who had never once even made a fist. He dragged his eyes up towards the mirror. His face was permanently contorted into an expression of great sorrow, carving deep shadowy lines ringed with self pity. On the rare occasion he spoke, his voice wavered and quivered and seemed to crawl up his throat and lodge there like a stone, forcing his eyes downward and his words to sputter out. He didn’t walk but rather drifted aimlessly, his shoulders sagged with some great invisible burden. His eyes, more dead than alive, looked upon the world like some enormous, unconquerable mountain he could never even wish to cross.

But of course it hadn’t always been like this.

He had just gotten off of work at the dreaded factory. He trudged out the door and inhaled the tar-black smoke that blanketed the air and hung there unmoving. Its acrid stench clung to him like a parasite and the smoke choked him, coating his lungs with a filmy glaze of soot. By now had figured no amount of washing could rid the it’s awful stench.

There was no bigger relief to him than leaving that factory. When thinking about it he was filled with boiling, terrible hatred that bubbled in him just below the surface. It was an awful kind of hatred, one with many arms and heads, a monster that terrified him. It wasn’t like the job itself was some unhonorable task. It was actually a relatively well paying job that was respectable to most. He simply thought it added to his patheticness. No, that’s not the whole truth. It served as a reminder of sorts. A shameful reminder of his inexplicable cowardice.

He tilted his head back and lifted his eyes feebly up at the mass of steel and smoke and engines that hummed and hummed and filled his ears with nothing but this drumming, a constant mechanical drone. He cringed inwardly as he remembered the pinnacle moment of his cowardice. He had been offered a position at a fine office just thirty minutes away from where his family lived. This would be much better than his current job at the factory, in which he had to live away from his family, who he hadn’t seen in eight months. He couldn’t believe his luck, and half sprinted to the Boss’s office to tell him the news that he would be leaving.

“We need you to work here”. The words had branded themselves with searing, hidden pain into his soul and shackled him in place. He couldn’t believe himself when he had almost protested. He had never spoken against anyone, he had always let others control him. He had raised his voice, attempted to go against this destiny that had been shoved at him and chained to him, by no other man but himself. But as soon as he looked up, the tar-black eyes of the Boss tore through him with such domineering force he was almost lifted off his feet. In that moment, the Boss’s face twisted into the expression of that of a roaring lions, proud, full of confidence and regality. He shrank under his gaze and went silent, saving himself from some wrath that did not exist. “We know this job keeps you away from your family but you’re our best worker. If we lose you, I don’t know what we will do.” “Right,” he had responded in a small voice he himself wasn’t sure he heard, and shuffled out of the room.

An unbearable curtain of shame had fell upon him since that day, and his world became a swirl of black fog as he wallowed in his self pity. He came to fear and cringe when people said his name. It had become, like the factory, an awful reminder of his cowardice that had consumed him. He had fallen into a common paradox. He, the bully, and simultaneously he, the victim. He had equated himself with his cowardice and nothing more.

He could not possibly work up the confidence to visit his family, to tell them what he had done. But, it was too late for him. He had already told them he would come months ago, and he could not go back on his words. He had ordered the train tickets begrudgingly, and since then had been filled with terror of what his family would say to this. Would he even tell them? Would he simply say that he had gotten no other job offers? Could he, as the coward he was, lie to his own family? Questions upon questions flitted through his mind and attacked him like a wake of vultures, chaotic and hungry.

He boarded the train in the dead of night, and sat silently in the back row for many hours, the dull hum of the train filling his ears. Once he got off at his stop he became so overtaken with fear he almost bolted back into the train, but it had already left. He thought about his wife and child, who had been waiting to see him for so long, and his heart cried out and bled for them, he craved the touch of a real human. He swallowed his selfish fears and began towards their meeting place.

It was 6 o’clock at night when he saw the pair. They were standing near a textile factory, and a grayish smoke hung in the air. His wife, Eva, his son, Rafi. Their names were free of smoke, pure and clear as glass.

It was then when he caught the magnificent sight of his son, leaping through the air. His toes pressed against the edge of a tower of cloth and he leapt off the edge, and seemingly suspended in the air for a moment, only held aloft by the gentle hand of the sun. He tumbled through the air to the other cloth pile, his hair tangled like a field of wildflowers, his face flushed with the rosy vitality of youth. He let out a laugh like that of a glass bell, it rang through the air, clearing the smoke from around him and for a moment the man was filled with a clean absolute happiness. Rafi turned to look at him, and his eyes lit up and his face erupted with delight, his childlike joy spilling out freely into the air. Rafi ran toward him, his hair drenched with the golden amber of the setting sun as he hugged his father as tight as he could. “Dad!” he gasped.

The man was taken aback by Rafi’s word. He had almost forgotten about this other identity. Dad. He had bore the burden of a coward for far too long, he had taken it upon himself to become Atlas, bearing the weight of a smoky sky.

He looked at Eva. She was the type of woman who rarely ever smiled, but when she did it was one of those hints of smiles that you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking at just the right angle, a motherly smile that reminded you, “everything will be okay”. She gifted him one of these smiles and said softly, “Hello, Amir.” The name easily dropped of her tongue and slipped off her lips.

Amir? He thought. Is that really my name? He could not recognize the name. He only remembered the harsh, gravelly “Amir!” of the Boss and the Amir that had forgotten how to speak up and the Amir too afraid of himself to see his own family. He was, for a time, Amir the Coward, and that was his one and only identity. But this new Amir floated towards him like a hand reached from the heavens, pulling him out of the choking black smoke, musical and smooth, replacing the dull hum of the factory, lifting his burden. He could breathe again.

He had finally come up for air after being underwater for some time. He was reminded that people were many different things, and one single identity could not make up a person. He was reminded of something stronger than fear.  A newfound sense of confidence filled him. No, confidence wasn’t the word. It was something slightly different. Tomorrow, he decided with certainty, he would quit his factory job and would start work at the office. “Amir,” said Eva. “Let’s go home.”

[ricandhaiz]

#LostSouls, Part 4

Week 4

“Why do you stay with him?” Mary asked as she glanced over at Emma, who was sitting beside her on the grass, while she slowly swung back and forth on the tire swing.

That was a question that Emma found herself asking more and more often as she thought about how to respond to Mary’s question. With each passing day, she was finding the gulf between her and Miguel growing ever wider and more unbridgeable. Most days, she was left to her own devices while he worked on different parts of the house. Mealtimes had become awkward affairs permeated by painful silences that often made her want to cringe in her seat and flee at the earliest possible opportunity.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Mary said after a long pause.

“It’s not that,” Emma replied as she batted a fly away from her face while trying to keep her mind focused on the person and conversation at hand. “You’ve got enough on your own plate to worry about without me piling on you with all my grown-up problems.”

“I don’t mind,” Mary said. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

Emma smiled and said, “I’m glad you think that.”

“Then answer my question.”

“Relationships are complicated,” Emma replied slowly, “and sometimes when problems come up they’re not always easy to fix no matter how much you care about the other person.”

“Do you still love him?” Mary asked with an arched brow. When Emma nodded, Mary added, “I thought people who loved each other were supposed to be happy.”

“We were. It’s just that…when Eva died I…”

“He was careless,” Mary said in a rather tactless way. “If he’d been watching her as closely as he should have been, she’d still be alive today. You have every right to be mad at him. It’s his fault she’s dead.”

“No,” Emma replied weakly.

Mary pressed on. “But isn’t that what you’re thinking? Why defend him?”

“I just want to be fair,” Emma replied as she recalled Miguel’s account of what had happened. “He told me that he had turned his back on her just a second before…”

“He’s making excuses,” Mary interrupted. “Do you think he’ll stay with you now that Eva’s gone?”

“I don’t know,” Emma replied. “With the way things have been going between us lately, it’s beginning to look less and less likely.”

“I’d never leave you,” Mary said as she got up from the swing and sat just out of arm’s reach of Emma on the grass. “I like being here with you. I hate it when you have to go.”

“That’s a sweet thing for you to say,” Emma said in a cautiously sympathetic tone. “But wouldn’t you rather be spending time with kids your own age?”

Mary frowned and then shook her head as she said, “You’re all I need.”

“Don’t you have any friends at school?”

Mary shook her head again. “They all made fun of me and pushed me around when the teacher wasn’t looking. I hated school and everyone in it.”

“Have you tried to talk to anyone else besides me about what’s going on with you at home and at school?”

“No one cares about me except you. I’d stay with you all the time if I could.”

Emma felt a mixture of concern and pity at Mary’s words and thought that a hug or a quick hand squeeze might be in order. But when she asked her young friend if that would be okay, she was surprisingly met with a fervent rebuff.

“You can’t touch me,” Mary cried out in alarm as she scrambled away from Emma with undue speed and haste. “Not yet. Too soon.”

“Okay, I’m sorry,” Emma replied with some surprise. “I didn’t mean to upset you…I just thought it might make you feel better.”

“Are you mad at me? Do you want me to go away now?”

“No,” Emma replied. “I’m happy to stay here with you as long as you like. I just don’t want you to get into any more hot water with your stepdad Sam by coming here and talking to me as often as you do.”

“He can’t talk or do much of anything nowadays,” Mary replied with a malicious grin. “I made sure of that.”

What does she mean by that? Emma thought with a shudder as she envisioned Mary exacting revenge on her stepdad in a myriad of ways.

“I can take care of your husband too if you want me to,” Mary offered. “You don’t need him anymore. Make him go away, or I will.”

“Please don’t talk like that,” Emma said as she rose to her feet. “You’re scaring me.”

Just then, Emma heard the patter of paws coming closer. Oddly enough, the moment she turned to face the little gray mutt that was bounding toward her, it stopped cold in its tracks, bared its teeth, and began to growl.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” exclaimed a gray-haired woman who came rushing after the dog. “Dolly’s usually not nearly so standoffish.”

Fearful that the dog might pounce at any moment, Emma moved to step in front of Mary when she came to the realization that her young friend was now nowhere to be seen. Where did she go?

“Hello. My name is Casey. Aren’t you Miguel’s wife?” When Emma nodded, Casey added, “Your husband has told me so much about you. It’s so nice to finally meet you in person.”

“Get rid of her,” Emma heard Mary’s disembodied voice thunder in her ears. “Now.”

What’s going on? Emma thought as she spun around to see if she could find where the little girl’s voice was coming from. Am I going crazy?

“Are you okay?” Casey asked, looking concerned. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no, I’m fine,” Emma replied with a vigorous shake of her head. “I don’t mean to be rude but this really isn’t a good time for me. I think I need to go inside now.”

Oh, Okay,” Casey replied as she watched Emma turn away and rush toward her house with her head bowed and her arms folded in front of her.

 As Emma walked away, Casey bent down and wagged her finger at her dog as she said, “Dolly, that was rude. Why did you do that?”

Just then, a ferocious wind began to whirl around Casey as her dog whined and tucked its tail between its legs. She looked up at the sky and then towards the lake with a growing sense of unease as she gazed as water on the surface and took note of the fact that it was perfectly still. It wasn’t long before things quickly went from bad to worse.

The sound of girlish laughter filled the air as Casey felt like she was being pulled toward the edge of the lake by a pair of strong, unseen hands. Try as she might, she found that she was unable to resist the force that was pushing her inexorably forward. But then, to her great surprise and relief, the driving wind and the laughter abated just before the tip of her shoes hit the water’s edge. She quickly said a prayer of thanks as she clutched her hands to her chest and tried to catch her breath.

“Casey, it’s been too long. Did you miss me?”

The hairs on the back of Casey’s neck instantly stood on end at the sound of the oddly familiar voice while her dog whined ever more loudly at her side.

“Tell your mutt to shut up before I break its neck and throw it in the lake.”

“Leave her alone,” Casey replied as she snatched the dog up into her arms and then glanced at the young female form which was somehow floating just above the water. It was Mary. Casey’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened as her brain tried to make sense of the incomprehensible scene that was unfolding right in front of her eyes. Mary was wearing the same pleated skirt and tattered navy blue sweater that Casey had often seen her old classmate wear to school over fifty years earlier. But her disheveled hair, sickly white and translucent skin, and malevolent smile clearly put Casey on notice of Mary’s nefarious intentions as far as she was concerned.

“You don’t look at all happy to see me. Why is that?”

Before answering, Casey glanced at Mary’s old house and then asked, “What do you want with that young woman?”

“Why should I tell you?” Mary replied with a sneer. “You saw what Sam was doing to me and what did you do? Nothing. He beat me almost every day and sent my mommy away.”

“What does that have to do with her?” Casey asked while pointing to the house.

“She’s nice to me. Did you know that she lost her daughter? She was so sad when I first met her. But she’s getting better now, and it’s all because of me.”

Alarm bells immediately rang in Casey’s head as the pieces of the puzzle that had been floating around in her head quickly fell into place. “Emma has a husband that loves her. She belongs with him.”

“Not for long,” Mary replied. “And when he’s gone, it’s going to be just her and me.”

“No, Mary,” Casey said with all the courage she could muster. “You have to let her go.”

“She’s mine!” Mary screamed as Casey was sent reeling into the water by a stinging blow to the chest. After flailing on the surface of the water for a moment or two, she was dragged underneath it by what felt like a pair of iron weights shackled to her ankles. The words I’m dying, were the last conscious thoughts she formed in her mind just before her world went black.

 Less than two hours later, Miguel found himself walking through the sliding doors of the emergency room at Kensington Memorial Hospital. He had been approached less than half an hour earlier by a visibly shaken woman in her thirties who identified herself as Kendra, the daughter of George and Casey Wick, in his driveway. She told him that her mother had nearly drowned in the lake that afternoon and was asking for him. Although he was tired and hungry, he readily agreed to follow the Wicks’ daughter to the hospital.

Once there, Miguel went straight to the ICU and was greeted by George with a hearty handshake just outside Casey’s hospital room.

“She’s lucky to be alive,” George said, shaking his head. “If it hadn’t been for a couple that just happened be walking by the lake when she hit the water then I think I would have lost her for sure.”

“Thank God they were there to pull her to safety in time,” Miguel replied as he patted George’s shoulder. “Do you know what happened?”

George nodded. “I’ll leave it to Casey to give you the details. I tried to convince her to wait but she was adamant about having either me or my daughter bring you here tonight. She told me that it was a matter of life and death.”

Miguel nodded gravely and said, “Would it be okay for me to go in and see her now?”

“I think the nurse is just finishing up checking her vitals. Let me check.”

A matter of life and death? Miguel thought as he paced back and forth in the hallway and wondered about what Casey so urgently needed to tell him. Within minutes, George emerged from the room behind the nurse and motioned for him to come inside Casey’s semi-lit room.

Casey looked fragile and weak as she lay in bed while hooked up to various monitors. A faint smile crossed her lips as he moved closer. “Miguel, I’m so glad you’re here.”

“I came as soon as I heard what happened to you,” he replied as sat in a chair by her bed.

“Thank you. How is your wife?” Casey asked in an anxious tone.

“Fine, I think,” Miguel replied with a quizzical look. “I haven’t seen her since lunchtime. I was working on the basement with a contractor most of the afternoon and had just come from Home Depot to get more supplies when your daughter asked me to come here.”

The rising fear he saw in Casey’s eyes as he watched her reaction to what he’d just said immediately filled him with dread.

“She wants her. I know it,” Casey said as she reached out to Miguel. “You have to get her out of that house before it’s too late.”

 “Who wants her?” Miguel asked as he grasped Casey’s hand.

 “I saw Mary,” Casey replied as tears began to well in her eyes. “The girl that used live there when I was a child. She looked exactly like she did back then. I know it sounds impossible but it’s true. And…and she wants Emma. Don’t you see?” He did. She quickly added, “She tried to get rid of me because she thought I’d get in the way of her plans. I tried to escape but she was too strong and pushed me into the lake. She was holding me under when that couple pulled me up. I thought I was going to die.”

 After exchanging a few more words, Miguel rose from his chair and thanked her before leaving the room. To his great surprise, George volunteered to go back to the house with him and offered to ask a retired priest that he knew to meet them there to bless it. “If what Casey said is true,” George offered as they both stepped out onto the hospital parking lot, “it won’t hurt to have a man of the cloth with us to cleanse that place while we’re there.”

 It was a little past seven o’clock in the evening by the time Miguel turned his car right onto the narrow, tree-lined street leading to his house. All seemed quiet and peaceful as he drove up to his driveway and parked. Still, he found himself fumbling for his house key in his haste to get out of the car and check on Emma. He made the sign of the crows when he looked to his left while exiting his car and saw George being approached by a white-haired gentleman in black clerical clothes. But when he turned toward the front of the house, any semblance of calm that he may have felt was instantly shattered by the sight, through the picture window, of flames wreaking havoc in his living room.  

 “Oh my God,” George exclaimed as he caught up to Miguel. “Your house is on fire!” And indeed it was, in more ways than one.