“Tess”

There are things she could say that would make you crawl. Beg. Want it so badly you’d bargain for it. She could make you get on your knees and come up with payment plans only the naughtiest of boys would offer. She can craft sentence that could set you on fire, and make you scratch, scratch, scratch on the window pane. But she does not give in, give up,  let herself down. She could pleasure you with talk and words of sloven proportion… But that’s just it. She does not do as she says. She no longer sleeps with others, or at all really. She only talks and tortures.

XXX

“Madame Sioux”

Naturally there are things she’d very much not like to speak of. Assuredly they happened, however, and it is not to be assumed or even thought that they did not. Because they did. They most certainly did.

And she was there when they did. And when the first scream came bubbling up the throat of the victim, she covered her eyes and began to hum to herself very lightly. It was not a particular sound, but rather a spur-of-the-moment kind of tune that she sometimes hears in her dreams.

In her dreams, though, the screaming is louder and she cannot cover her eyes.

XXX

“Carol”

She does not sing. She only sits in her room and waits for the pills that she will not swallow. A few days out of the month she thinks she is okay, but soon realizes she is not.

When anyone says the word “time”, she fizzles a little inside, but says nothing.

She has not said anything in 22 years.

XXX

“The Mrs.”

“Breakfast,” he says as he takes a bite of his sausage and then chews with his mouth open, “is my favorite meal.” Outside the sunshine is very bright, and oddly mocking. “You make my eggs just the way I like them.” He says.

She smiles at him.

“And the bacon is always perfectly crisp.”

She says- “As always.”

He eats half of everything and leaves her the mess. “Have a nice day as always,” he tells her as he walks by, kissing the top of her head.

She sits very still at her seat, at the table, in the kitchen, in the house, in a town that is not her town, and says “As always.”

XXX

“She With No Name… Anymore.”

Yesterday she dew a picture of her daughter in the boat, but for the life and death of her could not remember where she placed it. So she cried because, pathetically, that’s all she had left. A few people told her that it would be fine. But she knew they didn’t know any better and let it slide.

When the sun set, she closed her eyes and tried to recall the image. She could not and she felt her heart had been ripped out of her chest, up through her throat. The reality was… It sort of had been.

XXX

“Persephone”

Until she was 15 she lived with her Grandmother in Alabama. Then her parents fetched her and took her off to Georgia. She hated it there for three years, and then she got up the nerve to jump into the lake behind the plantation.

When she resurfaced, wide-eyed and apathy dripping like brine, it was the birds that found her. Her parents send her back to Alabama for arrangements, but they were bust, however, and did not make it to the memorial.

XXX

“Fields”

It wasn’t exactly raining… More like spritzing or something equally fun and enjoyable. Enough said that is wasn’t exactly unpleasant.

“Do you think we’ll ever come back here?” She asked, bending to pick a daisy.

“Well,” he replied, reaching into his coat, “I won’t.”

The resounding bang of gunfire in the vast expanse of empty field made itself present, followed only by the small, but obvious “unn” of the victim.

He straightened himself up and looked at the limp body at his feet, then at the drops of scarlet on his shirt. “I’ll never come back,” he said, almost amused, “And you’ll never leave.”

XXX

“Car-Girl”

On Tuesday she was very hungry and ate the last of the chocolate covered cherries. It was good buy not nearly enough, and she cried upon swallowing and licked her fingers desperately. Alas, it was no help and she eventually sat back and closed her eyes.

Above her, three, four, maybe ten, but probably six feet, was a town of unknowing people, bustling about, buying gifts.

Here in her car, in the dark, she thought of what gift she would get who, and why. She thought of how much money it would cost to get them all, and whether she would have enough. She would.

She smiles. They would like the gifts. They would open them and grin and be merry. She laughs and abruptly stops, deflating into sobs. Who would decorate the tree? She’d always done that. And who would fix the turkey? The family would surely be lost without her.

“Merry Christmas,” she says aloud, going a little wild, “Merry freaking Christmas.”

XXX

“River-Girl”

She couldn’t swim but she was, nevertheless, drawn to the river. From the time she first saw it she wanted to dive in and bathe in it. She wanted to bottle the water and drink it.

But… She could not swim, so she denied herself the pleasure of all of it and just stood on the embankment, yearning.

XXX

“Starbright”

Sunshine, with moonlight making love to it, in the shadows, is much of what she thinks about. She thinks about other thinks occasionally, but never much about anything. She showers and dresses and goes down to the dock to hang her legs over and watch the pelicans.

They remind her of her parents which dove for food in much the same way.

She misses them.

XXX

“Blue”

She looks like Ariel without a tail-fin, criss-cross on the rocks. Her eyes are downcast and she is reading a book on death acceptance.

They call her Blue.

There isn’t much to what she says, mostly, but she tries ever-so-hard to make it have substance. But… usually what it lacks is sense; there isn’t much sense in anything she says anymore. Blue doesn’t formulate thought very well. So… She stays away from people and spends her time on the shore watching the surfy brine wash in and out. It’s metronomic, the motion in that, and often she becomes aware of her own humming. But she doesn’t stop.

And she reads her book which lists steps of acceptance and says things like “one must remember, over all, everything will solve itself” and “eventually, though the pain excruciating now, it will heal and you will move on.”

So she reads the book everyday and watches the surfy brine wash in and out. She hums a tune he used to hum before, afterwards and during sex. And she never forgets and the pain never lessens.

Because that’s the very last thing she’d want.

XXX

“She Morning”

Morning. She gets up. Her mother is frying eggs and her father is standing by the door.

“Do you want bacon?” The mother asks the daughter as she tentively steps into the room.

“No.”

The father bands the glass with his fist and the door, which is metal and thin and very cold, rattles. Mother winces and flips an egg.

The daughter goes to the refrigerator and looks inside. She chooses a water bottle and twists the lid to break the sill.

Morning. The sun is cast over by a dark grey clouds, foreboding and large. The trees in the back yard are all bent and broken. The carriage is still under the swing-set and the coroner ribbons hang loose across the fence. And, yes, the carnage is still evident leaking through the wood.

“Sausage?”

“No.”

The father turns and goes into the living room, which adjoins the door and falls down to sitting in the blue linen chair. “No one bother me,” he says.

The daughter goes outside at the ill content of her mother and takes down the coroner’s ribbon. It is soggy and soft. She balls it up and lets it fall from her fingers to the grass. Then her eyes fall on the blood. His blood.

She kneels.

It looks sticky, and more than likely, it is. It’s also brownish and reddish both; a beautiful color she is attracted to. She leans forward and brings her face near the fence slat and then places her lips against the splintering wood. She lets her tongue dance over the blood.

She stands up. She goes back inside.

XXX