The Elixir

3ww Prompt: Delayed, Edge, Focus

When he ripped the skin of the orange away, juice sprayed in tiny little droplets over my arm's flesh. I love the smell of the fresh break, but I had a paper cut that seethed under the citric acid.

"How long have you been doing this?" I asked as I looked around and noticed nothing under the ordinary in the old white washed kitchen. The Formica counter had aged, yellowing glue along the seams and the tiles were randomly cracked. I felt a chill of discomfort as I realized I was alone in this man's house, who as far as I knew, was a stranger.

"What? You mean makin' mixes?"
"Yeah"
"Oh I've been doing this as long as I can remember...my grandmother was a tribe leader and a bit of a modern day medicine woman...I used to go gather ingredients for her when I was little - so you see its in the blood."
He squeezed a drop of lavender colored water into the dark blue glass bottle that now sat full of fresh squeezed orange juice.

I couldn't help but stare around the house more, scanning. There was a Nascar calendar, an oiled frying pan sitting on the stove-top and a crumb-ladened toaster. I guess I was looking for proof of success or something extraordinary, but I wasn't seeing it. Yet I'm not sure what it would look like if I did see it.

He peeled open a small crinkled and creased brown envelope with the words 'DRAGON'S BLOOD' scribbled on it. He tapped out a ground-up red powder into a bottle.

"Why don't you charge?"

He set his black eyes directly on me - as though he had now come to see clearly what my point was, "It is not about profit, its about human exchange and I would receive no true payment, if I charged." His slicing gaze returned to the bottle indignantly.

My cheeks flushed with embarrassment. I must have come across as so ungrateful, but I was like a relentless child and my curiosity got the better of me, "What do you mean real payment?"

"I get paid with what you people call Karma, I get paid by the natural forces of intention. Now if you're done with the inquisition, I need to explain exactly how this is going to work. That is if you're still interested."
"Yeah I'm ready."

"You're not going to drink this until you're about to go to sleep. Once you drink it you aren't going to experience any immediate reactions short of the infusion of the liquid's properties into your blood stream...but its not love potion #9...its not like some tv movie, the effect will be delayed. So go to sleep. Make sure you go straight to sleep - if you can't sleep - stay in complete state of meditative rest - do not consume ANYTHING, absolutely nothing!..."

"Not even water?" I asked stupidly, still losing faith in the hope.

He shook his head in complete dismay.

"In the morning when you wake up, you will have a heightened sense of clarity, everything will appear new and on a different dimension. Your sense of focus will be unlike any other moment in your life. Because of this, you cannot leave your house for twelve hours...so have anything you may need there. You will then sit and ask yourself the questions you have written out on this paper for me. Obviously, I will not be the one to answer them. All of your false pretenses will be demolished and you will know what the RIGHT answers are. Once you obtain your answers you may eat and drink, but still do not go out. SO do you have any questions?"

"Does it taste bad?"

"It has a bit of an edge to it...like stale orange juice, but its doable."

Drowning

3WW - Cautious, Human, Maybe
Here is another short one-- I haven't had much time these days.

There are 21st century pirates all around.
They pillage and plunder in tweed blazers, wall street journals and Gucci wallets.
Their teeth aren't capped with gold,
but bleached to the whitest picket fence.
Aggressive mortgage brokers is what they're called,
and you must be cautious of the bag of loot that they haul.

Sooner or later they'll make you walk the plank,
The American Dream
It is the most delicious scheme a house with a gym.
They make you believe that its a healthy risk
maybe you'll sink, maybe you'll swim.
Now there is no more cheap gas
The price of food goes up and
The low ceiling is most certainly made of glass
The haves are all the crewman
Everyone seems justified in treating you as less than human.

Today

3ww prompts- Empty, Highway, Ignored

Today

Today I am an empty highway.
Left as a reminder of all that have travelled through here.
I close my eyes, let the wind howl down my tunnels.
Today I stretch my arms like guard-rails to protect nothing.
Losing is as a carousel is to lost.
There are streaks of burnt rubber making tracks up my chest.
Too many have crashed right on this spot, notice the flowers and crosses that I bare.

Today I am an ignored room, with chair rails collecting dust.
Practicing invisibility, by embracing that I am forgotten.
I have turned hard and brittle, as stoic as time.
I am the crack in the wall, destined to never be filled.
My foundation is weakened, by the weight of those that I bore.
I am a hurt hidden place, under scuffed floor boards.


Today, I'll survive as a ruin or relic, somehow.
I'll go through the hours with a furrowed brow, but won't someone tell me please
how long is now?

The Future

Sunday Scribblings prompt: The Future

As I look at the tiny, almost celestial formations made by the herbal grains in the bottom of the tea-cup,
I see a cold and steely future.
When I wake to a UsaToday article on Entrepreneurship, I am not filled with hope as I should be.
There will be no alchemy in the future.
There will be no making something out of nothing.
What is, is all that will be.
There will be no genius left to design a dream.

I know you're looking at the neon lights at my window, the blinking hand full of lines,
thinking that I'm beckoning people in, to hear such sadness.
However, the truth in the illustrated lines of the next card speak of greater horrors yet.
The runes don't lie.
We as a species will infect new frontiers, in desperation to survive.
There will be no luck in the roll of a die.
Unfortunately, the burning tower says that we
will face mass genocide
again.
My all seeing eye,
doesn't mean to offend.

It is all very clear since the future will open up ways for orbital travel.
I see a wealthy man in our future, playing judge with gavel.
Despite this costly migration being significantly reduced from its current 1.3 billion dollar price
We will still try to toss the dice.

Still, the poor in this country - the homeless (and by that I mean not only those who sleep on the street, but those who do not own homes, collateral, investments or live paycheck to paycheck and own just one sheet)
Those who do not have access to 100,000 dollars,
by this I mean you and me and even the scholars,
who will remain behind.

And as the financially-able leave in search of their next empyreal city and vanity,
they will be committing yet another crime against humanity.
Sorry to be so full of ice,
but that my friend is the futures price.
So as you hear the doorbell's chime on your way out,
know that I will remain nestled on a planet sowing dreams that possibly will never sprout.

http://sundayscribblings.blogspot.com/

Excerpt from The Devil Followed Me Home

This is a creative non-fiction piece of writing that is a continuation of a much larger piece I started last year.
3ww prompts: Picture, reflected, stop

The evidence was both behind and on the picture. Short of burning the image, the only other way hate could be so passionately evoked was through the bold, harsh inked lines that blotted out my face. I could still see my eight year old body smiling victoriously through the ink slap. I was clinging to my grandmother, who barely made it into the image. I always new the devil hated me this much, I didn't need to find this confirmation nestled within the pages of her bible. Not the everyday bible, but the one that sat collecting dust by the archaic stereo, dust-rich party favors and chotchkes, as a symbol of faith. There was no way these scribbled ink lines could be erased, no way for this picture to be repaired. They say evil-stepmothers are an unfair(y-tale) stereo-type, but I can say that in my life it's most certainly true.

I heard the screen door swing open, then I saw the devil's form reflected in the window.

She was coming, I had seconds to shield myself. My fingers stealthily curled to return the holy book, I quickly slipped the picture under my shirt. It was my picture, of me...an image I had never seen in the twenty eight years of my life. It was mine. An image marking one of those early trips to the island to see my father. I couldn't escape the image of her rageful script emblazoning the word "die" on back of this memory infused paper. Still, with all the righteousness I could muster, I turned towards her sheepishly as she walked through the French doors and said, "Hello."

"Hey. What are you doing?" Demons ask questions with intent to stop breath.

I quickly began turning knobs and pushing buttons, "I was just wondering if daddy's stereo even works anymore."

"Oh, that old thing. Yeah, it works, sometimes I listen to the island's church station on there, especially around the holidays."
"oh."
"Yeah, but its not like the radio in New York girl, this is heavy stuff. They talk about casting demons out of your head and understanding that there is evil inside you just waiting to take you over."
My fingers dropped their facade of turning dials. She was on to me.

I was at a loss. I need to get away from her. Just then my father walked in. He was crushed and marked with the aged lines of tire treads all over his face. He was exhausted from a long day of wrestling with automobile parts. Yet, he seemed an oblivious martyr in this whole scenario. Last night he seemed to have had a revelation. He confessed he was scared she was poisoning him, and that he had already caught her once trying to put drops of insecticide in his coffee. I asked him why he stayed wither her.

"I didn't want to lose my two sons the way I lost you through a bitter divorce."

You see, my biological mother is the devil's sister. Before I realized it, before I was born, the devil already had the upper hand.