3WW- The Elder's Grimoire

3WWprompt:Apartment, Began, Numb

Image from my Fifth Avenue Series

The apartment was one of those scandalous Manhattan penthouses. Filled with so much visual noise that it was difficult for Lena to focus her eyes on any one thing. In fact, everything appeared cathedral-ancient and shiny with the kind of glare that only freshly polished wood can yield.

"He must have lived here for years...," she thought as her eyes followed the path of candle lights beckoning her into a long hallway. There was something to be seen in every nook and cranny. Had he collected the brick and mortar for these walls from his travels?

Just that morning Lena was four hours north in Vermont. She had been covered in dirt, grime and powder. Sweaty and determined she mixed a barrel of concrete and built a four-walled monolithic structure to bury her Book of Stains in. It was her soul. She had read the elders Grimoire repeatedly. It explicitly stated that once the book was encased in concrete, as of midnight that night, she would no longer feel. She would go numb, eternally.

Her reverie was crushed by an unfamiliar grip on her shoulder, "Lena, I'm so glad you made it! You only have four hours left!"

Lena's face contorted in that mix of uncomfortable confusion. She was elegantly dressed and ready for an evening of charm in this illustrious space, but had she made a mistake?

"Ah, I can see you're unsure." The stranger slid his hand down her shoulder and grasped her fingers as he pulled her towards him and said, "Let me introduce myself,my name is Jacob."

He consoled her with his soothing voice and continued, "My family has raised many a runaway, I am the last of the clan.

Jacob stared into Lena's eyes and she was flushed with a great awe as she recognized his flesh curling into its true state, scales.

"Your time is short, but you're in the right place. My job is to show you all the wonders of the world before you lose your senses."

"My senses?" Lena asked as she was taken aback by the semantics.

"Yes, all that with which you feel."

Lena pulled away and wanted to show her conviction, "Where do we begin?"

Jacob's lair filled with music. He poured Lena a glass of wine and said, "First, we'll dance. Then I will show you all the wood that I gathered from Giuseppe's studio, then Cleopatra's jewels and cosmetics, then Andromeda's chains..."

"How long and WHERE have you lived?" Lena interrupted, completely immersed in Jacob's expanding mouth and elliptical yellow eyes.

Jacob chose not to answer her, but instead to show her. They danced in between ever fifteen minutes. She felt things she thought she would never feel. Then the clock struck twelve and it began - the draining of all her capacity to feel.

The Ausencia Experiment

Sunday Scribblings Prompt: Experiment

Transferring spirit into matter is an alchemy of which the history of man has perpetually caught itself in the grasp of. When it came my turn to face the question, I was no different. The loss of her was so great, so incomprehensible, that it ripped at me internally like a rat gnawing its way out from the inside. All I could do was use every capacity I had to try to capture the bits, pieces and stains of all that she was. I tethered photos of her, chotchkes, charms and prayer cards to my clothing so as never to loose sight of her, lest I forget. I walked around with a dress made of memories, clicking and clacking like a wind chime whenever I walked.

Removing her number from my cellphone was an act of great resistance. A war that I waged with that of the spirit world, refusing to give all of her up. I locked myself in the studio for days, forgetting every corporeal need and painted a large canvas of her face with my hands. I used no brush, only my my fingers so that I could run my tears, flesh, breath and sobs through every line, every wrinkle. I did this so I could impregnate my flesh with the map of her form.

I belabored over an altar (the laboratory) trying to resurrect the feeling of her voice. I desperately sought out evidence of her spirit. I funneled the tears. Scraped up all the blue of our tears and encapsulated them in a jar.

I strained and drained the sheets of her 'ausencia'- such an ethereal and unmanageable compound. What is 'ausencia'? Its the Spanish word that I find uneasily translatable into English - meaning the lingering presence left behind absence; such as a foot print, an imprint on a bed or a pillow. Essentially, it is the feeling or mark that implies someone was once there and this aura was left behind in their place. When the essential oil of that ausencia was fully captured it had stars of Anise in it, concentrated brown, representative of her caramel skin.

Perhaps some found this practice Frankenstonian in nature. After all, none of us can play GOD and resurrect the dead. Still I persisted. I'd like to say that with enough meditative practice, she would return whole, vibrant, round, rosy and smiling by my side, laughing the way we used to do at random silliness, so carefree together. Yet, I'm not sure I can say so. I have lost the battle with the spirit world. She is there now and there is not here. Only now after acceptance, after burying my dress under soil and calling for nature to biodegrade and transfer that matter into the air that I breathe, only now can I feel her in my consciousness.

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Tiramisu Flavored Lie - Continued

Sunday Scripples Prompt: Time Machine
_{The following is a continuation of a piece I wrote for 3WW, entitled, Tiramisu Flavored Lie and everyone wanted to know what the note said so here goes!}

The note was the catalyst. It brought blood rushing to his face. Sweat began to percolate in the crevices under his collared shirt. The heady bakery smells put him in a strangle hold. He stared at her while he traced her outline noticing the red backpack. His lids began to close and his balance gave way. Hot coffee splashed across her face as he fell back two years into the past. The cafe attendant screamed, "Mista Jeff! Mista Jeff!"

"Hey Jeff. Jeff! That girl just left this note for you."

He looked up, catching only a glimpse of a red backpack and denim sliding out of his office lobby.

Leann handed the note to Jeff.

"What's this?" He asked her, with the same uncertain, suave smile he gave her when he was hoping for more than he had permission for.

Leann, his secretary-turned-petit-four, shrugged and licked her white plastic spoon in response. She was busy finishing off the slice of her favorite, tiramisu. Jeff had bought the slice of cake today especially for her, as a thank you for last night. Jeff shuffled the note open between his fingers like a cigarette, while he turned his back on Leann to read.

The note-

I saw you, but you overlooked me. Sometimes people just don't have the courage to do what they have to do - so I've decided to help you change your life. You may see it as cruel, but I consider it divine intervention, as does my employer. You have no idea how long I've watched you, but I know you well- I've seen your indiscretions. I have sent pictures of you in some of your most strenuous poses to all the local papers. In twenty minutes reporters will be bombarding your firm. You have just lost it all.

However, you will have an opportunity to redeem it. In two years from now, your new character will be tested. You will run into me in an insignificant, non-descript place. If you notice me you will have failed the test.

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Tiramisu Flavored Lie

3WW Prompts: Apology, Consider, Distant

The sound of the bells hanging on the door chimed as he walked in. My heart sunk and drowned. He scuffed his feet on the worn 'welcome' of the brittle floor mat. The bakery air was rich with sweet drips of spun sugar. I slid my napkin towards myself and across the honey-stuck fingerprints of the counter. I stared at him. The cool air of his entrance brought the coffee beans screaming up my nostrils. I felt jarred into consciousness by his presence. The heat of the coffee seeping through my paper cup was seering my hand red-hot. He noticed my obstinate eye, and I looked down quickly while unsticking my hand from the cup.

The attendant with eight arms called across to him,"Gud Mornin' Jeff!"
"Hey, there Miss Jenkins. How are you this morning?" He retorted as he smirked with a knowing wink in my direction.
"Oh jes fine, Sir, What can I git ya?"
"I can't decide between those blueberry scones or the almond biscotti." He finally pulled his piercing eyes off me to scan the effervescent glazes inside the counter.

I knew I shouldn't have done it. He still didn't know it was me. Maybe I could befriend him before he realized who I was. So I interjected, hoping to distract him from my red backpack and my earlier anonymous actions.

"Maybe you should consider...the chocolate croissant. It's one of the finest in this area," I said boldly.
"Is that right?" He asked, as though he had expected my mouth to let out steam.
"Yup, when you eat it along with a cup of joe it goes down like the smoothest tiramisu. It's my favorite."
He acquiesced and ordered the croissant. He shot me a sly, crooked smile and said, "Thanks, I think I'll enjoy that."
I'm not good with guilt and I curled my toes in my boots and felt the red rise to my cheeks.I knew it was only a matter of minutes before he would see my bag. I didn't want to start a chase. I had to confront it.
"Listen", I said, as I shuffled in place and made way for new orders and reaching hands.
His eyebrows rose and he made a horny face of intrigue, "Yeah?"
"I owe you an apology."

Quickly his face contorted. He stepped away from the counter as though her recognized me, although he couldn't have, not yet. I was too distant from his person, so I stepped closer to him, "I'm the one who left the note."

The Dead Girl In Your Head

Sunday Scribblings Prompt: Passion

My bed sheets are charred with with stains of fallen embers. Little burn holes here and there. Some burns larger than others, leaving threads bare and scorched. I wrap myself in their remnants. It's true, there was a time, when small flames fell like rose petals in the air, all of over my bed to make way for you. So long ago, I can barely smell the ashes anymore. And you well, you're long gone. That was back when I was alive. Now I'm surrounded by padded satin and the stale air of rot. I can hear them all out there...talking to me in their heads so that no one else can hear their weaknesses.

Everybody wants to know the same thing. They all want to know, what being dead is like.

"How does it feel?"
"How does what feel?"
"You know...that moment when you die, does it hurt?"
""No, not entirely."
"Than what does it feel like?"
"Like nothing...you just go numb"
"Numb?"
"Yeah, numb. So that you can't FEEL anything, anymore."
"Just like that? It was that easy?"

I don't want to talk anymore, at least not with the living- they exhaust what is left of me to be exhausted.

No, of course dying wasn't just like that, idiot! First came the rage, the bottled up hate that erupted, then came the burning. No one seems to understand. I'm lost in a wooden box of bitterness and resentment, lined with pure unadulterated, unabridged rage. My throat is raw from screaming on all of your deaf ears! You can't have one without the other. You can't love so hard, without hating so viscously- at least not in my world. What was my world.

Back when I was alive, I had glow-in-the-dark paint that I used to write words in a flourishing script on my walls. I would turn off the lights and the walls of my room would read "Live Life with Passion" in Spanish. During the day it was my secret. I would rub flower petals transparent between my fingers at the grocery store. I stomped my body weight into the ground when I danced. Those words were my daily reminder that I could feel. That's how I lived. Now, its gone. They all want to know how it feels, when they can't imagine what its like not to feel at all.

http://sundayscribblings.blogspot.com/