On Growing an Ocean's Tail EXCERPT

3ww prompt: Ache, Difference, Suffer

I began the story Growing An Ocean's Tail a while back to read it from the beginning click here:
Growing An Ocean's Tail. The last post was part II (just scroll down) and this is the third effort to work on the story and it is only an excerpt so you can read it with out reading any previous posts.

La Sirena sketch by marisol diaz

There were days that I felt collided into each other. I would lay on my back in a state of sloth like paralysis and I stared at the ceiling. Layers of my vision overlapped in transparent stacks, shifting constantly. The mattress became placenta and the room a maternal womb. I struggled to imagine the possibility of ever being able to get up again. It felt as though air was leaving me. When I could, I strained to turn my gaze towards the window I was in awe of how quickly the sun rose and set and rose again. It was painful to imagine sitting up. It wasn't until the day I heard the lock rattle and his sweet whistle, that beads of sweat tumbled down my brow and puddled over my lip, beckoning me to move again.

I needed to know what was happening to me, to hear him calling made my entire body ache all over. What had he done to me? How had he done this to me? He immobilized me in order to need him, and I was captured in the net. Is this what had happened to Lily? Had she disappeared not fled? He was all I had and so I had to get up.

"I have the key, I can unlock you from this place all you have to do is say the word." He spoke in sonar as I stood there unsteady staring, trying to place the phonetic beats of his words.
"Where is Lily?"
"What's the difference, where she is?"
He reached his hand through the gate swiping tears of sweat off my forehead coldly. He pressed his head tightly up against the bars.
"Did she really matter that much to you? I can make it so that you can see her again, if you let me take you out of here."
I couldn't make out my emotions, relieved for his arrival yet terrified down to my bones of him. I tried to talk but words began to fail me...my lips felt fused together muted into a frown.
"Tell me to open the gate and I'll show you what happened to your friend."
I used one hand to steady myself and other hand with its shaking fingers to part my lips. I was done fighting.
"Open the gate."

He slipped the iron key through the weathered lock and eased it into action so swiftly that I thought the lock must have had a soul. I thought quickly of my room and my mind fell on the flower...I would most likely never see her again. Somehow I knew that.

I was laying against his chest and I could smell the tanned leather of his vest, hear the rattling of all the seed chains he wore, but I heard no beat. He held me tight at that moment, practically in a restraint. He began to whisper silky words into my ear.

"I didn't want her to suffer, sometimes the girls can suffer much too much and it makes the transition that much harder."
My eyes began to roll towards the back of my head and the sounds of his words began to turn into images, flashes of Lily. I saw it all. They were in a body of water, entwined like lovers, she was excited, joyful and unaware, they swam underwater resurfacing to kiss, the intimacy between them was like sour gummy bears, and then the pulse happened, a flash of dark determination, and I felt her buckle up tense, I saw him grab her head with both of his huge hands and hold her wailing body under water, I felt her kick and jut like a wild horse, when I realized her air was gone, everything went still and I opened my eyes to face him.

On Growing an Ocean's Tail Part II

3ww prompt: Desperate, Lapsed, Traveled

This piece is a continuation,,,please click on: Growing An Ocean's Tail to read part I.

On Growing An Ocean's Tale Self-Portrait

Lily was desperate. Time had lapsed in a painfully slow way. Even my bud seemed to halt all growth. I couldn't tell you how many days passed during what felt like no time at all. I began to feel restless my self, though I was still adamant on never ordering a key. Our hosts became more reclusive and began to simply leave the meals, even dinner simply sitting on the table for us. Lily took to pacing. She spent what felt like hours holding onto the gate staring out to the open, often empty road. Thats when the dreams started.

There was nothing around me only a haze of hot air. I could feel my bare feet sinking and recognized the sand's texture embracing my toes. In every direction there was only sand. I began to feel thirst as though I were a plant in desperate need of hydration, my emerald skin, shriveling into itself seeking moisture. Finally with no sound emanating from my throat I would start to cry just to gain liquid for breadth and challenge the dehydration. Thats when I saw the sirens emerging all around from the golden glittering sand and as ridiculous as it sounds they danced like Salome. Each looked so unique and so utterly brilliant like light splitting through a faceted jewel. They introduced themselves to me. I can't remember any of their names but one, the one who said she didn't arrive like the others, like me. She said she traveled to be here, willingly, knowingly and at peace. Her name was Tamara. That was when I would wake up with my hands wrapped around my throat gasping for air.

On Growing an Ocean's Tail Part I

3WW Prompt: Inappropriate, Order, Shortcut

It was an indecent request, especially coming from him, but she already knew that. She claimed it was the boredom, the anguished sun rising and falling perpetually, the drops of sweat running between her thighs, the bars on the windows and the lock on the gate that caused her wickedness. It should have made no difference to me...still...my feelings for her had started to change. I no longer found her indispensable.

I for one loved the aimless day and the intense heat. My intentions were to cater only to my passion for alchemy-ish experiments all summer. I filled my moments with either an inordinate amount of self-imposed deadlines or nothingness- where I just stared at the ocean's horizon and contemplated its unwavering straightness. Our parents, mutual friends through the corporation, had thought it ideal for two young women coming of age to spend the summer on this isle. I thought the idea quaint for our long collegiate summer break, though I have always generally been indifferent to the way my parents think. Yet, I have to admit, knowing what their money can buy, I was just as surprised as Lily was about the de trop confinement.

Our hosts, an elderly couple, barely spoke English if they spoke any language at all. They left us alone most of the day with the exception of dinner. The husband was a burnt, crisp, wreaking fisherman and so we ate more fresh seafood than any all-you-can-eat sushi buffet back home. The lip-sealed couple tended the property which seemed to have major acreage. Still our guest-like existence and activities strictly hovered in close range to the locked front gate.

I remember the day he came to call. I had successfully grown a hybrid lilac with ruby black petals, my Environmental Mutiny professor would have been proud. The bud was at the precipice of opening. Lily was playing with her hair, humming, air-swimming and embracing invisibility in a waltz when the bane of my existence arrived at the gate. The sky shook. He rattled the lock so loudly it crashed through my complacent bliss like a canon. I noticed Lily's agitated state and I knew from that moment on things would never be the same.

He hung his rolled up white sleeves through the gate's bars and promised us both a never-before-had experience, and more importantly "a choice", for a different way of life. In a delicious, rich droll of a door to door salesman he offered a way to "drop out of the system".

"I rather like the system, What are you an anarchist?" I asked in an inadvertently disgusted manner, but to be honest I was observing him like a specimen of great degradation. I noticed chest hair, seed chains and a wedding ring. I was therefore surprised when he licked his lips and in an inappropriate manner passed his hand over Lily's arm. I warned her with my eyes that she stood within a dangerous proximity to the gate. He seemed to notice my retreat and proceeded to talk about magic and the ability to make something out of nothing through the ocean's reef, as though he knew what would lure me.

"Look I live here, all year round and I have sent other girls to this place that I speak of...it's a blue world where things like sex just don't matter, but love..." He looked at Lily and exhaled, "..that still matters. Look if you come, you won't regret it, the first night is like being at the dance club on X you know, but on the beach, all the girls they never wanna come back. Its a shortcut to fulfillment." He sucked air in through his teeth and looked hard into Lily's eyes then straight on asked her, "Are you even a little interested?"
"How do we unlock the gate?"
Leave it to Lily to answer a question with a question.
"You order a key... with me."

Lily's eyes turned puppy dog and she slobbered in my direction with a face of yearning. All I could think about was how every shortcut I ever took in my life felt like cheating, which in turn made me feel lesser not fuller. Less capable is not my idea of fulfillment. If I considered leaving I suspected that I would never see my bud bloom. The mysterious stranger was undeniably aware of my resistance, despite my lack of verbal cues. He was significantly older than us as I could see the salt and pepper spray along his temples crowning the recession of his full head of hair.

Suddenly he withdrew, "I'll give you a week to think about it." He slipped his arms out around the lock, jiggled it for effect and walked away with a confident sockless-in-sandals-swagger.

The Book that Changed Everything

I haven't done a Sunday Scribblings in a while but every once in a while it's nice to return to such a great writing prompt and get some footing back where I started again.

So this Sunday's prompt is #206 - 'The book that changed every thing for you - is that even possible and if so what book was it?'

well I'm an avid reader and a book that changed a lot for me was The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel.

I don't consider myself religious at all, I do consider myself spiritual and I do consider myself somewhat of a pantheist in my seeing of God as one with Nature. But up until this book, I had really struggled with justifying or explaining my deflecting and resistance to abide by any ONE way or religion.

As a passionate animal lover this book played an intensely powerful role in my spiritual awakening. I have found the best way to surmise my spiritual feelings is that I see the face of God in animals and in nature. Though that in no way surmises the book. In this book we follow a young Indian boy, named Pi Patel who is a zoo owners' son and his journey through survival.

We also follow him as he becomes emersed in different religions simply educating himself on each and when challenged on how he had to choose one and how could he have acted in such a deceitful and unfaithful manner he anwers, "I was just trying to love God."

That part of the story was an 'aha' moment for me.>"He was too far. But the sight of the lifebuoy flying his way gave him hope. He revived and started beating the water with vigorous, desperate strokes."

I found this amazing interactive (you can play with your keyboard) computer animated promo for the book at Hoss Gifford, Life of Pi Interactive Promo, that I HIGHLY recommend to my readers!!!

In addition, there are tons (not so good) Youtube video dramatizations and animations based on the book, but I rather enjoyed this one, (though the music gets a bit loud...) that I embedded here:

I also found this incredible image through my travels on the Blogosphere at a site called Worth1000 which to my understanding hosts Photoshop contests. If you click on the link you'll have to scroll down to see the Life of Pi image, that I'm writing about here, but you'll also see in on the top header. Thanks form a tip from fellow blogger Paisley, Worth 1000 doesn't like anyone to use their images without permission (even with credit and a link back- which as an artist I guess I understand). Which is why you don't see the image I am talking about here. The only info that I could find about the artist was the name melian1224. This image is amazing and is worth you clicking and looking for!! This is the artist's quote:

"After the sinking of a cargo ship, a single solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the surface of the wild, blue Pacific. The crew of the surviving vessel consists of a hyena, and orangutan, a zebra with a broken leg, a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger, and Pi Patel, a young Indian boy. This is one of my favorite books, one which I just had to bring to life, I hope I have done it justice!"

http://sundayscribblings.blogspot.com/

Little Crime, I Have an Oleander in my Eye

3ww prompt: Jolt,Ribbon,Zeal And So The Rabbit Said... Bergdorf Goodman Window photo by marisol diaz

'So much more dangerous is he who thinks he knows, than he who admits knowing nothing at all,' said the rabbit

His wisdom caused my stomach to flip with a jolt.

'Somethings are poisonous to the touch'

I considered his meaning and smiled at the thought

that I could be so wicked

That I could ever possibly be so much more than expected, deceptively small

Maybe I could be the Delphic captain of the Black Freighter.

Pin pricks of seductive coy began to cultivate around my brow

He suggested I consider the ribbon, and how quaint it would look tied to such a smug, pompous man's lapel...

Imagine such a powerful gift, such a seemingly innocent ribbon... a gift to end all gifts, ingested and adorned.

The rabbit had defined it all for me, the erudite victory was lastly to be mine.

On the morn I was to be wed, I awoke with great zeal to face the day

I tied a delicate white ribbon dipped in strychnine around a piece of English ivy...and topped it off with a fine oleander

A boutonnière for such a smart gent as you my love

and I smiled.

To see more holiday Window photos by me click HERE! - Amarettogirl