Tick

Tick-Tock-Tick-Tock. They said it was all in my head. Tick-Tock-Tick-Tock. Everything's echoing, back and forth, back an forth; sounds reverberating off my ear drums, screaming so loud.Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick. Blinding lights, swirling, dazzling, painful lights. Tock-Beep-Tock-Beep. Pain, so much pain. Tick-Beep-Tock-Beep. They said it was all in my head, Danny was a nice boy, they said. Beep-Boop-Beep-Boop. So much pain. Everything rushing around. Iron. I taste Iron. Beep.-Beep...Beep.Beep.


Time of death, 2:27 A.M.

I watched as the doctors and nurses frowned at eachother, as they patted eachother on the back saying "We tried."

"We tried." They said, leaving me lifeless on the gurny. The Tick-Tock of my watch echoed deafly into the stark white walls of the hospital room in St. Joes. The blinding lights shown down onto the sheets like a ray of hope, lost to the darkness surrounding.

I stood in the corner of the room, dumbfounded and lost. I knew I existed, but i felt nothing. Just a constant tingiling throughout my body. The pain of the gaping hole in my chest was no longer agonizing,or even present as I stood there.

I took a couple steps toward my body. My body; my cold, bloody, dead, body. They said Danny was a nice boy.

I lifted the sheets, once pure and delicate now heavy with the scarlet red of despair. My face was sad, my eyes had sunken back and my skin had been stained with white and red. I could see what had happened now as I pulled down the bedding further.

Bam!

...A bullet wound to the chest.

Bam!

...Another to the neck.

They said Danny was a nice boy. They said it was all in my head.

Gypsy: Chapter 7

Naomi was calling my name no longer just in my memories. She took hold of my face firmly in her warm hands as the tears swelled into my eyes. I was banished for burning the village down. I remembered. A sob escaped my chest as well as pathetic mumblings of grief and sorrow as well as begging cries of forgiveness. But she just sat quietly; brushing her thin fingers threw my disheveled hair, not saying a word, the rhythm of her heart calming the child in me.

All this time I had forgotten…all this time, I thought I had been alone…The Desert Rose, I just wanted to help her, I wanted her to help me find where I belonged. Her being here is my fault, and yet…I am here because of her.

Gypsy: Chapter 6

My eyes shot open in the darkness, the gypsy woman was curled against me, her body warm, but the smell of death wouldn’t leave my throat as I got up and rushed to the stream, throwing up. Death lingered in my mind, the image of my mother burned itself against my forehead as the tears fell into the rushing stream. My mother. I remembered my mother. My mind was at a loss and ungodly wails escaped from my lips. My mother.

The Rose awoke and crawled over to me, wrapping her arms around me. She had known all along. Her exotic aroma drew me back into a memory and I tried to fight my way out. I didn’t want to remember anymore, I didn’t want to know but soon a new darkness engulfed my mind and my mother’s body lay on the dirt floor before me.

~*~

The wailing escaped my mouth and the woman chanted louder, everything was spinning. I was spinning. I screamed at the women. They killed my mother, they were supposed to help her, they killed her, the village killed her. I screamed and grabbed the grass draped across the reeds, keeping the night air out. I pulled them down, tearing holes in the foundation of death. I threw them into the little flame, kicked away the stones and screamed. The fire danced and danced until it took half the hut into its swaying body. Women screamed and the chanting stopped. Shouts and cries surrounded me but I just watched the fire. I fed it more and more, enticing it to dance with me through the forest, to take the death that haunted me and engulf it into the eternal. Naomi screamed my name from outside the hut but I just watched the fire as it danced its way to me, the heat burned hotter than the noon sun and felt calming against my cold, trembling skin. The colors popped in the darkness; golds, reds and yellows all sang a sweet melody in my ears. A hand gripped my wrist and I was dragged out of the medicine hut that held my mother. It was Naomi, a firm grip on my forearm, tears and anger reflecting in her eyes. She was shouting at me, I could see her lips moving but I all heard was the fire. Everything around me was a blur. People running to the river to fetch water, others were starring in horror, Naomi was screaming. I just watched as the dancing fire swallowed my mother and then lept into the trees, swinging itself from one branch to another and then to the next hut. I was being shaken violently, my name echoed hollow in my mind. Thoughts rushed around repeating their nightmares. I burned the village down. I killed my mother. I burned the village down. The Desert Rose is my fault. I burned her village down.

Everything had vanished from that day. I had made myself forget... I didn’t flee my friends during the war…I was the war. My mother was there…I burned the village down…

Gypsy: Chapter 5

We ran until the voice of the rat was completely drowned out by the beetle bug’s song and the pink and orange lights broke through the changing leaves. My body was exhausted and my legs shaking with fatigue, but the Rose just continued like she was inhuman. Not a word was spoken as we ran, and it remained like that until we stopped at a small stream to rest and drink. I watched her as she scooped the clear water into her hands, sipping gracefully. I watched her, thoughts racing through my mind. I had tried to remember my memory of the village as we ran, but it was just out of reach. It was like the keys from a prison cell, you could see it hanging there on the wall, but you remained trapped only wishing someone would slip you the tools of escape. I believed that the Rose was those keys. She had the answer to my memories but she was acting like a warden, shielding me from even the vague hope of revelation.

“What is your real name?” I asked her, catching her off guard. She looked up from the spring but never at me.

“Naomi.” She answered simply, and then continued to drink the life from her delicate hands.

Naomi, I thought. It was so familiar and I buried myself in it. I lay back against a large conifer, my body fatigued but my mind very much alive. I searched for her name in the darkness. Flashes of the river and the people’s sad faces etched themselves against the back of my eyes. Naomi I repeated it rhythmically.

The dead grasses beside me cracked and hissed as a warm body lodged itself to mine. The sweet smell of chai engulfed me again and the name Naomi began to draw a face, bright and warm against the cold unconsciousness of my mind.

~*~

The Rose stood there in the river, smiling back at me, much younger and lively then the Rose who lay against me now. The warmth of her body reflected the sunlight against the sparkling water. A flash, and the river is gone and I was walking again. I looked around at the sad faces and up at the hand on my shoulder. A man, Naomi’s father and chief of her clan walked beside me grimacing. He was stern, I remembered, nothing like Naomi but I had much respect for him. He brought me to a small hut pushed together and bound by reeds. I stood at the opening, my heart ached and pounded, I knew what was inside, I knew what was happening in my memory but it was not whispered into my consciousness anymore then a feeling of dread.

The chief pushed me forward slightly into the darkness of the hut, the only light saved was in the corner, a small, blooming little fire. I stared at it, dancing around in its designated home. It kissed the loose stones around it gently, trying to convince them to let it out of its prison, let it grow and dance wildly through the night. But the stones were not waved by its pleas and they held steady. I just stared at them, pain sinking deep into my chest, guilt bubbling up into my heart. The hut smelled of sickness and death, but I just watched the fire.

Chanting seeped into my ear drums and begged me to turn my head away from the fire. My mind wandered but my eyes remained focused. I couldn’t stand to look in the other direction, to look at life dying before me, but the chanting continued and slowly my head turned toward the darkness of the hut. The looming scent of death made my stomach sick and my heart hurt. Slowly my eyes adjusted and the image of a skeleton appeared on the floor before me. Not a skeleton, a woman, my mother. The sickness ravaged through me and passed through me until I threw up. The women in the hut chanted sorrowful words, trying to coax me and the soul of the dead woman before them.

Gypsy: Chapter 4

“You and your mother came to my village. She was ill…we tried to help her. We would go and play in the river Daniel, looking for the emerald crystals. Remember? The emerald crystals Daniel, for your mother…”

“I never knew my mother, I’m an orphan.” I stared at her.

This was impossible. How could my memory of her feel as real as she claims our friendship, and yet, everything is so dreamlike? I grew up as an orphan. They had told me my mother had died when I was born and the doctor just handed me over, without a family I was forced to leave at the age of 16 when I set off on my own.

That’s when my disgrace began. When the war broke out, all was lost. The village I called home was burned to the ground as the people fled. I left them. I left and did not return until this year of my 24th birthday. In that lost time I had traveled all over the worlds, searching for an answer to an unknown question, drinking my way back into sanity; which is how I came across meeting this Desert Rose. Her face was so familiar, and yet, that of a strangers.

I looked at her as she stared at me with disbelief and sorrow. Her jeweled eyes sparkled with the threat of tears. She just shook her head; the shield displayed in her eyes was lowered as a surrender. She stepped closer to me, embracing me with her sweet aroma. Her arms were warm and her scent intoxicating. I let my mind drift into memory as my eyes slowly closed, a wave of calmness engulfing my senses.

I remembered the scents in the village with the singing carts. It smelled like her…all of it. The people frowned at me as I walked down a narrow pass into the trees next to the river. I was smaller, everyone seemed so large to me. My heart was pounding. I looked around at the trees and the people; they were all foreign to me. The faces were kind but sad as I was lead to a little shack between the trees. I knew what had happened. I knew what was going on. I looked at the river beside me as it began to dance and blur with hot tears. What’s happening?

~*~

The Rose began to pull away but I clung to her, wanting the memory to continue, I needed her. I had needed her and I couldn’t remember why. I had to remember. “Please…stay.” I whispered to her, the pictures in my mind started to fade and soar away, I reached for them, trying to cling to their lighted trails as they danced into the blackness of my consciousness, but it was for naught. It had faded and I let go of the Rose, careful not to make her wither any further, but her tears still remained.

“I know you didn’t mean to do it Daniel…but, it happened…and you were banished from me…from everyone. You can’t follow me Daniel. I told you never to follow me…”

The haunting voices began to echo again in the distance and the Rose’s eyes darted, her feet poised to flee but I grabbed her arm, begging her to stay but her eyes had read my thoughts and had already come up with an answer to her own liking.

“Come with me, just tonight. Into hiding…but that’s it. You can’t follow me back to my village; no one must know we’ve met. You’re better off if my people believe you’ve died.” With that her feet leaped from the fallen log they had rested on and we ran into the darkness, blindly.

Gypsy: Chapter 3

I opened my eyes, the scents of the carnival gone and the fresh air full of pine and musk replaced them. I tried to grasp around, get my placing when I felt the pine needles and grasses dragging against my back. I was being pulled by the gypsy girl deep into the forest, the faded voices of the rat and his followers heading into the distance. My body felt heavy like a weight was placed on my chest and my muscles had forgotten to work. A sickening groan broke the silence of the forest and I realized it had come from deep inside my throat drawing the Rose’s gaze back at me, then forward again as she continued to drag my limped body over the roots and rocks around us.

“That potion was meant for my master. But no, you had to come along and breathe it all in. Don’t worry, the symptoms should ware off soon. You’ve been unconscious for over an hour.” She looked back at me, her mouth curled into a scorn. “Why did you follow me?

Her accent was thick in my ears, and my mind was still reeling from the unconscious buzzing. She looked back at me then forward again as she continued to drag me. She struggled with my weight taking short strides and then stopping for a bit, looking around like she was lost. I could see her quickened breath in the chilled air as the tingling started to return into my toes. I threw up my arms trying to grasp a root, a vine, anything to keep her from pulling me further.

“I told you never to return to me.” She continued, paying no regard to my struggle.

“What are you talking about? I’ve never met you before!” my voice was raspy and weak, my throat tight from the spices that had surrounded me earlier.

“Shut up! Please. We have to be quiet now…” her voice turned into a harsh whisper.

“I’m sorry if I upset you, which I obviously have… but I just wanted to help you. I feel like I know you Rose, please just let me go.” I could feel the tingling in my toes moving up my legs as the numbness and paralysis began to wear off. She just dropped my feet abruptly with an angry cry from deep within her.

“How do you know me?” My arms felt as weak as the voice escaping my lips, I struggled to sit up, my stomach like a pudding. She just put her hands on the colorful scarf slung around her waist; her eyes darted around frantically. She was lost, and out of breath. I managed to stand with my legs quaking beneath me, the sting of pine needles aching at my arms and neck.

“I remember you and your mother in my village. We played in the river Daniel, I remember your face.”

I stared at her, my mind reeling from confusion and the soggy musk that cleared my scent from nutmeg.

“You really don’t remember me do you?” Her eyes grew sad but quickly hardened again.

“I used to believe that I was exquisite at remembering faces, especially one as beautiful as yours… I feel strongly as if I know you, but I’ve searched my mind and have found nothing…”

We looked at each other for a while, the cool air nipping at the fall grasses. The night grew darker as the crickets and the beetle bugs began to sing in the weeping pines of the forest.

“As children Daniel, we played as children by the river, remember?”

I searched my mind again for any sign of a river or of this woman’s beautiful face. The beetle bugs sang louder, their song echoed from my feet, entrancing me, distracting my thoughts. I kicked at the ground in frustration. Why can’t I remember…?

Gypsy: Chapter 2

A week had passed before I built up the courage to visit the traveling show that held the celebrated Dessert Rose in her iron cage, but in this week not a moment passed where I didn’t see her image in my mind’s eye. Her beauty shown throughout the days and her movements made me yearn for her.

It has been a long while since I’ve been home, and I believe that it is fate that has brought me here now, with her. I visited old friends who seemed glad to see me but I could tell that inside they were indifferent; after all, I left in the greatest time of need. I left my friends to fend for themselves in this village like a coward, and although I was accepted back with kindness I could never give back the shame that I have earned.

I stood at the gates, watching the men push passed me to get a glimpse of what I had seen. There were posters of her surrounded by the other acts on the trees left in the clearing and on the sides of the trailers, I felt myself slowly walking forward, drawn in by her invisible grasp like she was calling to me. The Rat faced man was smiling at the men as he showed them inside a colorful tent in the middle of the clearing, his eyes gleaming with greed. My stomach began to churn and the guilt bubbled up into my chest, I could not be here with these men who wished to use her for their own satisfactions, to watch her abuse the dance of her people and yet, I wanted to join and it sickened me. I had to save her from her fate, to take her away from this place, that man. It had to be destiny, it had to be why I was here, there could be no other reason that I would accept. I looked around, the clearing almost empty of people and creatures alike, all of them piled into the luminescent tent that sang wildly with voices. Now was my chance to find the Rose and save her from this so she can save me.

I saw her outside the yellow trailer, her chains locked securely around her ankles. She looked sad as she was tying the coined scarf around her waist. I watched her as I stood in the middle of the clearing, just staring at this Rose as she put her costume on. The vibrant colors surrounded her like an aura, a halo. Her beauty was beyond compare and my heart cried out for her. I couldn’t understand why or how, but I felt like I had known her before. I reached deep into my mind for a hint of her beautiful image but nothing was recalled.

Her hair was long and golden like the finest copper. Bright beads and tightly woven yearn decorated those copper waves as they fell over her delicate shoulders. Her head lifted and met my gaze and my heart began to race. I stumbled toward her a thousand words rushing threw my head but never seeming to find my mouth, the simplest and weakest ‘hello’ slipped from my lips as she just stared. As I moved closer to her the warming scent of chai and nutmeg filled my nostrils and dizzied me into a memory of when I was a child. It lasted but a second but I remembered a bustling village, filled with dancing people and the singing wheels of fruit carts as they were pushed past. I blinked and found her just staring at me like I had done something wrong, like I had frightened her and she could not understand.

“I’m sorry, Miss Rose, but…I don’t think you should go in there.” My plea sounded pathetic and fake, but inside I was begging. Something was going to happen even though nothing was making sense. My head was spinning from the herbs and incsceants and her eyes just remained wide and afraid, I tried to continue.

“I’m sorry if I am intruding but I mean you no harm, I’m not like the other men you dance for…no disrespect to you of course…shit. I’m sorry, it’s just…” everything sounded like an echo in a cave as my ears began to ring a tuneless lullaby and I felt my consciousness slowly slipping away.

She took hold of my shoulders and pulled me in what seemed all directions at once; she was calling my name and speaking in a foreign tongue. Everything seemed hollow and unreal. Where am I…? Darkness quickly surrounded me and I felt like I was slowly drifting threw a sea of freshly churned cream, everything was smooth and gentle and I felt like I was wrapped in a warm blanket of satin. The spices of earlier drowned me in their potent scents and I felt sick. I opened my mouth to speak but again the words could not find my lips, and slowly the calm drifting turned into a violent dizzying spell that I couldn’t be woken from. Confusion engulfed me as the sounds of the world seeped slowly back into my consciousness, calls of men, the screeching of birds, the crackle of the dry pine needles, and a woman’s voice.

Imagination

The Writer

This is a great work by Diana Golledge. I think it captures a writers' thoughts really well :)

Surface

I'm weak, I swear.
I cry a lot, I'm insecure.
I have so much to say.
And yet, nothing at all.
I say Yes when I mean No.
I say Yes when I mean Yes.
I'm childish, and a daydreamer.
Who chooses make believe over reality.
I fake my smile, and I let it all out.
If you know me, then you know this.
I try my hardest, and I repress my thoughts.
MY SILENCE IS A CLUE.
Maybe you should pay attention.
Stupidity is not an option.
Its a disease.
And no one has the cure.
I do what I want, but mostly,
I do what is wanted.
My mind escapes me, and I lose my patients.
And when its gone, its gone.
Your motives will only work on the surface.
Art is my escape, life is my nightmare.
Judgment is only passed if you deserve it.
Everyone is entitled to their own suffering.
Some may just share it more then others.
And still, some may care more then others.
This only skims my surface.
And for now, my surface is a window.