The Look

I hate that look you give me.

The one when you catch me looking at you.

As I am silently sending you messages.

Touch me.

Kiss me.

Trying to will you to take me in the bedroom and hurt me in that good way.

The way that I think about during the day.

The way that brings a wistful smile to my face.

The way that makes a shiver run through my core.

The way that makes me crave your hot hands on me, at my waist.

And you only look at me.

Smile a half smile.

And blow a half kiss across the distance between us.

Imprisoned, con’t.

As her eyes adjusted to the light, she scanned the room. The walls and floor were old, worn stone. Any chinks or crevices had long ago been worn down. There were no bars closing off the room. A small doorway led to the hallway her keeper had come down. The table and chair were rough wood. The apple sat on a dented, round metal plate, and the knife was small and old, it’s handle worn smooth by time and use.

She felt bony fingers untying the knots that bound her wrists. Her arms tingled as she brought them up and massaged her wrists.

“No so quickly.” he said as he took one of her wrists and tied it to the chair. “You only need one hand to eat.”

“Please,” she begged. “my arm hurts, let me rest it a bit.”

“How do I know you’re not going to try to get away? No, it’s safer this way.” and he cackled to himself.

He sliced the apple for her with his dirty fingers. But her stomach was already rumbling at the thought of eating. She picked up a slice of the apple with her trembling hand. Her keeper moved away from the table and squatted in the middle of the room. He sat staring at her as she ate.

She kept one eye on him while she chewed.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“My name is Vali.” he replied.

“And where am I and why am I here?” she asked.

“Those are not such easy questions to answer.”

“Where am I?” she yelled.

Vali chuckled. His laugh sounded like gravel in his throat.  ”You must not be so angry. You will know your purpose soon. Until then, keep yourself calm.”

“Calm? How am I supposed to be calm? I go to sleep in my bed in my home and I wake up in a cell, with my hands and feet bound? And you want me to remain calm? I want to know where I am?”

Until this point, Vali had seemed relaxed, although entirely appalling in appearance. Now he rose, his bones creaking as he stood, and he sneered at her, “My dear Diana, it will be in your interest to remain calm. Your anger will only serve to bring harm to you.” His nostrils flared, and spittle once again appeared on his chin. His eyes, already dark, seemed to grow and the blackness grew glassy and intense.

To be continued…

Imprisoned

From Sir Bone’s Composition Exercise. This week’s words are: coal, paring, heart.

Darkness. It was all darkness. The first sounds she heard were the quickness of her breath and the beating of her heart. Rapid, panicking, desperate. Somewhere in the background she thought she could detect dripping water. It was cold. Shockingly cold. She shivered in her thin sweater.

“Hello?” she called. Her voice echoed slightly.

Silence. She blinked her eyes again, craning her neck, hoping for any hint of light. Her hands were bound behind her back. Her feet were tied too. Lying on her side on the cold, hard floor, she wriggled herself into a sitting position.

“Hello?” she called again. “Is anyone there?”

No response. She began to weep quietly. Why was she here? Who had brought her to this place? Where was this place?

And then, far away, she heard a metal door swing open. A glimmer of light. Footsteps. Slowly they echoed towards her. She suddenly grew afraid. She scooted into the corner, trying to make herself as small as possible against the wall. She managed to get her knees pulled up to her chest as the footfalls grew closer.

She peeked up under her hair, and as she did, a figure appeared. He was slight, with greasy hair, coal-black eyes, a pointed, hawkish nose and rotting teeth.

“Ah, you’re awake now.” he sniveled. “Welcome.”

“Where am I? Why have you brought me here?” she whispered.

“So many questions…” tsk, tsk, tsk, he hissed. Spittle dribbled from his mouth and oozed down his pock-marked chin. He slunk across the floor, and as he did, a table and single chair came into view in the opposite corner. A plate with apples and a paring knife sat on the rough wood.

“Would you care for some apple?” he asked as he sat the candle down.

She slowly nodded, and he moved toward her. With his skeleton-like hands, he reached down and helped her stand. She hobbled toward the chair, and then sat slowly.

To be continued…

The Perfect Girl

From sixminutestory.com.

The ice cubes cracked in the trays. Clunk, clunk, cl-clunk. They fell into the pitcher. Each lemon sat, perfectly yellow, on the cutting board; carefully sliced in half, waiting to be juiced. Cold, clear water poured from the designer water bottle and mixed with the ice cubes. The sugar was precisely measured.

Jessica had been looking forward to setting up her lemonade stand all week. Her mom was busy with the garage sale, and Jessica was sure she could make a little extra spending money to buy her mom a birthday gift.

She mixed all the ingredients in the pitcher, stirring the brew slowly. The citrus scent tickled her nose. Pretty floral cups were set up on her workbench in the front, and she and her mom had painted the lemons and ice cubes on the poster board.

Tom and Jill had heard Jessica talk about her stand. They were in for the competition too. A little Crystal Lite and some tap water, and they considered themselves in business. They only had five paper cups. They’d reuse them. A piece of notebook paper with a scribble of a sign was their only advertising.

They stared at Jessica across the street. One more reason to dislike the perfect girl.

Associations

From: Lunanina

1. Cruel :: Punishment
2. Jive :: Talk
3. Weak :: Current
4. Understand :: Nothing
5. Bum :: Cigarette
6. Stairs :: Down
7. Tone :: Threaten
8. Quickly :: Run
9. Moment :: Time
10. Beating :: Deserved

Unfulfilled

From sixminutestory.com.

Bessie was doing her best to take down the growth of the lawn. The cool green grass that grew up made her drool. It was tasty. Earthy. Green. But inevitably, she was only one cow. No longer one of the herd, she’d been sold to the small-time farmer. Oh sure, he bell was still shiney, but after the next season, it’d be dull from the elements. In the distance, she heard the lawnmower start up. The low hum and rumble of the grease machine. The sick, thick smell it emitted made her ill. She felt an immense sense of defeat as the machine powered up to do her job. Eat the grass. That’s all she had to do, all day long. On the other side of the fence, she saw The Herd. She longed to be a part of The Herd. The other cows, standing together, whisking their tails to get rid of the flies. Munching slowly, languidly crossing the field. But not her. The One Cow. She was soliatary. Responsible for mowing down the half acre. And she couldn’t even do that. Again, the lawnmower rumbled in the distance, closing in. Nearing with it’s oily teeth muching up the yard. She hung her head in shame.

On the Way Out

From SixMinuteStory.com.

Rudy walked through the park with the cold, misty rain falling around him. In one hour, he had to catch the bus on the way out of town. But before he left, he had one more mission to complete. He’d been trying to get out. Tired of the faceless towns, the faceless waitresses in the nameless restaurants, he needed a routine. Just this one last mission to complete. Then he’d take the 11:00 overnight bus. He’d make his stops. He’d pick up the money he had stashed. The mist continued to fall. The lamps in the park made the rain look like strange clouds swirling overhead. McGuiver was the contact for this drop. The Agency had been good to him. He was sorry to leave this way. He stopped at the sixth bench. Looked at his watch. Another five minutes. So he sat. As he did, a figure moved from the trees behind him. Little did he know, he was a dead man.

walking in the door – WEIRDNESS

“Hello weirdness. And how are you this weekend? So glad you came to see us again. Why don’t you stick around awhile longer this time. We missed you so!”

And Weirdness says “Hey, yeah, sorry. I got stuck in traffic.”

“Hey, that’s OK. We left some milk and cookies out for you.”

And Weirdness says “Cool. I’m just gonna prop my feet up here. You don’t mind if I sit in The Chair do you?”

“Oh no. Make youself at home. I mean, Nick usually sits in The Chair but he’s out at the moment. Keep it warm for him.”

Hay

From today’s OneWord exercise.

How about a quick roll in the hay? No? Why? Are you cheating? Don’t you love me anymore? You never touch me. Approach me. Where is the passion you used to have for me? Take me in your arms again. Love me.

Tales from the Office, Series #82048

She was sitting at her desk, reading email and browsing bone-dry project documentation. Nearby sat two, plain, white Styrofoam cups. Standard corporate-issue, Recyclable #6. In one cup, coffee. In the other, granola. For the last hour, she’d been sipping coffee and pouring granola in her hand, then popping it in her mouth, quelling the munchies that had overtaken her while waiting for the lunch hour to arrive. One cup sat to her right on the cool, grey industrial desk. The other cup sat to her left, in front of papers waiting to be filed away. It was a seemingly normal workday scene.

Suddenly, tragedy struck. She absent-mindedly reached for the granola cup, keeping her eyes fixed on the LCD screen, reading the latest important dispatch from HQ. Her slender, tanned fingers wrapped themselves around the polystyrene cylinder, lifted the vessel, and tilted it toward her cupped palm. But, instead of the coarse, dry oats and honey mixture she expected in her hand, she felt lukewarm, sticky liquid pouring over her appendages. The caffeinated nectar ran off her hand, slowly spreading across her desk, and onto her laptop. She jumped quickly, muttering reproachful words to herself. Yanking open the cold, metal desk drawer that contained pens, paperclips and other miscellaneous items, including napkins from lunchtimes gone by, she pulled out the absorbent paper, formerly known as trees, to staunch the spread of the creamy brown coffee.

Only the very edge of the laptop base had received a dousing of the creamy brown liquid. She lifted the base, mounded napkin after napkin, and watched as they sucked up the bane of electronic devices everywhere. She silently prayed that none of the beverage had run into the protective plastic casing. After the last drip had dried, she proceeded to test the machine to make sure that normal functions were still present. As she typed, the words came out sdrawkcab. With mounting dread in her heart, she crossed her fingers and rebooted the system. As the familiar black screen with the wavering four-color flag appeared in front of her, she waited for and received the blue blinking screen, followed by the login dialog prompt. She typed in her password, pressed ‘Login’, and was rewarded for her patience and prayers with a functioning desktop.