November 19th
Better Days
A better day is far off
I must —
We must seize this one
With all our strength.
Grip its sharp edges,
Until our fingers bleed.
The scars there,
Are born, these tough decisions made.
The search
Great towers soar above us. Pillars of artificial concrete. Glass and steel helping to hold them up towards the sky.
I search for a sign, anything that might give me a hint to where they’ve gone. I spot a taxi, stopped at the curb in front of a comedy club. Not there. I see a boy holding fast to a yellow balloon. Nothing. Steam billows from a port hole just below me and my senses are stuffed with sulfur. When the haze clears there is a man across the street.
His eyes meet mine and I know instantly he is one of them. I don’t look away, I am glued to him. One step at a time I walk, and then run, across the street.
Betrayal
I make quick work of the thigh and leg placed so delicately on my porcelain plate, perfectly centered between the potatoes and peas. Before I devoured it, it was certainly a work of art. “Now Celine, don’t eat so fast my dear.” My Aunt Ruth’s vapidity stings the air. Any joy I felt at our cooks ability to replicate a perfect recipe is gone from my mind. “It’ll be hard to find a husband with a salary large enough to feed someone so…gluttonous.” The last word is slowly whispered, its syllables floating through the air, wrapping their tendrils around my throat. A chuckle escapes from someone at the table, my eyes dart to Fredrick. His are affixed to my Aunt, gratefully he seems unamused at her cruelty. But otherwise I’m frozen, unable to swallow. Then a hearty laugh echoes around us, James. My hands feel numb. Across the table I see him, once he begins the whole table erupts. All looking in my direction, at my humiliation. I won’t take it. As gracefully as I can, I place my fork down. A great cloud enters my mind. I think nothing. I feel nothing. Everyone is far away, I am at the bottom of a deep pool and I would rather stay there than float up and face the jeers that pierce through the water. “If you would please excuse me.”
November 21st
They say lightning only strikes once. The improbability of an already unpredictable bolt of electricity striking the same spot twice is immense. But not impossible.
I lay on cold hard ground, my warm blood seep out of me and it’s heat pricks my skin. A long, lashing wound is leaking from under me. I’d been sliced from my stomach to my back. I can’t feel it though. I see the steam rising from dark pool in front of me. It greets the rain. Drops mix with my tears until they’re indistinguishable from one another.
My sins are washed away one by one as each drop kisses me softly. I pray. I pray for a God to see me, to know all I’ve been through and to give me reprieve.
Thunder booms. Steel clashes against steel all around me but the sound is distant. It drones on. And with each strike I know the chance of our victory is dwindling. Shadows pull at my thoughts, slowing them down and mixing them up. It’d be so nice to drift off to sleep right now. My mind is invaded gently, like a mother putting her baby to sleep. This is what I’ve always wanted isn’t it?
Thunder. I hear it first before I feel anything. But I am suddenly alive, more than alive, I am fire. From the inside to my outside, I am fire. Starting at my wound I feel my veins burn away, like like long cotton strings struck with a match. The blood under me boils and hardens in an instant. My body jolts up and crashes back to the ground with a loud thud. A dust cloud of glittering red envelopes my vision. Crystallized blood. Each piece catches the light so beautifully. Everything is suddenly so clear. I will live through this, I have to. There’s someone I must find.
November 25th
A great heat rolled through the plains that summer.
A red hot madness that burned its way through us.
Those of us that survived knew it’s fire and faced it head on.
It was not illness and it was not sin.
The heat boiled your mind and tricked it into betrayal.
November 27th
If I had a shilling for every time Rufus got too drunk to give a half-decent performance, I’d be making better money than Harry allots to all of us in the company combined.
I’ve worked for Foster’s since I was young. Escaped a workhouse and jumped in with this lot. A childhood spent touring the country with a load of touring actors, drunk every other night, a boy really couldn’t ask for a better life.
The stage was set, behind the curtain, me and Derrick sat patiently waiting for the perfect moment. Our hands gripped the steel buckets of pigs blood tight enough that I knew I’d be sore come tomorrow. But I didn’t care, this was the first real job I had ever gotten onstage. I was not going to mess this up. Our job was simple, when Arthur reeled back to strike Rufus we would throw the buckets into the stage, careful not to accidently stain anyone’s costumes, so it appeared that Rufus was killed.
I watch Arthur carefully. He says his lines and he reaches for his sword. A drop of sweat rolls down the side of my face. “Almost time” Derick whispers, either to me or himself I’m not sure.
“Arthur, no!”
We stop.
Suddenly it all goes dead around me. I know there was noise, a theatre is always full of noise, but when I picture it all I can envision is silence. Stillness. Instead of a pin drop though, I heard Rufus. His knees hit the wooden planks of the stage first. Then his back arched and finally his head lulled behind him, it was so unnatural a position I really didn’t even know what I was seeing. Then something fell from on top of his head. His hat maybe? Only it was loud, like a steel ball. I squinted into the bright lights. Rufus’s eyes stared back at me from the stage floor. He had been sliced clean through at the mouth. The place where his head should have been gushing blood, the fountain aimed directly at me. I watched in horror as it pooled underneath him, slowly soaking into gaps in the planks. His jaw hung strangely on his neck, still attached to his body but with nothing to hold it upright. His muscles tensed and he shook, before I assume they could no longer hold up his great weight and came crashing down like a slain bear. I looked at Arthur Foster. He sheathed his sword, only it did not look like the prop swords that were normally given to the actors. It glinted brightly against the flamed lights of the theatre. Tobacco smoke hung in the air, wisped about every face in the audience. Arthur turned to them, shot both of his arms out to his sides and took a deep bow. A single clap rang out, then another, then hooting and clapping until the space was once again full of sound.
The curtain dropped and my stomach dropped with it. I instinctively brought my hand up to mouth to stop a barrage of dinner but in my haste I mishandled the bucket and pigs blood spilled out in front of me. I tried to stop it, righted the bucket and began sopping it up with my rag. It was so red, so thick. Arthur stood before me. I hadn’t heard him. “You better not stain this stage boy.” His piercing eyes affixed to his now unsheathed sword. I was sure I was about to meet the same fate as Rufus. But he simply grabbed my cloth and cleaned his sword before re-sheathing it and walking back to our camp, tossing the soiled rag to the floor. Beyond the curtain, the crowd continued to chant. Believing my friend’s death to be some kind of advanced stage trick. One worth celebrating over, it’s realism unmatched. Rufus had finally managed to get a standing ovation. Unfortunate that is was his final performance.
