purpleprism
The tiny mouse darted through the city streets and over rocky cobblestones, as raindrops smacked against his head and the city noise pounded on his ears. His tiny wicks of amber fur pressed against his confused black dots of eyes, and suddenly there was nothing but the vivace pounding of his heart in his chest. Thumps like raindrops, all the raindrops and heartbeats and raindrops, beat like drums on his ears. Everything was thunder, and there was nothing but the greatness of it, the monstrosity of sound and light and violence that was the world. And then, only darkness. Nothing but the warm embrace of silence. Then, a soft hand fell away from his eyes, was now a halo above him, and he found himself immersed in shelter.
I couldn't stand waiting any longer. Sitting around in the office while the killer was still having his fun was too much. I was about to grab my coat, run outside, and find something to do about anything, when McBarn walked in, with the same eager but horrified look he had had on his face this morning. I jumped up and grabbed the letter from his hands before he could say anything. There, in perfect times new roman, was the next note. "To the Worker Bees- Dead at 2:37. Lattitude 99, Longitude 32. Three docks from the left. Yellow boat. Strangled. Marian Lang. -Till next time, Kafka." It was the same as all the last letters. Oddly perfect. Always exact. Too specific.
The girl, about 16, sat down in a sparse wooden chair, the only one in her one-room apartment, and pulled a keychain out of her pocked. She flipped through it, the odd jumble of keys to her old house and car and a collection of other junk. Plastic frames of her and her parents, some little tokens from various places, small gifts from her friends, funny reminders. She stood up, opened a window, and threw the keychain out the window. That was her life then. This was her life now. She had to forget and move on.
Pen scratching paper. My hand controls it, and it curves, making marks on the paper which rise off the page, growing figures, making movements, sprouting colors. Buildings rise, covered in chipped wallpapers and cathedral bells. People emerge, eyes wandering, followed by plants, birds, snakes, crawling creatures and life. From the paper color sprouts and grows, creating a new world. Sparks from my creative outlet.
A little girl ran down a grassy hill, her long brown hair wicked up with the wind. She was laughing, and at the bottom, more children played. A little blonde boy rolled in the grass, his arms covered in mud. The brown-haired girl walked past him to meet her friend, a red-head who was very unusually smelling the ferns. The brown-haired girl, Lyla, asked the other, "Mary, what are you doing with that plant?". Mary smiled, and handed her a leaf. "It's an herb, I think. We should pick them and make it into something!" Lyla smelled it, and it was warm and sweet, a perfume of the grass. They gathered bushels of it and stomped it into shapes, little flowers, sweet perfume, and laid in the grass, smiling at the sun.
(Btw, this is based on something that happened to me when I was a little kid).
She ran down the stairs, stumbling as floorboards came loose, and ducking papers that whizzed through the air. Behind the racket of the windows convulsing was the giant, vacuous sound of the tornado's wind, which stung her ears as she rushed on. Running towards the door, she was suddenly blocked by a falling piece of plaster labeled "Hallmark" which had once declared this shattering shack's name. As she desperately attempted to move it, a whirlwind melee carried on behind her, migration of a thousand colorful cards. Aviary happy birthdays, thank yous, and get wells filled the air with splendor, followed by a few goodbyes as the earth collapsed on her.
The girl rushed through the seemingly endless crowd of people, desperate to find someone she knew. Only ten years old, she was a pebble in this ocean of people, a harsh sea crackling with screams, waves breaking at every turn with fights. It had begun with the protesters on one side, a ruffian band sporting only their anger and determination, and the neatly clothed police, wielding whatever weapons the government had the money to supply them. But it was now just a tangled mass of bodies, and the girl was entertwined in it, nearly trampled at every turn, squished, drowning in the twisting war.
She felt the soft curl of the wool as she turned it in her hands, stitching it quickly and precisely. Dipping it in a bath of dye, red as cranberries, passing it along to dry, getting another piece. She looked to her right, where a stack of red curling wool textiles were piled and piled. And behind it, another seamstress, and another stack. Then another, and more, and more. Rows of shiny black hair, and dark eyes flitting between dirty machines and piles of red cloth, stacked like a butcher's meat.
As he looked into the dark nighttime alleyway, the man inside cursed at him, and in a moment of indecision and incredible decision, he ran. Just around the corner, but far enough. Far enough that he could hear her screams for the whole hour. That no matter how hard sweat dripped from his brow and his heart pounded in his chest, the screaming didn’t go away. The girl’s screams, and the single glance that she gave him, the last he saw of her until she was declared dead on the news, would paw at the back of his mind for the rest of his life. His cowardice, and its result.