rhyme79
I was sick of having to wear sleeves. It was 22C weather outside, and still I wore a hoodie. I have scarred arms. It's because of shit I do to myself. People mostly don't really notice how it might be odd. Occasionally someone would say, "Aren't you hot?" My repertoire of answers to that question was slowly growing but the staples are the standard teen shrug combined with a look of indifference, "No." and "Not really." Those worked, so far. I could list the failed and awkward answers I've used, but they make me die inside a little just thinking about it.
Sometimes the truth is hidden by our own intellectual dishonesty. We lift the corner of our secreted rugs and drive the real world hurriedly underneath. We all do it. Cut and splice. Sometimes a sub-conscious censor. But we do it to protect ourselves, so we can carry on albeit within a reality edited. To know we fool ourselves so readily is perhaps the truth we find so hard to face.
Hannah's tongue had swollen to thrice its normal size. The only noise she could make sounded like a choking hamster laughing at an angry squirrel. Trying to convey anything spoken was pointless as her bulging cheeks and stretched lips squashed the usual shapes she formed to make words into meaningless squeaks and coughs.
When time holds out its hand for some proof of what you've done, the heart takes a nosedive when it realises you don't have a damn thing to show for the years of effort you've put in. Despite making promises to friends and telling yourself it would all work out and it would all slot into place in the end, when time comes to check on you, there's not a damn thing you can do to fool it.
He placed the final gem into its space and in that same moment the shield started to glow the brightest white he had ever seen. Squinting painfully as his pupils recoiled, the shield began to vibrate and to hum a long, single note. The vibration bled out from the shield in a droning wave reaching out to the cave's walls which buzzed in reply. Gently at first, a pleasant sound, like a bee's wings. But second by second the sound became deeper and deeper and the walls shook harder and harder. Ancient dust and tiny splinters of rock began to fall from the ceiling in dirty clouds. Grabbing the shield, he thrust it over his head. Then vaulting across the chamber, he sprinted back down the tunnel towards daylight.
Filling a barrel with explosive materials isn't something you get the opportunity to do very often, at least I don't, being normal and all, so I jumped at it. Not the explosive barrel, the chance to fill it with the exploding stuff. Despite the awareness of the potential danger of sending my face in fifty different directions at once, it was a bit of a let down. It was hard work, much like loading anything else into a barrel really, except with a chance of blowing my face a full fifty ways from Sunday. Some people might like the thrill, adrenaline junkies like bungee jumpers and such. They'd probably enjoy it more than I did. Maybe it should become an 'x-treme' sport; barrel filling, the TNT edition. I can see a TV market for that, definitely.
How can you tell? I mean is it obvious when they have you over a barrel, or is it much more subtle, cowering under the bureaucracy or something. Y' know, the forms they make you fill out asking that ask everything about you. So you fill them out. You tell them all about your house, who lives in it, the shape of your windows, how many taps there are, why you bought a new telly and how long you intend to leave the spare bedroom like that. You've measured every-bloody-room with a 30cm ruler because you couldn't find the tape measure and filled in all the little boxes, you've even measured the depth of the shag pile, they didn't ask but you had gotten into a measuring mood. And after all that, all of it, what happens?
It was alright. It wasn't like I planned on this being a regular thing or anything, at least that's how I justified it to myself. The officers outside the hall were loud, smoking and joking in the dark winter air. It was hard to distinguish the cigarette smoke from their dragonlike, frosty breath and the only light was a lamp above the doorway, but its sulphur yellow stream didn't reach far. Its beam painted the head and shoulders of the people standing around, all else was in darkness. The unlit lower bodies gave the illusion of floating heads, a ghoulish army at play. They laughed and slapped each other's backs, standing in yellowy, glowing epaulettes that jerked up and down as they laughed. It was no effort at all to sneak in unnoticed.
He was crouched by the drystone wall at the edge of his land. The dry, dusty soil ran through his fingers as he grabbed and squeezed it in his palms. The day was another cloudless one, though he scanned the vacant expanse above him hoping to spot a forming wisp that would swell then heave and gush over the dirt. Deep down he knew there was no thing he could do to provoke a wet sky, but desperation had him almost believing there was some weird smelling potion or esoteric book of spells that would bring forth a deluge. He'd probably have to sacrifice a goat and pour the blood onto the dust whilst he chanted strange words from an ancient, black-bound book and danced an odd, non-rhythmic jig. At least that was how he imagined it. He'd do it too, if it was the only way.
Who knows what might have happened if he hadn't answered the call that night. If he had been in the shower, went out and forgot his phone. If it rang earlier or later, if he was driving, or working. If he'd missed that call would he still be here? If the two events; call and answer hadn't crossed, hadn't had interaction things might be different. But maybe it would have happened another time. Maybe the universe has it all planned anyway and we can't fight it. We can try, but we'll lose every time. The universe called, and he answered. That's the way it was supposed to be, and so it was, forever.
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