O O

All of the hairline cracks veining your china body.  Hissing as sand trickled through, sprinkling a trail behind you.  All of the hairline cracks, forming a code.  A code everyone could read.

Surrounded by eyes darting between you and the trail of sand.  Back and forth, holes that gaped as their fibers contracted.

All of the hairline cracks finally connected across your face.  Shards crashing, sand sparkling under the fluorescent light.  Everyone heard, eyes darting, everyone saw.  Surrounded by eyes, surrounded by light.

Marionette

Winter came, and you fell asleep.

As the snow fell, you slept and were buried in the drifts. When the white sun glowed, the snow crawled into the ocean, and you lay there, frozen in the cold. At last, you crack open your eyes, fragmenting the ice over your lids. You stir. Your skin frozen, clear porcelain and smooth. You lay there for months, cracking your chest to breathe.

The air laces your lungs with frost. From where you lay, you can see thick grooves in the beach--there were boats here. While you were asleep.

Where are you?

You breathe. Your ball-jointed limbs jerk, unfamiliar with their stiff movements. The stem of your stump hardened, with dots of white bone where the buds used to be. You breathe, and slowly you rise.

Letters, memories of voices as you slept below the snow. Where are you? they asked. Voices lost in the rolling sea. For a moment you falter, sinking with your elbows in the sand, your china head heavy. It hurts, but you rise, and trembling under the weight of gravity you totter to your feet.

There. A boat on the horizon. So far away but clearly heading in your direction. Blinking, ice falls from your face and facets in the light.

Breathing Smoke

There are boats in the distance. Small ones, barely visible in the starlight. They have no idea you're there.

Anew, Once More

There was a flood. That, you remember. A flood that wiped everything away--you didn't realize how little was left until you had finally pulled yourself up to walk, to find something, somewhere. You remember the dull, aching pain of your stump dotting the trail you walked with red specks. That's how you knew there was nothing. Just a flat land, surrounded by the glassy field of water. An island you wore down with footsteps, walking around and around.

As the sun pulled itself out of the waves and filled the sky with white, things began making sense again. It was a long process but your stump was closing, germinating and sweetly growing into a soft stem. You think you can see it budding.

You dip your feet into the water, feeling the wind inflate your lungs to pink.

T E

Spiderweb cracks run through the pane glass window. It's aching from the pressure of the rainwater that's crept nearly to the top of the window frame. It's waiting by the window, watching you as you study the cracks. Your heart is racing but you touch your finger against the glass.

It didn't even make a sound.

You're plunged into deafness as the rainwater pulls you under and everything is swirling around you. Glass, pieces of furniture, books--they all scrape your vision as you struggle to find something, anything to hold onto. You catch the sound of a heaving groan, like something being crushed.

The rainwater spits you out, and you crumble into a heap. A searing pain climbs up your arm but when you grope for it you realize it's no longer there. You sit, clutching the stump, waiting for your head to stop swimming. When you look, there's nothing. The underground is gone. It is gone. You can see nothing else.

Drift and Swell

It's quiet. You lift the plastic blinds, squinting through the glass as you hear the rain fall. It starts and stops with the thunder that only sounds when you're asleep, dead to the world. The water rises slowly; you can see it crawling up the building, toward the window. You smile; it's waiting by the window and you know it would smile if it could. This is the closest you've ever stood near it.

Building, building, building. The end of the world, the crush of fated chaos. Sound and fury and then nothing. It's going to be so hard but you understand why; that's why you're going to go prepared. You lean your forehead against the window, feeling the coolness of the glass against your skin. Beautiful chaos, sucked into order.

The Hose

Breathe into the hose, you'll feel better.

Things are changing but not in the way you expected--instead of changing in front of you they're changing under your skin and you can feel the little bits and pieces shifting. You need to pull some of it out into the open and you know it.

He's there but not always whenever you want him there. Just one hour ago you almost got what you wanted but it wasn't exactly. Someone tried to stick his hand in your brain and you smiled and pretended that he did. He got what he wanted and you're sucking on a hose, filling up with smoke.

It's sitting near the window, watching you as you breathe out static. You pretend it's not there; you're too ashamed.