The universe is made of mouths. Not circles or loops or any other illusions of organization, of control. Just many hungry, gaping maws demanding flesh and blood, promising peace in exchange for a paltry sum of pain. A clear message. At least, clear for those who can read in between the stars like my Mama. They believe it’s empty out there. Mama would say, dark eyes on the darkening sky. We spent most nights together beneath the stars, awaiting their […]
Tonight, wind batters the brittle panes of my hovel’s weary windows. Had they been skin instead of glass, they’d no doubt be bruised. This high in the mountains, the winds are wicked. They drag drifts of snow with them, freezing the air till it’s very touch is painful. On nights like these, it feels like the dark is trying to rip and tear its way inside. Even the ferociously flickering flame in our lone hearth is not enough to protect […]
Swamp surrounds the village for as far the eye can see. The soggy soil of our secluded homeland is little more than sponge, sopping up so much water even the slightest of us must strap strings stretched across stiff wooden slats to our feet or else risk being swallowed whole by the sludge. Too many have become meals, preserved in the muck for unsuspecting outsiders to stumble across on a daring jaunt to our far-flung wastes. It’s why we’re the […]
They die. If you tell the truth. Sometimes slowly, sometimes on the spot. It depends on the truth being told and it’s weight. The heavier it is, the faster it flattens bone into fragment, pulverizes pulse into a bloody pulp. The first time it happened was on the morning news, live. The camera panned across a generic studio audience to the show’s co-anchors, your typical man and woman duo. The man was tailored tight into his fancy suit, grin taut […]
They come. They always do. The sea brings them to me. Swallows them up and swishes them from cheek to cheek before spitting them just shy of my shore. The only haven in sight for miles. Mama used to say with a smile. Any port in a storm, my little minnow. I didn’t understand, at the time, why she smiled so widely nor why it prickled me so. There was an…edge, to her grin. Something cutting in its curl. Sharp. […]
Hi~ For anyone who doesn’t know, the open participants of the NetNarr realm have started their own project and have invited us to participate as well. It’s an awesome opportunity to dabble with some digital alchemy~ I wasn’t sure what I was going to do at first–or if I would have time to do anything–but, miraculously, I’m on it with the time management this weekend and I also had a burst of creative inspiration. I decided to remix-ish an old story I […]
Drumbeat batters breeze bare-knuckled. Bloody, if it could. Tut-tut-tut transforms the atmosphere into something tormented. Tortured. Just a sliver shy of a scream. I sway to the sound, skin soaking in its scathe. Absorbing the maim and claim. The tug and tear. In the thick of the crowd, illuminated by a mix of fire and faint moonlight, a figure fights the drum’s beating. Twists sharp turns to thwart possession. To prevail. A losing game. Once lured in, that’s it. Other figures clap, […]
So, you may have noticed that I’ve been rather silent this week. Or, maybe you haven’t…. Anyway, the reason why Shadow Girl has been on the down-low these past few days is because she is currently–and unfortunately–without a reliable mode of access to the digitalscape Last Wednesday, in fact, my laptop decided to–moment of silence–die. At least, that’s the official diagnosis till I hear back from the repair techs. (And, tbh, they’re outlook was not very encouraging.) Since, I’ve been […]
Behind the barrier are bits and pieces, shards of shattered glass, fragments of battered bone, a girl in slices of herself, writing each down, committing the splinterings to memory through word weaving, through cathartic construction of confession into bite-size commodity for consumption–predominantly hers. Beyond the threshold is Pandora’s reverse–curse–a home for holdout hope who couldn’t escape so stashed her whole self away. Endlessness encapsulated. The opposite of liminal space. Comprehension rendered obsolete in the face of an open door, an invitation to […]
“See.” Auntie would hiss, breath-half mist-half piss–spit splattering across my face like soggy freckles. “Don’t you see?” Spittle soaking deep into bone, I’d bob my neck up down. A metronome kicked on its side. But that was never enough. My compliance meant nothing till it suffered. Till I suffered. Till I looked. “Can’t you see?” A banshee-screech that bounced off mirrored glass like my small skull in Auntie’s gargantuan grip. Bang. Bang. “I see.” My raspy exhale fogged the glass. “See […]
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. ~ Edgar Allen Poe Mama went in her sleep. How she wanted. How she dreamed. Death is an illusion. An imagined end. Mama rasped toward her own foreseeable ending, breaths short and shallow. We don’t live here. We live inside. When you dream, my little ghost, look for me. I will be there. So I did. When Mama moved on from here, I searched–inside. Reached into the recesses. Haunted […]
Part I, Part II, Part III, I’ve become accustomed to being watched. Hollow, sightless eyes boring into me from beyond. Gaping gazes trying to swallow me up, their seeking ravenous for every last scrap. For anything that could fill the empty spaces. Make them a little less like windows without torches. It’s ever-night where they are. Nana said one evening while I was studying the intricacies of incantation intonation at the table, her knobby knuckles knocking a suspiciously rhythmic beat against the window’s wooden […]
Swamp surrounds the village, dirt little more than sponge, sopping up so much water even the slightest of us must strap net stretched across stiff wooden slats to our feet or else risk being swallowed whole. Too many have become meals, preserved in the muck for unsuspecting outside-dwellers to stumble across on one of their daring jaunts to our reaches. It’s why we’re called the People of the Mud. Big sister, unruly and untamable, always a donning a reckless sort of […]
“Let’s go to our happy place.” Mommy would say when Daddy’s voice began to hit a certain octave–somewhere between a beastly bellow and a rumbling growl. It bounced off bone. Broke bone–when a slur accompanied it. Sometimes when it didn’t. Mommy told the nurses I was clumsy–a topsy, turvy tot falling head over teapot. Lost in my own little dream land. The nurses never looked as convinced as Mommy did. Hospitals were frequent but transient haunts, us hollow-eyed phantasms in advance mourning for […]
Part I, Part II Deadwood’s sole flower shoppe used to be Moses’ Roses–the liveliest place in town. Then, Moses Redding passed away. Peacefully in the night. I know because he came to our window, hollow-eyed and with a red, red bloom in hand. Nana put it in a vase on her nightstand, beside her citronella candle. It wilted by morning. Cerese Redding, Moses’ wife…widow, came around next, a similar bloom–only slightly wilting–woven into her graying hair. She approached Nana and me in the grocery store, […]
