Short Story: Home Is Where the Hurt Is

 

The pencil tapping against the bathroom countertop was complementary to the hallow hissing of the exhaust fan overhead, tucked against sagging ceiling water stains. She sat on the counter, eyes closed, focused on breathing and tapping the metal against the cigarette-burned Formica. As she took another long inhale, she opened her eyes, turning to face herself in the medicine cabinet mirror like she was blowing out smoke from an invisible cigarette—much like a real one that scarred the almost plastic countertop with melted scorch marks.
            She couldn’t take much more of these kinds of days, the ones where she was just too tired to deal with reality, without the taste of escape on the tip of her tongue.
            The hurried pounding of footsteps coming up the stairs caused her to react. She slid off the counter, her heart pounding in her chest, twisting her hair with the pencil and sliding it into place. In one fluid motion, she jerked the door open just in time for a little girl to dart in, closing the door again and pressing the lock button with her thumb.
            Both girls glance at each other, their amber eyes colliding, mirroring each other except for their ages.
            They seemed to wait without speaking, eyes locked. The younger girl panted as quietly as possible while the older girl leaned on the wall opposite. Her eyes broke first and went straight to the door handle, and she watched, waited, almost expecting, what exactly? When the steps didn’t come, they both seemed to untense their necks, settle their spines, and melt into the floor with relief.
            They were safe, for now.
            The monsters only came out at night, the ones they ran and hid from. If it weren’t a nightly act to fight the flames and push back on angry dragons armed with razor-sharp claws, they would never hide another day in their lives, even with the dark ghouls that hid under their shadowed beds. It didn’t stop the older girl's heart from racing because somewhere internally, she knew why nothing but silence greeted them on the other side. It either got worse or stayed the same; it never, ever just went away. She wiped her palms on her jeans as the younger girl ran her fingers through her long brown hair, both staring at the tarnished brass knob as if willing it to stay still or open to another dimension.
            The house was haunted. By ghosts of the past, demons of the present, lined with broken glasses and unexplained bruises. It would probably be best if they moved from their haunted house situation, but she guessed it would cost too much to live in a normal home. One where the noise being made wasn't yelling and screaming and stomping steps up and down the hallow stairs. The monsters grew weary and would rage on and on for days while the girls would seek shelter and hope one day to be old enough to fight through the pain.
            Younger and older sat together, scared of the hall's silence and the house's stillness. They knew the monsters were there, but how long would they make them wait? The older girl wished it would just come so it could be over faster so she could lay in bed and dream dreams of no such disaster. The younger girl closed her eyes tight, hoping it all would disappear. No matter the age, they both were scared of the monsters that haunted their halls, heads, and dreams. Deep down, they knew this wasn’t normal, being haunted 24/7, because the kids at school would tell of family dinners and vacations that went so well. She would stand there quietly wondering what all they meant; by not being haunted, you could have actual family things and them not turn into haunted dreams.
            That moms and dads could be different if ghosts didn't hang around all day, reminding them of better times when the hauntings weren't a big deal and hiding wasn’t a thing.
            As the silence grew uncomfortable, the exhaust fan made an annoying hum that seemed too loud for finely tuned ears. Both girls stood up, quietly turning toward the door before stepping out as bravely as they could, the older shielding the younger. Once the switches were hit, they both darted for their door, but as quietly as they could.
            On tiptoe, they lock it behind them, the youngest in first and the oldest listening at the thin crack of light funneling in.
            A fight would have ensued any other night, with nothing haunting the halls and no yelling from the demons downstairs. Even though grateful for a quiet moment, she worried this might be the quiet before the storm but didn’t know how to stir up a haunting, so they crept to bed instead.
            But as she slipped under the sheets, her bare feet paused, hanging from the lip of the bed, tempting the ghosts from the shadows beyond. When nothing came except cold feet, she rolled until she stared at the door, at the shadow that moved underneath.
She welcomed a ghost or two, maybe a demon with flames ready to engulf; the devil could come knocking at that door. She rather anyone, anything, else than the reality turning at the locked knob because when push came to shove, she would choose fictional violence over the actual bruises she would get tonight when the monsters she calls mom and dad, pull her from her bed on another sleepless night.

Fiction Prompt: Everybody's Fool

     I never was and never will be the picture-perfect portrait of who you thought I’d be. I lean more toward descriptors that lack the colors you wish to see in me. I lack the happy grace of being the little Miss Sunshine I lied about being, by coaxing my dark soul to slumber under chemically induced dreams. Under waves of drowsy daydreaming, the plane of reality and fiction slant to give me a glimpse into an alternate universe. One where normality was an everyday thing, not something I strived for with each pop of a pill and sip of a drink, and hoped my mind would mend or even heal. The same routine day in and day out, one pill after the other, to deal with the reality I feel trapped in while reaching toward what I thought could have been. Like quicksand reaching up my legs, pulling me into the never-ending pit of sorrow laden with the darkness in which I tread.
    They say, “You should smile more. A positive mind does more than the drugs.”
    I can’t help but laugh, a humourous laugh in the faces of people closest to me when my darkness seeps into the not chemically laden existence of seemingly normal people hiding behind smiles like monsters behind masks. Positivity is the mask I shun because no amount of positive reinforcement will heal what others have done. It won't heal the heartbreak of wanting too much and reaching out to people who turned around before I fell to the floor. The drugs calm me enough to see through emotional rose-tinted glasses to the scene left unfiltered and remained unseen.
    If baptism of my soul would wipe my slate clean, I would drown my sorrows in holy water until I awoke from these bad dreams. With a blank slate before me, I’d paint another world where the only mask I would wear was the badge of honor of not being a horror, heart open to love like I’ve been trying to do. But monsters like me have hearts too, and as our broken shards are slashed and impaled, cries become growls deep from wounded souls aching to be soothed. Instead, we love so hard that we scare the weak away, another mask falling into place while trying to line up a new personality for someone to love and not walk away.
    No amount of time will heal the vicious crimes of letting yourself love people more than they love you. You take to self-flagellation to keep your multiple personalities from shattering all at once as they stand lined up in hopes someone sticks. But how long will it take for you to follow through, to stay alone, and not waste your breath? On people who curl their fingers around your upturned throat and choke you out for the nothing you are worth.
    No one needs saving; they only need saving from you.
    Lives would be better if you’d just stay away.
    The mind a powerful bully and killer of self-identity, goading you with words heard when you were a kid. No one is coming to save you from the hauntings of the past that visits in your dreams as fears line the halls that you try to run. No amount of positivity available to shield from attacks from all sides as we search for a private patch of perfection mending the seams.
    We glean perfection from the people that exist only in our heads, our fantasies, and make-believe. They’re stories we tell ourselves in hopes of someone proving our positive delusions right, that maybe there is a batch of “just right people” out there that understood the darkness in which you stood. Humanity selfish in their perusal of understandings; we hail from different universes created inside our heads, movements dictated by an untrustworthy inner narrator set to destroy it all. We starve at the hands of ourselves, grasping for made-up visions in our imaginations left to gestate in the sliver of hope left behind. A seedling we water and watch, waiting tirelessly for the tiniest bit of life to peek through and give us that hope we seem absent of.
    Just one little feeling, not produced by the drugs, one sliver of hope so we don’t end it all, or hope for the warmth of anyone willing to see outside of themselves.
    For once.
    I want someone to stay and love the monster in me. 

Poem: Fall From Grace

​Your hand slipped in my hair

While the other slit my throat

Robbing me of everything

Breath and hope alike

Before I said checkmate

If I had known

Parting my lips

Against cold indifference 

Would cause the cracks

In my unstable facade

To crumble at feet

Bare from the fall

Of

Wordless

Grace

When answers I craved to hear

My name a curse on your lips

When I speak

It’s a hushed, “don’t hurt me”

Never one to mince my words

Each chosen carefully

Intricately 

Yet you took half-heard truths

And turned them into stories

That weighs down my soul

Like anchors to a boat

Lost in strange seas

A survivor left alone

To float

On the last held

Bits

Of

Hope

Short Story: No Safe Spaces

​Life being what it was, a heaping pile of steaming excrement, tonight was the night she was to be rudely assaulted. 

In her own house.

Half lying on the cool cream tile floor, she swiped her short hair behind her ear while she cataloged her ample DVD collection. 

Rearranging by seasons, she started tapping the smooth cases back into place, one by one. She thought about color coding them and creating a rainbow-like the book tok-ers were want to do instead of stuck with the genre. Each case slid smoothly into place until one didn’t, finding it odd when some didn't line up. 

Curious, she thought. 

Going back, she lifted them one at a time and slid them back. Then, all of a sudden, it happened. 

The cockroach came from behind the cases to its teeth. Do roaches have teeth? You would think they did when it landed on her arm, and In one failed swoop, she bounded to her feet and ran.

She ran straight for the kitchen in a panic. She snatched up her broom and wielded its pink sweeping glory like a sword, and she was a knight of Camelot on the heels of her echoed yelp of terror. 

The roach fell to the floor, and she was on it, smacking it until it grasped the bristles and hung on as if life depended on it.

Which it did.

With a fierce, sharp squeal, she hit and hit until it landed on its back, flailing about in sheer panic at the utter chaos the gouging found itself in. Her roommate wasn’t home to save its life; oh no, it would be flushed tonight. Because if it weren’t, it would somehow find its way to hover over her bed and drop from the ceiling like a skilled acrobatic genius and send her straight to the afterlife mid-dream. 

Panting, she stared at the wiggling body before her. Broom held high, bare feet planted wide, ready to fight to the death if she needed to. She looked fierce, like Joan of Arc defending her perch, hair tossed, clothes askew from the untimely skirmish. 

All the while, as the chaos ensues, the feared huntress of fair tortoise colorings lay two feet away on her throne of dirty laundry, wondering what the hell was going on and why the human was messing up her slumber over a tinsy, tiny palmetto bug. Mid lick, their eyes clicked, and they stared a moment longer before both cat and human returned to their doings. The cat returned to its slumber while the human returned to sweeping up the dust and the newly acquired bug carcass. 

Only to be spurred back into a frenzy of hallow whomps and plastic slapping against cheap rental house tile as the bug righted itself and ran. To her utter horror and great disbelief, it was still alive! The sucker was still at it.

"Aack." She sneered, broom smacking down on the poor soul that skittered across her path.

Hunting down a high-heeled shoe came next when the soft bristles harmed only her ego more than the pest. She came around with a wedge-heeled shoe and gave it one last hit, and splat it went! With triumph, she looked at the shoe, a twitch of a leg, and a turning of stomach. She grimaced and tossed it back to the shoe pile inwardly vowing to either clean the shoe or burn it and its mate.

After a brief pause to breathe a sigh of relief and congratulate herself for a job well done, she moved back to the kitchen to right what she had wronged and armed herself with Lysol. Cleaning up the evidence and sanitizing the spot, it was right then, right there, that she knew. As instinct would have it, the ping of knowledge weighed heavy on her now sore shoulders as she wiped, gagged, and tossed away. 

That she had been watching way too many TV shows, listening to podcasts, and reading books about murder. 

She needed to chill. 

100 Words: Coffee over Interaction

The parade was in full swing, with patrons vying for spots to see. A simple blip of a girl moved against the grain and into the city that held more pleasures away from the fuss. Instead, she nestled into the bosom of books and cafes entranced by the coffee sirens' nasal beacon. Peace could be had over overpriced coffee and a book in your lap. Best to get lost inside pages away from the sea of tourists, gasping for wordless breath. She wasn’t one for the ocean but found a home in a forest of worded stacks and coffee cups.

Submitted to:  Writer's Digest "Your Story 129"

Fiction: Adventure on the F Train

​          The summer humidity hadn’t yet reached the depths of the subway tunnels below the city as she sat, notebook in hand, scrawling notes about the early morning prisoners of transit. She hadn’t chosen the local trains today; no, she decided on the F train with its frequent comings and goings for today’s endeavors. 

People watching. 

Train surfing. 

Documenting the fine art of human behaviors while they surfed the inconsistent wave of public transportation that others wanted to forget.

But not her.

She found the ebb and flow of bodies congregated on platforms, milling about on their cellphones, checking watches, and reading books, to eventually thrust forward with purpose once the train pulled to a squealing halt and the doors flung open in a woosh of stale air, oddly relaxing. Fortunately, she had nowhere to go, which added to the stress-lessness she felt as her pen flew across standard lines, fitting words between both, not so much worrying about writing in complete sentences as she was with getting movements accurately written down.

She turned a page, slowly at first, glancing about the just now emptied platform on the melodic clicks and clacks of tin-canned commuters. The garbled sound of the PA system caused her and the recent addition of a couple to tilt their ears, frown, shake their heads, and roll their eyes in complete unison because, well, no one knew the language of the underground. If she learned anything during her people-watching days, it is that true city-goers no longer reacted to the static distorted announcement because there was no point in even trying, so they tuned that out just as they did everything else save for their own needs at the time.

Which was smart on their part since the city was a breeding ground for everything noteworthy and mentionable. 

She scribbled the last note she had when the PA announcer started back up, and a to-go coffee cup floating in her peripheral had her eyebrows raising at the indignation of personal space and head turning to see the kind amber eyes of her favorite person lopsidedly grinning at her.

How Hudson found her, she could hazard a guess, but since it was too early for free thought, she opened her mouth to ask but was waylaid by his phone showing her GPS location, to which she granted him a view of her rolled hazel eyes. 

“They don’t work well when you’re on the train,” He let the explanation dangle as she took the cup so he could round the bench, look down at it with minor disgust before prissily perching on edge, “but I feel the knowledge went out alongside your sanitation know-how where New York City benches were involved.”

She stifled a chuckle. 

“That I knew.” She said against the lip of the coffee cup before taking a sip. She sighed deeply, letting the warm elixir feel her with joy. “Why the surprise? Maybe I wanted to be alone.”

“Maybe I wanted company.” He settled into a slight hunch of his shoulders, leaning his elbows on his knees as he swung a look at me. “Madi, you’ve been sitting here for over an hour. Do you plan to take the train or just watch it pass you by?”

She only held her notebook up for him to quickly glance over her shorthand before he rolled his eyes slowly, which both annoyed and excited her. His appearance always meant an adventure she wouldn’t ever take by herself. 

“Ah, so you’re judging silently, I see. Don’t you ever tire of note-taking?” He murmured, rubbing his hands together, probably wishing to scratch the side of his lip but lacking hand sanitizer to do so safely. The subway made him cringe, but he kept his cool when he forced himself into her calm presence because she loved the subway and all its griminess and grumpy patrons. 

It wasn’t all black-and-white subway tiles and thick yellow “stand back for your safety” lines; it was much more than transit. 

“Not really.” She looked past his handsome if always sullen, bearded face to the twelve-plus waiting for the next train to come through. “Uptown or downtown?”

“Downtown?” He perked up at the options, not noticeably to the untrained eye, but the light to his voice and subtle upward jut of his darker brows had her grinning.

“Dim sum?”

“Does that even have to be said? Of course, dim sum.” He looked at her then with lowered brows and a mischievous shine in his eyes. “As long as we get ice cream somewhere along the way.”

“It’s 8 am and you’re thinking about sweets?” The squeal of quickly approaching metal cued us to stand and move unperturbed to the edge of yellow on the platform. Everyone else followed suit, each in their own little world. 

“Like my father isn’t the king and reigning champion of quadruple-stacked pancakes with everything sweet piled on top.” His hands went to his pockets; hers were busy with a coffee cup, and the other was sliding the notebook into her black backpack. She held it firmly to her side, by intuition, nothing of actual value inside, only tucked away in her person. 

Trust no one; the darkness would whisper in the tunnels. You trusted your gut, which was about it, or the weather channel when bad weather was to be had. No one liked navigating flooded city tunnels once they got off work. 

The whoosh of air brought on by a couple of metric tons of metal came to a clunky screeching halt and allowed them to duck in under the arms of those who rushed out. If you frequented the city or lived there full time, you always remember the rush of bodies, metal, air, and the hurry to one place or the other during time restraints.

The city slept, but only to the sounds of clicks, clacks, and the honking of impatient cabbie horns.

Non-Fiction: The Reaction Behind Fear: Who is the real villain?

​

The sun rises as you sip on your early morning coffee, the news plays in the background as you ready yourself for another day, or you sit contentedly scrolling through social media. You scroll through a mix of friends' updates, pictures of their children, funny or politically cringy memes, and even news articles. You see it every day, some cautionary tale about one thing or another and the urge to share the post so more people are aware of this grave object of a worrisome nature. We see and feel that sense of worry and yearly attempt at mass hysteria in the Cautionary Tales podcast story, The Halloween Prisoner, which Tim Hartford wrote. The story itself produces the genuine question of who the real villain is in this story and similar ones, and most cases, it's not strangers we have to worry about. Tim Hartford mentions how a detailed analysis informs us that more kids are hit by cars on Halloween than are poised by their candy haul. The same is said for the 'Stranger Danger' epidemic when the real perpetrator to children will most likely be a family member or a family friend, someone the child already knows. We only have to look into child sexual assault cases to see where the real problem comes from as the very root of the issue; RAINN.org mentions that family members initiate 25% of all reported abuse, and someone in their social network initiates 60%. When kids are told to avoid strangers and only trust their inner circle, how do you report wrongdoings from the inner circle you're supposed to trust only? How are children supposed to simply 'know better' when the people they trust are purposely moving forward with the intent to harm them for more significant personal gain, like the death of Timothy O'Brian at the hand of his father? Is a stranger still the real foe? 

Or is the foe someone perceiving to have their best interest at heart?

Poem: ​This Side of my Skin

(Poem prompt)

Outward appearances, shielding 

Inwardly, yielding

Not knowing the right moves

To keep going

Push and pull

The threads of the puppet

Must keep up appearances 

While dying inside

Must smile

She says

Don’t let them know your fears

Smile

Don’t let them see your tears

Outward appearances, wielding

The ability to shape shift

To morph

Into the person they want us to be

Must laugh on cue

You know you want to

A must

To gain trust

And live the way

Others do

Inward appearances, bleeding

From the inside out

Depressions claws

Ripping apart my facade 

Crippling my outward defense 

My face falling

Crumpling

Like a wad of paper thrown

Away because the imperfections 

Mare the smooth skin

Underneath 

Malnourished the soul

Living on crumbs

Of basic human decency 

Inward appearances, concealing 

The normalcy once hid behind

Now weighed down

By anxiety

It’s coconspirators as well

Nit picking at flaws

Like scabs on your back

From years of beatings

From lack of conceding 

To fit like a piece

Of a puzzle they cease

To understand

While missing the whole scene

Laid before 

Scattered like the last of your will

To live, your hopes

And dreams

Become pieces of that scene

That no one can glean

Since as a mess you claim

No home to remain 

You break down into pieces

Of a whole

Scene

But will never be

Seen

Non-fiction: Eavesdropping on Life

​ If you stand long enough waiting for the New York City subway, life comes alive around you while your thoughts drown out the ordinary sounds of city life. What comes to life by pure chance, by accident, by being in the perfect place at the right time while you're lost in your own world is magical. You begin to stand in awe at the ebb and flow of humanity blooming in the grimy subway tunnels. 

 You see it all in the matter of a train ride.

You see the rush of bodies, the mother holding her child's hand as they rush toward closing doors, a brave soul sliding their umbrella out in time to gain last-minute access to two weary spirits, and a long grateful sigh of relief. There’s the merriment of music playing from some unknown location in the system of tunnels and the toe taps of fellow passengers getting into the music. The soft chatter of tourists in foreign tongues as they stand around with hands in their pockets decked out in I Love NYC gear. Then there's the tired mother with her three children peddling candy to the hostages of public transit, who busy themselves by looking the other way and dodging the child's sad, full eyes begging for a dollar while the kid's mother has yet another young one strapped to her back. A weariness drags her down, similar to the homeless man lying down against the back wall, covered in today's news. Surrounded by chatty teenagers gripping shopping bags and cellphones, like half of the platform inhabitants aren’t just fighting to live day by day, being sealed tight in the tomb of chance that brought lost souls to this very meeting point. Until they meet again, or not, dancing to the stampede of worn soles slapping against tiles that had seen better days to other platforms, to trains, or to the steps leading to fresh air above as life inevitably moves forward, with or without you.