Silent vigil...

There are people running through the streets above us.

There is nowhere to run but it doesn't seem to matter.

I was running and fell through this door way. I barely escaped being trampled.

I can make out shapes in the darkness.

I think there are seven of us down here.

It's hard to know for sure.

Fear and hunger have driven some of the others into the damp corners where the light falls off
suddenly and all that's left is the stench.

We are all just waiting.

My hair keeps sticking to the concrete wall I'm leaning against.

I'm not sure but I think it's sticky from the blood.

Every time I move my head a few more strands are pulled out adding to the growing number left on the wall behind me.

Most of us have gathered in a space away from the door, more toward the center of the room.

The corners are too dangerous.

The young man with the glasses was curled up in one of the corners when he was attacked by a rat trying to gnaw through the blood soaked towel around his leg.

I think we may be in the basement of an old grocery store.

We found some boxes of stale crackers but they were gone after the first few days.

There are some tin cans of something but the ends are bulging and there's nothing to open them with anyway.

The water ran out yesterday.

There is an old couple sitting across from me.

The woman couldn't stop crying, she just sobbed and clutched a photograph to her chest.

Her husband said it was a picture of their son.

He tried to comfort his wife but after two days, he stopped.

After that she cried all the harder.

Yesterday she stopped crying. She's been silent ever since.

The blond girl at the end of room talked to me for the first couple of days.

Now she just sits in silence like most of the others.

Today I tried to talk to any of them but there was no response.

None of them will answer me.

My brain feels sluggish and I just want to sleep.

I don't feel the hunger anymore but I'm very thirsty.

I mention this to the old couple across the room but there is no reply.

I have begun to crave the sound of another human voice more than that of water to quench my thirst.

If someone doesn't speak to me soon , I'm sure I will go mad.

My eyes feel heavy.

Maybe it would be alright to sleep for just a little while.

When I wake up maybe someone will talk to me.

I'm sure one of them will have something to say soon...

Imagination...

She crawled under the blankets with the flashlight.

In this tent of far off adventures, she would wander the entire world, slay dragons and waltz among the stars.

She would be lost for hours in a world of books.

And when her mother found her still awake, the flashlight would be confiscated but the adventures would remain.

Grandpa's watch...

It had belonged to his father and it was one of the only things he'd brought to this country with him.

He would sit in front of the television set at night watching the boxing matches.

Every once in a while he'd throw a punch in the air in solidarity.

We'd be in the doorway watching, giggling.

He made wine in the basement.

You could smell the grapes fermenting when you went to get the laundry.

He always wore suspenders and flannel shirts, even in the summer.

He'd wait until he thought no one was looking before giving the dog a piece of whatever he was eating.

Then he'd pet her until someone happened to glace over in which case he'd push the dog away as if she was bothering him.

He did the same with me when I was little but I knew it was all for show.

He was afraid of looking weak, looking too nice.

He spent many years in a nursing home unaware of his surrounding's or the people who visited.

It broke my heart.

The watch sat on the bedside table along with a photograph of his wife until the day he passed away.

Vows...

Then it all just went dark.

Darker than she could ever have imagined.

There had been plenty of very bad days in the past.

Twenty six years they'd been doing this...this thing.

It began even before the vows were spoken.

Year by year it just got harder to pretend.

And now it was just a black hole of pain and misery.

That place in the universe where things went to die.

She'd hung on because that's what you did didn't you?

In the end, staying had ended up being much more destructive.

shine on...

He had always been fascinated by the stars and the planets.

Once she had explained to him that we were all made of stardust.

That we all contained bits and pieces of exploded stars and planets floating through the universe.

She stood looking up into the night sky remembering those evenings when they would go out into the field in back of the Dairy Queen, put down a blanket and lay there watching the stars overhead.

She'd point out the constellations and by the time he was 4, he knew them all by heart.

Cassiopeia was his favorite.

He had said that if we were all made of stardust that we all had our own way to shine and wouldn't it be something if we all decided to shine at the same time?


Now there would be no more stories about moon beams and galaxies...

but there is still that shine.






🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

Shine on sweetie...

Slow dancing...

The black taffeta skirt rustled as she swirled across the floor of her bedroom.

Bending and swaying to the notes of the melody coming from the radio.

She let the music and the rhythm lead her around the room.

And she couldn't have cared less that she was her own partner...

. 

Facade....

She took one last look around the house.

It looked bare and unloved now without all the little bits and pieces that dominated the rooms, much like her grandmother's personality had dominated her childhood.

A harsh, cold woman who didn't see a need for empathy or compassion.

Those things only made you weak.

Yet some nights she would wake to hear the strains of Beethoven or Strauss floating through dark and she'd sneak down the stairs to watch as her grandmother sat at the piano.

Alone in the dark with only the light of the moon shinning through the windows, lost in the music she was making.

This soft and tender side her grandmother never let anyone see.

This facade, this side of herself her grandmother kept hidden.

She would never understand why...