6 Word Memoir: After all, I still want more.
6 Word Story: She sprouted wings, tore them off.
Author: bathruminations
Bobby’s Graveyard
We stood at the gates, hands curled around the flaking bars, faces pressed to the rails, peering through. A long strip of grass, running down to the wall at the far end. Flanking it on either side, two rows of tombs, the walls built up with great stone blocks. Iron-guarded. We wondered why this one place was locked and bolted. The graves were old, but the padlock was new. I lifted it idly, finding it heavy, and cold to the touch.
The weather was pleasant – a lull of sunshine in between temperamental bouts of rain. We had passed several parties, the guides pouring forth their facts in English, Spanish, the tourists listening rapt, or with their attention wandering. But this part of the graveyard was still. Maybe there was nothing of note here, or perhaps the tours would pass by later. The noise of cars from outside the walls was muffled and sounded far away. It felt as though no-one else existed. Like the graveyard and the city had emptied.
A wind rose, a cold wind, all of a sudden. The walls channelled the air, funnelling the gust towards us, around us. The wind had leapt up from inside the tombs and was rushing out, like some portal had opened into another dimension, and its cold, dry air was being sucked out by the light and sunshine of our own world. Sliced into strips by the iron bars, the wind swept around us, whispering in our ears, rustling our hair, then dying away. A tangible ethereality. For a brief moment, I felt we had been removed from time.
Oblivious
You’ve got to keep up. Like, know what’s happening. So that when things change, you’re not caught out. That’s the worst thing. It reminds me in an abstract way of being a monkey, hanging with the other monkeys, being free and easy. I’m acting the fool and then suddenly I’m out of the canopy, in the howling grassland, glimpsed in the starlight by whatever monsters are there. And terror just rushes down on me. It’s like, if I take my mind off my surroundings for a second, if I drift out of the conversation, I’m totally naked, out in the open and prone. It’s a real fear.
Like…what if I can’t keep up with everything. Like, I’m too tired or something. Worried about something else. And all that intricate stuff that I’m keeping on top of, that’s gonna just become a blur, or a wall, like static on a screen. Like all the lines of focus that I weave through my mind are all just going to lead to a dead end, screens just showing static.
I don’t know. I guess I’m just…worried. About losing touch, or something. It feels like…fighting sleep. I’m afraid of dying, pretty much, I guess. But I don’t know if that fear is helping me stay alive, or it’s adding to the…confusion…but. What can I do.
Santo Cielo
Shakespearean Drama
Unabashed
Failure
Is this what failure is? Poor little doll-faced Lizzy, she didn’t win the prize! Working on the story for ages, every morning that laptop on top of her lap, eyes squinted, fingers trembling, ‘with passion’, she would say fervently, raising a hand, ‘they are trembling with passion!’; so she would say to Karen, not just anyone: to anyone she was reticent, barely mentioned that story being tip-clip-top-typed away each morning as the sun’s wispy strands of hair would stream through the window and drape gently over her back; though she thought (she knew!) she would win, yet she didn’t mention it, not to anyone but Karen, to whom she would show evidence of her strained nerves and claim, ‘passion!’ But Liz didn’t win, saw the results this morning with a drained pale face then flushed pink one and got up and went to her room; just a contest in the end—but is it failure as well? Is that it then, is that it done? (‘it’ being the attempt, the head-butting, glory-driven, passion-pushed, adrenaline-accompanied attempt of distinguishing oneself permanently and forevermore in the eyes of the world; as quick as possible!; for then the move towards death can continue with ease).
Elizabeth Shoemaker had failed at her writing. No, just at this one story, her mother would say, pushing her hands into Elizabeth’s back, massaging her into silence; and, what a word, ‘failed’! You haven’t failed at anything! You simply…haven’t been successful. Which is failure, one, or Elizabeth in this case, could point out, but didn’t, because her mother clearly thought she had struck on something rather profound, this apparent difference between ‘failing’ and ‘not being successful’, this grey area where one is nothing at all; one is merely seated on children’s plastic chairs, watching parents scurry about with warm words and cups of tea, surrounded by grey walls plastered with cheery posters that read ‘Everyone’s a winner’. A dreadful place to be!—and yet, Elizabeth knew, she was not even there; for she had failed. She had shut her eyes, refused to read the posters, and fallen through the ground into a dim dank hole where most of humanity crouched, pathetically, nibbling at the remains tossed by those on high.
Oh no, this sounded far too dramatic!
I-VII
I
I am all the hours you had wasted
Dumped in an endless dream
I will scare you if you come near
I cry and you don’t see
I lay in your pocket
And breathe the air you breathe
But you don’t see.
Who are you? Who are we?
I am all the spit you had swallowed
While being scared of u scared
I crawl your fingertips
And don’t let you sleep
Stay awake, my sweet.
Who are you and who are we?
II
Undercover.
Undercover me.
Observe,
inhale
silently.
Be.
I’ll be.
Being to a being.
Shamefully naked,
ego can not love.
Grow.
I’ll grow.
For together one.
III
There is a hell in each and everyone of us.
A dance and so many ways.
There is a darkness and fear.
There is a heaven.
That’s all part of the deal.
Further away we are losing ourselves.
Further where the desire doesn’t exist,
where the restlessness can not be created.
Where the wind is dancing with you, where the sun hits in your will.
Further away.
Further from our existence,
further from a view, a touch and a late repentance.
Where you are me, and me you,
where they are us.
Where your hands don’t seem like yours.
Where the perfection comes from a breath.
Somewhere further away.
And a step closer.
IV
Let us watch in ave
All the steps my week leg makes.
Like a shadow in the mirror
Reflects the weakness
Embraces itself not to exist anymore
Let us watch in ave
How it fades and turns black
and becomes just a glimpse of light again.
And again.
V
Days like this and days like others.
Like yesterday or tomorrow.
Heavy as presence.
Like the dance of a tongue,
like stains hidden under the rogue.
Memories or desires,
habits or excitement.
Restlessness and courage.
Screams and inhales.
Days like this and
days like others.
Keep passing by.
VI
We are here for always.
And always is now.
I will hold you when the darkness comes.
Shimmer, my sudden angel.
Light up our years.
I will hold you always
and always is now.
VII
Morning talks,
long walks.
Early hours,
stale air and parfumes.
All those platonic loves in people’s eyes.
All the fear in their moves.
Happiness of a gentle touch.
Coffees and conversation.
The rising of the sun, the shadow of the moon.
Kissess and disappointments.
Shaking as it is the first time.
Rented apartments, and you, and I, and them.
Glow, fame, desire.
Broken glasses, sharp knives.
Cold rain and colored nights.
All our ways.
Life keeps moving on.
Rain (full story!)
1. The girl is lying on her bed, fingers playing absentmindedly with her hair. She rolls a curl around her index and looks at the shiny strands twinkling under the bedpost light. She twists her finger around and lets the hair fall down in a whirl, then curls it up again. Up and down, up and down. Outside, the rain is beating hard on the sidewalks, thick and heavy, water coming down, down, down, flooding the streets and turning everything into a blurry glow.
She looks through the window. Still raining. It’s raining so hard the girl is starting to think it has always been like this, that it has always rained and will always rain, drops on drops on drops, raining and raining until everything is underwater and seaweed grows on rooftops. She pictures her house submerged in water, the family photographs floating like the scattered pieces of a puzzle, the carpets nesting clams and corals, fishes swimming by
2. As photographs float in her mind, she is taken aback by the sight a familiar face, a pair of sad eyes shining through the glass frame. They live in the same house yet she hasn’t seen him in days. She hasn’t properly seen him in years if she is to be honest. They used to be so close. Step-Brothers… always two steps at a time, four legs, four eyes, twenty fingers. Everybody thought they were twins. Then he left, came back, but it was never quite the same. Then he was always too high for her to reach and she did try to talk him out of it, she really did, but he just was not there anymore, there was something missing. Always on something or looking for something: a smoke, a pill, a snort, a hit.
She has to go see him.
3. She knocks on his door. The sound of heavy steps, then he opens. He walks straight to the end of the room and leans against the window.
“What are you are doing?”
The boy rolls his eyes and doesn’t answer, just lifts his hand up and takes a deep, long pull, closing his eyes for a few moments before blowing out the thick, white smoke that is already spreading through the room. He turns back to face the window, taking another pull before muttering something alongside “what do you think I am doing”
“Throw that away- now.” She hisses twisting up her nose in disgust. When the boy moves, it’s only to turn over so he’s facing her. He takes another pull, then another and another.
4. She is leaning against the doorframe, watching him and watching him until she finds herself more weary than irritated.
“Why do you always need to be so out of yourself?” She hears herself ask.
The boy blinks a few times, furrowing his brow in confusion. For a moment, his eyes light up with something uncannily soft and unspoken, blue and clear and hopelessly childish. In a flash, the girl is brought back to a distant summer and she sees a dark haired boy with tear-soaked cheeks looking at her with those same eyes. She suddenly feels like she has to get a hold of this scared little man, hug him and care for him and put him in her pocket to keep him warm and safe and loved and hers forever.
But it’s just a moment, a breath, a blink, and the boy’s eyes are clouded again, murky and distant and red from the smoking.
“Just close the door when you leave” and he takes a rough, hard pull on his blunt as his cheeks hollow, drawing large ponds of shadow on each side of his face. His stomach is drawn in so much his t-shirt’s fabric hangs loose from his torso.
(“holding on for dear life” she thinks, or was it “breathing in for dear life”?)
A tide of sorrow suddenly washes over her, a tide that runs right through her body and leaves her strangely exhausted.
5. The air flowing in the room is frosty and damp but the girl notices with bewilderment it has completely stopped raining. Without the steady thumping of the raindrops, the silence feels thick and pasty, only interrupted by his pulls and blows. It’s as if a bell jar has been placed over the room and no sound can seep in. It feels eerie, almost as if nothing exists outside of the room and him and her are the only human beings left on earth. Outside the window, the darkness is complete and the pale frame of the moon looks like nothing more than a pale frame.
The girl feels a shiver run through her spine and looks up at him through her eyelashes. He’s not facing her anymore and is now leaning against the window. Through the thin fabric of his T-shirt, his shoulder blades stick out, sharp bones that seem about to tear apart that stretched skin. Then the boy takes yet another pull and, all across his back, the fragile frame of his ribcage juts out, drawing hollows of shadow and lines of murky light.
Her heart skips a beat.
6. She stays still, silent, as the boy throws the burning red butt out of the window. She does not utter a word as he fishes in his pockets for some more hash and skins, then grinds it with his right hand, letting the brown powder fall into his left palm. When he has worn down half of it, he sets what is left on the window frame, pours the crumbles on a previously opened paper and starts rolling with the utmost care.
His hands shake a bit, but he manages without wasting a crumble.
When it’s tight enough, he leans forward and licks the final stripe of paper so he can finally roll it all around. He does this with such an intense thoughtfulness, such an intense something that cannot be defined as anything but love, gently closing his eyes and almost kissing the paper through his thick, parted lips, that the gesture almost feels lewd, debauched, lustful. It is wrong.
The boy eagerly slips the blunt in between his lips, lights it up, inhales.
She just stares at his puckered lips taking lingering pulls, his red-rimmed eyes covered by black-rimmed eyelids and his hands are shaking again and she just feels so terribly, terribly desolate she has to look awaty.
She needs to do something.
Silently, she approaches him and feels her hand reaching up and set on his cheek.
Everything is so silent and still it almost feels as if a sudden move or word could shatter everything apart.
She looks at her hand grazing the flimsy skin, at the intricate path of veins just beneath the surface.
She’d like to let her arm fall down, walk away but she just, she just can’t is all.
Everything is still for a few moments, fingers on fabric, eyes on the floor, the red dot of the joint like a star or a wound.
Ignored
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