Hand in hand we gather fireflies. Surrounded by a velveteen night, one that brushes against us with fingers that flow so smoothly through our hair and trails traces of tenderness with words of soft solace, we run together between the towering trees that stand as sentinels around us. And we know that we are safe here. So we sigh amongst the dots of light that float around us in their sea of serenity. We let ourselves ebb and flow with the glittering majesty, and we sink to the bottom of this ocean to rest on a bed of moss. With a thousand burning fireflies, the world never seemed so bright. Under the pale glow of the alabaster moon, surrounded by a thousand flickering candles, we are the heart of a glowing testament that there is light amongst darkness.
When the morning comes the sun rises upward over the mountain. And wearing a veil of clouds it bathes us in a light that falls dappled through the leaves. Surrounded by a thousand dormant jars, we stand and softly set the lanterns free. With a thousand whispers of thanks we drift wandering through the trees, to wherever we may go.
And as the night takes its turn, the aubergine air drifts down from the stars. As the sun takes its bow, the light drifts with it and sinks slowly below the horizon. And we leave our footsteps in our wake as we tread across the earth again, with jars in hand and love in heart. Chasing fireflies we gather the light, and surrounded with a thousand glowing hopes the night whispers through the trees, “You will sleep soundly beneath weeping willows while fireflies carve stories on your eyes and you words wing wishes up to the moon. But let things be the way they should be. Let raindrop tears fall softly on the moss; and in the morning, with hands to your heart, let the fireflies be free.”
by Eoin Smith
Blood. I hate blood.
These four words circled in her head, as she clutched at the bloody hole in her chest. She fell to her knees: winded, scared, alone. Her attacker, the man with the ski mask, walked slowly towards her. He crouched near her head, and she could hear his shallow breaths. Had his actions had no effect on him?
He sniffed the air, only for a second, but long enough to unsettle his victim. He stood, wiping the knife with a white cloth. He glanced down at her, lying on the ground like an animal basking in dirt, and threw the blade over her body, the pier creaking as it rocked with the momentum of his pitch. He stripped his hands, tossing his gloves onto the floor with the handkerchief. He pulled out a small can of lighter fuel and doused the fabric. He paused, searching for something; a matchbook. Taking it out, he carefully removed a match, struck it, and inhaled the sweet smell of smoke.
She heard a soft crack as he tore out one of the matches from the book he held in his now-bare hands. The noise seemed faint; distant. She knew it would soon be time. He struck the match, and it flickered into life. He watched, as if in a trance, as he dropped it onto the material. The warmth hit her hard, the burning cloth only inches from her face.
She felt her life slipping away, flashing by her eyes on its meandering path to the afterlife: falling off her bike when she was four; Danny, her first love; sneaking out to parties as a teenager; her first drink; shooting up behind the supermarket; rehab; marrying Craig. Sure, it hadn’t been an ideal life. But it was her life. And she wouldn’t have changed anything. Well, almost anything…
She could see the headline in the Sun already: Call Girl Slain in Beachside Brutality!
But she wasn’t a whore, dammit. Just a girl caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She’d been out with the girls – a night on the town, like they did all the time. Every month, without fail. She’d got talking to this guy, kind of cute: not her type, just a bit of light flirtation. Not as if Craig would ever find out. Her friends had left, bored, and she’d tried to find them. Stumbling along the cobbled streets, her stiletto gave way and she tumbled to the floor. She had tried to get up, but… a shooting pain in her left shoulder. She turned her head: a masked man standing behind her; a knife-hilt protruding from her shoulder.
The wind whistled all around them: the hooded man and the limp girl lying dazed beside him. The man stole his gaze from the fire to watch her shivering body. He considered the poetry of the moment, and watched, bemused, as she pooled her energy into reaching out towards him: her eyes pleading for help, her hand reaching towards his. He recoiled, scared by the humanity. He hadn’t counted on this. Hadn’t counted on his feelings to get in the way of what he was doing. But things would change. It would get easier. It had to.
She mustered up all of her strength, commanded her body to rise up against the pain, to stare her assailant in the eyes, to try and reason with him; understand him. She coughed and spluttered, her throat burning as she tried to speak. Anything at all would have done, even a simple “Fuck you”. But… nothing. She let out a silent sigh and slumped back down onto the rotting wood. Crack. A plank beneath her splintered and fell away into the churning ocean below; the water ebbing, as her life flowed away.
Thunder cracked somewhere in the distance, and he turned round to once again stare out to sea. He watched the storm clouds edging ever closer, ominously threatening to explode at any moment. He liked the danger, the tension; the noise, the atmosphere, the fear all exited him, took him to a better place.
She watched as his eyes, which had seemed vacant, flickered with excitement. Anticipation. Ironic, she thought, how he can be so full of life, as mine slips so quickly away from me. She watched as his eyes, flitted between the storm and her body. Back and forth. Back and forth.
He turned back to look at her and watched the life flooding out of her body. A flickering streetlight somewhere in the distance caught his eye. Startled, he snapped back to reality. He glanced quickly down at his watch; the square digits blinking monotonously back at him: 00:24. He’d had enough. It was over.He crouched down beside her. Reaching out, he touched her forehead: her skin, soft and slick with sweat, was warm and comforting. He knew he shouldn’t, but he just couldn’t resist. Her fringe, plastered to her forehead, was brushed aside with ease as he leaned in close.
She felt his breath, cool against her burning forehead, gentle and… somehow calming. She looked him dead in the eye, and he paused.
He stared at her, unblinking, asserting his power, his control over the situation. He was in charge. He planted a soft kiss onto her forehead.Standing up, he walked back towards his beaten up Honda Civic. The rusty paint and dirty lights harked back to normality; back to real life. He buckled himself in and stole a last look at the girl lying on the pier. Starting the engine, he drove off, heading for home.
She watched him walk away from her; watched her last hope of survival vanish into the darkness which constricted her. She felt helpless. And alone. All alone. She willed her body to struggle against his lips, to fight back at the man who had stabbed her over and over again, to force her skull into his face, to make him bleed, to make him pay. But she couldn’t. Her body had failed her. She looked around: empty nothingness. She heard him slam the door of his car, the rumbling engine disappearing off into the distance. All alone. She closed her eyes, willing the pain to leave her body, to vanish into thin air.
A creak; the pier swayed in the now-howling gale and the sounds of the ocean below calmed her, a lullaby in this tragic fairy tale.
Tears trickled from her eyes as she imagined how long it would be before someone found her. She felt weak and useless; her strength had left her long ago, her body refusing to react to her mind’s protests.
She closed her eyes once more, and, as the darkness encroached, her life slipped away into the water below.
by Robert Koch
Red beard on my face.
Black coat on my back.
I take to the street to listen
Sometimes I just need to listen.
With the spring approaching in haste, I’ll find another hour to waste.
Cleaning my room seems so mundane when mud is brought in by rain.
Today I am finding that people may change but my heart remains the same.
There’s no reason to give up, to back down, or be scared.
This the reason for my spring approaching, an hour I can’t stand to waste.
Mud and rain may never let up, but I’ve found a reason to stay.
Sometimes I just need to listen.
I take to the street to listen
Black coat on my back.
Red beard on my face.
Her gnarled fingers are curled around the pen. It’s as if there are two separate people living inside of her. A demon comes out after each word, forcing her to the sink. Her hands resemble hamburger meat more than human flesh. The peachy smoothness with which they were born has given way to a raw aubergine, a physical manifestation of her weakness.
Everyone has their own way to transcend reality. In some people it’s just more externalized, that’s all. These little quirks are God’s gifts to us, his quasi-empathetic ways of helping us deal with our miserable existences. Humans are born escapists. There’s no way to escape our need to escape. We’re all addicts and it’s impossible to quit an addiction without replacing it with a new one. If it’s not drugs, it’s Jesus. If it’s not food, it’s exercise. We’re always searching for that one intangible thing that we just know we’re missing. We will always be missing it.
My eight-year-old daughter is crying now. The scabs have broken open again. Her skin will peel off until there is nothing underneath. Why, I ask, hoping she’ll help me understand her. She says nothing but simply hands me the paper she had been writing on as she rushes to the sink for the seventeenth time in the past hour.
I hurt what is outside to kill what is inside.
I shred her perfect cursive until, like the rest of her, it becomes illegible.
