Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2017 17:33:59 GMT -5
I churned this out in a frenzy of passion and I thought I'd put it here. It's an idea for an excerpt to a storyline I've been thinking about.
~~~
Merienda watched as the knife left a bloody slash across her mother’s chest and the world hums, sounds waving in and out against her ears but never going in, and she thought she should put her hands over her ears. Where is that screaming, like an animal from a cage, boxed up and shipped out on one of the large ships from the dock? Where was that screaming, like someone being tortured over and over until they pleaded to give up their closely held information they kept to their chest like the most valuable of necklaces and bracelets and rings and anklets and crowns and earrings and bands and and and
The screaming was much too close, and then it was on top of her, and then in her, and she closed her mouth in wonder and it stopped. Her hands hovered by her ears, and she stared with much-too-wide eyes at her mother, crumpling, and her assailant, running, and her head turned but it didn’t really because her gaze was still on the crumpled accordion sprawled on the ground and not the shadow or her mother because that was not her mother. She opened her mouth again, and another scream began, but the one word in her head came out to squash it down like club beating earth like hands smashing head.
“Accordion!” She shrieked, and there came the animal in a cage again, and she was very too confused because she saw no accordions. And hadn’t the animal been locked up and shipped out? How was it back, the ship must have sank and it swam swam swam
The next words were “Mother!” because her subconscious was for once functioning at a much higher level than her conscious. Or maybe she was leaning on her subconscious, now, and her conscious had been muffled by pillow and sheet. Either or, over under, and the figure was trembling slightly now. She repeated that lovely combination of sounds again, and again, and again again again again. It became a chant, some prayer to a primordial god, that it would make the accordion’s dark eyes open and look at her for one last second of goodbye. And then she regretted her wish, for what if it was granted, and then that last second would be futile because it would leave her wanting one more and one more and one more, never sated. She chanted the name, anyway, a steady cadence of shrieks like a symphony of beasts on ships, and nothing happened. Her hands still wavered at her ears, and she contemplated for maybe the briefest moment in time possible to human about covering them truly but no she needed to hear her chant, to soak in every single detail like the particles of the air in case her mother did wake up, and she only got something to savor forever and forever. These thoughts came crashing together, propelling each other higher and higher up until they collapsed down, lapping at shore like the languid water’s shore. Mother! Mother! Mother! fell in step with the water, lapping at her mind, each reach of the blue landing on a moth- and each receding making up the -er. The blue, sky and water, melted together to make a soup that sizzled in mother mother mother and suddenly all she felt was a muted blue, back to buzzing and hums, and she didn’t know if it had been a moment or a hundred consecutive.
To her right, the exact opposite stood stock-still, eyes stretched wide and only movement the blink-blink-blink of shutters opening and closing to his mind. He was numb on the outside, his mind shrieked and exploded too, although the gross cacophony of all his thoughts and feelings equaled much less of his counterpart’s. His own mother was good, yes, safe? Or was that his mother down there, wrong skin and wrong shape and wrong. Wrong. Bunched up, shoved together, too crumpled and squished like a paper shoved into a ball by a bored schoolboy. He whined, once, before falling silent again and letting himself be covered all over in ice that prevented him from moving or breathing breath breathing breath oh my air my air my air mother my mother. His words exploded, crashing into each other like charging horses, ricocheting off in a shower of sparks. Each spark flickered into the flame of another horse, and they were increasing rapidly with exponent upon permutation and now he remembered math, how multiplying got you much farther much faster. He whined again, like an overloaded machine groaning under the weight of too much work, and now his metal joints finally crumpled like a machine itself and he fell like the paper ball tossed down there on the ground to the floor, even his landing muted, a thud that brought all the sparks underwater and expelled the cold liquid out his ears until his mind was much too clear, like a pure stream that bit at your throat on the way down.
The sound seemed to have the same cold-water effect on the girl, whose eyes snapped open and hands fell like rocks, all nerve vanishing as the brain forgot what it had ordered only moments previously. It had been moments, five at most, but more like three. Had all those oceans been created and all those horses died in such a short amount of time? How the mind worked.
She whirled instantly to her side, falling to her knees to push at Kret’s stomach.
“Are you dead too?” She asked, implored, for he needed to be alive. He blinked, like he didn’t feel alive but all factors were adding up, and rose with her.
“Quite,” he answered, defaulting to manners, and then both realized that there was the accordion-paper-mother and their minds shattered again, instinct taking over as they rushed to her side.
~~~
Merienda watched as the knife left a bloody slash across her mother’s chest and the world hums, sounds waving in and out against her ears but never going in, and she thought she should put her hands over her ears. Where is that screaming, like an animal from a cage, boxed up and shipped out on one of the large ships from the dock? Where was that screaming, like someone being tortured over and over until they pleaded to give up their closely held information they kept to their chest like the most valuable of necklaces and bracelets and rings and anklets and crowns and earrings and bands and and and
The screaming was much too close, and then it was on top of her, and then in her, and she closed her mouth in wonder and it stopped. Her hands hovered by her ears, and she stared with much-too-wide eyes at her mother, crumpling, and her assailant, running, and her head turned but it didn’t really because her gaze was still on the crumpled accordion sprawled on the ground and not the shadow or her mother because that was not her mother. She opened her mouth again, and another scream began, but the one word in her head came out to squash it down like club beating earth like hands smashing head.
“Accordion!” She shrieked, and there came the animal in a cage again, and she was very too confused because she saw no accordions. And hadn’t the animal been locked up and shipped out? How was it back, the ship must have sank and it swam swam swam
The next words were “Mother!” because her subconscious was for once functioning at a much higher level than her conscious. Or maybe she was leaning on her subconscious, now, and her conscious had been muffled by pillow and sheet. Either or, over under, and the figure was trembling slightly now. She repeated that lovely combination of sounds again, and again, and again again again again. It became a chant, some prayer to a primordial god, that it would make the accordion’s dark eyes open and look at her for one last second of goodbye. And then she regretted her wish, for what if it was granted, and then that last second would be futile because it would leave her wanting one more and one more and one more, never sated. She chanted the name, anyway, a steady cadence of shrieks like a symphony of beasts on ships, and nothing happened. Her hands still wavered at her ears, and she contemplated for maybe the briefest moment in time possible to human about covering them truly but no she needed to hear her chant, to soak in every single detail like the particles of the air in case her mother did wake up, and she only got something to savor forever and forever. These thoughts came crashing together, propelling each other higher and higher up until they collapsed down, lapping at shore like the languid water’s shore. Mother! Mother! Mother! fell in step with the water, lapping at her mind, each reach of the blue landing on a moth- and each receding making up the -er. The blue, sky and water, melted together to make a soup that sizzled in mother mother mother and suddenly all she felt was a muted blue, back to buzzing and hums, and she didn’t know if it had been a moment or a hundred consecutive.
To her right, the exact opposite stood stock-still, eyes stretched wide and only movement the blink-blink-blink of shutters opening and closing to his mind. He was numb on the outside, his mind shrieked and exploded too, although the gross cacophony of all his thoughts and feelings equaled much less of his counterpart’s. His own mother was good, yes, safe? Or was that his mother down there, wrong skin and wrong shape and wrong. Wrong. Bunched up, shoved together, too crumpled and squished like a paper shoved into a ball by a bored schoolboy. He whined, once, before falling silent again and letting himself be covered all over in ice that prevented him from moving or breathing breath breathing breath oh my air my air my air mother my mother. His words exploded, crashing into each other like charging horses, ricocheting off in a shower of sparks. Each spark flickered into the flame of another horse, and they were increasing rapidly with exponent upon permutation and now he remembered math, how multiplying got you much farther much faster. He whined again, like an overloaded machine groaning under the weight of too much work, and now his metal joints finally crumpled like a machine itself and he fell like the paper ball tossed down there on the ground to the floor, even his landing muted, a thud that brought all the sparks underwater and expelled the cold liquid out his ears until his mind was much too clear, like a pure stream that bit at your throat on the way down.
The sound seemed to have the same cold-water effect on the girl, whose eyes snapped open and hands fell like rocks, all nerve vanishing as the brain forgot what it had ordered only moments previously. It had been moments, five at most, but more like three. Had all those oceans been created and all those horses died in such a short amount of time? How the mind worked.
She whirled instantly to her side, falling to her knees to push at Kret’s stomach.
“Are you dead too?” She asked, implored, for he needed to be alive. He blinked, like he didn’t feel alive but all factors were adding up, and rose with her.
“Quite,” he answered, defaulting to manners, and then both realized that there was the accordion-paper-mother and their minds shattered again, instinct taking over as they rushed to her side.
