I Write Stuff Sometimes

The sun has disappeared. 

All day yesterday while Sam followed his sister. He watched the sky waiting for the day to return, but it didn’t. He gripped her dark brown hand tighter as the two did errands for the people in the village. Lights and torches remained lit, despite the fact it was morning and it should be bright out. 

Yet everyone was acting normal, like nothing had changed. 

Sam thought maybe it was just the weather. Sometimes during the rainy season, it gets dark and it seems like night even when it isn’t. There was no rain, but maybe it was just the weather.

But when Shel comes to wake him up the sun is still gone. The sky is dark, like night, but it’s morning time. It has to be because everything else is still the same. 

Sam  hugs Shel’s leg as he gets up, burying his face into her leg. He breathes in and out, letting her familiar presence calm him. The smell of her soap brings some comfort to him. 

“Sam what’s wrong, did you have a nightmare?” 

“Will the sun ever come back?” His small voice quivers, as he talks, tears brimming at his eyes. 

Shel kneels down, hugging Sam against her.

“Of course it will…you don’t remember from before?”

Sam shakes his head, sniffling a little. 

“This never happened before.”

Shel scoops him up and sits on the bed. She holds him until he stops shaking.

“It has, I forgot you were younger so you probably don’t remember.” Shel says quietly, rubbing his back in comfort. “You know the rainy season right?”

Sam nods.

“It’s like that, every year the sun goes away for a while. It gets colder, and snows a little, which is why we were chopping wood so much up until now.”

Sam remembers that, collecting the dry sticks around, while Shel chopped wood down near their cabin. He nods again.

“I remember that.”

“It’s called Evernight, and it’ll be over before you know it.”

“So the sun will come back?”

“Yes, it’s not really gone, just…taking a very long sleep for now.”

Sam nods again, snuggling closer as he calms down.

“How about we stay home today, you can practice some of your magic. How about light spells?” 

Sam lifts his head up, his face brightening instantly as he jumps off Shel’s lap. 

“Yes, yes come on let’s go!” 

Dear Reader,

I did not expect to enjoy burning my town down as much as I did. The heat on my face as the gasoline took, and the fire spread and from object to object was exhilirating. As I watch the orange flames devour the buildings, the smoke disappearing into the night sky my body shakes

She appears. Painted

Bright, forever scarred

Don my smile like armor

Sharpen my tongue so as to not stumble over what I am meant to say. 

My mind runs through each possible topic, selecting the most strategic choice. 

To say the wrong thing is to lose the battle.

I cannot afford to lose. 

I attack any slight pause in the conversation,

Sometimes other voices are caught in the crossfire. 

Casualties in my attempt to converse. 

Sorry friend, this is the way of war.

Finally it is over.

Silence falls.

I strip my armor

my mind slows down. 

Shoulders relax

It is over. 

I am tired

Yet I will have to do it all again

And again

And again

And again.

You’re my definition of beauty.

I would burn the world for you. You have done so much for it, it should be grateful that you even had the thought to burn it. 

I’d die for you…

No… 

I would live for you, my very existence meant solely to do whatever you wanted. Continue to suffer through this hell we call life so I can bask in the heaven of your very presence. 

I would thank you for hurting me, and am so blessed that you do not want to. 

You hold me as though I am fragile, and delicate when I would readily withstand hell for you to smile at me. 

You make my life worth it.

And I can never tell you.

If you knew these thoughts I had, how little I mean to myself, it would break your heart.

You would cry

You’re too beautiful to cry

A field of flowers lay before him; different colors painted on a canvas of sea green. The plants dance to a tune only they can hear, the wind leading them. Some of the flower petals broke free and took flight in the breeze blowing past into the distance, joining the trees behind him. 

The scene would have brought a sense of awe and serenity to even the most stoic of individuals. 

Emotions though, were not programmed into him, so it brought nothing to his core. He gazed upon the scene with the same expression he did everything else.

The river laps at Mariella's feet, and it feels like torture.

Right now she was not supposed to go swimming. All the adults were busy working right now and so she shouldn't go in the water alone. For safety.

However,

It was hard.

She was trying to be good really she was, but the water felt so good against her warm, sweat soaked skin. It reflected her brown toes, making them look distorted and magical.

She lifts her toes out the water making sure they were still normal.

Yep, all still the same, tiny toes.

She puts them back in the water, and scoots a closer to the bank. Just a little.

Mariella feels a little tickle under the bottom of her foot. She leans down looking in the water.

Fish! Tiny little fish!

They were curious little things, bumping into and seemingly nibbling at her feet. Mariella giggles.

"Sillies, my feet aren't food."

The fish stop nibbling and instead just take laps around her feet and she watches them, their shimmering scales breaking the surface. She stays very still not wanting to spook them, and imagines what it would be like being able to swim and live underwater.

She scoots a little closer, the fish all scatter and she panics, but they come back after a little and she smiles again.

Mariella reaches a hand into the water, and one curious little fish comes and bumps into it. She giggles again thrilled at it.

"Kisses for me little fish?"

The fish doesn't answer back but another joins it and soon the fish are all circling around her hand, a dance just for her.

"Join us Mariella, join us for a swim! The water's quite nice." The fish seemed to be saying, and wouldn't it be rude to deny their invitation?

Mariella stands, and sheds her clothes tossing them onto the bank. The voices of adults telling her to wait for someone to watch her were gone from her mind. She was answering to another voice now, the one in her heart telling her that she needed to be in the water now.

A loud splash echos through the forest as she dives into the water.

The water is cool and refreshing, and that aching, longing feeling in her chest goes away. And she swims back up, laughing as she bursts through the water. She lays on her back, floating letting the river hold her and gently guide her down the banks.

Mariella turns on her stomach after a bit and swims back to her original spot, her puffs drooping with water now. She's way to small to think about standing in this water but she floats in place, and find the fish come back to her, swimming an darting around her. She cups some water, catching one of tiny fish in her palm. It swims in the water, and she watches, eyes following each movement as the water seeps through her fingers. Tilting her hand she lets the fish go back watching as it joins it friends. They swim away at a calm pace, and she waves to them.

"Bye!"

She floats for a second watching as they disappear, and then she swims.

Mariella swims until the sun meets the horizion, dipping down and painting the area in beautiful oranges and pinks.

She doesn't stop until her muscles ache from the effort of just holding herself in the water. Reluctant, she drags herself from the water, collapsing on the bank. The reeds and grass tickle her cheeks as she slowly drifts off her eyes closing.

When her care-taker for the day finds her she is half-clothed, soaked with river water, and has a content smile on her sleeping face.

How can we be a family of five when two are missing? 

How can we be whole when a fraction of us are gone? 

I run the numbers

I'm left with one conclusion

We are an inequality

You know I've never really looked too closely at the stars. 

There is a long pause (3 minutes and 30 seconds) in the recording. 

We live so close to the city all the light pollution makes it hard to ever really see them ya' know? But now that the electric grid is down...

Isn't it that's crazy how humans...humans really, we do a lot of things for our convenience, for our safety...which I get. Like survival and all that. Nighttime is where crazy shit happens and if we can see during the nighttime then you can see and avoid the crazy shit. And just in general like you can see so you feel safer. At least I think that was the point.

I get it 

I don't want the crazy shit to happen to me either. Like idk some psycho murder running up on me and  killing me while I'm walking home. Or some creep tryna' grab me.

Not that...I mean...lights don't really stop them if they wanna do that, but it's supposed to deter them. At least, I think. Put a spotlight on them and say, "Hey if you hurt this person in the light, someone might see and then you'll end up in prison." 

Convenience. Protection. Keep the monsters away. 

But we, humans I mean, we think so much about our own convenience that we forget a lot of the things that convenience might prevent.

Like seeing the stars. 

I had a friend...he...he loved to talk about astronomy. He had books upon books about it.  Whenever the smallest news article came out he knew about it. A new picture of a planet or a black hole or whatever NASA was spending their money on it didn't matter he would know, somehow, and talk about it.  

And he would always be talking about constellations and shit, saying how he wished he lived in a more rural area so he could see more stars. How he wanted to visit a desert, because he heard how beautiful the stars were in the cold desert sky.

I wish Da'Vonte was here to see this. He shoulda been here to see this...

Another long stretch of silence, only broken by the speaker taking deep breaths. Small sniffles are barely captured in the recording. 

You wanna know what's crazy? What's crazy is that even with all the conveniences we have in modern society, cars, planes, phones, guns, stores, the internet, tanks, militaries we couldn't stop the situation humanity is in now.

Even with all the lights the craziest shit still happened. 

Fucking zombies are out here stalking around and waiting to take a bite out of me and everyone I love and make us just like them!  A walking, groaning, sometimes talking pile of flesh, driven only by the need to eat, consume, and infect. 

What fucking good are street lights gonna do for that huh? All those birds and bats whose lives got fucked up by those bright lights shining down, what was their deaths for? Nothing. That's what. 

The lights didn't stop all this craziness. 

The lights didn't keep the fucking monsters away.

Only the stars. 

A few seconds of silence pass on the recording. Before a second voice sounds out in the distance. We are unable to hear what is said, but the speaker sighs. 

Yeah, I'm coming, I'm coming...