#narratingastory

from karen from 𝐈 𝐒𝐄𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐄 .

Dialogue prompts Accepting - @narratingastory

don't sleep on Frank || @narratingastory

They drink. To Foggy! they toast most of the night, in between laughs— in between tears. To Foggy. He deserves it. Frank tells Karen they ought to pour one out for him, so he can have a shot too... but that's just an unwelcome reminder that Murdock's in charge of all that, and Murdock ain't picking up his phone. The BASTARD. Frank's gonna ring his head good when he catches him. Karen asks for one from her too, so Frank's actually gonna ring his head TWICE when he catches him, and just hopes Murdock puts dukes up about it so there can be MORE.

Between the two of them, Karen's got more to say about Foggy. Frank liked him. He admired him and his courtroom stunts, his ability to pivot even if not quite on a dime and take control of a situation. He hopes Foggy knew that— that he got it from the one compliment Frank was ever able to pay him directly. Karen? She's got a whole bucket full of tales about him. Foggy wielding a baseball bat and Foggy wanting a whole office team. Foggy drinking the eel. Foggy and the fish market. Foggy and the thousand good deeds he did because it seemed to just come natural as breathing to him. Frank is yet again impressed.

"No shit, he really did that?" He laughs along with the exploits told, daytime and nighttime adventures with Foggy— who sometimes swam in shark infested waters and had a terrifyingly beautiful ex. Frank doesn't doubt it. Murdock's easy on the eyes and just plain... easy. He's some weird kind of obvious choice. You gotta be a person of taste to look past unearned good looks and see his friend in the wings, the one with the real surprises. Frank's known men like him all his life and they've always bagged the hottest of women. The impossible ones. The what is she doing with that guy ones. Better things with their tongues and fingers, was often the answer.

Frank can no longer tell if he's laughing at Karen's story-telling or his own internal thoughts, but he is. Laughing. Yawning, Resting his head for just a second on Karen's shoulder while she babbles and gesticulates in the air.

To Foggy— he was the best of them!

Despite the dogma surrounding my life, I still found myself drawn outside with her: The mountains and her woods—the moon, her bride, And the critters, spirit and flesh, that were.

The fear of witchcraft plagued the clan and folk: Everything outside the church walls—dark. “Satan roams outside, Church!” The preacher spoke, Hushed amens and head nods the pews remarked.

I thought something was wrong with my sight. Where? My eyes could not see the doom out yonder. Summer, I saw life flourishing out there, Winter, snow covered the nude, deer wandered.

I sat under a tree to hide from heat, A mighty oak that provided much shade. I touched a branch, “Thanks for relief so sweet.” My Aunt heard me, and rebuked me, afraid.

I cried. What did I do wrong? She explained: “You were just being kind, I know. But God made the tree. So thank him. Don’t entertain Satan, for he hides, puts on a façade,

and it’s a slippery slope to darkness.”

“Why can’t we see him?” I asked my Aunt Fern. “Because,” she paused, “he likes to trick people, and make them think that, for sin, they should yearn. Dark turns to light and good into evil.

And if you don’t know Jesus,” a deep sigh, “You won’t know the difference ‘fore too late.” The elk flashed before me, I almost died, Satan almost had me—was that my fate?

My Aunt Fern smiled, “But you know Jesus! Yes! You have nothing to worry about, dear, Just remember God and your praise express, For the Word says perfect love casts out fear.”

But when I praise, why do I still have fear?

(TW: body image issues, referenced self-harm)

Il y a quelque chose d’incroyablement violent

dans le regard que tu pose sur ton reflet.

J’ai du mal à comprendre pourquoi, d’ailleurs.

Ton sourire illumine les espoirs et tes yeux ont cet éclat penseur,

comme si une fascinante question flânait constamment à la lisière de tes lèvres,

comme si tu n’étais que rarement conscient du décors.

J’essaie, tu sais. 

Te renvoyer un regard aimant, un sourire sincère, 

j’y mets tout mes efforts.

Mais je ne suis capable de porter

que les accusations infondées de ton visage froid.

Je suis là chaque fois que tu pleure

que tu blesse, que tu néglige

ce corps qui pourtant ne fait que de son mieux.

Ce corps qui te permet de vivre chaque instant

dans toute son infinie beauté, dans sa tranquillité.

Et je serai là chaque fois que tu croisera ton reflet

dans les fenêtres de bâtiments obscures, 

dans le miroir de ta salle de bain,

contre la carrosserie d’une trop propre voiture,

ou même dans l’éclat de ta poignée de porte.

Que ce soit tôt ou tard,

délibéré ou accidentel,

méticuleux ou du coin de l’oeil.

Je ne suis que l’écho involontaire de tes pensées.

J’aimerais que tu te voies comme je te vois.

J’aimerais que tu me voies comme je te vois

At birdsong, the morning finally shone. Dared not move—lay on the cold ground all night. How my family found me is unknown, But I heard echoes of the hound in flight.

“I told y’all not to mess with goddamned haints,” My father scolded me and my brother, “Thank your lucky stars God heard your complaints, This would have destroyed me and your mother.”

My brother cried into our mother’s lap, She looked away while the priest of our home rambled about demons and their mishap, “—and you can only trust in Christ alone!”

Afterward, the belt had the final say, Despite protests from my aunt: “go to church, Don’t you think she learned her lesson that day? Take her Sunday, and God’s heart she will search.”

I kept a Bible in my room from that point, Tried to read it once a day—likewise pray. On Sunday, while pouring oil to anoint: “These things happen to teach us to obey,”

I still don’t remember how it happened, But at some point, we were separated. “Bubby!” I cried—the worst I imagined, Lost in the blackened void, desolated.

Only the silence answered in earnest, I couldn’t see anything except the stars, an endless sea of beacons that furnished the domain, the territory of God.

I stopped running, not that I could keep on. Fell to my knees, like my Aunt Fern taught me: “Connect to Jesus, then He will respond.” A deep breath. Focus. “Jesus…I need… Please—”

The sound of heavy hooves approached slowly. Labored breaths that were not mine: hot, angry, I felt its presence: something unholy, Unnatural—a haint that was hungry.

The air between us grew humid and stale, Grunts of frustration as ‘round it circled, Hooves thrashed the ground at every inhale, Against the blackness, the void, it wrestled.

To move was to die—stay perfectly still. Surely the beast would grow tired and leave, Perhaps it thought the same of me, to kill eventually, my soul to receive.

Underneath my hand was a jagged rock. Maybe, I thought, I can trick it somehow, Lead it away with the sound of a knock, Then run like hell back to the house from now.

Slowly, I lifted up the rock from earth— Its scream shattered the present thought forming along with my ears—dropped the rock—lost nerve— my hands searched for relief at sounds swarming.

It found me.

Towered above, ready to strike and gore, Its heavy breath expelled on my face, Eyes stung—parted rivers like tide to shore, “Jesus.” A creak escaped; my voice misplaced.

And the haint stilled—its head remained above, I only heard my shaking lungs expel. Energy shifted at the name thereof: Recognition and confusion as well.

One evening around dusk, we went to play. “Hide and seek,” my little brother ordered, Ahead he ran—I yelled, “Stay close, okay, Or else the haints will do something sordid.”

At that, he stopped in his tracks and turned ‘round: “Ain’t no such things as haints, my friend said so, And he’s smarter than you, me, and the hound.” “The same friend that lost his thumb to a crow?”

But that’s a story for another time.

My brother disappeared into the trees… …eight… nine… ten… ready or not, here I come! The shadows stretched across as night releases from waning daylight—heartbeat as a drum.

I ran for what felt like many hours, Peeking behind every tree and rock, My brother was sly, he was no coward— But it was dark, and we had a long walk.

“Bubby!” I cried, “It’s time for supper now, It ain’t a trick—we will get in trouble, and mom will spank us if we don’t come down, So, let’s get going home on the double!”

The echo of his voice broke the silence: “Dad said don’t trust the voices in the woods.” My throat burned hot against his defiance, “No haint wants you! You’re annoying to lure!”

I followed after his obnoxious laugh, As the shadows stretched more—night settled in, I have had enough. Mom and Dad would have the belt ready to ask him where he’d been.

I shouted, “You can sleep with the coyotes tonight!” His laugh was cut short by an animal’s cry piercing the usual sounds in flight, “What was that?” Fear was fought with rationale.

Coyotes, wolves, bobcats, all predators. That cry sounded nothing like those critters. We were toys for nature’s inheritors, These were a different breed of killers.

It was enough to bring my brother out, He clung to my arm at another cry, It sounded closer. Time to find home’s route. “I told you,” I said. He didn’t reply.

A half-run while the light still stood with us, The creature shrieked and then sounds like chuckles— Run. Don’t look back. Christ above. Do not trust. Full speed now, against pain in the muscles.

Light was replaced with the blackened night sky, Glittered with millions of little white lights, None of which could reveal the path to eye, Nor the surrounding haints, boogers, or frights.

That’s the thing about darkness in nature: When the daylight goes away, it is gone. Streetlights, porch lights, barn lights—remnants labor against the night. In the woods, until dawn—