We Let It Be.

Come quickly!
Can you see?
There's a spirit in the mango tree.
That one, there,
laughing at death in ecstasy.
Wind chimes singing free,
singing a pretty melody to me.
Do not eat the fruit of the poison tree
Pray that it'll leave you be
and to you, I plea,
Whatever you do,
do not take that skeleton key!

FAILED: The Spirits Never Forgave Him

She was the only reason he'd return to the reservation. The spirits never forgave him for leaving the past behind, the past that chocked his people to death by oppression. Their land was poor for crops, livelihood, and growth of culture. Resilience hardened into stubbornness, and they'll all die out.

FAILED: Amelia

When Amelia stepped off the airplane, she looked at her passport where her new name was printed. Amelia. It rolled around on her tongue the way cooking oil would. There had been a fight about legally changing her name, but now she could finally, finally, fit in with everyone else.

Muse Musing 4

She wore black; although I suppose that's cliche, and my consciousness deserves reprimanding after all the years of training in literature about how cliches are horrible little creatures that sucked originality and uniqueness out of a piece until the writer sounds like nothing but a generic robot that couldn't come up with something more clever. Run-on sentences are included in this.

I had been dating a boy from Malaysia. The history of the birth of our relationship is unimportant in this; however, it is important to note that passion and loneliness (which we had in abundance) is not the ideal concoction for true love (which we lacked, and probably still do). It was unexpected, had the worst timing, but we had such faith in it, as if one day, we'd realize that years have passed, we were still in love, and the logical next step would be to put a ring on it. It was the first--and only--time I really opened up to someone. All of my dark secrets, all of my flaws, all of my thoughts and feelings and verbal vomit and attention were given to him. He, dear soul, accepted it all, and most importantly, told me so. In a short few weeks, I had become dependent on him. But the funniest thing about dependence is that there's a part of you that hates it. Absolutely abhors it. As if it were some disgusting parasitic creature feeding off of your life force, but for some strange reason, found it oddly charming and couldn't get rid of it, one way or another.

I was sleeping over at his place. I did that a lot. When we started having sleepovers, my entire body could still remember the pain and torture of the previous relationship. After we got past the physical barrier, I started having nightmares. I woke up in sweat, sometimes in tears, sometimes with a sharp inhale, and he would wake up to comfort me.

It's important to note that the Woman in White had already been conceived and at inopportune times, reminds me of her presence (and, perhaps, my insanity.)

On the edge of sleep, I saw a silhouette of a woman in the distance, just at the brink of darkness, when all of a sudden, her face was centimetres from mine, and I could see the smoothness of her black skin, smell the acidity of the gold lipstick she wore, and the shock of gold eyes that looked almost black. She had a wide, evil sneer, blood dripping down her sharp teeth, and I awoke, unable to breathe, unable to blink, unable to answer him.

I don't blame him from running. I would run too. I just wish he had the courage to tell me that that was the reason.

The Woman in Black is not a sympathetic character, nor is she important. She's sociopathic and violent. She's frightful and mean. If anything, she adds to the weight of the problem. But she's here and here to stay.

I'd like to note that yes, she is black, but not racially black. She is legitimately black--like a black crayon coloured her in with a heavy hand. Racially black has different tints; she does not. She is the colour of the absence of light.

IN-PROGRESS: Turns (1).

He turned on the end of the road, down a small alley easily missed. He remembered this alley by forced habit, not by memory. Returning had been an unfortunate obligation, and returning meant habits resurfacing; habits that he had torn from himself the moment he left town. At least, that’s what he’d thought. Suppose habits weren’t so easily torn from us after all.

The alley itself hadn’t changed: it was narrow, filthy with wayward-blown debris created only by inconsiderate humans, and it stunk of human waste. It was located right behind a public restroom, the type that had a long trench down the middle of the room with false walls up to protect one’s modesty, even though doors were taken off as precaution to prevent drug dealers from smuggling and dealing drugs within the restrooms. Every few minutes, a roar, and down came a torrent of running water to wash the waste down the hole on the other side of the building down into the sewers. No one ever went into that last stall. Too much splash.

Grabbing a silk handkerchief given to him by his fiancé’s mother, he stuck it to his face and hurried out of the alleyway.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting at the end of it; maybe a field of flowers as a pleasant surprise, or maybe even a familiar building that became a place for him to woo girls when he was back in high school. Instead, he was met with more dark concrete, still wet from the previous night’s rain, and a woman in red who nearly collided with him as he stepped into the open.

“Hey!” the woman exclaimed in their native tongue. “Don’t surprise someone like that!”

If he wasn’t so surprised at the politeness of her diction, he was more surprised that it was Ying.

She had been a mousy thing back in school. She was teased relentlessly for it. He was rather taken back to find that she never left the place that bullied her for years.

“Sorry.”

“Just be careful next time.”

She didn’t give him a second glance as she continued her way to her destination.

Had this been a normal visit home, he would have just let it go.

“If it isn’t Little Mouse,” he said. She turned around slowly. “In a hurry?”

She said, “Boring Ben. Still stuck in old times. Back off, slug.”

He watched as she walked away.

He couldn’t describe the resentment, or the anger he felt as he continued his way home, dressed in his Hugo Boss suit and stylish haircut. Past the stinking bathroom where he could hear backpackers giving out an audible and understandable cry of disgust, and the meat market where the dog carcasses hung, and out of the bustling dirty road onto a smaller road where it led him through thickets of insects and bushes of spiderwebs. He emerged from the small road covered in nature and walked into the stone house where his father sat, staring into the distance beyond the small vegetable garden.

“I thought you said you were going for a walk, not a mountain hike.” His father’s attempt to crack jokes made the prickle in his chest tear into his heart.

“I changed my mind.”

“Your mother was good at that. Changing her mind.”

It’ll do that to you, the past. It hangs like a black cloud over you until you become accustomed to its shadow until one day it strikes with a torrent of lightning and rain. You wake up and realize you’ve never really left.

Ben—he goes by Benjamin now—grimaced and said nothing. He went into the bedroom that he had once shared with his parents, up until his sister had gone to college, and he could finally have her room. He dreaded the holidays when she came home, when he was forced to return to sharing a bed with his parents.

He glanced at the concrete slab that wasn’t even a bed.

It looked a concrete block, connected to the walls of the house. In the summertime, it was cool to lay upon, and in the winter, there was a constant fire burning in the hollowness of the box, keeping it warm. Practical, efficient, but not at all luxurious.

He sat on the concrete, not remembering what it was like without Wi-Fi. He had foolishly left his cell phone at home, romanticizing the idea of his homecoming as a cleansing process, to shake the city from his bones just for a while.

His sister couldn’t make it to the funeral. Tall, sturdily built, with a fire tongue, she had been his friend and constant tormentor. He was never as clever as she, and the world seemed to spin around her. Grass seemed greener as she walked by, flowers bloomed at her feet, and animals were drawn to her. If he hadn’t known better, he would be utterly convinced that she was a modern-day Disney princess.

Except he knew better.

The phone rang.

“Hey, B-sport.”

“What do you want?”

“Rude. Mom and Dad taught you better than that.”

“What do you want?”

“Can I talk to Dad?”

He yelled out to the patio, “Kay’s on the phone!”

He left them to their conversation.

The house never really felt like his, not really. Like something was misplaced or that he was destined for greater things. Perhaps he was the one misplaced. Simply put, he didn’t belong amongst the nature, the physical labor. The moment he moved to Beijing, it had felt like home to him. The struggle was real, but the pay-off at the end was worth it. Busing tables at various restaurants for 20 hours a day, seven days a week for years until he finally landed a managerial job at one of the largest restaurants in Beijing. It seemed uncolorful, but it paid well, and now he was ready to get married and settle down. Was it a crime to want for some normalcy?

He hadn’t told them yet. A part of him didn’t want to. He didn’t want them at the wedding. How embarrassing. His father had always hated Beijing, so really, there was no point. Why bring it up if everyone involved dreaded it? If he didn’t want to?

His father called for him, “Kay wants to talk to you.”

Off the bed, and into his parents’ room. No, parent’s. He must not forget.

“Yes?”

“When are you going to tell him?”

“What?”

“About Bethany. It’ll make him happy.”

“How’d you know about that? Never mind. Stay out of it. It’s none of your business.”

“Sweet girl found me on Facebook and sent me a message. She’s a good one. Knows where her priorities lie.”

“Back off, Kay.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Just back off. Don’t touch her.”

“You know you don’t deserve her.”

“Butt out.”

He hung up.

There was going to be consequences.

There were always consequences. His favorite toy missing; an unfortunate accident that left him with a broken arm. And there was always Kay, standing in the shadows, eyes laughing, mocking. Nature bloomed around her, and humans withered. They never died, but they hurt, they suffer, and they are driven to madness. Death would be a much better consequence, but she knew that. It wasn’t in her nature to be merciful. 

[cont...]

FAILED: You Don't?

It is time. The time is here, almost here, a few more minutes, please, just a few. Let me speak. Go on. We won't hurt you. Not badly anyway, the way bears do it, mauling men the way they do. We're not animals, and if we were, we wouldn't speak to you...just sounds, guffaws, onomatopoeias, clickclickclicking at your throat.

No, don't get up, we just want to talk. You and me and us. It's not big dealio, just calm your titties, sit down, and enjoy our company. It's so rare to talk to you like this, just the two of us in this box of a room, like a mansion, big, tall, empty, lonely. Don't be afraid--a mansion is home. Cold, tall, empty, lonely. Your home.

You remember, don't you, the way blood spills with a glass of milk, dripdripdripping onto the linoleum like in sports drinks commercials. What is all that nonsense, selling things we don't buy and will never use? When the drinker drinks and runs and breathes you'd think they were going through a heart attack just waiting for life to start again. Hurling through space like nothing could ever stop them the way dinosaurs haven't stopped living--what time is it? Don't make me do all of the talking, you know I hate that all of that sit the fuck down.

Oh dear now you cry. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry shut the fuck up. Fingers thrust down your eyesockets and how do you feel? Cold, tall, empty, lonely? No? Explain. Perhaps like the wind of the winter, the flowers dying by your bedside, and they feel. Petals opening like puberty, take that away. Do you feel? We feel. They feel.

You don't?

FAILED: Unexpected.

It was a beautiful sandwich. Fresh vegetables and cold cuts, bread straight from the oven--a masterpiece. There was no better sandwich in the world for the man she loves. He worked late nights and bought her gifts. He told her that she was his, and he was hers. And one day, this place would be theirs. Possessive pronouns were special that way.

A bang of a door.

"I'm in the kitchen!"

A barrel of a gun.

"Who are you?"

A click of the safety.

"What do you want?"

A cold stare. A revealing of sharp teeth.

Bangbangbang!

FAILED: Cursed.

She yanked the suitcases out from under their--his--bed and began to throw in; the dresses, bras, underwear; pants, shirts, stockings; the jewelry box of rings and gold necklaces and special trinkets; the bottles of perfume and nail laquer and bags of make-up; hairdryer, straightener, Nair hair remover; shampoo and conditioner bottles; the stacks of photo frames sans photos; the archaeology books; the laptops, stereo, CDs. There wasn't enough room, so she pulled out several garbage bags for: the pots, pans, utensils, plates, bowls; the "genuine" African and Maori warrior masks; the fine sets of china and Japanese dolls; the Basano vase; the bag of money from the safe; the monkey's paw, the voodoo dolls, the Hope Diamond, the wedding dress.

He won't be home for another couple of hours. She threw the suitcases and bags into the van. A second thought, she went back inside and unlocked the Robert Doll from his glass case. She winked at him, placed a box of matches and another of gunpowder next to him, and then shut the front door behind her. She could hear movement from behind the door, and then the smoke alarm went off. She drove off.

He won't be home for another couple of hours. That gave her plenty of time.