Crier

“Maybe you can answer this for me,” Riley said.

Brigid waited for the question, but Riley had fallen silent.

“What’s that?” she asked. The question was quick and her tone was upbeat. They’d discussed so many emotional topics over the weekend, she was anxious to keep the conversation light.

“Why can’t I cry when I’m supposed to? I didn’t cry at my daughter’s funeral, but I’ll cry at a random movie. I’ve been to five different counselors and not one of them could answer this question.”

“Grief is a funny thing. It twists you in ways you didn’t think were possible.” Brigid paused to consider her own grief and the years of learning to cry.

“I was in a terrible car accident when I was sixteen. The doctors don’t really know how I was able to walk away with only a few cuts, but anyway that has nothing to do with my point.”

“I think I remember the accident. But what does that—“

“Hold on, I’m just trying to illustrate my point. They took me to the hospital. The doctors and nurses in the emergency room were really freaked out, but I remained calm during this whole time. I didn't cry, I answered all their questions as if I'd suffered no maore than a paper cut. It wasn’t until my mom walked into the ER that I finally broke down. I bawled and bawled when she was finally there.”

“Okay?” Riley asked as if skeptical that Brigid would get to the point.

“I always hold it together until someone is there to take the burden from me. I’m guessing that you are very similar, only you don’t have to support system that will allow you to cry in times of great grief and pain. Your parents are gone, your grandma isn’t doing well, and your wife ended many of your friendships without offering you the comfort that friends would have provided. You had to be strong for you and your family. There was no one to help you shoulder that tremendous burden, so there wasn’t chance for you grieve and cry.”

Brigid paused and considered her next words carefully. "I believe the most amazing part about being in a relationship is finding someone that will help carry the weight and to support each other even when the burden is overwhelming."

Basking

The gunmetal grey sky rained down on the gloomy Saturday. Riley roamed around the bookstore researching his ambitions. Brigid found a quiet corner and sketched him from an armchair. Black ink exploring and illustrating the wave of emotions and new connection to the landscape of her negation.

While she sketched, Brigid considered how she wanted this rainy day to stretch into a lifetime. Brigid simply wanted to bask in the affection of this beautiful and complicated man, like she was at the beach for the first time and bathed in the sun and sea.

Photo: Ronaaa

Jon gazed into the fire. The light illuminated the beautiful bone structure of his face: high cheek bones, well-defined brow, and patrician nose. I could imagine his ancestors as the Lords of England being waited on by my peasant, Irish ancestors.

He stood, took my glass, and placed it with his on the bar. “You must be tired,” he said. “You should find ample toiletries in your bathroom. I’ll give some pajamas.”

Jon led me up the oak stairs into an expansive hallway. We passed an open door leading into a book lined study, another open door revealed a small room littered with exercise paraphernalia. At the end of the hall, Jon opened a door to reveal a palatial bedroom. At first I though it was the master bedroom, but by his body language I could tell it was my room. A large oak four poster sat prominently in the middle of the room. It was adorned with a white down comforter and enough matching pillows to cushion a fall from the highest peaks of the Rockies.

Photo: reiko-stocks

Perfect Seduction

“Vodka tonic…Got any music?”

Jon nodded. He walked over to a roll top desk in the living room, lifted the roll to reveal a bar and small stereo. He hit play and mixed two drinks. I was nervous in the quiet. Louis Armstrong calmed me but couldn’t dispel all my unease. I hadn’t encountered such a perfect seduction scene in many years.

Jon turned back to me, two drinks in his hand. He looked at my hands which were playing with his tie.

I took the highball glass from Jon, thanked him, down it in two swallows, and asked for more. He stared in disbelief, and then mixed another drink.

“I’ll go easy on this one,” I promised, settling into one of the overstuffed couches. I savored the warmth of the vodka spreading through my body. Louie finally lulled me into a relaxed state.

Photo: elgabo

Intersections

Deirdre drove through morning rush hour traffic. At stoplights she'd rub her chapped lips and remember Riley's passionate kisses. Her makeup was still smeared from the sweat of both of their bodies meeting in tender and erotic intersections--a twisting of limbs and gasps of pleasure.

As side streets gave way to highway and to interstate, she conjured visions of a bright future with Riley--a man with whom she had dark and sordid past. Although fictional, it was a love story she wanted to believe in, one she wanted to invest in, one she trusted.

Photo: sporto

Sandman

Lola watched Walken pad up the stairs and heard him enter the bedroom overhead. Lola could just picture him sitting there looking from the bed to the door and back to the bed. His large black face panting in anticipation as he was waiting for her to give him the signal it was okay to hop into bed.

In the downstairs bathroom, she downed two Tylenol PM with a glass of Alka-Seltzer, and brushed her teeth. Years of insomnia led to a slight dependency on sleep aids. The average person can fall asleep in 15 minutes or less; on a good night Lola could find slumber after two fitful hours.

Walken watching, Lola crawled into bed, settled in, and whispered his name. On cue, he bounded into bed and curled up next to her back. Lola had designed the space herself. The queen-size bed was elevated above the rest of the furniture. Decked out in deep purple and sky blue velvet the bed faced a large bank of windows. She’d intended the space to be the ultimate in comfort to entice the sandman.

There was something to be said for sleeping with a dog. He warmed the bed, rarely stole the covers, and there was little chance he would leave any bodily fluids aside from drool on the sheets. Sleep, however, was not possible.

Photo: Adam-Pieratt

Palisades

Walken and Lola watched the sunset behind the Palisades. Lola loved those cliffs, soaring above the high mountain valley. The rugged rock face was vertical against the crimson sky.

Walken watched Lola as she gaze at the dazzling skyline. Lola found it odd how much her dog studied her. The Great Dane was her constant companion. He reflected many qualities of his namesake, Christopher Walken; the dog was dark, brooding, and sometimes self involved. Furthermore, Walken was the only man she’d ever loved.

“Woof,” Lola said trying to distract him from his intrigues. He cocked his head in a quizzical manner. Lola woofed again. Walken finally realized the game and joined in barking.

Photo: ooberooberstrange

Freckles

“Why were you attracted to Jonas?”

“Initially?”

“Sure.”

“He had freckles on his eyelids. I’d never met anyone with that many freckles. And his would turn bright red whenever he was embarrassed or when he laughed. And he had the most ridiculous laugh. Big, boisterous and high pitched. Being around a laugh like that, you could help but join in.”

Photo: valelectronik

Grandpa

You'd think he was a saint, the way my grandmother talks about him, but from what I remember, he only ordered her around or ignored her.

My grandfather was only a nice man when it was to his benefit. He'd feed me hot dogs and sweets so I wouldn't tell my mom he took me to the horse track. Everyone once in a while he'd place a bet for me. We'd wander down to where they kept the horses. I'd look at them and pick one - the one that looked the best with his little blanket on. I won a few times and we'd buy cotton candy with the earnings. But most of the time I'd sit with a pad of paper and make-up stories about my dolls.

He was the one that taught me to be quiet. He taught me not to exist. He taught my grandmother not to exist, too. She was a radiant beauty in love with life and in love with a bad man. He didn't make her a proper wife; he was never able to buy a house because of his gambling. They lived from paycheck to paycheck and were never able to make it a Merry Christmas for their children. When the grandchildren came - I was the first - Grandma started sneaking money out of his wallet in the middle of the night and tucking it in a coffee can hidden behind the washing machine where he'd never look.

Photo: wwit

Family Ties

"What's the deal with your family?" Duke asked.

Aislin peered down at her hands, picked at something under one of her nails, and tucked her hands back into her coat pockets. "You mean the fact that they're crazy?"

"Whenever you run into any of them it seems like you can't wait to leave."

"It took me awhile to realize just how dysfunctional my family was."

"Every family has it's own quirks, but they're still a family."

"I thought it was normal for every kid to spend Saturdays at the dog track with grandpa; all moms had panic attacks at the mall; secret grow rooms in the basement; moonshine in the garage. My first childhood memory was of my uncles getting high while babysitting me. I was three. Three, for god's sake!

"When I asked where my dad was, I was told that he was a bad drunk and ran away. My mom acted like this was the most evil thing a person could do. Yet, I've watched every one in my extended family turn to the bottle and run away from responsibility. I learned it was okay unless you were my father, in which case you were an evil, evil man worthy of the wrath of god.

"There was never any cough syrup in the house, instead I was handed a shot of Jamison and told it would put hair on my chest. A bad tooth called for a shot of vodka. For a headache, the prescription was a bong hit and a nap."

Photo: Heile

Sink, toilet, trashcan

Aislin crawled into bed and cuddled around Gershwin the stuffed toad. Soft cotton enveloped her; however, the sheets smelled like last weeks visitor or was that her imagination. Rain dripped from pine needles at her window. It was a night for salt. She could feel sobs undulating toward her shores.

It hadn't been a particularly bad day; truthfully, it'd been a good day. The boss was happy and her writing professor was bubbling with the highest praise for latest piece. She was leaving in the morning for a city adventure. Yet all she wanted to do was cry.

Maybe it was the writing. In the past week she'd had to write about the worst moments of her life - confronting malevolent ghosts along with her protagonist. Sending intimate writing out into the world was overwhelming but she'd done it before. Was there anything different this time?

Aislin wanted something to blame this saddness on - some part of her week: the bizzare phone call from lover-past, illness sucking her breath, mother calling her back to forgotten farmlands, recollections of a broken night of shattered virginity, a rejection she promised she wouldn't feel, or reminders of bleak days of insanity and loss.

Whatever the force, it was bending her double. Sobs purged her already empty stomach, sending her scrambling for sink, toilet, trashcan.

Photo: idontcare300

Fistful

Grasshoppers thumped against the side panels; heavy, humid air clung like an old lady's perfume; I could taste the impending harvest; the air smelled green like eating a fitful of grass.

Photo: bagi1992

Broken House

Aislin stayed in bed, pulled the blankets up further, and curled up tighter. She'd only been awake a few minutes but already knew that he was mad. The bangs of kitchen cabinets and sliding chairs came up the stairs. Aislin either needed to confront the problem or face spending the day under his cloud.

Aislin descended the stairs while pulling on a robe. Gideon was eating Cheerios and watching the news with the television blaring. His jaw muscles flexed and twitched with each heaping spoonful.

"You should stop pouting. You broke shit the last time."

"I fixed the door two weeks ago. What's your problem?"

"You were so mad you broke the house. Why don't you just tell me what I did before we have to move?"

Photo: EyeForPhotography

Curtains

With each word and sob her air supply shrunk and breathing in carpet fibers became more painful. His forehead slammed into her temple and he began to lick her exposed ear. The blow had rattled his composure and his grip on her jaw loosened.

Peri gulped air into her lungs and colors returned to sight. Cheap lace curtain billowed in the warm night breeze. Windows glowed sallow from the sodium vapor streetlamps. Blue light filtered in from the digital clock on the microwave in the adjoining kitchen. Red blinking light from a recently unplugged alarm clock in the hallway lit his contorted face.

The color reminded her that there was much to live for.

Fight. Now’s the time to fight.

Peri slapped Quinn’s stubbly face. His head barely moved with the blow and he grinned with the pain. She pounded her fists into his chest like a trained monkey pounding on a drum. Quinn, again, didn’t move but thrusted harder.

She finally grabbed his hips and dug her thumbnails into his inguinal lymph nodes. He rocked back on his knees away from her. Peri planted her foot in his chest and kicked him over.

Photo: OrochimaruCriesBlood

In Flight

I leaned my head against the cold window, wishing I could fly back to Colorado and crawl back into bed with Albert. Happiness was a good man to come home to even if he was a dog.

My boarding call sounded. I walked to the gate, handed the gate attendant my boarding pass and ID. She smiled and said I was the last to board. I boarded, found my seat, settled in, and began reading the novel I picked up in an airport gift shop.

After takeoff, I couldn’t read any longer. I stared out the tiny window, watching the Great Lakes recede. I was always sad while in flight. Those hours spent suspended above the earth are the worst and loneliest hours: waiting to leave one place to arrive in another. Some small slice of misery served on a platter of transportation.

The last time I’d made this flight was for my mother’s last days. She’d remained stoic all the way until the end, smiling through the pain as cancer ate away at her flesh, and grasping her favorite Bible. In her presence I mirrored her strength, alone I was reduced to childish displays of despair. My mom had been an unfailing example of a strong woman. Sometimes I took her advice too much to heart, I tried too hard to distance myself from emotion only to be overcome with it.

The flight lasted only an hour, but it must have been one of the most excruciating hours of my life. I dreaded even landing in Iowa. It was almost as if I would be swallowed whole once my foot hit the tarmac; the soil of my home state would devour its lost daughter. It almost felt like I’d betrayed the state by running away, but how does one betray a state. This wasn’t Texas now was it?

interchangeable cog

The smoker’s lounge in Chicago was filled the usual corrosive cast of characters. The one asshole on the cell phone whose self-importance was so overwhelming that he was yelling so everyone could hear his conversation and see how impressive he thought he was. The token techno nerd was typing frantically on the smallest laptop I’d ever seen.

So many unconnected lives in one room. Lives seemingly unrelated and not intertwined. Yet, we all feel the same things: pain, joy, love, despair, hatred, and fear. All human experience is the same yet profoundly different. All of us striving not to be an interchangeable cog in the mechanism of the world. I wondered where I fit in this machinery. I hoped I wasn’t the squeaky wheel.

I hated airports and most especially I hated lay-overs. This hour of idle time to observe other people is not good. The chick next to me in the J. Crew, Polo garb had at least 3 inches of underwear showing above her belt. She was stretching like a yoga instructor. If someone were truly in touch with their life force then they would know how much their underwear was showing. I constantly wondered what others thought of me in this context: a mop of blonde hair, brown and freckled face, and a body that betrayed years of abuse in the outdoor gymnasium that is the Colorado high country.

burned for a beer

Irritated, I crawled out of bed followed by Albert. I stood, wrapped a sweater over my nightgown, and headed for the kitchen. I stared into the refrigerator debating between a Coke and a Heineken for what seemed a lifetime. I decided on bottled water; although, I burned for a beer.

I wandered around the drafty house needing something to occupy my mind. Unlike the luxurious bedroom, the rest of the house was sparsely furnished. After years of moving around, I hadn’t accumulated many belongings and was tentative to buy anything new: I wanted little to chain me down.

I rambled through the house obsessively setting things right: a crooked picture on the wall, a couch that wasn’t perfectly parallel with the picture window, and the computer monitor that was tilted at an odd angle. I gazed at the pictures that lined the modest mantle. Each one told a different story of my life in order: picture of a miniature me playing with my grandfather, my toothless grin in third grade, David and me at Freshman Homecoming, high school graduation, wedding pictures, an unhappy picture of me at college, grad school graduation, and a Polaroid of me getting the keys to this house. The only things missing from this timeline of photos was David’s funeral and mom’s headstone.

As if under a wizard’s spell, I dug the dusty suitcases out from under the bed and began to fill them. I hadn’t used the suitcases since I moved to this mountain valley two years before. If I traveled, I required only an overnight bag or a camping backpack. I was unaware I was packing until I was nearly done with the task; I wondered if it was the lingering effects of the sleeping pills. The suitcases were happy to receive sweaters, jeans, and the like. Packing for winter in Iowa was no light task.

Sandman

I stepped into the downstairs bathroom, downed two Tylenol PM with a glass of Alka-Seltzer, and brushed my teeth. Years of insomnia led to a slight dependency on sleep aids. The average person can fall asleep in 15 minutes or less; on a good night I can find slumber after about two hours.

Albert watching, I crawled into bed, settled in, and whispered his name. On cue, he bounded into bed and curled up next to my back. I designed the space myself. The queen-size bed was elevated above the rest of the furniture. Decked out in deep purple and sky blue velvet the bed faced a large bank of windows. I intended the space to be the ultimate in comfort to entice the sandman.

Sleep had never been a good friend. I would put it off as long as possible only to give in willing and take as much as possible. I often felt like I’m about to drop to the floor and die yet I do not wish to sleep.

Each night before I turn out the bedside light, I try to think of all the daily happenings that I should be thankful for. This night I was very pleased with my day. I’d relaxed in the last of the autumn’s afternoons. I’d prepared the flower beds and other plants for the long winter ahead. I relished the sunburn that blushed my cheeks: a warm kiss from God.

Photo: Tortured-Raven

Goodnight my love...

The sun has moved on to char the other side of the world.
Tonight, sweet sleep will not pour into me.
The sandman has forsaken this widowed soul.
You now slumber with angels forever more.
Goodnight my love, to every hour you sleep tight.
I wander these broken streets tonight.

Under the stroking hand of hushed sunset,
You walk beside me laughing, ever watchful.
Other times, I walk in your luminous shadow.
Your memory eludes me down this meandering path.
Goodnight my love, may you doze without fright.
I roam these broken streets tonight.

The first stars awaken for the night ahead.
I can no longer make a joke of the pain.
No mental stand-up riffs about death
Will quell this terrible longing.
Goodnight my love, may your dreams be happy and your head light.
I tramp through these broken streets tonight.

In the treetops the wind whistles a lonely tune.
I drank too deeply of my grief. 20
I find myself drown with cups of despair:
A poor vintage, bitter and morose.
Goodnight my love, may sleep hold you in the candlelight.
I pace these broken streets tonight.

The city of my love sleeps in the sound of falling snow. 25
My heart wails with an unheard concave scream.
All I do is wipe away cascading tears,
And police the demons tracking me.
Goodnight my love to all that is pure in your sight.
I slog through these broken streets tonight 30

The relentless moon strips back night’s black hood.
What if all we have is what lies here,
This lonely world, this troubled place?
I’ll have no reason to sleep or ever to wake.
Goodnight my love, don’t let the bed bugs sleep too tight. 35
I crawl through these broken streets tonight.

Like blood out of a wound, silence wells.
You have returned my faith to me,
No one could have given me any greater a gift.
Grace brought you to me; fate robbed you of this world. 40
Goodnight my love, this is the end of your plight.
I lumber through these broken streets tonight.

The full moon hangs in the trees like a lost balloon.
Under these cold, dead stars I petition,
God will give you back to me one day. 45
Then you’ll whisper “’Twas only a nightmare.”
Goodnight my love, go on your heavenly flight.
I stumble over these broken streets tonight.

Wind flings tattered clouds across the lunar face.
The shroud of night conceals all flaws. 50
I search for beauty concealed in the tragic.
Yet, no light can fill my frozen soul.
Goodnight my love, may your fears by trite.
I stagger these broken streets tonight.

Overhead nighthawks dive, soar and barrel loop. 55
Sheltered under a magnolia, not yet in bloom,
I slide ever downward into reverie.
Memories stacked like logs awaiting a fire.
Goodnight my love, nap in perfect delight.
I blunder through these broken streets tonight. 60

Cold fingers of snow are warmer than a lover’s touch.
You were the siren calling me home.
When the demons came I clung to your adoration.
Can you understand the fractured person I’ve become?
Goodnight my love, float away like a child’s kite. 65
I scamper through these broken streets tonight.

The wind subsides with a whistle-hiss of a departing train.
Nothing but time stirs in the trees.
The night is still as ashes in an urn.
But life continues churning within me. 70
Goodnight my love, may fortune be at its greatest height.
I limp through these broken streets tonight.

The vaulted sky is an inverted porcelain bowl.

Brown Paper

With large envelope clutched stood Betty.
Slight woman built from an Aspen:
Sapling braches for limbs and topped by
a wiry, white, mossy perm dripping sad.
She, Shiloh, said, “For me?” taking the mail.
Shi studied handwritten scratchy scrawl.
Revulsion, rage ran a cold finger
through her pooled nerves: tattered and frayed.
“Is that you?” Betty inquired pointing at Lola.
Shi nodded, “Yes, it is. A nickname, yes.”
The Aspen wilted bidding a goodnight.
Shi dropped the package onto the floor.
Pouring a drink – vermouth, olives, vodka –
Pulling a chair into the middle of the room
Shi sat with martini in hand glaring
At the past that had grown spindly legs,
scampered into her life and began
staring up at her like an insolent child.
Lola. Even after much silence, still a joke.
A sexual joke to that son of a bitch.
He called her Lola after the wedding which
Tied her to him and him to her mother.
A nickname from a favorite old book,
Shi likened it to being older, mysterious,
Every child desires a personal mystery.
He called her Lola until mom died.
Shi was twelve and he being forty-eight,
When murderous cancer took mom away.
He took her to bed, dead mother’s bed,
Tickled her, she laughed, he raped, she fought.
He called her by her full name – Lo. Lee. Ta.
He consoled, she cried. She left, he cried.
One bark, Shi was pulled from her cruel mind.
Pete barked again, whined looking back at
The squawking albatross in brown paper.
“Nothing good can come of this,” Shi whispered.
Pete could not be calmed or soothed,
He remained at attention – a soldier
Too frightened to stand at ease.

Quelling Night Terrors

Alex leaned her head back against the wall
Shower water rained down on her breasts
Hunter leaned in kissing her collarbone
The pain of past loves lost dissipated
Thoughts of a dead husband washed away.
Although Alex wanted to weep with joy,
Hunter had yet to see her sad torment.
Alex had hidden the daily tears from him,
From the world, from even the closest friends.
Yet, nothing could hold back her happiness,
Not today, not tomorrow, not again.
She would no longer be brought to her knees
By grief, by depression or by hatred.

Hunter moaned. She massaged peach shampoo
Into his thin black hair. The smell of mom’s
cobbler wafted through the small dim bathroom.
Candlelight flickered beyond the curtain.
Hunter’s tight athletic frame quivered when she
Pressed her fingertips into the back of his head
A pressure point to free a demon headache.
“You amaze me,” he said with a whimper
planting his face in her chest suckling and
caressing each taunt nipple in time.

The past weeks were built on commonality:
Conversation, baseball and martinis.
Hunter reminded her of the dead love
Whose grief had haunted her for seven years.
Hunter opened doors like a gentleman
Without insulting her independence
He held her tight when night terrors shook her
From her fitful slumber. Horrible dreams:
Watching loved ones violently slain,
Nightmares of lust in her step-father’s eyes.
Dark alley corners where the rapists plays.

The night before he’d woken her twice
enveloping her in a bear hug as
she thrashed, kicked moaned and wailed
The first instance she’d leapt into his arms
Later she shrunk down in the bed hiding behind
Numerous pillows and a down comforter.
Blue eyes wide mouth locked in a silent scream
Alex stared in shocked horror at her beloved.
Hunter, now, embodied her deepest fear:
Love, being loved, receiving love, being
Opening her heart to the chance of pain.
Yet, Hunter was there with open arms.
making her feel beautiful despite
Years of being advised to the contrary.

Alex looked into his opalescent
Eyes. A previously impossible
Task, too intimate. “Where did you go?” Hunter
Asked dumping shampoo into his own hands.
“Nowhere,” she mumbled locked in his eyes.

I pulled up to the house, shifted my mother’s Neon into park, drew a deep reassuring breath, and stepped from the car. The house stared at me daring me to enter. The red colonial brick and white trimmed windows glared now more maliciously than I’d remembered. It was the kind of house I’d yearned for as a child, a place where white picket fence dreams transpired. Today, a sadness as cold as the Iowa January day seemed to be sprinkled over the property.

My husband, Sean, had grown up in this house. I’d always ascribed warmth with his presence; a happier day while he’d slept under the eaves. However, AIDS robbed us of his physical warmth eight years ago. His mother, Maureen, discovered the comfort of razor blades six months later. David, Sean’s father, was the only inhabitant left standing until a year ago when an infection overran his life cup. I now owned the house.

I opened the front door and was greeted by silence. It was the sort of silence that promised to chew you up and spit you out on another edge of reality and I looked like lunch. What had I expected? The haunting of ghosts, malevolent spirits, or eerie horror movie music.

The lawyer had paid a cleaning service to make the house presentable. But it felt almost lived in. I wanted dust bunnies and the moldy smell of a closed up house. I wanted it to feel dead.

Photo: mytragicblood

Aftermath

Emma stared down at the brown flecks of dried blood floating among the yellow bile. Vomit was now the only color in her expansive, antiseptic bathroom: fluffy white towels, white shower curtain, thick white bathmat, and white walls. Her chest thumped at irregular intervals as vital potassium and electrolytes swam in the toilet. Sweat rolled down her face, dripping off her nose into the toilet. Stomach burned. Sinuses were on fire from acid forced through delicate passages.

“Em, please open the door,” Quinn called, knocking on the locked door.

Her diaphragm contracted at the sound of his lilting voice, and Emma thought she was going to split down the middle. The fireworks began again: explosions, blinding lights, cacophony. Emma screamed through each heave. Her screams were then silenced by blood caking the insides of her mouth. When the last of her insides were out, she laid her head down on the cold tiles and wept. The booms and bangs ended as she was lifted from the floor.

“Don’t touch me!” she screamed, slamming feeble fists into his chest. “You’re going to kill me.”

“You’re sick,” Quinn whispered, setting her into bed.

She wanted to melt into the pale, blue sheets.

“You’re killing me. Opened me up and tore a hole.”

Quinn disappeared and Emma sunk her shaking, naked frame into the soft bed, willing herself to dissolve.

“Plop, plop…” Quinn sang thrusting a fizzing highball glass at her.

Emma took the cup, drank it in one long pull and chucked it the wall. “There is something distinctly satisfying about the sound of shattering glass,” she said as she faded into the unconscious with a grin.

Photo: janosnovak