Deserter

She was forgotten because she was old. She sought the dramatics of death because she was forgotten. The lone woman with the permed hair and fine wrinkles was killed by the hand of desperation because loneliness is murderous. When the day ripened they found her there, with stale flesh reeking of desolation. They said they didn't know she had it in her. I suppose she was always misunderstood.

Rumination

I wonder if failing to tell the difference between reality and illusions is ignorance or a resolution of inner dichotomies. My inability to conclude leaves me with the half-truth. Sometimes I find that I'm awfully good at mimicking. I watch my hands lurch across the keyboard, creating an imitation of myself and a forgery of the world around me. Then I cringe at my poor translation of events. Sometimes I'm filled with chagrin, but I keep writing anyway 'cos there's a mad scribe in me at full throttle. Seized by some despotic passion or perhaps rage, I continue in spite of myself. The pen administers the purge. Everyone understands the exorcism of writing. Often I find myself the priest of my own confession, appropriating the extent of self-flagellation - castigating myself for what I meant to say but could not say, suffering the evasive quality of words, the insufficiencies of language, the horrendous web of linguistics. Then the resort to metaphors/ literary tropes, the interpretative potential, the exploitation of ambiguity and abstraction, and finally the failure to distinguish between fact and fiction. And the imperishable question if it's a failure worthwhile.

Something Inconsequential

So we trudged up the hill, Tess and I. It was as vertical as you can get and we cursed at the extreme inconvenience we had to go through to get to the professor's house - a lone fortress that emerged more and more on the horizon with each uphill step. It wasn't really a fortress, it just seemed rather formidable from its lofty perch with the setting sun glowing from behind. It looked quite surreal.

The neighborhood was eerily deserted and the silence seemed unnatural and much too obvious. Having ridden in a noisy, crowded bus to this side of town, the strange silence perturbed me even more. Everything seemed stagnant, unfamiliar, distant yet sharply present.

"This place feels weird" I say, half-panting as we plod up the damn hill.

"It's your imagination" says Tess.

"Why are you whispering?" I say.

"I'm not whispering, I'm talking in hushed tones."

"I don't even feel like going".

"C'mon, it'll be fun to see how the professor lives. Debunk the mystery 'n all that shit".

"Maybe she'll lock the door behind her and have us for dinner or something."

"Oh please..." laughs Tess and rolls her eyes. "You're kidding right. Just stop thinking. You always get high on your imagination".

"You're getting high on suspense," I say, as we stop outside the house and she rings the doorbell.

Solaced

The peaceful rising and falling of his chest was an interminable lullaby. Silence is so much more fragile when another is sleeping. I watched the light inch across his chest and fade. Day had surrendered gracefully to night. But in darkness he still seemed to glow, as if he held some residue of the sun.

The Ugly

Yesterday we pondered for hours on the nature of violence. Or they did - the other students. I listened to what they said but I didn't understand, and I didn't have anything to say. I don't know what else there is to comprehend about human brutality other than the fact that it is brutal.

During moments of their opinionated speech I felt a profound frailty of myself and the mysterious persistence of existence I became aware of the fact that I didn't understand my own pulse.

The words "heinous" and "bloody" emerged from the mouths of the others. They spat them out. Venomous pits spewed from abysmal pits. I was surrounded and fissioned by nuclear voices.

In dismantling/ gutting the darkness of ourselves we tend to vomit our souls. I hate that class. It requires too much vulgar courage and savage thought.