Emergency

The flashing red strobes lit the scene, casting shadows over the twisted wreck of steel and glass smoking on the side of the road. Rain spattered on the concrete, further amplifying the brightness of the emergency lights, and the direness of the situation. The woman was on her back in the road, lying exactly across the yellow divider lines of the highway. Her breathing was shallow, her pulse weak. She was alive, awake, but only just barely. She blinked her eyes to keep the water from her eyes, entirely oblivious to the warm blood pooling underneath her broken body. She tried desperately to move her head to the side, wanting to see the car she had been thrown from only moments before. She looked past the men rushing towards her, stretcher between them, rain dripping from their tense faces, and tuned her ears for the horrible sound she so desperately wanted to hear.

The men reached her, their hands suddenly on her, stripping her of her blouse and breathing down on her, replacing the horridness of the situation with something much darker, still all too familiar. She cried out in fear more than pain, adrenaline numbing her to the injuries of her body. Blue gloved hands held her down, strapped her to a long board, immobilizing her, preventing her from seeing the wreck even in her peripheral vision. Her voice was ragged, her moans cut short by the oxygen mask placed over her face, only serving to heighten her feeling of helplessness.

A face hovered over hers, a voice muffled and incomprehensible and loud, so loud, bursting her ears and stripping her mind of any focused thought. She cried out again and again, her words as incomprehensible to them as theirs were to her. Firemen worked frantically around the wreck as she was wheeled past, her neck still working against the cervical collar fixed around it. She couldn't see the bright yellow sticker, still attached to the splintered glass of the back window, announcing the presence of a child. She couldn't see the toys scattered all along the road, just as she had been, drenched and broken and of no more use. But she finally heard what she'd been pleading for, just before the doors of the ambulance shut, closing her off from the old world.

Cries other than her own.
Small, weak, but decidedly alive.


As the medication flooded her body, she collapsed against the stretcher and did not wake up for a long time.

Stop that

I almost put my hand on your thigh as we drove into the night.
It's not that I'm still in love.




It's just hard to break muscle memory.

District 9

A cold snow falls, resting on the trees above and letting silence reign over the Capitol. I watch the great stone monuments shrouded in white, my breath blowing visibly in front of my face, my nose red from the chill. We walk together, our feet crunching in the covered leaves, twin trails criss-crossing the moon-lit avenue. The wind blows, shaking the loose snow from the trees and adding more to the flakes blowing all around us. Subconsciously, I pull you closer, our fingers warm together, our bodies brushing closely together. A park bench stands invitingly under a canopy of reflected light. We move towards it, our legs needing a short rest. I lean down, hesitant to leave your side for even a moment, and brush away the fallen snow from the cold wood, motioning you to take a seat. It's the first time I've noticed the cold as I sit beside you, eager to press against your body once more.

People wander around us, some in close pairs, others alone, hands in pockets, kicking the snow with each step. The streetlights create pools of light along the avenues, attracting small groups of travelers, all waiting to be bathed in the light of arriving cabs. The streets are crowded for such a cold night, the passing cars throwing waves of icy slush onto the glistening sidewalks. Close by, a girl loses her balance and her feet slip out from under her. The grip on her waist tightens immediately and she's pulled to safety by the man beside her, their laughter piercing he still air. The walk away, slower now, closer together, their voices fading away.

I shift beside you, my arm pulling you tighter to me. Your hair falls from your scarf onto my shoulder, dusted with snow.

Mix-up

The other night I dreamed better, though I can't remember what about. When I woke up, I was still dreaming, as ridiculous as it sounds. It was as if I woke up and remembered the dream that I'd just left, only I was still dreaming it. I was controlling it as I've learned to do, but with the added quality of knowing that all I had to do was open my eyes and it would disappear.

I could hear the fan in my room blowing and feel the sheets against my skin, but I was still experiencing the dream itself as if I had never left it. The actual physical stimuli just sort of melded into the dream until I realized that I was no longer dreaming in the usual sense. I was confused for a moment, unbelieving of what was going on, but then I turned my attention to the dream and found that I could still control it exactly as I had. It was no daydream, as you might think. It was vivid and very visual, as if I was looking at it... as any dream looks.

After a minute or two, I decided to open my eyes because I could not believe that I was actually awake. Sure enough, I opened my eyes and almost immediately forgot the world I had just left. The fan was still blowing rhythmically and I could feel the sheets against my skin.

Running

I've had insomnia lately.

I've been running, but can't seem to tire myself out. Even when I do, I end up too tired to sleep, so I run some more, or I lay in bed and check the same websites over and over again, waiting for the sunrise. More people need to stay awake late, to keep me and the other night people company.

I had a truly awful dream last night. Awful enough that I don't really even want to put down into words it's vividness. Suffice it to say that I woke up at four in the morning and laid there for several minutes just collecting myself from the raw shock. I had to get up and walk around, pour myself a glass of tea, just in order to try to place it in the back of my mind. I did not succeed at this.

Though if I had, would it only have made it worse? Why was it in the back of my mind to begin with? It's structure had to be there in order to be so descriptively constructed in my sleep, so where did it come from?

I wrote it out and immediately felt sick.

Timed Trial

I was in some sort of contest. A trial by fire wherein I passed through dozens of rooms. Some of the rooms were the size of a football field, others the size of a small apartment. Each was of a different type, but they were all terrifying in one way or another. I cannot remember the first ones I passed through, just that there was lots of running. Some of the rooms were mentally challenging, in which I would have to figure my way around a trap or a puzzle of some kind before being allowed entrance to the next. Others were physically demanding, requiring the completion of an obstacle course or some other feat of strength.

At any moment, I knew the price of failure was death, so I was pushed on by a desperation borne of terror. None of the rooms had ceilings that I can remember, only blackness, and a feeling of being watched never left me. Some of the rooms had dark figures walking or limping around me, but they never interrupted my course or tried to communicate in any way. On entering each room, rules imposed themselves on me and I was made to know exactly what could and could not be done over the course of traveling through that particular room.

The first room that I can remember was the size of a small warehouse, with a main avenue running down the middle of it and heavy machinery lining each side. A door beckoned me on the other side. The machinery was new and shiny, but made the most awful noise. Bent over consoles next to each machine was a figure in a lab coat busily working. I walked down the avenue, trying to reach the far side of this room and trying not to make eye contact with anyone. A rule had imposed itself on me, do not talk to anyone.

In the center of the room, right in the middle of this main avenue was a contraption surrounded by floating orbs and spheres. The spheres were all multi-colored, the first color I'd seen in the mostly black and grey worlds of the rooms. The spheres were also moving terrifically fast, orbiting the contraption and blocking off any movement to the far side of it. As I walked towards it, time itself seemed to slow down and the spheres slowed their pace. My legs grew heavy and I found it hard to move at all. It was as if everything around me was stuck in the thickest honey. I realized that this would allow me to pass through the contraption to the other side, but it would take all my strength to move and at any moment, the laws governing the room could change and I could be caught in the middle of the swirling machinery. The perfectly round spheres colored in reds and blues and yellows gave the feeling of children's toys, but my mind saw them as sharp and dangerous and I was not eager to pass so closely to them.

I was suddenly aware that I'd been carrying a brown paper bag in my right hand. It had something inside of it, something resembling a book of some kind. As I made up my mind to pass through the contraption, I first threw the paper bag through and then guided my body through, avoiding the balls as I could. Just as my ankle came through after me and I regained my balance, time snapped back and the contraption grew back into a whirling death trap.

I walked towards the silvery metal door, passing more machinery and technicians in lab coats. As I raised my hand to grip the door handle and open it, one of the technicians told me not to in whispers. Her face was mostly hidden by the hood of her lab coat, but I could see that she was blonde and very beautiful. She told me that entrance to the other side would be decided momentarily. I was not to touch the door.

I ignored her and gripped the door handle.

Immediately I was filled with regret and terror as the atmosphere changed and everything became black. The room behind me disappeared in the darkness, leaving only the silvery metal door in front of me. After several minutes, the door opened and I was greeted with another woman, this one dressed as a receptionist.

She told me to follow her inside the next room and she looked terrified as well, as if she knew something bad was about to happen to me for breaking a rule of the trial. I followed her into what looked like a department store. Everything looked normal, though the lights seemed too bright. I followed her to a waiting man who stood with his arms crossed. He seemed to be at least three feet taller than me, and dressed in a dark suit. He guided me over to a wall of clothing and told me to pick all new clothes to wear.

Nothing fit me.


Alarm clock.