04.01.2008 / EP. 1
Twisted Sheets
Milly struggled, but couldn’t wriggle or speak. Ropes pinned her to a metal frame for all in the class to see. She was at university. She was supposed to be learned, bright and intellectual, at the height of her powers. But physically and intellectually, she couldn’t move. The sun poured through the windows of the 18th century stone building where the most capable minds in history had taught. It was embarrassing and frightening to have no arguments, no ideas, to be without speech, to acknowledge herself the object of others’ desires and nothing more.
Forever it seemed she drifted, an anatomical specimen. Around her extended a corrupt cloud. Veins protruding from her face and neck. She fought for breath and her world grew black. She imagined a flock of sombre ravens, gathered to escort her into the afterlife. Her escutcheon would be black allerion on a field, itself black, surmounted by a nebuly line on damp clay. What dismal heraldic officer would approve these arms, and where was the exit from this sorry earthen field? Milly felt someone place a gold coin in her hand. Her fingers clasped avidly around it.
The coin became an antique locket. Milly tricked the catch and saw a portrait inside, a girl with fair hair, three or four years old. The artist had captured the moment when joy flares but hasn’t yet affected the lips. He’d placed humour in the eyes, a lift at the edge of the cheekbones, a smoothing above the brow. Milly recognized the girl, though she couldn’t give her a name. And there was a second picture, an etching that accompanied the first. The second girl was thin, with dark hair that tumbled mischievously to her neck in curls. A bat rested on one shoulder, a wildcat lay in her lap, arch symbols for one so young. Milly knew the dark girl, but again the name escaped her. The onset of dementia, she thought, a prelude and fugue by Beethoven.
The girls stepped out of the locket into a bright meadow. They wore identical burgundy dresses. A centaur chased them, shadows darting from all sides. Milly found a gun in her hand. It seemed natural. And she fired, which seemed natural too. At nothing in particular, because she could see nothing. But the shadows vanished, the blonde girl fled, her dark counterpart fell, and Milly stood with a smoking weapon in each hand as the police took her into custody.
It was six months later, and Milly found herself bound to a cross. “Murderer,” someone cried as officers carried her through a mob. Rocks hurled through the air. A heavy stone struck her forehead. Someone asked her name, but Milly couldn’t recall. Three strikes, she thought. I’m out.
A giant bird approached and Milly smelled the dank, unforgiving scent of the tomb. The bird screamed and trilled and screamed again. Milly woke, drenched in sweat. Her mouth tasting foul. “Damn,” she muttered. She had to disentangle the sheets before she could pick up the telephone.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:40 pm
your a goood creative writer!