zpotter

The Soul Departs

The sun came through the blinds in slits coming to rest on her legs. The bed was positioned so no sun would touch her face. Most nights she struggled to find sleep, so once she had discovered it, she wanted to limit the potential disturbances as much as possible. The elephants upstairs and traffic on the highway couldn’t be helped, but the morning sun could.

She looked peaceful now, mouth just open, eyes shut gently, covers tucked up to her midsection to combat the early morning cool. The only peculiarity were her arms . They rested across her chest in the style one equates with the Egyptian pharaohs.

Most mornings I watched her from the doorway. I was eager to see her calm after the ravings of the previous night. Her mind and body would rage against sleep, fighting it like the immune system fights disease.

It was exhausting. I was with her every day. I could see the toll it took on her. I know what it did to me.

I could never leave her to this fight on her own, so I stayed up with her each night, battling the demons that ate at her. They weren’t so much demons as they were thoughts. Thoughts, which sent surges of energy pulsing through the bloodstream, longing for some undescribed action.

Action, had she known what it was, she could never take because of the exhaustion of the thousands of sleepless nights. I ached for her in my depths, hoping she would be able to find some peace.

That’s why this morning was so special. Most mornings her brow was creased with the trouble of her dreams. Today, her face was blank. No worries lay in knitted brows, just a dreamy calm.

Most mornings I would go to her and nudge her towards wakefulness. Today, I left her. I couldn’t bear the thought of disturbing her now that she had found some rest. I drifted from the room, leaving her to rest in peace.

Beginning

It started in the inky darkness of the morning under a thin stream of light. I fed a piece of white opportunity into the spool of the typewriter and sat staring at it.

I don’t know if it was the lack of thoughts in my head or the lack of life at 3am, but the silence screamed in my ears. It was oppressive.

After 15 minutes of nothing, I walked to the kitchen and made coffee. Anything to break up the monotony.

I wanted to jump on the Internet to look for inspiration, but I knew if I did that I would find distraction. It’s why I was using the typewriter.

The coffee beeped its completion and I jumped a foot in the air. I took down a bottle of brandy and covered the bottom of my cup. It didn’t matter that I had to work later, this was too important. I needed to start. I needed courage.

Fear is a horrible thing. It paralyzes.

I don’t like blood either. It’s a piece of you coming out exposed to the world. If I hit a key on the typewriter I would be offering up myself in faded black ink. In my case, the only blood that hurts to give up.

So I was afraid to start. Even though I controlled whether or not anyone ever saw the page, I was paralyzed.

The coffee steamed in the pale light and I continued to stare at nothing and everything. I thought about how I ached to tell this story. And I wondered how I would screw it up. Then I felt horrible at the thought of never doing anything I wanted.

I took a sip of the coffee. The brandy burned. It began:

Tears streamed from her eyes as she pounded the keys.

The Crows

Crows screamed murder as I walked through the dark winter morning. Fresh white splotches of excrement lined the sidewalk and I didn’t dare look up for fear of getting an eyeful.

It was 20 minutes to the office, and they would be with me the entire way. They never moved from tree to tree, their ranks were swollen enough they could afford to have eyes everywhere.

It didn’t matter the path I took. They lined all the roads and walkways their calls beating away at my ears.

I would look around at my fellow commuters and they seemed oblivious, hooked into their cell phones and the dreary monotony of the morning. No one ever looked up as the din echoed off the concrete walls of the office buildings they trudged towards. Perhaps they had grown accustomed to the watching?

They never flew down to pick at carrion or scavenge the sidewalks, but instead stayed away up in their naked branches with clear sightlines of those below. It was as though they were waiting for something.

The walk through the park was inevitable. It was impossible to avoid and the worst part of the journey. Its walkways were covered in shadow, so one had a sense of foreboding even without the crows screaming. It didn’t stop them.

I refused to run, but my heart begged me to. This day would be no different, I was not going to give fear any purchase within my mind, so I put my head down and walked, looking neither up nor back despite the deafening cries.

The crows screamed after me as I entered my building, one final piercing cry that struck at my soul and lodged there causing a shiver to run the length of my spine.

As the door shut behind me I knew: they knew.