based on a dream from march the ninth.
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The girl stood, she was shaking and not alone and she stood against the sky and the water that teetered on a color similar to that of acid green, a deep jade color that used to be blue; way back before her grandparents time. Back before pollution of her generation, back before the small apartment where she lived and the rifle that she held with trembling hands. Back.
In blue shorts that used to be the ocean’s color being held up by suspenders, the girl stood, her cropped dusty brown hair furling in the wind; what little amount of locks she had curling, swirling and threatening the sky only to retreat and repeat. Eyes bubbling with tears, the water burned her eyes, its unnatural coloration reeking of death, of prescience so pungent it was just ignored like white noise due to the persistence. Her cells ignored it and the girl beside her chuckled.
“We’ll get it this time.” She stood proudly; straight backed and a rifle in her own hands and the girl’s friend aimed, resting the shoulder piece like an expert and looking through the aim. The friend smiled maliciously, she knew what would happen, the plan was set out a week in advance and the girl was slightly afraid. Her nails, curled into the wood of her rifle. “We’ll get it this time.” The friend repeated, hand hovering over the trigger.
Through the docks the girl could see it, the lug of a beast. Scales and a tint of bitter water lingering as onward the beast stared back, its eyes yellow gleam relentless versus the girl’s terrified and shaking blue orbs that threatened to look away from the preemptive death the beast face. “We’ll get it this time.” And with a loud crack the shot was fired, the beast opened its mouth as to chomp down on the docks to ruin the girl’s foundation but quickly the bullet ripped through scales, blood gushing forth and then staining.
The beast’s eyes held nothing now, no malice or fear. The girl lowered her gun and the smoke kissing the sky from the tip of her rifle made her bite her lip. Blinking softly she turned back to the city she saved. Joining her, the friend clapped a hand over her back, “Good job, killing it. We got it this time.”
Sense of determination rose in the girl’s chest and accomplishment spread, past the cheeks through to the jaw and the skin pulled back into teeth, the balance of pink to white and the pride. Fingers wrapping securely around the wooden part of the rifle, the girl took unevenly paced steps towards the place, the place where her life would begin and end.
The image of the carcass lingered in her brain, behind her eyelids whenever she blinked, beyond her cheeks whenever they flushed as the man at the top of the stairs of the top floor of the first apartment of the complex nearest to the docks. The scent from the wharf lingered against her denim shorts and the friend waved a casual wave. Flashing of blood-red sky burned, past the roof of the abandoned building, the contrast of the crimson sky converging and unbending against the acid water, this place wasn’t safe. Her mother spoke the words as she left past the mended docks on the ship that would take her away, her attachment severed like the cutting of the umbilical cord. The building was gray against the sky and her umbilical cord was yearning.
Alone the girl was, aside from the friend and the man at the top of the stairs was still unmoving. “We’ll get it this time.” The friend said; her back slouching as her figure shrunk in the pale dress she wore. Their hands were locked, never releasing and creating a lifeline. Her friend was her buoy and without her, the girl would surely be lost in the sea of acid that was threatening on the shore side, beyond the rotting wood and dying reptiles.
Boney ligaments and joints and arteries latched and melding into one, the man at the top of the stairs stopped staring and nodded towards the door, now open. Lights poured outward, slashing the blood and lucidity of the girl. Eyes glazed slightly as into her palm was pressed a small something. A circular tablet, a circular moment to celebrate as past the tongue it went and down into the throat, through the esophagus and pained expressions. Nerve endings that burned, the girl gave one final glance back out to sea, her eyes brimming up, letting go and then ignoring. The dampness of her face was a resolution as the stairs were pressed against, one sole after the other, the friend’s bare feet pattering and almost silent. Clanging of rifles were muted as well, the girl releasing her grip next to the man at the top, his dark hair brushing over thick eyebrows and steely eyes. A cigarette was held between slack lips and his death was imminent through the muggy feeling in his lungs, the feeling of solitude and loss.
“We’ll get it this time,” The girl spoke softly, unsurely. Man at the top of the stairs shrugged and they went inside; sweat beginning to form against her hairline, her brain numbing. The friend left her side, left her against a sea of people, the ocean of acid and problems, past the crocodile with golden stares. Slinking back through a small space, a young man with a head filled with fire handed her a cup filled half-way. Looking up through hazy blue eyes the girl nodded and the redhead rested against the puke-green wall beside her. His eyes were filled up smoky, the chocolate fading from prior vibrancy. The girl took a sip of the unknown liquid in the glass clutched in the hands that shot the beast.
Her skin burned now, as if a phantasmagorical being crawled under her skin and took control, through all the fear fizzing up and balling up in her throat, filled with bile and dread. Eyes still hazy and brain slowly connecting, she turned to face the boy. The girl still drank from the unknown, bitter substance that held a hint of sugary feelings. Her heart pounded and her blood was rushing, past through her arteries and ventricle tunnels. There was something being jammed into her arm, from the boy, a present, a casket of mean feelings and sadness.
The beast died by her hands and the boy tried to recharge it. Tried to pump into it the most life he had possible. The most raw of love he held, was now being jammed inside her through the arm first and then into, past the shorts of cobalt, of sapphire and the jasmine eyes that lied into being a dull faded azure now vibrant with panic.
Red headed as he was, he shoved inside without permission and from the bathroom of the party where she lost the friend in the pale dress with the blonde locks and the gorgeous smile, she was raped. The boy shape shifted upwards into a man, and with a fist punched her jaw, blood exiting through veins that were too drunk to hold on. Through cells that were too scared to fight back, the girl cried and sobbed and bit her lip and her cheek and her palm to stop the pain and the burning of the fire-head.
The boy pulled back, retreated as the door opened and she was left, the shorts discarded beside her, the most wonderful pair of underwear now soiled and wrapped around her ankle. The friend had murky eyes and through the window of the apartment, the crimson could be seen most elegantly. “We’ll get it this time,” the friend seethed as the girl found a towel hanging on the wall. The evidence was still inside and it was burning, the millions of potential children being exposed through contact against a plush surface and the girl cried, the tears tainting the pale dress she was being loaned from the friend. The pain in her hips and her stomach and the sweat that poured down like a storm, her nerves pulsated slower now, calming up and relenting like the stilling bullet piercing deep into the flesh of the beast.
They retreated back to the party but the boy was already gone, the boy had no name and left, his namelessness being drifted outward by the acid sea and the basic wind, the pH finding its variables too difficult to decode as the girl crunched back into the wall as before. The friend hovered nearby, the sobering feeling of knowing what happened keeping her on her toes, the pale dress replaced by the blue shorts. Sunshine bursting from her skull was being toyed with against a man who had glasses, against a boy who knew karate against the girl who was scared out of her wits and needing closure. From her eyes she felt a pulse, a beat in her chest like a happy moment, a giggle that came too close to the shore and died amongst the waves.
Pallid and arched, the girl curved against another one, the trauma of before lost in her mind as tablet after tablet after injection after liquid placements in her stomach, content beside the cocktail of disaster. Cupping her face, the second one held her close, the warmth that fire-head lacked now forgotten. Freckled and pierced, the second one took her hand and stood beside her against the wall. The pounding in her head accompanied the pounding of the people in the sea, the green splashes and laughter being caught up before the bullet struck. The second one’s nails dragged over her skin that was on fire and the girl left the building, picking up the rifle and tossing it above her shoulder. The man at the top of the stairs nodded at her, his eyes less steely and hovering above a sense of concern. The second one wouldn’t hurt the girl like the fire-head did and the cigarette was breathed from, a flicker and an ash falling as the glow penetrated the silence. “We’ll get it this time?” The man questioned, his hand finding his pocket. The girl nodded, soft smile and murky eyes and skin that was releasing pounds of flesh and sweat and blood and the sky and the ocean by the minute. The second one took her hand and tightened it, taking her back through the city she was born in.
Grungy and dirty, strays littered the streets and derelicts were the populous but the girl was happy with it because the second one was secondly saving her from the place and the apartment. She wanted to say that she loved him but couldn’t due to the pressure his eyes made her feel. They were like a tracking device, she was under watch and scared but they weren’t like the man at the stairs who was dying of cancerous, carnivorous, violent cells attacking and latching and demolishing the substances. Eyes like a hawk that cared far too much, the world rested in them, like there was a sense of being around the block like her mother who cut the cord. The girl felt ugly near him, like a blemish best kept hidden and tucked under his arm she couldn’t help but be drawn, like there was a connection that hurt. He was attached to the friend, the girl knew. The second one was attached and bound but he was holding the girl like the friend. Confusion and a misunderstanding, the words and feelings let go, the crocodile was shot again.
“Good job, killing it.” Eyes broke off, the contact lost, the girl dashed, and the pale dress and the shorts being one in the same, she was scared and the blood wouldn’t stop pouring from her lips. Then the vomit, then the entrails, the pain of being tore in two by the bullet stung deeply.
From the water she could see the girl with the rifle, the friend beside her. “We’ll kill it this time.” And the shot was made.
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