The Fall

Spendor of boisterous heaven

curdled by haggard arrogance

petty carnage of cherished devotion

steals my callous vow--

the bitter passage

through burnt mirrors

gores my peasant crown

 

--A. Arrilla, Nathan Noyes, and Leah Verdicchio

 

Making Every Second Count

People strut into your life, leaving footsteps in your heart. We wish some things wouldn't happen. They do. We don't want to know others. We learn. Life is trust of feelings, taking chances, making mistakes. People rate you, hate you, play you, need you, want you, love you, break you, and save you. You will always be you, but what we go through only makes us stronger. Anger is one letter short of danger. It will get the best of you if you allow. Never lose faith. He who loses faith, loses all. We make mistakes, but learn from those of others. Life passes too quickly to make them all ourselves. When everything around you screams give up, don't. Try again. Make it happen. Shock everyone. You are never able to fully please everyone. Stop trying. Focus on your life's contentment first. But doubt not, perfection is like chasing the wind. Cherish the moment, making each day a memory. For we are given one life, why not live it to the fullest, making every second count.

-- Leah Verdicchio

 

Untitled

Here I sit waiting in my prison cell for the day I will be rescued. Unjustly, I was imprisoned for the crime of not pleasing the king, or any other person for that matter; my crime, placing seeds of doubt in the hearts of mystified people. Unjustly, I was imprisoned for telling people to walk out of their caves and see the light. Unjustly, I was imprisoned for questioning the king’s ideas of the workings of the world.

A guard gave me my daily meal, courtesy of the troglodyte who imprisoned me here in this cell. Four decaying, windowless walls hold up the barrier that blocks my view of the never-ending, untouchable sky. Beneath the waning, dirt-packed foundation, I could feel the microbial organisms multiplying and tearing away the foundation of my cell, and one day they would bring this cell to ruin. One day I would be rescued from the mind-narrowing cell, and I would be free to think.

A constant litany of guards’ footsteps resounded through the hall outside of my cell patrolling for any rescuers. Tick, tick, pop. Pop?

From the other side of my confinement’s portal, an inferno set the hall alight, stripping raw the loose sediment on the walls and disintegrating the rusted joints holding my cell door together, blistering every orifice on the guards, and liquefying their mail into a blazing white jacket, burning them limb from limb. Directed at the reinforcements rushing in from the end of the corridor, I hear a systematic lecture of understood words. My master stood outside, and rescue isn’t far. There can be no failure from this valiant philosopher with such wisdom. A scratching comes from both ends of the corridor; guards move to flank my savior. Syllables shine through his lips, manifesting a hope for salvation; however, blackened, unknowing syllables seep from my captors’ non-comprehensive consciousness.

My hero’s ideas resound though the corridor and are the source of a thunderous storm of falling rock from the ceiling; light crawls under my cell door from the newly visible sky. His words have now turned upon the other side of the onslaught. Their unquestioning notions of reality foamed from their mouths, and then a shrill cry screamed outside of my chamber freezing the reinforcing iron of the door and blotting out the light that had just barely squeezed into the room. A painful but ephemeral silence pieced the air until a melodious slashing of my hero’s vambraces tearing the stone floor as he returned to his feet, roaring a song of truth. His rasping voice surely shredded his vocal cords into bleeding tendrils, ripping a sound from him that shook the earth with a single purpose. The light returned with a glorious shine, illuminating the silhouette of the door frame; a single photonic stream graced me with a brief touch then continued on as if I had never been there, vaporizing a small peak-hole in the back wall of my mind-rotting prison to reveal the sky .

Yet another cracking ravages my ears. Soldiers’ lives being burned out of existence? The litany of footsteps tears towards my door where I believe my hope stood. My hero’s life has been extinguished, leaving me with only the minuscule light in the wall his efforts produced, allowing me to see the inspiring light. The king is undone.

-- Zach

Deliverance of a Prisoner

Screaming. That’s all she heard. Shaking violently in the cold, empty cupboard, Anne waited for the rotting wood door to rip open and the menacing arms of her father to slide in like hungry snakes. Little wisps of plaster streamed down from the ceiling with every thud of her father’s feet. He was still yelling, searching, drunk and angry.

Anne pushed herself up against the dirty corner of the cupboard, small gashes of light striking her face through cracks in the door. A tear trickled down her bruised face, gleaming for an instant in the dusty light.

Her father had descended the stairs and was now in the same room as the cupboard.

“Anne!” His voice rang loudly and belligerently. “Annie, where are you? Your mother says you been bad!”

This was not true, as her mother’s sobs were emanating from somewhere above her. The knock of a heavy wooden paddle reverberated throughout the cement basement.

“You listen to yer father, godammit! Git out here! Git out here now or it’ll be worse!” He was pulling back furniture and throwing plates and candlesticks and picture frames. Anne’s heart was racing, her blood coursing through her veins so rapidly, she thought she could hear it.

And with every smash that sounded out, something funny happened. The light that flowed in through the cracked, wooden door dimmed, flickering with weakness.

An armoire crashed to the ground, splinters of oak shooting across the moldy room like darts.

The strange thing happened again. Anne’s world went black for just a moment, before morphing back into vision like globs in a lava lamp.

Suddenly, the crashing stopped, and the only sound Anne could hear was the heavy, rum-rank, violent breathing of her abusive father.

“I know where you at, ungrateful little witch!“ Her father’s footsteps pounded into a quick and hungry beeline toward the cupboard. The closer he got, the darker the room became.

Slam! The rotting wooden door bulged inward. Clouds of dust whooshed in spiraling clouds up and around Anne’s face. The room flickered into darkness, visibility pulsating in and out of existence.

“Annie! Come out, Annie! You’ve been bad!” Her drunken father laughed maniacally, it was a laugh of solid rage. Through the cracks in the quickly disintegrating cupboard door, she could see his face.

The stubble of his unshaven beard grew untidily in patches all the way up to his red ears. His entire face was the color of blood and shiny from the sweat that dripped down from somewhere under his black, greasy hair. Messy, like a bird’s nest, his hair shot up into protruding spikes on his head, which was disproportionally too large for his body. His eyes were hidden in dark green shadow from the moonlight passing through an entanglement of leaves in the high window.

Slam! The door shattered, pieces of soggy wood smacking Anne in the face. The large, hairy arms of her father slithered through the dirty air, feeling for his daughter.

Anne could not take it, she began panicking, unable to breathe. And all the while the light slowly bled out of the room.

“Ha HA! I gotch you now, witch!” Her father screamed. His long, never-ending arm jerked forward and grasped her ankle.

Anne’s heart heaved, she was sodden from sweating, fear rippled throughout her, she couldn’t breathe.

With his hand still gripping her ankle, her father yelled triumphantly and pulled her towards him. In a mad panic, she thrust her palms against the rough, concrete floors in an attempt stay in place. However, despite her fathers strong yanks, Anne did not move.

As if there were no wall, no floor, no space, no time, the floor gave way beneath her, and she fell backwards. In a rapid free-fall, Anne was spinning in a vast realm of emptiness, silent darkness shrouding her. Away from the cupboard, her father, her life, she fell.

Head over heels, again and again she somersaulted. The streak of light from her cupboard above her was getting smaller and smaller with every foot she descended. It wasn’t until the cupboard light disappeared that a new light was born.

Far below her, an orange orb of firelight hovered in the nothingness, slowly growing in size as she fell towards it. Anne felt nothing, no pain, no fear, not even that terrible feeling that seeps into the stomach during an uncontrollable free-fall. She was purely numb.

Before she even realized what had happened, she landed in cold red dirt.

Her skull throbbed with pressure, and her spine stung with a sharp, stabbing pain.

Anne picked herself up, brushed off the red dust clinging to her blue and white polka-dotted dress, and looked around her, trying to ignore her painful discomfort.

She was in an empty cavern, dimly lit by a fire which poked its sharp tendrils over the top of a steep inclination in front of her. She held her head as she went on. A gruesome moaning echoed down the long passage, along with what sounded like the clinking of chains. Above her, a dark, long tube ascended into the roof of the cave where she had fallen in from.

With nowhere else to go, Anne began to climb toward the fire and the moaning. The slimy walls on each side of her rose with the ground, their rough edges, cracks and grooves creating shadows in the dim light.

A cold shiver ran down Anne’s spine, and she quickened her step toward the fire. The moaning became an ensemble of whispers, bouncing off the stone walls around her.

Anne entered the atrium of the cave.

Above her to her left, on a tall stone pillar, sat a red rolling fire. In front if it, a line of robed figures walked slowly, carrying objects in their blistered hands. Before her, a great stone wall stood, and ended about a half a mile away, at the beginning of another steep incline. A few feet across from the wall, to Anne’s left, was a row of boulders toppled on top of each other. From between these boulders snaked black chains that fell to the red dirt. The chains ended in large, iron shackles, which were locked around the wrists and ankles of whispering prisoners.

They were staring at the shadows of the blister-handed figures above them, thrown on the wall from the ball of fire. Not only were the prisoners staring at the shadows, but they were speaking to them, whispering to them feverishly and with an urgency that sent Anne’s heart into an anxious quiver.

Anne began walking in the direction of the inclination at the end of the shadowy wall on her right, having no other path to take.

Before long she reached the first of four prisoners.

The man was wrapped in a shiny, soft-looking material that took on the hue of infected pus. His arms and legs were tan and bruised, and where there once were hands were deformed stumps, at one point cauterized to stop the bleeding. He sat with his stumps in his lap, Indian style, staring at the wall in front of him.

Anne looked to the wall and found that the shadow in front of the handless man depicted that of a human body, emptying a sack of what looked like coins.

She looked to the shadow’s source, above the prisoner and in front of the fire, to find no one with a sack of coins. Only a robed figure hovered there, motionless.

His hands cupped together, the figure held nothing but a small pile of sand, which was slowly draining through a crack between his fingers.

“Riches!” exclaimed the dismembered man, “they will set me free!”

Through eyes of scarlet, the robed figure glared down at Anne, all the while the sand just kept on draining.

Anne quickly moved on, trying not to look at the handless man.

She arrived at the second prisoner, his arms were wrapped around his wasted torso, a smile radiating from his face. The man leaned forward longingly, staring at the shadow casted on the wall in front of him.

Anne turned to investigate the shadow on the wall.

The silhouette outlined two sinuous human bodies, charismatically embraced in the each other’s arms. Anne looked to the shadow’s source above the prisoner, only to find that there were no bodies in front of the fire, but just another robed figure. Two red eyes glowed from under the hood, staring down at Anne.

The hooded figure held in his hands a black stone. The stone throbbed, beating rhythmically like the human heart.

“Love!” Whispered the prisoner, “it will set me free!”

The prisoner jerked forward aggressively, and the chains rang out with a sudden force of tension. This startled Anne and she quickly moved on.

With a now urgent pace, Anne again made her way towards the next inclination, which was glaring with white sunlight from somewhere at the top of the ramp. Anne did not know why, but something was compelling her, pushing towards the blinding incline ahead.

She walked even further, until she reached the third prisoner. This man was shredded. Large lacerations lined his torso, arms and legs, and blood was gushing out of them, drizzling like a broken fountain onto the garnet-colored dirt below. He was on his knees, his arms stretched out, palms facing the roof of the cave. Tears were streaming from his eyes and a look of utter awe clung to his every feature.

Anne looked to where he was staring, at what shadow was being thrown on the wall in front of him.

It was a cross.

She turned to look at the robed figure above the bleeding man. But what she found confounded her: nothing. There was no robed figure, no cross...nothing. There was a shadow on the wall, but nothing there to cast the shadow.

“My faith!” preached the bleeding prisoner, “My faith will set me free!”

Nothing cast the shadow.

Repulsed, Anne moved on. The light from the inclination was now dimly illuminating her face, and she began to feel it’s warmth on her pale, bruised skin. She walked a few more steps, and was almost at the inclination of white light before her foot ran into something heavy.

Anne looked down to find four shackles, connected to chains that ran off into the pile of heavy boulders. The shackles were unclasped, no prisoner was to be found. She turned her head to look at the shadow, but found that the clay surface was lit evenly: no shadow. She turned to look above where the prisoner should have been, and found a robed figure standing there his hands empty. His face was also dimly lit by the light flowing in from the inclination, and she could see a warm smile curled up on the figure’s black face. Its red eyes peered down at her. She looked down at the shackles again, and this time noticed that words were scrawled in the red dirt near the unlocked shackles.

Death will set me free

Onward she moved, quickly and with no other interruptions ahead of her. She approached the entryway and looked up. The white hot glare of the sun, almost ethereal, blazed down upon her. She had to look away, its intensity was too much to bear at one time. She turned around and looked at the three prisoners, and at the empty set of shackles closest to her, at the robed figures levitating weightlessly, and at the dark abscess of an entryway that she fell through. With one last glance, she turned and began to ascend the ramp to the surface.

With every step she took, her heart began to beat more rapidly and the brighter the sunlight became. The whispers of the prisoners slowly faded behind her, and a new whisper suddenly entered her conscious.

It was the whisper of a breeze, so warm and beautiful and peaceful that she thought angels would be carried by it, floating gently above the earth like feathers. But as her eyes adjusted to the revealing light around her, she noticed that there were no angels, just the pink blossoms of fat-trunked trees gliding angelically to the ground. A plain of green winter rye stretched out before her, soft as slippery silk, rolling in small hills. The dewy grass clashed ahead of her with the golden fortitude of gently swaying barley, which rippled gracefully in curved patterns under the soft breeze. The aroma of baking bread rode the breeze, and it swirled around Anne, kicking up a pile of autumn leaves in a small, dancing twister.

Something suddenly caught Anne’s eye.

Ahead of her, standing in the barley, was a figure. The figure was female; Anne could tell this by the locks of brown hair flipping in the wind. The woman wore a purple dress under a white apron, fringed along the edges with black lace.

Anne began walking toward the woman, the sweet smell of bread still washing over her. Her footsteps were silent in the grass, and she noticed that the sky was baby blue, with only a few oddly shaped clouds sleeping lazily in the atmosphere.

The woman was closer now. From this distance, Anne could see that the woman was badly bruised under both eyes, and that she had a swollen, bloody lip. It did not take long for Anne to realize that the woman in the barley field was her mother.

With this revelation, Anne began to sprint, a wealth of joy bubbling over inside her. She moved effortlessly into wheat field, and small stalks of barley slid by her, tickling her arms and legs.

Her mother leaned forward with outstretched arms, a loving and welcoming smile spread wonderfully on her face.

The song of dove bounced playfully throughout the air, and Anne fell into her mother’s arms, the wind rising up around the two battered women. The smell of bread, the pink blossoms, all came together in a glorious congregation of harmony. Anne could feel her mother’s heart beating beneath her bosom, and the rhythmic sound resonated through Anne’s mind and out into the world around her. A flock of doves sprang out from a tree in a gorgeous spiral, as if perfectly orchestrated by some unseen force.

Her mother pulled away from her and looked down with all the security Anne could ever need.

“Honey,” her mother whispered gently. Anne fixed her trusting gaze upon her mother, “you’re free.”

Her mother scooped her up even higher and kissed her on the forehead.

The warm breeze around them, the cool earth below them, the bruised and beaten mother and daughter spun carelessly in the shining light of day.

But something curious happened then.

Anne look down at her mother’s arms, wrapped around her, and found that they were covered in a layer of thick, black matted hair. Her mother tightened her grip around Anne, squeezing with the force of a python.

She looked up to find the face of her father, his woozy glare hidden by greasy hair. Anne could feel her ribs splintering, her lungs flattening within her weak chest. She tried to breathe, but the air was forced out by the crushing pressure of her father’s arms. Her vision started to fade, and small gashes of light were being torn in the thin air around her; through them, she thought she could see the dark, melancholy wood of her cupboard. A hot breathe of sour air flooded past her father’s yellow teeth and into her face.

And all the while, Anne could feel something inside her. A rolling, amorphous entity slowly growing in size. It spread throughout her body, into her arms, her legs, her gut, her head. It melted through the viral film of fear that hung from her bones like moss, freeing a wealth of strength that was imprisoned in a heart of sadness and a mind of darkness.

Anne looked valiantly up into father’s evil eyes, her body giving way to his deadly embrace. And right there, in the gleaming utopia built by only the strongest of arms, Anne shut her eyes.

She thought of her mother, of the times they baked cookies when the sky was dark with storm clouds, she thought of all that made her happy. Her eyes filled with moisture, but she would not cry. Anne was sick of crying. Nevertheless, it took all of her being to fight back the tears. But Anne would not cry, not anymore.

And with that, the breaking grip around her loosened.

Taking a gasp of fresh air, Anne opened her eyes to find her mother once again. Anne grasped her, burying her face in her soft sweater. Safety nestled into the cloth like a baby into its blanket.

Softening relief bloomed within her.

She looked over mother’s shoulder and past the barley field to find a shimmering, golden river winding lazily toward a range of purply blue mountains in the distance. She could hear the heavenly river’s murmur from where her and her mother stood.

Pulling her head back, she looked into her mother’s brown eyes.

And in a moment so powerful, so deep, the two women saw, reflected in each others eyes, a strength, a will to survive that bonded the two so closely, their souls were intertwined as one in the rippling field of barley, in the perfect world that only they knew.

The sounds of music rested upon her ears, and Anne thought maybe there were angels singing up amongst the puffy clouds.

But there were no angels, only the sweet chirping of white doves flying peacefully through the sparkling atmosphere.

-- Nathan Noyes

Deviant Dervish

Weird-woman flounced with ever wider swings of her hips, her steps taking her perilously close to the street where giant trucks that rumbled by. Her red and gold scarves whipped around her body while her long brown hair coiled around her head and neck.

"Should haul her away in one of those jackets with all the locks," Allie stage-whispered, loud enough for everyone at the bus stop to hear.

"A straight-jacket... yeah... or maybe just call the dog pound," Allie-clone number one laughed.

Janna ducked her head in embarrassment for the woman, wishing she would just stop.

"Dog pound wouldn't take her; she'd scare the dogs," Allie clone number two twittered, and they all laughed.

Yeah, that was like funny, only not, Janna thought as she rolled her eyes. Quickly, she turned toward the billboard advertising a pair of jeans with a picture of a girl with an impossibly thin waist and an exceptionally round butt. In the plastic reflection, she watched Weird-woman dance nearer, her hands outspread as though in flight, one scarf caught on a wrist so that it billowed out making a silk wing.

Maybe she was deaf. Maybe she didn't hear the giggles of the waiting girls.

"Someone should call the police and report the crazy stoned woman," Allie clone two added as Weird woman closed on her, dancing steps moving to imaginary music. Allie clone gave a small squeak and retreated behind her two friends.

Janna cocked her head and turned just enough to see Weird woman smile brightly at the three girls just as she bent her arms over her head and started a series of shimmies that had her knees bending nearly to the ground before she slithered back up. She threw back her head in joy, and her whole body twisted inhumanly.

"Perv!" Allie shrieked as she tried to retreat to the far side of her group, sparking a laughing contest of elbows and shoves as each of the girls tried to get on the far side of their small group.

Still smiling, Weird woman danced away along the curb like a tightrope, her toes balancing on the concrete curve as her hands flew out in wild arcs. The sun caught the gold threads in her red scarf, reflecting off brilliant rays that glittered in the morning smog.

"It's almost as bad as having to go to school with butt-face over there. I mean, this is our bus stop," Allie clone one whined, and Janna felt the heat of a blush creep up her neck. Obviously the bitchy trio had the whole multi-tasking skill down what with the ability to insult everyone at once.

Strangely, Weird woman didn't even pause in her dance. The sun now sparkled off her scarf, her brown hair seemingly highlighted with gold from the sunrise.

"Can you believe Mr. Kemper actually made me work in a group with It?" Allie demanded petulantly. Her friends made sympathetic noises. Janna flinched back against the cold, plastic advertisement. However, she couldn't take her eyes from the dancing figure that now seemed to generate a light of her own.

While Allie and her clones switched their attention to the standard Janna-bashing, Janna stepped out of the small shelter and toward Weird woman who now bounced on the toes of one foot, her second foot tucked up under her as she maintained her balance with her body bent at an impossible angle. Moving as if pulled by strings, her arms defied physics as they undulated, both moving to the side like those Indian dancers Janna had seen when she stayed up late one night watching some show on cable. With her whole body leaning toward the street, Weird woman now seemed to almost float with one foot tracing a figure on the ground.

It almost seemed as though the light had become strings holding her weight as her face transformed from simple joy to transcendent bliss. Tiny pulses of energy flowed up, and Janna moved closer, fascinated by the color and movement. Weird woman's eyes came open and gazed on Janna just once with a blue calmness that Janna could feel sink into her bones. Then the light flared as if the sun stood on earth for one second. Weird woman vanished, leaving behind only lingering trails of light that made Janna blink.

"... her out. I just told him that dog-girl would probably just pee on his leg. She's so weird."

Janna turned to see the three girls looking at her with disgust. Opening her mouth, she waved a hand in the general direction of the missing Weird woman, but the three just turned their backs as if nothing had happened.

"So weird. They should have a school for weird kids so we don't have to sit in class with them," Allie clone one announced haughtily.

Janna glanced back at the fading threads of light still floating in the air, twisting in a messy pattern. Smiling, she started swaying in time with the light.

-- Lyn Cannaday, Originally Published in Alien Skin Magazine.