• All it is


    It all burned, quietly sizzling in the new summer air and I hated it; my darkened eyes loathed the pages from the very beginning, just as I loathed myself. It was nearly six-thirty and I was still out here, in the brightening atmosphere of the morning, burning. She was forcing me, my friend, to smother them in fire; all my work would be gone. And I hated watching the off-white parchment be consumed before my eyes and as much as I cherished and enjoyed the warmth of the flame, I absolutely despised seeing my words, my lips, my form being masticated by the hungry mouth from Hell.

    “Goodbye, goodbye my friend,” I managed to whimper. “So long, farewell, we’ll see each other again one day, perhaps. But for now, I’ll keep your memories close to me, to see what could have been and what would have been. Goodbye, dear companions for I shall grieve over your unfortunate demise- oh what I have done to you! A betrayer which I am! My soul will burn alongside you – for this crime that I do commit now within this hour pains me as much as this fire pains you, as it eats you alive.” I threw a jumble of pages into the open flames. “Woe to this darkness in my soul, that I should eliminate all that holds me to the world!”

    Another slip was offered to the flames, unwillingly, mind you reader, for if it were willing, I would have been a happy human to walk the earth adorned in the jewels of ignorance. My eyes caught a few lines from the second page; an angst, teenage-filled pair of lines, yet they described my time up till now with such truth and sincerity:

    "I was taught the linguistics of the time,
    mathematics, science and types of rhyme;
    I also learned the future of my fate-
    within that cage I learned to hate."

    This self-afflicted misery all began with a change, a modification of character and damnation, while the same foundation she still obtained was concealed beneath of veil of appeal, and many people adored her, in her charming charismatic ways. Even I, one who knew her since early childhood, was fooled for some percentage of my time. I would have never seen how corrupt life had created her, for I was under the illusion that my early tortures were the end of my troubles and that my friends would remain the same; naïve I was and am.

    My ignorance of the true identity of the fiend placed me in this position, from which, my own life and love would be burning before me. I chose the punishment; the fire for it was better than water. Drowning, I thought, would have been far more cruel, to watch the papers slowly desingrate, it would take days and the ink would run like tears down the face of a stone angel, something which I had no desire to see, for the bleak figures around the old school were enough for me to handle; that place completed the change, after all, that shaped her into the foul being she is today.

    The cage I created for myself was indestructible, especially for my fallible nature that was given to me by mine Creator, and molded by those around me. I had tried, many a time, to disable my fortress of sanctuary yet each fruitless, infantile attempt only led me further into the hands of darkness, and into her thin, mangled comfort, which in the end, led to more demolition. How I had endured for so long, how I ended here, so helpless in her hands, I was not sure; but escape was unfeasible and would only end in failure. My own two feet were nailed together to the metal harnesses of my mental wheel chair, that now manufactured hopelessness and faithlessness into my bosom, this hardened feeling of regret and depression lodged in there too; such a despicable state.

    “Are you done yet? We’ve got to go in like…two minutes!”

    “No,” I wanted to declare in a growl. She could see I wasn’t finished, there was a stack of unharmed, perfectly smooth and black-word printed paper besides me, and she pursed her thin, flawlessly molded lips. “I’m not finished yet…Never will I be finished…Never…” Another thin paper placed itself in my grasp as I leaned over towards the neat stack and as if to prove my self-imposed loyalty to her, I dropped the sheet into the burning heap. She smiled a grim, forced one: she still doubted me. The burning was my punishment for that, her doubting.

    “Please don’t doubt me…” I wanted to shout to the world. Had I always been there for her when she needed me, her most reliable, silent friend? Yes, I was, yet she refused to believe me. She refused over and over, I was not her friend, I was not there for her, and I was simply a decoration, some type of liberation from her controlling relatives and family members. I was so easily controlled, just offer a simple, easily digested request and I would return with abundance, more than what was expected. As long as I made them happy, as long as I made her happy…

    “Well, you need to hurry up! It’s just meaningless dribble anyway! You said it yourself; half of this stuff is just silly teenager angst, no need keeping it now that we’re older!” True, I would have said- had my lips not been welded shut by her fiery eyes. The majority of my past writing was useless and overflowing with cliché pre-adult pain and anguish, all of my past suffering, in all actuality, was nothing more than mental growing pains. I had been meaning to rid myself of unfitting baggage many months ago, and they were pieces of a shed soul that I did not mind cleaning from the earth; the others, however. My poor Byronic hero, Philip! The dynamic characterization of Angela…The plot of The Fire Tree, my first manuscript, my in-depth essay on Frankenstein and Animal Farm, both had consumed days of my time. These few were weeping silently at the bottom of the pile, and for this I was glad. Seeing these pieces of work that had so devoured my mind and my heart, dissolve into ash and nothingness, the tragedy! It would be as if my own son had been grounded into ashes by the flames!

    “Honestly, we need to go!” She glanced at her watch and glared down at me, poor, miniscule me, who sulked on the hard, man-made ground. “Ugh!” She stomped in her new high heels and snatched a large bundle of papers from my remaining mass and flung them into the vast, gluttonous inferno. My eyelids snapped open, my eyes nearly popping out of their sockets while my fingers twitched in raw anger. My heart was controlling my hand, yet my heart was led by my head which in turn, did nothing. Therefore, I did not move.

    “Why must you linger on these damned sheets? There’s nothing here! You failed and you failed and you need to move on!” To fail, my spine quivered. My mind sped up at the word; fail. Had I failed, really? Of course I failed, I always failed…but I can’t remember this time. As she threw another batch into the fire, my mind whirled around, attempting to find the memory of my most recent failure.

    “When did I fail?” The words that ripped from my lips seemed foreign. The latest failure I had experienced was allowing her to control me, to have me destroy my fruits and results of my labors.

    “When you wrote this…trash! All your characters are so boring and gross and depressing. There’s no action scenes, no punch lines, no romance, not like there used to be when we were teens! All there is…all there is nothing! All there is in your books are nothing,” She hurled more sheets into hell mouth, “nothing and death! Death, crying, creating, crying, pain, suffering and more crying! And that damned Melanie,” Ah, my protagonist of The Fire Tree. “Oh she makes me sick! Reading about her just made me sick. So selfish and ugly and gross on the inside! Where did you get that idea from? All she ever did was hurt people; she wasn’t a hero at all!

    “And her pitiful boyfriend, if you can call him that, Alexander wasn’t that great either. Why can’t you write like you used too? Those vampire stories? The sex ones? The ones were everyone turned out okay and everyone was happy? Those were meaningful! These are trash!” Another bundle flew through the air, projectile, and then plopped between the ashes of other writings.

    “Ugly, disgusting, mean, trash!” Her fingers gripped a large packet that was clipped together, my Fire Tree manuscript. She ripped the cover page off and tore it again before throwing the whole entire chunk into the stomach of the flames.

    There was a click and suddenly everything seemed unreal. My heart leapt in my throat and I threw her down upon the concrete, her brand new lavender dress ripping.

    “Stop it right now!” My voice, still unknown to me cried, “Stop it, stop! These are my works, my life, yet you kill them with your mechanical stare! All you see is what you wish to see and I, I can’t take it anymore!” She stood hastily, pierced me in the eyes with her flaring irises.

    “You. Are. Disgusting,” she was sure to pronunciate every word. “You hide behind me. That’s all you’ve done since high school. Hide; conceal yourself behind me and your silly little words, words that no one gave a damn about anyway!” The sky suddenly crashed upon me, shattering like a broken window pane; I would not be able to escape unscathed. “And now, just because you’ve gone along with everything I’ve said and you’ve changed your mind, you’re blaming me.

    “Well I’ve got news for you; it was your choice to burn the book. It was your choice to listen to me. I’ve got nothing to do with this so back off and get the hell away from me.

    “You’ve really hurt me with your selfishness and I’m sick of it.” She left without another word.

    I stood there for some time, staring into the fire, feeling blank and light yet at the same time, overwhelmed with the affliction that clawed at me. How wrong and selfish was I? I nudged the papers towards the fire, until they ran over the edge and were caught between fiery lips. Then I grabbed the hose from besides me and turned the nozzle, allowing a burst of cooling rain to eliminate the greedy, destructive fingers.

    By the time the sun was up, the blazes were gone and I too, had gone missing from the premises. I drove home quietly, having nothing to say to myself or anyone else. My hands moved the tough steering wheel from memory, as my eyes were not seeing the world as it was; instead words replaced the scenery. There were her words, switching around like flat soda with the scent of sour milk and then there were my words; words that were never said, words never meant to be said, and words from my stories. All the letters formed a massive headache in the back of my skull, near the neck and I groaned a few times, my eyes swimming through the roads.

    Luckily, home was not far from the burn site. I gladly directed the car into the driveway and removed myself from its presence. Inside, my mother bombarded me with questions and the bombing frustrated me to no end.

    “Where were you so early this morning?”

    “Oh! How is she?”

    “Would you like some cereal? Granola bars? Milk?”

    “You look rather dressed up…”

    “How is the planning the wedding with her going? How’s her fiancée?”

    “Where did all your papers go? You’re editor came by this morning, he asked about your manuscript.”

    “Sally called, and so did Marco. You should call them back soon.”

    “Why won’t you answer me?” I gave her a sad look and she was prepared to perform another inquisition but I eradicated the chance by entering my bedroom and closing the door. Speaking to anyone at this moment would fragment me completely. My body reached for the bed and soon I was sprawled across the crumpled sheets, my head still aching and ablaze from the constant flow of words from my brain to my fingertips.

    The bed comforted me for a while and although I did not sleep, I rested and rejuvenated my energy, but not my stability. For that, I would need hours of tight-clutching slumber and silence; plenty of thinking and resting without interruption of others.

    Spending the time collapsed over my crudely made bed, my mind wandered.

    First, there was whiteness, filthy, smothering, whiteness. It was dirty because I felt dirty, and my mind felt dirty and the world was this way as well and so, the pure was violated. Next there was a figure, a plain mannequin, earless, eyeless, noseless, lipless; it was a human shaped blob. I gave it hair, bright, shimmering brunette hair and then grey-black eyes and tanned, ebony skin. Subsequently, I widened the frame, stretched that new, fine skin, placed a few moles and sketched out the features. It was now she, and she was very average looking, not what one would call beautiful.

    Her nose, I stretched out and straightened the bridge and curled the end upward, only a tiny bit. Her ears, I curved and expanded and made smaller so that they hid well behind her hair, which I shortened to her chin. The eyes, I spread farther a part, and twisted them down so that they looked downright odd, but I gave their color more light and depth so that they appeared lovely to gaze upon. The cheeks I rounded and squeezed together so that they were straight and long. Finally, I shaped her lips which were small, but not bunched and they were thin, hard lines.

    Next, I made her smaller, a tiny, chubby person, all in proportion. I clothed her in a plain white, somewhat tattered shirt, old and well-worn, I supposed, and faded blue jeans with ripping hems. On her hard, size-ten feet, she adorned ancient, gray tennis shoes, ones that she ran in everyday so that she might fulfill the impractical dream of being model-thin and beautiful. Those old shoes were shabby and aged and overused, tired of the weight of the vision pushed upon them.

    As the clothing revealed itself, so did the scenery; a bright, midsummer day, the air fresh and clear. She would awake early everyday, eat a full, healthy breakfast, journey to work an hour later, and tirelessly attack her first shift at a bookstore not far from her tiny apartment. After that job ended, she would eat a tiny lunch of a salad and water from some fast-foot restaurant before continuing to her next job where she labored another seven hours before running around a park close to home, in those worn tennis shoes.

    As the day ended, she would return home, devour a small dinner, take a shower, and sleep until the next identical morning. Such an unfulfilling life she had.

    I sighed. The repetitive motions of this character’s life depressed me more as I thought of it, but I continued, every blood vessel ached for a persistence, therefore, I offered them more.

    One day, she left home in her usual way, on foot, when she ran into a man, carrying hot coffee. The drink did not spill but the tall, middle-aged man glared down at her fiercely before going on his way. Regret and guilt flushed through her arteries and veins as the man passed and she maintained her walk to work.

    Within the confines of the workplace, near the end of her shift, a man walked in, his eyes skimming over the store, until he found her assisting an elderly woman at the check-out. He silently waited in line, behind two other costumers, until they were gone.

    “Look, I know this is sudden, Nancy” I supposed that could be her name, for now, in any case. “I need money, I need it bad. I know you’re working two jobs, and that it’s hard for you but I could really use your help.”

    As I said her name out loud, it sounded wrong and as I replayed what had happened in my head, it sounded utterly boring. I rolled over and my stomach churned with the heat of today’s fire. It’s all burning, the thoughts, my fantasies, my eyes, my stomach, my entire being- everything was on fire.

    I inched off the bed, weary and in pain, and headed towards the window. I need fresh air, the room was suffocating, the air was no longer fresh like in this newly arrived story; no, now it was overpowering, consuming, blazing. Yanking the window up by its handle, I felt a sudden burst of window hit my face, and the typical blaring of sirens. They sounded so close today…I sighed and ogled the emerald grass in the backyard.

    The wind felt so good, so cool and comforting, before I knew it, I was climbing down into backward, my mind hoping to travel down to the creek near here, so that maybe nature could console me. My foot stretched down to balance upon a brick that jutted out from the wall near my bedroom widow, but all it met with was air. My digits were slick with sweat from my achingly hot room and they slipped easily.

    Air swept past me, my back slammed into the seemingly soft grass and then people were around me- there were so many faces. I gasped in pain, the malaise, grinding into my temples, thus worsening my headache. I was lifted into a stretcher, and my eyes, as they transported me from the back to the front of my house, saw fire- large torrents of icy hot flames and then, the ambulance doors were smashed shut. A mask was lifted over my mouth and nose, a voice spoke to me loudly, and while in that vehicle, I found myself drifting to sleep easier with all the noise than I did in my silent room.


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    “…luckily, you were awake and were able to escape with only a broken foot,” The doctor smiled at me and a forced a smile back. “You’ll have to make sure that your mom remembers everything before she leaves the house.” I nodded. Of course, she happened to leave the stove on; that was her persona: forgetful, caring, annoyingly inquisitive mother.

    The doctor departed and I was left to my own thoughts. Walking towards the window, I observed the brightly lit morning, the clouds racing past me in the blue racetrack of the day. If I had fallen asleep, I could have died; my mind remained on that solemn thought. I would have left his world, angry, frustrated, and pained; I would have met then very same end that I condemned others too, condemned my children too. The mental image of fire shifted into her, but no hatred or regret came back at this very moment.

    I gave a clear sigh, leaned my head against the cool glass and thought to myself, my existence coming into focus- my stories; if my stories were, indeed nothing, and nothing is all it is, then I could be satisfied.