A Shard of Glass...

As the window shattered and disintegrated into a thousand pieces, I came alive. Glistening in the sunlight, scattering its rays to infinity and beyond, I realised for the first time what it was like to breathe, to feel the light on your face, to touch the cool breeze caressing your jagged ends.

There I lay amidst my siblings, all so bizarrely alike in our differences when we heard a sudden shrill cry followed by a cacophony of diverse notes that felt musical to my ears. I smiled to myself. Oh!! The joy of being alive!! Of letting it sweep you away with its temptations!!!

And then she arrived!! The large brown demoness, spiteful in her fury, glowering down from above and consuming all the light in her rage. Darkness enveloped us all and we lay cowering in our fears. She swung her enormous arms about herself and swooped down from above, clutching her long slender weapon, swinging it again and again in her wrath until I was flung to a pitch black corner while she gathered my siblings in her arms, tearing me apart from my family forever.

In this remote darkness I lay for days, mourning my loss, watching her shadow move about. Fear and gloom consumed my days and I craved to feel the sun rays, the stale breadth intensifying my need to sigh with the cool breeze. I felt closer to death, urging its dark cocoon to enclose me in its folds when I felt the touch of cool moonlight. For a moment I felt like I was in a dream; there lay my siblings adorned artistically around a red sheath which the demoness had proudly placed over by her lair’s entrance. They shone with joy, cheerily scattering the pale moonlight, alive and well cared for.

Anger flared within my depths, a rage of unrealistic proportions, consuming me from within like the darkness that had nurtured me for so long. Neglect, loneliness and loss heaving and crashing like the waves of the stormy ocean around my being until all I sought was vengeance. Patience became my friend, rage my ally. I could no longer watch my siblings glittering with joy in the sunlight. Patiently I waited, willing her to materialise in person, my awareness constantly following her shadow.

And at long last she came, unsuspecting and unwary she drifted into my corner. She loomed over me, large and majestic, as slowly she lowered her foot over my very body. Red blood came gushing out and her shrill cries filled the air. The scent of sweet blood filled my nostrils, joy flowed through my soul. And as she picked me up and threw me out into the bright sunshine, drenched in her blood I shattered into a million glittering pieces, finally finding peace.

Dearly Departed...

So there I lay, my physical body ghastly white and strangely eerie in its death slumber, rotting slowly away as the crowd sheathed in black moved quietly about. I stood there behind the priest, a transparent shadow of my former self, looking down at the dead body I so strongly wanted to possess yet again. My body had something clutched tightly in its fingers, holding on to it like some talisman of strength. And as I watched the crowd slowly gathered around, mournful and gloomy, whispering softly amongst themselves.

As the funeral proceeded, I looked around at the few faces I had held dear to my heart. They stood holding hands, tears streaming down their faces silently. I was strangely unmoved, unable to feel anything but restlessness. I stared and stared at the crowd feeling no sorrow and no longer craving their love. All I felt was a deep need to possess my physical body and fulfilling some unresolved forgotten purpose that loomed somewhere in between the blurred memories of my past.

I drifted away slowly from the crowd trying to recall what it was I so strongly craved even after death, when all physical and social temptations seemed to have deserted me. And suddenly the crowd parted to reveal a pit dug deep in the ground. The coffin was slowly lowered, its confines holding my decaying body. Unfamiliar faces gathered around the box, softly throwing back the brown earth over the coffin, returning the body to nurture the earth it rose from, with its remnants. As the earth fell over me, shrouding me softly with darkness, my vision blurred. The voices became softer, my transparent self that I had so strongly been aware of diminishing softly and disappearing as more earth fell over my coffin.

I was now desperate, trying hard to recall what it was I so strongly craved. And as my vision and senses blurred further, it came back to me like a flash of lightning in the darkness. And as I faded away slowly into nothingness my awareness clutched tightly around the pen in my fingers knowing desperately somewhere that it wanted to be remembered.