Eulogy and Birth

As she sat in her throne for the last time, feeling the painful throb of new life ebbing one moment then surging the next, 2009 looked upon the winter of her last days.

She'd known what was to come, as all Years do, and when December came she was not surprised at the ever increasing body within her womb. She had been one herself twelve months before. She knew her fate.

She closed her eyes as she thought of it, thought of the job she had done, the choices she had made and the choices she may not have made had she her time again. But she knew that time was not in her possession any longer and it was to time that she would give herself in her last few moments.

She looked down upon the world she had cared for - a count down to her ending was being displayed in sparkling, red LEDs. It was unclear when she would really end, as the world had many varying calendars and its people could not agree on anything but she knew it would be with great light and colour and a loud booming which could only be man-made.

Her breath caught in her throat as the surging quickened. She did not want it to end now. Not yet. She tried to hold it back, clenching and unclenching but it only made the pain worse.

She stopped then, thinking about what was happening. Her frown uncreased... her face changed to what one would imagine to be a crisp, clean, white sheet - freshly washed and laid upon a bed. She smiled, looking upon her swollen stomach with a small sense of pride.

2010 would be a good Year, she thought as she closed her eyes.

Down upon Earth, the fireworks started - a loud booming to a cheering chorus - loud enough to cover the sound of a baby crying on the throne of a new Year.

---

To see my non-fiction, 'me' New Year post visit KeyChild. Welcome, 2010, treat us well.

The Inventor

He'd worked for years to get this far, so many years of countless experimenting and disordered findings. He was the top of his field, though what that field was no one could tell. His name was not well-known, nor was his existence. He lived a solitary life, at the top of a tower, the rest of which lay uninhabitted by any living form.

The ticking was what made it noticeable, the clockwork tick that rang clear through the forest in which the tower sat. It was a lucky coincidence that the travellers from the nearest town just so happened to be passing when the ticking began it's annual mournful chorus. They say that the mechanism cannot feel emotion but they did not know his creations - they felt as well as any human being. Their loss was great.

Their existence was nothing but walking in circles, up and down the great tower. They had no purpose, not anymore. They were lifeless beings, simply existing. Their universe was a tower in a forest and nothing more. They knew nothing of the outside world and they did not need to. Their mournful movements fuelled them, kept them going.

But one day, it stopped. As the travellers walked the steps to the large brass doors of the tower the ticking stopped - silence swept through the forest with a chill like no other. And there they were - frozen mechanical figures like monuments in a churchyard.

He'd worked for years to get this far, surrounded by his machines. A skeleton trapped in a mechanism in a museum made from stone.

Fiction

Flash. With one taste your hooked. Flash. Scared, even. Flash. Addicted to the taste of that which has caught your eye. Flash. Not knowing whether it is fact or fiction. Flash.

You don't know when to stop. Flash. Whether you can stop. Flash.

It's hot, this feeling. Flash. There's a pounding in the chest. Flash. Adrenaline. Flash. You feel the want, the need to run. Flash. But there's nothing but air. Flash. Trapped in the freedom, you stumble. Flash.

But with one small click. It's over. You're free.

Symphonic

An oral potion, to be heard and not consumed - a beautiful composition, a concoction fit for the gods.

I breathe you in, close my eyes and the world changes.

9:34, 10:46, 10:55

Slowly it creeps, dragging itself round in those last, laboured pushes of life. But still, there's a light beat and rhythm - the same as there always was. Though it is dying, the tick hasn't changed. It carries on, quest-like and determined. It longs only to live. Just one more day, just one more day.

It counts its last days with a soft tick and the slow-spinning of a skeleton head.

9:34, 10:46, 10:55

Hot Chocolate

Mug out, spoon in, powder, press button, wait.

The red glares through the window, captivating and hypnotising before being evicted once more to the joy of the impatient ones before it. The blind is half closed but the colour still slips through. Red. Orange. Green.

Touch kettle, tap foot.

Metal monsters move past at speed, faceless beings swallowed in their warmth - away from the winter. Red. Orange. Green. Music blares a tuneless beat, it's melody lost in the metalic barrier with only the thrumming bassline slipping through. He taps on the steering wheel. Red. Orange. Green.

A small click, steam, pour, stir.

Passersby look inside, oggling at what they imagine is there. Cars still sit as the door closes and the light goes out. Red. Orange. Green.

Hatter

He stares down at me, watching my every move with uneven, unblinking eyes.

The patron saint of the mad on his throne. There, upon my wall.

He stares down at me, fueling each word I write.

Sickness

The growls come, each more lengthy, needy than the next. But they're not as persuasive as they'd like. That feral begging falls on deaf ears as it fades away into the night. There's something oddly sympathetic about it, something pleading - a cry that arises the need or want to comfort. But it isn't enough. Again, the growls fail but still they come.

It's the emptiness that's sickening, rising and falling like a tide on a stormy night. But still, there's a will that beats against it, a will with no reason, no justification, not even a little bit of sense - but it's there and it's enough. It's a strange dilemma, a subtle sickness, far beyond any logical understanding.

Don't ask, it won't answer. It's not that easy, it's not as simple as a black and white photo of a lone, leaveless tree.

Some call it the sickness worth having.

It's not.

Birthday

Today, it's your birthday. And I'm thinking of you. Or rather the absence of you; the hole that, until recently, had gone unnoticed. It doesn't hit hard or even often and when it does I am struck with confusion rather than a dull hurt and bruise. But I don't ask why, I don't seek never-coming answers. My eyes don't cloud and showers do not pour from them. I do not miss you.

But still, it aches. A small ache, barely bigger than a five pence piece. Barely noticeable after it has landed, spun, toppled and found a place to rest. I can barely feel it if I don't go looking. But it's there.

You're not gone but you're not here either. You swing between - an indecisive child with an unknowingly cruel mind, picking on ants and next keeping them as pets, oblivious to the damage caused unless someone tells you. But they won't. I am the ant to your magnifying glass, to your ant farm filled with sand.

There's guilt there, between the cracks and tunnels, like the ant that got away. Being wrong, in the wrong. It's not your fault, they'd say as they cling to what little they know. But then the question would come. Then whose? Silence or hapless blame. An answer crafted with lies to cover up what isn't known. And I'd be back there, wondering, wandering. Waiting for your glass or farm to come again, trying to guess which it will be.

And it will repeat.

I'm thinking of you, for the the first time in eons, it seems. And it's your birthday. And I don't know if I miss you.

Envelope

It sits there, the table, mocking me. Smiling silkily at me and begging me to approach it, pick it up and look inside. But I can't. And it knows. It knows and yet it still begs and calls come closer, come closer... in its all too seductive tone. A wicked creature, it is, luring and lulling my hand.

But, there's a higher power, a loyalty to keep. My hand is stayed. It still screams its pleading words and sends it's sugar-sweet lust my way. It wants to be open, to be seen, to be freed. But I wait. I wait until that word comes floating into my periphery and into my mind and then, only then, will I given to its cacophonous coos of come closer, pick me up and give me life...

Notice

He sits back straight and not looking at anyone, as if looking might make them explode or worse. He's sat at least two seats away from everyone else, pretending that he doesn't notice them. He's frowning as he watches his world go round, all of his belongings in that one metal tub. He's not how he looks, he's not anything you've ever seen before. But you wouldn't know it, you'll never know it, because you simply don't notice him.

Stillness

There's a stillness in this room, not the sort of stillness that you'd want or enjoy - not peace. It's the stillness you'd find in an unlife, an existence with nothing but that mechanical movement which all are destined to perform. It is not life.

This stillness sits at the back, writhing and infecting all, even if they do not perceive it. In this room you wouldn't notice. Words are spoken, fade away and are never heard nor spoken of again. This room, it seems, is a stop in time, a place where moments move slower and you leave feeling like you've lost more than you've gained.

The stillness does its job and is smug in its victory, watching as you're being made its puppet for that slow hour-and-a-half drawl. With the lights low and no sound but the labourous scratiching of reluctant pens and the talking, which you don't really hear, that you begin to notice the stillness as it creeps around the room.

It would eye you, if it were a thing with eyes, wink and then move forward to spread the ailment and enforce it so that you couldn't slip out of it if you tried. Thinking becomes slow, dizzy, hazy and incoherent until you cannot think at all.

But if you could think you might find that you realise that it is not the stillness at all but the being at the front who paces back and forth and says words that no one remembers.

Sunday

Sunday is evident in this house, there's barely any noise and what noise there is is lazy and slow. It floats, sweeping past doors and making sure that any action that might have been planned is changed to resonant inaction, you might want to do it, you might have planned to do it with every detail spoken for and no room for error. But, Sunday is here. You're not going to do it.

Some are lucky, Sunday cannot change your mind if someone else, not in the house where Sunday currently haunts, has decided your plan of action then Sunday cannot stop you. Her ethereal features move to a frown when she realises she cannot keep you. She doesn't like it, not at all. The thought of her toys leaving her well-preseved play area is not one she enjoys or expects. When you do leave it, through your own will, she lets out a wail hoping that it will stop you in your tracks and bring you back. But it doesn't.

There are noises, getting louder as the time speeds past. Sunday begins to panic, the house is no longer sleepy, it is alive and moving. She's running out of time, soon she'll have to move on and find another house and more people to keep sleeping and calm and unproductive.

She closes her eyes, a frown still on her face and a pout on her lips, turns to the door and slips through, as if she were never there at all.

Stars

There are no stars here, the world is dark and the clouds take a purplish hue. It's different here, things have different meanings. The world is topsy-turvy and there are no stars.

It's more evident up here, that feeling. It's more powerful, more pure. There's a longing there too deep not to notice and too deep to take hold of and set free to the wind. But there are no stars here.

It's different here, feelings change, surface and drift like leaves in a breeze. They'd go unnoticed if they could but up here, up here it's strange and there are no stars.

Cycle

Leaves fall in showers and Autumn moves faster - your instrument of change a walking stick with a hooked end. You talk of fate, control and life itself. You cleave the leaves from trees, weeds, plants and they fall, feather-light, to the floor.

You walk in circles, always circles with your words circling themselves, over and over. The speaking never stops it's eternal hum of questions, only questions.

It spins, swipes and falls to the ground with a wooden clatter. You look up, curse, then start the cycle once more. Leaves, fate, control, leaves, circles, questions, leaves, fate, control...

Watching

The growling subsided but we've not moved. We've stayed still, stopping in our hunched places. Only our hands moving from time to time, eyes flickering and dancing across the room we sit in. All is quiet, save for the few feral grunts and yellings and the gasps, which come from none of us. We're observers in this.

The voices change, low, old, slow. Each breath, like the wind through dead trees. When the rage comes, the slowness sinks away and the pace becomes almost lethal. It doesn't seem possible. In fact, it's not. It's not happening, not really. But still, we make no noise. Only our hands move from time to time and our eyes flicker less.

A Book made of Buttons

Hello, Other Blog. How are you feeling now that you exist? It's strange to think that, earlier on today, you hadn't even been thought of, let alone written in and planned. So quickly life is created, though, you're not strictly alive are you? No. You're only alive when I write in you. It must be a sad existence, even if it is new. It must already be sad, living only when someone else wants you to. But we mustn't dwell on sad things.

If you were a book, I'd imagine you to be completely covered in buttons, sewn onto your cover precisely and delicately. You'd be purple, of course, and though you wouldn't see it for the buttons, you'd be made of a nice material, something soft and smooth to the touch. Your pages would have that antique feel, smell. That crusty too-old but still living sense that old books have. You'd be a paradox in yourself, a new-old book and I'd write in you with a feather quill and purple ink. You'd seem like some sort of magic, to me anyway with my imagination tying itself in knots just to understand you. But I wouldn't. You're too complex. But you're loyal, I could see that from the moment you were made - if I were to write my secrets in you they would simply dissolve into nothing and reappear again if I wanted to see them.

It's nice, isn't it? Imagining what you could be like, if you were not caught in the web of the cyberspider, which we all bow down to daily. One day, I will make you, for real and I will write a new entry, just like this one just for you. No one else, it will be our little secret.

Hello, Other Blog. How are you feeling now that you exist?