Masks

Okay okay, last short thing, I will not post again until I have written something longer, hopefully another part/chapter of the many stories I have started.  The challenge for this piece was to write something to do with masks.  Please enjoy (and comment)!

Masks

lined the walls.  The room was dark, but the masks were backlit, the glow of the eyes and mouth the only light in the room.  Scarlet and gold wallpaper was on the walls and gave the masks eyes of an unholy burning fire.  The room was meant to suggest luxury, and succeeded.  The moon, however, was one of ritual and fear, not one of comfort. 

            Taylor looked into the room from the doorway, dreading what was to come.

            “Come in.”  Taylor jumped.  Among the masks sat a man, in a chair carved from one piece of deeply polished wood.  Slowly Taylor took one step into the dark room.  The empty ruby glowing eye sockets of the masks followed him until he stopped in front of the thrown like chair.  From this distance he could see the carvings were faces.

            “You know what you have done.”  Taylor nodded.  His head felt too light, his palms were damp with sweat.

            “You know your punishment.”  The question was spoken as a statement, and Taylor nodded a gain, a tear slipped down his cheek.  He had broken the last promise to himself and his father.  The last words he had spoken to his father had been made a lie.

            “Whatever you do don’t cry.”  The last words he had heard his father speak.

            “I will not, that is my last promise to you.”  The last words he had spoken.  Even that simple request he could not follow, after all the lies he had told, that one hurt the most.

            “I’m ready.”  Taylor whispered, no longer able to stand his memories, or the silence.  He looked at the faces carved into the wood, imagining his own among them.

insomnia

Less than 100 words? My run on sentence, over using of commas self took the challenge, but does it make sense outside of my mind? I don't know.

Insomnia

I sat on the edge of the bed and wished for sleep. It was a blessing that would not come. The moon paints prison bars across my pillow- where some are trapped in sleep, I can’t find my way in.

            I think about my sister, how sometimes I imagined her looking out the same window, at the same moon.  A world away with the same focus.  Now even imaginings are no comfort.  They are too close to dreams.

            I wished I were sleeping as I wished she would wake.  But wishes, like dreams, so infrequently come true.

The train

Short short, I have been super busy, and have not had much time to write, but wrote this little vignette today, and thought I'd share.

The train has left the station, read newspapers blow across the platform and onto the tracks. it is like a sepia photograph- a daguerreotype.  But there, in the corner lies a hat, red and forgotten.  It sits like a stereotype, a red rose of romance, of forgotten love and longing, unrequited love on a far away shore.  I wander over to it, thinking of the missed train, missed goodbyes and promises, missed movie endings, and fairytale kisses.  I pick up the hat and think- in another story this would be the closing scene, that story would be a tragedy, no dry eye would be left in the audience.  But this hat is a stranger’s and reminds me only of my mother laugh as I stepped out of her arms, and onto the train.