Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Ashes to Ashes

She sits by the river there, a chill air lightly lifting her long flowing hair. She has the stare—the stare of one who is not so completely there. She lifts a cup to her lips and sips. She lowers the cup, her lips now ashen gray. She raises her cup to her lips and sips her own ashes...

Someone walking by would most likely just pass her by, for a sight such as she would bring no interest.  She would look ordinary, nothing special, nothing to notice, nothing at all.  She was intentionally made to look as common as possible with enough of a tinge of rot to give off a discomforting enough feeling to be avoided.  Such a person would pass her by possibly noticing the grim reflection thought to be upon the surface of the river and notice nothing more. They would not be likely to see, even if pausing but for a moment, that the reflection is not so much a reflection, but rather she, she within the river.

Just below the surface, she watches those who pass her by, confident they don’t see the actuality, for the reflection is not she that sits by the river but rather she who lies within the murky water, skin as pale as pale can be, hair drifting, slowly sifting with the light current. She drifts within the river confident that her illusion will hold, fooling those who might linger.

She tries not to look at the other she—the other she that sits by the river drinking her own ashes. She knows the truth, but she tries to deny it. She knows that the she sitting above her is the living she, but she cannot handle her. She looks away because she does not wish to see what she has become. She does not wish to feel what she has become. Her ignorance is her undoing. She has forgotten what it takes to maintain the living she, and the living she has broken.

She looks away, above, beside, beyond her, and dreams a dream of being upon the dirt among the leaves under the trees within a warm comforting breeze...

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