Greeting Farewell

The cup dropped to the ground lifting the smallest of clouds of ash that drifted and separated. Her pale ashen hands were shaking. Tears of thick black ash slipped from her eyes. She leaned forward further and further toward the river. Her knees dropped and her body teetered forward as she collapsed into the river. The she within the river drifted quickly forward, pushing the living she, lifting the living she, shoving the living she. She within the river was screaming water into water in the terror of her reckoning. The living she was too heavy. She could not lift her.  She kicked with her legs desperately trying to find the leverage, the strength, the hope of getting the living she out of the water. She within the river was crying water into water in frustration and terror. The living she fell forward into the she within and they embraced, wrapping her arms and legs around the she within and hugging her tight as they both drifted downward. The light was growing dimmer as they sank further and further, deep into the river. The failing light was no more as they sank into complete darkness, and the cries of the she within had faltered and faded away as she embraced the living she back as they became a single she. She was lost, a drowned one, drowned in the river. She slipped and drifted along the bottom until the water became ash, and when she reached the ashfall, she fell through the ashfall, spinning and tumbling with the other lost souls. So she greeted farewell...

Fading Away

She is watching herself drink her own ashes. How could this be? She had been maintaining the living she in the past. She made sure not to drift so far that the living she would fade. She made sure not to sink so far as to darken too much the living she. Yet, there the living she sat drinking her own ashes.

Her ashes had powdered her face with a thin layer of gray that darkened into tiny extending roots from the tears trickling from her eyes.  The living she was fading.

The paleness and the ash of the living she had become such that her face looked like a china doll with the tiny cracked lines of age. Her small pale ashen hands lightly shook as she lifted the cup to her lips and tipped and lowered and lifted and tipped. Such a sight was horrifying to the she within the river, not only that the living she had faded so far, but the attention it would most surely bring.

How had it become this bad?  How could she not have seen it?  All it took would be a reach through the water, a grasp, a grip, a touch, a hold, a feel, a comfort to the living she.  She could not.  She would not.  She had not the strength.  She had not the courage.

From dirt to cup, from cup to ash, from ash to mouth, it was too late. It was far too late. Had she seen another beside the river suffer the same fate, she could have done something. She would have known. She would have seen sooner. It would not have come to this...

"Now that I've decided not to stay
I can feel me start to fade away
Everything is back where it belongs
I will be beside you before long" - NIN

Next: Greeting Farewell

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...

Next: Fading Away