#ThursThreads, week 601

Prompt: https://siobhanmuir.com/thursthreads-tying-tales-together-week-601/

I cringed as the apartment door closed with a groan. I was going to take care of that while she was out of town and I’d totally forgotten. 

Maybe I could distract her?

“Hey, Muri! How was your first week on the job?”

Muri stuck her head into my office, saw the pile of dishes and Coke bottles, and bit back the obvious reply. “‘On the job?’ Who am I, Andy Sipowicz?” 

She padded into our bedroom, partially muffling the rest of her reply. I caught the end. “…fine. They trained us pretty well.”

“Days not too long?”

Muri tossed her shirt at the hamper and grimaced as it fell off the heap. Her bra followed, then her jeans and underwear, but when she caught my hopeful look, she just stared meaningfully at the bag of chips that I’d left on her side of the bed and stepped into the bathroom, turning on the shower.

“Not too long. And I like my team.”

I put down the toilet seat and sat down, looking around the bathroom quickly, trying to see it with her eyes.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. I thought it’d be weird being in the capsule all week with Kyle, but he’s really thoughtful and funny. Helps when there’s no privacy, y’know?”

“Uh-huh?”

Muri turned off the shower and grabbed her towel, drying off behind the curtain.

“I am so tired. Oh, by the way – they want me back on the launch pad in the morning. Two weeks this time.”

#ThursThreads, week 600

Prompt: https://siobhanmuir.com/thursthreads-tying-tales-together-week-600

#ThursThreads – Tying Tales Together – Week 600

I was already in my mind when I arrived.

Wait. This is going to be complicated.

50 was already in my mind when 10 arrived. 10 ignored 50 – I’d gotten fat and bald and hairier than dad, and there was even a ring on my finger. I’d gotten married? Best not to ask. 50 was doing that adult thing of arranging snacks and looking at my watch. 10 looked at my watch too. Some things never change.

Neither 50 nor 10 had noticed 4 come in. 4 knew how to be quiet when I needed to.

15, on the other hand. 15 was a pain in my ass. “You’ve moved all my stuff!”

50 sighed. “I’ve moved all my stuff. It’s been 30 years.”

“31,” 4 added. “372 months.”

“How many days?” 15 mouthed off. 4’s eyes went distant. I was thinking.

“Never mind that,” 50 said. “We need to talk.”

“Even me?” Asked 24. 24 was scared of my own shadow.

“Yes, even you. And you too, 44.”

44 looked startled. “But I’m a fucking mess.”

“So am I,” echoed dozens of voices. 7 giggled at the use of the word “fucking.” 8 did not.

I looked at me. And me. And me. I saw so many different paths I could’ve taken. I knew what I was about to experience at 9, at 22, at 35. Goddamn 35.

“But I don’t wanna be.” 3’s voice was soft. I picked 3 up and put me on my lap.

“Me either.”

#ThursThreads, week 596

Prompt: https://siobhanmuir.com/thursthreads-tying-tales-together-week-596/

Eve couldn’t see a damned thing as she walked, but she was pretty sure that was a blessing. What she could smell and hear (and taste – oh god, there were *bits* of something in the air!) was foul enough. She knew what had happened here, was still happening here, and knew what she was most likely hearing and smelling (and tasting), and she thought if she could see it, she’d lose her mind. 

She stumbled a bit, and the man beside her grabbed her by the neck to stop her from falling. If his hand had felt like a claw, or a pincer, maybe this place would have made some sense to her. But it was human. Soft in places, calloused in others. He’d stroked the bodies of his lovers with that hand. Maybe even held his child oh-so-gently while singing a soft lullaby. 

And held a gun, raining death upon the defenseless. Smacked women and children around, not seeing, not understanding that in doing that evil, he tainted every caress. Every embrace. Every gentle hug.

They followed the railroad tracks the rest of the way to the entrance. She knew what the wrought iron over her head said and was again glad it was too dark to see it. 

Eve didn’t know why they’d chosen her for this purpose, for this place. Why would they want someone with her talents here?

All she’d heard when she was taken was, “We can work with you.”

“Work will make you free.”

250 words
@drmag00

#ThursThreads, week 595

Prompt: https://siobhanmuir.com/thursthreads-tying-tales-together-week-595

To Dance, Perchance to Dream

“I want to. But I…”

“Do this for me. Close your eyes.” She slid her hands over my eyes, her cool skin on my sweaty, feverish face. Her breath tingled on the back of my neck. I got goosebumps in spite of the fear. 

“You’re not here, my love, not in this wonderful body, not in this spectacular and tortured mind.” Her lips pressed against me where the slope of my neck passed into my shirt. “We’re floating in nothingness, you and I. Our inner essences, absent experience, absent form, absent thought.”

She moved in front of me, taking my hands in hers. I kept my eyes closed. I had to.

“We’re moving around each other, circling, spinning, because that’s what’s in our nature to do.” She started to turn us and I followed, imagining that nothingness as best as I could.

The soft strum of a guitar began, and I tensed. “We don’t have to obey the music. It flows through us, and we only take what we want.”

Her hands slid up to my neck and her body swayed against me, drawing mine with hers. For a moment, I was fully in her reality, existing but not thinking, letting her take control of my body.

But then I stumbled, and I came back to myself. Panic rushed through me like molten steel, and I froze, stammering an apology

Her lips found mine. “Shhh,” she whispered. “You cannot do this wrong.”

I closed my eyes, and we began again.

#ThursThreads, week 581

Prompt: https://siobhanmuir.com/thursthreads-tying-tales-together-week-581/

“Where are you going?” Mickey asked. Her half-unbuttoned dress, flushed chest, and swollen lips beckoned me back to her arms, but I had to go. She knew where, and she knew why. She knew too much about me, and she understood me in ways I didn’t understand myself.

I should have turned away from her to make our separation sharper. People cut themselves much more often from knives that are too dull, after all. But I didn’t think I’d ever see her again, and I needed to take in every bit of her as I could before Hell came down on me. 

She sat forward on her knees, and I stared into the valley between her dangling breasts wanting to do nothing more than lose myself in that darkness. Tears started dripping from her eyes. Soon the storm would start. Fuck. I even loved the way she cursed me out. No one else had ever cared enough to do that.

“I’ll do that thing you like. I’ll do anything you want. I don’t care. Don’t…” Mickey’s voice broke. “Don’t go. Please.”

I finished straightening my clothes and picked up my duffel. 

Fuck. Everything in me was telling me to stay. She’d drown me in her body and in her arms, and I could forget. Forget the pain. Forget the promise. Forget. Until it came for us here.

I heard the scream she gave as the door closed behind me in my dreams until my very last night.

#ThursThreads, week 574

Prompt: https://siobhanmuir.com/thursthreads-tying-tales-together-week-574/

Everyone told Ronnie that she had no choice but to do what she had done, but everyone was wrong. She had had a choice just like Jacky had had a choice and just like everyone going back to the primordial ooze had had a choice. Everyone didn’t have to get their heartrate under control when they woke up in the middle of the night screaming, though. Everyone hadn’t had to run to the bathroom and fight against puking in a fancy restaurant after watching someone cut into a steak that was still bloody.

When it came right down to it, Ronnie thought, Everyone didn’t know shit about fuckall.

She’d tried to go back to her life. She showed up at the bar on Friday nights and the ballet on Saturdays. She wore all black to steal jewelry and a pinstriped suit to steal portfolios. She dreamt up schemes and solved problems and acted like the world was her oyster.

But that afternoon kept coming back to her. The way the job had seemed off kilter from the beginning. The way Jacky was calm from the get-go, and Jacky was never calm. The way it felt when she saw the double-cross.

The way her knife felt entering the stomach of a man she’d known as long as she’d known anyone.

And now, no matter how much Ronnie pretended, that life was over. 

She shouldered her backpack a little higher, took another drink of water, and headed out. She didn’t tell anyone.

#ThursThreads, week 571

Prompt: https://siobhanmuir.com/thursthreads-tying-tales-together-week-571/

The hallway was long enough for my head to stop hurting so bad. Billy walked behind me and to my side, as if he was making sure I wouldn’t run. 

Run? I wouldn’t have known where to run. I hadn’t exactly chosen this new life.

Neither had Billy, for that matter. He just happened to be Johnny-on-the-spot when I was attacked. He ran them off, but the damage was done. 

I’d been delirious with pain and fear and have no clear memory of how we got back to Billy’s place. At some point, I tasted blood in my mouth, the hot, coppery liquid lighting me on fire, and then it was all chaos.

In the week that followed, Billy had been my lifeline. He taught me about who I was now and what I needed to do to survive. Twice, he and I went out so I could learn how to feed, but I found the whole thing repulsive, and only drank what he’d forced me to. 

We reached Her door. Billy hadn’t told me anything about Her other than to not piss Her off. As if I knew how to do that. 

As I reached for the doorknob, Billy grabbed my arm, hard. I slapped it away – I’d had enough of that shit in my life – and glared at him. 

“Good,” he said. “You can get angry. You’re going to need that if you want to make it in this life. But not now. Not with Her. Got it?”

#ThursThreads, week 568

I’d forgotten to post this two weeks ago, and it won, so I figured I should keep it around.

Prompt: https://siobhanmuir.com/thursthreads-tying-tales-together-week-568/

The snake slithered around my neck, its scales soft and dry against my sweaty, sticky skin. I don’t know what it thought I was, but as long as it didn’t think I was food, I was happy. Eventually, it climbed back up into the trees to do whatever enormous snakes did.

Unfortunately, the guy who’d tied me to the tree didn’t do me the same courtesy.

He didn’t really do much of anything, really, except be extremely thorough in his knot-tying. He never spoke, he didn’t grunt with effort – hell, I wasn’t sure if he breathed.

When he was done, he walked away from me and disappeared into the forest, having done his job remarkably well.

I should know. This was my sixth, no – seventh time she’d left me for dead.

The first time was after I’d forgotten to bring her the bike she’d wanted for Christmas. She didn’t leave her mom’s side the whole day, and the next day I’d woken up under what felt like every blanket in the house. It wasn’t as good an assassination attempt as leaving me tied to a tree in a forest filled with venomous creatures, but to be fair, she was only seven.

Each time had gotten more dangerous, more difficult to escape from. This time though – this was her best. I knew she thought I should have been there to see her every morning as she grew up, but she didn’t understand, not yet.

Still, she was my star pupil.

#ThursThreads, week 570

Prompt: https://siobhanmuir.com/thursthreads-tying-tales-together-week-570/

Billy flipped the light switch, and with my head feeling the way it did, the naked 60 W bulb hanging from the ceiling felt like the sun.

Thankfully, it wasn’t.

“What the fuck, dude? Turn that shit off.” I tried to bury my head under the pillow, but Billy yanked it away and laughed.

“Shut up, you baby. You’ve got supernatural eyes now. The pain should already be gone. Anyway, it’s time to get up. She’s here.”

“What? Already?”

“It’s already 11 pm. Let you sleep as long as I could.” He tossed me my clothes. “And get dressed. You’re hot and all, but She has big appetites in a lot of ways, and I’d like you to survive the night.”

I pulled my shirt over my head and tried to untangle the rat’s nest that was my hair. That wasn’t going to get better without a shower and a lot of brushing. The shirt was a little rank, but not too bad. I grimaced at the thought of putting that underwear on again, though, and decided against it. If She had an issue with me going commando, might as well find out quickly.

Billy sat down on the bed next to me and pulled off his hat. Now he spoke with some concern. “Have you been drinking enough blood? The first week is rough either way, but you need it.”

I thought of the night before and how I’d finally gotten something of value from my parents, and nodded.

#ThursThreads, week 566

Prompt: https://siobhanmuir.com/thursthreads-tying-tales-together-week-566

I always loved watching her when we went to a hardware store at the beginning of a project. I knew the basics, but she was an expert. She could look at shelf after shelf of whoozits and whatsits and know exactly what we were going to need.

I was her assistant. I’d fetch whatever she needed, and sometimes I’d even get it right the first time.

Her eyes lit up when we’d get to the lumberyard. There was something about the smell, I think. It wasn’t the same as her smell at the end of the day – a combination of sawdust and sweat that never failed to excite me. It was more the smell of potential, of *possibility*. These boards and sheets of plywood could be anything in the right hands.

I’d grab a two by four for her inspection. “That one has too many knots,” she’d tell me, or “that one may be true,” or “stop making ‘wood’ jokes.” Well, that last one was more of a look than words.

She was the foreperson now more than the lead carpenter, guiding the kids through their own projects. I knew that someday, we wouldn’t be around, but she’d still be with them every time they went to the hardware store. “That one may be true,” they’d hear in their heads. And they would know, just like I did, that she wasn’t always talking about lumber.