Treasured friend, you will be missed.

After a Friday night yard parties, I remember Saturday mornings when you would be up early making crepes for everyone--you were a morning person. Singing tuneless songs, we'd all wake up and be underfoot while the bacon sizzled and the eggs scrambled with some strange sausage. You served the crepes as they were done, better to eat them while they are hot and fresh; letting them sit too long was no good. My mom would help you with the yard work because you just let those kinds of things slide. You were impractical, but always fun, always laid-back and chill. It was easy to see why you and my mom were such good friends, though you sometimes had arguments. She made you think things through, and you made her lighten up and let loose every now and then.

You lived with us for a while once, when my sister and I were small. That was a good time. Later, when you had a baby, we were thrilled. He was little Alex and we loved to play with him. He goes by his first name now, but we still call him Alex, or Al, or any variation. He is the little brother we never had--though now he towers over us all--and we love him. I hope he'll be alright without you; he has your wry humour and good nature.

I wish I'd been able to come and see you before the end, but life gets in the way. Life always gets in the way of death. I'm glad my sister and mother were able to make it down, I'm glad I got to speak to you once. They had you on so much medication you forgot what you were saying, but you were always spacey--you were still yourself. [soft laugh] I'm sorry you were in so much pain and glad you are no longer.

I will always remember how you made my life and everyone else's life around you richer. Always quick to smile and laugh, always generous. You were the best part of a lot of people. I know you wouldn't want me to be sad, and that you'd want your funeral to be a party. I won't be able to make it that far, but I hope they tell stories about you, the good ones. I hope people laugh, because that's what you would have wanted.

You taught me that I could be merry, that life should be fun. Life should be fun even and especially when times are hard. We should always remember the good things. Every time I make crepes for myself or friends, I will remember you.

Leave because it is time

(firelight maple leaves handcuffs escape)

I dropped the cuffs they'd used to bind my hands, after I asked for the key.

No man may deny me.

There were fires all around, there would be no surprise attack with so much light. They weren't worried.

They should have been.

Walking away, the leaf litter concealed my tracks. The brilliant autumn leaves swirled around my feet, red, gold, orange, and brown.

Here is a wild place, but it is not mine.

...

I arrived in Gallia at the back of a Roman legion. Camp follower? Me? Sort of. More of a fortune teller, a laundress, slop cook...or high end bed-warmer--whatever suited me, I did. My favorite though, was a common legionnaire named Marcus, rugged and nondescript, utterly Roman; I told him I'd be going soon, just to tell someone.

"Where?" He laughed and gestured carelessly toward the trees, who heard everything, "This place is barbaric, no place for a good Roman woman." A polite fiction, can't have the men know you actually love a low-class Greek, a stranger.

"You know perfectly well I'm no Roman," I said, and glanced toward the trees with a little more reverence. I could see thousands of back-lit eyes that the Romans would never notice. I also felt the malice rolling off the trees, normally fairly fatalistic things, at the encroaching eagle standards. They'll come around in time, I thought, trees usually do. But they'll never defend these people, not for hundreds of years at least.

"Nobody's perfect. You'd never make it back to Rome without the army." Without me, he thought. Oh dear, more foolish love. When I was younger, this sort of thing amused me no end; I even loved a few back. Definitely grew out of it when the not-aging or dying always got in the middle of things. A girl can only take so many broken hearts.

"What makes you think I'm going back to Rome?" I kissed his eyes when he slept and took to the woods, after previously promising I'd see him on the morrow. I told him to watch his back, and he laughed. Who listens to women? Besides, his formation was full of veterans and had never broken on the end of an enemy's collective blade.

Some time later, I took myself to the barbarians' sacred fire, and made myself known to their druids. I told him what he wanted to know about the new invaders, nothing more, nothing less. Maybe he whispered somewhat of it to a local clan chief; I cannot say, because I don't remember.

I kept apart at a smaller fire, squatting to warm my hands and savor the heat. Crackling, crystalline voices of pine cones whispered secrets as they slowly burned, then spit at my cheek so I'd forget. In later years, I'll say the sound is like minuscule bits of glass being ground into concrete by a shoe. One last look back at a larger fire where people dance heedlessly with all the mirth and joy of the short-lived, and I take my leave the way I always do, fading into the background until no one remembers the girl with feathers in her hair.

...

They came at dawn, but the Romans were ready. A spectral warrioress watched over the affair on behalf of the pagans with her steed, a thousand times more beautiful than the hazily posturing, grunting Mars. No need for detail, it's perfectly simple to imagine a blood soaked battlefield. I picked my way through the aftermath, holding up my hem, though my clawed feet soon gained a rusty hue. I found my Marcus lying on his belly, a battle axe in his back, fate sealed. I removed the vicious thing with a sharp tug, spoke a word to slow the flow for a minute or three, and turned him over gingerly.

"Who...?," he rasped, terrified, dying eyes staring wide; he spasmed and his eyes scrunched in pain as he struggled to breathe. I could tell when his vision cleared because he closed his eyes. Rome may have renamed the gods of Hellas, but they never had the same fervor, the same viscerally deep belief. Maybe some of Bacchus' followers...but mostly they wanted a good time. The name of a god can make a lot of things happen, sometimes.

"Shh, meet Death with open eyes, love," I Spoke. He opened them. "You know who I am, though I wore a mask." I wiped the bloodied loam from his face with a taloned hand, and leaned in for a last warm peck on that fine Roman face. His eyes reflected mine, a wine-dark sea far from this abattoir. "I will see you to the gates of Elysium."

"I'm Roman," his last words were a sigh, raising a bloody fist to his struggling heart.

"Death won't mind," I said to the air, and vanished. My poor soldier's body stayed in the field, coins in his eyes and a clean feather in his fist. After paying my respects to Persephone, I gave Cerberus chase and found myself heading towards the light, out of a cave and back into a now-Holy Roman Empire.

...

something of a work in progress, copyrighted.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

indie ink juillet 11-15
challenger

pick your poison

Sometimes it's like being drunk. It's very hard to say "No" because hell, it feels good. It feels good to be wanted and told you are beautiful and sexy--to be in glory. My judgment is impaired when I get into a certain state.

I should have been more forceful. I should have kicked him out, once things went too far. One "No" should have been enough. But three weren't. It was happening and I was watching, even though my eyes were closed. I stopped moving, he didn't. Even thought, If this is happening and I cannot stop it, I don't want to be hurt.

I got into the shower later (you're not supposed to do that, they say) and I turned on the water so hot I almost couldn't stand it. But I could, just. I stayed there until I felt clean again. And then a few more minutes, just because. No thinking, just me and the water and the soap.

I held onto my last shred of dignity. There are some things no one can take from you, make you do. Even when your body betrays you. I couldn't stop it.

It's like choosing between hemlock and hanging. Either way you're dead.

...

"You came here to possess me," I said, feeling all kinds of wrong and sad. Mute horror.

But you never will.

waking up for the last time

Tch, put on some clothes, slob.

Ha, why would I? Not going anywhere...

Exactly, you aren't going anywhere. No job, no prospects, no friends, no nothing. Put on your fucking clothes and clean up your mess.

Nothing's clean.

Then do the fucking laundry!

He sighed. He didn't need to yell. He hated yelling. It just happened. Sometimes he wanted to wring her neck, punch the wall, anything to make her move, to make her like she used to be. But she didn't move, or change. She lay there naked, never wanting to be dressed or combed or painted up like the other women. She lay there naked, and he could never tell her no. Or do anything more than shake his head and go about the day.

No one called on her anymore. The novelty of the nudism had worn off ages ago; now she was just eccentric. Eccentric and naked. The bare wonder, no paint to beautify the skin, not even a little glitter. Even the men wore paint, these days. She gazed over at the mirror situated across from her divan, admired her bare skin. There were uneven places, one patch darker than another, sometimes dry skin. She dipped her finger into a pot of oil and rubbed it into the dry spot until it shone, and eventually disappeared. Maybe one day she'd dress again, venture under the sun. But she didn't think she'd ever paint again; no, no more of that business. Let the masks be ones of the mind, rather than of the flesh. He came back, shortly, to check on her. She loved him for it.

What have you been doing?

Oh you know, contemplating. I did the dishes and put them away, what do you think of that?

It's something. He sighed.

I know darling, I know. She wondered when he was going to leave her. Any day now, maybe.

.....

The note read, "For the last time, I'm waking up next to you."

She laid there, naked.

indie ink juillet 4-8

challenger