Context : I have accepted the challenge to write 8 short stories, 2 per week, for the month. There are a few criteria I am aiming for. They should be between 300 – 700 words, have a beginning, middle, and end. They have to be good, a standard that I alone choose, which is tortuous, though pleasant enough. And I have to do that while simultaneously feeling more free than I have ever felt. Neither can break.
At the end of the document, I will probably include entries about the process, about the day. We’ll see.
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Date (2nd of May)
Distorted Murmurss
by Emeric Damian
In the middle of a stream in the forest, not too far from the village, after an evening that left two people unconscious, perhaps no longer alive, a woman in an oversized t-shirt stood knee deep in the water, her arms reaching toward the sun.
And then the words, “I was happy to die, until you went first”.
She sank her underwear beneath the surface, then lifted them back toward the sky, placing them between her face and the sun, pausing, and then back into the water. Lifting them again, only to pause, and then plunge, wringing the last of the blood out of the material, she raised them toward the sky, shading her face, satisfied that every memory of last night was washed away.
It was as clean as it was going to be. She was as clean as she ever had been, but she couldn’t get it off of her, that feeling and those words, “I was happy to die, until you went first.”
They came out of her mouth on their own volition, the first honest words she had spoken in a long time.
She never wanted to see her again and the thought that one day she might, was enough motivation to finish it.
But she needed to know for herself if the words were true or if she was still a liar.
She pulled the damp underwear on and then grabbed a rock heavy enough to hold her down, to keep her in her place, to keep her submerged long enough to know.
She sat down, took a breath, then pulled the rock onto her lap. She leaned back into the water, dragging the rock up her torso and onto her chest. The stream wasn’t deep, only a couple of feet, and the water was moving slow enough over her that she could see the empty sky. She released her breath as the rock sank deeper into her body, the air bubbles distorting the world above.
A peacefulness overcame her as she closed her eyes.
Her mind flashed.
For a moment she found herself transfixed by a muddled reflection of a woman she no longer recognized, an identity sloughing off her body, memories flaking away into the stream beneath her. The sky was empty, and the air warm, she felt a tear of relief fall into the stranger’s face.
Somewhere between her eyes and the surface of the water, a new world of possibility rose up to meet her. And with each breath she took, and with each pulse of water moving up and around the back of her knees, she surrendered to the fact that they would never see each other again.
The muddled water began to still. The reflection began to sharpen.
And there between her legs wasn’t a reflection, it was her own body lying beneath the surface, a rock on her chest, her eyes closed. There was a peacefulness on her face, and a smile so foreign, yet so perfectly at home.
She reached down and lifted the rock from her chest, the body shifted and then began floating downstream.
“I guess you are a liar after all.”
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Next Story Coming Soon….
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Here are a few pieces written before this challenge…
Hollow Tree…