She closed her eyes for the final time wishing that this was not the end. There was so many things that she wished she could have done…But then she thought of him and she regretted nothing…she knew that he would be there waiting for her. Releasing her final breath she began her journey to paradise!
Hazel Whiche collasped gently into the soft comfort of the river bank. At this time of year the river was more of a stream, but it still tried to raise its voice above a gurgle to soothe the old woman's obvious distress.
Whimpering (as quietly as she could so those horrible children couldn't hear her) she set about cooling the blisters that formed on the soles of her burnt feet.
Thank God she had been skinny enough to climb up the chimney for the stove. A debt she owed to that fat boy, Hansel, who, since his arrival, had proceeded to eat her out of house and home.
Oh, her beautiful home. She had cowered in the bushes as the villagers had returned with torches to raid her meagre possessions before it was razed to the ground.
It had taken her the best part of her retirement to build. The villagers had made it perfectly clear that she wasn't wanted in their village after her husband, the woodcutter, had died. Poor crops for three seasons had turned their charity in to something that really did begin at home. Hers, apparently. It was repossessed and split between the main creditors who had happened to be her neighbours...
Still, she hadn't been bitter. They all had families to support - a happy blessing that not been bestowed upon her. So she had gone into the woods where the spirit of her loving husband seemed to wrap her in its presence and her little animal friends replaced the children that she had never had.
She'd been happy, if a bit lonely, when fortune had smiled on her and sent an unwanted pair of children to her doorstep! He had welcomed them, told them to make themselves at home and even made a little bedroom out of an old outhouse so the young man could have a little privacy from the women.
It had all gone wrong when she had brought up the subject of them helping her with a few of the household chores. Her mind tore away from the painful memory of them laughing as they pushed her in the oven and told her to light it herself. It was still too fresh a wound.
Night was falling now and still she dared not return to the ruin in case they were there. She wrapped herself up as best she could against the cold and rocked herself to sleep.
God looked down upon her tiny form and smiled. They sent a frost to keep her asleep, safely in death. So that when she finally did open her eyes she was back in her beautiful cottage.
"Who's there?" she asked, frightened. Then realised her voice was softer, younger.
"It's me, Hazel."
The warm caress of her husband's arms encircled her girl- like waist and she lost herself happily ever after in his gaze.
The monotonous tick of the clock echoes throughout the room, triggering a fresh rush of panic as pens and pencils hurriedly scratch their answers on the page. Blank...
I stare at the sheet in front of me, wishing to be anywhere but here, as my biro drums every tick, drawing its conclusion nearer! Help me...
When I was five, maybe I was six, I don't know. My family took me to the beach. My mom, she picked up her book and laid there beneath the shade, not wanting to tan her skin. And my dad...he was still living with us then. They didn't get along. Not even that day at the beach. He told my mom to get a tan because she looked like a corpse or something. He laughed at himself, his joke. He was drunk already. He drove us there, the three of us in the front of the pickup, with me between them. I was always between them, my mom and dad. You know? My dad had a beer between his knees the whole way. If he finished one I was to replace it and I did, because I wanted to be daddy's little girl. And I felt like it, that day at the beach.
My dad stood at the edge of the water waving as I yelled, "Watch this, daddy!" I was doing hand-stands under the water. I thought I impressed him. I didn't even notice at first how his eyes were wandering to the teenage girls in bikinis. But even at five...No six...At six you notice when your dad's not watching.
So, I swam as far as I could, to show him how good I was at swimming. I wanted to wave at the little version of my dad, standing on the shore. I swam as hard and as fast as I could. It seemed really far to me. Now I probably could have walked all the way out there.
When I turned back the first time, my dad was still standing there, smiling, waving, drunk and unstable on his feet. I waved back and kept going. The sounds of the beach seemed to disappear. I felt like I could swim forever. But when you're six, or five, you don't think about needing energy to swim back. I just wanted to show my dad that his little girl was good at something.
My arms and legs began to burn. My heart felt like it had moved up into my throat and was pumping blood into my ears. All I could hear was the sound of my desperate breath and my heart beat.
I turned around and waved and smiled and shouted as much as I could, which wasn't a lot. I was using all my strength to stay afloat. I had to strain my eyes. I squinted, trying to see my dad. He was standing on the shore, hands on his hips. Maybe I had swum so far that he couldn't see me. How proud would he be? I decided to swim back and surprise him, but after a meter or two I couldn't make it anymore. The pounding of my heart was distracting me. I couldn't suck in any air, because water kept filling my mouth.
But my dad was coming. I saw him, in the distance, splashing through the water. I tried to fight myself back up to the surface when I went under, but I had nothing to push myself back up with. I didn't know it would be so hard to swim. I reached up, so my dad would know where I was before I went back under the water. He wouldn't be long, I told myself, because I knew my dad was a great swimmer. I could already her him splashing and calling out to me when I came up for another mouthful of air. I tried to yell that I was so close, but look how far I swam!
He grabbed me under my arms when my head went under one last time. I flung my arms around his neck, just like they did in the movies and on TV. I rested my chin on his shoulder and looked back over the water as we came closer to the shore. I just smiled. He must have been so proud that I made it so far, I thought.
But when I was set into the sand, when my mom came running up to me, screaming and yelling about me dying or drowning, I noticed that my dad was asleep on his towel already. His arm draped over his eyes, blocking out the light and anything else that might disturb his sleep.
The man that carried me from the water was someone else's father. His wife and children came to my side, to see if I was okay. They touched my head, my face, my arms, my shoulders. They told me that I needed to save the same amount of energy that I wasted swimming out to come back. My dad opened his mouth, from his towel in the sand, with a beer beside him. He went to say something, because his mouth dropped open, but only the noise that came out was a snore.
The kids invited me to play, to build their sand castles with them, to running through the shallow water and scare away the little fish. They waved me over, called out to me, but I sat down beside my mom and asked her what she was reading. She shook her head and said, "What does it look like? A book! Go play."
But I sat beside her, watching the other kids building sand castles and splashing in the water. My father went on snoring. My mother went on reading. And I just sat, wondering how much energy I should have saved for the way back.
The sound of her voice still echoes through my mind as it tears through my sodden flesh. The rhythmic pulsing of her once beating heart throbs throughout my entire being. What drove me to this madness? I can only begin to explain.
In one moment we were laughing whimsically. I remember rolling through the crisp autumn leaves and kissing the tender flesh of her warm breast. But just a few words drove me mad. After a long, heart wrenching silence my own, now blood soaked hands grasped onto her swan-like neck with such a force that her bones nearly shattered. For how long this went on I cannot say, but the haunting memory of her lifeless face may never be divulged from my mind.
What were those words she whispered to me? What could have fallen from those delicate angelic lips? What would drive me to such a horrid sin? Oh yes, “I DON'T LOVE YOU", that's it. As soon as she uttered these terrible words I was plunged into insanity. My heartfelt love turned to overwhelming hate, a hate that burned within my soul with such a fury that I have never witnessed. But where is that powerful hate now? I feel no hate whatsoever, only sorrow, regret and angst. And now here I am, clawing at the dirt, slaving away at a make shift grave deep enough to hide my sin.
For hours I've been digging, her bruised and bloody body lying next to me as I labor. She's gone cold and pale, her lips a ghastly blue and her dress a dirty, torn up mess. A line of red seeps from out of her mouth, and drips down onto the lace of her neckline. The sun now peeks over the blue green hills in the horizon, and my eyes droop heavily from lack of sleep and exhaustion. Yet my task is still not complete. I dig for at least twenty more minutes until I find my makeshift grave befitting.
Slowly, I lower her still corpse, rigor mortis not yet taking effect. For the first time I kiss her, slowly and softly, but oh so passionately. But what now? What is left for me in this world? I am a murderer, a sinner, doomed to be forever tortured in the bowels of Hell. Nothing will ever be the same. And now that I gaze upon her, resting quietly in her shallow grave, I realize that I want her. I want her so badly, more than I have ever wanted a woman in all my life. Without a second thought, I climb into the grave next to her, gently resting my head upon her breast.
For years she was my life, my obsession. I watched her almost every night, peering through the window into her candle lit bedroom. It was only a few moments at first, but the obsession quickly grew. The minutes turned to hours as I watched her read, undress, sleep. I especially loved to watch her sleep, her delicate body wrapped in thin silk, her small mouth agape as she tossed restlessly in the night.
Something cold and sharp jabbed into my leg, and I realize it to be my pocket knife. Its bright silver gleams in the dim light of the early morning sun. Without even thinking, I bring the blade to my wrist. A thin line of red marks the blade's path; the line becomes distorted as warm crimson oozes out from the wound.
I look back not at my lost love, the only woman I've ever really cared for. And she made me kill her! My hand traces the lines of her face, her dark brown hair, empty green eyes. Oh, how I long for her. The blade cuts through my wrist countless times more, and I've become a pale, bloody, dirty mess myself. I hold her tenderly in my blood soaked arms as I drift into eternal sleep, an eternity with my beloved Nicole.
I stare at the blank page before me. White with crude pink lines destroying its innocence and smiled as my blue pen scratched hastily across it's surface erroding what innocence had been left!! Complete corruption as I bend the paper to my will!! HA, a devilish laugh escapes my lips!! Control .. In charge atlast!
Why Write?
Escape...you donot want to be trapped in my mind! Trapped longing for an escape to come as thoughts build, slowly overpowering you, wishing for it to stop...Regurgitation...now the pristine paper has been destroyed!!
Why Write?
Is it a choice? Or obsession.
Who knows?
But as I write it breathes new life into me! The pregnancy of mind has now birthed a new vision, a new dream... a new destiny!
(This is what boredom and being not tired at 2 am does to a person...nah hope u enjoy...PS pls join the STOP CHILD ABUSE cause on my facebook page - Theres nothing wrong wid discipline but abuse is different..time for us all to start differentiate between them )
He must have been four years old, maybe five. Looking back, it’s hard to say. Some things remain crystal clear though, as I recall that windy day in August several years ago.
He wore a tattered blue jacket. A little too big for him, one sleeve drooped down and covered his left hand. His light brown hair was a patch of brambles, unkempt and tangled so thickly I remember thinking no brush could ever smooth it out. His bare feet were scarred and covered with grime, mirroring his tiny, sad face. He stood hunched against the wall, silently watching, in stark contrast to the other children. Laughing, they surrounded me, anxious to pay the dime toll in exchange for a brightly coloured balloon. One by one they clamoured for position and each made their sought after purchase.
“Oh! A red one, please!”
“I’ll take a blue one.”
“I want green!” One little boy yelled with enthusiasm.
Most quickly wrapped the string around their little hands and ran off, eager to show their parents their new possessions. One little girl took her time though, diligently wrapping the string of a bright yellow balloon around a long white feather she held delicately in her hands. Her task completed, she turned her face to mine and beamed, holding up both treasures for me to admire.
Her joy was short-lived, as in her hurried excitement to show her mom, she tripped and lunged forward. Her prized feather and balloon slipped from her tiny grip and began to float away. Tears immediately slid down her dejected face while she watched the balloon, and its cargo, drift higher and higher. As I walked over to hand her two new balloons to compensate her loss, I glanced up and noticed the boy. Watching the balloon soar away from the girl’s beckoning hands, a look of wonder passed over his haunting eyes.
Waiting ‘til all the other children were gone, he timidly left the safety of the wall and approached me.
“Please, sir, may I buy a balloon?” His voice sounded weak, but his words sounded rushed, as if he had practiced them over and over in his head.
“Of course!” I replied in my usual boisterous way. “What colour would you like?”
“I don’t know,” he said softly. “I just need a balloon, please.”
“Hmm…I do seem to have this extra blue one that needs an owner, and look, it matches your jacket.” Pulling the balloon free, I held it out for him. He gingerly reached out, grabbed the balloon and looked at it with expectation.
With my last customer served and no more potential buyers, I began to pack up for the day when I heard him ask, “Please, sir, may I buy just one more balloon?”
I turned to see a grubby hand reaching out from the drooping sleeve of his oversized jacked, holding a dime.
“Sure, Champ.” I chose a yellow one this time and placed the bright string in his waiting hands. He wrapped it around his hand and stared at the two balloons as if he were waiting for some grand and glorious act.
After a moment, he again asked, “Just one more balloon, please?”
He bought a green one and an orange. Soon there were seven brightly coloured strings wrapped around his tiny hand, while his left hand lay empty, with no more dimes to spend. He looked at his balloons with a look of lost hope in his deep-set eyes.
“Why do you need so many balloons, Sport?”
He turned his haunted face to mine and answered, “So they can carry me away, like the feather. So they can take me to a place where no one hurts me,” he whispered.
I stood frozen in shock as that little boy turned and walked away with his balloons. I can still hear the echoes of his shuffling feet as he made his way to the corner. I can only assume the man yelling, “Connor Phillips! Get over here, boy!” was his father. Shock was replaced with anger as I watched the man rip the balloons away and toss them to the sky.
The next weekend, I didn’t sell any balloons. I sat at my kitchen table and thought of all that’s wrong in the world. I thought of parents who hurt their children and I thought of a little boy in a tattered blue jacket that was a little too big for him, who only wanted to be safe. I thought of a little boy named Connor Phillips whose photograph stared at me from page three of the local paper, along with a short, hollow prayer.
I stand here this windy August morning, as I have every year since then. The children are left wanting, as I have no balloons for sale this day. This day, I watch as hundreds of blue, green, yellow, and orange balloons, bound together, drift through the sky. I’m sure I can see a little boy holding tight, with a tired smile on his face, drifting far away to a safe place.
(Dedicated to Aisha Khan...heres a happy story hopefully ... I enjoyed writing this based on my favorite fairytale Rumpelstiltskin)
The moonlight shone through the bars, dimly highlighting one figure as he leaned against the wall, his short stumpy arms crossed in front of him. His grey eyes wincing, making the wrinkles in his pointy nose more conspicuous, to see the mysterious figure that stood on the other side of the cell.
“So what do you want to know?” The small man asked with a hint of distrust in his voice, looking this person up and down with such focus and doubt in his eyes. A reporter, his notebook open, pen in hand, waiting for the story that could make or break his career. “I bet you want to know why I did it, that’s what they always ask.”
“Actually I want to know the reasons behind what you did,” the reporter smiled as he took notes of how this small leprechaun looked. His orange jumpsuit dragging along the ground as he moved towards the cell bars, he only stood half as tall as the reporter. His pointy ears sticking out from the mess of orange hair that looked like it hadn’t been brushed in years. “All the readers want to find out about the true Rumpelstiltskin.”
Rumpelstiltskin shuddered at the sound of his name. “Well it all started with my curse, the curse of the leprechauns, though some people call it a gift,” he continued excitedly, moving closer to the reporter. “You see my family can turn straw into gold, just from the use of a simple spinning wheel.”
“Is that how you met her?” The reporter asked looking excited with the information that he was getting.
“Yes,” Rumpelstiltskin answered. “But my story starts way before that, back to when I was only a young leprechaun.”
“Go on,” the reporter urged, his eyes shining with anticipation.
“My mother was always, you know, off with another leprechaun.” Rumpelstiltskin told his story with a deep look of sorrow. “It wasn't only leprechauns she consorted with but elves, trolls, and ogres too. She never stayed home. .”
“How did that make you feel?” The reporter asked.
“How do you think? Hey wait a minute, don’t you act like some shrink, I’m not insane I’m just a healthy leprechaun,” Rumpelstiltskin argued waving one tiny finger furiously at the reporter. “I never knew my father; I don’t even think she knew who he was. I was just lucky that he wasn’t some troll or worse a human, ugh.”
“What’s wrong with humans?”
“I don’t think I could bear looking half like, like, like you,” Rumpelstiltskin quivered. “Anyway I always swore that when I had a child, he or she, I wouldn’t mind a little girl you know, would have the home that I never had.”
“Is that why you stole the child?”
“I thought you weren’t going to ask me why I did it!” Rumpelstiltskin shrunk back into the shadows. “If that’s all you want well, then yeah I did take it, that’s all I’ll say then.”
“I’m sorry,” the reporter tried to apologise. “I’m ready to listen to your story.”
“Well with my family life in shambles I moved out as soon as I was old enough to get a job,” Rumpelstiltskin leant against the prison wall and sighed. “Just the odd job around, turning one pile of hay into gold, that sort of thing. It got me by; I earned rings, silk and other small items which I could pawn for silver coins.”
"Isn't gold more valuable than silver coins or the items you would earn?"
Rumpelstiltskin gave a solemn laugh wiping a tear from his eyes. "If that was the case don't you think that all we leprechauns would be filthy rich?" Rumpelstiltskin smiled. "To us gold is not even worth the hay that we spin it from, we all have to work hard to survive. It's not as easy as you think."
“Alright then," The reporter quickly changed the topic. "So is that when you met her?”
“Yes, this is when I met her. I felt sorry for the girl, she sat crying in the dungeon, such a cold and dank place, reminded me of better times.” Rumpelstiltskin smiled warmly, his harsh features melting away. “Just call me a big softy; I didn’t even take my full fee from her. And then the second night, who could say no to those tears. And then came the third night.”
“What happened on the third night?”
“She had nothing to pay me with,” Rumpelstiltskin frowned. “I remembered back to how much I wanted a child and I came up with this crazy notion that I would get her 1st born royal child as payment, and what was even crazier she accepted it. It was a signed deal, I even had the contract written up, but I bet they never tell you that part?”
“I have never heard of any contract.”
“So the deal came to pass, she was able to marry her prince and they had a beautiful baby boy,” Rumpelstiltskin gave a look of joy but his eyes showed a great sorrow deep within. “She complained when I came to collect on our arrangement, I showed her the signed document and she said that it was a fake, she accused me of fraud. I still took the child, but I left her with an option to void the contract. If she was able to guess my name in three nights then she could have her son back.”
“Don’t you think it was mean taking her child?”
“Don’t you think she was also mean and dishonest to say the least, claiming to be able to spin straw into gold,” Rumpelstiltskin shouted in anger as he turned to face the one window, the bars casting shadows on his face. “I thought she would never be able to guess my name, the 1st night came, and then the 2nd. I was home free; I guess I shouldn’t have got too cocky.”
“What do you mean?”
“I guess it wasn’t a very smart thing to do, I mean the singing and dancing my name. But she shouldn’t have spied on me,” Rumpelstiltskin turned around to look the reporter solemnly in the face. “It was like she just cheated. She sent her maid around to spy on me, that’s the only way she learnt my name. Do you think that’s fair?”
“I guess it wasn’t.”
“She took my son away from me.”
“But he wasn’t yours.”
“I can give him a better life than she ever could.”
“But he belongs with her,” the reporter spoke in a calm voice. “He belongs with humans.”
“He doesn’t belong with cheating liars,” Rumpelstiltskin screamed at the top of his lungs as he lunged for the bars, causing two police officers to come charging down the corridor. “I just wanted a family.”
“Is everything alright?” One of the officers asked. “He didn’t hurt you?”
“If you say so,” the other officer nodded as the two police officers turned around and made their way back down the corridor.
“So you still say its unfair how she cheated you out of that contract?” The reporter turned back around to Rumpelstiltskin. “I can see how that could be unfair.”
“He should still be mine,” Rumpelstiltskin stared at the wall, not wanting to make eye contact with the reporter, his voice softened to a whisper. “I didn’t do anything wrong, she is the one that stole him from me.”
“Thank you for your time,” the reporter closed the notebook and shoved his pen behind his ear. “I think I have everything I need.”
The reporter vanished down the halls leaving Rumpelstiltskin alone. He turned around to stare out the window, the moon shining bright in the cloudless sky. He could only think about what he had done but more importantly what they had done back to him.
In the dawn of all that is, the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.
He spoke into the formless expanse and from it came light and the heavens, the ether mist of the first morning.
On the liquid sphere, he gathered the waters together as a sheaf and made the brooding seas, and from their drawing together grew up the volcano peaks of the earth and the rock. Breaking from the rocks emerged vegetation, as lush as his voice envisioned.
Returning to the black expanse of high heaven he marked the span and cycles of time by placing burning spheres in the cold distance. Two sibling sentinels he formed- one a great light, the other a reflection of her brother’s glory.
After the heavens, his voice bubbled the deep trenches of the sea and they teemed with life, and also the skies. He blessed all these multi-form creatures by calling them good.
Soon after, chewing was heard and the hollow stamping of hooves upon the soil and the trample of wet vegetation. The beasts of the earth, great and small began to roam the earth. Yet still the great expanse of creation without its capstone.
When finally, he spoke again and from the earth came man and woman in His image. He also blessed these two creatures. And his work was then done, the beautiful cacophony of all creation rested in a moment of silent repose as he stepped back to see all the very good that he had made.
The verdant grasses, trees and flowers issued forth their proudest fragrances upon the winds and yearned to become, their fruitful spirits not allowed to burst forth until the man and a woman had been commissioned to cherish them and cultivate them. Their silence was palpable, expectant little children ready to erupt into joyful play.
Then in a hush of silence over the earth, he placed his mouth upon the man’s and breathed the living into him; he inhaled deeply his first draw of breath. Never deeper have any of his children drawn a breath to compare with the majesty and significance of this one. The flowers cheered and the forests clapped their hands in adulation.
II.
Come man, let me show you the garden I have arranged with my own hands for you. Come, come, I have so very much to show you! Look at these wild, extravagant beasts I have made! I am so hopeful of what you shall call each of them!
Come see the fruit trees in bloom and smell the lilies of the great fields! Put your arms deep into the cold rivers and gaze upon the beauty of these stones and the soft glow of the gold. I have made all of these for us to enjoy together as we walk in my garden. You are free in my garden, Adam. You are free forever- you and she for whom you broke out in song for and named after yourself, as I have made you after myself. See, there is nothing between you! Laugh with her; hold her in your chest, son. Is she not beautiful, Adam? Her eyes and womb are so alive.
Look at all that I have made. All is innocent. Everything that I have made is worthy of the life I have given it. All things praise me because of their joy in being and becoming.
III.
So why are you now hiding in fear from my presence when I have come to walk with you in this garden by late afternoon’s amber glow? Son and daughter, I have not made you to fear. What is this that you have done?
IV.
Oh Lord God, what have we lost? Oh Lord God, what we have lost.
