Nightmare

A little girl sat restlessly in an uncomfortable chair. She didn't like her dress. She was drawing in a sketchbook, bored. She wasn't sure if she liked drawing but she drew anyway. That was the only thing she was allowed to do.
A man wearing an ill-fitting suit stood on the podium, speaking scary words. The girl wasn't paying attention. It was adult things.
"Shh", her Mother hushed when she coloured too hard. She tried to do it more silently.

The man should have stopped by now but he was still talking. The child's Mother poked at her to listen.
"And now", the man said. "This is what we know. The end is truly nigh. Today we must die to make it through."
The girl didn't understand why she had to listen.
A friend of her parents gave her something. It looked like candy, but the colour was sickeningly bright. She looked at it on her tiny palm.
It seemed everyone else was holding their breath. She didn't understand.

A countdown from ten.
She looked at her Mother. She had a glazed expression, a half-smile that wasn't exactly happy.
She looked over her shoulder at her Father. He looked troubled, he was holding a candy too, he stared at it as if it were a problem to be solved.
She looked around. Everyone, she'd ever known was staring transfixed at the man on the podium. He was looking at his watch.

"Now!"
Everyone around the girl raised their hands to their mouths and swallowed the too bright candy. She didn't want to. She raised her hand and tightened her little fist around the thing.

Her friend fell to the ground.
No one moved.

Her brother fell, arms flailing, foaming at the mouth. It looked like he was hurting.

One by one they all fell around her.
Her Mother, her Father, her Grandmother and Grandfather.
Her friends and cousins.
She couldn't decide if they looked more terrified or in pain.

She held the bright thing tightly.

They stopped moving.
Silence fell.
She screamed.
She ran.
She was still screaming and running when a bus driver pulled over to see why a small child was running on the highway on her own.



A little girl woke up, swallowing her sobs. Her Mother and Father were sleeping nearby. Her brother was muttering in his sleep.
Her Grandfather sneezed downstairs.
A puppy-dog came to her, licked the silent tears off her face and she hugged it's warm fur until she fell back to sleep.



Another night, another nightmare.


"Now!"
The order echoed in her little ears.
She swallowed the bright red pill without hesitation.
A moment later she couldn't breathe.
She tore at her collar, gasping for breath.
She fell and all went dark.


A teenager sat up sharply on the sofa where she had fallen asleep. She was covered in cold sweat and her heart was racing.
She got up and sneaked to her bed, quiet as a mouse.



Once more, with feeling.


"Now!"
"No!"
Her little voice echoed in the hall.
"We have to", her Mother said.
She could see her Father leaving his post.
He grabbed her in his arms and held tight. She tried to fight back but she was too weak.
"No, don't! It's bad, don't, please!" she shrieked with all her strength.
Her Mother looked at her Father, nodded, and covered her mouth with her hand.
She bit the hand, dying to live, while tears of terror streamed down her cheeks. She screamed a wordless scream as the unspeakable pain took over her body. Her Mother and Father still looking at each other, lovingly, as life escaped her.


A woman jumped up in a large bed, finally screaming, remembering all.
They were gone.
That wasn't how.
But they were all gone.
"Baby?", a soft, drowsy voice next to her asked, barely awake. "What is it?"
"Nothing", she answered. "Just an old nightmare."

One more thing before you go

Hey, Mum!
You'll be fine
No need to look so worried
Before you know we'll put up those flowers for the summer

Hey, Mum!
Something smarter than "call if you need me"
Something more loving

'Cause we were supposed to see each other again
In a few short hours

Hey, Mum!
Don't!
Come back you bitch!
Don't do that, not you too

Mummy
Your little girl wants one more hug

What am I supposed to do?

What if?

One more year run by
One less year to tell the lie

Maybe you walk in different worlds
Adventure filled and rich with words
Maybe you travel time in dreams
yet in this time you remain a voiceless scream
This time,
this world

Maybe
An another you
an earlier you
succumbed to the dark
and left you out of spark

What if there is no sequel?
What if life is something
that happens to other people?

Things I like

Sloths and salamanders
Stories with vampires

Tireless kittens
and knitted mittens

Purple midnight sky
and black hair dye
I even like being shy

Tight cuddles
and muddy puddles

Thunderstorms
Tiny worms

Sharp knives
Thoughts of previous lives

Sounds in silence
Fictional violence

Candlelight
And when there's no one in sight

Alone

A cry echoed in the space between now and then:
"Alone"
"Alone, alone, alone"

A pain that used to be:
"Need me
want me
love me"

All heard it 'cause all cried it:
"Don't abandon me"

Crowded streets and silent forests all screamed the loneliness of the times.
"Be mine"

..

Night
Knight
Knight in the night
Night in the knight
Nightly knight
in the night of knights
Knighting the night away
in his knightliness
with the night in his eyes

R & J

My name is Rosemary Montague, Monty for friends, and this is my last confession. I'm not much of a story-teller, nor a writer, so I record this as I remember it. Apologies for all illogical or fragmented order of things, the fault for that is mine. My story, our story, deserves to be told and that need compels me.
My greatest, truest crime was love.

"Monty, come on! The only proper cure for heartbreak is a wild party... ...and I know where to find one."
I believed a friend.
We went to a ridiculous masquerade in a house my father always told me to stay away from.
Maybe it was to do with my dad being a thief and the owner of the house was the Captain of the police force.
Maybe they wouldn't have liked each other regardless of the circumstance. Who knows.
I dressed up as a man, with a fake moustache, a terrible wannabe musketeer hat, reminiscence of a Halloween costume from years ago, and a jacket borrowed from my cousin, Benny.
Stupid, kind Benny... Had he been a girl, I'd hated him and his restless effort to make people like him. But for some reason, we got along handsomely.
We had a friend, Mark.  Mark was open to everything. And I mean everything. There were girls and boys and everything in between in his bed. But I don't think he ever loved anyone. And they didn't love him. They had an eye for him that's for sure, though.
The three of us roamed the streets, crashed any and all party we could find and avoided, not always successfully, the police

Where was I?
Oh, right. The party.
My heart was broken. So much happened at the same time. Mum found out I liked other girls and wasn't happy about it. The prettiest girl I had met so far didn't like me back. Thinking of her now, I can't even remember her name.
But that was all forgotten soon as I saw Her.
The party had already gotten out of hand, everywhere there were drunk people dancing, kissing or shagging and yet hardly noticing each other. The music was the kind of loud it messed with your heartbeat.
In the middle of it all was her. She was spinning around to the loud beat of the music. She was wearing a really feminine dress and army boots. Her shoulder length hair was on a tight bundle like a ballet dancer would have.
Around and around again she went, like no one else was there.
I went over to her and bowed sweeping the floor with my hat. She smiled and curtseyed. And we danced.
She moved so beautifully I felt clumsy. She had the bluest eyes I'd ever seen and they glittered with excitement and a deep passion I desperately wanted to find more about.
"It's Daft Punk!" She shouted to my ear. I had no idea what that meant. "The music! I'm Jewel." She replied before I had a chance to ask.
And before the song ended we kissed.

Eventually, a neighbour called the police to break the party.
Jewel helped Benny, Mark and me out of the back door just before her father arrived. The Captain did not approve.
She was grounded and anyone who was still there was taken to custody, conscious or not.
I hid in a tree outside her window.
"If you do anything like this again, we'll send you to your aunts. Do you understand, Julie?" Her father was shouting at her. "There were criminals here!"
"Oops," I thought feeling guilty for getting her in trouble. I'd found a good hiding place in a tree outside her bedroom window. I watched her fall down after the Captain left and locked her door. She actually fell to her knees, crying.  I never realised people really did that. Fall down in despair.
I wanted to hold her. All I wanted was to hold her.
She got up and opened the french balcony doors. She leant to the parapet, gasping for air. I reached out my hand trying to touch her.
"What have I done?", she whispered into the night.
"Don't cry," I said without knowing I said it out loud.
She raised her head sharply, looked right at me and gasped: "You!"
I pressed a finger to my lips and she waved me in silently.
As soon as I was in we wrapped our arms tight around each other.
"Father will be leaving soon," she muttered in my ear.
I just smiled and held her a bit tighter.

From there, things got out of hand.
Soon there was only skin against skin and all I could feel was warm and tingly. My head was buzzing with lust and love. For it was love. I knew it, just as I knew the sky was blue and the morning dew was cold.
We made all kinds of vows that night. I can't remember anymore.

And then someone walked in. The door was unlocked and we were oblivious to the world.
That someone was Jewels Mother.
She looked at me and then her in fury and disgust.
I gathered my clothes and run out, butt naked and got dressed in the dark shadows behind the fence.
I could hear her Mother shouting horrifying things to her. "Deviant!" and "Wrong!" and "Sick!". I couldn't listen to it anymore, for those were the same words I'd heard and escaped.
How could I save her?
I ran home holding back tears
Mark tried asking what was wrong but I shut him out like the rest of the world.

Here and there I heard rumours. The Captains' daughter was to be sent away. That she had fallen ill. Even one that said she was dying. Whatever the case no one saw her outside the house.
I had to see her again.

One night I went to the house again. All the lights were out, but an instinct told me she was there.
To be honest, I'd had more than a few drinks.
Just as I entered the yard I heard a car start. It drove off fast. I ran after it.
She was driving it, I glimpsed her in the corner.
There was a loud crashing noise. Two cars had collided in way too high speed.
Benny had flown half through the windshield. He'd followed me, worried of course. Idiot. Hadn't worn his seatbelt, which made him even more of an idiot. He had died straight away. And I hated him for that. Leaving me here like that.
Jewel had hurt her head.
She was unconscious then and she still is.

I come to visit her when her parents aren't here. They aren't that much, to be honest. That's how much they wanted her to be what they wanted.
The doctors said she won't live for very long. One of them said she's dead already. That this is just a shell they keep alive.
But I can feel her. Her spirit. Her soul.
I'm going to go with her.
I stole something that had the poison mark on the label. I don't even know what it is. I don't want to know. I just hope it doesn't taste too bad.
Can you imagine? That's what I'm worried about... ...the taste.

My name is Rosemary Montague and I'm in love a jewel amongst men. ...well, women.
So.
May I propose a toast? To everlasting love.



And as Rosemary lifted the vial to her lips and drank the poisonous liquid Juliet's spirit left her body.
Together they rose up, up on to the spirit world, to meet others like them. Others who'd lived and loved before them, some who were yet to be born and a few who'll never see the light of day. 
And there they loved each other. For eternity.