05-14-2021, 07:25 PM
Spectra
The equine is happy. The happiness fills up all of the empty space between her bones. She is weightless in a new way as the water pushes and pulls and lifts and laughter swells in the cage of her chest and she is whole for the first time in such a horribly long time. And it doesn’t matter that everything in her burns, that she is toxic even to herself. Because this is family, Tirza sister and Gravy brother and this is all she needs. Nothing can touch them here. Not the dark things and not the Memory. She is safe from the bad things even if she is not safe from herself.
When the light comes she thinks she’s dying again. She thinks it’s the light that’s killing her. So blinding, brilliant white that she loses her edges and dissolves and the water passes through her. She does not sink as her siblings sink. She looks up at the sky as the darkness breaks apart and this burns, too. She does not sink, she plunges beneath the surface on purpose. Dives to escape the pain of it. (Always so much pain, even for a ghost.)
When she surfaces again, Gravy brother is on the shore. With her back turned to him, she does not see him, only hears him. He calls to Tirza sister and the ghost instinctively turns to face them. They are not Gravy brother and Tirza sister, not anymore. They are something else entirely. They, too, have been reborn something brilliant. They have left her. How the ghost’s heart aches when Tirza sister turns back to the water and calls for her.
No, the ghost will not go. She will live forever in these waters with her shame. She will never show her face again. (No, she cannot stomach the thought of never seeing her family again! The silly ghost! So, she swims back toward the shore! To her family she goes!) And when she emerges from the water, she too has changed. The change in her is obvious, though she is still a ghost.
She cranes her neck to peer at her chest and gasps aloud when she finds that it is no longer the same pitch black it has always been but a deep orange. “Me, too!” she cries, red eyes blazing with relief. “Look at us!” Reborn, all three of them. Though she never met the Father and does not know what it means to no longer bear his stars. She pulls her edges back into focus so they can get a better look at the equine, how her colors compare to theirs. And how brilliantly the mane and tail glow, the same as Gravy brother’s, as if they are on fire. (The starlight wings remain, though, a lasting connection to the darkness that birthed them.)
“We’re beautiful,” she sighs, grinning, as her edges fade again. Though they had always been beautiful, the three of them. Made even more so by their infallible will to survive.
When the light comes she thinks she’s dying again. She thinks it’s the light that’s killing her. So blinding, brilliant white that she loses her edges and dissolves and the water passes through her. She does not sink as her siblings sink. She looks up at the sky as the darkness breaks apart and this burns, too. She does not sink, she plunges beneath the surface on purpose. Dives to escape the pain of it. (Always so much pain, even for a ghost.)
When she surfaces again, Gravy brother is on the shore. With her back turned to him, she does not see him, only hears him. He calls to Tirza sister and the ghost instinctively turns to face them. They are not Gravy brother and Tirza sister, not anymore. They are something else entirely. They, too, have been reborn something brilliant. They have left her. How the ghost’s heart aches when Tirza sister turns back to the water and calls for her.
No, the ghost will not go. She will live forever in these waters with her shame. She will never show her face again. (No, she cannot stomach the thought of never seeing her family again! The silly ghost! So, she swims back toward the shore! To her family she goes!) And when she emerges from the water, she too has changed. The change in her is obvious, though she is still a ghost.
She cranes her neck to peer at her chest and gasps aloud when she finds that it is no longer the same pitch black it has always been but a deep orange. “Me, too!” she cries, red eyes blazing with relief. “Look at us!” Reborn, all three of them. Though she never met the Father and does not know what it means to no longer bear his stars. She pulls her edges back into focus so they can get a better look at the equine, how her colors compare to theirs. And how brilliantly the mane and tail glow, the same as Gravy brother’s, as if they are on fire. (The starlight wings remain, though, a lasting connection to the darkness that birthed them.)
“We’re beautiful,” she sighs, grinning, as her edges fade again. Though they had always been beautiful, the three of them. Made even more so by their infallible will to survive.
ALL I WANT IS BEACHES FULL OF DEAD BIRDS. A FLOOD OF LIMBS
WASHED UP ONSHORE. SEASCAPES SPARKLING BRIGHT WITH BONE
WASHED UP ONSHORE. SEASCAPES SPARKLING BRIGHT WITH BONE