15 Minute Challenge: Beast
More like 20 Minute Challenge, but never mind.
You listen to the detail of her footsteps behind the door, moving from imagined bed to imagined mirror with fawn's grace. She is young and undoubtedly beautiful, a dreamer by the rhythm of her gait, and she is not the first woman to be locked there. But neither will she be the last.
They all believe they changed you, these women. At first, they scream at your hideousness and lock themselves away. But days pass, then they find the portrait of the man with gold-spun hair in the atrium, and they hear the purr of handsomeness in your voice, and they agree to dine with you, dance with you. And somewhere between those hours, you make that transformative leap from beast to man. They love you fiercely, unaware all the while that spells are not so easily broken. A man can eat the heart of a woman just as well as any animal, and a rose, once its petals are fallen, cannot be restored by any magic, even love.
You're so naive. You weep as they leave, and the tears caught in the bristles of your eyes are your only lasting humanity. But the world is full of young women, and one will undoubtedly wander to your gate, and another, and another.
They are thin-wristed, vain hope. Maybe your heart is breaking to love, but better than anyone you know, your hunger is insatiable.
long lost fables
1 February 2006
You listen to the detail of her footsteps behind the door, moving from imagined bed to imagined mirror with fawn's grace. She is young and undoubtedly beautiful, a dreamer by the rhythm of her gait, and she is not the first woman to be locked there. But neither will she be the last.
They all believe they changed you, these women. At first, they scream at your hideousness and lock themselves away. But days pass, then they find the portrait of the man with gold-spun hair in the atrium, and they hear the purr of handsomeness in your voice, and they agree to dine with you, dance with you. And somewhere between those hours, you make that transformative leap from beast to man. They love you fiercely, unaware all the while that spells are not so easily broken. A man can eat the heart of a woman just as well as any animal, and a rose, once its petals are fallen, cannot be restored by any magic, even love.
You're so naive. You weep as they leave, and the tears caught in the bristles of your eyes are your only lasting humanity. But the world is full of young women, and one will undoubtedly wander to your gate, and another, and another.
They are thin-wristed, vain hope. Maybe your heart is breaking to love, but better than anyone you know, your hunger is insatiable.
long lost fables
1 February 2006