LJ Idol Week 28: Going Forward
The youngest of the Whitecoats has wet eyes the color of a wintry spring evening. She will sometimes give me small things, often her wet eyes will slide another way when I need them to, or she will let information slip just loud enough from her mouth to another Whitecoat’s ear for me to understand. Her slate grey eyes are nothing like my companion’s eyes, the color of a cool afternoon’s sky in spring, with a patch of rust, as if the sun itself tarnished. I learned about color from her, my companion; she described fruit called strawberry and she told me the irregular mark which stretches across my back reminded her of it. The sun was in her face when she said it, and the patch of rust in her eye looked like something molten, something sacred, something valuable. That was the day we first touched, my toes reaching for her through the long grasses underneath the dappled trees.
We are assigned companions, “for our comfort and enjoyment” is what the Whitecoats say, but we all know we are each other’s spies. I am the best of the spies because the Whitecoats think I am too simple to be dishonest. My wide eyes and slack mouth tell them just enough of what they want to hear, but they think I cannot read their faces. I can read many things, which is something few here can do, but my companion taught me after I told her about the strange dream I had about the symbols. She forgets some of them, but we get by. Reading is how we know the schedule of the Whitecoats, and that is how we are occasionally able to see each other in the deep night when everyone else is asleep and forgetting about the Secret of Dream. The day we first touched proceeds the night in which we first met in the empty wing where my companion tried to describe the flavor red, like the strawberries, like the mark on my back, which she slid her tongue across slowly; her fingertips held tightly onto my hip bones, as if she needed something solid and present or else she would fall backwards into a pit of memory she would never escape from again.
I am worried that is what is happening to her now. I haven’t seen her so reckless since she remembered the before the before, and wouldn’t stop talking about the dark amber light, and the rush rush, rush rush of waves, and the song. I do not think I helped her then; I was too excited to share our newest Secret of Dreaming, because she was in mine. In my dream, her thighs were dusted with iridescent scales and her legs were fused, the muscles were powerful, the air was very thick and warm. I heard the rush rush, rush rush. She nodded at me eagerly, forcing air from her damaged throat, she whispered, “Yes, yes, yes,” her eyes were shiny like glass. I decided not to encourage her too much after that episode; she is not as good at pretending as I am, her posture isn’t consistent, her breathing comes in shallow, her lips quaver. Her fingernails were crowded with the punishing symbols pressed there by Whitecoat after Whitecoat who observed her increasingly erratic physical symptoms. At night, I would slip into our private meeting place and run my hands firmly across her skin, and I would plant my lips on each vertebra of her spine and when she needed to hum the song from the before, I would listen and massage her hands or braid her hair.
The youngest Whitecoat made sure there was a pack of saline under my pillow for me to find at curfew. The last time my companion remembered too much, she would gasp for air and complain that she was drowning, the air was so thin and dry, she needed the thick salty liquid from the before the before. So tonight, I slip to our private meeting place and watch her tear into the bag of saline with her teeth, she has a hard time swallowing ever since the incident, but I see her throat working rhythmically as she steadily drains the liquid from the bag. She does not want to tell me what memories are haunting her this time, but she eyes the bag warily as she explains that she wants to tell me a story which is not true, which is called a myth, and it is meant for entertainment, but this is a different kind of entertainment in which the person listening might get scared. I am very interested and tell her I will not get afraid. She tells me about creatures that look human, but are dead, that look alive, but do not eat food, only the blood of live things, usually humans, and this creature is called a vampire. She tells me about how she heard a story of a vampire that did not want to feed from humans anymore because it cared deeply for one, so it would steal bags of blood from hospitals to bite into instead of biting into the thin skin of a human’s neck.
Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, her knuckles were white and I could see fingertip shaped bruises along the top of her hands as she told me the myth. My mouth became dry, and I studied every quaver in her face, nervous about what strain I saw there. This story was scary, and I was afraid. If she wanted to tell me this myth because it was less scary than the true story from her memories, then I wasn’t sure how to keep her safe from this point forward, which scared me even more than the undead human shaped creature who stalked the night in search of blood from live things.
***
If you liked this story and would like to read the other entries and vote, you can go here: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/1040869.html
Here is the link to the second topic for this week of idol. Make sure to vote for both of my stories to help me make it to the top 5: http://marlawentmad.livejournal.com/8143.html
Here are links to the entries of idol set in the same corner of my brain as this entry if your interest is piqued: http://marlawentmad.livejournal.com/1439.html
http://marlawentmad.livejournal.com/2755.html
We are assigned companions, “for our comfort and enjoyment” is what the Whitecoats say, but we all know we are each other’s spies. I am the best of the spies because the Whitecoats think I am too simple to be dishonest. My wide eyes and slack mouth tell them just enough of what they want to hear, but they think I cannot read their faces. I can read many things, which is something few here can do, but my companion taught me after I told her about the strange dream I had about the symbols. She forgets some of them, but we get by. Reading is how we know the schedule of the Whitecoats, and that is how we are occasionally able to see each other in the deep night when everyone else is asleep and forgetting about the Secret of Dream. The day we first touched proceeds the night in which we first met in the empty wing where my companion tried to describe the flavor red, like the strawberries, like the mark on my back, which she slid her tongue across slowly; her fingertips held tightly onto my hip bones, as if she needed something solid and present or else she would fall backwards into a pit of memory she would never escape from again.
I am worried that is what is happening to her now. I haven’t seen her so reckless since she remembered the before the before, and wouldn’t stop talking about the dark amber light, and the rush rush, rush rush of waves, and the song. I do not think I helped her then; I was too excited to share our newest Secret of Dreaming, because she was in mine. In my dream, her thighs were dusted with iridescent scales and her legs were fused, the muscles were powerful, the air was very thick and warm. I heard the rush rush, rush rush. She nodded at me eagerly, forcing air from her damaged throat, she whispered, “Yes, yes, yes,” her eyes were shiny like glass. I decided not to encourage her too much after that episode; she is not as good at pretending as I am, her posture isn’t consistent, her breathing comes in shallow, her lips quaver. Her fingernails were crowded with the punishing symbols pressed there by Whitecoat after Whitecoat who observed her increasingly erratic physical symptoms. At night, I would slip into our private meeting place and run my hands firmly across her skin, and I would plant my lips on each vertebra of her spine and when she needed to hum the song from the before, I would listen and massage her hands or braid her hair.
The youngest Whitecoat made sure there was a pack of saline under my pillow for me to find at curfew. The last time my companion remembered too much, she would gasp for air and complain that she was drowning, the air was so thin and dry, she needed the thick salty liquid from the before the before. So tonight, I slip to our private meeting place and watch her tear into the bag of saline with her teeth, she has a hard time swallowing ever since the incident, but I see her throat working rhythmically as she steadily drains the liquid from the bag. She does not want to tell me what memories are haunting her this time, but she eyes the bag warily as she explains that she wants to tell me a story which is not true, which is called a myth, and it is meant for entertainment, but this is a different kind of entertainment in which the person listening might get scared. I am very interested and tell her I will not get afraid. She tells me about creatures that look human, but are dead, that look alive, but do not eat food, only the blood of live things, usually humans, and this creature is called a vampire. She tells me about how she heard a story of a vampire that did not want to feed from humans anymore because it cared deeply for one, so it would steal bags of blood from hospitals to bite into instead of biting into the thin skin of a human’s neck.
Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, her knuckles were white and I could see fingertip shaped bruises along the top of her hands as she told me the myth. My mouth became dry, and I studied every quaver in her face, nervous about what strain I saw there. This story was scary, and I was afraid. If she wanted to tell me this myth because it was less scary than the true story from her memories, then I wasn’t sure how to keep her safe from this point forward, which scared me even more than the undead human shaped creature who stalked the night in search of blood from live things.
***
If you liked this story and would like to read the other entries and vote, you can go here: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/1040869.html
Here is the link to the second topic for this week of idol. Make sure to vote for both of my stories to help me make it to the top 5: http://marlawentmad.livejournal.com/8143.html
Here are links to the entries of idol set in the same corner of my brain as this entry if your interest is piqued: http://marlawentmad.livejournal.com/1439.html
http://marlawentmad.livejournal.com/2755.html