daylightfadings Flowers from a world that had taken her heart.
I couldn't escape them no matter how hard I ran. Their faces.. faces surrounding me and yelling at me, telling me of what a horrid girl I had been. My head ached from their cries.. their pleas and the constant torment that I would never be forgiven. My atrocities too great. The pixies were gone now, run off by these devils of horrid, horrid creatures I couldn't name but somehow knew what they were all at the same time. Never turn around.. never stop.. everytime I do I see their faces scraping away from the shadows, their mouths wide and ready to eat me up completely. They were going to take me away to the same place on where they took and shattered my teacups!
I ran blindly through the streets, my vision clouded with a red veil that somehow fell before my gaze, causing me to trip and fall and soiling my once quite beautiful gown. They were pulling me down! I heard nothing, trying to cover my ears from the continual assault of hateful voices. Not even the night offered me the protection it once had.. it wouldn't offer me the games that I used to dance to inside the darkness. No.. nothing would keep the deafening yells that were chasing me. What had grown from me? One moment I held a young bite in my embrace, so precious and delicate she was, and the next I awoke on the floor.. my body burning from the inside. I could taste the fear, it filled me with such a bitter flavor that I had not felt since before dear Daddy had brought me to eternity. Now it was all crumbling. Crusts of bread peeling away from me piece by important piece I was being stripped of my flesh.. and it was all because of these devils living in my ears. Their screams.. their tears.. and I could remember each and every one.
"No!" I screamed aloud and slammed back against the brick wall of a building, cradling my head in my hands and sobbing uncontrollably. Ooooh, it hurt. They were hurting me, rotting me and making me sick from the inside. The tears stung and poured from my eyes, poisonous snakes crawling from the holes that were left in me. "No.. nononono! Begone, each of you, else Miss Edith will have all your minds! Leave me be!" I rocked back and forth on the ground.. just how my mummy used to do for me when she held me, wishing they wouldn't be able to see me here. I raised my eyes to the sky as though to scold these callers quite harshly. That's when I rest my sight upon a vision that hadn't struck me in a lifetime.
A cross was cut out of the stone in the side of the wall.
"Help me!" I cried out, pounding on the large wooden door of the church as hard as I could. "Please! Please help me!" Impatient, I forced the door open and poured into the chapel. My eyes were dreaming. Must've been for they were cloudy.. they were bleeding to see someone. "Help me.."
"Lord have mercy," said a man with surprise and then turned over his shoulder. "Father Michael! Come quickly!"
I was guided to one of the long wooden pews onto which I nearly collapsed from my body carrying such a spiteful burdon. Not too long later another priest joined this one. They were speaking on either side of me but my ears were blind to their ceaseless voices. My mind was a carnival. The rides going up and down, to and fro upon rickety tracks, threatened to fall off at any moment. Their riders were frightened. They were terrified! It must be, else I'd hear more than the constant screaming of their agony. Their pleas for it to stop.. for it all to stop. I looked up and before me hung the chapel's crucafix with Jesus looking down upon me, his eyes closed and his head turned as though he were dismissing me. Why did he not want to see me? What had I done to be foresaken by the most forgiving? I was a good girl! Daddy told me so! He had even given me my gift of eternal life.. and now? Daddy did so much worse things than I. He stole the crowns off the little princes and princesses. He snatched the hearts from beneath the noses of the innocent. He bore the child that was me without my will. Why was I the punished, foresaken one?!
Both priests looked up at each other seeming to be at a loss for words. "Miss? Miss.. can you hear me?" I finally heard their voices and turned my pained gaze upon them. "What is your name?"
I could not find an answer, my eyes and cheeks stinging with threatening tears that would not fall. "P.. Princess. Daddy calls me Princess." A stare that had no songs in it and no comforting pictures that came with my answer as though I was looking through an empty window. Suddenly my hands gripped my head, capturing my silken tenticles of hair between my fingers when another horrible banshee ripped through my brain. "Please! Please you must help me! I am tormented! Pained! The.. the demons have eaten the pixies and they will not stop shouting! They will not stop scolding me for not protecting them! Calling me.. horrid things, blaming me! You must take them out, father! Please!"
This, in turn, made them both pause. The scent of their fear filled my nose. It used to be so thrilling. So.. intoxicating. But now it smelt foul and sickening. "Um.. okay, well, miss.. are you baptized and have you accepted the Lord as your father and savior?" I nodded my head to answer, blinded by the screams. I had become so drowned in my surroundings and my need for their guidance that I had lost somewhere just what I am.. the swirling buns in my head left little room for memory anymore. At this second the only pixie that whispered above the war within my mind was when I'd taken my holy communion. I did realize from these shattered shards of mirrors reflecting my past that if there was any place I could be safe, it would be here. "Very well, then, raise your head and repeat after me.."
I raised my head as instructed and did not see until too late that he was going to place the cross on my forehead. The moment it touched my skin I felt its sightless teeth bore into my flesh. I reeled back and held my brow as both priests jumped to their feet and hatefully drew crosses upon me. "Abomination!" one of them yelled at me. "Demon! Begone from this house of God!" No.. no this was not right. This was not the way it was meant to be! I was confused. They were supposed to help me! What had I done wrong?! I was not a bad girl! I was good! I was good! I reached for his foot, anger toward this continual searing pain inflating my head waltzing with confused apology toward the priest. I let the beast of me come forth. "Your poisonous speech! Like the devil himself, you are, both of you! Have pity on the broken, she says," my eyes fell into a distant stare and the empty tone of my voice was soon to follow, "but they won't fix her. They won't show pity for they are demons." My deadly gaze shifted back up to his fear-filled face. "They say all the demons have to die." He withdrew as a mouse runs from the cat, thrusting his cross down at me. With a spiteful hiss I pulled my grip of his foot free and recoiled.
"SILENCE! For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit! For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace! Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be! So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God!"
He had quoted from the Bible. That broken shard of my memory spoke the words to me as his voice did. I had to try.. try and argue even if my words had been choked by the smoke of the hatred I showed. Showed.. but could not feel. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon!" It was as it was meant to be: a plea. The Lord's word spoken against the Lord's will. All I was asking was for forgiveness.. and all they were offering was pain. Just like the plague that I had come here to remedy.
The way they both looked at me and stepped away from me I could see that the buzzing bee carrying my words on the wind to their ears died before it reached them. Even now, when I try to turn to salvation, I find none. They hate me. Everybody hates me! Even the horrid banshees I cannot see when they chase me and scream at me! All was quiet in the chapel for a few naked seconds until the other lowered his tone and spat his words at me. "And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves. Matthew 21:12-13."
No more mirrors reflected for me. No more bees in the hive to carry my words to sting them. They wanted to hate me. They were banshees, too! "You!" I accused, raising a pointing finger to target the both of them. "You are the ones calling the devil upon me! You are the reasons they are scratching my brain." My neck involuntarily twitched with my speech, a twig swayed by the winds. "Don't fight. Don't live. They tell Princess that she must die? Miss Edith can't see anymore because of me. Nobody can see me anymore! And it's all because of..."
Suddenly the sharp stones struck me. I realized who was the real leader of the ogres stomping upon me. Oooooh, in the end.. it always came down to him.
"... Daddy..."
I ran blindly through the streets, my vision clouded with a red veil that somehow fell before my gaze, causing me to trip and fall and soiling my once quite beautiful gown. They were pulling me down! I heard nothing, trying to cover my ears from the continual assault of hateful voices. Not even the night offered me the protection it once had.. it wouldn't offer me the games that I used to dance to inside the darkness. No.. nothing would keep the deafening yells that were chasing me. What had grown from me? One moment I held a young bite in my embrace, so precious and delicate she was, and the next I awoke on the floor.. my body burning from the inside. I could taste the fear, it filled me with such a bitter flavor that I had not felt since before dear Daddy had brought me to eternity. Now it was all crumbling. Crusts of bread peeling away from me piece by important piece I was being stripped of my flesh.. and it was all because of these devils living in my ears. Their screams.. their tears.. and I could remember each and every one.
"No!" I screamed aloud and slammed back against the brick wall of a building, cradling my head in my hands and sobbing uncontrollably. Ooooh, it hurt. They were hurting me, rotting me and making me sick from the inside. The tears stung and poured from my eyes, poisonous snakes crawling from the holes that were left in me. "No.. nononono! Begone, each of you, else Miss Edith will have all your minds! Leave me be!" I rocked back and forth on the ground.. just how my mummy used to do for me when she held me, wishing they wouldn't be able to see me here. I raised my eyes to the sky as though to scold these callers quite harshly. That's when I rest my sight upon a vision that hadn't struck me in a lifetime.
A cross was cut out of the stone in the side of the wall.
"Help me!" I cried out, pounding on the large wooden door of the church as hard as I could. "Please! Please help me!" Impatient, I forced the door open and poured into the chapel. My eyes were dreaming. Must've been for they were cloudy.. they were bleeding to see someone. "Help me.."
"Lord have mercy," said a man with surprise and then turned over his shoulder. "Father Michael! Come quickly!"
I was guided to one of the long wooden pews onto which I nearly collapsed from my body carrying such a spiteful burdon. Not too long later another priest joined this one. They were speaking on either side of me but my ears were blind to their ceaseless voices. My mind was a carnival. The rides going up and down, to and fro upon rickety tracks, threatened to fall off at any moment. Their riders were frightened. They were terrified! It must be, else I'd hear more than the constant screaming of their agony. Their pleas for it to stop.. for it all to stop. I looked up and before me hung the chapel's crucafix with Jesus looking down upon me, his eyes closed and his head turned as though he were dismissing me. Why did he not want to see me? What had I done to be foresaken by the most forgiving? I was a good girl! Daddy told me so! He had even given me my gift of eternal life.. and now? Daddy did so much worse things than I. He stole the crowns off the little princes and princesses. He snatched the hearts from beneath the noses of the innocent. He bore the child that was me without my will. Why was I the punished, foresaken one?!
Both priests looked up at each other seeming to be at a loss for words. "Miss? Miss.. can you hear me?" I finally heard their voices and turned my pained gaze upon them. "What is your name?"
I could not find an answer, my eyes and cheeks stinging with threatening tears that would not fall. "P.. Princess. Daddy calls me Princess." A stare that had no songs in it and no comforting pictures that came with my answer as though I was looking through an empty window. Suddenly my hands gripped my head, capturing my silken tenticles of hair between my fingers when another horrible banshee ripped through my brain. "Please! Please you must help me! I am tormented! Pained! The.. the demons have eaten the pixies and they will not stop shouting! They will not stop scolding me for not protecting them! Calling me.. horrid things, blaming me! You must take them out, father! Please!"
This, in turn, made them both pause. The scent of their fear filled my nose. It used to be so thrilling. So.. intoxicating. But now it smelt foul and sickening. "Um.. okay, well, miss.. are you baptized and have you accepted the Lord as your father and savior?" I nodded my head to answer, blinded by the screams. I had become so drowned in my surroundings and my need for their guidance that I had lost somewhere just what I am.. the swirling buns in my head left little room for memory anymore. At this second the only pixie that whispered above the war within my mind was when I'd taken my holy communion. I did realize from these shattered shards of mirrors reflecting my past that if there was any place I could be safe, it would be here. "Very well, then, raise your head and repeat after me.."
I raised my head as instructed and did not see until too late that he was going to place the cross on my forehead. The moment it touched my skin I felt its sightless teeth bore into my flesh. I reeled back and held my brow as both priests jumped to their feet and hatefully drew crosses upon me. "Abomination!" one of them yelled at me. "Demon! Begone from this house of God!" No.. no this was not right. This was not the way it was meant to be! I was confused. They were supposed to help me! What had I done wrong?! I was not a bad girl! I was good! I was good! I reached for his foot, anger toward this continual searing pain inflating my head waltzing with confused apology toward the priest. I let the beast of me come forth. "Your poisonous speech! Like the devil himself, you are, both of you! Have pity on the broken, she says," my eyes fell into a distant stare and the empty tone of my voice was soon to follow, "but they won't fix her. They won't show pity for they are demons." My deadly gaze shifted back up to his fear-filled face. "They say all the demons have to die." He withdrew as a mouse runs from the cat, thrusting his cross down at me. With a spiteful hiss I pulled my grip of his foot free and recoiled.
"SILENCE! For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit! For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace! Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be! So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God!"
He had quoted from the Bible. That broken shard of my memory spoke the words to me as his voice did. I had to try.. try and argue even if my words had been choked by the smoke of the hatred I showed. Showed.. but could not feel. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon!" It was as it was meant to be: a plea. The Lord's word spoken against the Lord's will. All I was asking was for forgiveness.. and all they were offering was pain. Just like the plague that I had come here to remedy.
The way they both looked at me and stepped away from me I could see that the buzzing bee carrying my words on the wind to their ears died before it reached them. Even now, when I try to turn to salvation, I find none. They hate me. Everybody hates me! Even the horrid banshees I cannot see when they chase me and scream at me! All was quiet in the chapel for a few naked seconds until the other lowered his tone and spat his words at me. "And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves. Matthew 21:12-13."
No more mirrors reflected for me. No more bees in the hive to carry my words to sting them. They wanted to hate me. They were banshees, too! "You!" I accused, raising a pointing finger to target the both of them. "You are the ones calling the devil upon me! You are the reasons they are scratching my brain." My neck involuntarily twitched with my speech, a twig swayed by the winds. "Don't fight. Don't live. They tell Princess that she must die? Miss Edith can't see anymore because of me. Nobody can see me anymore! And it's all because of..."
Suddenly the sharp stones struck me. I realized who was the real leader of the ogres stomping upon me. Oooooh, in the end.. it always came down to him.
"... Daddy..."