Twelvesies

How the Glowing Firefly Squid of Japan Produces Its Shine

Alright, we're back in business.

Soo, since I've been such a busy bee lately, I haven't gotten to post very much. However, I have been keeping up with the challenge, so I'll just be slowly transcribing what I've been writing and posting it in addition to new material. And, since I am currently and suddenly jobless, I'll be able to keep up more diligently moving forward. This is a dream for Day 12:

The McMahon women were cursed. They were vagrant women; the earth’s vastness echoed within them, thrumming a triumphant beat that beckoned and tore them from their lovers’ beds.  At least, that’s what Anita was beginning to think. She could feel it like she could feel her own heartbeat.

“This isn’t the last you’ve heard from me, Anita.” David's voice echoed shamelessly, desperate. But it was the last she would hear from him.

All she could say is that she wasn’t herself then. She was more than blinded by her rage; she was flailing and drowning in it.

When she finally did start sleeping again, it was a strange half-slumber where her reality was a vibrant as her unconsciousness. It is always the same: she is standing in navy galoshes with tiny white sailboats on the porch of the old apartment, except the concrete steps are crumbling and the wrought iron railings have begun to rust, making the light blue paint bubble up and peel away. A chilly breeze floats through the warm air, sending her sundress swaying at her knees. Her face is rounder and her eyes are bright, like she's just been smiling.

It's raining in violent, heaving sheets--so hard she almost laughs. It beats against the aluminum awning, drumming an imperceptible, infinite rhythm. It reverberates within her, sending her cells dancing, her insides frenetic and expectant.

The puddles in the street grow larger and deeper. Water pools at either side of the street, slowly swallowing the asphalt and teasing the curbs. The islands of lawn flood, anemic patches of grass stretching their blades toward the sky.

Trash from the street—a Styrofoam cup, a filthy hamburger box, a green plastic bag—float toward Western; the streets have become a circuitry of veins, pulsing and alive. A yield sign and a bicycle bob and float lazily by.

The water rises, and she watches it swallow the first step of the porch, then the second and third. This time she does laugh, surprised and delighted.

The water is flowing more quickly now, and she hears giggling and shrieks before three caramelly 

children using an overturned winter sled as a raft float by.  “Ven!” they say, their marbled palms stretching her. “Ven con nosotros!”

She steps down, the water pouring over the tops of her boots, and tilts her head back to the sky, the rain falling onto her face in stinging kisses. Her eyes flutter closed. The sky must have suffered a terrible loss to be weeping so savagely.

She opens her eyes and frowns now, not at the rising water but at a quiet sorrow nibbling at her temples, thought she can’t recall what about--like trying to remember the melody of a forgotten song.  Though the rain falls as hard as ever, the water has stopped rising. It laps at the toes of her boots. Looking out into the river of a street, she inhales sharply, and begins to descend the submerged steps. She gasps as icy water pours over the tops of her boots, flooding them. An impossible hand poised at his teeth, nibbling a sweet cuticle. Her belly clenches at the cold, her skin electric with goosebumps. The water is to her thighs now, the forlorn yellow fabric of her dress clinging to them.

To Be Continued...