compendium -

[teratism]

sometimes i look back...
...and i weep
at the loss of creative talent...



{Fingers curled around one another, holding on to the only definite in her life. She held onto herself and held herself together. Flesh and blood. The single constant in a sea of constant change.}

{Her steps barely rustled the dry summer grass as she walked through that field. Wisps of silver weaved through those tall stalks. A balmy fog too languid to slither very far from the ground.}

{Strands of flaxen silk fluttered over her shoulders, teased by the sluggish night breeze. The sun may have been gone from the vast heavens, yet the air was still dreadful hot. The material of her blouse brushed against that pallid flesh. Too many hours spent under that star speckled midnight.}

{It was the silence that drew her to wander at these odd hours. Past the slumbering homes she moved, a pale specter in that empty landscape. She walked with that somber state of grace, a melancholy that welled up from within her core and spread tangled vines outwards.}

{It was a profound aura of solemn sobriety which blanketed her. It wrapped her in false comfort, a lull from the contemplations which swam through her head. Yet, it all faded when she squeezed her fingers together. She was real and the sensations in her mind were just that. Figments of imagination and misaligned perceptions.}

{Darkly painted lips pursed into a slight frown as she drew to the edge of the fallow field. The lights of the village spread soft golden pools far in the distance. They called her back, luring her was hollow welcomes.}

{Shoulders hitched with a sigh as she turned her face towards the moon. That cool luminosity filtered down, turning the fleeing clouds in the heaven ghostly grey. She savoured that moment of utter stillness. In that moment she listened.}

{She listened to the things which existed beyond the surface. The dying breath of knowledge was in the wind, fading and nearly forgotten.}

{Fingers clung to one another, she held on to what she believed in. And then she turned, and returned to that huddle of humanity. The soft earth of the field submitted to the trodden gravel road. Her figure humbly walked in that soft shadowed silence, hands locked together before her and those hazel eyes trained upon the great skies.}

{Her moment of reverence was tucked into the cherished depths of her mind as the sounds of the village began to choke out the sweet refrain of quietude. Her light steps barely intruded upon the commotion of the tavern’s patrons. Just a slip of a lithe figure heading towards the bar.}

{A seat was claimed, slid into with the divine agility only a few are blessed with. An unpracticed beauty of motion. Strands of hair streamed down the sides of her cheeks, slowly working free to slide from the clasp. Not disheveled, just untamed.}

{Those dark eyes swept over the others and then turned towards the lad behind the bar. The rest were tuned out, pushed beyond her perceptions. Her hands settled into her lap, those fingers still entangled with one another.}

{Aloof, day-dreamer, freak, mute, deaf and dumb, anti-social were just a few words she had heard many times during her life. Truth was she could hear them just fine, they simply were not worth the effort to interact with.}

{Rarely did she find the reasons to stir her voice and speak up. The school officials had consoled her parents, the doctors had no answers despite their fancy jargon, and friends she had none. She spoke when she wanted to, when there was a moment of truth to be shared.}

{She could hear the scramble behind her, the draw of a gun. That scent of oiled metal and gunpowder made nose wrinkle as she sneezed ever so softly. Allergies. Just another annoyance much like the others near her. A press of fingers to palm, flesh and bone, what mattered. Not the outside world, not them.}

{The lad tending the bar caught her faint gesture towards the juice, the bills placed upon the counter. Silence came with a soft smile upon those dark lips.}

{The juice was taken, she let go of herself and picked up the glass. A sip. Those hazel eyes leveled the patrons as she kept those thoughts to herself. Speaking would not change them, who they were and what they felt. People were too lost in themselves to open their eyes and shut their mouths. They would never listen to the point of the barriers crumbling.}

{She finished her drink and left the empty glass sitting forlorn in her wake. It would bear witness to the bickering and petty fights. She ghosted around the two males squaring off, leaving the others talking with tense words. Left it all behind.}

{Disconnected, alone. She walked out of the tavern and back into the arms of the night. A soothing breeze fluttered across her cheeks, a kiss promising rain in the near future. Fingers slid home, curled about one another. Just flesh and bone. Just herself.}

{As the shadows spilled across the landscape and pooled thick in the hallow glades of the forest, she walked. Steps light, a gentle intrusion. Nimble she ducked under the branches, gracing through the underbrush. Steps from memory, from the heart with little reliance upon the visual perception.}

{Fingers laced tight, flesh to bone. Herself to herself. She squeezed those slender digits together as she turned those haunted eyes of hazel to the skies. Heavenwards. Unspoken her questions spilled towards that smattering of twinkling lights lost in that midnight sea.}

{A shake of her head, those golden tresses tumbled over her shoulders with mock agitation. Flaxen strands of silk fluttered against those pallid cheeks, skin kissed eburin by the pale moonlight. Lost in that quietude she was content. Simply herself and the profound silence.}

{She preferred the outdoors, the vast terrain sprawling out in every direction to leave her nothing more than a tiny speck. Just a little flash of wraith paleness in the witching hour. A blur that moved through the pines, a sighting here and a spotting there. Nothing more and nothing less.}

{Solitude, she craved worse than any petty drug. That disconnection from humanity, the leaving of all that baggage in the dust. A freedom, so complete that she longed to never come in from her wanderings. An endless wanderlust.}

{The fabric of her blouse fluttered in the balmy breeze, something loose and fragile. Her hair mused, slithering free from the confines of her clasp. Unfettered and beautiful like a waif, perpetually seeking her own special path. A halt of motion as she perched upon the rock outcropping. Standing on the edge of the earth, upon that shattered bone jagged through the delicate skin of the soil.}

{She overlooked the tumble of land below, those hazel eyes lingered for a moment over the huddle of golden lights. The town nestled in slumber, waiting for the sunlight to come and nudge it awake. She was disconnected from them all, and yet still bound. A conflict, the need for silence and the faint stirring of societal ties. Never completely attuned to contentment, she held onto the one thing she did have. Her fingers laced together and held onto herself.}

{A wistful smile curled upon those dark lips, something scarce and fleeting. The oval of her face turned to meet the soft glow of the moon. And in that moment, she understood. She listened and heard the things forgotten, the dying breath of a time before.}

{Reverence. She honoured the splendid moment alone with that greater mystery. A flash of insight and then it faded. Ghosting off in the wind, a trailing whisper. Fingers released one another as her arms wrapped around her stomach.}

{The aftermath of the moment often left her more shattered. Alone. It was poignant, a bittersweet longing. Tears slipped down the contours of her cheeks as she watched the moon and felt the world around her shudder, a rattling breath haggard and exhausted. What she knew she would never share. Secrets to herself, and herself to herself.}

{She was nothing on her own, alone and separated from the masses. The majority was something alien, something she fled from. Fingers laced together once again, that familiar position tucked behind her back. Holding on and on to herself. Holding herself together.}

{Her cheeks dried in the muggy air, that humid night spread vast around her tiny frame. A graceful blur of paleness through the shadows, picking her way nimble through the forest underbrush. Motion to fill the void in her heart, silence while she meandered the obscure corridors of her mind. Those hazel eyes brimmed lachrymose, a complete melancholy.}

{Though she found herself drawing back to that collection of homes, to that quaint village. Part of her would always long to be immersed within humanity. To not feel so calloused, so jaded, and aloof. If only she could start over, would it honestly change anything.}

{Dark lips twisted into a subtle frown. For all the brow-beating she inflicted upon herself in that silence, it would not bring about any transformations. Things would stay as they were, perhaps as they were meant to be. She was one who walked upon the edge of the here and the distant there, not belonging to either side but simply that fine line in between.}

{She was left alone with all her wrongs. Those regrets and misgivings. Things left only to be appreciated by her, to be examined and explored in that consuming quietude. Pathways taken, options ignored. Choices. Her free will had led her to this exact point, the accumulation of decisions. No one to blame except herself.}

{The forest broke into a tumble of overgrown fields, sweeping plains of heavy headed grass. Ground fog rose from the earth to slither through those burdened stalks, a sliver of eburin dancing across the fallow land. Onwards she walked, that collected pace which carefully measured out her existence.}

{Fields to gravel road to cobblestones. All of the sights were drank in by those haunted eyes of warm hazel. Green to brown. That smile was wistful upon dark lips, bittersweet but still clinging. Holding on, fingers tightened around one another. Flesh to bone.}

{There was that faint residue of cherished memories in those sorrowful hazels. The streets tangled out around here, buildings she could remember looking at through growing eyes. The world seems so large when one is a child, the feats of mankind looming impressive. As one develops though, the enchantment fades to leave on disillusioned. That break happens at maturity for some. For others, it follows swift upon the coattails of trauma.}

{Childhood was shattered, slivers of dreams still roughly embedded into the soft folds of her mind. Splinters. They festered in that stillness. Unspoken hopes grown distorted, mangled cries for something so lost.}

{Trauma. The world can change in a blink of the eye. Before that point perhaps she talked a little more, smiled with an unabashed freedom. Before she felt human. And now, everything had disintegrated into a planescape of blasted ashes. Bones stripped of their flesh, just unnamed corpses that littered her thoughts.}

{Fidgeting she repositioned her fingers, ghostly tips brushing delicate palms. Held together by mere will, holding together for comfort. The village rose around her, windows spilling gentle pools of yellowed light through antiqued panes. Through that dappled illumination she walked, one step in front of the other. Someone neither here nor completely there.}