sinfive

There are bellows in the windows and corners, blowing dust in such trails of magical silver smoke that the beholders are too dumfounded to speak. The windows are rotting now, laced over with hellish webs and trapped insects. The front steps where she used to lie, half sitting and half laying proped against the first step or so, are broken and chisled.
The trees sway every Sunday morning with the same dance, quiet and solemn, praising the gods and their glory. Their modest magnolias crumple against the tilted earth-like sidewalk, though, carpeting the ugliness of Mother Earth. Their veins are iced with chipping cocaine; their veins are shriveled and crushed, like tiny rivers that have been withered and dried in the warm healing sun. For they have been healed� haven�t they? Aren�t we all when we�re happy?
The sun sets low against the horizon and brushes over each blade of green and brown grass over her grave. Its beams cast orange shadows through her thin curtains and stain her room�s floor and walls. She doesn�t seem to care, now. Her shell is locked over her eyes and all she feels is bliss. Artificial bliss so beloved and comforting it hurts. It hurt to pinch the bruises with new ones; it hurt to slide the needle against the surface of her last living vein.
As darkness falls, she does also. Her mind cascades into the stories of her mind, slithering through each elven village and vampire tavern; it beckons her to follow, wrapping its boney, fleshless finger around her wrist and tugs her toward the giants lair and the fairies cove. Wings of glitter pulse through her fluttering heart, letting their dust sweep off and rot her core.
The stars shoot and fall in through her window and crater her floor with such fire and temptation they melt and her body floats down into the ground; rainbows reflect off of them through her eyes and coil their webs of silk around their grace and choke it .
Her fantasies are battered and high strung, spiraling in through the ground so far she ends out on top again. She is tasteless and bland. Her appealing gold eyes sparked, then dimmed. She had taken pain as medication for her healing, for her acceptance. Her pink bottles of sugar powder deals out her pain in �healthy� dosages. Pain is her release. Cocaine is her addiction. Happiness is her dream. God is her hope.
The clouds russle off the side of the sky and bang against her window with tiny dancing foot steps. The rain has come to wash away her golden rays of sunshine, her yellow brick roads, her unicorns and her star fish. Death crept through the cracks in the door and breathed against the side of her neck.
�Aletta,� it hissed into her newly burning skin. �Come with me��

The flash back ended and the girl, curled in her misty and thorned corner began sobbing again. She could hear herself echoing against the walls, her own tears floating through her brain and down the slinder room. In the opposite corner there was a passage leading somewhere. But just the thought that it was somewhere that she didn�t know frightened her even more. Across the room, toward the back where all of the windows had boards coating them, letting little shreds of light flutter through, there was one more passage.
Aletta crept her hand inside her backpack and grasped her small cross necklace between her fingertips and prayed silently. God was her glory. The bible was her thoughts. Jesus was her savior. The Virgin Mary was her mother.
She let out slow breaths and tried to stop her tears from splashing through her irises, streaking their green color down her cheeks in an imaginary way.

She tried to pry her eyes open but the light was too blinding for her to even see anything. People around her were muttering things, fading things that were too far off and unkind for her to understand. They were speaking of her in low tongues.
�Stigmata,� she heard one whisper to another. Or maybe they were screaming. She couldn�t tell. The cot she was laid upon was splintering her back, causing her great discomfort. It felt a lot like wood. Like a cross.
�Suicide,� another said. There was a sob in the background, a kind of shrilly cry. Someone had gone into shock. Soon, she followed, letting the piercing light ebb through her calmly.

She pushed her eyelids up and stared around. There were noises crawling around on the ground, breaking her eardrums. The silence had never been so dark. She needed her medication. Her pink bottle. Her needle.
�How is it,� her therapist had thought aloud to himself one day, speaking lazily into his handy-dandy tape recorder, �that this girl, who believes purely in Christ and the bible, can be so addicted to any sort of drug?�
Aletta had hissed at him and pulled her jacket�s sleeves down over her arms even more, as though he could see through the material. And now, sitting alone in the dark with her cross tightly imprinting itself on her palm, she did the same thing.

She was curled up in the corner of her walk-in closet, her arms around her face so that the world couldn�t see the rivers of black mascara that prickled and dripped its way down her face and chin. The musty smell of the faded pink carpet stung her nostrils. Breathing stung her nostrils, also.
Her socks were balled up in the other corner of her closet, next to her stash. She hid it in a coffee can that she had put a collage on when she was thirteen. She breathed in deeply and closed her eyes, trying to relax, though the buzz was bleeding through her at an enormous rate. She couldn�t even move her arms. Or maybe it was that she didn�t want to move again, she just wanted to lie on her closet floor and sleep.
The sensation had spread more and little tear drops of sweat formed along her temples. The lights got so bright that they turned black, becoming blinding. She could hear thunder in the distance and people shouting in loud languages she didn�t comprehend. There were slithering tongues lapping at her entire body, making the layer of sweat thicker. The air became too bitter to breathe and Aletta reached up, clutching the end of a dress. Her fist yanked rows of clothing down, the material drapping over her as if to bury her illness.
She gagged and her body contorted into positions where one would think she had no bones, but was mere flesh, veins, and cocaine. She spit repeatedly, finding a gruesome taste embedding itself along her taste buds. Her eyelids fluttered open and she saw something behind the prism of bright lights. A small cross outlining hovered near her on a hill, seated between two others. Her back arched and she cried out, not trusting herself to be afraid or in awe.
Her fingernails reached up and caught themselves in her forehead, breaking the skin. Her fingers scratched around her scalp and temples, tearing at hair and skin furiously. Blood trickled down her nose and landed on her bottom lip.
The metal-like taste pounded down into her throat and she gagged again, this time throwing up into a pile of expensive clothing. Her hair was matted with sweat and blood, but her eyes contained the glazed shine. The cross swung lower to her. At that moment, with the black sun pushing past the silouette of her saviors home at the time he was crucified, her hands darted to her wrists.
They dug and scratched away the skin which was burning and peeling off, leaving smeared blood caked on her fingers. She was too far past stopping and her fingers felt like needles. Needles that could pierce and define and sew stories onto a surface. Like she could sew herself into anything if only she could pinch inside her flesh and pry out what was wrong with her. Red liquid pooled into the palms of her hands. She could sew herself so well, she was thinking, that she could become perfect, like Jesus.
Aletta�s fingers coiled down her body, scratching furiously to remove the blanket of sweat and invisible dirt. She could see people around her, ragged and angry. Chanting and cursing pushed inside her mind and gnawed against the back of her eyes. She tore off her shirt and crawled along the floor. She could smell mud, now. Wet and clutching against her skin.
She pulled boxes from the shelves in her closet and grabbed at a pair of scissors. The hellish light mirrored off of the metal and cut deep into her eyes as blood continued to trickle along her cheeks from her forehead. It you stared at her long enough, it looked as though she was crying blood. She curled her toes and let out a sob as she drove the tip of her scissors into the tops of her feet over and over again. The blood sank into the carpet and a sickening smell rose through her.
In her mind, she saw the nails driving into her, breaking through her tunnels of blood and bone. She could feel thornes digging at the edges of her brain. In reality, she plunged the scissors into her sides, the metal catching against torn skin and shredding it more.
All she could feel was the sun, the storm, the shouts, the blade, the blood, the pain, the buzz, the sweat. Aletta crumpled backwards into her own oblivion, cocaine etched forever in her liquid of life and along the roadways to her soul.

A dim light crept across the floor, then caught itself on the outline of Aletta�s curled up body. She was rubbing at the scars on her wrists and feet, wishing for nothing but the faery dust she snorted. She wanted to feel the powder leap her across lush oceans with waves that tasted like hot chocolate and freeze the hate inside her wounds and heal her. It was taking her closer to God, or so she believed. She shielded her eyes from the light and hissed inwardly.
Her throat squeezed inside of her neck and she glanced behind the light. It reminded her of the light she had seen that night in her closet.
�Who are you?� the voice said.
�Who are you?� she echoed back.
�Lance.�
�Aletta.�
The two paused for a moment, questioning each other. Aletta rose to her feet and pulled the cross necklace around her throat.
�Why am I in here?� she growled at him, peering in his direction.
�Good question. I was about to ask you the same.�
Aletta watched him for a moment. She watched the way he looked at her eyes like they were keys to his soul, as though they carried every blessed grain of cocaine in the entire world. She groaned quietly, reminding herself to stop thinking about her addiction.
�Follow me,� he said quietly and turned back into the hallway. She followed close behind and closed her eyes halfway, feeling the leaning luxurious house�s draining grasp on her. If she didn�t die here from lack of needs, she didn�t know what was going to kill her off. Quietly she meditated, her steps becoming longer and more placid. Her prayers sank low into the earth, hiding their blood and fangs.