Famous Blue Raincoat

You live in a raincoat which has no sleeves, buttons, or orifices in which I could curl up and cuddle. Naturally, it is made from the most extraordinary material: it lets nothing out, and nothing in. And it is to you like a realm of caffeine, painfully keeping you awake, aware and in control of what happens to you.
With this raincoat you float, on waves of blue and their frothing white foam, and are content. No; not content. Idle, and at peace with it.
If anything should mercilessly puncture a hole in your unbeatable fortress, you would sink. You would try to swim, but the weight of all those muscles and bones you have never used will drag you down. Should anyone try to show you how we float without a raincoat, you would become nothing but a cracked vestige of human cowardice on the ocean's marble floors.
But I take that sin upon me, and throw my thorns at you. Giving you what the salt of the sea gave to me, the gift of minerals in crystals upon my skin, I gave you a part of that which makes me as I am. It was a gift, and you received it with a small scream.
Disgust lined your impersonal face, and you stared at me and my dishevelled locks of hair with hatred. You were already surrounded by the domes of air coming up as you came down. The bottom of the ocean was calling for you. When your brief moment of suppressed violence had passed, you realised what had happened. Your infamous raincoat was disintegrating by my hand. If you had but chosen to curse me, as Mercutio cursed Romeo, I would have had some idea of the righteousness of my actions.
But no; you did not understand. You panicked, yelped and pulled your arms closer to your body, trying to retain the protection of the raincoat. Yet the acids of my making were dissolving it; you screamed upon seeing the bubbles of an unnatural chemical reaction.

Already the water had reached your chiselled chin.

I reached out to you, offering a clean white hand to help you stand. I would have lifted you and supported your feet from underneath; I would have helped you walk on water and gain honour and glory. But no; you would not let me.
You bared your sharp teeth in a hungry growl, like a piranha with glass eyes. You blinded me with a splash of water, and refused to swim.
When I had finally wiped my eyes clean, you had already gone.

And I had already begun to miss your pitiful presence upon the waves.

I did not cry, for the salt of your unnecessary splash froze my tears forever, grinding them into harsh gems that hurt my eyes from the inside for the rest of my maritime days. But just so your spirit knows, I felt your dead gaze upon the soles of my feet forever. I know you couldn't take your eyes off me, I just feel sorry I had to kill you to get that done.

I shamefully admit to loving a complete coward, a cowering rabbit. A leech, a shameful person, a pitiful personality, a cold fish.

But I killed him, and made him burn white-hot in his last moment. That is my only argument for Saint Peter.

Message in a Bottle

Eleven books that bring back memories! Thanks, Noelle! Cony, Aly, and all other marvellous bloggers can share!

1. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte - because you have to cry for Cathy and Heathcliff.

2. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon- because it brings back the magic of Barcelona.

3. Memoirs of a Gheisha by Arthur Golden- because I never really wanted it to end.

4. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte- because I had to admire Helen.

5. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - because there's only one Mr Darcy.

6. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier - because it kept me on the edge of my seat.

7. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie - because it left me dumbstruck.

8.The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett - because it's the very fisrt book I read in English.

9. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy - because I love Hardy and hate Angel.

10. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath - because it's scary and real.

11. Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence - because I was mesmerised.

Bonus tracks: Crime and Punishment by F.M. Dostoievsky - because it made my blood curdle.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini - because I got to share it.
Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling - because it's close to my heart.
The Lord of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien - because it's genius.
The Lord of the Flies by William Golden - because it's brilliant.

Whispers - Part Two: Underwater Madness

Cecilia had come home from nowhere. She had stepped out one last time to try and clear her head in the turbulent lanes of the city. Nothing; she was still as empty as a suspended bell jar. The girl felt increasingly cold as air seemed to just sweep through her, taking with it all last shreds of sharp life. Coming home to an empty, windy apartment was just the same. Blown up.
She needed warmth, she needed life. The life and warmth she had shared with her Dorian. Immediately, like an addict's thoughts spring to the poison of his choice, hers leaped towards the shower.
There was no time to take her clothes off. She let the water drag the seams and stitches of her attire down into the drain, alongside weak locks of fire-red hair. Holding on to her knees, she let the water bubble in her ears. The cold silence inside her mind seemed to be gone.

"Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper
"I love you"
Birds singing in the sycamore tree
Dream a little dream of me"

Such was the bluntless of its poetic univers, that Cecilia immediately felt drawn to the ideal image of that romantic place. She opened her eyes and saw what she really expected and desired to see: Dorian. Not the peaceful decorum in the song, but the one who she was dreaming bitter little dreams about. Dorian.
Only his face wasn't exactly the way she'd remembered it. With an upsurge of panic, she thought that she might be forgetting him. But no; Dorian's face had an almost inhuman air. It was a merman's face, and all the more beautiful so. She felt drawn by the shimmer of his skin and the explicit mistery that hung about him. His barley locks were floating around his face. His eyes, even without the pupils and irises, held to her such love...The love she was missing.

The love that had died.

Cecilia tried to caress his face, but however much she tried to soothe his newly acquired skin, he was too far. It took her a while to realise he was pushing away from her.

"Not like this," he said. "You can't love me like this. Come to my side, love me here. Love me forever; mermaids do not die. Come, trust me, my love."
The fantasy, the dream, the illusion was interrupted by a rush of cold water from the shower. Mrs Humphries - a lady with many cats and a weak bladder - had flushed the toilet.

But, however inconsistent and short, the fantasy, the dream, the illusion had twirled and twisted Cecilia's atriums and ventricles. She had made up her heart. Follow, or get left behind.

She would not be left behind, to droop in daily madness and grief. She would follow him, wherever he might go. And today, her road was the sea, her home the mermaids.

Whispers - Part One: Underwater Dreams

She only heard the voices under the shower.
The water flooded her ears and she could hear songs from distant lands, distant mermaids, charming her into idleness. Cecilia would just stand there, arm resting against the bathroom wall, and listen to the voices singing songs that had travelled far and wide.
The silver sliver of voices carried filth from the sewers washed with salt from the seas. The mermaid-spirits sung to her of algae in their hair and seashells on their spines. And all the time the water poured and poured, across Cecilia's high cheekbones, blood-red hair, porcelain ears, silk neck, pouted lips and closed gray eyes. In water she found her refuge from the dizziness which stepping oustide her front door implied. Under the water's soothing touch, Cecilia could dream herself a mermaid, and her beloved Dorian, a merman.
Together they were, unlike in real life. They swam together, breathed together, rejoiced together. Underwater, there was life for Cecilia.

Outside was cold, and the news of Dorian's death came over her in every second, each time hitting harder than the last. She was standing alone amidst a crowd of moving people; she had grown tired.

"Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band
Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you'll marry a music man
Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand
And now she's in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand."

Oh, these twists and turns of fate: how the mermaids happened to be singing a song about a dancer and a musician. Cecilia tilted her head back, and her tears got lost in the streams of boiling-hot water. She was still alive, she was still yearning.

Today, the mermaids had scraped at her chipped heart again. It was torture she was familiar with, torture she welcomed with open arms.

The mermaids were taunting her with a forbidden fruit.

Letters from the Sky - "A Star is Born"

In the distance, something sparkled. Her green eyes widened, and her heart expanded, pounding more and more blood into her veins. The feeling dawned on her, and she stopped short in her tracks, with the setting sun in front. She had found it. Or, rather, they had found each other.
The gleaming red point in the distance stopped as well. In that unique moment, she forgot all that had been. Seeing only what was yet to come - what had to be -, our green faerie twirled in the air, opening her arms wide and, with a happy grin welcoming the world into her soul.

She was home.

*

The sky was dark in front. Yet, miles away, she saw this tiny green leaf hovering above the ground. Hovering it had been, for the past three hours. And getting bigger. Her grey eyes widened, and comprehension dawned on her ivory face. She froze in mid-air, and in her surprise passed her fingers through her red hair. Tears filled her eyes, tears of relief and joy, as she tilted her head back and gave a sound, melodious laughter of fulfillment. Emotions gushed out of her like rosebuds opening. She then stretched her tiny, frail body along with her dark lace wings. The wind flew under her black silk dress. She had forgtten all but one. The one she had found. Or rather, they had found each other. She took a deep breath, breathing in the barren air between her and home.

She was home.

*
Silently, they gazed in each other's eyes. Green-saw-grey, grey-saw-green and more than that: Juniper memories sighed, and being released with a breath crumbled with their wisps and whorls the petals of the Black Rose. The Black Rose extended its remaining angry thorns and put the twisting, twirling, turning Juniper out if its centennial misery.
Skin upon skin they embraced each other, and the sun burst into a rain of a million colours. Green silk melted into red hair, black silk melted into green eyes. Grey eyes melted into thin wings which smelled of Juniper leaves; dark hair engulfed darker lace wings. The two souls, twin orbs of encasement, became one. The ground under them split, shooting a force that blasted the one Faerie into the sky. No more Juniper. No more Black Rose.
A new beginning on the night sky. A star, a young twinkling star.

Azha - the hatching place.

They were forever new; home.

Exodus - "Something in their Eyes"

She stood up, bathed in the half-light of a shy dawn. Breathing in, she felt the seams of her ivy-green dress stretch. Her white chest expanded as her dark hair was blown from her face by the wind. Her bloodstream was filling with the oxygen of freedom. A freedom born out of desire. A freedom that mothered recklessness and selfishness.
Her lace wings bloomed behind her as she opened her large eyes and pushed herself up from the leaf. Her pulsating irises grew alight with a feeling of grandeur. Airborne, she twirled and was gone.
Gone, heading. Heading towards a horizon which promised change. Which promised her desired turbulence of flight. Hardship, happiness and life; Sadness, joy - feeling.
Behind her, a much loved, barely forgotten juniper tree was shivering his needles off towards a dry death. Its branches would fall in howling pain one by one, hitting the dusty planet's backbone in dismay. Its bark would rot, its rustling leaves die. All because he would miss her so terribly; he would beg forgiveness for enslaving her. His love would consume him; it was for the best. She would never return.

She had left the Juniper Tree. She had bought her freedom at a terrible cost.

I'm free.

*

Standing up with a jolt, she grabbed the hem of her black silk dress. Her eyes sparkled with reflected worry, as well as a small feeling she could not quite grasp. It had come and gone ever since she'd seen the petals. Pointing South. Painfully showing a South realm with their golden contours.
For a second, the sky was split by a lightning bolt. Something inside her ruptured: her eyes glittered with the liberating pain of the crack.
Feeling the dark leaf under her feet, as well as the tiny dead cells clinging to her toes, she breathed in the stormy air that came towards her face. On it, our Rose Faerie detected shocks and drops of soothing, rumbling rain. Her decision had been long made, but only now did she have enough strength to let it fill her body.
Pushing up, she extended her transparent wings so that the setting sun would warm them. Airborne, she was free.
With a wave of her hand, with a wings' agitation she left the her Black Rose of a life behind her, shrivelling painfully until it became no more than a fist of ashes. Her Black Rose was no more; its ashes were being driven away from its home by the same wind that empowered her.

The Black Rose's song was still an echo in her heart. But no more.

I'm free.