Post by Jules on May 23, 2008 17:49:28 GMT -5
Sitting cross legged on her bed, Zizzy seemed a little lost in space. She stared thoughtfully at the orange bottle resting in her open palms. She couldn’t remember how long she’d been sitting. But her legs were starting to ache and her back was sore. Quickly she popped off the cap, shook three pills into her palm and popped them into her mouth, swallowing without a second thought.
Feeling as though she should somehow be cautious now, she placed the bottle slowly on her bedside table and crawled under the blankets. There was no trouble falling asleep. She hadn’t in a long while, unable too. But she felt like she was taking control now, and it gave her a sense of purpose. It felt good to rest her head on the pillow, to be burrowed deep within the blankets and to close her eyes and let sleep take her.
A memory. Being a member of the audience during a play. A flashback, standing on the mountain. It moved too quickly, slippery fish sliding through the river of her memory. Herself, standing on a bank, watching all the memory-fish slip by lightning quick. She knelt down,stuck her hand in, brushed their scaly bellies. Flash, flash, flash. Snippets of memories long forgotten, long past. Her first kiss, her first words, so much that she didn’t think she remembered. A smile bloomed on her face, but then something dark slithered by. Amongst all the pretty little silverfish of her memories a dark eel swam. Zizzy frowned and reached in again, wrapping her hands around it’s slipper hide. It fought against her, and it took all her strength to pull it out of the water, but when she finally managed it…..
She’s in a room, its dark and smells of old and sick. There’s something familiar about the place that she can’t quite grasp yet. Where has she seen that painting before? The one of all those children being led away by the Pied Piper. She looks around, there on the bed a woman she knows from somewhere.
“Child…”
The woman croaks and Zizzy sees a younger her rushing forward to the bed side. No. She doesn’t want to remember anymore. No. She raises her hand to block her eyes just as the old woman closes hers. No.
A flash of light and she’s back on the river bank. The dark eel is back in the water, slithering slowly away from her. She sees more of them now, coming in thickets, there’s more of them then the silver fish for the longest time….
Zizzy sits for a while, watching all the dark eels go by, stroking the few silver fish she can. She remembers those times and here they are, each day, each moment chronicled in her mind like she never knew. She doesn’t want to remember those times so she lets them float by until silverfish aren’t so rare.
Years float by her in minutes and soon she can see the end approaching. There’s large silver fish in this section, but also large eels. Her eyes pinpoint them and she drags one out onto the shore again…she knows who these are.
On a craggy mountaintop, Alexander, Iseabail and Iker. She watches as they fight without sound, a silent movie of events past. This she wants to remember. She watches Iker morph into a mirror image of herself. Zizzy wants to watch it happen, time slows.
It’s her first taste of being so completely in control and she smiles. She looks at her memory self and sighs. There’s little she can do here. It’s a memory, it won’t change what’s happened. But it doesn’t mean she can’t have some fun. She raises a hand and the mountain floor mimics her motion, creating a wall between them and Iker. She waves her hand and the wall falls on him.
She stays there for a while, playing with the memory until she can’t think of anything else to do. Back on the riverbank she watches the dark eel float away, twitching in aggravation. The river empties out of fish and eels soon after and Zizzy watches the empty water swift by. Her future is empty, and she can’t tell if it’s a good thing or not.
Standing slowly she looks around. The landscape is ill-formed, not shaped past the river. She could go down, chase her memories, or she could go up and further into her empty future.
But she’s had enough for tonight. She tells herself to wake up…
When Zizzy woke up, there was a smile on her face. It was better then she could’ve hoped for. She could still feel the drugs coursing through her system and it made her feel hyper-aware of her surroundings. The blanket’s softness against the bare skin of her legs and arms, the smell of her on her pillow, the paint’s texture on her wall. She shivered and stayed in her bed until the sensations faded and the world became bearable.
The next night she tried again, but she was curious. Instead of one of each this time, she takes two of each---six pills. There were no negative side effects last night, so Zizzy didn’t really see the harm. They hit quicker and faster this time and with the over-bearing sensations at every stir of the air or of her body she found it harder to sleep. But eventually it takes her mind under and she’s back on the river bank.
It’s different now, more of the land is filled out. Not just north and south in the direction of the flowing river, but to the east and west. She leaves the memory bank and takes off east so that she doesn’t have to cross the river. The trees are thick here, and she finds it’s like her spot, there’s music here. Natural and free, like her own. She notices more denizens of her mind now, besides the eel and silverfish. Glowing bulbs of light with gentle gossamer wings, like fireflies but less defined. Some are quick and impossible to catch, other’s move sluggishly. She catches one of the slowest ones in her cupped hands and math equations bloom into her mind.
Zizzy laughs and let it go. She knows what they are now----thoughts she has had and is having. She was never very good at math. She looks deeper into the wood to see the thought-flies coat every leaf of every tree---millions, billions of thoughts, all saved and thriving, all here untapped. But she moves past the forest, only skirts around the edges and moves deeper into her mind.
There’s a lake. The water is pristine, but it’s being buffeted by a storm that hangs overhead. Thunder rolls and lightning crackles and yet she doesn’t get wet. She feels a strong connection with this place, and it’s perhaps because when she gets to the shore and kneels down, she can see her reflection.
The water from the river hadn’t reflected her image, but this lake gives it back like a mirror. As she watches, transfixed like Narcissus by her own face she can’t help but start when her reflection self opens her mouth as her face contorts in pain. Foolishly, Zizzy reaches out to help, and she’s falling through layers of herself. It’s uncontrolled, and frightening. She can’t see an end to the pit, but things flash by. Grasping hands, ghosts from her past, ghosts from her present. She shuts her eyes against them, raising her hands to protect her face against an impact she can’t yet see. A hand on her shoulder---she screams and is pulled back violently.
She’s kneeling by the lake, but she doesn’t spend a second being thankful she’s not falling anymore. She spins to catch the wrist attached to the hand on her shoulder. It’s a soft yellow creature, its form is bulbous like it’s defining lines haven’t been drawn in. It looks soft, it’s got a warm smile on its lips and it’s almost motherly. She feels like she could sink into its embrace.
“What’re you?”
“A helper.” The thing quips in a voice like jazz and honey. It tries to take its hand away from her.
“Stop moving.” It freezes, obviously bound to follow her word exactly. As a part of her own mind she’s hardly surprised she can control this thing so completely. “Relax a little.” She tells it, and it shifts from its stiff position.
“It’s not good to look too deep.” It indicated the lake with a wave of its misshapen hand. Zizzy nods. She doesn’t know how long she’s been here. Time seems to flow at the same rate, but the fall has disoriented her. She stands and turns away from the lake and walks out of the storm that doesn’t touch. She walks but soon finds she can go no further. The land looses its reality and it blends into the great white of the unknown parts of herself.
Zizzy can’t help but crave to know what’s further east, what lies beyond this glade, but it’s not for tonight. She tells herself to wake up….
This time it was well into the afternoon when she woke up and the drug had already left her. She was thankful for it. The sensations had been overbearing. But she had a smile on.
The next night it’s six again and she crosses the river. It was easy to wade through. There had been a sickening moment when she stepped on a silverfish and there was a sudden loss of something in her mind, a sudden hole in her memory. But she couldn’t remember what it was didn’t think she ever would, either. Zizzy could only hope it hadn’t been too important.
The fourth night she’d reached the borders of her mind that six pills opened up. So the fifth night it was nine.
This time the land spread open before her and she found she couldn’t see the end. The horizon seemed far instead of close at hand. She walks east again this time. She didn’t want to crush another memory. Even in her dream the sense of being overly aware pervades. When she lifts her hand, the ground buckles and when she flattens it, it shapes back. It’s thrilling to have this kind of power at hand even if it’s false.
It’s like playing a game. It’s like being a superhero. She walks past the forest, past the lake, into an abrupt maze. Constructed entirely of mirrors, she walks through it unable to not look at her reflection. She frowns. She puts a hand to her face. If only her nose was just a little less pig-like. If her eyes weren’t so oversized, if she was prettier.
Maybe it’s just the mirror, but she sees the changes overcome her face, and there she is, lovely. Her heart breaks just a little, because it’s not real, she can’t stay here, or look this. She moves away from the mirror, leaves the way she came. She doesn’t want to see herself anymore. But she finds her way blocked by Helper, who’s become progressively more defined. Now there’s almost something sharp in the way Helper is shaped.
“You could stay.” It whispers. When did that hiss come into its voice?
“What?”
“You don’t have to leave.”
“Yes, I do.”
“But you could be beautiful.” Its hands, once pudgy and misshapen, now sharp and talon like, encircle her wrist. “Stay.”
Zizzy frowns. “Let me go.” But there’s no immediate action on Helper’s part. It has grown separate, it doesn’t listen as well as it used too. “LET GO.” The force of her words scare its hands away. But it doesn’t leave, it stands there, expectant. “What are you?”
“A helper.”
“And what do you help with?”
“Escape.”
Zizzy doesn’t like the way it looks at her. She’s hesitant, looks back to the mirrors to see her lovely reflection. When she wakes up it’ll be gone. But then she recognizes the look in that things eye. It’s a familiar expression shared by many in her community, in her haunts. She sees it in the dulled faces of the lurkers in the Faded.
It’s the look of an addict, of what she realizes she’s well on her way to becoming. She tells herself to wake up.
When she did awake, she wasn’t sure she wasn’t going to crawl out of her own skin. The soft brush of her blanket on her bare skin had become painful. Even with her eyes squeezed shut the light burned and the smells of her apartment threatened to overwhelm. She moaned softly and regretted it because the noise gave her an instant pounding headache. Zizzy lay prone for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for the agony to pass. When her system finally cleared itself of the drug she’s furious with herself.
Her supply, she’d only got six left. What a fool she’d been. So fucking weak. Zizzy was so tired of being so weak. It was enough. She was going to deal with Iker as soon as possible and she was never going to touch these stupid drugs again.
There was a dull ache in her. She would miss the memory bank and the river and being so in tune with herself. But she recognized Helper for what it was, a budding addiction and she couldn’t risk it. Just once more, once more to deal with Iker and then never again.
There was a sense of strength that came from the self-denial. She would master herself, stop being so pathetic and fix things. She wouldn’t let Armand stop her. It had to be done.
She was done with being scared, with tucking her tail between her legs and running. It was pure selfishness, she knew Armand hadn’t slept in too long because she was too much of a chicken to face anything at all.
But that was it, Iker had had her under his palm for long enough. It was long since past the time when she should’ve taken charge.
Zizzy smiled grimly, a strange sense of excitement beginning to thrum through her.
“Sweet dreams, Iker.”
Feeling as though she should somehow be cautious now, she placed the bottle slowly on her bedside table and crawled under the blankets. There was no trouble falling asleep. She hadn’t in a long while, unable too. But she felt like she was taking control now, and it gave her a sense of purpose. It felt good to rest her head on the pillow, to be burrowed deep within the blankets and to close her eyes and let sleep take her.
A memory. Being a member of the audience during a play. A flashback, standing on the mountain. It moved too quickly, slippery fish sliding through the river of her memory. Herself, standing on a bank, watching all the memory-fish slip by lightning quick. She knelt down,stuck her hand in, brushed their scaly bellies. Flash, flash, flash. Snippets of memories long forgotten, long past. Her first kiss, her first words, so much that she didn’t think she remembered. A smile bloomed on her face, but then something dark slithered by. Amongst all the pretty little silverfish of her memories a dark eel swam. Zizzy frowned and reached in again, wrapping her hands around it’s slipper hide. It fought against her, and it took all her strength to pull it out of the water, but when she finally managed it…..
She’s in a room, its dark and smells of old and sick. There’s something familiar about the place that she can’t quite grasp yet. Where has she seen that painting before? The one of all those children being led away by the Pied Piper. She looks around, there on the bed a woman she knows from somewhere.
“Child…”
The woman croaks and Zizzy sees a younger her rushing forward to the bed side. No. She doesn’t want to remember anymore. No. She raises her hand to block her eyes just as the old woman closes hers. No.
A flash of light and she’s back on the river bank. The dark eel is back in the water, slithering slowly away from her. She sees more of them now, coming in thickets, there’s more of them then the silver fish for the longest time….
Zizzy sits for a while, watching all the dark eels go by, stroking the few silver fish she can. She remembers those times and here they are, each day, each moment chronicled in her mind like she never knew. She doesn’t want to remember those times so she lets them float by until silverfish aren’t so rare.
Years float by her in minutes and soon she can see the end approaching. There’s large silver fish in this section, but also large eels. Her eyes pinpoint them and she drags one out onto the shore again…she knows who these are.
On a craggy mountaintop, Alexander, Iseabail and Iker. She watches as they fight without sound, a silent movie of events past. This she wants to remember. She watches Iker morph into a mirror image of herself. Zizzy wants to watch it happen, time slows.
It’s her first taste of being so completely in control and she smiles. She looks at her memory self and sighs. There’s little she can do here. It’s a memory, it won’t change what’s happened. But it doesn’t mean she can’t have some fun. She raises a hand and the mountain floor mimics her motion, creating a wall between them and Iker. She waves her hand and the wall falls on him.
She stays there for a while, playing with the memory until she can’t think of anything else to do. Back on the riverbank she watches the dark eel float away, twitching in aggravation. The river empties out of fish and eels soon after and Zizzy watches the empty water swift by. Her future is empty, and she can’t tell if it’s a good thing or not.
Standing slowly she looks around. The landscape is ill-formed, not shaped past the river. She could go down, chase her memories, or she could go up and further into her empty future.
But she’s had enough for tonight. She tells herself to wake up…
When Zizzy woke up, there was a smile on her face. It was better then she could’ve hoped for. She could still feel the drugs coursing through her system and it made her feel hyper-aware of her surroundings. The blanket’s softness against the bare skin of her legs and arms, the smell of her on her pillow, the paint’s texture on her wall. She shivered and stayed in her bed until the sensations faded and the world became bearable.
The next night she tried again, but she was curious. Instead of one of each this time, she takes two of each---six pills. There were no negative side effects last night, so Zizzy didn’t really see the harm. They hit quicker and faster this time and with the over-bearing sensations at every stir of the air or of her body she found it harder to sleep. But eventually it takes her mind under and she’s back on the river bank.
It’s different now, more of the land is filled out. Not just north and south in the direction of the flowing river, but to the east and west. She leaves the memory bank and takes off east so that she doesn’t have to cross the river. The trees are thick here, and she finds it’s like her spot, there’s music here. Natural and free, like her own. She notices more denizens of her mind now, besides the eel and silverfish. Glowing bulbs of light with gentle gossamer wings, like fireflies but less defined. Some are quick and impossible to catch, other’s move sluggishly. She catches one of the slowest ones in her cupped hands and math equations bloom into her mind.
Zizzy laughs and let it go. She knows what they are now----thoughts she has had and is having. She was never very good at math. She looks deeper into the wood to see the thought-flies coat every leaf of every tree---millions, billions of thoughts, all saved and thriving, all here untapped. But she moves past the forest, only skirts around the edges and moves deeper into her mind.
There’s a lake. The water is pristine, but it’s being buffeted by a storm that hangs overhead. Thunder rolls and lightning crackles and yet she doesn’t get wet. She feels a strong connection with this place, and it’s perhaps because when she gets to the shore and kneels down, she can see her reflection.
The water from the river hadn’t reflected her image, but this lake gives it back like a mirror. As she watches, transfixed like Narcissus by her own face she can’t help but start when her reflection self opens her mouth as her face contorts in pain. Foolishly, Zizzy reaches out to help, and she’s falling through layers of herself. It’s uncontrolled, and frightening. She can’t see an end to the pit, but things flash by. Grasping hands, ghosts from her past, ghosts from her present. She shuts her eyes against them, raising her hands to protect her face against an impact she can’t yet see. A hand on her shoulder---she screams and is pulled back violently.
She’s kneeling by the lake, but she doesn’t spend a second being thankful she’s not falling anymore. She spins to catch the wrist attached to the hand on her shoulder. It’s a soft yellow creature, its form is bulbous like it’s defining lines haven’t been drawn in. It looks soft, it’s got a warm smile on its lips and it’s almost motherly. She feels like she could sink into its embrace.
“What’re you?”
“A helper.” The thing quips in a voice like jazz and honey. It tries to take its hand away from her.
“Stop moving.” It freezes, obviously bound to follow her word exactly. As a part of her own mind she’s hardly surprised she can control this thing so completely. “Relax a little.” She tells it, and it shifts from its stiff position.
“It’s not good to look too deep.” It indicated the lake with a wave of its misshapen hand. Zizzy nods. She doesn’t know how long she’s been here. Time seems to flow at the same rate, but the fall has disoriented her. She stands and turns away from the lake and walks out of the storm that doesn’t touch. She walks but soon finds she can go no further. The land looses its reality and it blends into the great white of the unknown parts of herself.
Zizzy can’t help but crave to know what’s further east, what lies beyond this glade, but it’s not for tonight. She tells herself to wake up….
This time it was well into the afternoon when she woke up and the drug had already left her. She was thankful for it. The sensations had been overbearing. But she had a smile on.
The next night it’s six again and she crosses the river. It was easy to wade through. There had been a sickening moment when she stepped on a silverfish and there was a sudden loss of something in her mind, a sudden hole in her memory. But she couldn’t remember what it was didn’t think she ever would, either. Zizzy could only hope it hadn’t been too important.
The fourth night she’d reached the borders of her mind that six pills opened up. So the fifth night it was nine.
This time the land spread open before her and she found she couldn’t see the end. The horizon seemed far instead of close at hand. She walks east again this time. She didn’t want to crush another memory. Even in her dream the sense of being overly aware pervades. When she lifts her hand, the ground buckles and when she flattens it, it shapes back. It’s thrilling to have this kind of power at hand even if it’s false.
It’s like playing a game. It’s like being a superhero. She walks past the forest, past the lake, into an abrupt maze. Constructed entirely of mirrors, she walks through it unable to not look at her reflection. She frowns. She puts a hand to her face. If only her nose was just a little less pig-like. If her eyes weren’t so oversized, if she was prettier.
Maybe it’s just the mirror, but she sees the changes overcome her face, and there she is, lovely. Her heart breaks just a little, because it’s not real, she can’t stay here, or look this. She moves away from the mirror, leaves the way she came. She doesn’t want to see herself anymore. But she finds her way blocked by Helper, who’s become progressively more defined. Now there’s almost something sharp in the way Helper is shaped.
“You could stay.” It whispers. When did that hiss come into its voice?
“What?”
“You don’t have to leave.”
“Yes, I do.”
“But you could be beautiful.” Its hands, once pudgy and misshapen, now sharp and talon like, encircle her wrist. “Stay.”
Zizzy frowns. “Let me go.” But there’s no immediate action on Helper’s part. It has grown separate, it doesn’t listen as well as it used too. “LET GO.” The force of her words scare its hands away. But it doesn’t leave, it stands there, expectant. “What are you?”
“A helper.”
“And what do you help with?”
“Escape.”
Zizzy doesn’t like the way it looks at her. She’s hesitant, looks back to the mirrors to see her lovely reflection. When she wakes up it’ll be gone. But then she recognizes the look in that things eye. It’s a familiar expression shared by many in her community, in her haunts. She sees it in the dulled faces of the lurkers in the Faded.
It’s the look of an addict, of what she realizes she’s well on her way to becoming. She tells herself to wake up.
When she did awake, she wasn’t sure she wasn’t going to crawl out of her own skin. The soft brush of her blanket on her bare skin had become painful. Even with her eyes squeezed shut the light burned and the smells of her apartment threatened to overwhelm. She moaned softly and regretted it because the noise gave her an instant pounding headache. Zizzy lay prone for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for the agony to pass. When her system finally cleared itself of the drug she’s furious with herself.
Her supply, she’d only got six left. What a fool she’d been. So fucking weak. Zizzy was so tired of being so weak. It was enough. She was going to deal with Iker as soon as possible and she was never going to touch these stupid drugs again.
There was a dull ache in her. She would miss the memory bank and the river and being so in tune with herself. But she recognized Helper for what it was, a budding addiction and she couldn’t risk it. Just once more, once more to deal with Iker and then never again.
There was a sense of strength that came from the self-denial. She would master herself, stop being so pathetic and fix things. She wouldn’t let Armand stop her. It had to be done.
She was done with being scared, with tucking her tail between her legs and running. It was pure selfishness, she knew Armand hadn’t slept in too long because she was too much of a chicken to face anything at all.
But that was it, Iker had had her under his palm for long enough. It was long since past the time when she should’ve taken charge.
Zizzy smiled grimly, a strange sense of excitement beginning to thrum through her.
“Sweet dreams, Iker.”