prezrene.

The Neighborhood has seen better days.

The shorthand-
The line of angry red [ants] marches down her thighs.
And it’s no picnic.

...one by one; hurrah, hurrah...

Additionally-
We have a Hyde situation, folks.
The casting director isn’t sure how to list The Banshee on the credits-
She’s making more than her alloted cameo.
There is panic in the screenwriting room.

Clawing & ruckus are commonplace in this industry.
Both are usually figurative, however.
This phantasm lends a new and far more literal meaning to all of the above.

Spectral anger is a thing to behold;
The interns agree dumbly to her every demand.

A wise choice, by all counts.

The neighborhood has definitely seen better (read: less haunted) days.

maitheas.

The Sound & The Fury are in her ear.
Extinguishing lamps like it’s their job, they walk through walls and talk down balloons with not a thought to the physics of it.


Eurydice is in her every thought.
As a result, she pays the meat slicer a little too much attention.


The Mistress battles most epically.

Dr. Physician just falls and falls and falls.


“I stole your soul, because you said I’d never be able.”

“Second time now, and you’ve done this before.”

“...But all the whole world is still on my string.”


It’s not a new conversation.


But,
Somehow, someway...okay.

She sings.

“Sometimes, I feel I gotta get away; bells chime, I know I gotta get away. And I know if I don’t, I’ll go out of my mind. But I know sometimes I must get out in the light. Better leave her behind with the kids, they’re alright. The kids are alright.“

The kids, they’re alright.
The kids are alright.

suku.

something like word association:


Spirals: present. tribal tattoos are back in.
Triangulation: a pattern, unavoidable? shE thinks not.
Extricate: word of the...day? Life. What she must do. But it’s not bad, we promise- said with a smile. It's healthy.
Explosions: par for the course. A given in any action movie.
Shrug: the gesture of the moment. Not dismissive; nay, indicative of peaceful acceptance. We like shrugs.


something like the setting:

[img src="ground zero"]


something like the circumstances:

They’re all trying.
They’re all abandoned.
They’re all strong.
They’re all weak.
They’re all lost.
They’re all fucked up.
They’re all okay.


something like the Indie-movie ending:

The castle continues to crumble behind her as she walks blissfully onwards.
Reaching for his hand,

“Don’t worry, love. Don’t you worry, dearest. We’ll find our houses by the sea.”

mearganta.

Sixty.

Seventy-two.

Eighty-six.

“Gun it, girl.”

She obeys.

Ninety-eight.

“Take it all the way.”

She will.

She does.

apenbare.

Enna eradicates weakness; Elsie cleanses the soul.
The twins are witch doctors.


There is no onomatopoeia for the sound the plate made when it hit the wall.
We all break [dishes] sometimes.


Something wicked this way comes.
Show your bones.

ensam.

“I’ll cover you.”


Foreign words; unknown language.
She is not covered-
She is entirely exposed.
She is bare.
She is naked.
She is as unprotected as they come.

The words ring out impossibly.
A promise never made, an oath never heard, an echo of something that never actually happened.

She’s not sure which is stronger, the knowledge or the feeling.

Metaphorically spread-eagle, realistically curled in the fetal position.

Empty, she will not be filled.
Lost, she will not be found.
Shield-less.
Guard-less.
Feckless.
Reckless.

Un-covered.

kilele.

Like a cursor on a bone-white page,

Subtraction.
This is a subtraction equation.
She looks at her watch (the object in question).
Its mathematical terra-bound spiral matches...

Thoughts shift to the natural disasters filling the space between the ellipses in the sentence last.

It lines up.

The tornados, hurricanes, waterspouts, and maelstroms are always headed for the same place.
That damn four-letter word.
We don’t speak of it.
WASP Rules.
[this.is.how.we.do.things.

this.is.how.we.do.things.]

Jumbled in the jungle, drowning in the air -no water necessary-
Compasses are for pussies.
If one can’t use the heavens which were alloted to us for this purpose, one must just deserve to be lost.
Mustn’t one?

‘Good luck, Chuck,’ she thinks, ‘with your wind-up dolly.’
The doll hospital’s out of business, and there’s a wrench shortage.
Hard times, these.
She was torn out of her pretty plastic packaging long ago by an over-eager two-year-old destructivo.
Batteries not included.

d - o - w - n

we go.

elliler.

Ten points for execution.
The motions are performed perfectly.
Definitely an A in Determination and Composure.
The sad smile is a nice touch, too.

Not a hair out of place, she checks off her lists methodically.
It doesn’t make the rainbows on her arms fade any faster.
In quiet defiance, she begins wearing pearls in matching colors.
Acceptance can be beautiful.

It’s the small victories.

The drone of the vacuum is no engine snarl,
but it gets the job done.
She hangs a speedometer above her bed by way of substitute.

Days go in, and then out again.
Perfectly.
Of course.

Now, if it weren’t for that pesky, gnawing hole somewhere around her middle...

sottosopra.

She’s grabbing at straws.
M.P. knows this.
The knowledge just makes her cling on all the more frantically.

Her eyes wild, she searches room after room for a solution.
Doors slam, pigeons flutter hastily to quieter trees.

‘It’s all for naught, it’s all for naught, it’s all for naught.’

Who says pigeons can’t talk?

Meanwhile, the chicken of the sky is doing what she does best.
She’s a hollow little hen, too frail for flight, always nesting where she oughtn’t.
Birds never learn.

(It’s twelve o’clock midnight and all is not well.)

Tired of roosting, merely existing, one day she joins the cockfights.

aithiompaithe.

The tide rises; the tide falls.

He’s close to the surface.
She can feel it.

His call, his pull-
They’re drifting over the water to where she stands on the shore.

Alternately churning and too peaceful, the waves contract and release in a mirror image of the thing in her chest.
She clutches at her heart and stares mutely at the simile before her.

The streets are silent; the docks are empty.
A seafaring town can always smell a storm a mile away.
Old habits die hard.
Some habits don’t die.
Dead habits return.

She closes her eyes, in equal parts pain and pleasure.

Soon.
It will be very soon.

The tide rises; the tide falls.

muoto.

The Mistress can’t remember the safe word. 

It’s kind of a problem.
This is no time for short-term memory loss.

Amnesia is so unhelpful.
God damn PTSD.

She edges away from Dr. Physician.

The ones who help are synonymous with the ones who hurt.
[an unfortunate truth]

“This can’t go on.”

^if only the courage existed.
Till then, wishful thinking/pipe dream.

The fun part?
Guessing which is which.

soru.

Grier stands center stage.
No costume, no props, no pretense.
Bare concrete, without curtains to close.

Motivation: none.
Objective: honesty.
Medium: simplicity.

His eyes bore into his audience, searing her to the core in the best of ways.
There’s no bolting from this, no hiding.
It’s in everything.
It is everything.
Has become, will become
Everything.

The word is ‘all-encompassing.’

Palms up, open.
Perfect imagery.
The time has come.
Uncover your eyes, now.
You knew this was coming.

Quietly, 
loudly, 
spoken:

The question.

“What void are you trying to fill? What blemish are you trying to cover? What answer do you seek? What, exactly, are you aching for? Do you know?”

She shakes.
She shudders.
She shivers.
She seizes.

She doesn’t.

Does he?

virvel.

There’s an awful case of identity crisis going around the Neighborhood- no one is safe. 

Neither M.P. nor The Rolling Thunder are sure which of them is which anymore.
It hardly matters; both are disengaging. 

The Mistress and ESquared are in cahoots.
Enna’s running the show, Elsie’s calling the shots, and The Mistress sticks to cowering in corners and waiting to be called on.

She haunts the halls while Dr. Physician practices his practice, breaking habits & breaking hearts. 

Also: somone’s been trying to resurrect The Master.
Imhotep-style.
Everyone’s more than a little worried.
Voodoo is almost always cause for concern.

crivo.

Honora commences stumbling home; it seems to be a developing theme.

Dr. Physician resolves to keep an eye on it.
The woman is not unlike a vacuum. 

Stumble.

She needs to find the brakes; she needs to locate her lungs and recall how to breathe.

“The air was thick with false starts and dead ends. She never finished what she began, everyone knew this. The pervasive humidity was drawing to a point, and it would soon rain down insecurities. Fortified by the poisonous precipitation, complications would begin to push through the arid soil, reaching their grotesque appendages toward the acid sky.”

She stares intently at the page.
The combinations and arrangements of letters don’t make sense to her.
Yet.

She’ll study and scrutinize until they do.

Until then, shadows in the corner,
always shadows in the cupboards.

merimange.

Albertina is making a royal mess of things.

She’s weaving webs and making pies all in a single, swift motion.

No one’s really sure how she does it.

No one’s really sure she does it.

With the skill of a well-versed multi-tasker, she kneads dough and hums to herself as her spinnerets spool out yards of sticky, treacherous line.

Those who, enchanted by the sweet scent wafting towards them on the waves of her song, make the grave mistake of trusting her always wind up immobilized by the viscous strands.

She’s a one-woman death trap. 

Smiling, she wipes her hands on her apron and takes pie to the survivors.

Cherry.

It’s her trademark.

snyde.

Honora cheated.

Sort of.

Honorably, at least.

She repeats her little autobiographical tongue-twister a few times before entering the building.

Honora evades honorably.

Honora evades honorably.

Honora evades honorably.

The peppy posters accost her vision immediately.

God.

This is going to be a long...

She stops mid-thought, frustrated at the current impossibility of any form of temporal quantification.

Ugh.

Where’s Coggs when you need him?

Everyone says this is the hardest part.

She doesn’t know Everyone personally; in light of her current surroundings, the trustworthiness of Their opinion has become dubious in her mind. 

Her mind.

Enter The Reason, stage left. 

Deep breath.

She steps up.

Time to face the music.

Oh, goody.

navette.

Is it the first or second Friday this month?

A calendar really should be drawn up.

For the record: Albertina hates being a child of divorce.

It’s not nearly as worldly & glamorous as it sounds.

She lines up her list of grievances as she packs her bag.

Yet again.

Beast looks up at her imploringly; he senses her approaching departure, and has begun to skulk already.

Poor animal.

She stares back at him glumly,  glaring at the box of salt water taffy on the dresser- her father’s latest attempt at being thoughtful.

She hates taffy.

Edible self-portraits don't really hold much appeal.

sudara.

The Rolling Thunder trips over a crack in the sidewalk and stumbles; his skateboard goes flying right into M.P.’s ankles.

The wheels spin.

Thunder lays sprawled on the pavement, ragdoll-style.

We won’t catalog the exact number of bruises just incurred.

Both parties will feel the evidence of this encounter in the morning. 

They follow the choreography, dusting themselves off and clucking apologetically.

M.P. isn’t sure what comes next. 

Thunder still isn’t sure what came first.

This is going to be interesting.

“You...okay?”

“Me? Oh, fine, fine...Um. I’m...sorry?”

“Yeah. No, it’s... don’t worry about it. Your board-”

“I got it.”

Weight shifts.

This is almost painful.

“Well...sorry again. I’m gonna...”

“Yeah. Of course. No problem.”

Awkward.

kalat.

Empty is a good way to describe it. 

It’s not the right word; but it catches the general feeling.

Sorella is empty. 

She picks at the cracks in her willpower despite her misgivings about its solidarity. 

A part of her wants it to unravel, dares it to.

It won’t. 

Will it?

From across the room, Orphan thinks snide remarks about her (lack of) sanity at her. 

She tunes him out, and thinks about nothing instead.

Catching sight of Orphan’s confused, annoyed expression, she can’t help but burst out laughing.

Befuddling him is one of her few joys.

Few.

She sighs at the word, and goes back to picking.

stat.

We’re not sure what Dr. Physician’s motivation is.

We know that when he moves downstage towards The Mistress, it’s supposed to be her treatment.

There’s a spotlight trained on the wicker chair where she’s settled.

Curled in on herself like that, there’s no other way to describe her but as a kitten child.

Which is slightly absurdist...

He stops moving somewhere around center stage.

She stands up.

The pink gel slides off the light; she’s bathed in pure, white glow.

“Stop that. Stop being considerate. If you have something to say, say it. If you want something, take it. Don’t protect me. I can handle it. If I fall, I want to feel it.”

upornik.

Simile (n): a figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind.

Eg - Fractal is like a stick of dynamite.

The subject of the previous sentence smirks as she fills in the provided space with her answer.

This ‘required course-study’ shit they make her do is such total bull.

She thought filling an entire workbook with expletives would get the point across. 

They just took away her toothbrush and gave her another book.

Maybe she should fill this one with death threats. 

Nah.

She doesn’t feel like dealing with solitary.

Again.

She scrubs out what she’s written.

Several.

Several sticks of dynamite.

astarael.

The Often Orphan’s sister had a name once.

It’s been long since forgotten.

We call her Sorella these days.

Sorella likes long walks on the beach, reading her tattered encyclopedias, and dreaming about the Upper World. 

Orphan doesn’t seem to mind it down here.

He always was good at entertaining himself.

It’s been too many years, and Sorella is bored.

She’s tired.

She’s done.

Change is necessary.

Right?

She glances cautiously over her shoulder.

Orphan would be incensed if he heard her thinking like this.

She must stop.

Must.

Should.

Ought.

Sighing, she shifts her weight.

She needs a new hobby.

For now, she creates puddles, sits in them, and attempts to remember her name.

Forgotten name, forgotten girl.

Oh, memory.