Pride in the Fall
A Halloween Challenge for The Review Lounge
Marlene McKinnon was not a creation meant to last through the night. She had made the dark her world and any morning that was to come was not meant for her. She turned away, into the dark, and made her own light.
She was carved out and emptied, with something new and frightening and corruptibly beautiful cut into her shell. It made her special, more vivid; she burned through the pristine-lined imperfections and made a grand and beautiful show to drive away the demons that prowled the dark. And she burned bright, a burgundy flame too proud to gutter and bow to the black night. Her synthetic shine came dearly, though, endurance traded off for intensity; she was not made to last. The morning frost would have crept in just before the weak autumn sun to rot her shell, delicate fingers of decay threading up through her until she spoiled and collapsed and was tossed away, another casualty of the long, dark night, too ugly and broken to lift her face to the long-absent sun.
They smashed her against the pavement instead, though, while her beautiful designs were still crisp-edged wounds and she still had the strength to stand against the night. Her edges were still sharp when they were broken and maybe it was a gift; they spared her the slow decay that would have inevitably come to her when her night had passed. Her compromised, rotting shell was good for nothing in the weak autumn sun; she would never burn so beautifully in the light. She was engineered for the night, broken and rebuilt to be light for it and never meant to see the day beyond.
She was a ruin, dead on the ground, but at least there was still some strength in the fragments, some pride in the fall.
My LSATs are tomorrow. I took some good advice and quit studying yesterday morning. Went to the mall and to dinner with a friend also taking the exam tomorrow. I feel entirely serene; it can always be retaken! This is a great weekend for me...the stress of upcoming exams will be over, I turn twenty-one on Sunday, AND I dropped out of my sorority (YAY! FREE TIME! LESS DRAMA!)! I've been sort of half-working on this, stress relief when I wanted to chuck my study books into the storm drain down the street, but I spent the last hour or so rearranging the words and sentences so much it's basically another work!