Death never comes at the right time, despite what mortals believe. Death always comes like a thief.
Fiona's life was about to be snatched right before her eyes, the rug that was settled beneath her pampered feet about to be pulled from beneath her. She could feel her demise approaching. Death was felt in Fiona's bones, sort of like… that feeling you experience on your birthday. In just a blink of an eye, your life is over. You start off at a young age, and then… overnight, it seems, you age. Your limbs grow feeble. Your memory deteriorates. Your health declines. You experience your own carnage, and how it feels to succumb to it. Birthdays are usually a pleasant thing. People celebrate birthdays for one reason, and one reason only… to pride themselves for surviving against every odd that had been placed before them. Birthdays are pleasant, but birthdays are disheartening. The moment you begin to age, is the moment that you lose your youth. Youth is very much wasted on the young. It is taken for granted, tossed away as if it is an ugly Christmas sweater. The youthful have a nasty habit of believing that they are invincible, that, one day, they will defy death. The youthful believe that destiny's rules don't apply to them. They are above the laws of nature. Unfortunately, though, one day… that delusion would come to pass, and the youthful would no longer be young and beautiful. Fiona had discovered this arduous truth the hard way.
One morning, you wake up, and you are young. Your face is free of wrinkles. You have no dark circles lingering beneath your eyes. Your porcelain flesh is free of fawn age spots. Time doesn't apply to you, time will never catch up to you. Your skin is still pert and in its prime, but eventually, every empire must be burnt to the ground. Every king must fall. Death, in itself, is nothing. There is no shift in the air when a person passes. The world does not stop revolving. Nothing changes. A person slips away, fades into the darkness—like a shadow when dusk rolls around. There is nowhere to run. There is nowhere to hide. Death, in itself, is simply… there. Death is inevitable, and death will claim your soul. Everyone is living on borrowed time, and at one point or another, whenever karma decides to deal her blows, the price you owe just by living your life must be paid.
Time and time again, Fiona had tried to avoid paying this price. She'd gone to the greatest lengths known to man, even as far sacrificing an innocent, but she had no soul. Her soul hadn't been destined to be sold. Fiona's soul was lost, and never to be found again. She'd lost her grace to other things—sinister things—acts of such violence, heinous in their nature. It has been said that the heart is a wild creature. That is why ribs are cages. Fiona's heart was certainly wild… but not in a positive light. She was a very pessimistic person. Fiona was drawn to darkness—all shapes and sizes of it—and thrived upon the essence of evil. In order to rise from its own ashes, a phoenix first must burn… but the ashes that once made up Fiona's soul had been lost to the wind, lost to ocean, carrying on as Fiona had lived her life—untamed and unrestrained—dancing in the shadows of what used to be, and what will become.
There was no one in the world that could love Fiona, not even her own flesh and blood. Fiona had holes. She was broken. But, at the end of the day, Fiona's flaws made her who she was. The moon has craters, scars, and still, people view the moon as a beautiful thing, something to stare in awe at… but the moon is also taken for granted, just like Fiona's potential was taken for granted. She had so much to offer the world, but had such a difficult time trying to display her abilities. She was the Supreme, sure… but the title alone did little to convince others of her worth. She wasn't appreciated, she wasn't thought highly of—and the fault was entirely her own—but some days, Fiona wished that the witches and warlocks in her coven would someday view her as an equal… a friend. No matter how immoral the person, everyone deserves to be loved.
What did time smell like? Like dust and clocks and people. And if you wondered what Time sounded like it sounded like water running in a dark cave and voices crying and dirt dropping down upon hollow box lids, and rain. And, going further, what did Time look like? Time look like snow dropping silently into a black room or it looked like a silent film in an ancient theater, 100 billion faces falling like those New Year balloons, down and down into nothing.
The world is nothing, yet it is something. To some, the world is meaningless. It is simply something to endure. To some, the world is against them, weighing itself heavily upon their shoulders. But, to others… the world is everything. The world is a person, the world has feelings… the world thrives on energy, and when that energy is of a negative nature, there are no positive results. There is blackness in the world, sadness… despair. There is heartbreak, and there is love. Love is a rarity.
I will teach my daughter not to wear her skin like a drunken apology. I will tell her, 'Make a home out of your body, live in yourself, do not let people turn you into a regret, do not justify yourself. If you are a disaster it is not forever, if you are a disaster, you are the most beautiful one I've ever seen. Do not deconstruct from the inside out, you belong here, you belong here, not because you are lovely, but because you are more than that.'
Fiona should have instilled a sense of self-esteem into her beloved Cordelia. Instead, the belittled her daughter. She laughed in her daughter's face, and with a cruel sense of humor, made jokes. Later on in life, she wasn't necessarily proud of what she had done as a young mother. In truth, there were no excuses that could have made Fiona's negligence towards her daughter justified. It was obvious that the young woman despised her mother. Her entire life, she'd lived in her mother's shadow, paling in comparison. It never seemed as if Cordelia was capable of doing anything right. The world was against her. All odds were against her. Her own mother, a woman that should have supported her, and comforted her daughter after a long day, was against her. What did she have? That was the question. She had nothing, not back then… and now… she still had nothing. She had less than nothing. She was sans a husband, sans an affectionate mother… aside from Myrtle Snow, but she was out of the question. Myrtle was insignificant to the situation. She may have raised Fiona's daughter, but Cordelia did not emerge from Myrtle's womb.Fiona was Cordelia's mother—and it pained Fiona to no end, that, when her daughter glanced at Myrtle, her eyes would light up… she regarded Bozo the Clown as if she'd hung the moon and the stars in the evening sky. That played a huge factor in the grudge that Fiona held against her daughter. The strain in their relationship wasn't Fiona's fault. It wasn't Cordelia's fault. Hell, it wasn't even Myrtle's fault… it was the fault of the world. The world is an evil place.
There will be some days when you close your eyes while crossing the street, maybe because you want to see what fate has in store for you, or maybe because your depression is running rampant again and you don't know how to calm her. It's okay. I will still love you.
There will be a year, or a series of years when your birthday doesn't feel special. Celebrate anyway. Because people spent time baking you a cake and buying you cards and even if they're your family and they're obligated to, they still love you. Cherish that love. Revel in it. It is the best gift you will ever receive.
You will learn that the saddest word in the English language is stay. Whether it's your mother's voice whispering it before you leave for college, or your ex-lover's desperate screams as you walk out of the house, it will always be a hard word to hear. Sometimes you should listen to it, other times you shouldn't. Trust yourself. Go with your gut.
Along with hearing the word stay, you will also hear the word why from every person who is remotely related to you. Why did you get that tattoo? Why did you try to kill yourself? Why aren't you married yet? You don't have to answer them. Be selfish. Keep somethings to yourself.
Some nights you won't be able to sleep. You will lie awake at 2 am and contemplate existentialism and wonder if the French had a point. Get up. Get out of your bed. Do something. Because even if there is no God, what you do matters, who you are matters. You matter to me.
Some days you will want to run away and never return. So go. Drive to a small town in the Northwest, maybe Oregon, and settle down there for a while. Tell people your name is Elizabeth, because you loved Jane Austen as a child and because this a town full of strangers and who's to know the difference? Don't be selfish. Call your mother each night and remind her that you love her. Come back home when you find yourself seeing your sadness painted in the shadows, and when you feel more at home in the arms of a stranger than on your own.
There will be several nights when you lose yourself in the medicine cabinet, because liquor and morphine seem like a faster cure than time. It's okay. I will still love you in the morning.
One day, in the midst of work, you will learn to forgive. It will start out with a simple reminder of the past, maybe a facebook notification from an old schoolmate or a wedding announcement from an ex-lover. In that moment you will learn that yearning for the past isn't romantic, it's stupid, and that if Gatsby had just let go of the green light he would've lived. So forgive your past, it didn't know any better, and move on.
Leaving home will hurt, but soon you will learn that home isn't a place but a feeling, and that there is a compass on your heart that points directly to that feeling. Follow that compass. Don't get sidetracked by boys who don't care or alcohol that doesn't forgive. If you follow that compass, no matter how lost you get, you will always have a home…
When you begin to feel worthless, remember that the stars died for you. You are made of elements that are thousands of years old, elements that make up every atom of your being. When you want to cut your wrists, remember that the souls of stars live in your veins. Don't kill them. Don't be selfish.
Why Fiona had neglected to tell her daughter all of these things… was completely beyond her. She didn't have an explanation for it. She couldn't offer one up. And now… because of Fiona… her daughter was hurting. Her flesh stung with the searing bite of Fiona's hand striking across her face. Her soul was aching because of Fiona's venomous words… Cordelia was hopeless… worthless… she couldn't help anyone… but none of it was true. When Fiona was angry, she allowed her temper to get the best of her, and unfortunately, usually ended up inflicting pain upon those whom she loved the very most, even if she wasn't able to showcase that love.
Fiona was evil. Pure evil. But even the most vile of individuals once feltsomething, and now… sitting on her chaise lounge, she wondered if it was possible for her to experience love… or if she was just trying to make herself feel better, to soothe her deflated ego.
At the end of the day… the question was… was she evil, or was she misunderstood?
If a man cannot understand the beauty of life, it is probably because life never understood the beauty in him.
Fiona was certainly an acquired taste.
The knock on her bedroom door startled her, pulling her away from such profound thoughts… Jesus H Christ, these children…
I PROMISE to update my stories soon. I've got everything all written out... I just need to find the time to edit a few chapters, and post them. Slowly, but surely... until that time, here's a little something to sate your Fiona feels. ;)