Round 3
Prompts –
(Medium) – (smell) Alcohol
(Hard) – (Quote) "Enjoy your life today, because yesterday has gone and tomorrow may never come" – Alan Coren
(Hard) – (Restriction) No Dialogue
Word Count: 847
TITLE ME: DRUNKEN MEMORIES – ASAMI IS RECOUNTING HER LIFE THROUGH BEER GOGGLES AS SHE SITS, DEATH VERGING UPON HER.
Enjoy your life today, because yesterday has gone and tomorrow may never come.
Yesterday was far gone for the heiress, as well as her youth, vitality, and will to live long gone, drawn away from her by the sands of time.
In the dilapidated kitchen she discovers one last bottle of Cactus Juice among the hoards of empty ones that litter the great counter spaces – once having been graced with world class chefs and hands that turned out dishes that made even Quong's seem mediocre.
Lamely she drags herself to the sitting room, now decorated with old photos of her family and cobwebs thick with dust. Spread out expansively over the coffee table are photo albums; chocked full of black and white photographs. In one her mother and father preside as the only memories she had left of them.
Her mother was taken from her at a young age she recalls, taking a deep swig from the bottle dangling limply from her wrinkled and bony fingers. Taken swiftly from her by a fire bender who broke into the mansion late of an evening, he managed to burn down most of the building while he was there too.
After, her father made haste in enrolling her in martial arts classes so she could defend herself. Ahh…Her father too was taken from her more soon than she would have liked as well. At age twenty-two the pair lovingly collaborated on a hummingbird suite to take down The Great Uniter's mecha that was powered by spirit vines harvested from the Great Forest deep within the Earth Kingdom. He was crushed by a giant robotic hand right after he flipped her ejector switch, leaving her to watch in agony as his body (tucked inside the hummingbird suit) plummeted toward the ground… crashing and breaking into multiple more pieces.
A tear escapes the corner of her left eye and slowly makes its descent down her time-worn cheek. She heaves out a sigh heavy with the weight of a thousand memories and the smell of alcohol that permeates the air.
Not all of the memories were bad, though. In the next photo album reside the photographs she holds most dear to her heart… Photographs of her friends, her love, even a few of her children.
She flips through, taking a moment to recall each memory as best as she can. Mako and Bolin in the Pro-Bending ring – fire and earth discs whipping into the opposing team… Pabu and Naga sleeping peacefully in front of the fire in the very room she sat in now… Korra and herself in the Spirit World – their first trip together where they saw so many beautiful plants and spirits, but it is also where they truly fell in love, making love in the moon light as well as hiking and even meeting Lord Zuko's famed Uncle Iroh.
A slight smile plays across the edges of her lips as feelings of ecstasy fill her chest. Her love, the Avatar, had passed only a few mere months before, but to her it has felt like forever.
Old age had crept up on the Avatar, but she never seemed to notice, never slowing down to take a breath or enjoy the scenery. Inwardly the heiress was fairly certain that her love knew what was happening to her, and that is why she worked herself to death – always practicing, always patrolling the streets of Republic City fighting triads.
The heiress had always wondered if the stressful times in the last couple months of her love's life had been her fault. She had begun a descent into the pits of alcoholism, the bottom so inky black that there was no way she could pull herself back up. Had Korra feeling like she couldn't do anything to help her wife caused her to do what she did?
Taking another deep gulp of the burning substance, she scoots precariously down to the other end of the antique couch – nearly pitching into the floor multiple times seemingly only to be caught by an invisible force.
Gingerly she sets her bottle down and pulls the final scrapbook into her lap. Staring back at her are the faces of her children – long gone with their own families with no time to worry about drunken ole mom wasting away in the home of her youth… perhaps destined to die surrounded by memories that she holds dear, of times forgotten, wiped away clean by copious amounts of alcohol.
Tears of agony silently leak and begin to stream down her cheeks, wetting the top of her red blouse. Fingers go to wipe away the wetness but instead become entangled in brilliant white hair which had once been a raven black, glowing luminously and lustrously in either the sun or moon light.
Having no longer the will nor the strength to continue the existence she now leads, the heiress pitches herself forward and onto her feet. Silently, she gulps down the last of her bottle and stumbles toward the kitchen.
She draws out a large knife, raises it to her throat
FIN