Alphabetum
by. Poisoned Scarlet
J is for Juxtaposition
You hear the radio playing a vivid, energetic, thrilling, song but you cannot understand the high notes and keys because your heart is playing its own melancholic quartet.
You can hear your breathing come too fast, come too shallow, as you grip your mothers hand.
She is smiling very weakly down at you, her jewel eyes sparkling with fondness as her face loses more color and becomes a pasty white with time.
Your brother is beside you, sniffling and trying very hard to resist tears, and you are numb to the core because you cannot wrap your mind around the fact that she is dying and that, as golden yellow sunlight streams in through the drawn curtains beside your mother, everyone else is having the time of their lives outside.
You wish the sky would become bruised, would start to rain torrents of water down to the earth so your own tears can blend with them. You wish the ground would erupt in flames, would crack and break and crumble, to reflect the emotional turmoil that whirls inside of you but nothing happens; not even a cloud moves in the pure blue sky and not even an inkling of black spots appear as a cooling breeze comes from the east.
You can hear the laughter of children come from outside, as your ignorant playmates continue to enjoy the day without a care in the world.
You hate it.
You wish you could shut them up because your mother is dying and there is not a thing you can do about it.
Alphonse is crying freely now, hiccuping as your mother shushes him, voice raspy.
You grip her hand tightly, almost deathly, as your brother wails for her and lurches forward to grab her hand as well.
The white towel thrown over her forehead is dry now.
The sweat coating her temples and forehead and the base of her neck has started to deplete, as your mothers body slowly shuts down.
"Edward, Alphonse," she says, very weakly, very lowly, that you lean forward eagerly to hear what she has to say. Your brother is right beside you, ignoring the company behind watching with sorrowful eyes, and your little heart nearly breaks when she says: "I'll always love you...I'm sorry."
"N-no," you choke. "No, 'cause you're gonna' be alright..." They are empty words and you know it but you can't help but to say them; just so they could ease the pain blossoming inside your chest as your mother smiles sadly. "Y-y-you're gonna' be...okay," your voice cracks at the end.
She gives both of your hands one last comforting squeeze before her strength is reduced to nothing and she no longer holds your hand.
Her eyes no longer reflect the sunny sunlight outside and her breathing has stopped.
Her hand starts to feel cold the longer you hold it.
The room has become deathly silent until it is broken by a sudden hiccup; a sudden jerky, squeaky, noise that's coming from around you.
She's dead, you think with horror, she's dead.
You feel cold.
You feel alone.
You feel like a piece of you has been taken away.
You feel like a fragment of your heart has been crushed until its unrecognizable.
You feel a pain like nothing else; an anguishing and suddenly harsh reality that makes you open your eyes and shake that translucent curtain of child naivete from your shoulders.
You realize that people can be taken away from you with an abruptness that matches those great, wild, blizzards in the North.
Your brothers crying is so loud in your ears and that is because, as you feel someone grab you from behind and pull you away from her dead body, as you thrash and flail to be left alone with her, it is because you are the one crying so loudly.
You're screaming to be left alone; you're screaming for your mommy and you know, with a sense of dread and sickness, that she is dead and she'll never, ever, come back.
She can't be gone, you think, grievously. She can't leave me! Please, no...
"Ed!"
It's Winry and she's the one holding you back. You feel an urge to strike her, an urge to shove her away and call her very bad word you can think of, but the sight of her watery and glossy sapphire eyes makes you think twice so you let her pull you away.
Instead of becoming a wreck in the arms of your surrogate grandmother or your brother, which you would prefer, as you can hear his own pained crying from somewhere around you, you become a wreck in her arms, and slide to the floor as she cries with you.
The energetic song coming from the radio drowns your crying a little.
You think its okay because when this is all over you can say she was the one crying the loudest, matching the volume of the radio, even though you can hear your own wails echo through the empty expanse of your home.
A/N: This one was hard to pull off. The word itself threw me off when I first heard it. I had only a vague idea of what it meant and I cursed my friends for their sadistic ways. They're all Fullmetal Alchemist fans so that's why most of these prompts are so closely related to the series but this one was just to fuck with me.
Needless to say, it took me one whole week to come up with something and in the end it was a vain effort. I ended up just opening the document and writing random stuff. Eventually, this flowed out. Maybe I should randomly write more often, it helps! XD
I know this one is sad. I'll try not to put too much angst in this collection; I want it to be a happy series of prompts, not a depressing one like the Color Collection.
Review!
Scarlett.