My name is Eyre.
I am a fourteen year old girl.
I could die today
or tomorrow
or sometime next week.
But...
Everything I do, I do because He tells me to.
~8~
Because He Tells Me To
~8~
Today, just like yesterday, and just like tomorrow will be, the wind blew hot and dry across Carcasses, carrying with it a few traces of golden sand from the wasteland that lay just beyond the border of the town. My mother used to say that if the Plant ever stopped working, this whole town would shrivel up and die in this horrible world; then it would float over the sands like the rest of the dust and chaff that makes your eyes sore when you even try to look out into the outskirts of town. Even in the center of town, where I like to sit, it crinkles in your eyes, and makes you cry. At least... that's what I tell people sometimes.
I don't really get on very well with my family. Since we're almost always working, I don't really have to see much of them anyway. I have a mother and father like most kids my age do, and an older sister too; she's named Linda. The funny thing about Linda is the way our little extra money seems to get into her hands all the time. I don't know what she does with it, and I really don't care, but dad cares. He cares so much that whever he can get his hands on her, he beats her. He beats mother too. He never lands a slap on me though, I'm too fast for him. When he's not beating Linda or mother, he's drinking our money away. Letting our hard earned double dollars seep out of him in little drops of liquor. I hate it, and I hate him too. I wish on the dust sometimes. I wish so hard just to get out of here.
Today was no different. The dust is still in my eyes, and I still don't want to go home... but I have to.
I pick up my feet to see the ground eddying around in little currents under the blackout of my shadow, not really paying attention to the noises around me. I wish I was like the dust. But in my family, there is no place for wishes. So I just sigh, and stamp down on the dust, trapping it the same way life stamped on me, and is grinding me into bits slowly beneath its merciless soles. I heft my weight up onto my slender legs, with a small grunt of annoyance, and drag the dust home with me, towards the outskirts of town.
All the other children play around me, and the air fills with their little screeches of delight. I growl softly, scuffing my dust at them, hating them too. They who have no responsibilities. The twin suns are burning overhead, making me wince at the heat bearing down on the back of my haphazardly sewn dress, like so many other weights riding around freely on my shoulders these days. Before I know it, the familiar stench of too much drink is wafting into my nostrils, like some vile smoke that only I can see. It twines around my insides and squeezes, making me cringe and bite my lip. I haven't eaten today, that's what hurts. Not that my so-called father is abusive. Not that Linda is spoiled so rotten she decaying from the inside. Not that mother is too scared to do anything about it, and buries herself in her sewing every day. I tell myself that sometimes too.
From within the house, I can hear the same screaming that I do everyday. A woman's high, helpless wail of pain and betrayal. Neighbors turn the other cheek. After a while, so do I. It's mother, that much I can tell. That man is probably home early, wondering why there isn't more money for him to spend on his toxins. Linda is sitting outside on a few boxes, airing herself out lazily, checking to make sure the bruises on her legs are covered by that new dress she bought. She looks up with a wry smirk painted as carefully on her face as she paints her lips every morning, when she sees my bare feet scuffing along.
"Welcome back, brat." She breezes loftily, looking sinisterly at me from behind her long lashes. I drag a smile onto my face, so fake it doesn't even feel like a smile to me anymore.
"Eyre. Not brat. My name is Eyre." I whisper as I pass her. Like always, she catches it.
"Like I said. Brat." Linda smirks. I wrinkle my nose in distaste, and continue into the house. The crash of cooking ware lets me know that the row has entered the kitchen, providing me with a way to get through the house and into me and Linda's room without much hassle.
Once there, I lock the door with my piece of twine, and flop down to the floor. The dust motes fly up at the wind I create and I stare longingly at them for a while. Dust is pretty much all I identify with, now. Sighing, I scoot myself forward, to look at myself in the shards of mirror tacked haphazardly onto the wall. Hardened green-brown eyes stare back at me defiantly through a curtain of fringe in the crystal; long, brown, scraggly strands of unwashed hair twined into a loose braid fall behind them. My coarse blue cotton dress is tattered a bit around the bottom, and my apron, coloured off-white from the dust, hands limply on top of that. I sigh again. Fourteen years of this.
Looking away from the scene in the mirror, a special-seeming dust mote caught my eye in the window, and I peered at it for a bit. It moved downwards a bit, and then sideways, and then... upwards? I blinked in surprise, and scrambled to my feet to look more closely. It was a small, dust-coloured spider.
I suppose I could always make a wish on a spider, instead. So I closed my eyes, and wished as hard as I could.
I wish... that everyone would just disappear.
What possessed me to wish that?
"Woman!" bellows that man from the other room, muffled from behind the door, "Make me some goddamned food! Don't none of you know your place in this fucked up hell-hold of a household! You're sewing all damn day when you should be cleaning! Linda's a dirty, good for nothing tramp, and Eyre?! That stupid bitch of a little girl lives in her dreams every goddamned day!" The rest of his tirade is obscured by more pots and pans, as they clatter to the floor.
Oh... that's right.
I didn't feel like staying in here for one more moment, so I ran. I slammed open the door, and winced as it hit a blockage. That man's enraged yowl sent me scrambling in an undignified manner for the back door. I felt his steps shaking behind me, felt the wind behind his drunked swings, and spun into the wall with a hard thud when one of them clipped the left side of my head with a resounding smack that made my teeth rattle. I saw stars, and tasted the bittersweet tang of blood on my tongue- I must have bitten it- but ran on anyway, my breath wheezing in my chest. I saw mother in the kitchen as I darted through, sitting in the candle light, another bruise added to the mottled green and blue collection on her neck, blood spotting her cheek... and I hated him more.
I wanted it all gone, I decided, as I finally made it out into the light of the setting suns, and rising moons.
All of it.
~8~
I slept in the dunes just outside of town that night.
When I woke up, it was high noon.
And there was no sound at all.
Just the wind
The dust
And me.
~8~
A/N: Well, I suppose we all know what happened to the town. This was based on a dream of mine, so I'm just kind of writing on a whim here. Let me know what you think, onegai?
By the way, besides Mr. Millions, I'm not sure how long it'll take to get the rest of the crew involved in this; it's all going to take place through Eyre's eyes though, because I'm always wary about writing from other characters perspectives besides my own originals, until I've seen the whole series twice through, and have had little philosophical thought conversations about characters and their development with Millie-dear. =D
Love and Peace!
-Ivory
I am a fourteen year old girl.
I could die today
or tomorrow
or sometime next week.
But...
Everything I do, I do because He tells me to.
~8~
Because He Tells Me To
~8~
Today, just like yesterday, and just like tomorrow will be, the wind blew hot and dry across Carcasses, carrying with it a few traces of golden sand from the wasteland that lay just beyond the border of the town. My mother used to say that if the Plant ever stopped working, this whole town would shrivel up and die in this horrible world; then it would float over the sands like the rest of the dust and chaff that makes your eyes sore when you even try to look out into the outskirts of town. Even in the center of town, where I like to sit, it crinkles in your eyes, and makes you cry. At least... that's what I tell people sometimes.
I don't really get on very well with my family. Since we're almost always working, I don't really have to see much of them anyway. I have a mother and father like most kids my age do, and an older sister too; she's named Linda. The funny thing about Linda is the way our little extra money seems to get into her hands all the time. I don't know what she does with it, and I really don't care, but dad cares. He cares so much that whever he can get his hands on her, he beats her. He beats mother too. He never lands a slap on me though, I'm too fast for him. When he's not beating Linda or mother, he's drinking our money away. Letting our hard earned double dollars seep out of him in little drops of liquor. I hate it, and I hate him too. I wish on the dust sometimes. I wish so hard just to get out of here.
Today was no different. The dust is still in my eyes, and I still don't want to go home... but I have to.
I pick up my feet to see the ground eddying around in little currents under the blackout of my shadow, not really paying attention to the noises around me. I wish I was like the dust. But in my family, there is no place for wishes. So I just sigh, and stamp down on the dust, trapping it the same way life stamped on me, and is grinding me into bits slowly beneath its merciless soles. I heft my weight up onto my slender legs, with a small grunt of annoyance, and drag the dust home with me, towards the outskirts of town.
All the other children play around me, and the air fills with their little screeches of delight. I growl softly, scuffing my dust at them, hating them too. They who have no responsibilities. The twin suns are burning overhead, making me wince at the heat bearing down on the back of my haphazardly sewn dress, like so many other weights riding around freely on my shoulders these days. Before I know it, the familiar stench of too much drink is wafting into my nostrils, like some vile smoke that only I can see. It twines around my insides and squeezes, making me cringe and bite my lip. I haven't eaten today, that's what hurts. Not that my so-called father is abusive. Not that Linda is spoiled so rotten she decaying from the inside. Not that mother is too scared to do anything about it, and buries herself in her sewing every day. I tell myself that sometimes too.
From within the house, I can hear the same screaming that I do everyday. A woman's high, helpless wail of pain and betrayal. Neighbors turn the other cheek. After a while, so do I. It's mother, that much I can tell. That man is probably home early, wondering why there isn't more money for him to spend on his toxins. Linda is sitting outside on a few boxes, airing herself out lazily, checking to make sure the bruises on her legs are covered by that new dress she bought. She looks up with a wry smirk painted as carefully on her face as she paints her lips every morning, when she sees my bare feet scuffing along.
"Welcome back, brat." She breezes loftily, looking sinisterly at me from behind her long lashes. I drag a smile onto my face, so fake it doesn't even feel like a smile to me anymore.
"Eyre. Not brat. My name is Eyre." I whisper as I pass her. Like always, she catches it.
"Like I said. Brat." Linda smirks. I wrinkle my nose in distaste, and continue into the house. The crash of cooking ware lets me know that the row has entered the kitchen, providing me with a way to get through the house and into me and Linda's room without much hassle.
Once there, I lock the door with my piece of twine, and flop down to the floor. The dust motes fly up at the wind I create and I stare longingly at them for a while. Dust is pretty much all I identify with, now. Sighing, I scoot myself forward, to look at myself in the shards of mirror tacked haphazardly onto the wall. Hardened green-brown eyes stare back at me defiantly through a curtain of fringe in the crystal; long, brown, scraggly strands of unwashed hair twined into a loose braid fall behind them. My coarse blue cotton dress is tattered a bit around the bottom, and my apron, coloured off-white from the dust, hands limply on top of that. I sigh again. Fourteen years of this.
Looking away from the scene in the mirror, a special-seeming dust mote caught my eye in the window, and I peered at it for a bit. It moved downwards a bit, and then sideways, and then... upwards? I blinked in surprise, and scrambled to my feet to look more closely. It was a small, dust-coloured spider.
I suppose I could always make a wish on a spider, instead. So I closed my eyes, and wished as hard as I could.
I wish... that everyone would just disappear.
What possessed me to wish that?
"Woman!" bellows that man from the other room, muffled from behind the door, "Make me some goddamned food! Don't none of you know your place in this fucked up hell-hold of a household! You're sewing all damn day when you should be cleaning! Linda's a dirty, good for nothing tramp, and Eyre?! That stupid bitch of a little girl lives in her dreams every goddamned day!" The rest of his tirade is obscured by more pots and pans, as they clatter to the floor.
Oh... that's right.
I didn't feel like staying in here for one more moment, so I ran. I slammed open the door, and winced as it hit a blockage. That man's enraged yowl sent me scrambling in an undignified manner for the back door. I felt his steps shaking behind me, felt the wind behind his drunked swings, and spun into the wall with a hard thud when one of them clipped the left side of my head with a resounding smack that made my teeth rattle. I saw stars, and tasted the bittersweet tang of blood on my tongue- I must have bitten it- but ran on anyway, my breath wheezing in my chest. I saw mother in the kitchen as I darted through, sitting in the candle light, another bruise added to the mottled green and blue collection on her neck, blood spotting her cheek... and I hated him more.
I wanted it all gone, I decided, as I finally made it out into the light of the setting suns, and rising moons.
All of it.
~8~
I slept in the dunes just outside of town that night.
When I woke up, it was high noon.
And there was no sound at all.
Just the wind
The dust
And me.
~8~
A/N: Well, I suppose we all know what happened to the town. This was based on a dream of mine, so I'm just kind of writing on a whim here. Let me know what you think, onegai?
By the way, besides Mr. Millions, I'm not sure how long it'll take to get the rest of the crew involved in this; it's all going to take place through Eyre's eyes though, because I'm always wary about writing from other characters perspectives besides my own originals, until I've seen the whole series twice through, and have had little philosophical thought conversations about characters and their development with Millie-dear. =D
Love and Peace!
-Ivory