Title: Fireflies
Characters: Claire
Rating: T
Summary: Claire's eyes were like fireflies, orbs that flittered like a firefly bats it's wings. But one day, the fireflies wings stop beating. Oneshot.
Fireflies
Her eyes were like fireflies. Round, intense orbs that flittered and fleeted like a firefly incessantly bats its wings. And with just one swat of a flyswatter, that luminescent, innocent bug could get squashed, splat, their lives having been completed without a chance to even tell the world goodbye. And on a cold Formica counter the firefly would lie, unnoticed for seconds, minutes that ticked by like the fireflies wings used to vibrate rhythmically every second of every day. Discovered by something – a dog, a person, an impatient mop waiting to pounce, the last imprint of that life was thrown away with barely a second's extra thought.
Maybe it could be that simple, she thought. Behind the porcelain, shining face and tender waves of flaxen hair, she had thought this, as her mother cursed her and her birth, her way of life, her personality. And as she grew taller and her features developed, she created a veil – a layer of fog beneath the gentle curls, spindly webs of silver strings, and she would learn to forget the widely spaced pieces, adjusting to the new, tightly woven layer that contrasted so greatly to what was on the outside.
Yes, maybe it could be that simple. She had considered this when he took her, all blood and grime and bare feet, she had begged him to murder her, desperately hanging onto thoughts of peace and quiet. Peace – a faulty idea of harmony that someone had once formulated, that everyone longed for even in the lighter hours of day. Claire, like others, clung onto this idea, this peace thing, like a starving man might cling onto a slice of bread – desperate to hold onto something that wouldn't fade or fall apart. It would always be the same, peace, it would always be constant, a fleeting truth somewhere distant.
After the initial shock, the abandonment, the crash, Claire had decided somewhere in one of the foggy layers in her mind that the baby would fix everything. When he was born, the weight of the veil would lift, and she would kiss it goodbye – her firefly eyes wouldn't need to lie anymore. But he was born, and the veil just increasing its weight, its consistent gray morphing darker and darker, densely weaving itself and molding itself to the shape of her brain. And it wouldn't go away this time.
Maybe it could be that simple, a simple swat and a simple life gone, forgotten, she thought as she watched the blood pool into deep oceans of anxiety on her wrists. The knife flickered in the reflection of night, the blood glittering on it vivid and satisfying. As Claire keeled over, she summoned the effort to bring the knife to her face, perpendicular to her blue, pure eyes, and slash across them – the firefly flickers adulterated into mere red streams on her porcelain face, now mauled like the insides of her brain were laden with a fog. As she drifted, she smiled – this was peace, her arms numb and unfeeling, and as she lay dying, she could have sworn she felt the veil lifting.
And in the end it really was that simple.
"I have no wit, I have no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
A lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is like the falling leaf;
O Jesus, quicken me." – Sylvia Plath, "A Better Resurrection"