Man! I've had, like, the longest period of hiatus ever! Sorry...I think I'm just unreliable or something! So yeah...the story continues...Don't own Wilson or Amber...R&R, maybe?
There's a little creepy house
In a little creepy place
Little creepy town
In a little creepy world
Little creepy girl
With her little creepy face
Saying funny things that you have never heard
Kerli- Walking on Air
Wilson was back in the country, the vast fields of corn enveloping and swallowing him in their sickly chartreuse stalks. He had never been here per say, but he had seen the field from the dirt path to the gleaming, benign river. It was adjacent to a vast apple orchard populated by granny smith apples and the tall, grinning trees the held them up to the sky in such a way that they sparkled like gems.
The corn stalks, however, seemed to be stiff, reedy twigs forced into the ground like bean poles. They swayed laboriously when the wind whined through them, and bent in long, thick curtsies when the wind blew harder. There were no ears of corn yet, which only exemplified the sheer ugliness of the plants. Who could grow such crops? They were dastardly and grotesque looking, hunched and hobbled over like peddlers in the streets, covered with thick sores reminiscent of leprosy, and yet they stood tall at times, reedy eyes gleaming, as they prepared for you to turn your back, because all of these plants were Brutus, if you really thought about it, and he was Caesar.
However, he was probably just paranoid. What else was he supposed to be when his dream was so realistic?
The river roared over the din of his thoughts and beckoned to him, waggling its damp fingers, coated in rings of rainbows, like a seductress. He had a strange feeling that he wanted to go to the river,yet he was wary of it. It was like an oyster to him; it seemed that he could open it and something magnificent would appear, but he never knew if the contents would be grit or treasure. He walked to the river anyway. The corn seemed too malevolent for him to stand safely in its midst.
Ferns once again grasped for his ankles and wrapped themselves about his legs, small witch's fingers begging for a soul to latch onto and destroy. The path twisted and swayed in front of him, a small ribbon of scattered rocks and stray plants that were trampled by passersby. He could hear the river crashing into the invisible force that existed around it; the hot, steamy stares of the corn singed into the nape of his neck. Chickadees sang muted lullabies in the upper branches of the trees as he wandered past them. He had been a Chickadee once, singing his own soft melody to the world that did not listen about the love that did not last while he sat in the perch that did not hold. He had been snatched from bliss by a screech owl from hell. When would the personal winged demons of these Chickadees come to tell them that their world was made of cheap lies?
A praying mantis glared at him with distended eyes. It stretched awkwardly over the space it covered, there but not seemingly present in the world around it, a pathetic creature with such a lowly life that it was refused a grasp on time or matter.
Wilson had been like that at Amber's funeral.
The long, scythe-like arms of the mantis loomed in the foreground of its vision. Its small, knobby head cocked to one side as it sized up the insect it was about to eat. Those long, spindly arms crossed and hovered for what felt like hours; its head did nothing but swivel back and forth, like a door knob.
It sprang, crushing the beetle and devouring it in seconds.
"You take so long to pray for forgiveness and understanding, yet you kill again so fast," Wilson stated sadly. Unknowingly, he had carried himself to the river's edge and sat by it.
"He prays not for forgiveness, nor for understanding. He prays for the safety of the soul he takes, for he knows that his is beyond saving," a voice whispered, reedy as the wind, behind him.
He did not turn around, for he somehow already knew that someone would be here today. Why not? It was about time he deluded himself further.
"That makes no sense," Wilson said. "Why give up completely? It is only in his nature to kill for survival."
"His whole survival has been a test. Will he kill himself or others? He knows he has failed and he has accepted that."
"People don't do that. They believe God is forgiving." His voice trembled. Was God forgiving toward Amber?
"People can't tell the truth, even to themselves. Maybe you can be forgiven, but animals aren't so optimistic. They get one chance, and they know that until they get a second chance."
"What if someone killed to protect themselves?"
"There are no gray lines," the voice said, shrugging off his statements with ragged tremors like a dog shakes off water.
"How do you know?" Suddenly, there was a woman in front of him, floating in the smallest branch of the tallest tree across from the river. The Chickadees flew off at her appearance, startled by a woman who could defy gravity and all that is comprehensible in the world.
She was neither beautiful nor ugly, but rather plain. Her hair, a natural menacing blond, was cut surprisingly short and framed her face like a picture frame. Her jaw was thinly set and curled into a permanent frame of nothingness. She felt nothing, and he could tell. How long had she been trapped here? She stared wistfully after the birds that had fled so willingly at the sight of her.
"I wish I could fly after them. That would be a breath of fresh air," she said, and Wilson knew, instantaneously, that there were no lines of gray because this woman had first hand experience being dead.
So yeah. That's it. Don't ask why I took so long to write it; I'm just pathetic. R&R?
LePerson