A Place Outside Time

March 2, 2018April 13, 2018 ~ Piece, of the Sky

never stop trappin'

Kaan walked the path, covered in damp leaves. The trees stood out in sharp relief against the white sky. The clouds rolled and expanded out, climbing down the mountains. The branches were empty, scraggly veins written on the firmament.

The woods smelled of wet earth. It had rained that morning. Droplets budded where leaves had once shaken in the cold, autumn wind.

The trees were thinning. Through the gnarled trunks, Kaan could see the old house, shingles hanging lopsided, roof full of holes. No one had been to the gray structure in years.

She stopped in the woods. Coming off the path, she could see the door leaning, barely on its hinges. Dead foliage filled the front lawn. Dry grass curled into the dust. The mailbox stood askew in the wet, sunken ground. Kaan didn’t go in yet. She thought of Aspen.

Why did you leave me?

She could almost see her here: Aspen in a lacy, white dress, holding a frilly parasol aloft, twirling it – lifting one dainty, black Jimmy Choo-clad foot in the air, smelling of hard candy.

They had run the book store together, with its low ceilings and leaky bathroom faucet. After work, Kaan would charge off on her Harley, and Aspen would yell at her to slow down, camel skin pea coat swirling around perfect legs, calves sculpted by months of spinning classes.

Kaan sat down on the low wooden steps, half rotted through. Love is a haunted house standing in your heart, Kaan thought. She lit a Newport and had to really drag on it to get the fire going. She lay down on the forgotten porch, cigarette smoke spiraling up idly, some getting in her nostrils – the rest, catching the next breeze into the stratosphere.

She found herself crying, chest heaving helplessly on the frigid boards, far away, in some forest in Maine. I miss you. Why won’t you come back? Not even her black leather jacket protected her from the cold, the thunderous, rushing wind galloping through the woods, blowing through her heart.

should have worn the vest

Song:

Blue Foundation – “Eyes on Fire”

Alien Personality

February 24, 2018July 23, 2018 ~ Piece, of the Sky

the future is now

Third night. Waves rolling in from outside the bay. Alli ran down the steps. Her trainers hit the sand. And she was off, in the direction of Mallo’s Mini-Mart.

The wind shook the palm trees. A gale was moving out on the water, further down the coast. Alli pulled her jean jacket in closer. The leaves flapped, battering each other in the breeze. The full moon lit up the beach; shadows lengthening in the sharp contrast. Rocks and crabs stood out, claws clicking in the night.

She walked past Mallo’s quickly. The clubs were quieter tonight, as if hunkering down for the incoming tempest. A few rockers hung about, holding Blue Moons. Solo cups littered the sidewalk outside the store. A Camaro sat in the parking lot, swarmed by punks and bikers.

The night ambience resumed, swallowing up Mallo’s in its wake. Alli kicked a cigarette butt on the ground.

Scorched logs from yesterday’s fire lay abandoned. Alli nudged one with her foot, watching it collapse into ash. Gusts whipped the eddies into tiny maelstroms, swirling without purpose.

The cliffs loomed in Alli’s line of sight, silhouettes against the cold, navy sky. Alli could see one of the tunnels, hollowed out by centuries of erosion, from here. It was low tide, Alli reminded herself – but still, her pulse began to drum in her ears.

The beach grew thinner. The jungle trees fell away to shrubbery and then to grass, and before Alli knew it, she was walking between the white cliffs and the sea. The surf menaced from its turf. Alli reminded herself that she could swim; swim parallel to the rip tide, not directly back to shore, headfirst into the wrathful waves.

She walked with her hand against the stone, but even the rock walls opened into the caves Ran had mentioned – various natural hallways and corridors running to the other side of the cliff, holes in which she could see the sea.

The water was close now, churning a few feet from her ankles. The lip of the islet hung a right, reaching out to the sandbars in the bay. She was through the caves and the cliffs now.

Back out in the moonlight, Alli squinted and looked around at the open water, the crashing waves, the rolling grass reaching back toward the cliffs. The sand stretched out into the sea, pining for some remote, lost land. A sand bridge to nowhere. Even the fields fell away and there was only water and sand, a primeval landscape, reversing the ancient walk uphill, upstream.

The ghost ship floated into view, metal mast winking in the night, rigging long lost and rotted. There were no ghosts, Alli thought to herself as she plodded on, through the damp sand.

She reached it – the black wreckage spread out like a spiderweb. The ocean had pounded a hole in the hull, through which, there was only darkness. Alli picked her way closer, through the seaweed carpeting the ground, making the rocks slippery. She peered into the ruin and let her eyes adjust.

Inside, shafts of moonlight illuminated dull pools of water, shrunken or swollen on the ocean’s whim. Beams had caved in. Broken wooden boxes lay discarded or smashed. Alli accidentally stepped in a puddle and soaked her foot to the skin.

“Well, are you going to go in?” a voice asked.

Alli nearly choked. She was still breathing heavily when she turned to see Ran behind her.

“You can’t – do something like that-!” Alli gasped.

“It was worth it for the look on your face,” Ran grinned, crossing her arms – which were tan and wiry, covered in fine, feathery red hair.

Alli’s heart slowed. She sat down on a beam at the threshold. She thought of her warm cabana and wondered what she was doing out here.

Ran came and sat down beside her, “Listen, I am sorry I scared you.”

Alli sighed, endorphins flooding her brain, post-scare. She stared out into the ocean. Sky and water met in an endless circle. Without the other, neither was complete.

Ran put an arm around Alli’s shoulder. That’s when Alli noticed the smaller boat, “You rowed here?”

“Yes,” Ran grinned, “I am surprised you actually came out.”

Alli shook her head, “You’re awful.”

“Come on, let me take you home,” Ran said.

Ran got up and offered Alli her hand. Alli gave her an incredulous look but put her hand in Ran’s. In the boat, Alli sat in the front, watching as Ran unhooked the oars.

They cast out into the sea, two figures on that unending horizon. The moon sunk silently, surrounded by clouds rushing southward, ahead of the storm.

urban spelunking