Faded Lights: A Collection of Short Pieces

Firelight

TW: Grief, Suicide 

A firefly lit up the dark sky. It swirled in the night's breeze, ambling, turning, and twisting in the air before smashing into the windshield of the van. Its guts glowed for several moments after its demise, until the light went away, and Aurora wondered if it'd ever been there at all.

Paradise, 6 miles away, the billboard read, displaying a woman much like herself. Olive skin and long chestnut hair, but with a large blunt hanging between her lips. Even if Aurora had a smoke, she couldn't light it with her hands tied behind her back. Her arms were numb, her body sore, and her hope diminished.

Just days ago, she sat beside her friend who suggested she get a part-time job. Why had she ever called that ad on the third stall of the woman's bathroom in the English department? It should have been obvious it was a scam, but even when the driver—an androgenous figure who was stiff enough to have been born from the trees—brought her to the company van, she never anticipated this. Now, they've been driving for so long, she didn't know where they were. She searched the billboards for clues in the darkness, each with lights illuminating photos and text.

Happiness, 4 miles away. Another billboard showed a beach town with a group of friends dressed in tiny bikinis. She couldn't decipher a city name through the side window from the floor behind the backseats. But if it was a beach, perhaps they were driving along the Pacific Coast?

Aurora remembered the day they were in her bedroom, where My Chemical Romance, Paramore, and Korn posters stuck to the walls painted like black licorice and limes. She had horrible taste when she was 15. On her bed, he scootched closer, their shoulders grazing one another.

"He's the sexiest man alive." Mishal beamed, pointing at Neil Patrick Harris sporting a beach bod with a towel swung over a shoulder.

She shook her head. "I want my first to be someone more..." She hoped a glance at her posters hid the fact she was thinking of Devon from Algebra 1. "Realistic?"

Mishal shook his head like a brown throw rug. "You gotta dream while you can. We're not young forever."

The van turned, and her body slid across the metal floor, slamming into the wall. A grunt was all she managed as pain shot up her arm. The rag stuffed in her mouth was reminiscent of lavender and wild sage; odd scents for a kidnapper to have. Perhaps they were a gardener. Why'd they take her in the first place?

Have the time of your life. Just 2 miles away. This time, the billboard featured an Eiffel Tower, plate of escargot, and two lovers with the name of a French restaurant. Macarons replaced the O's. If driving by herself, she'd find it endearing, cute almost. But now, she found herself thinking of those little snails, lifeless on the plates.

~ ~ ~

When they were 8 and 9, Mishal and Aurora played frequently in the riverbed beside her mom's front yard.

"Did you know snails have 2,500 teeth?" Mishal plucked a snail from the mud.

She lifted a snail from its home, peering inside the hole of the shell. Nothing looked like it was inside, but when held to the sun, the creature moved within. She pictured thousands of teeth somehow fitting into such a tiny creature. How badly would it hurt to be bit? She shuddered, throwing it into the plastic bucket with a thwack.

"Wait." Mishal hopped in front of her, mud splattering. His flip flops, child's size 12, sunk into the muck. "Let me check for water snakes."

She held out a mud-caked hand and he took it, guiding her along. Their shoulders brushed as he protected her. He was her knight. He was always her knight. Never a king or a prince, but a suit of armor, protecting her from harm.

~ ~ ~

The van stopped. She flew forward, her body slamming into the backseats. She craved the sleeping pills the driver had given her early on. At first, she fought them, but after enough time she gave in, taking them like candy. She'd rather the world be dark than painful.

When the van didn't move again, she looked to the window. There were no billboards or lights. The night sky above held no stars. The back doors swung open.

As the driver grabbed her arm, she wondered if they were a woman or a man. Did it even matter? Soon, she'd be dead, or drugged, or trafficked, or worse—was there a worse?

The figure didn't speak, and the rag made it impossible for her to, as they forced her toward the building. She limped along, their hand pulling her forward. A massive rainbow-colored sign blinked the name: Serendipitous Serenity.

~ ~ ~

That last night, she found her knight in the forest outside the block party. A flag wrapped around his neck, cutting the circulation from the rest of his body. The veins across his face bulged like a squeezed grape between two knobby fingers. 

They were supposed to go to college together. Graduate together. Live together. Instead, she went alone. Walked alone. Lived alone. Everything went dark once his light disappeared. Aurora saw him in the struggling flowers beside the sidewalk, in the sign of the building, and in the way she waited for someone to walk in front of her, protecting her from the world.

In his final moments, had he felt any serenity? He diminished so slowly from the world. When she closed her eyes, she saw the outline of what came before the pain.

Note: An unpolished attempt of a flash piece that I enjoyed the idea of. I never returned to it so I thought I'd put it on here in case it's somewhat enjoyable.