The Lazarus Effect

Chapter 5 Groundhogs Day

His plastic smile began to melt under a heat lamp. He caught it in his hands and remolded it into a wider grin. Watermelon Festival etiquette... I carved our initials on every post and fishing pier. Are you usually so off-putting? Maybe she had a fever, but that wasn't new.

  "As far as I know..."

He wore pink sweatpants and binge-watched the first season of Fleabag with me on his tiny couch. How many pieces are in this puzzle?

My soul was a revolving door.

You are a conspiracy theorist, aren't you?

Something like that...

"Woah.. that is total spiritual warfare!"

I was Merida who shed and shot her arrows to avoid a preordained suitor. I will not ABA the child out of them.

His was quite the tower to throw yourself off. I caught the windfall on my way down.

"Careful not to track mud onto the white furniture."

I love lovers who witness my distaste for them as I wear their clothing. 

She had a recurring nightmare that she was endlessly packing a suitcase and by daybreak, it had unpacked itself. My mother talks to everyone but remains tight-lipped around me. I reminded the woman of her sister when I asked her to tie my shoes. I was too shy to admit I had only learned the bunny hop. Though, I was never above asking someone to kneel for me. I was always looking for misfit toys to bring back to the island. I find a white feather on the ground. I know nothing of the wings or the message. I was a flight risk. Fool me once...I am still a Fool. I stare at my reflection. Her birthday was my death day. The Jester was not the only fool courtside. 

She made a flower crown out of weeds. 

Yes, I am short but also HBO's Tyrion Lannister. He was an orange cat; I was a witch's familiar. I told her I forgave her. I prayed one day I would mean it. Her belief in me was all the balm I could manage to provide. As long as one of the chains was broken, or a dam flooded, I would fake it till I made it. A poor basketball game with my two half-siblings does not make a whole. Would my child bring us around the wheel and cornerstone?

It was easier to forgive a woman with my last name. The game had far too many rules and chances to lose. Someone always ended up flipping the table. 

A fire never stays in one place.  He receded back into his cave. Snubbing the heart-shaped strawberries to die in the sun. Real love is unjustifiable. A honeymoon spent on hospital stays and medical bills. The spell required a dead man's blood. They could not be killers themselves. Well, what about a child who burns anthills with a magnifying glass? I ask. Children are not exempt. Souls are souls.                                                                                                                                                                              Maybe, I am the darkness, but a silver lining shines somewhere. Where the silver pierces, must be partially mine. Star crossed lover's game - 

Hermit and the Lovers -What was brewing in my cauldron? What wasn't?

Don't put me in the grave and offer me a chance to claw my way out. You wouldn't know the chime of the bell ringing from the sirens of an ambulance in the city. I am no longer the Ostrich, but the alligator only distinguishable by the whites of its eyes and teeth. A little girl ghost, a rampaging ghost, and a man with a bolo tie follow close behind. 

The floor was built to the walls. Nina was a white-knuckled disciple with communion coursing through her veins. But she knew innately no one was meant to drink from her. We distributed the burn evenly between our tongues. The best hunters set traps. I named each worm to spare them their dignity on the hook. I feared that was my destiny. 

To be the scorpion and the frog. My thorns regrow and you reach out for another prick like you are sleeping beauty. Who was I to give him a puzzle with only white pieces as a clue? He could map an investigation from the red tacks to the threads of evidence." Fortune favors the bold. We were kids. The madness was spreading. The only defiance to the stillness was the occasional trill of a bird. "Do you want to take a walk? Might do us some good to stretch our legs." The cold bit at my skin. I did not shiver, lest some fool mistake it for shaking. In my mandala effect... He draws comic after comic. I recite line after line of a dead poet's words.

What is your aura right now?

Violet.

He always had a book in his hands. oh, to watch someone grow by the notches on the door frame. I am here. Doesn't that count for something? Maybe, at one point in time.

My persona is a duck with a knife. His was Nuckelavee.

I scanned her for the telltale sign. I am friendly, not polite. I give every new face a clean slate.

 You and your silver tongue?

Who else would I bring on the ark?

Every swing of my sword - is a lightning strike. There were seven sermons of the dead. I shove her when I meant to lightly guide her resistance to bend to my direction. The trees were planted for their fragrance when the citizens used the streets as their bathrooms.

The two-fingered salute, letting you know if you reckon your pointer finger at me, I will take the remaining three.

I will leave your hitch-hiking thumb.