Garder mon Ame

Chapter One: Taken

Hollow eyes, tender lies

Pain subsided, passion collided

Heart of feeling, mind is sealing

Face a mask, inside a task

Friends oblivious, life delirious

Noose of redeeming, hell of the scheming

Soul given up, time breaking up

Your spirit was caught, now your body will rot

"Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep,

If I shall die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take."

Swallowed whole, a woman sat on an old, moth-eaten armchair, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, tears etching their despondent identity into her skin. Her red hair was a dull, lackluster curtain that veiled the hurt as it hung limp around her thin, paled face. She was clutching Rosary beads close to her chest, smothering the crucified Jesus with hopeless force. She moaned, a pathetic, animal-like sound, and she said with a shaky voice, "That was beautiful, Ardin."

Ardin stared at the woman, face impassive. "We say that prayer every night, Tashelle."

The woman leaned back into the chair as though hoping the plush material would consume her. To an extent, it already had. "I know, but it's still just s-so nice to hear s-someone who . . . who . . . who cares." Tashelle broke into a fitful burst of agony, her cries echoing through her modest living room which consisted only of the armchair, a matching couch, a television, and a plant stand adorned with a pink orchid.

"Of course I care!" Ardin exclaimed, eyes widening.

"Many people cared, Tashelle. You've received consolidations from everyone in town." Another woman was sitting next to Ardin on the couch. Her black hair was tied up in a neat bun, and her eyes, a soft green, where proud and undaunted. Her posture was that of a life-long cello player, and her hands were folded politely in her lap.

"But it doesn't mean anything," Tashelle cried, rocking back and forth. "They didn't love him like I did; they didn't realize that he was j-just the f-f-finest . . . finest b-boy out there."

Ardin glanced at the other woman; her mother's face was still blank. "We knew him since he was a baby, Tashelle. He was over at our house every day, and he became like a son to us." A hint of something, jealousy, perhaps, flashed in her mother's eyes.

Tashelle nodded. "I know he was. He always spoke of you like family, and yet we never really talked, Danae, not really."

"It's hard to keep track of all my children's friends," Ardin's mother said, chancing a friendly smile. "But that doesn't mean that your son wasn't loved at my house."

Tashelle was silent for a long moment, and then she said, "I'm glad to hear that. I think I needed to." There was another long pause of silence, in which Ardin stared at her knees, eyes narrowed, for once in her life her mind barren of thought.

"Ardin," Tashelle finally began, her voice diminutive, "did you love Cyra?"

Something wrenched at Ardin's heart, and her stomach turned unpleasantly. It was as if a meat hook had been driven inside of her, and she was now being pulled along a thick chord of death with the other condemned. However, she didn't care; she didn't bother her brain with the fact that the rotating blades of the grinder were only a few feet away.