Stains

Scarlet

17th December, late evening

I was sitting in my room, in the gloomy atmosphere of the late industrial, dismaying evening. It was filled with yellow and orange haze of toxic powder dancing in the light of streetlamps. I leaned over the drawer, trying to recall any thought that I wanted to spill on the paper merely seconds ago. I coudn't remind myself of anything. Only emptiness was ringing inside my head, pulling me nearer and nearer the verge of the insanity canyon.

Once again, I looked through the window, lifting the horizontal blinds with the tip of my index finger. After a moment of the initial glaze blinding my sight, (jesus, I hate living on the ground floor near those bright lamps) I saw a tall, black sillhouette walking along the street, zig-zaging and trying to avoid any ponds created on the sidewalk.

- Lonely nigh, hugh? Oh, it must have been raining like hell. - I thought and cought myself being distracted again.

- Goddammit! In such a pace I'm never gonna write anything! Ouch! - Warm, sticky scarlet spilled all over my finger and stained the segment of the blinds that it was holding a while ago. I went to the bathroom, sucking my finger, feeling the metallic taste in my mouth. I wrapped my finger in plain TP and proceeded to clean the blinds. I glanced around the drawer to see if I didn't stain any of my papers and then I saw it - the very same page was lying there on the drawer, seemingly untouched, unmoved by an inch, no longer blank. It was filled from top to bottom with handwritting that resembled my own.

- Dude, you have to fix that damn sleep schedule. - i said aloud to myself. I stood up, folded whatever I have written and put it in the right pocket of my coat. I went to bed. After some struggle with my thoughts I relaxed a bit, but couldn't fall asleep. My insomnia insisted that I better be glaring at my alarm clock's display to somehow trick my brain into it thinking that if I'm gonna realize how little potential sleep has left, the struggle is going to end. Unfortunately, what felt like hours of rolling my tense, anxious body from one side of the bed to the other and back again, was yet ahead of me. Finally, the black engulfed me. Nothing I felt, as the image and sound became extinct. No dreams, no slightest sensations. Nothing.
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18th December, late afternoon

-Hello! Good weather today, innit? - A very young girl approached me and proceeded to sit on a wooden bench next to me without even asking.

- Yeah... It's pretty good. - I anwsered tersely. - Listen... I don't wanna engage in any sort of conversation for now, be it with a 50 year old or any equally respective 5-year old like you. I had a really long day. Whole week if not a month, actually. I'm after work so I would like to rest now a bit. - I felt like what I said was too much, but before I started my apologies, the girl continued:

- I always loved observing the clouds above. I always found looking at these feathery shapes emtying of any negativity we are prone to. Them dividing, merging together, swimming through the ocean of blue... eagerly satisfying.

- Yeah, I guess you're right. Listen, I...

- It is ecstatic, really, to look as the abstract turns into familiar for those little precious moments. My mother's face, our home, the small mastiff I named Dino, that then turned into a true Dinosaurus later! - The girl's calm, monotonne voice turned to a nervous laughter.

- Then it all changes again, becoming an abstract fluff of white steam once more. Don't you feel like clouds are just like lifes? Not only human lifes, but something like pure energy. Although the only constant is change, the clouds always flow. They really are everlasting, but it is beyond human perception what is the next form that they will turn into. But that's not any wonder, right? If the only experience intimate to you is human and earthly reality, the rest of the universe feels nihil. Even if it is much more beautiful and interesting than a little pitiful brain could comprehend.

I felt uncanny.

The air turned into an unsonorous void. I closed my eyes and dived into the loudness of silence that for long time was absent to my eardrums. For nothingness all I loved had died and only I prevailed. Only for the sake of grief and sorrow I was sentenced to living, which felt like an everlasting torture.

- We both know why you are here, you ignorant mortal.

Suddenly, I snapped back to reality as I heard the robotic-like voice of the girl entering my head. I opened my eyes, looked right... She was gone. There was only a piece of paper at the place she sat. I outreached my hand to get a firm grasp on it and streached the paper back to its' unwrinkled state. I begun reading:

I don't know what it is with you and your kind,

That wherever you go, you seem unwhole.

Nevermind how anyone would have guide you,

Point direction or give a hint, you all chased the footprint

Completely wrong, where the wind in your faces blew.

Or either claim you lost yourself, whilst you don't try and seek at all.

How could a creature like you, so ambitious, yet undone,

Squander the moments alone, withraw from the biggest gift you own?

How could you squander the ability, to lift your head and ask,

Whether you're the first or last, or none at all,

Or only one of your kind?

Why would you be so arrogant and bold

To get bored while you're created to behold,

The wonders of my creation, that by your feet unfold.

But you are blind, deaf and clueless

To see the world as silent and hueless.

There were a few dried blood drops at the bottom of the page.