UnderConstruction

Do you ever not feel like yourself?

Do you ever feel—say, fractured into billions of little pieces, just drifting within your own body without purpose?

How about your grief? Is it in check today? Did you put it back in that damned glass jar again? 

I've already warned you of the teeny cracks in that jar. They don't look like much now but if it's weakened that much already I'd hate to see what it will look like in a couple of weeks.

Need a break?

Sit down, please, and listen. Let me tell you what I know.

You put your grief in the jar if you must, poor darling.

I stick mine in one as well.

The Wishing Well

A cemetery, cold and stiff, lay in silent mourning for its inhabitants. On Sunday it was busiest, on Friday deserted. Some days there was only the breath of nature to keep the graves company.


The girl and boy were floating, feet inches above the ground as they were lead against their will.


Nobody in their strange world noticed that they were untouchable. Not by age or even gravity. They shone in the early morning light, beacons of mystery.


They might have appeared groggy among the bright-eyed pedestrians, but their minds were as active as ever. 


They felt every shift of the wind and every passing glance their way. Veils were wrapped over the eyes of everyone who didn't begin as they had. 


The scenery suddenly and violently changed, shaking the boy and girl to their bones.


Inside those very bones of which they knew they were somewhere unwelcome. 


Yet this place, this void they were unexpectedly returned to, felt like home. In all the worst ways they were exactly where they belonged. 


Images, small and faint, the color distorted as if they had come through water or an inexplicable amount of time, floated past their unfocused eyes.


Eyes that had, once upon a time, never seen death.


Caskets, tears, and the unforgettable agony of never again laying eyes on someone you had once thought would live forever.


Girl took in a shaky breath, her unaware form misty. Boy felt her, weightless, against his weakened shoulders.


They didn't partake in the tears, the bowed forms over unsettled earth, but they each took a little bit of the sorrow.


Even they, who had no honest visage, could hold this weight. 


The well could give so much, and the boy and girl knew they were greedy. They knew that despite all their wealth and fortune they wanted more.


And with taking an infinitesimal amount of grief from the shoulders of these faceless, mourning waifs, they became complete.


Their feet touched the ground, dewy with both new life and the hidden death, and they could now bound.


f i g h t i n f i v e s