| *** Random Poetry Anyone? *** | |||
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Monday She sat limply on the edge of the wooden pier, her hands loosely gripping the edge of the wood as she seemed to stare down into the water. It was a beautiful day. The sun was beginning its descent into the trees to her left, casting elongated shadows over the motionless water. The surrounding forest hummed with life as the lake community settled into yet another humid summer afternoon. A squirrel, busy with gathering nuts for his store, stumbled out onto the pier without noticing her. It pulled to a halt as soon as it saw her, this human intruder, sitting at the edge. Frozen in position, he waited for her to move. But she just sat staring at the lake without seeing it. She heard tiny feet scampering on the sun-baked wood behind her, but the sound didn’t register over the cacophony within her brain. The lake’s surface reflected the surrounding scenery like a perfect mirror, but that too escaped her notice. Instead, all she could see were the flashing lights of sirens. Red then blue then red then blue. All she could hear were the screams. Why? What have you done? And instead of feeling the warm summer breeze that momentarily tickled the surface of the lake, causing the reflection to ripple a bit and obscure the perfection, she felt the heat of anger and shame, the coldness of grief and guilt, and the numbness of running through the woods at full speed away from everything. Her hands, still loosely clutching the pier, were stained an ugly red-brown and covered in cuts from her frantic flight. Blood dripped sluggishly from a large gash on the back of her hand, from either a knife or a fall in the forest she knew or cared not. Each drop mingled with the dirt on her hands before it dropped into the lake below, making a tiny ripple as the blood fell and eventually disappeared into the otherwise unscathed surface. Her eyes were glazed, her face pinched into a mask of pain as she held back the tears that kept threatening to fall. She was slouched, and had she been more coherent would have realized that sitting in this position was causing her back to ache. The ache went unnoticed, however; just like everything else that wasn’t inside her head. On a normal day, she wouldn’t have been this close to the water either. Her swimming skills were shaky at best and her fear of drowning had always kept her away. It was the last place they would look. The faint whir of a real siren, and not the one in her head, roused her from the self-imposed stupor as a knife of fear twisted in her gut. They were coming. She looked up and around wildly, eyes huge, breaths coming quick and uneven. Her hands tightened on the pier, painted nails digging into the wood ignoring the resulting splinters. She looked down at the lake again. It was still unmoving. This time, instead of seeing the lights, she saw herself. Blood-streaked face, matted hair, wild eyes. She leaned forward a bit, caught by the intensity in her own stare. Unbalanced briefly, she teetered on the edge, gasping as she instinctually leaned back to save herself. Then she realized it. Why bother? There was nothing left to live for now, no life worth going back to. She leaned over again, and caught her own gaze. This time the eyes were terrified. She closed them tightly as the tears finally escaped, and she leaned forward and fell into the tepid water. The shock of the splash reverberated over the surface. Within a few short minutes, however, the water had returned to its mirror-like state. In the distance, the sirens grew louder as the woods hushed at the encroach of humans. ******** this was our first exercise, and this was the prompt: "Describe a landscape as seen by a young woman who has just committed murder. Do not mention the murder" it had to be one page or less. i always have trouble with that. ( 2/02/2004 02:57:00 PM ) Lisa#
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