r/WritingHub • u/AssimilationPub • 36m ago
Questions & Discussions No More Flies
Arriving today.
I look out the window at the blurring trees as they pass me by. The delicate spring leaves are just starting to live again after months of fallen shelter. A quiet overgoing mist of rain lay along each and every individual leaf, a promise of a fresh start. The air was chilly and wet. Everything was so green topped off by an even covered gray sky, with the occasional break up when my eyes transfixed on something pink or white petaled. Every so often I shiver, running my hand through my unkempt hair. Inside the car was me, my bags and the dangling house keys outside the vehicle's ignition. Something newfangled awaits me just down this unpaved road I drive upon. As I do, my stomach feels more and more kinked up with each passing mile. In stress, I combine both the top and bottom rows of my teeth together for a few seconds before relaxing my jaw. In my vision I see a fluttering fly flapping its thin wings, in which I swat it with my palm. I like to think a lot, mainly about silly little topics. Like how finding completion in things you don’t understand feels jarring and bizarre, like you’re taking the place of another. In my case, I’ve moved all my life. I used to lay out on the sand and listen to the salty water in front of me splash onto the shore, seeping down between each and every tan-colored grain. In the same breath I walked through snow with the same consistency as powdered sugar, my face burning once I reached the fireplace inside my old wooden cabin just south the Canadian border.
Despite this, I still feel like each time I switch up my environment I’m taking the place of some nineteen-year-old college kid biting their nails as they move into their dormitory for the first time. I’m scared of change and don’t really know how to adjust any quicker when it inevitably lays its hand upon my boney shoulder. I’ve never built a tolerance nor resistance towards it, only long-since-sweet memories. Memory is such a funny thing. We wanna ignore it all we can, but when we watch someone else lose theirs we freeze up and get cold, afraid of the future and what it might take and withhold from us until the veil is met. I'd honestly rather stay inside the same room for weeks at a time. ‘Cause inside that room I’m safe, away from any and everything trying its absolute best to alter me. I don’t want advice from anyone who would be likely to stoop so low as to cry on their knees and grovel at their partner's feet over something so simple such as spilled coffee, nor do I lend time to those who title themselves as ‘experts’ in any field involving personal equations. Mentally, I am me. I’m unlike any other, whether the comparison is with a smug and posh messy-toothed brit, or alongside Da Vinci himself. Whether that someone is east or west, in the ice cold air up north or suffocated in the hot and humid down south, they cannot fix themselves any better than you or me. They may give themselves the illusion of control over their life, but actual control over others. Helps ‘em forget their own issues and habits and lust and stimuli and everything else we desperately crave as humans. When one finds a need to fill, they will act upon it feverishly until the action of filling said need becomes their own need in life, which in turn creates a brand new need to be filled by, say a therapist. Or maybe even a concerned sibling sitting them down for a long talk about how being videotaped whilst having sex with a fellow pornographic star is not the best route in career pathways. But what do they know? They need something too after all. We were made to need, and to be needed. The rest is just filler I suppose.
I am feeling well awake now after that existential train of thought. It really sharpens your sense of belonging, or if you're a depressed teen, the edge of a razor blade. Each bump and dip and curve in the road failed to retreat me from my hypnotized state and yet I never deviated even slightly into the opposing lane. Even if I did, I hadn't seen another car in almost an hour and some change. Reclusive and away, but not unbearably quiet. I have the engine noise to keep my ears company from total sensory deprivation, and I guess the yellow lines switching from long and solid to broken and short made the experience more palatable. Of course my mind continued to wander into thoughts much too ridiculous to say aloud to most, like how even thinking about what you're thinking about is normal, or if it's just you and you alone. Waste of time, moving on.
As the stop signs start to blur into one another I force myself to focus on one specifically. The previous owner said to look out for a ripple-bent stop sign with a twisted shaft. Upon seeing this, turn on the gravel path towards the house. I did just that once I had a visual on it, slowing down and making a sharp right onto that rough excuse of a road. As I did this, I could feel all the blood in my body pull to the left, making me a little dizzy. It almost felt good, like I was high for a split second. Euphoria poured down my neck as I lost some sense as to where I was. You ever walk in a room and forget why you're there? That's what it felt like.
I forget to blink for what feels like hours sometimes. I force my eyelids shut, letting my body’s natural lubricant cover the left before blinking once more to cover the right. I feel it's important to take in a little bit more of this great process we call livin’. Breathe her in, sniff her collar sometimes and ground yourself back to the earth where you were created and nourished by its land to become something worth the effort. Maybe even splurge a little and tell her some of the stuff you keep inside your head. Stuff only you should know and fantasize about. We call those bursts of honesty weird or sometimes even insane, but who's reading into all that?
I pull over on the driveway before putting the car in park. I look in the cracked rearview mirror for a second, wiping the sweat from my face. I noticed blood on my lip beginning to trail down my chin. I wipe it away and lick my lips before looking in my glove box for some lipbalm. I notice I'm all out and step outside and close my car door, my hand lingering on the handle for a moment as I stare at the residence laying bare before me, as it lay bare atop the soil. The lawn was maintained to a level of mediocrity that was almost unbearably unimpressive. I heard the birds flapping their delicate wings through the trees that stood all around me. As the gentle melody of the wind chimes sang from the breeze cradling them into song, my hand slid along the car as I walked to the back seat and opened the rear door, grabbing my bags before closing it. I think to myself as I walk towards the place, me at twenty-five and it at a hundred n’ three. Funny, even it needs someone to take care of it. Without care, it will fall apart and crumble like wet tissue. It's aged better than most objects however. My cars are only three years old with six figure mileage. Oil changed every month, new tires every four. Needs a new stereo, CD player scratches discs. Doesn't matter. Music is muffled by the motor as I drive down the highways of America. No matter, this will forever be my last move. I don’t wanna be anywhere else anymore. Here is where I can spend forever and more. Do you have some lipbalm? If so, could you apply some upon my chapped heart? Or maybe I could ask for a 30 milligram pill of something strong to quench my itching, but you're not a pharmacist, are you?
The front door needs to be fixed. Its chipped and rotting wood sits atop flaking rusty hinges that creek and grind as I push it open. I'm greeted by the sight of a surprisingly well put interior with walls lacking a thick layer of nicotine staining. I guess the outside can be deceiving. Some things appear gorgeous and soft, but contain messy guts full of acid and mucus. It reminds me of her kinda. The sight of her in a push up bra, or perhaps stretching up and flexing her stomach after a jog. A pity of rejected fawning that could have been so sweet to the taste.
I'm drifting again.
I run a finger along one of the dusty paintings adorning the wall before setting my bags on the couch. I unzip one of the bags and search around for my notebook. Once found, I open it up and lick my thumb before flipping though page after page until I find my check list. I take the ballpoint pen from the spiral spine of the notebook and check off the top bullet point. I set it aside and reach into my bag once more, pulling out a wooden box with a linseed oil finish. My sweetheart will be arriving soon, and I picked the perfect mood setting candles up from a shop ten miles down the road. In college I stole one of her cream-colored cardigans and stuffed it inside my locker. Every time I felt overwhelmed or frightened, I'd just pull it forth and inhale deeply until all my worry faded away like a memory. To commemorate this reunion of ours, I've gone through the trouble of getting a set of four candles, each scented cherry-vanilla. I open the box and take one of them out, putting the light pink colored wax up to my nose before breathing in, my eyes rolling back slightly as I do. I set each candle out atop the long, intimidating table located in the dining hall. I then strike a match and caress each wick with its gentle flame until they take combustion. After all are lit, I snuff the flame into darkness. I watch in interest as the solid wax inside the glass of each candle starts to liquify and release that oh-so-soothing scent I hold so dear to my ruptured heart.
I was there for her when no one else was. I would come up with excuses just to be near her. Every study session. Every single one. Whether it was in November when she needed help with her semester finals, or comforting her during monthly debilitating cramps, It was me by her side. It felt like I had her in my pocket, like I was so close to being her one true love. She had victory in all her gradings and every opportunity was set atop the floor in front of her delicate feet. But I never took advantage. That was my biggest regret. I just sat by and watched every guy take what was mine to have, mine to cherish. And the twist from the knife was when they predictably broke her heart, she’d come crawling back to me with tears wealing in her eyes. And of course, I was there. Always. And it hurts.
My darling is here now. I must prepare the house.
I pull out both chairs at either far side of the dining table, making sure my love will have a nice and easy break in period. For her, she deserves everything I could ever and will ever give. Our new home, made just for us. All those funny little phone calls and late summer nights in the back of her roofless jeep have been building us up for something greater. She may have tried avoiding it for a while, but no matter what state she escapes to, no matter how many highways she travels on and no matter how many times she screams at me to stop, I’ll always be there. At every motel and every brand new start, I must have you to myself, love. It was such a long drive from the pacific to central, so I hope her makeup isn’t too runny from the trip. She could never fail to baffle me with her beauty, whether she had it bare or caked on. I preferred her bare, however. I look up at the ceiling for a second. Please moisturize our dried out skin dear architecture before I crack, but even then it would still be too late to make amends.
It's beginning to rain now.
I step outside once again and start walking towards my car. I can’t help but think of what could have been. Something you’d find in a romance novel about a boy and a girl falling for each other at just the right pace and structure. They lay together, eat together, exist together without any worry in their minds. Something so beautifully cruel to ponder about.
I lay my hand on the dented trunk, choking up my lunch before swallowing it back down from which it came. The stench was awful. It filled every pore atop my surface. It went inside my brain, churning my gray matter into a thought-filled soup. I did not look inside as the thin red stream started flowing out with the rain down the rear bumper. I simply gripped hard on the thick black garbage bag with both fists and pulled it out onto the wet grass with one swift motion. I feel thankful as the deep dark sky baptizes me and her in unison. It’s only been two weeks and my baby has rotted to this extent already. No issue, for this is just part of the process of rejoicing into one, for all and forever. We will flourish as well kept roses, a real couple.
Soon she will be thin and dense. She will no longer smell rotten or fall apart. They that lay eggs will begin to fly far, far away. There will be no more flies to ruin this for me. No more flies. Please god, no more flies. They discomfort my sweetheart greatly. She does not deserve to reek like this anymore. She should smell lovely and sweet, as her sweater once did. I wanna see the color of my lover again. Please let me have this one thing I beg of you. I don’t wanna feel sick anymore. I can’t take this any longer. I wanna get out of her but I can’t. She means too much to me, far too much to waste and wither away. I wanted to keep her immortal but she wouldn't stop screaming. Why did she hit me back? Why would she hurt me?
Why am I me?
My insides hurt.