I’ve been reading a lot. It is what I do to distract myself from the urgency of the mundane tasks that overpower my weakly motivated days. I read to forget reality. I immersed myself in the book after I saw her standing over the kitchen sink and scrubbing her nails viciously.
The red velvet skirt is horrid. She said that it was a steal at the second-hand store; I agree in essence – it is criminal. There is very little that can make it glamorise. It clashes with her blue-tinted skin, the hollow of her eyes and the prominent bones in her neck. The skirt did nothing for her; in fact, it was an injustice. We were going to the beach!
The reckless wind didn’t play with her skirt – it wasn’t fun like that. I wasn’t feeling too playful myself. Sand was whipped across my face exfoliating the skin and grains stumbled awkwardly into my ears. It was torture.
At home, sand nestled in her red velvet skirt hastily fell to the carpets – freshly cleaned. She caught my eye and shrugged her shoulders. I walked to the reading room in aggressive silence. Supper slipped outside our reach.
She stood at the door, her head tilted to exude certain innocence but we both knew better. The room shrunk the longer she stood and I feigned scholaristic concentration. But we both knew better.
My eyes lifted off the page, my facial expressions minimal and my composition carefully orchestrated. The book remained in place as our eyes met. The fury of the unspoken filled the room and compromised any form of truce. She waited with the deadly patience of an Amazonian jaguar.
My face flushed and the words gathered and jumbled in my throat. Cotton found every crevice in my mouth and absorbed every drop of liquid in my being.
The words were like raging bulls fighting to be let out. My mind kept pace. I expected chaos yet in a barely audible whisper, I said: “The blood under your nails…”
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For the Scriptic.org prompt exchange this week, Grace O’Malley at http://www.librivore.com gave me this prompt: Blood under the fingernails and sand on a red velvet skirt.
I gave k~ at http://bloggitwrite.blogspot.com/ this prompt: You’re sitting alone facing the beach on a Sunday morning, struggling to get the words on paper. Just as you admit defeat, you write the name of a past lover, and the first line of a letter: “Only love can break your heart.” Complete the letter.