Week 46

© Rebecca Nathan

He paced back and forth in the living room, his steps atuned to the ticking of the old grandfather clock’s hand. She wasn’t home yet and paranoia swept over him – these predictions on the great Rapture terrified him. Outside the city knelt and cried for salvation.

When she finally arrived, he pulled her close. He spun a vinyl record; he held her waist and she leaned on his chest.

The earth trembled then, forming faults on the ground.

“At least we’re together, yes?”

Dark clouds piled above them but with lost hope and delirious love stronger than doomsday they waltzed.

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The Rapture by KASH

Week 45

© chris riebschlager

White paint masked the deep scars of grudges and disappointments she had nursed for so long. Behind her were tall, glass windows where the sun’s rays that touched the young girl’s denim jumpers, the newspaper-covered floors and a steel ladder passed through. The afternoon was particularly humid and the room was a perfect canvas.

Angela stared at the bare wall and the wall stared back, like a reflection.

“Rephrase the world,” she muttered.

She stood and splashed her new-found haven with a fresh bucket of paint, freeing infinite possibilities that had once been incubated in hope but chained by fear.

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Breaking Out by KASH

Week 44

© nikolinelr

The majority believed that in the entire human anatomy, it was the eyes that revealed man’s spirit. It’s true to some extent, but my outlet to another’s life would be the hands.

Hands tell all sorts of stories: the man with calloused, sandpaper hands worked overtime, the girl with freshly polished nails was\s set on her first date, the man with protruding veins on his wrinkled hands had tightly held her wife's on her deathbed.

Hers were my favorite. Her hands were luke-warm tea and biscuits on Sunday mornings. Hers meant safety and unconditional love.

My mother’s hands were magic.

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Her Hands by KASH

Week 43

© wild goose chase

When she forgets that he loves her, she unties a bundle of unspoken words of affection printed on love letters and smells the pressed flowers inside the envelopes.

When she remembers that he no longer does, she throws those words on fire and watches the flame eat up every letter, every comma, every period.

When she forgets to love herself, she writes.

When she remembers she loved him even more than she would ever love herself, she writes a couple of pages more.

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Forgetting & Remembering by KASH

Week 42

© look left and look right

In the thin line between waking up and staying asleep, I stare blankly at the ceiling of my virtually empty room while steadily breathing in and out to calm my racing heartbeat.

1,

2,

3...

I regret pushing the snooze button and pulling up the sheets over my head because after then did he enter my dreams. He is roughly the same age as I am, almost nineteen, and my too-detailed dream had covered his entirety: his slightly-freckled nose and russet hair that highlight his flinty green eyes, his nimble movements that doesn't match his impressive built and his unmistakable sincerity.

Up until now I'm trying to convince myself that everything was just part of a dream, that the awkward conversations and the more awkward silence, the utmost desire to stop time (or at least slow it down) and the fantasy of holding his hand and never letting it go were all just part of my subconscious that decided to go haywire. I loved it though, when he was by my side just like in the old days, and that I could easily close the distance between us if I extend a couple of fingers. Then a pang of pain hit me when I realized I didn't do it when I was awake, when I had the chance, when he wanted me to.

Curious, dreams are. Oftentimes they don't follow a plot you learn in Literature class; they just smack you right in the middle of the climax or sometime at the denouement, with no idea on how you got there. In this dream he went to my school to watch his friend's band perform, I think, and we were already on our way out. We stayed a few paces behind his friends, just like how we did it before.

"So, how's your stay here?" he asked.

"Fine, I guess."

We both fell silent, our anchored pace trying to keep up with the other.

"Nothing's wrong but nothing's right either," I suddenly blurted out.

He just smiled and my heart sighed, swelled and broke.

His friends were waiting for him in their service van when we got outside. After a polite goodbye he climbed up in and closed the door. I was holding the door handle until the vehicle moved and I had to let it go, only to find myself chasing them - no, him - down when they turned on the corner.

Everything felt more real then. And then I start counting slowly.

Breathe in, breathe out.

1,

2,

3...

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Thin Line by KASH