At every bump and bemoaning grudge, the woman laid flat on the wooden panels would lift her head up a mere two inches. This was the perfect elevation. Her head was tipsy all the time, hands shaken and the only way she could protect herself from the deluge of thought was to take these trips. Find a car and finally get some rest. The deafening thump-th-thump racket accompanied by the whisks of the wheels and charge of the engine had became her symphony.
A go-to record one would play on nights when the kitchen lights were too white and the sconce above the table too yellow. Everything off-kilter and suddenly on edge. The ambience in the room left everything opaque and the one only worn object left in the room was the woman. No amount of sound the woman could conjure up would tire away the loneliness, the stagnancy of the silence portrayed in this humble abode.
One night, the woman lay in bed. So uncomfortable, even the slip had found itself cast on the floor. Blanket mangled, sheets wrangled, and the pillows had become gleeful punching bags; wishing at every opportunity for another tuft with the woman so as she would not sleep. The woman had given up. The woman laid her head on the lonesome concave pillow while she pressed the other to her face. With a deep inhale, she buried her hands into the pillow and pressed. The woman wanted to scream, she wanted to shriek, she wanted to struggle. The woman’s own fingertips clawing at the skin of her cheekbones, working tirelessly. She moaned and groaned, as all the air in her lungs vacated. Her eyes suspended in disbelief, as auras and galaxies unfolded.
Smothered.
The woman unclenched her hands from the pillow. Her hair in a muss cascaded in long meanders amongst her shoulders. Her olive skin and rosy cheeks swapped for alabaster and blue. Her eyes were open and still she could not see the ceiling fan’s cyclical twirl, but she could still hear the motor running. Even the little clip in the band that caused the fan to grunt at every fifth revolution.
Sensation had become something, a bit dismal in practice for this woman. She tried to move her hand and there was no give. Phantoms waning at the course of a moving hand. She found every appendage to be this way. All the windows open on a brisk, below-freezing night. It was always too hot in the room for her. She undressed after many tossing-turnings every night. She lay there with her lips to the ceiling. She could feel her breath dissipate and the corners of her lips sharpen and dry. Each gasp seem to dehydrate her entire body. She just wanted to lift her hand to her lips. Ensure sensation. Ensure there was still a grasp left in her little world.
Suddenly, a warm note escaped her lips. Her nostrils filled with air. Her lungs grew and grew until her entire chest was filled. The woman looked… constricted. Like some inflatable costume coming to life from it’s flattened state in the box. She’d never fit into any box like that. Not with her intentions.
The woman was angered. The movement had not reached her appendages yet. The heat only slowly consuming her torso, while she lay naked. Tears building in her eyes so heavily. Silently, as they fell around her neckline. Misting the brunette locks, she was ready to tear out with her bare hands. Her eyesight, murky lost in the revolutions of the ceiling fan and popcorn on the ceiling. Years spent looking for arrays. A pattern in the random.
“How embarrassing it would’ve been if someone were to find me here, anyway.” the woman whispered aloud. She lifted her head two inches. A mere two inches. She looked down at herself. The blanket had came off the bed. The sheets rolling off. Her breasts exposed. Her legs tangled and weak. Her underwear must’ve been rolled up in the sheets, she didn’t awaken with any on. The woman looked down at her toes. They were all there. Her feet normally swollen with a mean red, looked something platinum now. They felt frozen.
Finally, she looked to her side. The pillow. She saw the impressions where her eyes were supposed to be. Her small nose indented, and her cheekbones profuse. She studied the face. Her lips. Her lips were dripping the color of nightshade. She lifted the pillow and this thick, dark, sludge of tar was dripping.
She noticed as these little drops of the tar fell to her thighs, rolled down her thighs. It made stains like inkspots on the sheets. Little chaotic smacks of tar, laid in a somewhat randomized order. She dropped the pillow, frightened. She felt the shrill terrors and screams that inundate her conscious, start to unfold. This laughter, this horrible laughter and whimpers and cries. Groans, screams. Her head was spinning and she lifted her hands to her face as she often did upon times of stress. Cover and closed her eyes, feel that she is existent. That she is physical.
She pressed deeply and held on. Her fingertips combing every contour, her palms pressing steady into her cheeks. The cacophony rumbling in her head, as if it was a fight to determine who was the loudest voice this time.
She took a deep breath.
She wistfully closed her eyes, dropped her hands to her lap, and looked.
The ceiling fan continued to whirl.
It was on the third revolution before the click.
The woman looked down. The inkspots were gone.
She looked to the pillow.
Her face was no longer imprinted.
She held the pillow up, only to find a wide chelsea grin smiling back to her in the same nightshade tone of the sludge of tar.
Fourth revolution.
She held the pillow in shock.
Her eyes were shaking, looking side-to-side for any comfort.
She watched as soon the sludge of tar smile faded from the pillow.
Relief. The woman set the pillow down. She held her hand to her chest and started to giggle. Chuckle. Just her mind doing the wanderings again. There was nothing to worry about.
She searched for the corner of the sheet to tuck herself in again.
She glimpsed briefly down at her feet. They were sprinkled with this bluish tone still. She lifted herself from the bed. Observing shyly, looking for any blossoming of tar in passing. If she didn’t see any, it couldn’t be anyways. She wandered to the windows and closed them. One couldn’t see anything at this time of night. Dawn hadn’t quite reached, and with the light pollution there were no stars to be seen either. Just this artificial orange hue cast in every direction. Like a perpetual flare fading in the distance.
She grabbed a sweater and wrapped herself as she sat in the chair and lighted a cigarette. Watching. Wanting to find the culprit that caused the sludge of tar to pour from the pillow. The inkspots that stained her thighs and sheets. She inhaled methodically of her plan. To rid her life of the beast that is besting her at her own demise. Rewarded, she went to the kitchen to fix a cup of coffee. Get the machine going. Her toes were relatively frozen, and she grabbed long socks and put on her trusty slippers before she departed the room. She walked along the hallway and watched as her shadow cast streams across the walls. She got to the kitchen and watched as another shadow cast streams along the wall.
Inundated. Now, it wasn’t just her toes that were frozen. Her whole body had succumbed. The shadows danced across reaching closer to her position. She saw as the same nightshade toned sludge of tar started to drip. Slowly, as if the roof had given out. The ceiling was cascading this tar. Every corner of the floors seemed to bleed with this tar.
The woman was struck.
The woman fell.
All was darkness, even as she dared her subconscious to acknowledging her eyes could still see.
Her appendages had lost their give, again.
All she could do was lift her head two inches.
The tar had consumed everything. The whole house. There was no kitchen, nor floor or ceiling to evaluate. All she saw was two of her fingers blackened. With feeble tremors, they danced. Crying out for the last whimper of existence.
The woman knew what to do.
She breathed in. She exhaled.
There was no sight. There was no sensory.
The woman was no more.
Even the all-consuming nightshade toned sludge of tar had seemed to dissipate.
There was no kitchen.
There was no cup of coffee to be made nor waiting for the once-insomniac woman.
The house seemed to have gone too.
When dawn finally crawled in and the neighbors walked out to their mail and morning papers, all that was left of the house was a blackened field. Certain puddles of the sludge of tar still consuming, perhaps draining. A crowd gathered and as the sunshine crept squeamishly onto the blackened field, wildflowers sprouted.
Every crypt where sun may shine, was a flower, a mere two inches high.
The crowd gathered, was puzzled, in disbelief. Where was the house that stood there just the night before? Where was the woman?
Like a lost stream of consciousness, the ground started to stir.
The blackened grass weaved, the wildflowers transformed into this vivid formation.
Just as a breeze from the east started to cut through the crowd, a smile formed on the ground. The blackened grass made the teeth, and the two inch tall wildflowers made the lips. Just as the wind nipped at the shoulders of the woman’s once neighbors, the quiet crowd heard the wind rush into an exhale.
The grass was drained of the sludge of the tar and resumed its natural shade. The wildflowers grew tall, encompassing the compound like hedges. Varietal, with a spectrum of color.
The wind whipped the petals, scattered the varieties in every direction like flocks of birds.
The grass was left greener.
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