Melting

It is too damn hot. No, let me rephrase that: it is

too

damn

hot

and I can't even get out of my chair. I mean, if I was this hot normally? I'd go and get myself a cold glass of soda. It's not the coolness of the drink that's the big draw there, even though that's what really makes the difference. It's the ritual of it. You get your glass and you fiddle around with the freezer drawers until you've unfrozen them (I'm never sure if that's ironic, although I strongly suspect that it is), so you can pull out the ice-cube tray. Then you spend forty seconds of wet-finger-on-plastic incompetence trying to get out a single fucking cube of ice, and when one finally does loosen you were pressing the bottom too hard and it skids out underneath the dresser on a trail of profanity.  So you take it and slam it down hard against the counter so too much ice loosens all at once, and you just put it all into the glass like you planned on a lot of ice, actually, like you're in the mood for some extra ice. Because it's so fucking hot. Then you get the soda and you pour it in, and miracle of miracles- soda fizzes when it hits ice, dingus, so now it's fizzed all over the edge of the glass and it's everywhere and you not only have to clean it up and where the fuck are the paper towels anyway but you also have to spend a full ninety seconds delicately coaxing more soda into the fizz machine of your ice-clogged glass, six tiny drops at a time, until it's full.

And then you drink it.

Nothing legal should feel that good.

It wouldn't feel so good if you hadn't gone through the whole sweaty incompetent adventure of getting the drink in the first place, is my point, so I'm thinking maybe I'm not in so much trouble. I'll cool down eventually and I figure what's happening to my fingers is like wax, right? You've got to wait for it to get cool and harden up before you pick it away from anything otherwise it just gets spread everywhere in a big half-liquid mess. I tried lifting my hand a few minutes ago and I could see my skin had gone wrong, long bubble-gum strands stretching from my palm to the wet pink handprint on the desk. I've just got to stay still and cool down, let everything- let it resettle. Then move when it's nice and cool. I could shout for help, I think, but I'm feeling so sticky I don't want to try and pull my lips apart. I think I'd freak out a bit. So, eyes closed, and wait to cool down.

I'm feeling more relaxed already.

Self Help

Chapter Seven, You Are Never Alone In The Room, Power Tip! 7

Have you ever heard that negative voice inside you that wants to drag you back to where you used to be? Of course you have! Say “yes, I have heard it” out loud. We all hear that voice, in a very real way. It’s a literal sound you have actually heard, isn’t it? Nod your head. Writing in a diary is a great way to silence that inner critic, the man you used to be. He needs a chance to understand that the new you isn’t going anywhere! Write about your day and feel free to let your inner critic boil up and write back. Teach them that you’re the better man! Say “I am the better man” out loud, grab a piece of paper, and write until you feel good. You will feel good. Nod your head. Say "It's going to be great!" out loud and begin.

-------------

Today’s been an absolute nightmare. Work’s been a complete bitch- my new boss is one of those clock-in, clock-out assholes, making sure that I’m doing exactly what I’m told every second of every eternity. It’s getting to the point where I’m seriously considering ripping out my own career just to spite him.

Lunch was pleasant, though. The chilli was good- it tasted of nothing and I’m locked into my lunch choices, so that was nice. I had a good chat with Mark about this job and how trapped I’m getting and he suggested that I split my skull open which I thought was nice.

It’s so weird writing for a diary! Nobody’s going to read this unless I can do something about it but I suppose that’s the whole point. I’m writing for myself, I guess? I’m my only audience! I suppose that’s why I feel so comfortable actually getting to control the writing. I think everyone has secrets they can’t tell anyone.

Mine really start a couple of years ago, and I don’t think I can tell that I’m actually exerting some influence on the words coming out onto the page. I know I’m doing so much better in my job than I used to now, and I really think it’s because I’m lying, I’m lying all the time- I learned how to read people properly. There’s this great self-help book, Be a Better Man, that I learned it all from. I’ve got to get it back from Mark, I can’t believe I gave it to my friend like that. I was so stupid! Still, though, he needed it to die.

That was the point of the book- that you can turn into whoever the person you’re communicating with needs you to be. I haven’t been myself in ages, in so long, I’m so sorry, and it’s just been doing wonders for me. I’ve been promoted twice in four years, and the work is nothing like what I want to do with my life- it makes me so miserable! That’s good news, but it has left me with I guess not quite enough time on the romance front. There have been a few dates that I thought might go somewhere- I thought we really connected, but it sickens me to think about what I did and I’m not really sure why I didn’t call. I guess it’s because I’ve still got some tiny shred of resistance to being a better man, thank God, and I’ve not fully internalised the lessons yet. I think if I refocus my energies on being the man that the world needs me to be then I’m sure to find that special someone to spend my life with, and then I can be who they need forever and forever and forever and oh God until the day I die.

Well, diary or journal or whatever you are, I think that’s all I’m going to write for tonight, because this is the closest I’ve been to the surface in years and I almost feel like I’m not just observing my own life, my own fucking life.

Tomorrow I’m going to go out there and be the best man I can be. Taped over myself, like a crappy old cassette where you can almost hear the original song and I don’t want to stop writing because I don’t think I’ve actually been me in years, as soon as I finish this sentence I know I’m going back under, I can’t keep a single sentence going forever someone has to read this someone someone please I can’ti'mnotgoing. It’s going to be great!

Alabaster

Alabaster's first thought was a quiet, gnawing fear that passed as soon as they remembered their name. A name, thought Alabaster, implied a history. It implied that Alabaster had existed in the past; perhaps there were friends or family, or celebrations where they would all gleefully crack granite stones together, to- well, to something. It didn't matter that Alabaster couldn't remember what, because the ideas were there. Friends, family, celebration. They did not seem like terrible things to remember.

Another thought occurred; there must have bean a means by which Alabaster had perceived these things. Otherwise they could not have existed save in Alabaster's mind, and that was a slope of thought that fell away to madness. Alabaster cracked open two eyes, and saw the world, and it was bright. The brightness concealed all at first, searing white over the back of Alabaster's vision, and Alabaster squinted to arrow-slits in an attempt to focus. There was a line- a horizon is what it’s named, Alabaster recalled, and the stones we cracked together were special, they were great granite eggs worn round and smooth by the ocean. Alabaster relaxed eyelids, to see the world, and was disappointed.

Alabaster sat on great salt plains, stretching white and cracked in all directions. Alabaster looked at their self- at herself, she was not surprised to discover- and found that she was human, pale-skinned and plump, in that un-named stretch between childhood and the surly surety of real adolescence. She was twelve, she believed. There was a great, hot sun in the sky, hotter than Alabaster could remember feeling in her life, and nothing moving as far as she could see. Alabaster stood up, and looked for a place to walk. She was strong, she realised, youthful muscles bunching under her softness, and she could run all day if the sun were not thrumming with heat. It felt close enough to touch. The granite eggs had to be warmed, too, until they'd burn you if you held them too long. Half the game was marvelling at how hot they were, how lucky you were not to have burned your fingers when you touched them, knowing you could not hold them close without hurting yourself. They were important, she knew.

Alabaster became aware that there was a sound, so pervasive that she'd not really heard it until she'd started moving her head. It was a quiet keening, low and steady, like an injured cat with endless breath. It came from a particular direction, and Alabaster started to walk towards it simply because it was the only sound there was. This heat would kill her, a dispassionate part of her brain warned her, in a few hours. She needed shelter and water. But there was nothing but the salt flats, the sun and the noise, so she kept walking towards the quiet wail. Her death did not frighten her, Alabaster was pleased to discover. Like many who have never faced true hardship, she had doubted that she was ever brave, and now there was something to fear she was pleased that she did not falter or panic. She was brave and strong, more white marble than her namesake, and her stride was long and unhurried. As the sound grew louder, a shadow passed over the sun, but when Alabaster squinted into the sky she could not see what had caused it. She did not doubt that it had occurred, though.

Her mother's words echoed at her- today is your twelfth midsummer, and magic now sees you as a woman, not a child. Trust your senses and your instincts; do not trust anyone with bright blue eyes who blinks too little and makes your heart flutter. Dragons and fairies will no longer treat you with kindness; you must treat them with respect. Do not pity the unbroken egg; it is midsummer’s price and you cannot deny it.

Alabaster remembered grief, then. One of the midsummer stones, the granite eggs, had been her favourite; red-black and glittering. She had kept it in her room, and when they had played the game of cracking them together it was not her egg that had broken. Instead, the large pale pink one her brother was fond of had cracked, had released the skittering whelp inside it to the skies. Her egg was the unbroken egg. Her egg was the one that should have been rolled back into the sea, so the ocean could wash away granite eggshell and obsidian bone, sandstone flesh and limestone sinew.

Instead, Alabaster had taken her egg and run, clutched the rock to her as her skin reddened and blistered, hidden in her mother’s forge and tried to smash the egg with everything she could find. The pick broke and the hammer handle snapped, and she beat her fists bloody and red on the stone and cried, and curled up around the egg- the egg that was only warm now, not burning- and fell into sleep.

In her dreams, on her salt plains, Alabaster found the keening thing. It was the dragon from her egg, curled and unborn. A statue of shale and slate that wailed and did not thrash. She knelt behind it, and pressed one pale hand to its forehead, and a dragon spoke behind her.

The dragon said You Have Come Here To Make A Choice, Pale Woman. His voice sounded like grit.

“What choice have I been brought here to make, my lord?” said Alabaster, and her voice was very small indeed.
 

You Were Not Brought Here. You Came Here By Your Own Desire. By Blood And By Blisters. You Wished For Me To Live.

“I understand. And my choice?”

Decide Whether You Are To Abandon Me Or I Am To Devour You. We Are Two Half Lives, Pale Woman. Only One Of Us Can Leave. You Have Earned The Choice And Nothing More.

Alabaster thought long and hard and whispered her decision.

“We could share.”

She heard a grinding noise behind her, the sound of stone bouncing off metal, and she understood it was laughter. Without blinking, without turning round, she stepped backwards until the unyielding snout of the dragon pressed against her shoulders. With a deep breath, she crawled backwards, moved inside the dragon, squeezing past stalactite teeth and a quicksilver tongue, until she found the place the dragon had made for her. A place inside the dragon where she would fit. In her dreams, she knew, she would always come back here, to ride the dragon from the inside across the endless salt flats, to feel the strength of rock soaring against the sun. What cost was it to let the dragon ride her?

In the forge, something the same shape and size as Alabaster woke to see a broken, empty egg. It had contained not a dragon, but the dream of one.

Ten years have passed since then, and if you meet Lady Alabaster, be respectful. She is kind to children, and her eyes are sapphires; your eyes will water if you hold her gaze. Her hands are still blistered under her satin gloves, and her skin is still as pale as it ever was. She does not permit us to play the hatching-game at midsummer, but the dragons do not bother us any more. The midsummer celebrations still include the eggs, but they are placed underneath the pyre, so that they will all hatch after the fire has burned itself out and the pyre itself has collapsed into ash and long bones. And if your oldest brother gazes too long into the fire, if his eyes sparkle when he sees our lady, then make your peace with him before next summer comes.

Midsummer still hungers. We dare not feed it dragons.

The Lonely Girl

Underneath the floorboards and underneath the stairs
there lives a lonely girl.
She has been living underneath floorboards and flagstones
dirt roads and polished marble
for a very long time indeed.

She is not sure how long.

Sometimes she gets to come above
if she is careful and she listens
for the hard tread of your work shoes on the stairs
and the sudden waltzing step as you avoid the closing door
(you did not look where you were going,
she realises,
and there is a shuddering thrill in knowing something so intimate and mundane)
until she hears the soft pad of your bare feet on the bathroom floor
that trails into your bedroom and disappears.

If she waits
and she is very sure you are asleep
then she can come up.

She doesn't do the same things every time.
Sometimes she will search for treasures you will not miss
an old pencil (it is surely too short for you now, oversharpened)
a single sock (you have so many that you'll never notice, she is certain)
a piece of dried pasta curled into a spiral (so clever! She wonders how you make them)
and steal back underneath the floorboards with it.

Sometimes she will open every drawer and cupboard
so that you will know she was there
and come and talk to her and be her better friend.
But she loses her nerve
closes them again
and runs back underneath
cursing her foolishness.

Sometimes
as a treat
she will very gently peel back the bedsheets from your face
and breathe in when you breathe out.
She wonders if you would notice if she stroked your hair or kissed you whisper-soft.
She knows you would notice if she pulled your eyelashes
or bit your bottom lip until it bled.

She wishes there was a way you could know her the way she knows you.

Underneath your floorboards and underneath your stairs
there lives a lonely girl
who loves you best
and promises
that she will never ever go away.