Darkness dappled her gray as an apaloosa, sliding like a caress over the smoothness of her arms.
She picked her way across the grass, curling her bare toes in the close cropped density. It felt good, as cool as silk as she walked. What passed for sleep now wasn't what she thought she remembered although, like so many things, it was hard to know what was memory and what was only a desperate move towards it.
This was the time she liked best; when nothing seemed alive in the entire world but her. In the darkness her skin was dull pearl, all its veins and inclusions merging with the shadows until it felt like all her edges were gone and she was half shadow herself, infected with it, possessed by it.
She drifted across the open area that marked the inner quad of the school, stepping lightly into the small copse of trees offset from the center. They were barely five together but during the daylight they offered a shady place to rest and study. In the gloom they were recreated as strange and hunched figures, familiarity stripped away to reveal a more honest dread. She stepped carefully beneath the branches to the center where she lifted her blind face to the moonlight.
For long moments she simply stood, willing herself only to feel. There, a small breeze shyly touched her fingers. There, the tickle of the grass under her feet to consider. No distraction, no expectation. No strangeness mirrored on other's faces to remind her of what she had become. She trembled.
It was so easy to forget that she could still do this. So easy to forget that she had only to remember.
Eventually she stirred and removed her blouse, the small pop of sound as the buttons yielded plastic under her touch. She took it off reverently, reveling in the texture of the stitching at the pocket, the entwined symbol that said she belonged somewhere now. The slim skirt followed to slide down her legs with a whisper. The scraps of underwear were next and she could feel under her fingers the places where the new fabric was already fraying apart, abraded and rough with contact with her. She folded it all and straightened.
She looked up at the moon, at the shadows of the trees, at the strange whispering mystery of it. Here, in this place, in this time, she was only herself, the most perfect center.
She raised her arms in supplication and stilled.
Stone white, veined black and gold and bronze, a statue then of a girl. Almost lifelike the finely carved features of her face, the soft fall of hair that looked to brush one immaculately sculpted cheek. The dark pattern of shadowed leaves spread across her bare shoulders, back, legs. Daphne perhaps, waiting for her fate to arrive in the face of a god. Galatea without the grace of love.
Whatever the moonlight saw then, it kept the secret. She was gone by the time the sun rose.
Still Life
Moderator: Student Council
Re: Still Life
Of all the things I don't like, this is the worst.
The bell rings and class ends. We all stand, gather our books and conversation rises like a staircase around me, building itself in the air like a helix I have to navigate through. I go as slowly as I can, letting everyone stream ahead in a skirl of leaf laughter and plaid, dark jackets and tossing hair. The textbook slides easily into the sober black casing of my carryall, the pencil case into the side pocket where the stitching is already starting to come apart. I fiddle with the snap that holds everything closed, making sure it's seated well.
If my hair won't fall foward to hide my face, well, there is a certain refuge in knowing that nobody can tell what I'm thinking just by looking.
Drift then after everyone into the hallway, leaving the relative safety of a single desk, a single chair. My place defined by the clean square of an unassailable edge.
The noise is like a river, the dark flicker of what feels like a thousand fish rushing along the banks, everyone needing to be somewhere, get somewhere, hurry, hurry before the next bell. Metal clangs as lockers are flung open, books exchanged, sweaters discarded, gossip splashing carelessly against the walls. A few feet away a girl kisses her boyfriend, a wet french kiss that is more possessive than amorous. Her girlfriends titter and farther down the hall, a trio of guys in letterman jackets shove each other in competition. I can't tell if it's friendly or not.
Curl my fingers tightly around the strap at my shoulder to keep them out of the way and start to walk.
Listening in class, I can almost forget what I am. I can read the assignments, answer the questions, watch the videos they show us. If it's boring I can stare out the window just like everybody else. Even looking at my hands as I take notes, I can almost forget that they didn't always look like they do now. It's like the simple motion of writing obscures everything else.
But in the hallway it's impossible to forget. Do the best I can to keep anyone from bumping against me, slipping around the whorls and eddies that form and break apart, trying not to look at anybody too closely. I don't have to think now to keep my elbows tucked in, to walk carefully through the press of soft bodies. Sometimes I try and pretend I'm a ghost and make it a game.
Sometimes I even fool myself that it's fun.
It doesn't take long, it never does. I have all my classes mapped out now, which way is the fastest, least crowded, how long I can delay and still make the bell, slipping out last from one to become last in the next so that I don't ever, ever have to be in the middle. Wait a moment for some one else to enter ahead of me and then I walk into Biology and find my seat, hooking my carrybag onto the chair. Lean down and fumble with the snap, reaching inside for the textbook.
Another hour and a half of grace, defined by the clear edge of a desk. I settle in and wait for the teacher to start.
The bell rings and class ends. We all stand, gather our books and conversation rises like a staircase around me, building itself in the air like a helix I have to navigate through. I go as slowly as I can, letting everyone stream ahead in a skirl of leaf laughter and plaid, dark jackets and tossing hair. The textbook slides easily into the sober black casing of my carryall, the pencil case into the side pocket where the stitching is already starting to come apart. I fiddle with the snap that holds everything closed, making sure it's seated well.
If my hair won't fall foward to hide my face, well, there is a certain refuge in knowing that nobody can tell what I'm thinking just by looking.
Drift then after everyone into the hallway, leaving the relative safety of a single desk, a single chair. My place defined by the clean square of an unassailable edge.
The noise is like a river, the dark flicker of what feels like a thousand fish rushing along the banks, everyone needing to be somewhere, get somewhere, hurry, hurry before the next bell. Metal clangs as lockers are flung open, books exchanged, sweaters discarded, gossip splashing carelessly against the walls. A few feet away a girl kisses her boyfriend, a wet french kiss that is more possessive than amorous. Her girlfriends titter and farther down the hall, a trio of guys in letterman jackets shove each other in competition. I can't tell if it's friendly or not.
Curl my fingers tightly around the strap at my shoulder to keep them out of the way and start to walk.
Listening in class, I can almost forget what I am. I can read the assignments, answer the questions, watch the videos they show us. If it's boring I can stare out the window just like everybody else. Even looking at my hands as I take notes, I can almost forget that they didn't always look like they do now. It's like the simple motion of writing obscures everything else.
But in the hallway it's impossible to forget. Do the best I can to keep anyone from bumping against me, slipping around the whorls and eddies that form and break apart, trying not to look at anybody too closely. I don't have to think now to keep my elbows tucked in, to walk carefully through the press of soft bodies. Sometimes I try and pretend I'm a ghost and make it a game.
Sometimes I even fool myself that it's fun.
It doesn't take long, it never does. I have all my classes mapped out now, which way is the fastest, least crowded, how long I can delay and still make the bell, slipping out last from one to become last in the next so that I don't ever, ever have to be in the middle. Wait a moment for some one else to enter ahead of me and then I walk into Biology and find my seat, hooking my carrybag onto the chair. Lean down and fumble with the snap, reaching inside for the textbook.
Another hour and a half of grace, defined by the clear edge of a desk. I settle in and wait for the teacher to start.