The harmony never came.
Strings and trilling flutes
were mute like an empty swan song.
She stood in arabesque.
Her body leaning forward
and her leg and arms extended.
A perfect ballerina
atop a child's music box
preparing to pirouette endlessly.
It was almost like
a page of sheet music
without notes or crescendos.
She was enveloped by stillness.
Ruptured by the void.
Frozen in eternal silence.
Her form wavered.
Gusts and rain gave way.
The world around her transformed
and colors rose and tumbled.
Bright reds faded into orange.
Grass grew and the winds blew
bending life into decay.
Her breast fell and her knee rose.
Her heel lifted
Wind blew against his sedan. Abraham clenched his fist along the weather stripping and braced himself. He lifted his shoulders and arced his neck. His face hid within his raised collar and he slammed the door closed. He rubbed his palms together and blew into them. Abraham flinched. His lips pressed into a tight line and the sound of his grinding teeth echoed in his skull. He pressed his fingertips into his forehead and pushed against the pain that emanated there.
The impatient driver laid on their car horn again. Abraham exhaled through his nose and raised a palm in their general direction. He kept his eyes pinned to the pavement. He follow
Electric currents
rise and fall.
From black to blue to red.
Burn and feel the surge.
Warm sensations.
They start in the chest
and end at the fingertips.
Something courses through
in each pulsation.
It fills veins.
It rushes blood.
Electric currents
rise and fall.
From black to blue to red.
It pierces the skin,
takes narrow breaths
and finds release.
He moved the chair a few inches across the floor.
The sound of wood scraping against linoleum resonated through the house. He clenched his teeth and waited. The familiar noise of his mother's footsteps never came. He released a heavy breath and lifted a single bare foot onto the seat of the chair.
He gripped its back with a large, pudgy hand and pulled himself up. He balanced for a moment and gasped for air. His arms hung wearily at his sides and he looked up. There atop the refrigerator was his favorite cake neatly packaged in a box of Little Debbie's. His tongue wrapped around his lips like a snake slithering from its hole. He took a deep
Red sensors rotated and his gears resonated within him.
He could hear the mass silence that echoed endlessly;
no wind wafting through trees or horns blaring…
- only ghosts.
He sensed the crunch of metal and rust grinding
and the clank of disused limbs popping into place.
The mechanics of his body had forgotten basic processes…
- and he felt ancient.
Saved recordings worked through his hard-drive like memories
reminding him of times with oceans of cities, flocks of humans,
and towers so tall he could stand next to them and be called…
- brother.
The lenses of his eyes fluttered and a new world was upon him;
the sun