It

Do you feel it? Creeping slowly inside you, howling and screaming and threatening to pull your heart into pieces? Making your skin tingle and your face flush, so that you can barely stand to look yourself in the mirror? Do you feel it?

Do you see it? When you rub your red eyes in sleepiness, trying to make the blurriness go away? How it causes you to look down, and not around, unable to meet other people's eyes? When you close your eyes and turn away, and bury your head in the shoulder of the person next to you, horrified, afraid? Do you see it?

Do you hear it? Closing your ears and screaming, trying to make the whispering voice in your head go away? Drowning yourself in music, trying to lose yourself in someone else's screams and tears? Or in the silence so loud that you hide under your bed? Do you hear it?

Do you smell it? When you choke and cough and sneeze, subsiding into an emotional mess? When you take a deep breath, feeling emotions burn the house down inside you? When you sniff the cool wind, trying to smell that woebegone smell of life? Do you smell it?

Can you taste it? That bitter taste in your mouth when you know he/she doesn't care? Or the sickly sweet taste of knowing that the beautiful past is forever gone? Or the acidic, sour tang of life clobbering you over the head? Can you taste it?

Can you sense it? That foreboding feeling of doom? That ominous thunder in the air? That electrifying sense of terror and awe? That sense of freedom unachievable, when the shackles ring in the darkness? Or feeling hidden eyes watching your every step, trailing you, haunting you, the ghosts of Christmas past? Can you sense it?

Do you feel it? Do you see it? Do you hear it? Do you smell it? Can you taste it? Can you sense it?

It is the most beautiful thing in the world.

-Asheroth-

Go away

Leave me alone
I can't stand you
Every time I open the door
You greet me with an icy blast
Unfeeling, uncaring, indiscriminate.

You pervade my body
Leaving me with shivers
I hide
But you find me under the covers
I run
But you are faster than the wind
Can I not escape you?
Your omnipresence?

Unfavourable conditions
Yet you persevere
People hate you
Still you refuse to give way
Cannot the collective mind persuade you?
Cannot democracy make an indentation?

Stubborn fool
Go away

But let not your nemesis return

-Asheroth-

The Nerve!

Way beyond
My comprehension
Flabbergasted
Beyond description
You stole my heart
Without my permission
Melted it down
To a critical condition
Now I want it back...please?
You can keep it, no problem.

-Maia-

The first day

I looked and I saw fear. It was a nameless fear, something I couldn't understand. But the fear in her eyes was real. It made me scared.

"Mummy, what's wrong?"

A straightforward, direct question. As I expected a straightforward, direct answer. Fear always has a reason.

"Shh. It's going to be okay, honey."

A direct answer indeed. Now I truly was scared. When your mother tells you that its going to be alright, you can be sure that something terrible is imminent.

My lip trembled.

"Is Daddy coming home soon?"

Things were always better when daddy was around. Even though daddy never says that everything was going to be okay.

But Mummy didn't answer. She just continued to stuff things into a large sack. I don't know why she did that. She even stuffed Damien's Tutu into the sack. Damien wasn't going to like that. I opened my mouth to tell her that but she cut me off before I could say anything.

"Go play outside, sweetie."

Hmpf. That could only mean that she didn't want me bothering her. Which could only mean that something "adultsy" was going on. And nobody ever tells a big girl anything "adultsy".

I stomped off towards the front door.

It was hot outside. Very hot. Mummy said that it was the hottest summer in a decade. That means that it has only ever been this hot during the summer that I was born. Strange. That means I'm a summer girl, I guess. A very hot summer girl.

I wandered off in search of Gana. Gana might let me water the plants for him. He does, sometimes. But only when he's happy. I don't like it when Gana is sad.

But something suddenly caught my eye. Something strange. A little black cloud had formed on the horizon. And as I watched, it grew bigger. And bigger. And bigger. It looked like a raincloud. What Daddy called a "cu-mu-lo-nim-bus". But it was funny for a raincloud. It just kept getting bigger.

Then the gate behind me creaked, and I turned.

And then I was really scared.