Melted Wax
by Alicia (aisumitsukai at home.com)
5/15/03
Oh the joys of inspiration! Hope you like it.
Absentmindedly, Deidre pulled melted wax off an octagon-shaped
candle. It was one of those aromatherapy things, and to Deidre,
absolutely useless. But nonetheless, Aunt Tania sent her a pack
of five for her birthday every year. This time they were purple
and blue. Last year, red and yellow, like her perfectly polished
fingernails. With sudden conviction, she dug those fingernails
deep into the violet wax. They cut through cleanly, and came out
feeling sticky. Deidre swore quietly. Why wouldn’t he leave?
Through her poster-plastered plexiwood door, she could hear her
mother giggling. Father would be heartbroken; but as her mother
said, Father wasn’t here. "Stupid." Deidre flung the candle away
from her. How dare she? Bringing that fancy-shmancy lawyer home
like she was seventeen. Showing him off to all her friends. It
made Deidre sick.
Something in the living room broke. Glass, it sounded like.
Probably one of those glasses Mother always yelled at her to be
careful with. Grinding her teeth, Deidre rolled over and slid off
her creaking bed. Watery moonlight shone silver through her
square window, illuminating the millions of dust particles
floating through the air. As a child Deidre used to sit up at
night trying to catch the dust, her pale, chubby child fingers
grabbing uselessly at empty air.
The window had no lock -- a rusting white metal frame, yes, but
no safety-catch. The shining pane slid back silently, the only thing
working properly in the house. With practiced ease, Deidre hoisted
herself out into the night, tumbling onto silver-tipped grass. The
night air was light and sweet, a drastic improvement from the heavy
oil and garbage smell that clogged this neighbourhood during the day.
Along the grassy slope Deidre ran, into New London’s only park.
Years ago her father had made sure he bought a house by it; she
could still remember the arguments over that... And silently
Deidre thanked him for it, optimistically looking skyward as she
did so.
It had rained that afternoon and the grass was cold and wet
against her bare feet. She loved it. Through the trees and bushes
she ran, branches reaching out and snagging her T-shirt and
scratching her bare skin. But the night was beautiful and the
momentary pain wasn’t given a second thought.
She emerged from the thicket, blinded by moonlight, blood
trickling from a cut on her cheek, grinning. She could run to the
edge of the world and back tonight. And she was going to. With
moonlight wings on her ankles and plants twisted through her hair
she ran. Ran and ran until there was nothing left to run on.
Stumbling, she tried to stop, but her weight forced her forward,
over the edge of the bridge, plummeting towards the inky black
that ended in dirty concrete. The metal plating ripped off her
dust wings, and the living things in her hair lost their grip and
fell with her, all around her. Dyed silver, she fell through the
night’s black, her eyes shut and her tears hard crystals.
***
Opening her heavy lids, Deidre looked around. The air was sickly
sweet with the smell of an aromatherapy candle and her window was
shut. She was tangled in sweaty sheets and her mother was still
giggling in the living room.
Something in the living room broke. Glass, it sounded like.
Probably one of those glasses Mother always yelled at her to be
careful with. Grinding her teeth, Deidre rolled over and slid off
her creaking bed. Watery moonlight shone silver through her
square window, illuminating the millions of dust particles
floating through the air. As a child Deidre used to sit up at
night trying to catch the dust, her pale, chubby child fingers
grabbing uselessly at empty air.
The window had no lock -- a rusting white metal frame, yes, but
no safety-catch. The shining pane slid back silently, the only thing
working properly in the house. With practiced ease, Deidre hoisted
herself out into the night, tumbling onto silver-tipped grass.
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