An unexpected guest...

I'm sitting at the dining room table, absorbed in a book with one hand wrapped around a cup of tea, when Lucielle walks into the room. She's somehow managed to come in through the back door despite the fact that it's locked and has all manner of crap pilled up in front of it. I glance away from her at the back door and see that it's still closed, still barricaded by a stool, vac and the cat litter tray. Lucielle pulls out a chair and slumps into it with a sigh, throwing her feet up onto the corner of the table. The soles of her boots are dusty and glitter with chips of broken glass.

"So..." she says, reaching for my tea, her hands graceful as they wrap around the cup, the chipped black nails so similar to my own. She sips my tea and stares at me over the rim.

"Do you want me to make you some?" I ask.

She puts the cup down on her side of the table, well out of my reach and folds her hands in her lap.

"What's going on?'

"What?"

She sighs with sarcasm. "You're not writing. You're not telling my story. You're not telling any stories..."

"Yeah, but..."

"No, but. You need to get on with this. You need to finish this. I've been stuck in a corner of your head between lines of black ink for months. Hell, for years, and you need to finish this."

I open my mouth to say something and she fixes me with a glare.

"NO. But. You've left me in transition. I'm bruised and battered, I'm scared and angry and I need to deal with this; deal with HIM. Just because your villan is out of the picture doesn't mean that you can leave me with mine! Just because you don't need to process your shit so much doesn't mean you can abandon me in a mirror dimension with a narcissistic psychopath forever!"

"I'm sorry, but..."

"NO. BUT," she sighs and I can see a gleam of moisture slick her eyes and it slams into me; she's hurting. I've left her hurting. She leans forward, her hands open reaching for the closure that is trapped within my creativity.

"We both know that if I was left to my own devices I could resolve this, I could get out of it, one way or another. But these are your devices... I'M one of your devices. Stop pretending I'm just a thing to you and release me. Remember that I'm part of your soul and stop keeping me in a box in your brain."

I'm feeling ashamed and weepy, the emotions bubbling up out of me, old wounds opening. My voice breaks as I talk. "It's not that simple..."

Lucielle slams her hands on the table, her feet are on the floor and she's leaning towards me, her teeth bared as a tear slips down her cheek.

"ENOUGH! Stop making excuses. Stop hiding inside your pain. I'm dying inside you! You need to let me out, let out the anger, smell the blood on the wind and forget you were tamed!"

She's panting and her breath is hot on my face and I can feel my spine melting with guilt. Her voice loses its volume and she tips her head considering me.

"Once you were feral, you wrote what bled from your heart and your prey. You wrote because my life felt too big to hold inside you - you were living two lives, you were doubly alive and we fought side by side. Breathe life back into me, let my energy fuel you, let my anger destroy your enemies, let me tear the flesh that you can't bear to look at..."

I look down at my hands, expecting to see blood on them. When I look up again she's gone, leaving behind a scent of cinnamon and candle smoke. I squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them I reach for my notebook and pen...


Comments

Popular Posts