Ghosts

Another case where an image pops into my head, in this case pertaining to dealing with the ghosts of one's past, so I just went with it.

"Where is it?" she demanded, voice hoarse from the wave of heckling she'd been releasing.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he repeated, unfazed. Like a tape recorder, his voice played back the words again.

Her eyes tried to bore holes into his skull like the dark augers they were, digging into the abyss, but he just stared back at her, looking a strange mixture of confused and amused and infuriatingly nonchalant. "You'll tell me where it is or I'll wrench it out of you." A part of her didn't like the way those words tasted in her mouth. She licked her lips and clenched her fists, hoping to push it away along with the thoughts that echoed back at her. Resorting to force. Like that will solve anything.

His eyes finally met hers, as though hearing her own contradictory thoughts and only just realizing what was going on, and for a brief instant there was--something. It was faint as a candle's flame flickering hopelessly in a heavy breeze before being snuffed. She wasn't sure she really saw anything at all, but for a moment, a bat of the eye, he looked lost, and she thought the emptiness might be real, and she had to bite her own lip to keep from screaming at him that it couldn't be true and clench her fists harder to avoid shaking--him or showing that they were trembling.

"I don't know where it is," he said softly, finally looking as though he was about to open up. He released a sigh. His breath filled the stale air; it shook the dust of the room and made her feel a little faint, as though everything were shifting around them both, or maybe only around her and the great space that surrounded her. Nothing remained the same, from perception to cognition, and finally the moment past.

She realized in that instant she had lost her voice, but at last was able to dig it up from its shadowy depths. "How can you...not...know?" she asked, bewildered and exhausted, but not beaten, not yet.

He shrugged, pushing back against the wooden chair that he had been tied to, looking relaxed for all that he was bound, the ghost of a smile on his lips. How he managed that, she didn't know. He had defeated the purpose of her questioning him through his dismissive air alone. "I guess I lost track of it a while ago. Hearts, you know, are really easy to misplace."

"Maybe when they aren't in the right place to begin with," she whispered, dark anger suppressed but hovering over her like an aura of the grim reaper come to take his dues. "You could have told me that 'a while ago,' though." 

He seemed not to notice the bitterness in her voice. He leaned forward, eyes suddenly intent, hands limp as though they were not really fastened at his side, and gave her a long, steady, transparent look. She thought she saw a challenge. No, not a challenge, but there was a mocking condescension in their empty depths, and she almost unleashed a heavy blow from her trembling fist, but the words were out before she could move, piercing like needles. "You never asked."

The room suddenly went cold, or maybe it was his words that gave her a chill. So that was it. What else could he tell her? She could rip apart every shelf and chest in that dark, dusty basement, blow it up, tear her hair, make herself sick, till she found nothing, because nothing is easy to find. But that was a fool's errand. And as she turned on her heel at last, lips set in a line of acceptance, eyes closed, she began to wonder why she had bothered at all. Ghosts didn't have hearts, after all. 

As the darkness of the basement faded behind her and the light embraced her, she did not have to turn back anymore to know he was not there--had never been there--and that it was time to abandon the past once and for all.

Reviews

[Wolfwind]

Holy Wow! That was good! The depth which your words take me and the textures that they reveal are intense! This piece pulled me in with its blossoming imagery, and then curiosity yanked me into the words further! I need to know what actually I was witnessing and then to have it twist, like a bad love story gone wrong and then twist again to the thoughts of past and present and a ghost finally being free. Wow! Just Amazing!
I even liked some of the overly long run on sentence I saw! lol

You've got talent! Lots of it! Thanks for sharing your work. =)
Aaron

[Amanda Granger]

Oh, thank you so much, Aaron! I always worry about those runons of mine and my tendency to get a bit wordy. It doesn't work wonders for my research papers x_x but I really really appreciate the positive feedback. Glad you liked it! :D

[Wolfwind]

True. For those more professional piece of ink, it could be problematic. Yet for something like this, that for me is almost poetic prose, for it fine usage of descriptors and wording, that runon was a wonderful effect, it felt like a train slowly climing up a hill slower and slower, till it gets to the top... it ends, and then a fresh new sentence with a new flavor to it is waiting for us when we splash down of the cliff. It's an effect that can work at times. =)

[Amanda Granger]

A great point! Beautifully put, and yes, I'd agree that there is certainly a time and place for verbosity and runons, so I'm glad it came off as appropriate and not overboard haha. Thanks again for the great insight. I hadn't thought of it that way. ^^

[sithlordjp]

this is excellent. Love these pieces when we join a situation, or in this case, an argument where it's not clear from the get go what the topic is... What has been lost? We keep reading, making guesses as to where it's heading, then you write: "Hearts, you know, are really easy to misplace". Took me by surprise, and yet, reading back, it could only lead there, that's how precise your writing is! My favorite line: "It was faint as a candle's flame flickering hopelessly in a heavy breeze before being snuffed" Brilliant...

[Amanda Granger]

Thanks! That was kinda the concept I wanted to experiment, since that's how it occurred to me, starting with an interrogation that at first isn't clear because the story starts in the middle of the action (in medias res--yay, literary terms! :P) and the leads you to a fairly unexpected conclusion. For something short like this, that seemed like the best way to go, though at first I wasn't completely sure how it would unfold either. Just a little idea I had; I didn't know how it would be received, but I'm so glad you liked it! Thanks for the encouraging review. :)