I Am Still Here

I am still here.
Still breathing.
My heart still beats.
So I know
I am still here.

My fingertips still feel everything.
The flow of the air,
The slightest change in heat,
Be it warmer, or colder.
Every detail.
Of everything.

I hear the words you speak.
I hear the rustle of leaves,
Blowing in the wind.
The emotion in your words.
That little tint of color.
Though you try to hide it.
Squelch it.

I still see the details in your eyes.
The things you think
No one sees.
The hidden pain.
The hidden anger.
The hidden fear.
The desperation.
In the lines around your eyes.
In the color and its subtle shifts.

Though I lack the words.
Lack the ability to tell you.
To describe it to you.
It’s all there.
As it’s always been.

And again.
Tonight.
As I have throughout my life.
I look to God.
The universe.
Life.
And I ask,
Plead,
Beg,
As I always have.

Make me numb.
Turn my heart to stone.
Blind these eyes, so I see nothing.
Burn these fingers,
These hands,
Till no skin is left.

So I don’t have to feel.
Anything.
Ever.

Make me numb.

And even as I plead.
Even as my soul cries out.
I know.

Life,
The universe,
God.
Sadly whisper once again.
“No.”

Because.
I know.
I understand.
If I could not see the despair in your eyes.
Could not hear the desperation in your voice.
Could not feel the subtle tremble in your hands.

I would never see the magic in your eyes
Every time you smile.
I would never hear the passion in your words,
Your voice,
When you speak of the many things
You love.
I would never feel the warmth,
The tenderness,
Of your touch.

And when I scream in frustration,
And my own silent desperation,
I hear life whisper in my ear.

“Wait. Just wait.
And the storm will pass.
You will see.
You already know.
So.
Wait.”

And I am still here.

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#ThursThreads Week 242 : No Life In His Soul

Michelle’s neighbor promptly arrived from work at 1720 hours local time. The first thing he did was change out of his work clothes, and into camo cargo jeans, a t-shirt with a dragon on it, and a pair of Dallas Cowboys socks. He grabbed a Diet Coke, sat down on the sofa, turned on the Motor Racing Network, grabbed one of the tablets off the coffee table, and went to Porn Hub.

“It’s good to be home,” he took a sip of his soda. “Work sucks.” As NASCAR news played in the background, he picked a video, “I’d like to do this to Becky at work,” he mumbled as he watched his selected video.

His wife got home at 1848 hours, put a pizza box on the coffee table, kicked off her shoes, and sat next to him. “You heard Michelle got murdered, right?” She woke her tablet, found the news story about Michelle, and showed it to him.

“Good riddance.” The little man went on a verbal tirade about transgender people not being real people. Being sick. Being dangerous. Needing to be dealt with. “I’m glad she’s dead! I wish they all were!”

I nodded. “Little man has no life in his soul.” I’d recorded everything.

At 0430 the next morning, the little man’s car exploded, its remains burned in red, orange, yellow, and blue for hours, His tirade got shared 11 million times on the internet that day, and even aired on CNN.

And I continued my hunt.

250 Words
I’m not on Twitter you know.

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This is part 3 of the Armor 17 story I started in Week 239 of #ThursThreads. It’s Week 242 of #ThursThreads, hosted by Siobhan Muir. Please go read all the entries in this week’s #ThursThreads. They are always fun to read.

#ThursThreads Week 241: What Did You Do?

I parked in the hotel parking lot, and went to my room. Inside, I stripped off my street clothes, which left me in the form fitting unitard I wore inside my armor. I touched the 3 dimensional sensor on my case. It would only respond to my fingers, only if they were still attached to me, and I remained fully functional, and was alone. If anyone was within range of its sensors, even I couldn’t open it.

I pressed a second sensor inside the case, and my armor assembled itself around my body. As it did, I vanished. Inside my armor, I spoke to my car, “What’s the first name on my list?”

“Michelle’s next door neighbor. Same structure.”

“Two home structure?”

“Yes.”

I walked to my car. “Take me there.” It complied. On the way I studied the information my car had found on the neighbor. “What did you do to Michelle, little man? What did you do?”

Once there, I walked to the front door, scanned for a lock, inserted the dynamic key and paused for a second as it took the form of the required key, and unlocked the door. I stepped inside, and closed the door behind me.

Then, I waited, and watched. I had time. “How did you feel about your transgender neighbor, little man?” I waited for him to come home from work. Then, I’d learn what I needed to know. And he’d never know I’d been there.

243 Words
I’m not on Twitter you know.

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The Armor 17 story I started in Week 239 continues this week. It’s Week 241 of #ThursThreads, hosted by Siobhan Muir. Please go read all the entries in this week’s #ThursThreads. They are always fun to read.

#NaNoWriMo 2016, Week 1 Clip.

We had no idea what it was, we’d never seen anything like it. We’d found it by accident, after Hurricane Alexander. That storm had flooded the entire coastline. A wall of water had washed into the area below. It wiped the farm town that had been there from the map. It was gone. An entire colony of ant workers, hundreds of thousands of them. Gone. Over 600 butterflies had drowned in their sleep, in their homes.

It had all washed away in a wall of water sixty monarchs high. We’d come to investigate, to search for any survivors, and found nothing.

Except for a polished slab of stone. It wasn’t natural, we knew that immediately. And it was huge. Ten monarchs across by three deep. We’d examined it, studied it, and reported it. They government sent a team to dig it up, find out what it was. That had been six months ago.

We still had no idea what it was, only that it was the size of a building, and solid, polished granite. With strange symbols carved into one side. And it wasn’t alone. We’d found a half dozen of them already, and the search tunnels the ants had dug indicated the area was full of them. There might be hundreds of these building sized stones down there, buried under the dirt.

It was a complete mystery to us. What were they? Where had they come from? Who had made them? How old were they? No one knew. Hell, we didn’t have clue.

The six we’d uncovered were in a rough line. Two had been found face down, for lack of a better way of describing it, with their etchings on the bottom. Fallen buildings. Except, they were solid. Not hollow. Nothing could have lived in them.

The tunnels indicated several lines of the stones existed. They were arranged, side by side. Then, a gap the size of an entire town, and another row. Then another gap, and another row.