Inside My Eyelids (3)

At work, Monday, I remembered my Mother, and the time she read one of the stories I wrote. A story about a lonely, depressed guy, who crashed his car, and got himself killed. And how it was his escape from the hell that was his life.

My Mother, bless her, practically threw the story at me. “Why do you always have to write such awful stories? Why can’t you write something happy for a change?”

I wanted to scream, “That’s not how it works! That’s not how I work! I can’t write what I don’t feel!” But, she was my Mother. I spoke without knowing what else to say, “I’ll change it.” Then, I did. Same car wreck. But he gets through it uninjured, no one else gets hurt, and he wakes up to life, and decides to become a better person.

“Better.” That’s what she said.

I smiled, and nodded, “See? I can do that,” while my brain screamed, “What else do you want me to say? It’s what you wanted!”

It was one more detail in life that turned everything into a game. A stupid, silly game, all about making everything happy, and fun. And the movies on the inside of my eyelids responded, as people started smiling, and singing happy songs, as they cut each others hearts out.

221 Words
@mysoulstears

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It’s Week 396 of #ThursThreads, hosted by Siobhan Muir. Whatever it is that’s writing itself, wrote more words. Please go read all the entries in this week’s #ThursThreads. They are always fun to read. And there are some great writers who show up weekly.

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Inside My Eyelids (2)

I told myself to stop remembering the past. “I’ve got to work in the morning. Time to shut down my brain, and sleep.” With that, I hugged my pillows, rolled onto my side, shut my eyes, and deliberately tried to think of anything other than work, life, the universe, the damn movies I dreamed up each night.

Instead, I ordered up a walk on the beach, at sunset, on a summer night, with a soft breeze, and ocean sounds. Even a few seagulls flying around, and talking. Something that made me smile. Something I wanted to do more often. Something I kept private, never shared. Because, no weaknesses allowed.

I feel asleep on that beach, watching the waves.

Jesus, was that ever a mistake.

Have you ever been in the desert? Seriously. The middle of the desert. No water. No trees. No grass. No people. No roads. Nothing. Only sand. An ocean of sand, with motionless sand dunes for waves.

That’s where I was. In the desert. Hell, I couldn’t tell you which desert. Does it matter which desert? The sun rose in the East, and the ovens of hell came on. After an hour of searching for shade, any kind of shade, I tried hiding in the shadows of the dunes, where the sunlight didn’t reach.

You know how you normally die of thirst in the desert? Yeah. That would have been too easy. That would have let me escape. Let me have peace. Let me sleep. So, I had to stay alive. Hour after endless hour. Wondering if I could find a swallow of water. Just one swallow, to help the fire in my throat.

I didn’t get sun burn either. Like I was made of something other than flesh and bone. My skin got hot to the touch, coated in sweat, which the sand stuck to. The sand got in my pants pockets. Under my t-shirt. Inside my pants. It got everywhere. And it stuck to me. I couldn’t get it off. Every time I tried, more sand piled on.

To the East, I heard thunder. I wandered that direction, walking for hours. Maybe days. Who knows how long. I passed out a couple of times, certain I was finally going to die, and be free, only to wake up, spitting sand from my parched mouth and throat, watching it spray out of my nose.

The lightning was always to the East. Always as far away as it had always been. It never got closer. I set my direction by the sun, so I knew I wasn’t walking in circles. No matter how far I walked, there were never any signs it had ever rained. The ground remained parched, dry, dusty sand. That went forever. In every direction.

But, I kept walking to the East. Toward the sounds of thunder. Hoping, praying, desperately, I’d find rain, and at least a moment’s respite from the endless heat, and waves of sand, frozen in time, with sprays of sand, like the tops of waves, at their crests.

I was still walking, praying I could die, or find water, when I woke up, as I did almost every night, at 3 in the morning. Too tired, and exhausted to be useful in any way. Too desperate to escape the images on the inside of my eyelids to want to try to sleep for another few hours before I had to go to work.

572 Words
@mysoulstears

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It’s week 139 of Miranda Kate‘s Mid-Week Flash Fiction Challenge. Please feel free to read all the other stories for this weeks prompt.

It seems I find myself in the middle of something unexpected. We’ll see if it lasts, or if the movies on the back of my eyelids silence me once more. Time will tell.

#EVERyTuesdayWordplay Week 23 : Pluck

“Lord, send some big ass bird crashing through the window into me. Let it knock me over, pluck my eyes out to make openings in my head, and then pluck my brain out, in bits and pieces, through the sockets!”

It wasn’t the first time I’d thought those words. Even as I thought them, I knew it wouldn’t be the last time.

“Why can’t I just fucking die!”

Must have been the billionth time I wondered why me, why did I have to be punished with all these visions in my head, in my brain cells. Every time I closed my eyes at night, to sleep, there they were. Hell, I couldn’t even call them nightmares. Nightmares scare the shit out of you. You wake up screaming. I always woke up wondering if my brain would ever let me sleep, or if it was going to play endless stories on the back of my eyelids, like movies, until I died.

I couldn’t remember when those stories started. I’d tried. “What’s the first time you had one of these stories stuck in your head?” I couldn’t remember them not being there. And I remembered 50 years of them, all the way back to high school. Maybe 9th grade. Maybe 10th.

But, I couldn’t remember much of anything before that. There was that time all the grown ups got really sad. That was when the President got shot in the head, and died. Even the people that didn’t like him got sad then. I couldn’t remember the President getting shot, since I was only 4 years old when it happened, but I did remember people were sad, and I knew from history books they were sad because of his assassination.

There was the time I learned to read for fun. Not to read because it was homework, or because I was in Sunday School at church. It was when I was sick one time. For a week. Missed school. Maybe it was second grade. Maybe first. Does it matter? I was stuck in bed, sick, couldn’t go to school, couldn’t go outside and play, couldn’t get out of bed, really, except to go pee. I learned a lot that time I was sick. I learned daytime TV in the 1960s sucked, on all three TV stations we could pick up. I learned being trapped in the house was boring as hell, and felt anything but right.

And I learned to read comic books. Dad picked up a couple of them. I’d never read any chapter books, or anything else, really. Other than the school books. “Run, Jane, run! See Jane run?” It was desperation that made me pick those comic books up. The need to escape the emptiness of time. The silence of listening to the sun cross the sky, and the clouds float past my room windows. The complete nothing I’d felt trapped in.

I read the comic books. Each one took me hours. It was my first time reading anything.

498 Words
@mysoulstears

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For week 23 of Ever Addams weekly #EVERyTuesdayWordplay Flash Fiction prompt. There are words trying to get out. Perhaps these are the first few. Go read the other stories for prompt #23.