There is a moment, between sleep and awakening, where dreams are real and life a dream. A moment where the wild fancies of dreamland feel so tangible, so vibrant, that you question the world you know as reality. Some days, the dreams are dark, the monsters under the bed creeping from dark shadows, and you run to the light of morning, relieved to find it all a dream. Other days, you bask in the dream-state, in a place of magic and whimsy, and upon waking, fight the bitter bite of tears for the lost possibilities. Until the dreams come again.
The
two cosmic beings circled each other, stars seeping from their open
wounds. Theirs was an eternal battle, a dance filling the universe,
changing the course of fate. Neither had won, nor lost, but their
moments of ascension or defeat altered the flow of time, destroyed
galaxies, and birthed new worlds.
They
hissed and writhed, swirling in a nebulous web before solidifying to
land another blow. They knew not why they fought, only that it had
always been. They lunged, moving in harmony, synchrony, antipathy.
Their
battle cries echoed across the cosmos,
Until
one cut short,
Trailing
a hollow echo in its wake.
The victor released its opponent, stunned, lost. It had won, but what to do with the victory? It had never known anything beyond this, this immutable, sacrosanct conflict. They had been older than time, the creators of the universe. They had been duality, and they had been unity. They had been life and death, hope and despair, the both of them. What would happen without them, together?
—
She felt a shiver run up her spine, like an icy claw slid its way across her skin. She looked over at him, seeing her own shock in his wide eyes, in the tremor in his hand.
“Did you feel it?”
He nodded. “It happened.”
“The
real question,” she whispered, grasping for his hand, “is what
happens now?”
I
guess I needed longer than a one week break. But I’m back now, and I
think I’ve made some decisions.
I
don’t want to give up on this blog. I don’t want it to just fade
away, to be something I did for a while and then abandoned when it
got too hard, or I got bored with it.
That
said, posting daily isn’t working for me anymore. It is too
stressful, too much pressure on myself. The point of this blog was to
have fun writing, and daily posts just make me dread sitting down to
write.
So,
I am going to try and keep this blog going, but only post once a
week. For now. If that goes well, I might bump it up to three times a
week – who knows, maybe I’ll eventually make it back to once a day.
Today
marks the 200th
consecutive day I’ve posted on this blog. Some pieces I’ve loved,
some were dashed off in minutes, and some need a lot more work. But
that’s okay, because I started this project as a 30 day challenge, to
see if I could do it, if I could be inspired and find that spark in
writing again.
Clearly,
I blew past the 30 day mark, but it wasn’t without its struggles. I
started this blog on January 7th,
and wrote through the presidential impeachment trial later that
month. In March, COVID-19 hit the United States hard, and I entered
self-imposed lockdown. Then, a few months later on May 25th,
George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis, and the nation irrupted in
protests, with violent police responses that carry on even today (in
stark contrast to the protests against public health mandates only a
few weeks before).
That
said, I picked a hell of a time to try this experiment. The world has
changed so much since I’ve started posting, and some of those changes
are reflected in my work.
But
along with those changes has come a lot of burnout. I am exhausted,
the collective energy of the world dragging me down with it. This
blog, which started as a fun experiment, something I was excited to
do and felt good about completing, now brings me greater stress and
anxiety.
For that reason, I am going to give myself a break – I am going to stop posting for the rest of July, and re-evaluate this project. I hope to come back after this week or so break reinvigorated, but that is a hope, not a promise.
I
might be rearing to go, ready to keep up my rate of a post a day. I
might tone it back, and pick a three day schedule. Or I might decide
that this blog isn’t helpful to me anymore, and stop altogether. But
I am going to come back on August 1st,
with some kind of decision made.
If
you’ve been following this blog at all, thank you so much for
reading. If you just found it, great timing.
She lay across her bed, a book dangling from her hand as she watched the rain dance outside her window. She could feel a slight breeze from the cracked open window, the familiar fresh smell of rain soothing her mind. She rolled up, reaching for her mug on the side table. She smiled at the pun on its side, and took a deep sip of rich, earthy tea, just the right temperature. She put the mug down and flopped back on the bed, closing her eyes and listening to the patter of rain. The rest of the world seemed so very far away in that moment.
She took a deep breath, peace washing over her for the first time in a very long time. This was her happy place, the stolen moments that made everything worth it. She shivered as a small gust blew through her window, the cool air delicious against her skin. She sighed, a slight smile on her face. Yes, she thought,* this is paradise*.
Lucy
sighed, opening her email and seeing all the new messages staring at
her, the bold letters proudly staring at her. She opened one, and was
greeted with the first message in a thread that split in five
different directions.
“Nope,”
she said, under her breath. “Not starting with you.”
She
closed the email and opened the next one, which was clearly a
phishing attempt. She sighed, clicking the “Report Phishing”
button, and wondered vaguely who received the notice on the other
end.
She
worked her way through her emails, coming across more threaded
messages, a headache starting to build. She glanced up, around the
open floor office, and let her eyes skim across the room. She didn’t
want to let her gaze linger too long, in case someone thought she was
staring at them. Better to keep her eyes glued to her own computer.
The office looked the same as it always did, anyway. Not much changed
here.
Lucy
noticed the date at the bottom of her screen. She frowned slightly.
Hadn’t
yesterday been the sixth? She shook her head. Sometimes the days just
blurred together, she supposed. She opened her current spreadsheet,
getting to work on the long lines of numbers she needed to organize.
She kept needing to pause, though, and message a co-worker for more
information, and it usually took an age to get a response.
Finally,
Lucy couldn’t take it any more. She needed to move around, stretch.
She stood, rubbing her sore neck, and walked over to the kitchenette.
She crinkled her nose as she grew closer. Who left eggs in the
refrigerator again? The sulfuric smell almost made her gag.
She
joined some people standing around the water cooler, grabbing her mug
from the rack and sighing when she noticed it had a lipstick stain
around the rim. In a color she never wore. She cursed silently in her
head. She was going to have to put up another sign, telling people
not to use others’ mugs.
She
washed the mug in the small sink, annoyed at the little dribble of
soap left in the bottle. She couldn’t believe how often she got the
dregs; it seemed like she was always replacing the bottle. She
listened the her co-workers chat, about their upcoming trips, their
exasperating families, office gossip. Never anything very
interesting.
But
one thing did catch her attention.
“But
that’s Tuesdays for you, right?”
She
stopped mid-scrub, staring at the speaker. Was she crazy, or had
yesterday been Tuesday? Was that why she was confused about the date?
She could have sworn that someone had said the same thing yesterday,
about Tuesdays.
She
shook her head. She was just tired, maybe a little burned out. Sure,
the days could be repetitive, but it was a paycheck, right? Not that
bad, not really. Could be worse.
She
went back to her desk, being careful to avoid eye contact with a
particular co-worker. Once they started talking, there was no
stopping them.
She
sat down, and noticed a message on the screen from her boss, asking
Lucy to go to her office immediately.
Lucy
sighed, making her way to the office on the far side of the room. She
knocked on the door, and heard a muffled “come in.”
She
opened the door, and almost coughed, the smell of something burnt
singeing her nostrils. She tried to ignore it, though; her boss was
very sensitive, and it was better to not draw attention to her many
oddities.
Her
boss sat at her desk, filing her long nails.
“Lucy!”
she barked, gesturing at the hard chair by the desk.
Lucy
sat, trying to not look too uncomfortable.
Her
boss stared her down for a moment. “Where are those quarterly
reports I asked for yesterday?”
Lucy
swallowed. “I’m almost done, ma’am. I’m just waiting on some more
data from-”
“Don’t
blame others for your incompetence, Lucy,” her boss chided. “It
makes you not a team player.”
Lucy
nodded bleakly. “Yes, I understand.” She glanced back up, and
blinked rapidly. Were those… horns? And were her boss’ eyes glowing
red? Lucy shook her head, and everything returned to normal. It must
have been her imagination…
“Lucy?”
“Huh?”
She
boss shook her head. “Such manners. I don’t know how you were hired
in the first place.”
“Well,
I-” Lucy started, then paused. How had she been hired? She’d been
working here for what felt like forever, but she couldn’t remember
when she started, or why she had applied in the first place.
“Yes?”
Her boss’ eyes suddenly focused on her like a laser.
Lucy
paused, trying to pluck up her courage. “Ma’am…” she started,
then rushed through the rest, “what day was it yesterday?”
Her
boss stared at her coolly, calculatingly. Then she finally sighed,
and picked up her phone. “Yeah, I think Lucy is having some trouble
again,” she said, lighting a cigarette.
Where
did that come from?
Lucy wondered. She’s
not supposed to smoke in here, right? And when did it get so hot?
“I
know,” her boss said, taking a deep drag. “This is like, the
seventh time this decade. I don’t know, she must just be more
perceptive than other humans.”
Than
other humans? What?
Lucy struggled to understand her boss’ side of the conversation, and
the fact that the temperature kept rising in the office.
“Yeah,
go ahead and send someone. I can’t have anyone realizing what’s going
on, and stirring up the others. Yeah, I know, what are they gonna do,
unionize?” Her boss laughed, although it sounded more like a
cackle.
“Um,”
Lucy said, coughing on the cigarette smoke, “I think I’m just going
to go…”
Her
boss slammed the phone down, and glared at her. “Listen, Lucy, I
like you, but you can’t keep doing this. You have to be a team
player, understand? We need alignment throughout the department, and
you are causing problems.” There was a knock at the door, and two
large men appeared.
“Now,
Lucy,” her boss said, almost kindly. “You’ll go with these nice
men, and they will supervise your corporate training for the rest of
the day.”
Lucy
stared at the men, and for a moment, they seemed normal. Then their
faces began to waver, almost like their skin was melting. She gasped.
Horns sprouted from their heads, and she could spot scaly wings and
forked tails behind their backs.
“No!”
she cried, falling out of her chair and backing away. “I don’t want
to go to the corporate training!”
“I
know, dear,” her boss said, pity dripping from her tongue, “you’ve
already gone through it several times. But you just can’t seem to
accept your role here, can you?”
The
two horrible men grabbed her arms, and dragged her from the office.
She pleaded with them to just let her go, yelled at her co-workers to
help her, but they just looked up idly and didn’t seem to care very
much. She was pulled down the hallway, and spotted the company name
on the wall:
Hell,
Inc.
Lucy
screamed, until her throat was raw.
“Come
on,” one of the demon-men grunted. “You’re not even down there
yet.” He pressed the “down” button for the elevator, and she
fainted.
–
Lucy
opened up her email, seeing the long list of messages and shrugging.
That was the job, right? She worked through them, pulling apart all
the multiple threads, and checking in with a few co-workers on some
outstanding projects.
After
a few hours of work, she stood, walking over to the kitchenette. She
grabbed her mug, and sighed as she saw a rogue lipstick stain.
Eventually she’d need to make a sign, or maybe call HR. She joined
her co-workers at the water cooler, laughing at a story about
someone’s kid’s antics.
One
person finally sighed, stating they should probably be getting back
to work and bemoaning the mountain of emails waiting for them.
Lucy chuckled, commiserating. “That’s Tuesdays for you, right?”
She
watched her prey, as she had been for weeks. She knew every movement,
every gesture. She knew habits, routines, the perfect place to
strike. She could feel the anticipation grow; soon, very soon, and
she would have her prize. But it took patience, planning, things she
had in abundance. She could wait, until the right moment. That was
part of the joy of the hunt, after all. Having the perfect moment,
seeing the look of fear, feeling the rush of adrenaline. It would be
all the sweeter, to do it right.
The house cat stood against the window, watching the rabbit hop closer through the grass outside. Soon, she thought. Soon.