Scotched

"Aye," he said. It sounded rather matter-of-factly and there was very little emotion in his face. June frowned suspiciously at her brother.

"You're an asshole," she informed him.

Julius smirked and had to laugh a bit.

"I know. It's true, though."

June glared and challenged him with a jerky nod.

"Fuck you, be honest now. For real now, Kat, the same Kat, our Kat, has actually really failed and has to spend the next year with us?"

Julius gave an exasperated sigh and threw his arms up.

"For fuck's sake, yes! She failed the test! Now piss off and let me read!" He stared pointedly at June, who made a weird frowny but nearly smiling face and backed away to the door. He kept staring her away until his door was closed again before he returned his attention to the book on his lap. With half an ear he noticed June whistling merrily as she moved down the stairs.

"Freak," he murmured.

Kat was her and her twin brother's friend and she liked her. She was undoubtedly by far the most interesting person June had ever met. Yet she could and would not be sorry that Kat would not graduate this year after all, because it meant that she would stay in school for another year, and this time she would be in June's grade. When she had first heard the news that Kat had failed the deciding test she needed to pass in order to save her English grade to be eligible for the final exam, she had felt bad for her, but that had quickly given way to the joy of looking forward to a school year with her favourite freak as her classmate.

The rest of June's afternoon was spent at the kitchen table talking with dad, and her excellent mood carried over to nighttime and even the next morning.

After stretching luxuriously, yawning twice and smiling at the Django Unchained poster her Kat had given her, June turned over to check the time on her phone and noticed with mild wonderment that she had missed six calls and her inbox was full. That was quite noteworthy, she reflected, because it was supposed to hold a hundred messages and it had been only half full the day before. She started reading:

'I'm sorry. Be excellent.'

June smiled. "Apologising to me? Adorable. Adorable Kat."

The next one read: 'U know that stupid punk rite shes dead man'

Ill Or Nothing [Prose-poetry]

I remember how I used to look up at skies red like bloody sick. So crimson, and glowing like a pest blain, it seemed to call out to me in a fever, waiting for death to cut open its skin and release the blood and pus to spill out over the whole world. When it looked like this it never rained. My eyes would droop and my mouth drop open, and smoke and sweaty steam would creep into my nostrils until their tang began to sicken me, and all I could smell was that rotten grease. The entire city was coated in it. The grime, and sick. And the sky even was sick, we’d damned the sky. I waited for it to die.

That was why I never smiled. The city was a stinking pit of darkness. The people there were pitted black strips of tar smeared with ash, and filled to the brim with despair, and fear. They lashed out at anything blacker than they, slunk into darker shadows when night fell, and devoured everything that smelled clean and innocent enough to not give them smallpox. Everyone, and I was no exception, lived in fear and futile anger. I was too calm, too reserved, to succumb to the fever. I only watched. And waited. For the sky to break open and drown us all in purulence and wound water, I used to think. But no, I didn’t really wait for anything. Now I think, would it have been better if it had stayed that way forever?

Smiling used to be impossible and now I can’t stop. The sky is dark blue and clear, with white stars brilliantly blinking down. And the occasional wisp of a cloud is ghosting swiftly across that vast noble space. My smile began today. Today began a year ago, or an aeon back in the past. My serene and stony face never moves. Now I know. I know I could not have known better. I exchanged fear of the future with the knowledge of nothing more to come.

Under the red sky time seemed tedious and endless, now it does not exist anymore. My eyes never close, my mouth never opens and my nose is a pit with ragged edges, and the long slender curved blade that I hold up by two handles throws a dull slash across the empty sky, forever.

Light (prose)

With a tinkle and a buzz the naked lightbulb is flickering to life. While it is warming up and gaining in golden brightness, the chamber is gradually becoming more real. The whitewash is still actually white, but it has black and brown spots where the walls, ceiling, and floor are slightly damaged. Small and large chunks chipped off of them over the decades make the time it has endured obvious. These dark holes relieve the light and drain the cell’s brilliance somehow, make it less present. It is easier to miss the fact that it has no windows.
“You’ve become old.”
My young friend’s voice sounds both awed and hateful as he mutters this into the room.
I eye the lightbulb and follow the cables across the ceiling and down the wall to the switch. I lean back against the wall and look at the boy’s back. He’s not moving.
Save for the lamp, and a shapeless bundle of reeking rags in the corner he’s facing, the cell is empty. And except for us both, of course. I knock on the heavy steel door.
He whips around and squints at it.
“This looks pretty solid. And it has a good lock. How did you escape?”
His eyes go out of focus and he frowns.
“I don’t remember.”
I nod slowly.
I hate doing this.
Old people are easy. Even children are easy. Accidents are okay, illnesses can be annoying, but stories like this get to me. I have to swallow a few times before I can ask him more. It is important to always appear calm to them.
“For how long have you been out now?”
“Um ... about ...” His eyes are darting everywhere and he starts chewing on his tongue. “Erm. ... I don’t remember, okay?!” He’s rubbing his head and staring into space with a slightly panicked expression.
“Please try to. It won’t let you go before you do.”
The hinges creak, and with a pained, polyphonic squeal, the heavy metal door swings shut, and the loud rusty bang makes him jump and look up in panic. His horror-stricken face then is drowned in black as the light is dimming and going out silently.
“Turn it back on! Turn on the light! Where’s the switch?! Where’s the switch, why isn’t it there, help me find it, the light!” He’s frantically groping and scratching at the walls in the dark. This is ugly business. With a hand on his shoulder, I turn him around and nudge him toward the corner with the silent heap of stinking cloth resting in it.
“There,” I say.
“What?” He approaches it blindly and uncertainly until his feet connect with it and it sags a little. It rustles softly, and with a crumble, his head lolls to one side, his large tongueless mouth with the dried puckered lips gaping up at me.
“How did you escape?”
He stares at me.
“You fell asleep.”