Sanya killed them all. The petunias, the impatients, the short, hardy marigolds. The snapdragons snapped in half. The aloe dried out. She would have murdered the hydrangeas too, probably, had not her mother eventually intervened, unable to see a perfectly healthy garden go to waste.

It wasn't that she was doing anything wrong, exactly. It must have been a problem with over-watering, or under watering, or maybe water quality...one could never be too careful. Or a fluke of the weather. She'd read about microbursts once; perhaps a micro-microburst was to blame, localized over the little patch of earth she'd specifically requested in their backyard. It was a dry brown blemish in the otherwise lush flora, so miserably visible from her bedroom window. She looked down on it in shame and abhorrence, and left her little blue watering can in the garden shed, and her yellow trowel, and she'd never been allowed near the shears in the first place.

The garden seemed pleased anyway, and immediately after her tending ceased the brown blemish began to show the first sign of promise. But she was miserable and her mother could see that. It's bulb season, she told her. Why don't you plant some bulbs?

It didn't get a rise out of her at all, so at last Samanthe dug five expert pits with her trowel, and seeing a betraying flicker of interest in her daughters eyes, merely left the bulbs in a pile and returned inside the house.

Like a cat, her curiosity unable to stay itself, she moseyed reluctantly outside to observe the holes. Stupid holes, she said. Stupid bulbs. Stupid micro-microbursts.

She kicked one of the bulbs. It rolled near the hole. She frowned and kicked it again. That'll show it. Then she kicked them all inside a hole, and the dirt over it, all very reluctantly of course. Stupid garden. She used her mother's watering can to sprinkle it a little bit, not really enough to matter, then went to her room and forgot about it.

Days later, she returns home to find her bedroom window wide open and, peering down onto the yard below, five hardy purple flowers bursting through the earth. She sprints outside to see if they're real, pokes them, touches their petals lightly in disbelieving. She calls her mother outside.

Never seen violets sprout so fast, she says. You've got a magic touch.

A magic touch!

Sanya shuffles inside, trying to swallow the beaming smile peaking through her teeth. Samanthe stays outside to tend the garden. Five for ten dollars, she thought, you can't beat it. They were a nice addition of color besides.


10 October 2007
only violets remain

They watch their footsteps in fascination as, crashing through puddle after puddle, tiny gray tsunamis wash the pebbles and grass out in circles from their Wellington boots. It is 1992. Sariya still has dark hair, bobbed neatly around her chin underneath her pale blue rain coat.

Andrew calls for her attention as he runs, light speed, toward another puddle, and aiming his feet with the precision of a marksman, sends a splash that they're sure could be seen from space with a good enough telescope.

Sariya shrieks with glee. She runs to do the same but isn't quite so talented, and upon landing, slips into the puddle and soaks her jumper underneath. She immediately howls as fat tears roll down her eyes, trying to shove the mud away from her to no avail. Andrew, laughing, yanks her out of the puddle and tries a couple of spells with his little bit of wand he carries around in his pocket. This has no effect except that she stops crying and starts hiccuping.

You ought to stop crying, he says. Or else.

She does stop. Or else what?

Or else you're gonna be an old man like me!

He pulls off his hood, exposing his full head of silver hair, and squinting his round brown eyes, hobbles around into another puddle. She holds her stomach and laughs.

Don't you want to be an old man like me?

No, no!

He hobbles after her a bit, the both of them screaming with laughter, until finally he pulls his hood back over his already damp hair.

Alright then! These puddles ain't gonna splash themselves, Soldier! We've got loads to do!

She salutes like he showed her earlier. Right-o, Sergeant!

When their handiwork is finished (every puddle, already rippled by the February drizzle, is a mess of mud and bits of grass and cloudy brown rainwater), he slings his arm around her shoulder and they walk home.

Auntie Feronia scolds them for getting their clothes wet, and drying her hair later, exclaims:

Is that a silver hair I see? Looks like you've gotten a little bit older since you went outside.

Sariya turns, her eyes wide, and starts howling with sobs.



24 September 2007
the sudden wave of silver born in you

What does it mean, anyway? She asks.

When she stretches her hand over the descending shape of the moon, her fingertip covers it exactly. He shifts and shifts again, uncomfortably, so that he can look at her.

Her eyes are illuminated by the thin line of dawn creeping over the horizon, so clear, like staring into a porcelain bowl. Thoughts ripple through them like raindrops, every contemplative blink disturbing the otherwise peaceful surface.

He cranes his neck back to face the disappearing expanse of heavens above them. They'd been counting shooting stars all night. As he opens his mouth, another streaks across the sky.

Twenty-four, he says.

What does it mean, she echoes again.

She rotates her wrist, tracing the plain silver band all the way around. What does it mean to me or you or anyone.

He sits up onto his elbows and glances over again, alarmed now to see a shimmering shining something collecting in the corner of her eye.

It's too much, don't you think? She says softly, and bites her lip. She can't tear her eyes away from it. I feel like...it's the answer to a question I never meant to ask.

She covers her mouth and clenches her eyes shut. I want to marry you, I do, but...I'm so scared of everything, right now, and this...this...

He slides his hand into hers, making bridges with their fingers. She stills suddenly.

What does it mean, to you or me or anyone.

He slides the ring off of her finger and pauses to look at it.

Her eyes, too, betray her stillness and flicker open, some small terror hidden beneath her damp eyelashes.

He stares at it a moment longer before, with one smooth movement of his arm, he casts it down into the world below, where not even the tinest plink of sound betrays its location. There is a great stillness in the air, more calm than even their bodies then. He takes it all in with a great exhale.

It doesn't mean a thing, he says.

She sits up and throws her arms around him.

I still want to marry you, she says. I do, I do, I love you so...even if the ring was...

Meaningless, he says, kissing her forehead. A concrete symbol in an abstract world. Who needs it? I don't. Did you?

She chokes out a laugh.

I don't need anything but you.



28 March 2009
real faith, my dear, is just a dream

Was supposed to be a 15 minute challenge that just run off with itself. Title does not effectively reflect the madness within. Or does it?

( we'll make you right as rain )

The first time he watches her take off her clothes, he contemplates her figure with uncertainty. It's a compilation of little surprises that surprise even him. For one thing, her nipples are pink, which, given her complexion, he should have known. But in his mind, he had pictured them rosy and dark, like American Beauties. There are freckles on the belly he thought would be white as an egg, and as for the temple of her flesh, well, the carpet doesn't match the curtains exactly.

They make love, and that's nice, and lying awake beside her in the darkness he feels bad for dwelling on trivialities. He has, after all, the girl he loves naked beside him, her breath restful and warm on his shoulder, and that's more than he has ever had in his whole remembered life. He's always been of the faith that getting exactly what you wish for is boring, especially when one is as uncreative as he, and does nothing but set up for later disappointment.

Since he's sworn off disappointment, (and here he embraces her, which she sleepingly protests like a kitten picked up by the scruff of its neck) he contents himself to forever more welcome whatever uncertainties she brings.



10 February 2009
i know it well, the nakedness of truth

The real testament of love, the one real, undeniable proof about it...it's not loyalty or trust, or perseverance. It's none of that shit you'd put on a greeting card. It's the fight. It's bloody noses and dislocated shoulders. We paint a real pretty picture of it, don't we, but in the end, love has got to be something you fight for, kill for, cut and bleed for, beat your chest over. That's why when it's lost, it feels a whole hell of a lot like dying. I mean, doesn't it? Feels like being sprawled out on a battle field with a bullet in your belly.

You may think this is just a harsh way of saying 'love is like living.' Well maybe that's so. I just get so tired of it, this love is gracious, love is kind setup for the grand fall. Everyone knows that love ain't pretty. Everything is beautiful when there's blood in your eyes.

Anyway, the whole point of this rant is this:

Next Valentine's day, I don't want a fucking box of chocolate. I don't want a bouquet of roses.

I want some goddamn boxing gloves.



18 May 2009
fists and knees and teeth and elbows

A little unconventional, maybe, is the most she will admit to calling it. This answer seems to satisfy all parties involved except Aeneas, who could not let the subject die.

It's just way beyond me, he says. Beyond my capabilities, I...why me?

She only smiles. Am I asking too much of you?

Her eyes get big and dark and round, and though he opens his mouth to contest it, of course he can't, not facing those eyes.

Not too much, he mumbles.

In reality, though, 'too much' doesn't begin to describe the whole of it.

He spends the next five months trying to change her mind, persuade her otherwise. He even goes so far as to look through her family tree for other willing relatives, but as the date winds closer, his chances slim out. She is adamant.

Eventually, he resigns. In a battle between his and her stubbornness, he didn't stand a chance.

She takes his arm as the organ music begins to play. The wedding party files pair by pair into the aisle with the deliberate sense of occasion they'd rehearsed the day before.

She watches the procession, but he looks at her, and looks and looks, until her eyes turn to meet his and she smiles.

You're so beautiful, he says.

She squeezes his hand. Onlookers rise as the bridal march begins.

As they enter the church, he whispers, you never told me why you chose me to give you away.

You don't know? She asks softly.

At the end of the aisle, her fiance stands, delight and fear and surprise and awe all visible from the opposite side of the church.

Luna smiles as she sees him, and when she looks back toward Aeneas, there are little diamonds in her eyes.

Because I have only ever been yours to give.

They reach the end of the aisle. She moves to take her place before the altar, but his hand holds her back. Their eyes meet. Will you keep me forever, she seems to ask.

In response, he draws her forehead to his mouth, and whispers,

A second longer and you'd be too beautiful to give away.

Then, wearing his saddest, most beautiful smile, he lets her go.



23 February 2008
Honour is purchas'd by the deeds we do

If you could have one wish come true this month, what would it be?


I wish my boys will get there safely,
then return to me.

Totally wrote a story with the same premise before. Shhhhhhhh...


( but if you've known love like the jokers before )