Theinscrutableescapee - Prose & Verse - Tumblr Blog

amber & hyacinths

The birthday card was slightly slanted. The front was a clumsy neon yellow with the words “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” written in multi-color capital letters. One of those cone-shaped birthday hats sat on the “B”.

In the shower, she would sometimes press a little stronger against razor blade, letting it delicately and, at first, painlessly, cut into her skin. She would just sit in the shower, letting the toast grow cold, blood trickling along her leg. A spider would creep along the steamy mirror, running across the soft blurry colors of her skin, as if it were ashamed to see her naked.

Her small breasts rubbed against her tight shirt.

She would open the fridge, only to be confronted with a four-day salad and an empty jar of jam. The kitchen countertop was sticky with filth, weeks worth of dishes were piled, a spoon sadly laying on a bowl’s sides, dipping in moldy milk, a fork still sticking in a store-bought quiche, a bottle of vodka stood, open, a never-ending source, empty ones were on the floor.

“Doing that will only make things worse”. That’s what the doctor would have said. 

“Fucking moron”, she muttered to herself. 

She sat down on the kitchen floor and lit a cigarette. She remembered a conversation she had at the port a few weeks, days or years ago with him. Not the doctor him, the other him. 

“Those things will kill you.”

“You eventually will anyway.”

She laughed by herself, inhaling a puff of smoke. That’s when he had given her the week late birthday card. She never kept birthday cards but his was wedged into the windowsill. It was difficult to believe that he would never write another birthday card for her again.

A tightness crawled into her chest, she felt it even in her yellowed fingertips. His name came into mind. Doctor Alban had said that she should get rid of the card.

“Did you ever desire her?”

“I think so”, he said, his stern tobacco-colored eyes were darkened by the night.  He was stretched on the bed, his bony ribs creating a bowl of darkened moonlight.

“As a memento mori, perhaps”

“She must’ve been beautiful”

I perceived his nodding in the dark. He stayed silent while staring at the ceiling.

“Very”, he finally said.

She knew that he still loved her.

The faucet was running. Maybe it had been running the whole time. Probably.

She got up to close it, her long, untidy nails uncomfortably enclosing around it. The metal left a cold impression onto her hand. She remembered.

His eyes weren’t brown. They didn’t deserve to have a color. They were all the crumpled paper poems, they were all that she had searched for in vain during her entire life without exactly knowing what. They were the sneers of incomprehension, they were an abandoned shivering cold desire, sticky with the poison of indifference. They were a neon yellow happy birthday card, with one of those cone-shaped birthday hats on the “B”.

© Margaux Emmanuel

the sun was poorly tuned, still glimmered in the dark so I poured him a drink; post-curfew happiness

© Margaux Emmanuel

17

they were all desperate

to light your cigarette

only seventeen years old

but lips leafed in gold

I stopped believing in god

the moment I saw you,

you sepia-toned haunted ghost

you keyed the words

of your own stolen bible

on the edge of my tongue

your eyes were a pool of dusk

where I saw shadow puppets

dancing on candlelight

rose-pricked skin

and I had only ever seen

the rosy dawn

that never dared to kiss me

at the end of the night

you’d be gone in the morning,

and I’d still feel you

against my skin

as if you had been

my very own 

living nightmare

as if you had said the things

you had never thought

never said

but that I had always longed

to hear. 

poisoned apricots 

under the frozen floorboards

of a sick child’s heart 

punch-drunk

There were indistinct screams and catcalls coming from every angle of the dark abyss. They echoed up to her ears, but all she could hear was the thudding of her own thundering heart. The lights around her were bright, blinding. She felt the impression of an arm on her shoulder, water gushing down her throat, drops falling onto her bare stomach, mixed with the sweat.

“Come on, you gotta go the distance...”

“Tyler, she’s punch-drunk.”

Punch-drunk. “Punch-drunk”, she said, the words hazily forming on her lips.

“That upper-cut busted her ribs, the girl can’t even walk straight, let alone land one. She’s either gonna get knocked out or the judge’s gonna call it a technical.”

Knocked out clean.

A warm breeze blowing onto her face. Apartment buildings were towering around them, the sun red in the glass windows.

“So you see, he was all like punch-drunk and then he like threw a jab and then this uppercut that perfectly landed on his jaw. Like this look. And then BOOM he got knocked-out clean, it was the most beautiful thing I ever seen I tell ya.”, he said as he jumped down from the table he was standing on top of.  

“One day, I’ll teach ya how to box ya know.”

“Me? A boxer? Don’t be silly.”

She suddenly felt a sharp, twisting pain in her ribs.

A bell rings.

“Round six!”

“Come on, you gotta get back in there. Remember, she’s a swarmer so try to block her right…”

Her mother’s crying.

“He should have never practiced that sport. Your father always said that it’d end badly”.

Her face met the blood-covered floor.

“One! Two! Three! …”

“It’s over Tyler. For fuck’s sake!”

“Four! Five!”

“Sawyer...”, she said, tears lining her eyes.

“Six! Sev-“

She got up and rose both of her gloves.

© Margaux Emmanuel 

2003

Postcards from Saigon

yellowed pictures

pants rolled up to his knees

dark ray bans

thick rims

raindrops on lips

or raindrop lips

his eyes,

a different shade of brown

those that say

“buy me a beer

before I change my mind”,

dusty eyelids

a scar

lingering

under his eye

a dog-eared book

in his hand

where he wrote in the margins

These

are

the

lines

that

prove

that

my

existence

is

a

mistake

but you only read 

the pencil prophecy

after

you had kissed him  

after

he had taken

all of those

painkillers

after

he had written that letter

saying

“I too

was once loved,

but not by you”.

© Margaux Emmanuel 2018

tonight we’ll see the stars

“What’s his name?”

“Suzuki…Or was it Nakamura?”

Edvin didn’t say anything as he opened the matchbox that had been in his pocket and carefully plucked a match out. In an abrupt motion, he struck the match. A small flame kindled at the end of the wooden stick. He carefully observed it, letting it take his full attention as his thoughts went blank. He didn’t want to think about her. But he couldn’t control it. His eyes crawled towards hers. An uncontrollable smile formed on his face as he broke out in a nervous chuckle.

“How do you say ‘fire’ in Japanese?”, he asked, feeling the tears bordering his eyelids.

“Do I look like I fucking know?”, she answered, her voice slightly breaking on the fucking as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

She blew out the match. A small cloud of smoke slowly whirled, tinting the darkness. Edvin watched the smoke dance with the cold breeze and almost imperceptibly inhaled it.

“You’re probably tired of me”, she suddenly said.

Edvin didn’t say anything and threw the match on the cold ground with a bitter smile.

“Your eyes… they’re not quite blue are they?”, he asked avoiding to answer to what she had just said.

She turned to look at him. The only source of light being the streetlight down the street, she could only make out his silhouette.

“It’s just that, at the party, they seemed a little lighter”, he added, his voice cracking with emotion, justifying the question he had just asked.

She remembered the party. She was haunted by the smell of beer in her nostrils, by how his sweater brushed against her chin, by the foggy music’s unclear words that seeped into her skin and mind…

“No, they’re blue”, she answered, as she got up and walked away into the night.

© Margaux Emmanuel

coal

He had been working in the mines for the past three months and he was beginning to cough like the others did.

A crooked picture ornamented the otherwise bare wall. That and the piano were his only valuable possessions. He would come back home every night and see both of them, one hanging a little too much on the left, one yawning with some of its off-tune teeth missing.  There used to be a midsize mirror on the floor, its back against the wall, but as the weeks passed, as his arms and legs grew thin and as his eyes adopted a permanent look of worry, he had gotten rid of it.

Before lighting the kerosene lamp, seconds after entering through the door, he would sit down in front of the piano and would let his weakened, tired, fingers fall onto the keys. He wasn’t a very good player, he would have to pause between some of the notes in order to cough.  He played clumsy nocturnes, only alighted by the moonshine, the grime on his hands making the keys stick to his fingers. It was always quiet, the neighbors were fast asleep and he would be alone with his moon. The tears would trickle onto his cheeks, mixing with the dirt on his face, as he thought of her.

He was scared that he would forget what she looked like. He would slightly tilt his head to the left every day, but the picture was blurry and he was certain that she was prettier in real life. You couldn’t tell by looking at it that she would always say “Keep the change” at the cashier, even though they could’ve used the extra dollar for another day’s worth of soup.

“Keep the change”, he would sometimes whisper. His lips pressing against each other, his tongue touching his palate while he said those three words- it made her seem more real. It was the concrete in the abstract of sentiment, it was feeling her pulse beat against his skin.

The moon seemed far away that night. It looked as if it were crying.

© Margaux Emmanuel

light-headed

I know a place

where the nights are hidden under a veil of tobacco

I know a place 

where lovers wait for the rain to cease, sheltered by a stranger’s open garage

holding stolen beers and each other’s hands 

I know a place

where boys with messy hair sit on the windowsill reading Cocteau 

I know a place

where people fall in love over a cigarette and a line of Tennyson 

It’s a place 

where life isn’t so bad 

© Margaux Emmanuel 

visiting hours are over

a melody from western japan

    sticks to the tears you begin to cry

“visiting hours are over”

    the curtains of your heart close

you sit on the stage

    and fold

origami feelings

    delicate

intricate

    intimate

weak

now

    you can take off your mask

and let yourself hum

    quietly

nervously

    and wait

to hear the same tune

    from the audience’s side

© Margaux Emmanuel

note to self

a glimpse of melancholia

in the lukewarm saké

of a child’s laughter

© Margaux Emmanuel

He stares at the ceiling, a scratched melody bleeding through the thin wall. To his right, the wall was unadorned, in an almost naked, dehumanized manner. A lonely flower was limply standing in a vase, giving him big gloomy eyes, sitting on a small table. The porridge sticks to the spoon that he brings to his mouth. “Mr. Rodler, I will come back to give you your medication in half an hour” The white sheets are stiff against his goosebumped legs, he runs his hand on them, trying to decrease them, pressing his palms against his thighs’ skin. Weekend in a whirlwind weekend in a whirlwind weekend in a whirlwind “Weekend in a whirlwind!” “Mr. Rodler, I beg your pardon?” He bites his lip as the woman takes a last glance at him as she leaves the room. He rubs the back of his left hand against his lips, smudging the porridge bordering his lips onto his hand. He takes, or rather he grips, the spoon and circles it around the ridge of the empty bowl, letting the utensil schizophrenically scratch and screech against the bowl’s metal. He finally takes the bowl, rises it with both hands to his eyes’ level, and looks at his reflection. “Weekend in a whirlwind”. The nurse enters the room once again with a glass of water in her hand and a small tray in the other. “Can he play something else? I don’t enjoy ragtime.” “Mr. Rodler, what are you talking about? No music is playing.” He nervously turns to the left wall as puts his hands onto his ears. The white nurse stares at him with a composed incomprehension. “Why don’t you play some chess? Mr. Saito would, I bet, love to play against you.” “I don’t want him to know what I’m thinking.” “But, Mr. Rodler, it’s just a game.” He vigorously shakes his head as he nervously tugs on the sheets that were tightly held back by the sides of the mattress. “Don’t look at me that way, I beg you.” “Mr. Rodler, do I need to bring you to the upstairs ward?” He stays silent because he knows very well what goes on in “the upstairs ward”. He looks at the nurse and hisses: “Weekend in a whirlwind”.

weekend in a whirlwind | © Margaux Emmanuel

wake up

you write

        arbitrary letters

                           on the lampshade dust

a game

        of mental scrabble,

modernity’s

           aphasia

the light turns on

v

u

  l

   n

     e

       r

        a

          b

            l

              e

you are in bed

writing

          what you think,

letting your skin

                  nervously flirt

                                      with unfamiliar sheets,

letting your pen 

                      nervously flirt

                                       with innocent paper,

meeting

            your pale lover’s

                                weak eyes

                                            for the first time:

we all need

           to meet

                   ourselves.

© Margaux Emmanuel

It’s 12 am and teenagers are sitting down, cross-legged, in a fast-food’s parking lot, some loosely holding a crestfallen cigarette in their right hands, its embers lightly glowing in the darkness, some staring at the cars passing by. They’re playing some obscure artist’s b-sides on a beat down stereo that they all seem to be sitting around. “I’m going inside; so fucking cold out here. You guys want anything to eat? Daniel gave me a coupon for their sodas”, says a boy with piercing grey eyes as he rouses himself, long dyed-black hair peaking out from his over-sized sweatshirt’s hood. “I think we’re good”, replies a red-haired girl, almost mechanically, almost as if she is somehow not allowed to want anything, as she lies back and stares into the starless sky with an empty expression. Another girl in the group, chattering teeth and hugging her knees that she has covered with her large green knitted sweater, is aligning dominos on the smooth cement. “What are you doing?”, asks a boy, his veins visibly snaking under his pale skin and his eyes hidden behind strands of brown curls. “This…is us”, she answers while pushing the first domino and watching them fall, one by one onto one another until the very last one drops down and they are all lying there, inanimate, almost breathless. “The fuck are you rambling on about”, he sharply rejoins. “She’s saying that if it weren’t for Lawrence we wouldn’t be in this shithole”, suddenly says the red-haired girl, a little too loudly, as she sits up to face the other members of the group. “Shut your trap”, whispers the boy in a foggy breath as he nervously turns his head to make sure that Lawrence isn’t in sight. “Don’t you tell me that it’s not true, Anzu will tell you the same”, she continues but now in a lower voice and slightly turning herself towards Anzu, awaiting a response while bitterly putting out her cigarette against the asphalt. “Kat’s right…”, says Anzu under her breath with composure. The boy doesn’t say anything, perhaps because he knew that his friends were right but it hurt too much to acknowledge it. He moves the hair that was covering his eyes and places them behind his ear, revealing mellow cedar eyes that betray his cold demeanor. He peers at the dominos, almost frightened by them. Suddenly, he reaches towards the stereo and turns it off in the middle of “hear what I say and tell me if you still-”. Katherine and Anzu look at him, gaping. “Let’s go”, he says as he gets up and grabs the stereo. The girls remain where they are, puzzled. “Ernest, are you fucking out of your mind? We’re in the middle of nowhere and Lawrence has the car keys”, says Katherine with an anxious chuckle. Ernest begins to make his way across the parking lot, holding the stereo in one hand and putting his other hand into his hoodie’s pocket, ignoring Katherine’s indignant remark. “Ernest!”, screams Katherine as the washed-out boy’s figure progressively blends into the dark horizon. Anzu calmly lights a cigarette as Katherine arises and begins to desperately run after him. “What’s going on?”, says a voice from behind. Anzu turns around and sees Lawrence, insouciantly biting into a hamburger that he holds with his two hands, ketchup dripping onto them. “You really don’t understand, do you?”, she mutters into her green sweater as she watches Katherine and Anzu from afar. “Anzu, what are they-“ “Lawrence, it’s freezing, we’re far from home and we haven’t slept in days, this had to happen at some point.” “You can’t possibly think that this is all my fault!” “That’s not what I said.” “But you seem to think so.” Anzu doesn’t dare to look at Lawrence, maybe because the way that he would look at her would bring back more painful memories. She sniffles. “Are you crying?” “No, I’m just fucking cold”, she says as she rubs her sleeve against her teary eyes, gets up, and leaves Lawrence alone in the icy parking lot. He looks at the dominos laying on the floor and then, almost as a reflex, bends down and grabs them. As he turns the hard rectangles in his hands, he thinks  to himself that nothing can be done.

dominos | © Margaux Emmanuel 

Ton reflet dans les douces vagues scintille, teinté par la couleur de l’horizon froissé. Une lettre violacée se repose sur le ventre bombé, montant, descendant, de l’océan somnolant. Tu la suis des yeux, te demandant quand est-ce l’océan l’avalera, quand est-ce les mots fondront dans la marée. Tu te dis que peut-être la douleur partira elle aussi. Tu regardes de loin la mer tourmentée, les vagues se cassant sur l’horizon, un mirage lointain, et tu tiens une photo, couverte par la peinture jaune du temps, dans ta main droite. Le vent enlace ses bras frais autour de toi. Tu as voulu garder tes chaussures même si l’eau vient jusqu’à tes genoux, ton pantalon colle à tes mollets. Tu ne sens plus rien ; tes lunettes, dont les branches te serrent un peu trop aujourd’hui, retiennent tes larmes. Tu jettes un coup d’œil vers la photo ; il est là, assis, fumant une cigarette entouré par des cyprès inclinés. Il finit un vers d’occasion qu’il t’offrira plus tard. « Je trouve que c’est dommage qu’ils aient déterré l’abricotier quand ils ont construit la résidence, il te dit. - Mais sans la résidence, tu n’aurais jamais rencontré Agathe  - Ah, mais le bonheur ne serait pas le bonheur s’il n’était pas accompagné d’une pointe de tristesse. » Il tenait beaucoup à ses aphorismes. L’odeur marin légèrement salée, légèrement amer, te réveille. Tout à coup, tu te laisses tomber en arrière dans l’eau et la photographie s’échappe de tes mains. Les étoiles commencent à s’allumer; il était grand temps.

l’ombre mouillée d’un voyageur, une impression | © Margaux Emmanuel

The way your eyes would bite my neck during the cigarette break when there was nothing between us and the moon except for the smell of stale tobacco.

© Margaux Emmanuel 

haiku

eyes of dented ink; 

summer liquor store color 

crawl into this bed 

© Margaux Emmanuel

the drinks are on me

Past midnight, at a rusty bar, a young man conversing the outcome of a wrestling match. Quite charming, really: three shirt buttons undone, smooth grin of “the drinks are on me”. I heard the conversation make some turns, some more abrupt than others. The more drinks hit the counter, the more his words left tire tracks. He was soon boasting his fine palate for Japanese whiskey and saying “I saw scenery of the sort in Kyoto back in 2004”, “Hey Jim, here’s a quarter, go play me a song on the jukebox will ya”. 

He was in the booth in front of me, but I couldn’t see his face; I only caught a glimpse of his slicked-back brown hair. Maybe I had one or two, two or three drinks myself. Maybe it was a little too dark. I didn’t usually go to bars back then. 

“Wait, play that again, I’ve heard the tune before, just don’t quite remember from where”. 

A waitress, still bearing the traits of adolescence but old enough to look at you straight in the eye, came around. 

“Most people call me Connor. But you don’t look like ‘most people’. So call me whatever you want, it’ll do.” 

Connor. The way he pronounced his name, revealing his Boston accent, still rings in my ears. I still mouth it to this very day, letting my jaw slightly drop and my tongue press against the back of my lower teeth, just to make me remember that, despite the drunken haze the moment was soaked in, it was not a dream. It was something concrete in the stupor of it all. 

Soon enough, they were all loudly singing, their arms enlaced around their necks, swaying back and forth, tears swelling in their eyes. I watched, amused, possibly sipping the foam of yet another beer. 

And that’s when everything started to slow down. I laid my head against the wooden panel on my left side and let my heavy eyelids close. 

“We’re closing”; I was awoken, dazed, from the deep trance of a dreamless sleep. 

The bar was empty: only the manager, a heavily-built middle-aged man with tattoos covering his neck was standing right in front of me, slightly frowning. 

I rose from my seat, silent from the grogginess. As I was about to make my way out of the booth, I noticed a piece of paper, on the table, in the corner of my eye. Unsure if it was mine or not, I grabbed it and shoved it in my back pocket. 

I took the bus home but got off one stop too early. I stumbled my way through the streets, occasionally letting out a chuckle for no particular reason. The streets were bare; the town was dead. Ten minutes later, after fumbling with the keys and crawling in the stairs, I fell, fully clothed, onto my bed and fell back asleep.  

It was 4 o’clock in the afternoon, I was sitting down, my hand laying on the countertop, watching the coffee slowly drip, every drop tolling in my head. The piece of paper that I had taken the night before was in my right hand; it was a phone number. 

7911-75246 written in slanted black ink.

I grabbed my phone, turning it in my right hand indecisively. A few minutes later, the number was dialled; here we go again.

© Margaux Emmanuel

Writerscreed Discovery of June 2018

Writerscreed has been digging through the Tumblr Writing Community to find more writers to feature on our blog. Here are the talented writers we have found during June who deserve more attention! Check them out and give them a follow, and as usual, Keep writing everyone! We cannot wait to see who will make the list in July.

@armchairpoet28

@oscarsins

@thepyschoticgirlsworld

@theinscrutableescapee

@rehnwriter

@my-dragoneyes

@insteadofthis

@annytyx

@beerkatt

@shoolster

@domesticatedwanderer 

@dreamingonclouds

@poemsmostly

@driftwards

@aviatowl

@bhumikasingh

@dreamingonclouds

@cocoagoddess331

@poetrybybee

@writingioana2003

@shebleedsblueink

@misanthrofray

@ughizi

@agenderturtle

She rubbed her hand against her nose, smudging the blood still trickling out of her nostrils onto her index finger and cupid’s bow. She could still feel the outline of his knuckles pressing against her gum. They had left a fresh bruise on her lower cheek and her lip plump in its swollenness. Stiff from pain, she pressed her still moist palms, striped pink from the tight hand wraps, onto the parking lot concrete with a slight wince and attempted to straighten her back. She grabbed the icepack that she had angrily thrown to the floor, tears dripping out of its side from a rip in the blood-stained plastic, and despite the layer of sticky dirt thinly covering it, carelessly slapped it onto her face, her hunger for the cold solace betraying the hot rancour in her eyes. “All I did was make a fool of myself”, she thought as her eyes now woefully crawled towards the gloves, peaking out of a black-cloth gym bag, the ensanguined white flag shining from the timid light of a nearby lamppost. She laid her right hand onto her stomach, slightly discerning her drained muscles through the sticky shirt. Not a soul was in sight at this hour. She even leaned her ear onto the cement, awaiting the low grumble of some distant car, only to be confronted with a bitter silence. She was eventually lying on her side in the middle of the empty parking lot, the breeze leaving a cool impression on her humid hair, as her fingers danced, almost detached from her body, on a worn white line that had been painted onto the cement long ago. The blood from her nose slowed to a sideward drip. Her mind was elsewhere; she wallowed in the mud of her thoughts as she attempted to recall the intricacies of his face, a temptation that she could not resist. When she began to remember the rugged slit in his eyebrow and the grin of his pale green eyes, a violent nausea threatened her throat. She was on her knees, her arms pressed against the cold ground as she dryly coughed. “I need to get up”, she muttered to herself. She pushed herself up with the remaining strength in her muscles and arose with a tired lurch. She noticed a gas station sign, blinking red, bleeding into the blurred serenity of the night, floating in the darkness. She grabbed her bag and her leather gloves and, puffing her chest out, made her way into the moonless night.

fight | © Margaux Emmanuel

thirty percent off

You should go inside

You should see all the pretty girls

You should’ve seen this one, oh boy her-

No thanks,

I just came here for the view

but the percent

wept

sang

in his smile

and betrayed

the slang and meth

hanging in his mouth

the poor lighting

the off-key voice crack karaoke

the interrupted sentences.

Quarter to three am

unfamiliar sheets

biting

married men’s skin

dampened by the nightlight

the droopy eyes

hell’s sigh

the sunlight inching

through the curtains

counter-clockwise

pushed

through the streets

of dawn

neon shards

of billboards

promoting their lives

unnamed bodies

still warm

still moaning

by their side

an ache

an itch

in their thighs

they stain

the pavement

with their silent cries

Is this what it’s like

to be dead,

or are we alive?

hitches a ride

into their minds

they still have

pictures of their kids

in their wallets

along with a string

of unattached numbers

for the occasional hunger

oh, no

they were

thirty percent off

I would’ve never

sunbaked hearts

fall apart

a la carte

but oh,

it doesn’t matter

as long as it stays

in the dark.

© Margaux Emmanuel

“What do they call you?” He let the crickets answer for him, continuing to stare into the bonfire crackling in front of them, his arms extended perpendicularly against his thighs, palms pressing against the burnt grass, and puffing out his grimy bare chest. His cornflower eyes, where orange flames flickered in the night, were framed by his short brown hair and a finely chiseled nose. His thin lips rarely moved and if they did, they only trembled. Suddenly, he turned to his side, his skin rustling against the rigid grass, and grabbed a light green soda can out of a wooden crate. He handed it to her, letting his eyes meet hers for the first time. “Thank you”, she whispered with a small smile. She had been eyeing the sodas for the entire time, longing for the sweet liquid to trickle down her throat cracked with thirst. She lifted the soda tab and let it hiss. As she passed the can to her right hand, she noticed that red ink was smeared on her left hand. She looked at the side of the can and noticed the familiar red stamp. “So you were in the hangar?” He raised his glance back towards her and let his head settle at her level before giving a small nod. “You could’ve died”, she said. His gaze was once again lost in the fire. As she lifted her chin towards the dark sky to let the prickly drink pour into her throat in one longing gulp, she heard, in a velvet voice splintered with sadness: “And many of us did”. Her neck went erect in surprise, leaving some clumsy soda trickling down her chin. She gaped at him, astonished. Pushing against the ground with fatigue, he got up with a slight stagger. “We should get going, the sun will be up in a couple of hours”, he said, his eyes looking towards the east. “Ye-yes, you’re right”, she answered, her drowsy mind awakened by all the questions she wanted to ask him. His skinny arms lifted the two crates of provisions, making him wince in pain. “Do you need help with that?” He replied with a scowl, making her blush. “Let us go” They left the flames weaken. The morning sun would shine onto the ashes of the night that had reigned beforehand, and they would be gone.

of war and silence | © Margaux Emmanuel

She attentively watched the two star-crossed smoke rings being teared apart, meeting the window, gnawing at the glass skin as she let an uneasy silence buzz in her ears.

“Kid, we need to talk”, he finally said, resting his hand on her knee.

Come to think of it, it wasn’t silent; there was a record turning a couple of feet behind her.

“I need a God to pray to, maybe someone like you”, it sang in a jazzy elevator melody. And the fan was blowing cool air into her hair, making a strand of dirty blonde curls uncomfortably press against her left eyelid.

She looked up at him with knitted brows, making the scar above her eyebrow slightly bulge. He moved his hand away from her knee, got up, and took another long, meditative, inhale from his cigarette as he passed his hand through his sticky brown hair that greasily fell onto his shoulders.

“You still have the Volvo”, she said in an almost inaudible small voice.

He turned his back towards her and pressed his hands up onto the window sill, bending his brown-suit body in two, making his purple striped tie loosely flail.

“You seriously think that the P1800 can get us through this? What did they teach you down in the South?”

Not much, she thought. She couldn’t see his face but she could see the gray smoke bubbling around his head.

“You see over there?”, he said standing upright, one hand clenched to his right suspender spanning across his chest, the other pointed towards a distant building.

She tilted her head towards the left.

“That’s the Garter Movie Theater”.

“Is it really that difficult to be called ‘sir’?”, he retorted, turning his body towards her and bringing his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose to be able to meet her eyes.

He has green eyes, she noted.

“That’s the Garter Movie Theater, sir”, she said, correcting herself, too weak to fight back like she would have a few days back. 

“That’s right. We should go tonight”, he responded, in a testing manner, now resting his back against the window, looking straight into her eyes, his right leg rigidly laying on his left leg.

She felt an alarming tension in her chest. He couldn’t possibly be serious, she told herself.

“Sir, I don’t know if that’s a good ide-“

“Why, it would be a… magnificent idea”, he said in a decrescendo whisper enlacing his arms around her, the strong smell of smoke filling her nostrils.

“Just you and I…”, he hissed into her ear.

He broke off with a malevolent laugh and made his way towards the door. She rubbed her nose against her sweatshirt, hoping that the acrid smell would wear off.  

He opened the door and gestured towards the green-carpeted hallway.

“After you”, he said with a vicious smile.

The devil’s playground, that’s what his mind is, she thought.

She stepped outside the room, a tingle of fear trickling down her spine.

© Margaux Emmanuel

There was this boy, checkered Vans and we played charades in the back of the bus sixteen we sometimes we would always miss it and we would walk into the ring  and he would eat his vanilla ice-cream and our eyes would meet in full contact but I would fight in southpaw; our moves were mirrored but we never managed never dared to really hit.  His sticky chocolate eyes melted onto my black leather gloves and our words took our hearts into a headlock, silently skimming the sides  of every post of his sweet Cupid’s bow with bare knuckles,  untied shoes. One day he just wasn't at the bus stop I waited and waited he called  and said "I took bus fourteen" but I loved him too much and he didn't love me  enough  to sucker punch.

disqualified | © Margaux Emmanuel