The vanity mirror adjacent from the twin bed had a new fingerprint smudged on its surface. Admiring each circle that made up the unique print of her own fingers she would smudge them away. Her reflection became a haze in the dirty mirror. She smiled at her accomplishment and moved from her little bedroom into the living room.
A large mustard yellow chair sat looking out across the sea of overgrown alfalfa fields that surrounded the small farm house. She eagerly went to the chair and reached into a wicker basket to find a new ball of yarn waiting to be unraveled and knit into a new scarf or hat. Things like this happen around the dilapidated farm house. She would eat three eggs in the morning and by the next day they would be replaced. Regardless of the odd things that happened around the house she never questioned why they happened or how.
There was never any wondering of where she came from or who she was because she had never known that anything beyond her own self had ever existed. Breezes of cool air that stroked the dry alfalfa and tough weeds were a constant reoccurrence, just like how the big yellow sun rose from the ground in the morning and buried itself across the horizon at night. These constants were what she knew and believed in and never questioned their actions or where they had come from. The little house and its wonders were as much a part of her as her fingers and toes.
As she pearled and knit she began to fight the heaviness of her eyelids and decided to sit out on the porch swing and soak in the high noon sun. The screen door closed behind her with a thud and a rusted squeak as the springs pulled the door back into place. Reaching down she plucked a tuft of yellow foxtail that poked its head through the railing of the porch. She began to rub each seed on its stem as she laid herself down in the chipped white swing bench. It was hot out and the drying alfalfa only made the temperature rise. She did not care either way. The dander of the alfalfa was the sweetest scent in this small world that she found herself in.
The swing swung back and forth as she dangled her foot and she propelled herself into a warm daze. Each creak of the swing hinges became a lullaby and not soon after she fell asleep. Dreams never came to her, only the sweet whispers of another’s voice. This voice however only happened occasionally and she often wondered what it could be. When deeply sleeping in her single bed under her white blanket did the voice speak.
“Girl” the voice would say. “Girl” the voice would say again. “GIRL!” her eyes would burst open and with frantic thoughts and she would find no one in the room.
As she rocked back and forth on the swing in her light slumber the voice paid her a visit.
“Girl” the voice said. Immediately knowing the unusualness of the voices coming to her during the day she sat up, head swiveling in every direction, her hair flying around her face. Out of the corner of her eye deep shadows slithered off the porch and around to the side of the house. Pure adrenaline had stricken her and as she jumped into the ocean of thistle and alfalfa to find that no one had appeared around the side of the house. Hoisting herself over the rail she fell back unto the porch and ran inside.
Methodically pulling each thistle spear head out of her thin brown socks had helped to calm her frantic thoughts. She decided while sitting on the round rope woven rug in her living room that she had nothing to fear of the voice and that although the shadow behind the coo-coo clock in the corner of the room kept reaching towards the ceiling and back down towards the coo-coo clock again posed no real threat.
Giving back the pile of thistles from her socks to the field of weeds and alfalfa she ventured back inside the house seeking out a cheese sandwich. Pulling out two slices of bread from the bread box by the sink she added the mayonnaise and cheese. She sat down at the kitchen table that never seemed to be able to stand on all four legs no matter how many pieces of folded up paper she put under the peg leg. She reached for her sandwich and noticed that a fly made its way to the edge of her plate. Its long sucker of a mouth sampled what it could from the rim of the plate as it tried to sneak closer to the cheese sandwich. Its wings would buzz periodically as if it had found an acceptable taste.
“Girl” it would buzz. “Girl” it would buzz again. “GIRL!” it buzzed one last time before she shoved the plate away sending the fly fleeing.
Daylight began to run out as she found herself back in the chair watching the sun disappear. She had finished her knitted scarf and even though there was no chill in the air she had wound it around her neck as if it were meant to support the weight of her head as she slumped in the chair. As her eyes burned into the last moments of the sun there it was, the shoulder of a shadow slipping across the bottom of the picture window. This was not like the shadow that had been dancing behind the coo-coo clock all day. This shadow seemed to want to escape her attention.
Throwing the window open wide she dove into the alfalfa and weeds that tightly hugged the weathered wood of the house once more. Goat heads lanced the bottom of her feet as she ran around each corner of the house. Nothing was found.
“My dear,” said a voice from behind her. Spinning in a fury there was no one in sight.
“My dear, here I am. Where are you?”
“I am right here. Where are you?” she said. Another broad mass lurked back around the corner to the front of the house. Could there be another person here? The thought of it had her mind firing on all pistons. She shuffled through the tall overgrowth as fast as she could and by the time she was climbing over the railing of the porch nothing was to be found. Walking back into the darkness of the house she went about turning on the lights and lamps and found that all the shadows in the house began to dance. They sprang from the empty vase to the back of the chair and then up across the ceiling. They even reached out and touched her toes.
“I will not dance with you!” she said and all the shadows shrank back to their rightful places as if frightened by her shrieks. She ripped off her now torn socks and threw them at the slinking shadows. Escaping to the kitchen she looked up towards the window above the sink there it was, unmoving; staring. With a wild shriek she smacked the window with the palms of her hand and within a gust of wind the figure vanished. Terror struck and she ran.
Hiding under the white sheets of her small bed she could not block out the whispering any longer.
“Darling, where are you? Why are you not here girl?” it said. “Is it because you do not exist?” She did not understand what it was asking. How could she not exist? She felt the wind and the warm sun, she felt pain when she stubbed her toe or cut her finger with the lid of a can of beans.
“You are nothing girl,” it said. She peaked from under her covers to find the shadows dancing around her once again.
“Stop dancing!” she said but this time they did not listen.
“You are nothing girl,” the voice said. “You have no heart to live. There is no heart within your body or your soul.” What does that mean? She thought with panic. Why is the voice saying these things?
“There is no purpose in your going about,” it said. A clicking began to bounce of the walls of her room. With haste she ran into the living room and where she stepped on the shadows they did not move. They snaked through her toes cold to the touch. She turned on the lights and as the room illuminated so did the mass outside the picture window.
“You!” she said.
“You have no heart to live.” it said, “No heart and no will. You do not exist girl!” The taunting and the dancing went on through the night as she paced through the rooms of the house. The shadows continued to dance and not matter how many times she struck the window the figure did not vanish. An inkling of fear kept her from opening the window.
Collapsing to her knees on the floor she pulled her hair and let out a crude screech until her head split with pain. Charging into the kitchen she seized a steak knife from the cutting drawer and ran out the screen door. She knew that this thing outside her house was the voice and she knew how to end it.
Like a buoy on open water the mass waited far out in front of her. Swimming through cheat grass and alfalfa she heard its words.
“Come and I will show you your worthlessness. I will show you your heartlessness.” the figure said. When it was within arm’s reach she wailed and thrashed about.
“I will show you!” she said. Cutting her face, arms, and legs she only found bone.
“See, you have no heart inside of you.” the voice jeered.
“I will show you!” she cried again. The pain was unbelievable but she knew that somewhere there was this heart that the voice was denying her. Tearing the skin from her chest she felt the pounding and pumping and there she knew was what she was looking for. The shadow figure was trying to stop her she thought, making her eyes shake and her mind feel like it was blowing away. This was her chance to beat it she reassured herself. If she gets the heart she wins and then she will be left alone. Digging furiously through bone and tissue she finally grabbed ahold of her prize.
“See,” she said as she cups the precious organ. The thudding of her heart began to slow and as her breath labored along with the faint beating of the heart she looked up. The figure was gone. Instead she saw a person, a woman that looked just like her dressed in white and running hastily in her direction. Lights were coming on, banishing the darkness of night. She looked down at her hands again and saw nothing but red. The little body part was still clenched in her hand and as it labored to a halt the rest of what was her body came crashing to the white tile floor that she stood on. The figure was gone and so was she.
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Kayla has spent most of her childhood and adolescent years reading every book she could get her hands on. Now in her adult life she is not only trying to read as much as she can, but she is also striving to write stories that are just as fantastic as all of the books she read.
