Waterfalls Are Pretty

Waterfalls are pretty.

 If that’s the last sight you see before you die, at least it’s pretty.

 Pretty like a grenade as it explodes and ruins the night sky–splaying loose limbs and veins over the city. Pretty like an overfilled tomb, stuffed of disintegrating corpses and rotting flesh– the kind that drips off the bodies due to a leak in the pipes above creating water damage. Pretty like road kill: the sweet, sweet sight of a mangled Pegasus. I mean, yeah, maybe it was the last one in the world and it was “beautiful” but it’s pretty with the tire tracks and dirt over its crippled wings. Waterfalls are pretty; a pretty deep blue with stands of moss in it that may or may not look like fish heads, like an air bag suffocating you, forcing your eyes to go wide your lungs to lay empty. Waterfalls are pretty.

            But you want to know what’s beautiful? Listening to the sound of some poor, innocent, nonchalant, 3 year-old scream at the top of their lungs just because they can. The way the shriek runs through you, up your spine, and makes you shiver while wanting a knife to stab through your cranium and suddenly become possessed. Beautiful is nails on a chalkboard; squeaking, scraping, slowly . . . slowly sliding down, like metal scraping metal as sparks fly, so that the sound makes your mind, your fingernails, and your stomach, hurt. Beautiful is the sound of that crying Pegasus as it slowly dies from the collision with your car; lying on the ground and coughing up undead, baby Tasmanian devils which are screaming that they will kill you between vomiting up human blood. Beautiful is that uprooting, murder sound of the sonar piercing through your brain; turning it into a sweet, sweet pile of mashed potato mush in a matter of seconds while having heard, minutes before that, your ex fucking your now ex-best friend while your ex enjoys it more than they ever did with you. That, is beautiful.

            And this beauty of the beautiful is what has driven you to this waterfall.

            And waterfalls are pretty.

Lexa’s Guide to the End of Life

        This is the end of your life. Considering that it’s the end of your life, you're probably between 80 and 200,000 years old. Or you're a 13 year old girl who is reading this through her tears over her latest “world-shattering break-up” and “no one to understand her”. Assuming that you're the first option, please take the time to ease into this simple guide on the end of life.

1. You can do anything you want.

           Let’s face the facts: you're old. Probably. Maybe you've been waiting for this moment your whole life because you finally can show the world that you have no shame and you hate wearing pants and just because it is the end of your life, they might understand. Maybe you've been dreading it, and you find yourself wishing more and more that you were young again. Or maybe you're still a 13 year old reading this to take your mind off your "problems".

 Anyway, when you reach a certain point in your life, the end of it, you can do anything because when else are you going to do it if you haven’t already? You can  decide not to wear pants, you can buy as many bottles of toothpaste as you want to use as an alternative to pepper spray, make jams with marijuana and name them in Latin or pretend to worship Satan. (Or actually worship Satan, if you've wanted to try it your whole life.)

2. You may experience difficulty moving, breathing, talking, remembering etc. 

          This isn't really a perk of being old or the end of life, but hey, at least you’re not a 13 year old girl reading articles about the end of life when you probably have between 30 and 4,000 years left who wears stiletto heels and spells like an illiterate. But, maybe you experience some of the problems mentioned above, and maybe just your peers experience it. Either way, take it as an excuse to ride around in fancy moving chairs and terrorize young people. Terrorizing young people is fun, even if you only remember it for three seconds. You can finally ignore/be an awful human being to that one person that has constantly been around your whole life (or nine months after that condom broke) who has always been a bit of a jerk. You can change the subject of the conversation when they talk to you by pretending you don’t hear a thing they’re saying. Like what if someone won’t shut up about politics when all you want to talk about it Godzilla, just loudly mention Godzilla while cupping your ear.

3. Terrorize young people for fun and eat anything you want.

    Okay, the last part is not for everyone, (but for that 13 year old; comfort food is great for those “issues”) but even as a young person, terrorizing my peers is hilarious. Seriously, some of us are awful and isn't it always amazing and fun when those awful people are scared of an old lady or man wearing a penguin suit in a Segway happily singing a mix of modern and older pop songs, occasionally chanting Latin, chasing them through Wal-Mart? And if you really want to scare them, throw soft items like bread and mention something like 50 Shades of Grey and how much you hated the ending or complain about how you can’t eat solid food anymore.

4. You can set up things like treasure hunts to make your relatives, friends, neighbors, and/or the police find things you've left behind. 

          Things like your retirement money or your porn collection. The disadvantage of this is, assuming you set it up for after you have died, you won’t get to see anyone’s reactions (like the shriek of “OMG” from that 13 year old) when they find what’s underneath the “X” marking the spot or to the other surprises you have planned along the way. You can set up surprises like a sudden trigger that sets off heavy metal (or Justin Bieber, which ever you think will be scarier) that continually plays throughout the duration of the treasure hunt. Or you could go for stuffing your fridge full of Skittles (or cocaine) that spills out at them when they open the door. Of course, you could also set a treasure hunt up before you die and watch through a webcam or from the rooftop of the house next door.

5. You have been alive for this long. 
           Congratulate yourself. You can take this opportunity to do things you've never done before and finally finish your bucket list. Or start a bucket list, if you've never had one before. You can do things like skydiving, driving 100 miles per hour in an abandoned area smoking marijuana, bungee jumping, or streaking. (Maybe not the last one if you live near sensitive people.) Maybe if you’re 13 you should try this too, starting with realizing it’s not the end of your life. Really, why are you still reading this?

6. People will take you seriously. 
          Usually. Now that it’s the end of life, you can say things like “When I was a boy/girl . . .” and “Back in my day . . .” and tell someone a long lost story you've been meaning to tell for 77 years. Like the one time you ran over a police officer to get out of a ticket. Or when you got your best friends sister pregnant and how you now have a secret child. Anyway, now is your chance to tell some kid you've “mistaken” as your grandson your favorite long, plot-twisting, and unwritten (possible plagiarized), science fiction novel involving aliens and space monkey’s. And if you happen to be the “mistaken” or biological grandchild of someone telling you a story, you probably did something, or will do something, to deserve it.

*Not to be taken seriously. I am not responsible for any injuries, deaths or legal issues that arise during any participation of this guide.

I Think I Fell In Love With Her The Minute She Called Me "Peasant"

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

Snowflakes fell on Fauve’s face. She pulled me along, her freezing hand stealing any trace of heat from mine. I didn’t mind and followed her through the snow, which was coming down harder each second. Our walk ended with a hard cave floor underneath my feet and stone over my head. Fauve turned back to me and laughed, pulling me farther inside.

Both of us crept forward and stopped when we saw the fire in the middle of the cave. Dragon backs were arched around it, their voices whispering, careful not to let them echo outside if Fauve and I should hear. We weren’t supposed to be here, in the sacred cave, even if one of us could speak dragon. Fauve cocked her head to the side, trying to lean in and listen . I jerked my head up, pretending to have heard something she didn’t. Fauve looked at me, suddenly nervous. I pulled her around the cave wall and back to the entrance silently, still pretending that the dragon we had rescued had sensed us. I knew I couldn’t keep pretending, though, ; Fauve knew things like that.

“Why did you–”

I just smiled down at her and leaned in closer, about to kiss her, when a shadow crossed before us. It was a human shadow. I looked up, pulling Fauve into me, and waited as the shadow took a step inside the cave. I froze, feeling as cold as Fauve’s hands had been. My brother stood in front of us, a half smile on his face and a chained dragon behind him. I could feel Fauve’s heartbeat speed up and heard her scream, summoning a flap of wings from behind us, when the dragon behind my brother reached out a claw and slashed through me.

“Peasant?” Fauve’s voice found my consciousness and ripped me out of the nightmare. “Skander?” I sighed with relief and opened my eyes to find her leaning over me, staring at my face. “Skander, what happened?” She looked into my eyes, concerned. “You were crying in your sleep again, and I hate it when you cry in your sleep. I also hate it when you steal the blanket.” That made two of us. She was wrapped up in the blanket I had been sharing with her; I was freezing.

“Can I have the blanket back?” I reached towards it, and she gently swatted my hand away.

“What happened?” She looked at me inquiringly. I sat up and told her, hearing an unusual silence from her compared to the last few times I had told her my dreams.

“Fauve?” I watched her carefully. I wasn’t sure she had ever been this quiet. She even talked in her sleep. It had been two weeks since I met her, and saved a dragon with her. A dragon that we were now camped out with in the woods. We were on a mission to find the Circle of Four—the four most powerful dragons in Everest. They had been searching for a Dragon Speaker for years, and I happened to be one.

“Fauve?” I asked again. She looked up from the snow and scooted next to me, sharing the blanket.

“Your brother knows you can speak,” she said. “When I was in the castle, Larissa would sometimes ask him if he had found anyone to talk to the dragon yet; he always said no. But you can, and you’re his brother.” Fauve looked down at the snow again. “Skander, Larissa’s going to send him after you. She wants a Dragon Speaker, and now that we’ve set the dragon free, she knows one of us can do it. And it’s certainly not me.” She was staring at me with her barely blue eyes.

“What?” I stared right back at her.

“Peasant, you know you can kiss me if you want to, right?” She smiled, and I opened my mouth when someone else spoke.

“I told you two to be up by sunrise. The sun comes in four hours.” The dragon’s voice circled around us, and I looked to his spot a few feet from us, by a circle of trees.

“What do you care? You’re nocturnal,” Fauve retorted, looking at the dragon. He had spoken slowly and carefully, so his was one of the few times she had understood what he said. It didn’t change the fact that she was scared to speak to him; I could tell by the way she was now gripping my hand with her nails.

“Yes, and you two are not. But since you’re up anyway, I suppose we should move on. The Circle is waiting.”

“How much farther is it?” I asked, standing up with Fauve and walking to his back.

“We should get there by nightfall.” The dragon eyed us as we climbed on his back. I felt Fauve’s arms around me as the dragon started flying. The air was bitterly cold, and her hands weren’t doing much to help. Neither was the fact that she once again had the blanket tightly wrapped around herself.

“Have you told her you love her yet?” the dragon asked me, speaking faster now.

“What do you think?” I told him, glad that the dragon was the one animal Fauve couldn’t speak fluently with.

“What are you waiting for?” The dragon had a trace of laughter in his voice.

“Time. I can’t just tell her I love her now.” And she might think I was just trying to get the blanket. Why were her hands so cold? I shivered and felt Fauve lean against me, resting her head on my shoulder.

“Your ever-so-painful love story is killing me to watch, Dragon Speaker.” The dragon flew higher and then slowly dipped low. Fauve made a small sound in protest and hugged me tighter. “Aren’t you going to say something about my flying for her?”

“Yes, you are an awful flier who shouldn’t get into other people’s love lives.” I looked back at Fauve, who wasn’t paying any attention to our conversation. She reached up and moved my hair from where it was falling into my eye. I shook my hair back into place and shivered when she purposely rested her frozen hand on my neck. She smiled and leaned back on my shoulder.

“And you,” the dragon responded, “are a Dragon Speaker who might not have all the time in the world to actually get a love life.” 

The Screaming

I hear them screaming.

I hear them screaming, but I can't help them. Their fingers fall through mine, and I'm not sure if it was me who let go first or just the sweat on their palms. I hear them screaming, I do, and I want to help them because I can hear every ounce of pain and I can feel so much of it, but I can't help them. I hear them screaming in terror and loneliness and sadness ... I hear them screaming and sometimes I wonder if it’s just me.

I've been told I scream loud enough to deafen ears, and I wonder, if that's true, then why has no one ever had the nerve to show up? Do I scream so loud I kill them? Paralyze them? Scare them? Or is everyone just walking around with earplugs? Are they listening to the sound of their own scream and, like me, think they’re too far gone to help anyone?

These thoughts are my reality and my reality has a piercing vibrato. I write words down on the wall when I can, and I wonder if anyone sees the letters in white sidewalk chalk. Do they see the spray-painted picture of the destruction in my brain?

I wish I could breathe. I wish that the happy world above me was listening or looking down to see that there are chains around my ankles, my wrists, that don't let me swim. I wonder if these chains were gone, would I sink? Would I float up to the surface? I know sure as fuck that I wouldn’t be able to swim. I'm not even sure how I'm still alive except that maybe it has to do with the fact that I don't want to die.

People don't notice it; they might see me in the water and nod, thinking that I'm just down here for fun. They might flash a smile, and I can always tell when it's fake. They might float with their chains next to me and speak, saying meaningless words while trying to pull down their sleeves. It's no use; I can see the scars that the rest can't because while they might think it’s simple, that it's easy to see, no one seems to notice unless they have them too.

My eyes flood with tears that mix into the water. When it rains it feels like I'm finally not the only one crying because the sky is crying too. And my arms, my legs, my hips, they bleed out into the water and it mixes with the tears and it tastes like fire and smells like the cold. The kind that is set on trying to kill you. Does it matter that I'm underwater to my ears? My eyes? I can hear the screaming and I need a minor release, an escape. One that wraps arms around me through voices, or lyrics, or words or simply beautiful sketches. One that sends me to the surface, for a second; it's one that makes the chains looser before I plunge back in, because I was never really out in the first place.

I scream and I hear them screaming with me. I want to help them, but I can't because I can't help myself. I hear them screaming and if I could, I promise I would set them all free. I hear them screaming and I know it's too much to bear; the chains tie us to the bottom, but the truth is, we're not all still here.

Some cut themselves loose and fall under the waves where they can't see or hear the surface because the two don't exist together anymore. Some float up and learn how to swim. Some of them dive back in and unchain The Screaming. Some of us stay chained, screaming, caught between trying to learn to swim again and letting the empty nothingness sink inside instead.

I hear them screaming.

I hear them screaming, and I wish I could help them.