Justice for Her

This is an idea that slammed into me. My Muse WOULD NOT LET IT GO. I'm not sure where it's heading, or even if I want to know. But until that Muse cheers up, please forgive my dark spills.

Rosalie Dunlins smiled in awe at the world that surrounded her. No, not surrounded, that was not quite the feeling of things because with every beat of her heart she could feel an echoing pulse in the glass green grass that tickled her pale bare feet. The wind moved when she breathed in a sweet breeze that caressed her, the sun beamed into her skin and was warmed by her soul, and the tinkling of some near by water was the perfect twin to her joyous laughter; she was not visiting this place, she was THIS place! Rosie had never felt as though she belonged anywhere, so this feeling as if she were created of something so beautiful, or vice versa, overwhelmed her and it started to rain gently as she cried. Rosie brushed back her deep chestnut hair out of muddy green eyes in precise movements and watched as the rain seemed to dance upon the very air before saturating her clothes and shoulder length waves. Rosie, never graceful, danced for the sheer enjoyment of moving causing her to swing her long thin arms and bend her equally thin legs, looking like a weeping willow in a strong wind. She laughed, even as her eyes continued to leak tears of confusion, and smiled as the sun seemed to punch through the clouds at odd times. Rosie skipped and leapt and shimmied over the dewy grass while her toes squished into the muddy ground as she made her way to the rushing water. As soon as she caught sight of the river everything seemed to hold its breath while Rosie gaped in the most unflattering way at the shore line.

It was a river of chocolate.

Rosie blinked then grew angry enough that a bolt of lighting struck a tree some distance behind her. She didn’t want to be dreaming! She wanted this place to exist, to be real! And that couldn’t be possible of there was a river that would make Mr. Wonka’s face as green as his helpers’ hair with envy. The rocks that churned and broke up the deep brown chocolate looked to be made of peppermint, jagged and eroding from the onslaught of the raging candy river. She stared at the chocolate river in a place where the very air echoed her own breath, a place where she not only felt welcomed but expected, a place made of her very deepest dreams and desires of belonging to something. Anything. Of course it was a dream, she thought shaking her head ruefully. Of course no such place could exist.

Abandoning her hurt feelings, Rosie jumped into the river without thought and became slightly concerned when the warm, stickiness came to her knees and started to suck at her legs, nearly dragging her down. She bent at the waist once she had her footing and cupped one hand into the river, smiling at the gummy feeling of the fast drying chocolate seeping through her fingers. She brought her unpainted nails closer to her mouth and lapped at the liquid in her hand like a cat with a bowel of cream only she could taste nothing. Confused, she tilted her make shift cup and poured the chocolate into her waiting mouth which waited for a bit as the chocolate seemed to have been mixed with molasses or honey and moved too low for the impatient girl. Finally a large tear shaped dollop splashed against her tongue and Rosie closed her eyes to savor the melted confection. She scooped more and more, until her belly moaned in appeal. “One more,” she cautioned herself and dug another handful out of the river.

This small collection tasted like nothing she had ever tasted before. All the previous handfuls had been sweet without hurting her jaw and she had been prepared for that sensation to slide against her taste buds, not for them to be assaulted by such a confusing collaboration such as she was drinking down now. It reminded her of sweaty feet and change held in a hand too long, perhaps of pennies in the sneaker of some child that had then shoved the copper coins into her mouth. The little b*****d!

Rosie’s unmarked forehead puckered at that thought. She never said such things, never out loud nor even in the secrets of her mind. Shaking, she wondered who the b*****d could be? Who would she think so badly of? Suddenly, the water churned near her and a face seemed to be molded from the very river its self before floating like a disregarded party mask to bump into her bony knees. Rosie looked down and shrieked as she stared into the hollow face of her sister’s boyfriend, Jacob. He truly deserved the title b*****d, a voice that dripped liquid hate whispered through her mind. The way he beats Annalise, making her tremor with a mere raising of his hairy knuckles. The way Jacob could go so frighteningly still and ask if Annalise would like to go somewhere to talk privately, a place where he could remind her of how things were supposed to be. Annalise would plead silently, fat tears running down her sunken cheeks causing her to look like a weeping corpse that tore chunks out of Rosie’s heart. And Rosie did nothing to help out Annie, nothing at all except for turn her back when her sister wept the bitter, embarrassed tears of a woman choking on the confusion of love. Something inside of he wished she was braver, sterner, more in control of the life that rushed past her and through her as if she were a screen door that offered very little resistance to the mad spring of every thing around her. She would show Jacob that he should never lay another finger on her older sister, not in this life. She wished she could somehow find the strength to fight for her older sister against a man who though loving meant control, and who saw kindness as a weakness he could ill afford.

Rosie only realized that she was fisting her tiny hands when the sting of her nails biting into her palms caused her to hiss in painful frustration. She looked down at the mask of Jacob’s hated handsome face, at his knowing look and those never smiling eyes and something inside her shifted. Rosie felt her body slowly becoming more aware of everything around her in a pace so steady would start to rise from her dripping hair and clothes. Rosie clenched her jaw, making her rather plain face some what beautiful in its fierceness. Her usually slumped freckled shoulders slid back so she stood tall, commanding and in control. Her chin lifted, her chameleon eyes flashed with something to horrifying to simply be called rage, and hands fisted together and were raised far above her head. “DIE! Die a thousand tiny, painful deaths for each tear you made her cry and each time you die, remember that it was I that stood in judgment over you! Die and leave her be! Die and be no more! Die for the sake of all that is green and leafy in this place that is me, die!” Rosalie Dunlins, meek and mousy, screamed in an orgasmic voice as she swung her fisted hands and smashed the chocolate mask of the hated Jacob into dozens of tiny shards. And the pale little sectary laughed with a throat that had never yelled in triumph, but always wanted to. She slammed her giant fist down over and over again, causing the river to splash up at her, coating her in the oddly coppery smelling liquid that was hotter than it had been moments ago. She thrashed and yelled, smashed and yelled in savage joy of someone…someThing finally alive.

Rosie shuddered, blinking up at the white puckered ceiling of her bedroom. What a horrible dream, she thought rolling over to face the window. And so powerful, because she could still smell that oddly sweet, copper smell of the chocolate river. Rosie went to push her bangs out of her eyes and stopped, frozen with her hand held in front of her face. She gaped at it not understanding at all.

Her hand was covered in dried blood.

And somewhere deep inside of her, a triumphant laugh full of dark desires and an endless well of beastly justice cackled at the discovery.