Soul-less

Soul-less

A Story by ashweejune
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Written on November 27, 2009 for my English Class

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She is a pale shadow against four black walls, curled up on the floor as she desperately grinds her crayons into the orange peel texture of dried paint. Sometimes she draws Noel, slight smile bathed in warm light, music notes swirling around in graceful patterns like fluorescent fireflies.  But mostly she draws the unfathomable, mixes every bright color into something fierce and fragile, even beautiful, something that can rip open the sky and make it bleed rainbows. A soul, imprinted on four black walls. But she knows that there aren’t enough colors to capture what she never had. She knows that the black will always overpower the reds, the greens, the yellows, the pinks, and the oranges. She knows that crayons are nothing but wax. In the end, her world is just as black and gray as she is.

            Sometimes she scribbles to color herself in, to complete what almost was, but the crayons leave nothing but faint waxy smears on her skin. She hates her hair the most, limp and liquid. It slips through her fingers before she can even make a mark. And so it remains gray, the color that is not a color. She is the girl who is not a girl, a hollow husk. The emptiness throbs through her bones. Neither happiness nor sadness will touch her because a gray girl without a soul is wanted by no one, not even her own breath. She lacks that which is eternal and so she is nothing. And when her body rots in the throes of death, there will be nothing left, nothing. Because she was born without a soul and all the crayons in the world cannot change that.

            She knows that she would have just given her soul to Noel anyways, Merry Christmas. Sometimes, along with the usual delivery of paper and new crayons, he brings her flowers because that is what girls are supposed to like, and she’s almost a girl. And when the bouquet’s plastic sheath crinkles under her fingers and she inhales its scent of life, she smiles because she almost cares. “What was the color of the sunset today?” she asks dreamily. “Squash soup, with a cloud shaped like a dinosaur”, he replies. Then he sits cross-legged on the bare floor and speaks about the questionable meatloaf he had for lunch or the broken wrist he got last Monday from falling off his skateboard. But mostly he talks about music, about lyrics and melodies and how carpal tunnel syndrome is death to an artist, all the while a guitar solo screams from his headphones.

            She nods along, trying her best to listen to the words, but in reality she only wants his presence, and the one thing that a gray girl without a soul can do is want. Once, exhausted from their one-sided conversation, he fell asleep and she spent the entire afternoon drawing him from every angle, memorializing his jumbo size headphones, and the softness in his lips, and his long, graceful fingers. His colors soften the hard, black edges of her world, milk and honey spilling on the floor. She wants to drink him in, to let his colors seep into her veins, to be whole and beautiful and real. He leaves when the shadows fade into the dusk, leaving her with nothing but lingering echoes. And the gray girl draws.

            “Come with me”, he saids one day, blinding radiance gushing in from the doorway. She cringes, submerging back into the darkness, clutching her crayons to her empty chest. “Outside?” she replies. “What, you have something more important in here to do?” He chuckles and she glares at him in contempt because it is important, because he doesn’t know what it’s like to be a gray girl without a soul, because music can be heard no matter how black the walls are. She gives him no answer, and when he walks out and doesn’t come back for a week, she isn’t shocked. She spends the week scribbling out his face on the walls until her black crayon is reduced to a half melted nub, glad that she isn’t a real girl because a real girl would be curled upon her bed crying. When he does come back, it’s all music and sky and laughter threaded with sunshine as if nothing had ever happened.

            Noel fascinates her. She can feel him tangling within her hollow chest, messy gnarled knobs tightening with each day, and she thinks maybe, just maybe, she can catch a soul in this web. In between visits, time is no longer measured with crayons, but with learning. She stops drawing. Because when she watches him from her black corner, singing and glowing, it almost feels like being alive.

“What are you listening to?” she asks, hugging her knees and barely showing her face.

“What?” He traces the contours of his headphones as if he forgot they were there.

 “Oh, it’s number six.”

“Huh?”

 “One, four, eight, nine, there are eleven songs on this album but these are the only ones I really listen to. Sometimes I program number four to play every other song, it’s so intense.” He grins. “Ok, listen! Here is my favorite part.” He lets his headphones dangle from his neck, volume on full blast. She inches closer, venturing out of her corner, straining to hear the opening chords of the song. It’s a love song, like so many others. But this one is different, more crazed and intense and bittersweet, one voice on the verge of breaking. A heavy love, on that can crush you if you’re not careful.

“Dance with me, “he whispers with a hint of mischief. She doesn’t bother to mention the fact that this isn’t exactly the type of song that people dance to, no, because he’s wrapping his arms around her and his breath is on her neck and she can feel something flying around in her empty chest, a hummingbird beating against its rib cage. It would be so easy for him to crush her, to shatter the brittle shell. But she clings to him anyway, their steps clumsy, and limbering. Soon the music begins to fade away and their intermittent giggles of apologies for stepping on each other’s feet, sometimes on purpose take over. He smells like the color yellow, like daisies, sunflowers, and sunsets. She smells like nothing, but she hopes maybe by keeping him this close, some of the yellow scent will rub off on her.

Everything for her begins in threes. The crayons that began the journey of Noel, the music that draws her, and of course his true being. Lying in abandon, her crayons dance, sharp and unbroken. He kisses her for the first time in the autumn. She knows this because there’s a streak of leaves in his scent, and the smell of grass is beginning to weaken. There is a certain rhythm to his walk, and instead of saying hello he crashes his lips into hers, deep and warm and urgent.

“Damn hormones,” he speaks later.

But he doesn’t pull away when she kisses him back, gently grazes his lips as she inhales his essence. He tastes like the color red, like blood and the flickering edges of the flame. And when it’s over, he holds her like she’s a delicate rose while she tries to cry because she feels nothing at all.

 

          

 

 

 

Romance is built on illusion, and when we love someone, we love the illusion they have created for us

Roger Ebert

© 2011 ashweejune


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Added on October 1, 2011
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Author

ashweejune
ashweejune

Under the Stairs



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The smell of the rain makes me smile. I am my own worst critic. I believe in self-respect. My family means the world to me. Poetry heals my heart, love is my therapy, and my body is drug-free. more..

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