Merry Christmas

Close your eyes. Take a deep breath.  Let the scent of orange and clove drift through your memories of Christmases past.

Keep your eyes closed.  Inhale deeper.  Warm butter, a hint of cinnamon. Perhaps a dash of ginger gives way to the scent of mustard, croissants and sausage.

Old Christmas tunes fill the air. Cheerful music about St Stephen, dragons and lambs all together on the most Holy Night. And in the distance the sound of children laughing in the snow, the sharp sting of snowflakes falling into young eyes searching the sky for their source.

The crinkle of wrapping paper, hastily torn and tossed aside. The clunk of heavy boxes, the whirr of robots and shouts of joy.

Then quiet as the baby lies beneath the tree, one tiny hand reaching towards the nearest twinkling light.

Peace on Earth. Goodwill toward man.

And love for all.

Attraction

The tang of citrus mingles with the scent of sandelwood just over my shoulder. I can feel your breath warm against my neck.  Your strong arm snakes around my waist and pulls me into the safety of your embrace.

My belly quivers as your hand slides up and over the taut peak of my breast. Just a quick skim that catches my breath then your fingers trail up my throat.  You tip my chin back and I open my eyes.

The shadowed blue of your gaze is filled with hate.

You know. Everything.

I open my lips to beg forgiveness. Your hand covers my mouth.

Pinches my nose.

I struggle for breath. My limbs flail.  My gaze seeks yours, locks on while I search for any spark of the man who loved me. Who betrayed me before I returned the favour.

There is a frozen landscape of rage between us. My hands and feet grow cold. A mist covers my vision. My ears filled with the thunderous sound of an avalanche headed my way.

You shove me to the ground. My body is a shell of its former strength, inert and motionless on the ground where it fell.  Jagged shards of oxygen stab their way to my lungs.

"Death is too good for you."  I hear your footsteps leave the room then stop. The sound of a body dropping to the floor is followed by a wail of grief so primal it makes my body shake in fear fills the house.

You have found her.

I look at the spray of blood across my legs and skirt.  I smile.

An abundance of cushions

A fork, a radio, full moon and a dump truck  all flashed through my mind the other night. I'm not getting a lot of sleep but lying in bed, words flow like bioluminescence.  I don't have the energy to write them all down but they soothe me to sleep. Eventually.

Sometimes they prompt scenes.  This one started out as radio silence spoke volumes but morphed into something a bit more adventurous.

The brilliance of the full moon in August shone a spotlight on the dump truck parked beneath the bedroom window. Filled to the brim with an old battered couch and an abundance of cushions buried beneath tattered clothes, a broken radio and a drawer of cutlery missing all the forks, the truck looked as out-of-place as a rocketship in a lion's pen. The window on the far left of the second storey opened with a screech and muttered curse.  One bare leg thrust through the opening to be quickly followed by a second leg then the rest of the body.  With a rolling dive that would make Greg Louganis proud, the gangly teenager landed in the back of the dump trunk. After a brief fist pump, he folded his skinny arms and legs around his body and sank beneath the cushions.

With a soft crunch over branches on the back lawn the dump truck made its way to its next destination. To pick up the next runaway. It pulled onto the county road, just another working vehicle transporting its cargo to the space station down the road. There the contents would be sorted into trash to be burned and organic materials for biodiesel. The teenager's dream of space travel would be realized.