how do i write again? fox

kousei ♚
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now and forever

how do i write again? fox Oct 10, 2021 15:44:07 GMT -5

Post by kousei ♚ on Oct 10, 2021 15:44:07 GMT -5

K E M A L I

He was so goddamn tired.

Kemali was going to die in that soap factory - working until he dropped and swallowed the dirt. He'd left the factory without the usual spring in his step and the cheery "cya tomorrow" said behind his crooked smile. Darkness had swallowed the district and he just wanted to get home.

Yeah, Distict Nine was a bit of a shithole. It was all the more reason to start figuring out how to build a damn boat and get off Panem.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and continued to wander down the district's dark and winding streets. Shit, at night danger lurked beneath every shadow behind every corner of the district. The last thing he needed was to lose what little money he had on him because someone was poor enough and brave enough to hold steel to his throat and shake him down. He stared at the ground and took longer strides.

District Nine was fucked. He needed to get home.

elegant

Last Edit: Oct 10, 2021 15:45:02 GMT -5 by kousei ♚

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how do i write again? fox Oct 16, 2021 22:49:02 GMT -5

Post by fox on Oct 16, 2021 22:49:02 GMT -5

i o

I've been an organ and I am metal casing, a new copper joint bleeding from my shoulder in metamorphosis. Another silver scar here and there and over the years of evolutions and how interesting – I've become a thing of death, I guess.

Pain pools in my vision. He emerges like a holy angel of debt, burning in the darkness. Oh, there's a pistol pressed into my chest now; I can feel it soaked already. He kneels me to the ground, and from the pavement, I touch the bullet wound, hold a fistful of blood before me and my hand shakes.

Well fuck.

I look up at him, the moon a halo over his head.

"Looks like we'll be taking a limb," He says, laughing into the night, "You can pay us in fingers until you have the rest."

Funny. I remember all the split skulls, hangings in the outskirts of town, symbolic bullets and the tradition of death. We had gathered, sliced open our traitors, burned our insignia off them.

The Cardinals are some dramatic bitches.

So like ritual, he draws a knife in the alley with his free hand, runs it down my arm to my wrist, and holds it to the joint of my pinky. And here I go again, bleeding into the ground, and maybe, someday, there'll be enough of me to fill a grave.

Then – footsteps, a long shadow on the wall, and someone's standing near the entrance of the alley. There's a moment of hesitation when he turns to look over his shoulder, knife still hovering over my hand and that's when I grapple for the gun.

It goes off.

I'm beginning to understand a lot of things about life now – like how someone can want to live even when they're trying to die.

{ i'll be hanging from a r o p e }

kousei ♚
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how do i write again? fox Oct 17, 2021 15:49:56 GMT -5

Post by kousei ♚ on Oct 17, 2021 15:49:56 GMT -5

K E M A L I

A lapse of focus, a wrong turn - he heard them before he saw them. The caustic laughter made his blood run cold in his veins.

"You can pay us in fingers until you have the rest."

Well, that guy was fucked.

It was none of Kemali's business. Just turn around and walk away.

He didn't see nothing.

He didn't see nothing.

He didn't-

He locked eyes with the grim reaper himself. His bones rattled beneath his skin for just a split second before the tranquility of the night shattered before his very eyes. The victim held something, and the world shook when the gunshot rattled the street.

His thought process was in free-fall. It wasn't too late to abandon the struggle. Anyone with a gun wasn't someone he wanted to fuck around with.

But Kemali Daley was an idiot. An optimist who'd inherited a broken world and had the audacity to cling to the hope that there would be a better one on another continent. If he turned away now, the man would still be dead. And Kemali would know he could've done something about it. The conflict in his heart was settled.

Well fuck.

"Get off him!"

As he ran towards them, the world trembled beneath Kemali's feet with each step he took. He grabbed the gunman by the fabric clinging to his waist and they both went spinning to the ground.

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how do i write again? fox Oct 20, 2021 20:04:19 GMT -5

Post by fox on Oct 20, 2021 20:04:19 GMT -5

► ► ►

"Get off him!"

The knife he holds bares its fangs and bites into my arm.

The shadow becomes a man,

and then becomes a weight lifted.

he came like a seraphim – like this, my life has become toys and fun for the holy spirits, a strange divine comedy – thrown from one heavenly event to another. Skeletons play on the carousel of life, those giant, empty skulls bouncing on shiny trojan horses.

At twelve, I remember stepping over the body of a dead man to school, a sweet decay for the flowers and beasts, his fingertips scraped raw clinging on to his little life. I remember thinking I didn't want the rats chewing on me like that, the flies glittering on my organs, the shock, the horror, and then the wondering when someone was going to clean up the damn body blocking the sidewalk.

Haha. How stupid is it that I'm here now.

I butchered my own body, sold myself at thirty percent off, promising I was good to eat forever and off to the slaughterhouse I went for the people – fattened on drugs and beautiful dreams.

I think my time will be soon, I've got a crystal ball of a conscience I guess.

But not today.

A man dares to interrupt the sacred Cardinal ritual of beating someone's ass to hell?

Wow that's suicidal.

He falls off me, dragged backwards by the stranger. We're all hands on the pistol, death and I knotted together and we've been best friends forever.

A gun goes off. It grazes the Cardinal's leg like a lion’s bloody tongue. The pistol scatters somewhere into the dark, swallowed whole by the shadows. I'm rising, okay okay, and now there's the hilt of the knife in my muscle out and –

yanking, the sinew roars at first breath and holy fuck –

he's howling on the asphalt, hands gushing from the bullet hole in his leg, and I look at this guy still standing there,

"Run."

I move towards him, move out of the alley,

"Go," I'm saying, "Oh we're going pal, c'mon run, RUN –"

We run, through the night shift, through the factory workers lighting cigarettes with the last of the sun rays, now clocking into coffins, past the bars full of people in paper nooses, in debt to their mothers if not anyone else, past the peacekeepers off-duty doing coke in the bathroom, all friendly with the citizens of nine before donning their crystal uniforms and beating the shit out of us tomorrow morning.

District Nine lies before us like a pop-up book. There are all the dynamite minds underwriting for the lords and ladies and counting grams in basements, there are the serpentine tongues coiled on their throne of hands, there are the people running for their lives dangled before them like some kind of tempting delight,

and –

we're in the empty district square, projectors playing a highlight reel of yesterday's bloodbath and looking down, I wonder if it's really any better out here with a slow life – just to die anonymously. I heave for air.

"Hey," I say suddenly – suddenly because it just occurred to me, "I think I'm going to black out," and now, staring at the stain spreading down my shoulder, my fingers dripping with blood that’s been delicate and sober for all of three days – oh, the sky is spinning, and now the floor is spinning. And suddenly, suddenly, I'm holding the ground in my palms, the smell of the earth, pennies, and the sun next to my cheek.

Who knew we'd be back here in the morning, school kids skipping over my dead body.

This is kinda funny.

What a way to die.

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how do i write again? fox Oct 28, 2021 12:14:38 GMT -5

Post by kousei ♚ on Oct 28, 2021 12:14:38 GMT -5

K E M A L I

The floor rushed up to meet them.

The air left his lungs.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

He ignored the pain that blossomed from his elbows and knee because a scrape was nothing compared to the threat of a bullet hole. He threw his arm forward and his fingers closed around the flash of silver. He was joined by two other hands; their fingers knotted around the deadly instrument.

Then his ears were ringing and something warm stained his clothes I'm deadI'mdeadI'mdead.

But he wasn't the one screaming, that was the aggressor this time. Strange, he didn't think monsters who maimed men had feelings like that.

The pistol was swallowed by the darkness and Kemali picked himself up. He shook his head, the ringing in his ears slowly being drowned by the faceless beast now clutching his bloody leg. "Oh shit," he stumbled back. Kemali's eyes stayed seared onto the sight of his blood on the asphalt.

"Oh we're going pal, c'mon run, RUN –" The victim voiced Kemali's instinct before he could so much as string them together. And the fear of retribution and gunfire flashed in the back of his clouded mind.

So he was running.

District Nine blurred, background noise drowned by the ringing in his ears and the phantom of that monster's cries of agony. When he blinked they were in the district square and he was out of breath. "Are you -"

His question was answered before he voiced it. He was doubled over on his hands and knees. Shit. Kemali kneeled down. He didn't know shit about about first aid and he sure as fuck couldn't save someone from dying.

"C'mon man, you'll be alright."

But he did know someone who could.

He took a fistful of fabric clinging to The Victim's body and hoisted him up, one arm over Kemali's shoulder.

"You're gonna be alright, yeah? Just stay awake."

Keep him awake. Conversation would help, yeah. "What's your name?"

If he answered that was a good sign, right?

elegant

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how do i write again? fox Dec 24, 2021 14:30:03 GMT -5

Post by fox on Dec 24, 2021 14:30:03 GMT -5

i o

he pulls me up by the shirt, and once again death evades me.

"you're gonna be alright, yeah? just stay awake."

i've died so many times only to be rebirthed in the morning – like a violent resurrection, like the hand of god pulling tricks. and i sit alive and terrible in daylight, on a bloodstained couch, philosopher's stone deep in my stomach and a sacrifice on my hands.

i'm so tired.

could i go to sleep for ten thousand years?

addiction is tiring, and that's what this is – addiction to dreams of power, wealth, and protection in a silver spoon. i was hungry – and then i was fed the fat fucking ethos of rich men, the full-bellied lords of the underworld lifted on the hands of district they fucked up and the capitolites who have never known hunger, never known what it is to want and crave and need.

he asks for my name; i say something stupid, "i'm dying."

but i'm not yet. and after running for my life, i wish i were dead.

"why did you do that?" i look at his face now, my words trickling out like a gurgle of blood. the district is so quiet for once; my eyelids feel heavy, sleepiness settling deep inside of me.

what a hilarious situation.

"you're in deep shit now."

{ i'll be hanging from a r o p e }

kousei ♚
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how do i write again? fox Dec 26, 2021 20:01:46 GMT -5

Post by kousei ♚ on Dec 26, 2021 20:01:46 GMT -5

K E M A L I

"I'm dying."

He forced himself to smile. "Dying huh? Bit of a funny name." He kept dragging him through the street, checking over his shoulder for any sign they'd been followed. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"Why did you do that?"

That question orbited his mind, every answer that crossed his mind just didn't feel right. 17 years in District Nine and almost as many watching the games had taught Kemali that the weight of the world punished so-called heroes. Kemali didn't so much as know this guy's real name and there he was, helping him limp through the street and his blood-stained his work clothes. Gonna be a bitch to clean tomorrow.

"Cos it was the right thing to do." Of the thousand answers that orbited his mind, that was the one that made the most sense and sounded better than because I'm an idiot. Kemali's eyes scanned for the familiar door on their familiar street.

Dying's next words were dragged from the back of his throat and gurggled through his bloodied teeth. "You're in deep shit now."

They sent a shiver down his spine.

"Bro, you just worry about yourself," Kemali told him, not even stopping to look at him. "Besides, we're here now."

They stopped in front of a red door. Kemali's fists fist hit the door rapidly. "Hey, Genevive! Open up!" He ignored the way his voice was shaking. "Please."

The seconds that passed felt like an eternity, his heart twisted within his chest. He breathed a sigh of relief when the door swung open. The words came flooding from his lips. "Don't ask, he just really needs help."

When she took him off his hands, the weight of the world went with him.

elegant