Live, Laugh, Love

Watching the day come to an end

On a shore long forgotten to time

And as the last distant

Rays of the setting sun sink

Into the cool blue sea

I recall another that once sat here.

Since that person left I can only wish they were here

But by the time my wishing ends

I have already lost my mind into the depths of the sea.

In this trance I begin to drift through time

Witnessing lives like my own sink

Into their histories, somewhere distant.

And as I awake, the images become distant,

Nothing, just forgotten dreams far from here

And I crawl back to a bed I can sink

Into, and I can look back at the end

Of those foggy images, then I wish I had more time

To go back into that trance and the sea.

After days entranced by the sea

I was forced to stay away and watch from my distant

Window and the place that had become my cage a long time

Ago.  I could only hope for a day when I no longer had to stay here,

In a dark musty old house where my end

Would likely occur and this house would watch me go insane and hide-away under the kitchen sink.

Maybe insanity is not something I’ll sink

Into, and maybe instead I will return to the sea

Again, and this house would not be my end.

I’d leave it all behind and travel someplace distant

And far away, away from the painful solitude found here.

Then, maybe I’ll find another sea, one not lost in time.

I could do it and I knew the perfect time

Too: just as the sun began to sink

Beyond the horizon once more, I would steal myself away from here

And leave the loneliness that surrounds this place, to a sea,

A different sea, and a different distant

Land, where I could find myself at my journeys happy end.

But, before I could leave here, this place and its sea,

I would have to not sink into the trances that take me to a distant

Places in time.  If not, I am already at my end.

Everyday just drags on, no end in sight,

I try being strong, it’s just never enough.

Then I found someone worth this endless fight,

Someone who counts on me and helps me be tough.

Never has anything so simple and pure

Been so enough to fill every moment

With this sense of contented ease, I’m sure.

Nothing could make me frown, neither comment

Nor days trying beyond what I can bare.

This hand I’ll hold, always tightly gripping.

Holding up and held up, lives we’ll share.

And through every trial, every ripping

Sorrow, I will fight by you and always

Be strong, together, for all of our days.  

There’s a lot to say about my two younger siblings, Carmin and Colbey.  They are exactly ten minutes apart in age; Carmin is the older one, although I think they both agree that Colbey should have been the older one.  He definitely had always been calmer and more collected in nearly every way.  Colbey’s maturity was always strongly expressed in how he presented himself.  Seriously, a pair of tan pressed slacks and a blue collared shirt was a little strange for someone just over the age of eight.  Even his dark brown hair was cut into a short cropped cut uncommon to people until the age of twenty.

 I remember the day he got that cut, it was maybe two weeks ago, and our mother insisted that he just get a trim.  But, he was determined to get the same hair cut as one of our father’s coworkers; who like many of my father’s coworkers had hair so short that a standard military cut looked like hippie locks.  But, in addition to his maturity, he was stubborn as no other and never took no as an answer. So now his hair is cut and mother has decide  that’s the last time she’ll ever let Colbey go to father’s office, despite father constantly insisting that Colbey learn  the world of business early on. 

            Carmin on the other hand was mother’s perfect little angel, a fun-loving uncontrollable little dirt ball.  Mother always fussed over Carmin.  And it didn’t help much that ever time Carmin saw a mud puddle or pile of dirt she’d go bounding  in with the pure joy surpassing that of any, normal, child on Christmas.  Mother especially hated it when Carmin climbed trees, specifically for the reason that she could never get Carmin down without torn clothes or a new mass of knots collecting in Carmin’s fine blonde hair. 

            At the moment though Carmin was kneeling beside her brother, in a bright purple floral dress that mother had picked that morning.  Although to mother’s great distaste the dress was already speckled with splotches of mud and grass stains and her hair was already an unruly mass of knots with a few leaves and twigs meshed in.

            I was watching them playing from the porch, finding it strange that they were actually playing together.  Normally they were both very independent from the other, despite the fact that most twins are usually pretty inseparable.  But, the only time they ever played together was during their strange little fantasy game.  Which I assume was what they were playing, considering the small pile of miscellaneous objects set out before them.

            I never really understood their games, except that they always involved a random a ray of objects, anything from our neighbors discarded garbage to the new doll mother bought Carmin last Christmas.  The strangest object I’ve seen them play with though was the carcass of a dead bird.  They didn’t do much with it, just stared at it intently and, like every time they played this fantasy game, they spoke softly to each other. 

            The one time they let me play, I became immediately confused.  They just sat there staring at me the entire time, talking in their “twin speak”, which is what I soon began to call their secret language.  And I had to stand up and leave.  I hadn’t felt safe and the need to flee was overwhelming.

            Today I insisted on sitting on the porch steps and watch their backs as they work furiously over some new object on the other side of the yard by the back gate.  I didn’t exactly know how long I had been watching them, but the sun began to set and I had finally become too restless to sit. So, I picked up my discarded sketch book and pencils, stood up and turned towards the door. 

It is getting late and mother probably has dinner ready by now.         

“Hey, Carmin, Colbey, it’s time to go inside now.”

I turned back to where they were playing expecting to see two identically annoyed faces glaring at me.

But, they were gone.

Okay, Clara don’t panic.  The last thing you need to do is panic.  Maybe they’re just on the other side of the fence collecting something for their game and they just didn’t hear me call them.

“Carmin, Colbey!  Where are you guys?  It’s time to come inside, mother probably has supper ready.  Carmin, Colbey!”

As I had feared, silence was the only response I received from the darkening backyard and the even dark forest that loomed just past the four foot wood fence.  The trees towered above our two story house, constantly casting shadows, that as a child were the making of most my nightmares.

Even now the forest behind our house was forbidden, not just by our mother, but by the legends surrounding it.  It was like most legends you hear of forbidden and treacherous places: someone a long time ago went into the forest and was missing for weeks and suddenly on the full moon of the following month they returned, but they had become hollow and lifeless.  Supposedly a witch lived in the center of the forest and needed one human soul every hundred years to survive.

For a child, even now, as a teen, this was enough to keep me out of the forest.  But, would it be enough to keep my headstrong little brother and adventurous little sister from venturing beyond the fence.

They couldn’t have.  Could they?  What if they did?  Oh, god if they came back as soulless zombies, mom would kill me.  I was in charge of them.

I could feel the panic slow inching its way up my spine and into my brain to engulf all my common sense.  Something took over then and the next thing I knew I was scrambling over the uneven ground of the yard toward the place where the twins had sat only moments before. 

There was nothing.  No random pile of objects, no foot prints, nothing.  In the place of the miscellaneous objects was a patch of disturbed earth that hadn’t been there before today.  It was maybe a foot across and something was poking up from one of the edges.

Had they buried something?

I knelt down to my knees, completely unaware of the object hiding in the grass.  As my legs settled on the ground I felt a sharp pain shoot up my leg, which caused me to stand up just as fast as I had knelt down.  Staring at the object protruding out of my lower calf, I slow reached my shaking hand down and grasped the hand of the small porcelain appendage.  It was kind of funny pulling the small hand out of my leg as if I were shaking hands with it, as if it hadn’t just left a bleeding gash in my leg.

For a few seconds I was completely mesmerized by the blood that slowly trickled down my leg to my ankle where it pooled into my sock.  The ruby red color contrasting with my pale white skin, it seemed so out of place there. 

Why is blood so red? 

Looking down into my hand to the smaller hand, I noticed how the blood covering the jagged side contrasted with the same brilliance.  I had seen this small hand before, not too long ago it was attached to the body of a small porcelain doll mother had given Carmin.  I bent back down to my knees, careful of anything else that could have been hiding in the grass.  With my free hand, I brushed away the top layer of dirt to reveal what seemed to be a polished wooden box.  I brushed away the remaining dirt covering the box and found that the lid came swiftly off without much resistance form the surrounding material.

Shock was the only thing I could manage as I registered what was in the box.  First there was a small collection of feathers and rocks, and several locks of hair.  Then some kind of double-sided knife with an embellished handle of silver swirling leaves and vines. Finally there was the remains of what I assumed was the body to the small porcelain hand, but its face had been smudged with dirt and its eyes were blacked out with what looked like Sharpie.

Why was it broken and like this? Why bury it here?

The gate was directly behind the hole.  They must have gone into the forest there was nowhere else they could have gone.

I’m going to regret this.

I stood, carefully avoiding putting weight on my injured leg, and glared into the darkness between the trees beyond the fence.

I’m going to have to go in there, aren’t I? If I don’t find you two and I come back and you’re just sitting at the dinner table I so going to be pissed.

Deep breathe Clara.

With that I opened the gate, breaking the barrier I always hid behind for safety, and ran head first into the forest letting the darkness engulf me.

It didn’t take long for my eyes to adjust to the dim light of the forest.  Every, so often light would find a break in the lush, dense canopy of the ancient trees.  I’d never been even one foot in the forest, but now inside I could hear nothing of the outside world only the rare rustling of leaves, or the wind blowing through the trees extracting low groans of protest from them.  But, besides that it was silent, forcing me to try to hear something, anything but just causing my ears to ring.

            The further I ran in the darker and quieter it became.  I couldn’t have been in the trees for more than a few minutes, when I started to fatigue and the soreness of my body to set in, causing me to slow my running to a quick paced walk.  I kept trying to listen, to find any hint of someone else, hopefully the twins, moving around the forest.  But, the silence continued to make my ears ring.

            Where were they?

            “Carmin, Colbey!  This isn’t funny anymore.”

            I strained my ears for some kind of response.  Nothing sounded anywhere, except the distant echo of my pointless shouting. Then somewhere directly ahead of me I heard the snap of a twig and the crunch of leaves.  I started toward it, running, pushing past the pain radiating from my injured calf.

            It had to be them.  Who else could it be? No one was ever stupid enough to come in here, except maybe me.  What am I doing?

            “Carmin, Colbey?!”

            The sounds in front of me suddenly became louder and more frantic as if whomever, or whatever it was, began to flee.

            Oh, they were soooo in trouble, now.

            I picked up my pace and pursued them, dodging trees, roots, and rocks.  I could hear them directly ahead of me just out of site.  I pumped my legs harder and pushed my lungs to quit burning and to fill me with oxygen to fuel my furious sprint. 

            I ran and ran, chasing this unknown thing, hoping it was the twins just playing a stupid prank on me, but if it were them they would have answered and stopped this pointless game of tag.  I was just chasing a ghost now, no clue who, or what, it was, but never ceasing my chase, determined to catch it now despite my unknowing. 

            I knew I couldn’t push my body like that for long, but I found my legs giving into exhaustion sooner than I thought and the sensation of my body turning to jelly, set in.  Now it was harder to dodge around all the obstacles in my path. 

            Just a little further, Clara.

Up ahead I could make out a break in the trees.  A meadow, maybe?  But, this forest was fairly unfamiliar to anything, except ravines and swamps.  So, the possibility of a peaceful meadow or something as pleasant was highly unlikely.  I needed to find the twins, though, no matter what, so I trusted my instincts and trudged forward, pushing my body to catch the ghost I was chasing.

I could feel the heat of the setting sun from the break and I knew that the twins had to be there I just knew.  Slowing my pace slightly I continued forward.

Just a few more feet.

As I was about to step through the two open trees, I felt my foot catch on a root. 

I watched myself, trip and have my feet spin out from under me and begin to fall, expecting ground, but instead continued falling, falling, and falling.  Above me two figures stepped out from the trees, and with horrified faces watched.

Carmin, Colbey.

• Always searching for a new adventure.
• Want to fly, grow some wings.
• Closed Eyes, relieved sigh, I’m happy.
• Time is too fast, push pause.
• In searching you’ll find something.
• I’ll protect those I care for.
• Stupid mistakes, do not make again.
• Fall in love, never let go.
• Forever and always is our life.