That Traitor Memory (Prose)

The stillness of the night was broken only by the slow crackle of a cigarette as my lungs expanded, drawing in the smoke that soothed nerves and killed slowly. I looked briefly at my hand and quickly looked away as I saw how it shook, eddying currents of smoke around it where they drifted on the slight breeze. I put my hand on the arm of the chair once more, and again nothing stirred, while in my mind the thoughts went slowly churning. Mercifully the dreams of last night were indistinct and unrecognizable, else I might not even pretend to the pseudocalm that I evinced and instead scream my heart away as I had at waking. The pain was almost under control now. Only the video I had just seen kept my equilibrium at a nervous flutter, the traitor video and the no doubt blameless singer that reminded me so much of her. Even just that sight had kept me rooted, unable to change the channel, with slowly whitening fingertips on the remote, as she danced and sang about heartbreak. Danced like her, too, and mocked me where I sat until I walked to the pantry and upended the bottle of rum till the pain was more distant and I could leave to smoke in silence in the darkness. Every remembrance was met by a studied air of uncaring, ridiculous as it may have been under the circumstances, but allowing me to at least pretend to be sane, to create an illusion of peace without which I would surely die from the hole in my heart. And so I sat, while the alcohol slowly processed through my veins and my conscious mind drifted to the dim past, despite the hurt that awaited, and slowly I thought of her.
It was a Sunday, I think, and the pool water was chill on a spring day. I was a young man still, as I still am in body, but yet I had not seen all that I see today, and felt that which I feel now. She was with me, and energetically we played around the pool until the chill took her. She started to shiver with the cold, and quickly I lifted her easily over the short fence so she would be able to get to a hot shower. I remembered the smile she gave me, and my own crept to my face, out of place in the dark, and shrouded in the smoke that spiraled from my mouth.
On campus on a slow day I waited patiently for the elevator to reach the ground floor, carrying soup mix and a pan in my hands. I was eager to begin, for she waited above, and I remembered just the right way to make this dish exactly how she liked it. How she would be surprised that I had done it right, for my memory was not usually so apt. Some time later I gained my reward as her face was shocked into an open smile and her body a fierce hug. Almost I reached out, to return it, but was stopped by the moon looking down on me and the heat of the filter between my fingers.
It was early morning, and a rarity that I had woken before her. I studied her face as she lay on the bed beside me. She looked so relaxed, so innocent, as indeed she was. I breathed gently as my eyes followed the slight curve of her nose, the bow of her lips, the soft flutter of her eyelashes as she dreamed. I leaned forward slightly to kiss her, and inhaled smoke once more, as the acid tears leaked from my eyes and I sobbed softly into the night.

I Quit. (Prose)

They pat me on the back, with daggers in hand,
And I smile.
They have no power to hurt. Not anymore,
Now that I am free.
And so I chuckle at their attempts to harm,
And I laugh at their barbed remarks,
For they will have to stay,
And I am free.

Anansi (Prose - Not quite Neil Gaiman Fanfic... Not Quite)

I will tell you the story of Anansi, who was both a normal spider and a normal man at the same time, and a god as well. These things used to be possible, a long time ago, before everything became complicated.
Anansi was known as a great trickster, and as a great storyteller, and after he stole all of the stories from Tiger and made them his he became very famous. This story takes place before all of that, when he was just another god, trying to find his place in the world.

Anansi had a desire for a certain type of grape, a large purple kind that grew only on very high vines, where they got the most sunlight. They were just bursting with juice and flavor, and they washed away the dust that blew all around better than anything else in the world. Naturally, they were jealously guarded by Hawk, who though he ate mostly small furry creatures, occasionally liked a little grape to cleanse his palate. But Hawk didn’t eat very many, and the rest grew sour on the vines and fell to the ground, where the other gods and animals would fight over them in the hopes that this time, it might be just blown from the vine early, and still sweet. And every once in a while there was a sweet one, and it would be fought over fiercely until one victor would retreat with the prize to their cave to eat.
Now, Anansi was not a great fighter (though he was a tricksy wrestler) and he never got any of the grapes, sour or sweet. So he decided that he needed to come up with another way.
First he tried jumping, which he was rather good at, and thought he could jump over everyone else and grab a grape on its way down. But when he succeeded at grabbing one he was attacked after he hit the ground, and the grape was taken away from him. Even worse, there were better jumpers, and Rabbit and Mara (who was a woman and a kangaroo) started jumping for grapes higher than he could reach.
Next he tried spinning a web across between the trees, over where Mara and Rabbit could reach. But Hawk saw the web and ripped it up so that he could reach the small furry animals on the ground more easily. (Rabbit ran away at this, but Mara was too big for Hawk to eat, so she kept jumping)
Anansi almost gave up at this, but the grapes looked so juicy against the sunlight that he felt that he just had to have one.
So Anansi looked up at the grapes silhouetted against the sky and he had an idea! Everyone knew that all creatures fled the hawk’s shadow…
So Anansi built a kite, the biggest kite ever seen, and he strung it off of his own spider line, and he flew it up above the field where the people, or gods, or creatures, waited for the grapes to fall.
And the shadow created by the kite was so big that all of the creatures fled, and Anansi scurried over to the field to wait for grapes to fall.
But Hawk saw the kite. And Hawk, not being the smartest of all the creatures in the world, thought his territory was being infringed on by another bird, and so he spread his mighty wings and chased after the kite to do battle.

Anansi, seeing this, raced right up into the tops of the trees and started eating grapes.
And oh, they were such grapes. Grapes like no one but Hawk had ever had, sweet and succulent and juicy and above all – plentiful!
Anansi gorged himself on grapes until he was fit to burst, and then tucked more in his pockets for later, hoping that they would not be unduly harmed by his climb down.

But Anansi, for just a few seconds, forgot all about Hawk. Hawk, who had ripped the kite to shreds. Hawk, who had figured out that it wasn’t a real bird after a few minutes. Hawk, who was very angry.
And you only get one chance to see the hawk before it strikes…

Later on, of course, Anansi became very famous, and was fed all the grapes he wanted by people (or animals, or gods) who wanted to be on his good side. And once, he stole all of Hawk’s tailfeathers, to get back at Hawk for having killed him when he was young and hungry.
But that is a tail for another time.

It was a time long ago, when things were much less complicated, and it wasn’t unusual at all to be a man, and a spider, and a god – even all at once.