Light

This story will be published in three to five parts (I'm not sure yet as they're not written yet). Toward the end it will get extremely graphic. Most people will find some passages difficult to read. Some will stop reading altogether.

If that kind of thing offends you please do not read 'Light'.

Light
.

written by
Alan Green

Part I

I'm recovering from surgery. Brain surgery. No, I'm not stupid. They didn't cut out a huge chunk. Just a tiny chunk. About the size of an eraser on the end of a pencil. The good news, though -- they replaced that chunk -- with a tiny sliver of a rat's brain. A sliver taken from a part of the brain, the rat's brain, responsible for controlling motor function. I forget the name. And, that gets me to my problem, my sickness. The reason I needed surgery. I had epileptic seizures. Bad ones. Really bad. The docs said I'd likely die from one within a few years. Great.

The procedure is experimental. They really didn't know what would happen. But, hey. If you're slated to die 'within a few years', why not. What they do is insert a catheter through a small hole they drill in the skull, guide the tube using realtime PET imaging (or, it might be CT, I forget that too). They worm the catheter around until the end is near the spot to be excised. Then, they snake an optical filament through the tube and fire up an RF (radio frequency) emitter on the end of the filament and ablate the offending tissue. Then, they vacuum up the goo with a really tiny hose, and insert the aforementioned rat brain tissue, bathe it in anti-rejection and AP (assimilation promotion) drugs, and sew you up. Badda-bing, badda-boom.

Simple. Hell, I could have done it if I had good instructions.

So, here I am, the first human, the first girl (I'm twenty-six if you're interested. My name is Chloe.), to have this done. I feel fine. At my first scheduled post-surgical examination everybody was real cheerful, but it was a kinda forced. You could tell they all had their fingers crossed. But, the next day, I hadn't had a seizure, and when I went down to the fifth floor for another exam everybody had big beautiful smiles. They watched me walk across the room like I was a rock star, or something. One and a half days, no seizure. They liked that. Liked it a lot.

A couple weeks go by, still no seizures. I moved out of the hospital to my apartment. Well, it's not mine. It's provided and paid for by the university medical center -- that's where the protocol is being conducted. EP-TI-4755-001. Experimental Protocol, Tissue Implant 4755. I'm 001. (You can write your own 007 joke). Anyway, since it's a federally subsidized protocol, all the participants get a free ride -- everything is paid for. It's the law. And, as the protocol calls for the subject (me) to live very close to medical personnel and facilities, I get an apartment on campus rent free. Cable, wifi, even a stipend for food and expenses. I even get to use one of the university's cars.

What the hell. I should get that stuff paid for. Had to quit my job for this. That's another thing. I can't work for twelve months after the surgery. To keep environmental factors, like stress, and thinking a lot, to a minimum. So, In my downtime I surf the web, or watch blu-ray movies on my killer fifty-two inch plasma TV (that your tax dollars bought). Sometimes, I'll do the History Channel thing, or watch that channel that only runs biographies -- what's that called? Every now and then I'll watch a game or something. I can watch football for maybe ten minutes before I zone out. Sometimes, I read. I got a stack of books (yeah, your taxes bought those too).

That's my life. I take it easy. And, why not enjoy myself? I asked one of the nurses how much a study like this cost. She said 'millions', even 'tens of millions'. Okay. It's their dime. They dick around with my brain, I watch TV, read the latest bestsellers, eat gourmet ice cream. In exchange for all that sumptuous living, I show up for my check ups, AP injection, PET scan, almost every day. Sometimes, up to four or five hours a day. Other days, it's just a blood draw or something simple. I forget the last time I had a whole day to myself without having to go to the clinic or hospital. Whatever. It's worth it.

Being seizure-free is fucking great. I'm loving it. I don't have to worry about having a spill, that's what I call them, in the middle of the mall, or wherever. One time, I was picking up some dry cleaning and fell to the floor doubled up, making these weird moaning sounds. The Korean woman behind the counter screams, eyes bulging. She called 911. By the time the EMTs got there it had passed. I was sitting against the giant plate glass window sipping Oolong and explaining to the Korean woman what had happened. She said, with a silly laugh, that in the old country (she's a transplant) an attack like that might be taken as a sign of demonic possession. Sheesh. How 'old country' can you get.

One seizure was so bad. One of my incisors got stuck on the inside the lower teeth and, when my jaw snapped to the side, the tooth was knocked right out. Okay, I was a kid and it was a loose baby tooth, but still. It hurt. I was at school at the time and the other kids thought it was cool. 'Chloe, that was so cool!', they'd say. I even earned cred with the boys. Not bad. They quit making fun of me for a while.

So. A couple months went by. After the surgery, I mean. Not one episode. The docs are talking 'preliminary success'. They're happy. Can't blame them. If this works they'll be famous. Millions would benefit. It would be a landmark event. Look good on the resume. I guess I'd be happy, too.

Anyway, one night I load up the new 'Alien' blu-ray box set. Anthology... Watch the first few minutes to see how much better the picture is. Wow. What a difference. Didn't know movies could look that good. And, the sound. So clear. Makes the movie much creepier. Didn't know sound could do that. I pause it and go to the fridge. No ice cream. Could. Not. Believe. It. I was out for a couple hours getting stocked up for tonight. That's a bad thing. You're not supposed to be out of 'the subject's assigned living quarters' for that long. In case they need to reach you, don't you know. Going out of town? Forget it. It's all in the stack of stuff you have to sign before you can take part in the...you get the picture.

I had gone to the bookstore for the latest translated Euro murder thriller. I love those. I stopped for a three-dollar latte and some people watching. (Anything to avoid going back to the apartment). Then, I swung over to the electronics store for a flash drive and the 'Alien' Anthology. Then, the grocery store for some frozen dinners (yes, I do those). Figured I had everything you need for several hours of horror movie watching. Forgot the damn ice cream. Have a frozen pizza, you say. Don't want one. Want sugar.

Back to the grocery store. Jump back in the university's car (with the dorky U logo on the side). I'm in the ice cream aisle. Butter pecan or peach? Which is right for the monster-growing-inside-you genre? I grab butter pecan and head for the check out. Then, I see her. This lady, maybe sixty, a little stooped, silver curls, but sharp eyes. I look at her as she examines an apple. When she glances at me, she smiles. I smile too, but it fades when I see the spot of light in the middle of her forehead. The tiniest red dot. I mean, it's teeny, but it glows really strong. A deep, brilliant red. She goes back to her apples. I'm still looking back at her, and almost run into a stack of bananas. Did I? No. No way. Girl, go home and watch horror movies -- you're in the mood for it. Seeing things.

It's late. There's nobody in line. I set my purchase on the belt, get my card (well, the university's card). 'How you doing?' the girl says.

I swipe my card, 'Fine, thanks.'

'Four fifty. You want a bag?'

I punch the PIN number. 'No,' I say, looking at her for the first time. There it was. Right between her eyes. A teeny tiny red dot. Glowing, with sort of a fog around it. Until she looks at me. The fog disappears and the light becomes pure, bright, shining right into my eyes, first the left, then the right.

'You said you didn't need a bag, right?' she says.

I'm slack-jawed. 'No...yes, I said that.'

She glances at the ice cream sitting there in front of me. 'Did you want something else?'

I pick it up. The cold brings me back to reality. 'Sorry,' I manage. 'Tired.'

She grins. 'That's okay. I get that way.' The light grows brighter with her emotion, hitting my eyes in quick succession. Left, right, left, right. Then, it settles, seeming to shine into the middle of my own forehead. 'Have a good night.'

'You too,' I say out of reflex, and leave.


 Part 2

Light

Light
.

written by
Alan Green

Part II


On the way home I almost ran a red light. Stared at it until I was just about in the intersection. Had to stand on the brakes. Kept staring, through the rainy windshield, wipers going back and forth, until it turned green.

My hands trembled so bad trying to unlock the front door I had to take a deep breath before I could make the key go in. Drop the ice cream on the counter and head straight for the bathroom. Looking in the mirror, I couldn't see a spot in the middle of my forehead. No red dot. I rubbed my forehead in case there were tiny bits of dirt or something covering the dot, stood on tiptoes to get closer to the light fixture, leaned toward the mirror. My eyes were almost crossed I was so close. Nothing.

Go back to the kitchen. The ice cream was soft. Just the way I like it. Put it in the freezer. Sweet wasn't what I was looking for anymore. I wanted something with kick. Needed it.

My favorite is bourbon. It's got backbone. I crack a bottle of Jefferson's Reserve. Fifteen year old smooth-ass liquor. Pour a slug into a juice glass (I'm not at the stage in life where you own shot glasses) and shuffle to the living room, downing half before I plop on the couch. Even across the tongue, sharp in the back of the throat, toasty all the way down. Backbone.

Fire up the laptop. Do a web search for 'third eye'. Got nothing I didn't already know. Psychic center, place you concentrate on when meditating, one of the chakras. Et cetera. The reference to it as a 'doorway to the consciousness' stopped me. That creeped me out. Was the dot a doorway? Did it allow me to see into people's souls? I was filled with questions. Couldn't think. I shut the laptop.

The 'Alien' anthology. Forgot about that. No thanks. The thought of watching a movie about a monster growing inside you was a bad joke at this point. I pulled the quilt off the back of the couch, got wrapped up. Sat there, in the dark, drinking. Thinking. Asking. The same questions over and over. Got no answers.

I woke up. Didn't know what time it was. Glass of water. Kitchen clock says three. Go to bed. The next day I get ready for the appointment with my neurologist. He's a nice guy. We chat sometimes. He tells me what the squiggles on the PET or CT mean. Smart.

Should I tell him? I wonder while getting dressed (compulsively checking my forehead every time I look in the mirror). I could have put my jeans on backwards and wouldn't have noticed. But, I watched my face like a hawk.

I decided to tell Neal. That's my neurologist. Don't know his last name. But, what if it leads to some kind of psych eval? A write-up. That's all I needed. Could mean I wouldn't qualify to participate in the protocol anymore. They'd cut me loose.

Maybe I did need help, though. You know? Maybe I could do with some therapy. But, what would I tell the therapist? 'I'm seeing red dots in people's heads?' It's not like he would have any way of dealing with that, or any experience with it. They'd think I was nuts. Decide to keep the idea on the back burner for now and head out the door.

Neal is in his sixties. Married, grown kids. Still, though, he flirts with me. In a nice way. Not ham-fisted like most younger guys. Subtle. I like it. Makes you wonder where it might go. He stares at the PET imagery. 'How do you feel?' he says.

'What?' I'm a little stunned, eyes too wide. Was he seeing something weird in the scan? Was there a blob of emitted positrons that screamed 'This chick is crazy! Put her in a lock down!' He looks at me. 'Good,' I say. 'Why? Something wrong?'

'No. Looks great,' he says. I exhale. 'You know,' he says, 'researchers around the world are following this. Your progress, I mean. The results are almost too good. Two months and no seizures. That's a record, huh.'

'Totally. I can't remember the last time I went two months without a spill.' I flash a big fake smile.

'If this works -- I mean, it looks like it will -- you'll be famous. A lot of people will be helped. Millions' He pauses for effect, then, dramatically, but in a cool way, 'A cure for epilepsy. Just think.' His smile is beautiful, reassuring.

I couldn't tell him. Couldn't. A cure for epilepsy... No way I could jeopardize that. Meant too much. "Millions," he had said. Way too important. I don't say a thing about the dots.

My plastic smile was beginning to hurt. I shake hands with Neal, then, for the first time, he hugs me. 'See you next week,' he says. You betcha.

I saw three more people with red dots on the way home. Was glad to get inside and lock the door. Collapsed on the couch. What if a by-product of the procedure was insanity? I laughed. "Good news! You're cured of epilepsy, but now you're crazy!" I notice I've finished my first shot of bourbon. Didn't remember pouring it.

But, I didn't feel insane. It wasn't a 'crazy' feeling thing. It was real. It felt real. I know. That's exactly what crazy people say. Well, not all of them. Some schizophrenics know the voices in their heads are an illusion. Delusion. They know it. They want help. Some don't, but some do. A lot do. Most do. Right?

That got me nowhere. Was I one of the ones that knew they were nuts? Or, one of the ones that didn't? No help.

But, seeing the dots was just a new ability. That's all. To sense...things. An enhancement. Not crazy. 

I stayed home as much as possible over the next few days. Finally, I grew a pair and came to a decision. If I was going to tell someone I had to know what I was dealing with, and, if I wasn't going to tell anyone I needed to know what I was dealing with. So, I went to the mall for some people/dot-watching. To get a handle on it.

I sat by the fountain near the food court. Around seven out of ten people had a red dot. Seventy percent. Just like that. I looked for patterns. What kind of people were they? How did they dress? Did they look affluent, educated, trashy? No. Average. Couldn't be more average. One guy wearing sweat pants and a tee-shirt. A thirty-something chick with super high-maintenance hair, a cashmere sweater, and killer pumps. An old lady (her husband didn't have one). No pattern I could find.

Just when I was coming to terms with it, starting to feel a little at ease, getting a grip, this one red dot, a youngish guy who looked like he was always in a hurry, changed direction all the sudden and came toward me, walking real fast. When he passed I tensed up, felt rushed. What the hell. Why would I be tense? What was I in a rush for?

A man with greasy hair whose clothes might have come from the lost and found at a laundromat passes. I feel -- the best word I can think of is -- lazy. Maybe, that's not right. Maybe adrift is better. Like my life is pointless. Then, his body odor hits and snaps me out of it.

I couldn't believe it. Now, not only was I seeing dots, but I was feeling things. Emotions. I was sensing what these people were about. A fat guy makes me want to eat. A fifty-something woman with a droopy face wearing her dress crooked makes me feel edgy, anxious. A little boy passes, dragging his mom in tow. I follow his gaze to the toy store. I want to go in and buy a bunch of toys and play all day.

Great. Just. Fucking. Great.

One second I'd be pissed, the next nervous, ill at ease. Pudgy guy with a silly comb-over -- I'm insecure about my looks, wonder what people think of me. Nice trim dude in a tailored suit strides by -- I'm all about making money. It went like that. One after another. I could sense them. What their lives were about. How they carry themselves inside. I hold others in contempt, want to have sex, feel tired, skittish, sad, mad, glad. You name it. I sat there for a couple more hours until I couldn't take it anymore.

Back at home, looking in the mirror, I couldn't see anything in my forehead. I even tried looking through a magnifying glass. Didn't work. Made me feel stupid, not to mention look like an idiot.

Wrapped up in a blanket on the couch, all the lights off, I'd flash a crazy smile thinking of it. Just when I had started to come to terms with seeing lights, I begin to feel other people's stuff, emotions. As far as tackling my new, let's call it "a condition", I was back to square one. My thought process was circular. The questions were new, but pretty much the same as before. The answers were pretty much shit, which was pretty much what they were before. I pour another drink. (A bottle was by my side a lot of the time now).

If this was happening there were two choices: I was crazy, or, it was a special (I hated to think in terms of 'magic') thing that I should learn about. Embrace. So, which was it? If I was crazy I wasn't aware of it and wasn't likely to become aware of it. If it was some new ability, a new sense that enabled me to perceive things in people, then, to hell with it, my life had changed, for better or worse, like it or not. Like I said -- I was back to square one.

So. Do nothing or embrace it? I went to bed. Had to get an early start the next day.

At the mall, at the fountain next to the food court, I watched dots go by. Picked up their feelings. Studied the process. Tried to acclimate myself. Find a pattern. It got kind of routine to tell the truth. One red dot after another, each person feeling regular stuff. Apathy, chronically worried, skeptical, optimistic. You know. Regular. Normal. When they walked by, got within a few feet, I felt them. Sensed their emotions. Their mental orientation. Whatever you want to call it. I knew what they were about.

I see this one guy coming. Weird looking. Chubby greasy face, off balance expression, high-waters, shirt with a hole, one shoe untied. He got close. I waited for the impression. What was this guy feeling? Nothing. I felt nothing.

I looked at his dot. It wasn't red. It was purple.

More to come

Black Rose: A Vampire Love Story

This will be a novel but, since I don't have a blog for novels, I'll be posting here in chapters.

Black Rose
A Vampire Love Story

written by
Alan Green

Chapter 1


The Wind is Lonely

The wind cuts across a sleeping city, darting here then there, lithe and quick, chasing the moon's frosted bleached-bone illumination down abandoned streets, between buildings, through clicking bare branches. Play with me. It will not. Moonlight only plays with water.

The wind pokes into crevices to harass insects. Come out and play! They roll into tight balls and hide behind thick shells. They have no use for play.

The wind howls, lifting loose tiles of roofs under which fragile fatigued folk seek slumber, blankets pulled high, wanting only to escape and dream of pleasure not pain. Will you play? Their houses were built to keep out the wind, and all things wild. People grow old then die, they don't stop to play.

The wind whips through iron bars, peers down park pathways, peeks under stone archways, seeking something, someone, anything, anyone. Skims over icy creeks, trespasses through frozen gardens, leaving no trace. Sweeping into an abandoned playground, it turns the merry-go-round and pushes the swing just to prove who's boss during the night.

Rusty hinges groan, silvery chains clink,
but they won't be roused, they won't lose a wink.

Children are the ones with whom they play,
and with them only during the day.

The wind toys with a leaf, dead since autumn, edges split and chipped, flipping it again and again, higher and higher, laughing, tormenting, giving it little hope of rest, then moves on, bored, letting its quarry settle back to the earth.

Only in bright and sunshine do leaves play,
in greenness and warmth, not in cold and gray.

Everything sleeps, cowers from bitter cold, turns its back on that which lives in winter's dark. It's always been. For longer than can be expressed. Every night the wind riffles here, rifles there, hoping to uncover a mate. Every night nothing spends even a moment.

Everything has another. Why shouldn't the wind? It has always been lonely at night. Always... It will have none of it. Pushes on. Hunting. Somewhere, there must be a partner.

Hither and yon mischievous wind rushes,
for a cohort this errant child searches.

Night after night since the beginning of time,
the wind keeps skirring for a friend to call mine!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Silhouetted against moonlight, Isabelle looks at the old man lying in bed. Because they met just hours earlier she knows him only as Thomas. She also knows he has a daughter that gave him two grandchildren -- little brats, according to him -- which he sees once a year, he likes baseball but can't watch basketball, and recently had his driver's license taken away due to failing vision. All were usual tidbits she had gleaned from old men many times before. Most importantly, though, she had learned he had made a fortune in real estate. This was the reason she persuaded him to bring her to his apartment and, with a modicum of pressing, why she also persuaded him to open the safe and show her what one hundred thousand dollars in cash looked like. The money was, ultimately, why she had spent time with old Thomas, and why she had killed him.

In the beginning, just after her transformation, Isabelle battled guilt each time she took human life for sustenance. In time though, she realized her true nature, seeing that taking a person's life to gain nourishment had become essential, was now her design, and could not be considered any more criminal than a spider snaring a fly. Killing for money, however, remained difficult for her to reconcile. She sidestepped, rationalized, and glossed it over, but reproach found a way past her defenses, penetrating to her core.

It started with her first take. His name was Gustavius, a handsome young baron from a country no longer remembered. After a night spent together, she harvested him, sloppily drinking his blood, then took his gold and jewels and was gone before first light. She ran into the forest until she could run no longer, hid in a coppice and wallowed in self-loathing. She remained for two days poring over events, trying to come to terms with what she had done. It was impossible. Her mind would circle itself in a dance of illogic and soon her determinations made little sense, offering no solace. The cold fact was she needed money, and food, and there was no way of getting both in any sizable amount without killing.

Practical need forced an end to her fretting. Once the baron's death became known within a vicinage, a strange woman newly arrived in a village where everyone had been known since childhood would immediately fall under suspicion. She had to move on, continue traveling, head toward the large cities of the coast, with their teeming anonymous masses in which she could maneuver undetected.

As she feared, her advantage had been squandered. During the time spent in the forest news of Gustavius' death had spread. The story had become a living, fantastic tale. 'It was unnatural,' they whispered. 'A strange fanged creature that crawled through the open window and attacked the helpless man during the night!' According to the telling, the monster restrained Gustavius with leathery limbs thick with muscle and sinew, and claws that bit into the skin. With each passing hour the story evolved and was made more macabre, especially when told at night, in pubs, when teller and listener were propped up by drink.

The creature struck two punctures in the man's neck then sucked out his blood, watching with strange black animal eyes. Finally, the poor man became too weak to resist and, mercifully, closed his eyes and stopped breathing. The beast continued to drink even after that, eyes flitting about, tall ears turning, searching the shadows for approaching threats. And so it went! In the cold still bedroom that had become the baron's death chamber. So it went!

The wide-eyed, half-drunk audience was titillated, but as the stories pitched, such a dread was incited that no one would go home, not alone, not in the dark. Guards with torches and hounds took to patrolling once the sun had set, and soon, women would gather in groups of two or three to exchange the latest version of what had happened in hushed voices, children were biting at their playmate's necks, and grown men jumped at shadows and yelped at every movement or sound in the moonlit woods.

Now, with everyone on edge, Isabelle had to avoid detection. However, keeping out of sight at all times was impossible. If a river flowed at the bottom of a ravine, crossing a bridge could hardly be avoided. Fortunately, though, she was strong and had traveled with ease and speed on the third day, despite having to stay off the roads, and had put a good distance between herself and the scene of the crime.

One or two districts from where the baron had been killed, people were accustomed to the story and yawned and stretched during its telling. Frenzied emotions had settled. Isabelle had hoped this would be the case, and took to the roads in order to make better time. When she approached a checkpoint, she found that guards were weary and bored and, upon seeing her, too taken by her beauty to make serious inquiries. She handled crude questions with ease, flashing a smoldering look if it seemed needed, was allowed passage, and found her way to the coast without too much trouble.

Early in her career, she preyed only on young strong men. They practically overflowed with the life force she needed and made for an efficient source of sustenance. Truth be told, men, certainly young men, are not masters of their energy, and have more of it than can generally be handled with prudence. In fact, they possess far in excess of what is required for mundane activities, and tend to waste much of it on fiddling pursuits. This has been the case throughout history. So, in a way, by feeding on them, by harnessing their potency for her work -- the creation of music, writings, and paintings inspired by nature -- Isabelle made better use of their essence than the men themselves ever could have.

There was a problem with taking young men, though. They were too active in the community and, after the fateful pas de deux with Isabelle, were quickly missed, hence quickly searched for.

Over the years, times had changed and the situation worsened. News spread farther, and in less time. First by a stout rider and quick horse on a good road, then by telegraph and newspaper. Later came the telephone, radio, and the internet. Macabre deaths of young men popular about town became written about, talked about, and known of more rapidly by more people, whether they lived near to, or far from, the place in which the death occurred. This, in turn, created suspicion and heightened awareness, making things more difficult for Isabelle. So, she adapted.

She had learned that when a rich old man died in unusual circumstances, his rich old family often took great pains, called in favors, and sometimes paid good money to keep things as quiet as possible in order to avoid damaging publicity. Certain grotesque facets related to the codger's passing might need to be blunted so that their strange nature was less apparent. A medical examiner could often be called upon, given the correct incentive, to modify details of the official certificate to an adequate degree so that a natural cause of death would be presumed responsible.

In other cases there simply was no one who cared about the death of an elderly person. Friends and family were already dead or, due to the decline of old age, were in homes for the sickly or bedridden where news of the outside world was not followed, or sadly, not plainly understood.

It worked in her favor. In a modern city, bustling with people, the death of one old man, strange though it may be, would garner little notice. So the case would be with the next old man, and the next after that. In such an environment Isabelle could work in relative peace as long as it suited her. So, whenever possible, she selected the elderly to feed upon. Without a doubt, had her current benefactor, this old man in bed named Thomas, been young instead, with loved ones and business associates to notice his absence, things would be more cumbersome. The logic was sound as ever.

Eventually, to be sure, news would get out. Victims would be reported having been found with round wounds in the neck, their bodies emptied of blood. These reports would gain traction on internet sites that feature such accounts and be read breathlessly by fans of the stuff. However, just as it had in remote villages a hundred years earlier, the telling would be embellished, and embellished again, until it was a sensation. And, again, this would work in Isabelle's favor.

There are many such sites, and competition is acute, so that an editor will routinely elaborate on what is known in an effort to hook the most readers and create the most buzz. The result is often ridiculous, and can hardly be taken seriously by level-headed people. Desperate proclamations of the existence of vampirism are almost always laughed at and those who blare such assertions aren't given the time of day. As a result, as the case had always been, vampires were thought by most people, educated or not, rich or poor, to be a fiction. So, in a way, Isabelle was aided by the instant, pervasive, and inflammatory reportage of the electronic age. Her activities, because they were reported with such fervor by an unreliable media, went unnoticed. The irony always amused her.

The sheer curtains at the sliding glass door of the balcony billow wildly in the freezing wind, tossing her hair, stinging her face. Her mind is forced from memories back to the present where Thomas lies in bed staring at the ceiling. At once, shame sets itself. If only there wasn't a need for money, she thought. There was no time for these concerns. She steps toward him, her graceful movements contrasting sharply with her embittered expression, and leans close to his face. I'm sorry, she whispers, kissing him on the lips. She looks at him a moment longer then, with the palm of her hand, brushes his eyes closed. I'm sorry, she says once more, before turning to leave.

She stands on the balcony looking at the city. Boston. She had never been and it delighted her as it would a child. She gazes at the moon, hovering low in the sky, to the west, its entourage of brilliant crystalline five-pointed attendants standing in wait. She is captivated by its beauty, as she had been for a hundred years, and a hundred years before that. She loved listening to its quiet rumbling -- a perfect marble sphere rolling across the black flint ceiling throwing off sparks. The sight and sound filled her with wonder and reverence.

She looks to the east at the glow of impending sunrise, and her reverie is broken. Her thoughts darken, turning back to the business of the night. She leans over the rail to better gauge the distance to the street below the penthouse. After making the calculations she notices a dying potted plant at her feet. It's no more than a twig, disregarded and frail. She picks it up, and tucks it under her arm, unable to leave it behind to die. She hops over the railing onto the narrow ledge. Without fanfare she inhales deeply, steps into the air, and falls.

The heaviness of the work that lay ahead and the anticipation of what she might find this time melts away, allowing her mind to focus and her heart to open to the pulse, the cosmic rhythm, the silent thrumming most never know. She gives herself over, becoming one with the primal presence, allowing her crude physical substance to dissolve and transform into wisps of golden and silvery filaments, flashing with shimmering evanescence. Her thoughts become threads of luminescence that enlace themselves with the etheric corpus, guiding it by force of will. Just before striking the ground, the metamorphosis is completed. A capricious zephyr turns sharply toward the sky and moon, snaps at the darkness, and darts away, laughing at all things earthbound.

Isabelle has become a quick unseen child of the night.


More to come