An Artist's Dreams

Black hair. Cropped. Smooth. Thick.  Green eyes. Bright. Cold. Unfeeling. Tall. Thin. Brad chest. Pail skin. Angular face. Muscular figure. American. Lip ring. Bars. Silver. Tattoos. Arm. Neck. Black. Ink like. Teenager. 17. Ageless. Appearance of immortality. Dark clothing. Dress pants. Long coat. Formal. Modern. Amulet. Sliver. Star. Circle. Black cord. Dangerous. Mysterious. Distant. Educated. Embodiment of shadows. Embodiment of desire.

My eyes snapped open and I banged the off button on my alarm. An alarm I had snoozed three times before. My phone rang. The police sirens that warned me that my friend, Ava, was calling to yell at me.

“Hello?”

“Open the door! It’s freezing,” I heard a crash come from the back side of my house, “Never mind.”

She came through my bedroom door less than a minute later. “You need a new window,” she said in a calm voice.

“What?!” I jumped up, already dressed, and ran to my front window. It was fine. I looked to her and she pointed behind me.

“Oh no. Oh,” I looked at the crashed window and the rock sitting in a puddle of broken glass.

“How does that not hurt?”

“What?” I was leaning agents what was left of the window and she looked at me like I was going insane.

“Your arm.”

I looked down at my arm which had gone numb a moment later. Blood was running down my skin and cutting into my flesh. “Ava.”

She was already there, handing me a cloth.

I cleaned all the blood and pulled glass out of my arm. I than burned the cloth that contained my blood.

Some people I knew thought I had a mental disorder. My mother thought I was just observant and creative.  Ava thought I was psychic, cautious, and maybe a little nuts. 

I heard voices, saw things, and was extremely careful. By careful I mean that, I don’t trust people and am careful about who has access to my blood.

I can’t explain why I’m like this and I try to hide it from most people I meet. Most of my friends, even those I’m close to, don’t know about it.

After the cloth was burned I fixed the window, replaced the screen, and cleaned up the glass, throwing it away outside. When I came in the house I heard whispering and the air stank of grief, ash and wilting roses. Someone was here. “Ava?”

“I know.” She was holding a pale pink rosary and we walked out to sit out on the porch until the uninvited guest had left.

“You could sense it?” I asked, not looking at her.

She nodded. “Ya. Sadness.”

We were silent for many moments.

“Why?”

“Why what?!” I snapped.

“Why are they watching you? Why are they here?”

“If I knew why than I would know how to stop them.” I didn’t have to say any more. She knew what I meant. If I knew how to stop them, I would.  Same thing went for my odd dreams. The dreams that weren’t really dreams at all, just descriptions of people. People that I drew, bue Ava didn’t know about those, and neither did my mother.

After about fifteen more miniutes, we went back inside.