Post by Eternity on Sept 23, 2015 0:40:36 GMT
All things are connected.
We are connected my love, both in ways seen and unseen and in ways understood and misunderstood. We are linked, intrinsically to one another by the known and the unknown.
You know this, don't you my love?
We are bound to this life through each other and through our senses.
Touch, taste, sight, sound and smell.
Each of these can set the mind ablaze, bringing light to even the darkest corners of the mind.
Take a breath, nice and slow.
Let the scent spark your olfactory nerve and bring it to life.
Remember it like you remember the smell of fresh coffee in the morning. Dark, sweet, hot, just how you like it.
Just how you remember me, or the sound of somebody else's voice or the sight of a pretty young girl in your garden or the taste of strawberries in the summer or the touch of somebody who you know loved you...
You heard me screaming and your heart pounded in your chest as you raced through the darkness and the choking purple smoke to find me, to help me, to save me...
But nobody can.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
As the smoke clears, you see me dressed in a black kimono and obi and the simple look of a geisha painted across my face. My light pink hair is pinned behind me in the traditional chignon style, decorated with red spider lilies and coloured butterfly clips. Black heavy eyebrows and scarlet lips are the most notable features of an otherwise plain white face that is screaming at you.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
It really makes you want to scream, doesn't it, Alexis?
You see me sat in a purple lit room at the foot of a bed. On the bed the Origin Era Version of the Diamonds Championship is laid out, still bearing the name plate of the former Champion, Alexis Caffrey and a single pink carnation.
The night stand beside the bed is decorated in red spider lilies and pink carnations.
An incense stick burns along side a candle, one representing the flame of life, the other representing the whiff of death.
There are also two apples, one red and one green, sheets of paper and an empty glass display case just large enough to house a Championship.
I don't blame you. Go ahead baby, let it all out. Let it all out. We all need a good laugh sometimes. Other times all we need is a good cry, and for the times when none of that helps, the best we can do is have a good old scream and shout about it, so go on darling, scream for me.
Scream as loud as you like for as long as you like.
Nobody else is here for you. Not Mike Laszlo. Not Roberto Verona. Not even your Mommy.
It's only me. It's always been me. Only I have been here all this time. I've been here before and I will be here after. I may never be the Mommy you remember, but I will always be the mother you'll forget. A Mommy coddles her child. A mother teaches her children, and you my dear sweet Lexi have been coddled long enough.
I am not the Mommy you deserve, but I am the mother you need right now.
So you'll hunt me. Because I can take it. Because I'm not your hero. I'm a silent guardian. A watchful protector.
A DARK KNIGHT...BRUHHHHHHHHH BUHHHHHHHH....
ROLL CREDITS!
HuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHA!
The look on your face, it's priceless. That look, that look of jealousy, of envy, of greed, it's brought light to so many of my dark nights. So many times I've watched you struggle to keep it together, to hold on, to carry on bravely without me.
But you just can't do it, can you Lexi?
Not on your own. Not without me. You just don't know how to cope. It's all a little too much for my brave little girl, isn't it Lexi?
It's okay, you can tell me. You can tell your mother.
Tell me how much it hurts. Tell me how nobody understands the pain. Tell me how hard you've worked to get through it all and become the person you are today. Tell me everything as if I haven't heard it before and I will tell you to join the club sister.
You aren't the first and you won't be the last to lie to yourself or to me or to anybody else about how well you're coping with all of this. I know how lost you feel. I know how pointless it all feels now that you've lost it all. All purpose. All meaning. The will to go on...
You see me lean across the bed and retrieve the two apples, taking one in each hand.
I know how that goes. I've been there before.
"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade," they say.
What do they know?
It's a hollow sentiment, rendered even more meaningless if life gives you apples instead. What do you do then? How many curve balls can you catch Alexis?
You see me stand up and start to juggle the apples.
How many more can you juggle? How much before it all becomes too much? How bravely can you continue to put a smiley face on all of your regrets and failings before you realise these ARE all your monkeys and this IS your circus?
It's not easy as it looks, is it darling? Carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, and juggling all the emotions of a loss. Presenting the world with a new face, convincing the world that you've made it and telling everybody that you're going to be just fine. Lies, little white lies. All of them. With practice, they can be hidden, concealed, and locked away deep inside away from a cruel and judgemental world. A world that will never truly understand our pain.
So you march on as best you can, hoping against hope that you shine just long enough to blind them to the truth.
The truth that you've never been able to cope with all of this, with any of this.
The red apple lands on the bed and the green apple lands in my right hand. You see me tilt my head and shrug before taking a bite out of it.
We've both worked hard, and in a fair and just place you would get to enjoy the fruits of your labour, but this is not that place nor that time...
A second bite. Swallow.
You see us as so different, as distinct from one another as apples are from chalk, but the truth is that we are just apples from different trees. I'm a red apple, you're a green apple. I'm stained by the blood of those that came before me, those I could never save. You are stained by the envy of those that came after you, those that you hear in your head.
A third, bigger bite. This one harder to swallow.
You hear the same voices I do, sweetie. The same voices that tell us we're not good enough, that we shouldn't be here. That we don't deserve happiness. But for ninety-one days you proved them all wrong. You proved them wrong once, just as I did.
Like mother. Like daughter.
You've walked in the very footsteps I've left behind and for just as long as I did.
That's why you are and always will be my baby. Whether you realise it or not Lexi, at the core we are the same. The same seed planted in the same soil and left to grow. Rooted firm in our convictions to be remembered as so much more.
I have fed you and I have watered you. I have kept you warm and I have kept you safe. In the propagator of life you saw only the glass, only a prison. I saw beyond it, I saw the skylight. You've grown just enough to escape whilst I have grown beyond even that and realised there is none, at least not in this life.
Either way, the glass lays shattered around us. You look at each glistening shard and see only shattered expectation. I look at each fragile piece and see only shattered dreams. Each of us in our own way yearn to go back to the way things were not so long ago, only I have learned that you never can.
You see me toss away the half eaten green apple.
You concern yourself far too much with what I have taken from you my love and not enough with what I have left you with. Perhaps it is my fault. Perhaps it is because every time I look at your sweet little desperate face I laugh.
I never could say no to anybody who could make me laugh.
So here you are once again. Hoping to live a dream at my expense. Knowing that for as much as I have given you, I will always give you more, so much more than you rightly deserve. A second chance, no a third - that is a mother's grace, that is a mother's charity.
Still you've spit it back in my face, like the spoiled little brat you are.
Still I've let you live to fight another day because no mother ever truly wants to bury her child.
Still the apple never falls far enough away from the tree.
You see me lick my forefinger and then lean across and rub it gently across the name of the dead gold belt.
You will never realise all you had and all you could have had until its far too late.
Your stubborn refusal to accept who you really are deep down inside will be the death of you.
Once upon a time, I wanted to see you blossom and bloom and grow, but now I realise that no matter how carefully you nurture them, some shoots will never flower.
Never truly come to life.
So it is with great sadness that I say may you rest in peace, little one.
You see me then bow my head in mourning as I lift the old leather from the bed and transfer it over to the glass display case.
You were taken from us far too soon.
You see me then start to stick the plain white paper around the display case, creating a shrine in the typical Japanese style, determined to ward off the spirits of the impure dead.
But we will always remember you...
You see me then pluck the pink carnation from its bed, inhale the scent in a slow deliberate breath and lay it to rest on the completed shrine to the most treasured memory of one Alexis Caffrey.
You are left in silence to pay your respects and express your condolences.
We are connected my love, both in ways seen and unseen and in ways understood and misunderstood. We are linked, intrinsically to one another by the known and the unknown.
You know this, don't you my love?
We are bound to this life through each other and through our senses.
Touch, taste, sight, sound and smell.
Each of these can set the mind ablaze, bringing light to even the darkest corners of the mind.
Take a breath, nice and slow.
Let the scent spark your olfactory nerve and bring it to life.
Remember it like you remember the smell of fresh coffee in the morning. Dark, sweet, hot, just how you like it.
Just how you remember me, or the sound of somebody else's voice or the sight of a pretty young girl in your garden or the taste of strawberries in the summer or the touch of somebody who you know loved you...
~~~~
Pretty little puffs of white stretched across the bright blue sky. That's what she saw as she saw the clouds move slowly across the face of the late summer sun. A single swallow flies over her head, interrupting her daydream, before she could lose too much of herself in the clouds.
She was brought back down to earth, the young blonde girl of no more than nine remembered where she was.
In their back garden. Mother was carefully tending to the larger pot of pretty pink flowers. These "pinks" were Mommy's favourite, because they just smelled so nice. The little girl leant forward and took a deep breath, enjoying one of the sweetest sensations she had ever experienced once more.
Mother and daughter shared a smile and a moment before sheer curiosity replaced sheer joy in the little girl's dark brown eyes. Carefully she watched her mother firmly grasp the top of a shoot with no flowers with one hand and the bottom with the other. Mother pulled the shoot free and smiled at her daughter.
"This is called a cutting," said Mother.
She presented it to her little girl.
"See those leaves at the bottom?"
The girl nodded.
"I want you to peel them away, and then dip the cutting in the your little pot there."
The girl carefully separated the shoot from the leaves as mother had asked. She then dipped the roots into the prepared compost in her smaller flower pot in front of her and smiled. It was easier than she thought, this growing thing.
"Now you try..." beamed Mother, "Pick any shoot you like so long as there are no flowers on it."
The young girl leant over and took a moment to examine her mother's larger pot. She selected a shoot which stood under the shadow of a fully bloomed flower. She pinched the top and bottom and pulled it free, her tongue held over the edge of her lips as she replicated her mother's care and attention on pulling the young shoot free.
A small tug and it relented. She turned to her pot and was about to give the shoot a new home and some company when her mother reminded her of the thing she almost forgot.
"Strip away the basal leaves first," Mother said. "It's very important."
The girl took a moment to divide the shoot from its lowest leaves, counting each leaf as she let it fall away. Then she planted the second shoot opposite the first in her flower pot before turning to her mother.
"What now, Mum?"
"Now we water them..."
Mother handed her daughter a small watering can, and the girl liberally watered the two shoots, unconcerned about some of the water which was being lost down the outside and around the pot, pooling on the pine wood underneath.
"Now put them in the propagator," instructed mother, passing her a small one along.
The girl lifted the shatter resistant clear lid from its black plastic base and set it aside. She then picked up her pot and placed it inside.
"Good, now cover it up, you don't want your little babies to lose any moisture," Mother said. "It's very important."
The little girl brought down the lid on her young plants and smiled, satisfied, with a job well done.
"Now we can take them back into the greenhouse..." Mother smiled.
Mother and daughter turned with their pots and headed the short distance to their greenhouse. The girl followed her mother in, catching a reflection in the glass door.
The ghost of a girl with hair the colour of chocolate and eyes the shade of envy.
Mother was gone now, in her place there stood an older woman with red hair fashioned in a beehive. It was Aunt Mary.
"Where's Mommy?" the girl asked.
"Dead," came the reply, framed between coughs, as if mocking the very idea of death amused her.
Aunt Mary was a sick woman.
A very sick woman who wouldn't shut up, and wouldn't stop coughing. Aunt Mary lumbered towards her niece slowly. She was dying. Aunt Mary reached out for what seemed to be an eternity, but nobody was there for her in the end. Aunt Mary fell at the feet of the little girl, all grown up, coughing up and gurgling blood across her wrinkled lips.
Lung Cancer, that is what she had heard last.
Now the little girl was a young woman, out of time and out of place, even within her own mind.
She screamed and the greenhouse shattered all around her.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
~~~~
You heard me screaming and your heart pounded in your chest as you raced through the darkness and the choking purple smoke to find me, to help me, to save me...
But nobody can.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
As the smoke clears, you see me dressed in a black kimono and obi and the simple look of a geisha painted across my face. My light pink hair is pinned behind me in the traditional chignon style, decorated with red spider lilies and coloured butterfly clips. Black heavy eyebrows and scarlet lips are the most notable features of an otherwise plain white face that is screaming at you.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
It really makes you want to scream, doesn't it, Alexis?
You see me sat in a purple lit room at the foot of a bed. On the bed the Origin Era Version of the Diamonds Championship is laid out, still bearing the name plate of the former Champion, Alexis Caffrey and a single pink carnation.
The night stand beside the bed is decorated in red spider lilies and pink carnations.
An incense stick burns along side a candle, one representing the flame of life, the other representing the whiff of death.
There are also two apples, one red and one green, sheets of paper and an empty glass display case just large enough to house a Championship.
I don't blame you. Go ahead baby, let it all out. Let it all out. We all need a good laugh sometimes. Other times all we need is a good cry, and for the times when none of that helps, the best we can do is have a good old scream and shout about it, so go on darling, scream for me.
Scream as loud as you like for as long as you like.
Nobody else is here for you. Not Mike Laszlo. Not Roberto Verona. Not even your Mommy.
It's only me. It's always been me. Only I have been here all this time. I've been here before and I will be here after. I may never be the Mommy you remember, but I will always be the mother you'll forget. A Mommy coddles her child. A mother teaches her children, and you my dear sweet Lexi have been coddled long enough.
I am not the Mommy you deserve, but I am the mother you need right now.
So you'll hunt me. Because I can take it. Because I'm not your hero. I'm a silent guardian. A watchful protector.
A DARK KNIGHT...BRUHHHHHHHHH BUHHHHHHHH....
ROLL CREDITS!
HuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHA!
The look on your face, it's priceless. That look, that look of jealousy, of envy, of greed, it's brought light to so many of my dark nights. So many times I've watched you struggle to keep it together, to hold on, to carry on bravely without me.
But you just can't do it, can you Lexi?
Not on your own. Not without me. You just don't know how to cope. It's all a little too much for my brave little girl, isn't it Lexi?
It's okay, you can tell me. You can tell your mother.
Tell me how much it hurts. Tell me how nobody understands the pain. Tell me how hard you've worked to get through it all and become the person you are today. Tell me everything as if I haven't heard it before and I will tell you to join the club sister.
You aren't the first and you won't be the last to lie to yourself or to me or to anybody else about how well you're coping with all of this. I know how lost you feel. I know how pointless it all feels now that you've lost it all. All purpose. All meaning. The will to go on...
You see me lean across the bed and retrieve the two apples, taking one in each hand.
I know how that goes. I've been there before.
"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade," they say.
What do they know?
It's a hollow sentiment, rendered even more meaningless if life gives you apples instead. What do you do then? How many curve balls can you catch Alexis?
You see me stand up and start to juggle the apples.
How many more can you juggle? How much before it all becomes too much? How bravely can you continue to put a smiley face on all of your regrets and failings before you realise these ARE all your monkeys and this IS your circus?
It's not easy as it looks, is it darling? Carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, and juggling all the emotions of a loss. Presenting the world with a new face, convincing the world that you've made it and telling everybody that you're going to be just fine. Lies, little white lies. All of them. With practice, they can be hidden, concealed, and locked away deep inside away from a cruel and judgemental world. A world that will never truly understand our pain.
So you march on as best you can, hoping against hope that you shine just long enough to blind them to the truth.
The truth that you've never been able to cope with all of this, with any of this.
The red apple lands on the bed and the green apple lands in my right hand. You see me tilt my head and shrug before taking a bite out of it.
We've both worked hard, and in a fair and just place you would get to enjoy the fruits of your labour, but this is not that place nor that time...
A second bite. Swallow.
You see us as so different, as distinct from one another as apples are from chalk, but the truth is that we are just apples from different trees. I'm a red apple, you're a green apple. I'm stained by the blood of those that came before me, those I could never save. You are stained by the envy of those that came after you, those that you hear in your head.
A third, bigger bite. This one harder to swallow.
You hear the same voices I do, sweetie. The same voices that tell us we're not good enough, that we shouldn't be here. That we don't deserve happiness. But for ninety-one days you proved them all wrong. You proved them wrong once, just as I did.
Like mother. Like daughter.
You've walked in the very footsteps I've left behind and for just as long as I did.
That's why you are and always will be my baby. Whether you realise it or not Lexi, at the core we are the same. The same seed planted in the same soil and left to grow. Rooted firm in our convictions to be remembered as so much more.
I have fed you and I have watered you. I have kept you warm and I have kept you safe. In the propagator of life you saw only the glass, only a prison. I saw beyond it, I saw the skylight. You've grown just enough to escape whilst I have grown beyond even that and realised there is none, at least not in this life.
Either way, the glass lays shattered around us. You look at each glistening shard and see only shattered expectation. I look at each fragile piece and see only shattered dreams. Each of us in our own way yearn to go back to the way things were not so long ago, only I have learned that you never can.
You see me toss away the half eaten green apple.
You concern yourself far too much with what I have taken from you my love and not enough with what I have left you with. Perhaps it is my fault. Perhaps it is because every time I look at your sweet little desperate face I laugh.
I never could say no to anybody who could make me laugh.
So here you are once again. Hoping to live a dream at my expense. Knowing that for as much as I have given you, I will always give you more, so much more than you rightly deserve. A second chance, no a third - that is a mother's grace, that is a mother's charity.
Still you've spit it back in my face, like the spoiled little brat you are.
Still I've let you live to fight another day because no mother ever truly wants to bury her child.
Still the apple never falls far enough away from the tree.
You see me lick my forefinger and then lean across and rub it gently across the name of the dead gold belt.
You will never realise all you had and all you could have had until its far too late.
Your stubborn refusal to accept who you really are deep down inside will be the death of you.
Once upon a time, I wanted to see you blossom and bloom and grow, but now I realise that no matter how carefully you nurture them, some shoots will never flower.
Never truly come to life.
So it is with great sadness that I say may you rest in peace, little one.
You see me then bow my head in mourning as I lift the old leather from the bed and transfer it over to the glass display case.
You were taken from us far too soon.
You see me then start to stick the plain white paper around the display case, creating a shrine in the typical Japanese style, determined to ward off the spirits of the impure dead.
But we will always remember you...
You see me then pluck the pink carnation from its bed, inhale the scent in a slow deliberate breath and lay it to rest on the completed shrine to the most treasured memory of one Alexis Caffrey.
You are left in silence to pay your respects and express your condolences.
Well howdy there pardner.