“Virginia Jolene Coal!” Her mother yelled, “You come down here right now!”
Upstairs, Virginia hopped down off her four poster bed and shuffled her feet to the door. She knew why her mother was calling her. She had made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch and left the remains of it on the kitchen counter. For this, she wasn’t in any hurry to be scolded. She pulled open the door to her bedroom and stood under the arch. She scanned the hallway. Noting the pictures that hung there in their neat little rows and how the one on the end, closest to her room, hung slightly crooked. Its left corner tilted down, while its right tilted up. She couldn’t remember how many times her Mother fixed it. Harrumphing as she saw it. Pulling it from the wall to look behind it, as though something lived back there and made it its life’s mission to tilt the frame when she wasn’t looking. After looking at the back of the picture, and then at the wall, she’d replace it with another harrumph.
“Virginia!” Her mother screamed again. “For Pete’s sake, will you come down here!”
Virginia walked to the top of the stairs to find her Mother standing at the bottom with her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. “Get down here, now!” Her Mother said pointing to the floor at her feet.
Virginia liked to make her Mother scowl. For no other reason than to watch her face go from a beautiful round bowl of a face to a pinched rotten apple. She had always wondered how her Mother seemed to crumple her face in such a way. How she could make her thick eyebrows disappear in folds from her forehead. How her lips usually full and plump, could find themselves so sour looking. Sometimes, when Virginia was bored, she sat in the bathroom mirror trying to copy these angry faces. Making her forehead crinkle to the point her face muscles hurt and trying to sour her lips to the point even they hurt from trying so hard.
Reaching the bottom, Virginia’s mother took her by the shoulder and led her into the kitchen. “You clean up this mess.”
While Virginia’s mother busied herself with making supper, Virginia cleaned up the peanut butter ball she left blobbed on the gray counter top. Along with the crusts she never did like eating and took the rag her mother handed her to wipe up the remaining of the crumbs.
“There, was that so hard.” Her mother said as she took the wash rag back to the sink.
“No.” Virginia mumbled.
“Then why can’t you clean it up after you make the mess?” Her mother turned then to stir the spaghetti sauce she had bubbling on the stove, so she didn’t see Virginia stick her tongue out at her back.
“I guess I forgot.” She said tucking her tongue back into her mouth.
“You always forget, Virginia.” Her mother said to the bubbling sauce. “You’d forget your head if it weren’t attached.” Turning to look at Virginia, Mrs. Coal wondered where her daughters mind got off to.
She’d always been the type of girl to run around half cocked. But recently it seems to be getting worse. She understood changes become a young lady in her teens, but Virginia’s changes have been not only in body, but in mind.
She’s been watching Virginia change gradually over the last two years. Her hair has gotten darker. Where it once used to be bleach blond, it now has streaks of brown in it. As though God didn’t like her hair and tried to wash it, with mud.
Her round angelic face has become more chiseled. As though her features were roughly captured by an artists chisel. Her green eyes have become as muddy as her hair, the light that once made Helen smile, now dimmed.
Her attitude follow suit. She used to be a wild child, running amok and driving everyone mad with all her antics, but she made you smile. It was as though Virginia’s anxiousness made you marvel at the small wonders you’ve found to be inattentive. So you overlooked the small endeavors she made and delighted yourself in her mischievousness.
Now it seems she was no longer a mischievous little girl, but a new girl, who tries on personalities as though they are cloaks. One not fitting as it should, so she takes another off the rack and tries again.
Her body has become a woman’s and her mind, Helen wasn’t sure
My words are a kaleidoscope of luminary pitch.
A varigated simplicity of who I really am.
You can judge me. Or love me.
But the umbra will stay.
An unheeding solo, will not sweeten the way,
and yet, the fermented heart will beat even stronger.
An aftertaste, even slight, will still last longer.
And you can take your throbbing quivering lips,
painted with your cause and effect,
and caress my ass.
**This is what happens when I can't write. Actually, I try to sit down every day and write. Whether it be one line or working on writing projects already in progress, if I get distracted, I tinker. This is my latest tinker. It cracks me up!
She stands within her laden thoughts.
A moment of distress.
The quiet darkness wraps around her.
A comforting cloak.
Eyes closed.
She takes a breath.
Shaky and unsure.
One step to cross a threshold.
One step to free her mind.
A whisper passes by her lips.
"Let go."
With a final gasp.
She dissolved her thoughts.
** If you don't already know about Friday's Flash 55, you can find more information at Mr.Knowitall.
