Leave Me Here and/or Your Beautiful, Calloused Hands (1410 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 2 on 26 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by goferforhire <goferforhire.at.yahoo.com> (View user info) at 2006-12-07 18:53:50 EST
The little girl sometimes thinks her toys are smarter than she is. She watches them out of the corner of her eye at night, waiting for the moment she's sure is inevitable; the moment when they come to their feet to play with her while she sleeps. After all, who's to say it's not her that's the toy? It's just a difference in consciousness, that's all. Every night she clutches her sheet and watches them, trying to hold them in place with her eyes, but it doesn't matter. In the morning she's sore and she's not lying in the same place she was when she closed her eyes the last time and worst of all her sheets are there, lying on the floor. The toys are still where they're supposed to be, though: calm and asleep on the shelf. She begins to wonder if maybe the toys are just used to it by now. She begins to wonder if she'll ever get used to it.
After months of the torturous pattern of waking up in disorder, playing for a day, reordering her things and going to bed only to repeat the same painful cycle again in the morning, she begins to get an idea. She goes through the order like usual but after her father leaves from saying goodnight, she crawls into bed, leaving the toys on the floor. In the morning, she thinks, if they have moved I will know for certain that they are playing with me as I sleep. She sleeps easier, closing her eyes immediately and easing into pleasant dreams. As she awakes, she rubs the sleep from her eyes and glances tiredly about her room. Her eyes dart from floor to shelf over and over again.
"They've moved!" She exclaims.
And her fears are confirmed.
She leaves them at friends' houses and they come back. She locks them in cabinets and they still show up on the shelf in morning. She tries to throw them away but thy still return. She stops playing with them. She sits in her room and watches them, convinced that tries as they might to stay calm while asleep she can see their chests heaving with each sadistic breath, can see their eyes twitching in some dream which would have her in tears and calling for help but which leaves them smiling and satisfied. Her father watches her with a somewhat curious and worried look, but he makes no moves to help her. She doesn't want to tell him, because she's afraid of what he'll do about it. She's afraid she'll be taken away to the big concrete box with the white walls, just like her mother and grampa and gramma.
So she sits in her room and says nothing, and she sleeps, and still when she wakes she is sweating and sore and lying in some strange and contorted position and her sheets are tossed around the room ever so carelessly.
"WHY CAN'T YOU AT LEAST CLEAN UP!" She shrieks into the face of one of them, some awful doggy monstrosity whose thick white beardish hair used to be cute but now spoke of intense evil wisdom. It refuses to answer, refuses to even blink.
She decides not to sleep. She decides that they'll wake up before she passes out, and all she'll have to do is kill them, one by one. Killing them while they sleep doesn't occur to her at all. After all, she's strangled them and beat them and cut them during their playtimes in the afternoons, and still they are destroying her slowly. She sit in front of the toyshelf, eyes darting from one to the next, waiting for a sign of motion for what seems like forever, singing softly to herself to keep from falling asleep. She can hear her father waiting and listening at the door for her to fall asleep but that doesn't concern her. He wouldn't believe her, we wouldn't help her anyway. So she waits.
Finally, as it began to seem impossible to stave off sleep and her hunger threatened to make her move by itself, one of them began to move. A simple, non-threatening doll, but it had to die nonetheless. She crawled over to it, hands and knees and stared it down as it crawled from the shelf. It eyed her with its lifeless glass visage, but before it could do anything she grabbed it by the throat and began to slam it into the ground. She bashed it over and over but its head wouldn't shatter, no matter how hard she hit it into the floor. She began to weep, hands still clenched tightly around its flimsy but invulnerable little neck.
"What do you think you're doing?" Came a voice from behind her.
Slowly, she rolled her head to her shoulder to see the dog behind her, head cocked at an unpleasant angle and eyes threatening her with all kinds of hell.
"Go to sleep," it said, "Go to sleep so we can do this like we always do."
Its furry white arms fired around her neck and clamped down. Her eyes bulged with the force, and she tried to scream but she couldn't find her voice. Frantic she glanced for a weapon. The doll crawled out of her hands and one by one the other toys leapt down from the shelf. She tried to pry the arms from her neck, but there was no way. He was stronger than her, her hands couldn't sink into his thick furry arms and he seemed determined to keep her down. The teddy bear came towards her menacingly, followed shortly by the little raccoon puppet she'd gotten for Christmas, the last thing from gramma before she went crazy. The memento dove between her knees as the bear leapt for her shirt. The dog beared down on her from behind and there was nothing she could do. The other toys beared down on her and she could feel them all over her, tickling and biting and something else, something unfamiliar, and still the arms were around her neck. She began to scream, finally, as she disappeared completely under the writhing pile of animals and dolls, cackling wildly and purring with demonic glee. She looked behind her desperately and he was there, somehow more than an animal, somehow more-
"Maria," the voice is quiet but still somehow threatening and it forces her to listen. "Maria, darling, why are you screaming?"
She is in bed and her father is there. There are bruises from her nightmare around her throat and her face is pressed deep into her pillow. She can't seem to get up, she can't seem to raise against it... the toy, the animal, the whatever... the father/monster she remembers and forgets at once.
"Maria," the voice deepens to a pitch she remembers at last and begins to cry, "Are you crazy like mommy? Do we have to put you away like mommy and grampa and gramma?" She can feel him heaving against the small of her back and she holds back a dangerous sob.
"No daddy," she manages to say calmly, thinking of the toys on the shelf once again, "No daddy we don't have to do that. I'll be a good little toy. I'll go to sleep."
In the morning she begins to wonder again if the toys are smarter than her, but she realizes that they are not. They are stupid, they are ignorant, but that is why they are happy. They are happy because they can't think and so they can't remember and so they can't force themselves to forget. She smiles softly and goes back to sleep.
Your Beautiful, Calloused Hands
Brian believes he has brains
in his fingers- he flexes
and files them for perfect display.
Maria, he loves her,
he watches her closely;
he thinks it is thinking
that drives her away.
His hands, so intelligent,
speak to him softly,
they promise him power
to keep her at bay.
He wants her within reach,
he wants her intensely
and all over all
he just wants her to stay.
The mind is a muscle,
he thinks as he grips her,
the mind is a muscle
and strong as they come.
The brains in his fingers
are stronger than he is;
they out-think his mind
'til Maria goes numb.
User Reviews
Submitted by LittleMonster (user info) at 2006-12-10 08:32:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
well done Sir. Bravo
Submitted by LittleMonster (user info) at 2006-12-10 08:32:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Sweet Jesus.........
Submitted by LittleMonster (user info) at 2006-12-10 08:32:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
*blinks*
Submitted by Professional_Peon (user info) at 2006-12-09 20:02:13 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
It's my muthafuckin birthday!!!
+2's all around!!
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-12-08 21:41:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by goferforhire (user info) at 2006-12-08 20:41:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2006-12-07 21:09:57 (#)
Ranking: 2
The girl and the dog are begging to be face fucked in that picture.
-----------
Just now saw this. I hate you, doodles.
Submitted by DCWoody (user info) at 2006-12-08 15:05:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by goferforhire (user info) at 2006-12-08 11:21:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
That's a monkey?
Damn... I guess I was close on dog.
Submitted by kuroneko_sama (user info) at 2006-12-08 11:18:40 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
A MOPKIN!!!!!!
i got one of those things when i was on vacation like 16 years ago.... those things are like creepy muppet monkey pets...
i wonder where mine is now.....
Submitted by ubetidid (user info) at 2006-12-08 11:10:37 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
quite good.
i'm traumatized for the rest of the day.
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2006-12-08 08:56:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Magnificent.
Submitted by DrogoRoch (user info) at 2006-12-08 05:49:46 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Shit that was good. Fucking creepy. Damn fine piece thank you.
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-12-08 02:24:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Creepy. Definitely a major childhood fear for me.
Submitted by jfreakman (user info) at 2006-12-08 00:13:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Hello, Chuckie.
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-12-07 22:14:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Quality story, poem and picture. A triple threat.
I enjoyed the line breaks in the poem. It let the meter run without making it too obvious, while still allowing each line to hold its own thought.
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2006-12-07 21:09:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
The girl and the dog are begging to be face fucked in that picture.
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2006-12-07 20:58:08 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by goferforhire (user info) at 2006-12-07 20:47:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
The picture scares me more the more I look at it
-it looks like she's naked maybe which is weird
-there's a guy maybe a doctor standing in the background
-it doesn't look like she's fighting
-what the hell is that toy thing
Submitted by goferforhire (user info) at 2006-12-07 20:43:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I wrote the poem and saw the picture first. The two together gave me nightmares and so I wrote the story.
Submitted by Antioxident (user info) at 2006-12-07 20:39:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2006-12-07 20:01:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Maltese (user info) at 2006-12-07 19:14:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Driven conversations,
Even I can read
Wouldn't want to fake it,
And I'm tired of this dream
Taking medications,
In the back of the room
Driven conversations,
And he died in June
See the stab wounds in his hands
See him dying in his room
He's dying in his room
He's dying in his room
Heading for me, heading this way
He is coming, I don't care
Wouldn't want to fake it,
Well I don't mind
Giving conversations,
To a friend of mine
Giving medications,
In a lighted room
Wouldn't want to fake it,
I know I should
See the stab wounds in his hands
You killed him, I don't care
Keep a promise, you would too
Keep a promise, you would too
See the silence in his head
He is coming, I don't care
We're not gonna make it,
Well I don't mind
Wouldn't want to fake it,
But I have this time
Giving conversations,
To whom they don't know
Taking medications
Till my stomach's full
See a famine in his head
See him coming at their heels
He loves you, give him a chance
I don't love him, I don't care
See him starving, give her hell
It is over, we don't care
In his room
-- Verse Chorus Verse, unreleased 1990 studio demo by Nirvana
Submitted by Amontillado (user info) at 2006-12-07 19:13:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
That's pretty amazing.
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-12-07 19:02:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm pretty disturbed by this. It's so, so dark.
Great story, scary inferred metaphor.
I love the poem.
Submitted by ih8u2man (user info) at 2006-12-07 19:02:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
What a cool idea. X-mas time and all.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-12-07 18:59:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Toy Story