The Magic in the Moment (Short Stories)

Autumn Dancers

September 3

            Her room was white – bricks, tiles, sheets, clothes. The sun morphed the walls into a blinding reflection eclipsed only by the shadowed squares cast by the bars over the window.  Gazing at the tops of the trees mutating from green to red, at the people with their colorful personalities straying here and there on the sidewalk beyond the walled courtyard, at the expanse of silvery blue sky that unblinkingly scrutinized her, she pressed her back to the cool white wall and worried the sheets of her bed with her fingers. The colors through the window deafened her, radiating through her skin and vibrating down her spine – green, blue, red. The babbling voices, screaming birds, and raucous breezes created a rush of sound that tasted like pennies. The ludicrous world beyond her room thrummed with color and sound and life that made her skin itch.

            “Meds,” the nurse called.

            Anya glanced toward the stern nurse dressed in white scrubs.

            Unfolding from the twin bed, she shuffled toward the nurse, accepting and emptying the cups of water and medication.

            “Good girl,” the nurse droned, closing the heavy white door behind her.

            Anya scratched at her left wrist and returned to bed, lying and staring at the ceiling where the ridges formed swells of white water, rolling and crashing along the bricks of the wall.

October 10

            “Meds.”

            Her room was dark, ceding to black beyond and white within while she watched the waves battering the shoreline.

She accepted her meds.

“There now. Red makes it all better,” the nurse said.

            Anya scratched her wrist and forced a twitch at the corner of her mouth to appease the waiting woman.

            When the woman had gone, Anya slid to the floor with her back against the wall, staring at the white bricks which inhaled and exhaled the moonlight. A numb chill settled in her bones. Despite her scrubs, Anya knew the woman couldn’t be a nurse; they always sent someone to test her before they arrived.

Anya lifted her tongue and fished out the three pills she’d hidden.

            Poison, she thought, moving the loose baseboard and placing the three red pills on top of a growing pile. They’ve found me again. And this time they want me dead.

November 12

            Sitting wrapped in her sheets, Anya felt the breathing walls compress and release. The white comforted her, nagged her like an over-attentive mother. They’ll be here soon, it whispered, warning her.

            Her sheets tightened around her, coiling until her skin could taste only the white linen.

            In the dark of night, Anya rocked in the linen’s protective arms, her eyes darting about the room, waiting for them; they were never the same when they found her. They could be anywhere, anything, but they couldn’t hide against the white.

            In the far corner of the room, just beneath the window, three tiny figures coalesced from the fine dust of the floor. She stopped rocking, her eyes fixed vacantly on the dust-dancers. They were as solid as shadows and as fluid as mercury. Like fairies, the faceless creatures joined hands and gamboled in a circle. Make it red, they sang liltingly, twirling and flickering in the moonlight. It’s better red.

            When the nurse came the following morning, she found the girl huddled in stained sheets, gory smudges marring the floor and walls. Anya was still scratching at the open wound in her left wrist, her eyes wild and vacuous, face streaked with red blood.