Proof

Preface: This is a short story based off of the play "Proof" by David Auburn. We had to do a style project where we mimicked another artist's style. I picked Edgar Allen Poe.

You must believe that it was not me who made myself mad. No, in fact, it was the haunting, invisible presence that kept itself deep within the walls of my dead father’s house. Ah, you do not believe me? Allow me to elaborate…

Deep within my father’s sprawling mansion, there was a walled, windowless sitting room. I dwelled among its dusty shelves full of archaic volumes and the moth-eaten cushions. Cobwebs hung loose from angled corners that were never cleaned. I was too enthralled by my father’s abandoned mathematic notebooks. I drowned in the dim lamplight and wrapped my fingers around the rumpled pages ever hour I could spare. Ah, those numbers brought new life to my being! The voice of my father presented itself before my fevered eyes, between my straining ears. Soft murmurs passed my lips, but I could not remember willing them to move at all. Harsh, discordant whispers sounded as I recalled back what I read until the whispers did not pass through my lips at all. They merely rang about my form, rebounding off the wooden shelves, muted by withered covers, crackling through the chipped, wounded plaster. Ah! Father! You speak! Yet I was terribly frightened. Foreign voices ringing through my head was, I knew, proof of madness.

Ah, you can see now how sane I am! I even had enough conscience to diagnose my own madness! I do know, of course, that you believe I am mentally stable. It is in this confidence that I tell you – my father returned from the dead.

A luminous bulb in the sitting room was covered with a deep purple shade that cast eerie shadows that reached desperately across the room’s barren floor. The wooden clock on the wall chimed the twelfth hour of the night and I swiveled my eyes away from the tattered page to glance upon its ticking face, but it was my father’s wizened face that met me instead. Eyes like black pebbles pushed back into his flesh melted by age. His clothing was worn and hung loosely from his gaunt, emaciated frame. His smile curled the drooping corners of his lips and pulled his pale skin taught over his skull. And then he spoke, “My dear,” his voice echoed strangely as his whispers had done so often before, “You forgot your birthday!” The man proceeded to procure a bottle of aged wine!

There was immense joy in seeing my father alive again, but there was a fever buried among that intense euphoria. Ever night as the clock struck midnight, he would appear. Yet every time the apparition vanished, I was taken be an extreme sickness; a certain need; and unquenchable thirst to complete by being. On the seventh night, as my father disappeared, it took me completely.

The blood that pumped so viciously through my webbing veins boiled furiously and caused my hand to seize up around the closest pen. The sinew in my fingers stood in sharp relief as my hand, moved by some unseen force, grabbed the nearest, empty notebook. I willed myself to stop only in the confines of my fragile mind, yet my father’s spirit was too strong in me. Those discernable whispers grew around me: faster, louder as they echoed inside my heated skull. The pen, held so tightly it hurt, wrote a myriad of letters, numbers, and symbols upon the page in sharp, curt strokes. Like knife-slashes, they produced black blood upon the page. The stretching shadows over the floor flickered like the flames of hell itself to my wild eyes. Demons! Demons writing in pain! Oh glorious masterpiece! Beautiful genius! My father gripped me like crushing iron as my body gesticulated in fits of passion! Oh! Oh!

But then it ended. The pen fell to the desk: a discarded murder weapon. The page dried, finished, but I had never felt so whole. The Proof before me – that beautiful Proof – was now the center of my very soul. My father, his legacy, held me – nay, bound me – by that simple Proof. It was my masterpiece and my reason for existence. Ah! To be whole!

As I lay back in my chair to bask in the feeling of utter completion, there came an ominous knock upon the front door. I, of course, did not rise to answer it, but the latched clicked open anyway. A tall, awkward man came striding into my territory. His face was obscured by the flickering shadows, yet I recognized him (or perhaps my father did) as a former student, Hal.

“What do you want?” I snapped.

“Only to collect a few of your father’s manuscripts. It’s Catherine, yes?”
I nodded. My father’s steady murmurs implored me to relax as he collected a few books lying around; including the one contained my masterpiece. I watched his eyes flicker over the dried ink, looking aghast, “Who wrote this?” He asked.

“I did.” I answered bitterly.

“It’s in your father’s notebook in your father’s own script.” His tone was laced with apprehension as his eyes narrowed into suspicious slits. My own eyes burned – seethed – with indignant rage. I felt another hysteric sickness growing within the depths of my beating heart. This man, this wretched man, could surely not be insinuating doubt upon my precious Proof! I, being so perfectly capable, gave him another chance:

“You do not believe me?” I growled. How dare he doubt my very existence! My very soul!

“No.” That simple answer unleashed the demonic torrent within me. He doubted my very being! The center of my universe! My masterpiece! Once again, I failed to control my movements as I lunged for the pen lying harmlessly upon the table. Snarling, I took the implement to the side of his swollen neck, tensed from the pressure of his incomprehensible screaming. Floods of blood dribbled to the carpet. Ah! The blood! Pooling around the floor! Flowing like ink! Oh!
His labored panting fell silent as he collapsed upon the floorboards with a muted thud. My own masterpiece was spared any splatters from the sanguine attack as I clutched it to my heaving bosom.

The stand lamp in the corner flickered, beating back the shadows to illuminate the grotesque scene. Blood framed the pallid corpse like a ruddy halo. The body would not be disposed of, for its sprawling limbs lay at such beautiful angles, but something must be done! The police would surely want evidence! Proof! Ah…Proof! With tedious care I arranged my father’s abandoned notebooks around the still body. Proof! The watchmen would find plenty of that, now! It is, after all, what Hal had wanted! The proofs! A wry chuckle slipped through my curled lips at my own genius. I, myself, would show that genius to the world.

Let Him Go.

Preface: This is a few weeks old, maybe. I really like the way it rhymes, even if its not even.


I’m begging, let him go.
I can’t bear the thought of sharing you.
I want so badly to be all you see.
Look me in the eyes,
And tell me you’re not compromised.
That it’s never been him when it could’ve been me.

I’m frightened; let him go.
He lingers in the back of my brain,
Like an image burned too bright.
It should have faded.
The monster should have vanished when I turned on the light.

Left.

Preface: This is almost a year old and somehow never made it up.

I'm wide awake; Just barely breathing.
I know your anger; it is seething.
I know your smile; it has flown.
A wake facade; my cover's blown.

I'm torn and shattered; me to blame.
I can see it in you; and extinguished flame.
To be forever snuffed; you're jaw is clenched.
So many tears; my clothes are drenched.

A token gone; slipped off my finger.
Its absence hurt; the feelings linger.
Such beauty; life has disappeared.
It left me then, just as I feared.

What She Is.

She is not a clichéd sentiment to be spread out upon the face of some networking site. She is, in fact, something bigger than that – an entity that you could not possibly comprehend without a casual glance, a conversation, or perhaps not even then. She is a smile, the moving form of body language conveyed to you when you meet her. She is the syllables placed directly from her lips, more direct and yet more entwined than any superficial sentence you read here. The words do not make her, but she makes the words, redefining them even as she speaks. Her concept of beauty may not be yours, but when she speaks the word, it is with the conviction of a silent definition – a meaning conveyed by looking at her and the obvious way in which she perceives the world. She will not hide from you. She gives you all that she is in a lingering glance. If it is a direct honesty you seek, she will provide it – as brusque and as unadulterated as her demeanor would suggest.

Ocean.

Beautiful dancers crash on the sand.
They scream, they whisper, you can't understand.
Pale in the moon, blue as the sky;
Ripples, like mirrors, flickering by.

Horizon: A fishing line pulled across land.
Drawn by some mystical, imperturbable hand.
The same hand, in fact, that drew the white moon.
It's annular prowess cause waves to swoon.

I feel so lonely with the moon and the sea;
Like that lidless eye if following me.
That expansive blue blanket; I feel so small.
Like the sands to a wave, do I matter at all?

Beauty Standards: A Rant

      Let me hit you up with some truth.  You don't have to work at a place notorious for nothing but wings and breasts to feel beautiful, and this is frustrating to me.  Every time I read a post like this, I always feel this way.  She describes herself as a girl who has "succumbed to the media".  Listen, don't blame the media for your self esteem issues.  I'm done with that.  It's well known by now how much work goes in to making those girls look like that, and if you see them walking down the street, they look NOTHING like they do in their pictures.  Sometimes I wonder if models are self conscious themselves without being all dolled up.  How ironic would that be?
      But let me tell you something else.  Showing skin and body is not exactly a side-effect of self esteem.  In fact, sometimes its just the opposite.  Sometimes its, "If I show all this off, maybe I'll get noticed" syndrome.  I don't know about you, but occasionally when I put on my bikini, sometimes I'm like, "Dear gawd, what is THAT!?"  It is my -own- problem.  My boyfriend doesn't notice it, nobody else around me notices it, just me.  My body image is not based off some model or actress -- that's impossible!  Everyone is different,  I'm not about to compare myself to other people.  I am what I am.  The boy I have now loves me for that, I don't need your approval, or the media's approval.
     Yes, I go to the gym every morning (almost), yes, I try to keep myself in shape, and yes I am concerned about my appearance.  Everyone is -- men included.  Everyone is concerned with how the world perceives them.  The difference between me and Wanna-be-hooters-girl?  I don't need to be in a position for boys to think I'm sexy to feel attractive.  Not any more.  Why not just make some more money and go straight to playboy?  They must have all the self confidence in the world...  The image I am trying to build for myself is one that I'm going to like and be proud of.  Screw everyone else.  If I wanted to look like a model, I could.
     So, media stereotypes and women who have completely succumbed to them, leave me alone.  The greatest evidence of self confidence comes from wanting to be yourself, not somebody else, and loving the person you are.  I'm not going to lie, I've spent time staring longingly at magazines wondering what I can't be better, but I'm done with that.  Let me be me, media, and I'll let you continue feeding your fake crap the masses, maybe someday everyone will see how shitty you really are.

End rant. Whew.