"I miss you so much.
Jake, I really do...
Where'd you go?"
Judith pined, sobbing out to the gloom that blanketed the sky,
her heartbeat in rhythm to the tears of the heavens.
Her mood was clearly parallel to that of the heavy clouds.
"Who am I kidding...
WHO am I trying to kid..."
She slammed her palms against the glass panes,
which reverberated menacingly,
and leaped out her window,
her limbs outspread, in a frenzy, to vent
all the overdue frustration.
Not even the strong winds can stop her
from falling four levels down, now.
The evening was dark and dreary with rain-
so perfect.
The limp body of Judith bounced off
the trampoline her dad had bought for her
fifteenth birthday.
"Funny... I didn't hit the edges today.
My subconscious aim is getting so much better..."
She lay there, motionless for a while,
as she took in the cold trickles, letting
her tears blend in.
She didn't care if the neighbours saw
her sprawled out, so unglamorous,
on a ridiculously huge trampoline.
She was sick of the unpredictable
waves of fatigue and melancholy,
especially when she had too much time by her own,
and the rain was too tantalizing to move away from, anyway.
Dragging herself off the finally-stilled trampoline,
Judith tore through the rain around her neighbourhood,
immersed in her world of Gramophone and
uncaring of the cars that whizzed by her side.
It's been years.
No call. No indication. No concern.
"What was I to make of this?
That I did something wrong?
That you left for another?
Knowing could have helped so much more."
Judith felt so much like tearing her own skin apart,
except that she lacked the strength nor
the boldness to hurt herself, too much.
Instead, she let the angst and disappointment
lead her along her estate,
so that she could not feel her legs anymore,
that her arms soured and stitches played up in her sides,
but still, she ran on.
Judith was always running.
In reality, in her dreams/ nightmares.
She often woke up, a fraction from screaming,
drenched in sweat.
She hated running,
hated the things she ran from.
Sometimes, she hated herself.
She understood the mechanics of life, though.
Guys were always likely to leave for a more voluptuous lady,
one who had the looks-
big eyes, sharp nose, small lips, high cheekbones-,
who had a sharp tongue.
She's seen too many friends lose out,
and every time they did, she felt their pain.
And she, more than anyone else, knew
that, in a fight like this,
she will definitely lose out.
Judith lacked the long, lean legs that could seduce,
the luscious locks boys dug their head into,
the slender silhouette to get into tight-fit clothes,
the facial features which stood out.
She didn't really give a damn about these
feminine worries till Jake forced her to
delve into it.
It was as if all that he'd ever told her
were pieces of TV.
The closeness he displayed seemed an act,
the moments they shared likened a dress rehearsal,
every kiss was just practice for perfection...
his perfection.
As if coming from a broken family wasn't
enough trauma...
She immediately felt the knife stab
and dashed through the last stretch of road
before plunging onto her bed,
thoroughly soaked.
Judith crumpled into a ball
and sobbed herself to a dwindling heartbeat
against the London sky, while
her windows lay wide opened, her
curtains snaking up the walls,
and while shadows played across her ceiling.
Enough.
Like all stupid depressed females
with a broken heart,
a bottle, a broken empty glass and spilled pills
laid, abandoned,
at the corner of the bed.
Trekker
Ray walked out of the conference,
fresh with information and
sputtering with motivation and determination.
The biting winter frost would not dampen
her warmed heart.
The talk by Prof. Richard had been enriching
and fulfilling.
She thought about all the rewards that awaited
her budding invention-
her fuel.
She would be radical.
Ray giggled at the mere thought of
breaking out of the stupendous
male-dominant trend that ran,
haughty and obnoxious, in her office.
Disgusting promiscuous fools with their
poor strained suits.
She could die laughing if their
buttons gave way.
Oh, the joy of commanding them the way
they did over her.
She would point her newly manicured nails
at them and throw sarcastic remarks
on their efforts.
They were the reason she hated work.
And now, she had its remedy.
She left the office on clouds.
For weeks, she had frustrated herself over her goal,
focused on perfecting the solution
to handling lost kids in the mall.
Every day gone was a day closer to
the dateline.
Her colleagues gave her no break and
often tried to persuade her to let go of her task,
in their efforts to precede her.
They were a thread's width close to claiming her.
But still, that space counted-
And she broke through.
The boss liked her idea
and Prof. Richard commended
her thoughtfulness.
For Ray, it was more than a dream come true-
To win the Inventors' Award (held every half a decade)
of her company and receive public
acknowledgement by Prof. Richard.
All behind her glazed smiles,
she shoved mental socks down the snobbish
throats of her alligator-teared colleagues,
stifled the need to point The finger
and recited empty words of thanks to the
unsupportive managers and uncaring welfare members.
Tonight, she will be an
educated and refined lady of great heights.
Ray was a devout believer of Irony.
Trekker got patented the week after its announcement
and while there were many controversies,
a fairly large percentage surveyed supported the idea.
No one liked to be in the dark of the places
their loved ones were in and
Trekker had promised no side effect.
The only thing its receiver would feel is
equivalent to receiving an injection-
a plus point of the product-
and then wake up to the life he
had left as so, without
memory pertaining to its implantation.
Reports of lost kids, found, were rejoiced
upon the screens of homes for a period
before the excitement slowly dwindled as
they shadowed into common news.
None came back negative as yet and Ray
muttered thanks to God for that
stroke of luck.
But things had not always been gliding for Ray.
She began to feel invisible stares upon her back
and sourcing it out was always to no avail.
Initially, she dismissed it to the growing
load of work and research credited to her ability.
But such increasing occurrences
streamed along an uneasiness, reignited
from her high school years, in which
she experienced her greatest fear.
Gullibly, she pushed it to the thought
that her jealous colleagues were trying to get back at her.
But something about such movements
tingled the back of her head
and she found herself wading in nightmares
dubbed in snippets of teenage years.
Uneasiness had her spend more time in the office.
Much like a scene in horror movies,
Ray walked along the secluded streets,
where stray trash clankered down
a sloped curb and leaves would
swirl around the same spot.
Images of a cup of hot chocolate and a comedy
waiting for her at home
kept her from hitting the pub.
A soft sigh escaped
when the thought of winter
last year pulled Taylor into the picture.
She missed the times she'd wake up,
snug and comfortable in his arms
and when they shared times in the kitchen,
trying for an unprecedented concoction of
the ultimate berry tart.
She wondered if he missed her
as much as she did.
The kind of yearning that
had her promise herself that
she would hug him so tight when
he next returned.
If only he didn't have to go overseas...
She pulled her coat tighter against her
as a new wave of breeze washed over,
her hair caught in the tethers of
the gushing wind.
Engrossed in the fusion of Bloc Party,
she turned into her street-
and immediately got pulled into an alley.
It was such a fast and violent action,
she didn't even have time to scream or think,
but immediately felt a piercing sensation
on her neck.
It wasn't long before the walls
started to flicker in monochrome.
yellow.
purple.
orange.
grey...
Then she felt a grubby finger stroke
her neck and had her earphones removed
to hear the sound of passing cars.
"I'm here. Oh gracious. I'm here.
What the hell is happening?
Someone, please come get me.
I can't fragging move."
She could cry in fear now,
for when she felt the front of a body
crush against her back,
everything flooded her.
Only that she was numbed
and she could move nothing except her eyes.
Even her tear guts weren't working.The amount of profanities flashing,
furious in her head, was more than
she had ever swore in her entire lifetime.
Laid on the floor, blindfolded, her thoughts
started to vaporize when she felt
the chill and hard of the floor.
Ray struggled mentally to stay awake,
forcing Taylor to materialize before her.
Yet, the words she heard next
pried her finger open from the last rung-
" I've always wanted to do this..."
The sound of a belt buckle against the floor;
then, blank.
