Writing - Dark and Stormy

It was

It was a dark

Dark and a stormy

It was a dark and

Stormy dark and

And stormed it

It was night

Night was dark, stormy

It was a stormy night

A stormy dark

A dark night was

It was

It was

It was dark

Claire sat in the darkness, it was a dark, it was a dark and stormy night.  She knew nothing of where or when, the particulars were uninteresting, ephemeral.  Rain slashed against glass before her face, her cheek was pressed against its surface and there was a measure of solidity there.  Of that she was aware.  Gradually feeling spread through herself, the rhythmic percussion of rain, there was a dull rattle against her face, the rush of wind trying to penetrate through the edges of her unmovable guardian.

Her brown hair matted against her face, breath pooled opalescent vapour across the surface of the glass.  Pulsing out with each exhale, and retreating before the chill of rain. 

Gradually Claire became aware of the tips of her fingers, her left hand was pressed into the baseboard, smooth grains of wood and the rough texture of drywall.  Her right hand held a rigid piece of steel, flat and fine.  Her feet were wet.  She hadn't the energy to raise her head from the place where it rested aside the glass.  Lazily, her eyes rolled in their sockets, seeking without knowing why.  Her feet were wet.  Her fingers too.  Sticky.

The smell of burned copper, and rain.  A charge of the dark, in the shadows which encapsulated Claire this night.  Her fingers clutched a razor to herself, and her mind replayed in slow sepia the moments of progression to the now.

She saw herself, forehead pressed against the glass.  Tears spilled from her eyes, but were not the source of wetness.  Rain flowed down, before her eyes, so close and so far.  She slumps, her voice is raw, it is as though all that motivated her motion has drained, a marionette with strings cut.  Boneless she slides to the floor, the only rigidity in her right hand, her fingers.  A flash of steel, a flicker that startles even her, so aware, so alert in the darkness.

Her heart breaks as she remembers the words.  Over and over they tumble in her mind, she imagines herself able to rebuild the memory, the words, the questions, the haunted look and the silent benediction.  And finally the back that was turned, the slam of a door and the silence.  It was a dark and stormy night.

The razor falls against her hands, and flecks of crimson cast themselves far, she thinks that her fingers will release the blade, but instead they tighten.  Where everything else becomes soft, and a slow haze creeps in over the stinging in her flesh, her fingers clutch the blade.

Claire bleeds out, silent and alone, her eyes become glassy like the rainwater reflected off the world outside.  And a dark storm rages unabated, uncaring, aloof.

It was a dark,

and stormy night.