Author Games Compilation [Cycle 2]

Task 6 - The Ashes [HOLIDAY]

THE FOURTH ANNUAL WRITER GAMES: CANON - QUARTERFINALS

He sits on the ground, beneath a tarp tied around brittle trunks, and beneath a sky purpling like a bruise on his hip he investigates now, a bruise gained when he'd collapsed under the weight of an intoxicated haze a day or so ago. He hadn't gotten back up for a while after that. When he prods it, a sting spreads around the deep violet, and teeth dig into his lip not only from the pain, but from jumbled thoughts coming back for him to reflect upon, even though he doesn't necessarily want to. Thoughts are tricky like that, though.

A day ago, Moire had woken up in the middle of a clearing, where anyone could've easily stumbled across his unconscious figure splayed out against the earth. At first, there was confusion: why were his legs bent like that, and why did his throat burn like that, and why did his tongue have such a foul aftertaste like that? It became clear when he first smelled his own breath. Alcohol. It was faint and intermixed with something else, so he'd wanted to try again. He'd brought a hand to cup around his mouth and breathe into, so the odor would bounce against his palm and into his nostrils. But his hand came back smeared with red, and Moire's heart immediately dropped into his gut.

That was when fragments of the preceding day started coming back, first in scattered bits and pieces, and then strung along in some sort of cohesive order that vaguely made sense, a string threaded through each memory. Eyes wide and tongue balancing a curse or seven, he'd sat up, ignoring the rush of pain through his skull. It was important that he rubbed away at the lipstick until it was all gone, until there was no trace of it left on his mouth. So he did. He did until it was gone. There was no way to tell, of course, when that was, for lack of mirrors and pools of clear water, and odds are that there are still faint stains smeared onto his cheek, but at least he'd shown the desire to remove it; at least he'd recognized his mistake.

But he'd also shown the desire to put it on, at one point. It made that second part moot. So for the next day, he would walk with his head down, he would crush insects underfoot merely to release words he couldn't speak, and he would reflect, embarrassed and ashamed, until evening came and he sat down beneath a tarp to investigate a bruise that was starting to become a nuisance with how the waist of his pants continued to rub up against it with every step.

Now, he slowly brings the hem of his shirt down until the harsh mark is out of sight. For himself and an audience. God, he ought to just hide under this tarp and never come back out. That way, they can't force him to do anything. They can just fucking kill him already. It's an instant, wicked, almost hopeful thought, but then it devolves and unwinds as quickly as it sprung up. Dying won't erase what happened the day before and dying won't erase what he's shown the world in a drunken stupor. A drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts, they always say, and no matter how much he tries to explain that none of what he said was true - even though it very much was - they'll always bring that one little statement up.

He decides he hates whoever came up with it. However intuitive they were in saying it, he hates them for creating ammunition.

Maybe he should just accept things and carry on. Maybe he should just go, "Okay, my name is Moira, I am a woman at heart, and that's that," and ignore the worst of the aftermath. But he doesn't want to. He can't ignore his family because he loves them; he can't ignore the world because it never goes away. He can't ignore his own personal truth, either. The only thing he can try to ignore is how the sensation eats at him, and so he does, diving into the pack to the side so he can eat at something else, even though he knows there's nothing left.

All he has is a crushed beetle that's been laying at the bottom of the pack for a while, squished hours ago by the glass bottle he'd saved (for good reason, too; there are still traces of his own yellowed urine at the bottom, already chugged down, an extremely unpleasant but necessary experience). Though he doesn't particularly want to touch it, he picks it up, hard and dead and a bit sticky between his thumb and forefinger. Since the moment he killed it, he knew he'd try to eat it. It's just been a matter of finding the right moment, of working up the gall to do so.