Yesterday
Lying in my bed, as usual.
Breathing - very shallow.
Felt numb, almost.
The air was dry and cold.
I heard a rustle - beside me. Beside the couch.
Turned my head, slowly, and there she is --- pale as paper, with long, black, flowing hair --- and she was so thin, as well.
Her face, that of a child. So pretty. So empty. So devoid of emotion.
Her eyes, the purest black I've ever seen.
Her eyes, that stared right into mine. I stared back. We stared, for a long time, and we didn't know what to say. Or we just couldn't know what to say? She was silent, so I copied her, I went back to my former chameleon self.
Was she asking? Wondering? Was she curious? Was she here to kill me?
Was she here to possess my body, like she used to once?
With almost painful care, she parted her dry and chapped lips - and lifted her head, a bit - just a bit -
and I expected her to scream me back to the underworld, but instead, I just heard the faintest, sweetest chiming of bells.
I wasn't scared, really. There was nothing that scared me at this point. Waking or sleeping. Or was I scared?
I don't remember. I just listened, to her little song, to her call. She called her master.
And she kept on staring at me, like she wanted me to run away? Run away.
I didn't. I just kept on lying there, breathing slowly, shallowly, carefully. Scared to let my spirit escape.
She stopped, stared. Sadness, reflected in her eyes. Pity, maybe?
She looked so sad. So sad. So sad.
I stretched my weak and frail hand out, wanted to pat her, like I always do whenever someone looks at me like that - but she just flinched, scurried back on her long, slender limbs, scurried back on those wonderfully deformed arms and legs of hers.
She sat there, wide-eyed, surprised. Shook her head, inch for inch, from one side to another.
"No."
"No."
"No."
And then, behind her -
and we both looked into the darkness of my doorway at this moment -
behind her ---
a long, red, flowing trench coat -
wavy, disheveled hair -
and that white surgical mask of hers that she never seemed to get dirty.
(A part has been omitted for brevity's sake.)
"Am I beautiful?"
She must be lonely, just as I am.
"Am I beautiful?"
Must be sick and tired of the shallowness of the ungrateful humans.
"Am I beautiful, now?"
She must be suffering ---
"Do I have to be beautiful?"
Or do I just want to have an accomplice in my loneliness?
She drew back her head, the sweet stench of her breath now gone. With a swift, almost studied, motion she got up, pulled the white cloth back up and looked at me with stern, cold, harsh eyes.
She reminded me of someone, someone I knew long before, but ---
"Don't become like me."
And with that, she walked out of my room, the click-click-clack of her high heels still resounding long after she left me with those words.
The girl, the spider girl, she just clung to my ceiling.
Watching me.
Then her left eye popped out and black, thick liquid oozed down on me.
I remember how sweet it tasted.