Shards of Porcelain

Letting Go

This is an entry for #NBR contest. The prompt: you are a kid's imaginary friend. He/She is growing up and you're fading away.

Word count - 750 (exactly, coz that's how I roll)

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You watch as she smooths out the wrinkles on her flannel nightie, watch her small clumsy fingers arrange the soft plush creatures, 23 in all now, given to her in pairs on each of her birthdays by the two strangers who call themselves parents, all but the one. The blue thing with a stubby tail you thought was a dog but was actually a bear that you had stolen for her from a giant machine that eats things nobody wants anymore. She likes that one the best, keeping it closest to her as she sleeps, her lips always kissing it goodnight.

You hide in the shadows of the small room, listening to her soft breathing, watching her eyelids flutter as she lets go and plunges into her dreams. You close your eyes and wait for the familiar scenes to spring to life behind your own eyelids. You know them by heart, these dreams. It starts with silence that doesn't feel real. It's the sort of silence you think one can only feel deep in a cave, the kind of silence that closes in on you, making you feel small. A single note on a trumpet will pierce it any second now, and you'll see her running, barefoot, across a cobblestone bridge over fast moving water.

She'll be wearing a long white thing made of something shimmery that'll move in small ripples as she runs. Her hair is longer, whipping side to side as it sways with her strides. As you watch her run, you can tell she is no longer a child and it embarrasses you, but you can't stop looking at her, because you know she is running to you, running from whoever is chasing her.

You know that from the way her eyes are, full of fear and hope and something else, something you've never felt before, and you can't let go of those eyes. You run towards her, your heavy boots striking the hard stones, and you feel her eyes taking in your face, and you feel your skin tingle where her eyes are.

She is close now, close enough to where you can see small beads of sweat on the bridge of her nose, making the spray of freckles there look shiny, and you want to reach out and throw your arms around her but you are still too far. You hear the sounds of other feet on the stones behind her getting closer, so you make yourself run faster and you finally grasp the flimsy fabric around her shoulders and you pull her in close to you and she lets you. She clings to you as if she knows you, her arms going around your neck, her face upturned, eyes on yours, and in a moment her lips will brush against yours making you feel warm all over, making your skin burn where she'll touch, but you don't mind it, not when she looks at you like she'd been waiting for this her whole life.

You wait and wait and wait and the silence is all wrong. You can hear the buzzing of the night lamp and the hum of the thing that makes it warm in the room, an ugly thing against the far wall that you'd always been afraid to touch, because somehow you knew it would hurt your skin, and not in the way her lips and her hands did.

There is no trumpet note either, and you know, feel it everywhere in you that something is wrong.

You open your eyes and look at her, and her eyelids are doing the fast fluttery dance, dragonfly wings fast, and there is a small smile lifting the corners of her lips. You wrap your arms around your chest to keep the cold out, the cold that wasn't there just a minute ago but is now seeping into you from the inside, and you know for certain what you must to do now, this last gift for the girl who made you you.

You take the few shaky steps to her bed and lean over her peaceful face and you plant a soft kiss on her forehead, and she frowns at the coldness of your touch, so you pull back and you whisper goodbye over and over again until you can't find your breath anymore, until you feel the silence and the coldness of the cave take you. And you do not dare fight it this time.