Welcome to the Wattpad Block Party - Summer Edition III!
Round SIX of this popular event is coming your way the entire month of August 2017 and it's going to be epic! The invites have started to roll out and everyone from your all time favorite Wa...
"Yes, but why would you want to kill something you were sad had died?"
James turned a page, then another, before going back a few. "Because people feel more comfortable playing hero to a dead thing than actually being one to a live thing. No more questions. Listen, you'll like this." James wriggled down in the armchair, his long legs stretching out in front of him. "Art is not the hammer, art is the mirror. Reality is the hammer."
James peeked up at his friend. Ghost moved in slow, gliding steps from shelf to shelf, his fingers spider-walking along brittle leather and paper.
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"I'm skipping to a part I want you to hear." James cleared his throat. "Years ago, maybe three or four, we got her uncle Jameson's shotgun and dotted the ceiling. It was a few days later I found out she had tried to use that same shotgun to blow off her own head.
Loving her was a sickness, a terminal disease that would end up killing me. Art was her mirror, reality was her hammer and I, I..."
Ghost felt his heart thud hard and painful. Thud, thud, thudding against a cage of bone. This passage hit too close to home. The love he had for James came though the words, the feelings, the unforgiving act of near demise. It was too much for Ghost to take. "Stop," he whispered nearly in tears. Ghost's eyes were glistening, his hand was coiling around a strand of his silvery hair. "Please, find another one, James. This one was too-." Ghost's hand fluttered to his heart.
James stopped reciting and looked up. He understood Ghost's heart, the painful, maddening way Ghost loved. "Knew ya'd like it. Ok, something else then. One of them poem-story things?"
Only when Ghost nodded did James continue with another passage. "She was havoc playing on my soul. A million matchsticks dancing on my cancer stick. The whirlwinds in her eyes brought me to my knees time and time again. She was nestled somewhere between breast and bone, somewhere in the mirror of my madness where dark things should be placed and loved.
She was a tempest thundering inside, a sharp, throbbing plea of salvation. In the mirror she placed before me I whispered long forgotten prayers and it shattered onto the floor. She never ever minded the splinters that stuck with her and left stains of crimson on the floor of the halls of her mind.
She was more than a turn of the screw, more than the missing mile mapped out on the trail I had left from elbow to wrist. I knew of all of her nightmares, I knew that she spoke of 4 AMs and testimonial dreams.
Without her I am the aftermath of a hurricane; a wreck of broken bones and broken thoughts. I am a folder full of suicide letters I never sent out. Without her, I am nothing. Yet when she comes running to me, a tangle of monsters in her arms, I feel the sun and moon have risen. She keeps them safe in the corners of my life, they dance and dine with the angels I have long since locked away. Turn the screw till it hurts; I will still remember.
She was brilliance among a shelf of lies. The last few drops of vintage bourbon that burnt my tongue after I had swallowed. At nights, in dreams she lingers, like a phantom dancing on the walls. I reach, my hands no longer feel her, velvet and soft. A million matches set alight, they come and burn what the bourbon could not reach. I touch. I shiver. I turn, tighter."
"I changed my mind, James. This place isn't terrifying, it's beautiful." Ghost placed his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Even with its creaky sounds and bat wing shivers, it's-" Ghost drew in a deep breath, "beautiful. Can we keep this book? Can we take any of them home?"
James shook his head. "Naw, they gotta stay here, right where they belong."
"Can we come back again?"
James closed the book and handed it to Ghost. "Whenever you feel the need to, yah. We can."
James' gaze followed Ghost as the pale-eyed boy found a spot among the shelves and sat on the floor with the book.
Ghost's fingers skated over the pages, his lips echoed the words inked in the book. "A thousand snowflakes fall outside the world tonight. I close my eyes, feel a gentle voice embracing me, whispering-" Ghost looked up and saw James smile. "There is always a reason to live."
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I want to thank @KellyAnneBlount , the hostess of this grand event, for inviting me to take part in the Wattpad Block Party-Summer Edition III, it's such anhonor to be here! Also, a big thanks to you for taking the time to read my entry and for your support, I appreciate it!
'Reasons To Live' was something I wrote to try my luck with a genre that was not my usual dark, or Gothic horror. It became a featured story and has been read by nearly half a million people on Wattpad.
The last story Ghost reads is part of a piece that was published in an anthology by Kingston University Press called 'Rethinking the Plot'. I'm also the author of a collection of dark poetry called 'Goblin Garden' which was published by a small house in Greece in 2015. 'Goblin Garden' is available on Amazon in paperback form (https://www.amazon.com/dp/6188063434).
Ghost and James first came to life in a tale which was part of RtL. Though their story snowballed into its own short collection and was later moved under a separate title, 'Requiem', in my heart they will forever be a part of RtL.
I hope you enjoy the stories found in 'Reasons To Live', you can find them by visiting my profile: Nyhterides (https://www.wattpad.com/user/Nyhterides).
:)
GIVEAWAY INFORMATION:
Nyhterides will giveaway a signed paperback copy of her book of Gothic poetry 'Goblin Garden' to 3 lucky winners! This giveaway is open internationally.
To enter the giveaway, please leave a comment on her Wattpad story, 'Reasons To Live' https://www.wattpad.com/47970765-reasons-to-live-flash-fiction-stories-wattys2017 or follow her on Twitter https://twitter.com/Nyhterides
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