By Evening Lights

The traffic lights distort broken garages. Three hues combine to bathe all in a coruscating dream. And still, the rain pours upon this rainbow somewhere. I mourn it, welcome it, beg for more.
This place has a bleak desperation which compliments their own. A simple truth recognised. This place demands truths, for the lies stand dark and vivid. Even their shadows slide around in pairs.
I twitch a recollection.
A memory of a robin flies under my feet, a crimson inspiration. The vision makes no sound, but I recognise the confusion in its throaty chirps. Searching for worms as they search for each other, it pecks a pointless day. When the night comes and the same tricolour lights that illuminate my evenings bring relevance to this place, perhaps then he’ll succeed. Perhaps, not.
The recollection fades. If ever it was one?
My paranoia is boundless. This inner desperation destroys me. Life is no life in limitless longevity. Only in the rain-washed luminance does hope remain. Only in liquid crystal am I the man I remember. I need no sun!
Darkness returns.
She called me a bat, an occupier of the night, un-living. She claimed I hated the day because the sun revealed my faults. But none of us are faultless. None of us are perfect. None of us were born to continue through death.
How boring now, this sterile world.
The undercurrents of societal want disgust me. People are no longer tame. Minds hampered by expectation require the spotlight illuminations of day, not the gentle pulses of night. The traffic lights’ displays mean nothing in the daytime, mean nothing until dark. They possess no more power to enforce man’s will than a collar on a stray dog.
Incisors slice, not grate together like theirs.
Bring on the rain. Bathe me in amber. Dress me in green. Fear me in red. Yes, fear me. For a colourful death is my calling card, my gift. I can make one distinct in an existence rendered boring.
I watch the lights change: one, two, three. Such simple symmetry. A distraction worth noting. They note it, too. One woman. One man. They hold hands as if these subtle warnings were sent to terrorise. They aren’t. All they do is provide one extra moment, one extra pause before the storm, to a being who no longer needs either.
I count down from green to amber to red. The latter signals their demise, the favour I do them.

Besides, is it not better to die part rainbow than to live a golden blur?

The Endless

Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

But the Devil Desires

The roses bloomed like cosmic supernovas in vermillion, emerald, and sapphire blue, bursting across the meadows in unadulterated expressions of joy. Insects roamed amongst these fountains of colour as if seeking rainbow drownings. The world exuded everything and more.

There were many such wonders in this scene, aquifers of liquid gold, silver raindrops falling from mercury clouds, birds to make a phoenix seem dim, ants so polite as to have just graduated from ant finishing school, but it was a falsehood. Why? This world had never seen the sun.

The moon blazed a molten silver, did its best to provide life with an excuse to live. But moonbeams don’t nurture and stars can’t shine in the day. I closed my eyes and wished.

I woke to a tungsten sky and brick walls. The city. My city. Home. Gone were the fabulous moments, lost were those most stunning views. The dream was over before it had even begun.

I had many such dreams over too few hours, as though God himself wished me to see all the possibilities I’d shunned. But the Devil desires what man has, and so this was my lot. Reality stunk, but it was my reality. Or was it theirs? I supposed only He truly knew.

Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

These Depths

Courtesy Oladimeji Odunsi on Unsplash.com

There are no depths to this loneliness, it is endless, whereas, I am not. Trenches of ultramarine night stretch out into an unseen distance; I follow them with my fingertips, groping wildly. Creatures flit past like agitated fish, or scattering bats, or just my dreams. Go, I say. But nobody hears.

Somewhere, a raven sings a sonnet, or caws a eulogy. I’m no longer sure. An inverted moon plunges with no intention of sending moonbeams my way. The stars flee. An ebony darkness fills the void. I feel it behind my eyes, pulsing.

Once, I lived the life all younglings pray for, of family, future, and past. Once, but not any more. Now, I loiter on the periphery of a something long forgotten. It is Death. She waits with open arms, ready to wrap her nightshade shawl about my shoulders and give me what I’ve lost. What have I lost?

These depths. This depth. This death. Ah, there you are.

Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

Indelicate Descents

Falling like feathers through each other’s mind,
this is our way, these delicate descents.
But not always.

Our hearts once rose like rocks, forced from Vesuvius by tectonic immensity.
As gold-plated angels, we ascended.
As false gods, we looked down on them all.

Sparks extinguish.
Lights go out.
Coatings tarnish.
Heights are made from which to fall.

I see her, feel her, think of her as a rainbow does the sky.
One without the other is pointless,
as only one gleams.

She sees me, hears me, thinks of me as a star does the endless night.
Such pinprick pomposity!
Blink and it’s gone.

We tumble like feathers in an indelicate descent.
We tumble.
Fall.

Another dream soured.

Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

The Moments Between Dreams

The bleary-eyed awakening offers little to billions of sleepers each night. Less than a gap and at best an inconvenience, mankind surf those moments eyes closed and desperate. The chirruping blackbird is a nuisance at such times. The ticking clock is akin to the devil. As for a dripping faucet, or rain upon the windowsill, enraging.
We tend to focus on those instants, expand them unwillingly, when all we wish is to contract. But time suffers no interventions, at least, not by us.

We desire the flavoured darkness, where ex-loves taste better than ever they did in reality. Where we as sports people score wonder goals, tackle like rhinos, run like the wind, so far from actuality that it’s a good job we can’t see ourselves; unrecognisable faces frighten the children who spy them in clouding mirrors. We act as never we would in real life, for our dreamworlds offer security, sanctuary from prying eyes. Some might term this, release. Others might term it a mass delusion.
Be it a minute or a restless hour, we struggle to depart the awakening and return to the promised land of dreams with utmost expedience. There’s almost a dread. We fear the darkness, for everyone knows it’s where monsters hide. We curl our toes and squeeze our eyes so tight they hurt. Tossing and turning are par for the course. Burying heads in pillows, the same. All that is wanted, needed, required is a return to the hoped-for pleasantness of that pause until dawn. Gold light and blue skies beckon us. Well, when I say us, I mean you.

I don’t want to go back to sleep. I don’t want those moments between dreams to end. If ever serenity offers a troubled mind a chance, it’s during these spaces in eternity. They calm a struggling mind, don’t stir them to further agitation. They soothe troubles, not pretend them not there. A divine gift to restless souls, those who exit limbo into the hushed still of their own bedroom, roofed and walled, secure, free from the ragged world beyond the window glass, these are rare treats indeed.
The moments between dreams never last long enough, for if they do, they are no longer moments but extents. No one likes an extent, they’re too, well… long. Brevity is key to the moment, as time is to life. Yes, life. But what of death?

We do not dream to sample death, we wake from it to taste what will. What good is a stomachful of forever if you’re not afforded the luxury of swilling it around your mouth beforehand. And here I pause…

As I write, I reveal. I unpick the truth with a sledgehammer. There is a liar amongst us and that liar is me. I lust for the pause and dispute every moment, afraid that to do otherwise might prove that I’m gone. I am afraid of the night more than any. I savour the waking, or I’d cry before sleep. The paradox of it all tingles behind my eyes. These moments have sold me a fable I no longer wish to read. Am I awake, or am already gone?

The End

Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

Six Word Stories 5

The ghosts knew where to tread.

Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

100 Word Stories: Big Eyes and the Boy

Her ears were bigger than her head. She wasn’t ugly, though, far from it. Her enormous, round eyes, accentuated by whiplash lashes most women would’ve killed for, drew you to her and held your view.

There were years in those eyes, generations of wisdom. They deflected from her abnormal feet and rough skin. The latter was an eyesore, as if she’d never exfoliated or moisturised. As for her nose, well… better left unsaid.

I loved Nellie more than words. I looked forward to seeing her, even if it was an annual event. Every kid did. The circus was a treat.

Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

Beyond the Places We Dream

The lure of the darkness draws this moth to its moonlight eclipse. There is no room for silver in a shadow’s imagination. There is no need for light where I must travel.

The caverns ring with the sounds of the damned and their children: Is this the silence she promised? I think not.

Onwards, I press. Deeper, I probe.
She sits on an obsidian throne, shrouded by glimmering mists. Like a Black Widow on her web.

“You came,” she coerces.

“How could I not?”

There is a dream beyond the wild places, beyond the oceans, the dead, and their dreams. There, I sit beside an eternal, praying for endings, but living the dream. The question is as it always was: Whose?

Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

Haiku 7

sweetest surrender
ebony to tangerine
a chorus of birds

Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.

The Closest We Came

The closest we came to forever was the moment in which we gave up. Our breaths held and never really returned. The moment drew out to seconds, to hours, to more. Your eyes dimmed like exhausted candles. Mine were already black.

The closest we came to forgiveness was that moment we met at the wake. Dressed in black from head to toe, I barely recognised you. I said Hello and you almost said it back.

The closest we came to something was that moment when we both said, I do. I remember how it felt, not how it sounded, as those three tiny letters sunk beneath my skin and slipped off your well-oiled own.

The closest we came was closer than most but never close enough for me.

Thank you for reading
Richard

Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.