just something...

[Anita Blake]

this isn't a story, it's barely even a good snapshot. it's just some words that are being written at this moment.

At 25, you start to re-evaluate things. But then again, at 22 you started to reevaluate things, and when you look at it, you've grown, sure, but not really that much.

Look again. Out the window. Those mountains set you free, trap you here. Sometimes beauty isn't all it seems, isn't that what you think? Sometimes, beauty doesn't have a meaning, but in the end, that doesn't matter, because you look at a thing, and you see it's beauty, and you love it for it, and it doesn't have to have meaning. Like the mountains, beautiful, without meaning.

I could tell you things, things you'd never believe, not if you lived to be a hundred and four. Things you'd be better off not believing. Believing the kinds of things I could tell you is what could get you sent to the men in the white coats who give you that nice soft rubber room. I could tell you, and you wouldn't believe them to be true, but you'd listen anyway, fascinated with the intensity of my gaze and the way my voice seems to hold you there, listening, trapped. And even when you decided you'd had enough, you'd still stay, trapped, caught, helpless, and that's when you'd notice the glint in my eyes, the slightly unnatural way I look through you into your deepest secrets, hungry, ready to eat you alive now that I've caught you. The eyes of a predator, and you the prey.

I could do all that, but I'll try not to. Because you don't want to see the eyes of this particular predator land on you. And actually, neither do I.

When it first started happening, I thought I was going crazy. It seemed there was an animal rippling beneath the surface of my skin, just beneath the surface of my mind. I'd look at people and want them to threaten me, just so I'd have an excuse to tear their throats out in my teeth, dig my fingers deep into their flesh and tear. My jaw quivered at the thought, my body tensed, all the pores on my skin seemed to open to the wind, feel everything so keenly.

I thought i was having a breakdown, cracking, losing my mind, something, anything rational. Not... i couldn't believe the feeling literally. That was .... crazy.

Untill, of course, all that wished-for violence happened. He came out of the corner of my eye, ready to grab my purse, hit me, run. But I saw him, and I used excessive force to bring him down. Right elbow to the groin, my left hand grabbed for the throat and caught it in a vice grip I never knew I had. And I squeezed, and squeezed, but that wasn't enough, so I ripped and tore and slashed. And then he was on the ground, dying, and i walked away. I wanted to lick at his wound and tear the flesh with my teeth, but I walked away and went home and had a nap, and I knew what I was.

Dogs cringe at the sight of me, and cats vie for my attention. Part woman, part panther, there is no part of me that will not gladly swallow you whole and sleep it off. So do us all a favour. Don't listen to me, don't believe me, walk away, and pretend you never saw me. Even better, forget you ever saw me, forget that you looked deep into the eyes of a hungry predator, and lived to forget.

[dark fuschia]

criminy jicket! that seriously sent shivers down my spine when I got to about the 4th paragraph... :-o It kinda took me by surprise.

[Anita Blake]

the wind whispers to me, and it's so soft and dark, like cold velvet caressing my skin. I want more of it, i crave it, i need it, but there you have it. Trapped here in this place, trapped in this place of men, this city, this abberation of nature. And as the days of my imprisonment in this gilded cage continue, so does the ferocity of my hungers.

There's no real way out, though, not for me, not for someone like me. Not quite human, not quite animal, there is no place for my kind, if i even have a kind. Concrete and steel towers hold my human half hostage, for my body is too weak and soft to survive the harsh environment my soul craves.

I remember a time, not so long ago, when i wished that my soul were less animal, more human. But now, i wish that my body were more animal, and my soul less human. I want to be free, i want to feel the power of the jaws i don't posess closing around the neck of my prey. I want to run through the jungle, climbing, playing, seeking out my mate, and teaching my kittens the way of the world.

I cry myself to sleep most nights, half afraid i am insane, half afraid i'll wake up to find the animal half of me gone, moved on to a more suitable host. Sometimes, the urge to kill is so strong, so overpowering. And i wonder, will i ever know why i have had this gift, this curse, bestowed upon me? Every night, i pray that i will wake up a panther in truth, not just in spirit, cast off this weak human skin and be what i truly am. Even if i could shift once a month, like in the stories, how blissfull that would be, no matter how painful, how terrifying, at least i would be free.

I tried, once, to leave the city, to see what i could do in the wild. But while this human body can catch food, rabbits, squirrels, birds even, I can't kill them in my mouth, eat them whole, hot and fresh and bloody, for this body can't digest it properly. I want to eat my meat raw, but have to settle for rare-cooked, which is not the same thing at all. i want to rip and sherd and tear, but these teeth are meant for grinding.

i fear i will never be whole.

[Anita Blake]

I'm not afraid of the dark, i feel i must make this clear. No, the dark is quite welcome, as far as I'm concerned. I have no problems navigating through the darkness, feeling my way around to where i must go, avoiding tricksome objects in my path. No, that dark is nothing for me to fear.

But there is a kind of darkness, more of an absense of light, that terrifies me anc chills me to the bone. That twilight dark, not yet dark, yet not quite light. The darkness of flourescent lights that aren't quite on. Just enough light to let you see, and yet to hide everything from your vision.

Since I was small, my worst dreams had that nightmarish, haunting light. As though I'd been staring into the sun and then walked into a dark room. It's always the same. That's one of the reasons i turn on the lights before i really need to, why it's always more well lit than there's any good reason for it. One of the reasons.

There is a feeling, deep within me, and I have to think, have to wonder at least, what exactly is happening in my life. And yet ... wonder though i may, i don't dare to really question certian things. Oh, i know what the answers to those questions would be, deep down, a buried treasure of dangerous answers to questions I suppose i might be better off not asking. Like, where have all my old friends gone? It seems ages since they've written me, years since they've called, and is it just that we've grown distant, apart, older and less dependant on old ties?

Well of course, it must be that. I've been rude, and they've forgotten me.

And work. It's been forever since my boss gave me an assignment ... oh i putter away in my office, keeping up with current business and such, but i don't remember actually being told to do anything for a very long time...

so many little things, little little little things, my appetite, always smaller, and yet I never seem to lose weight, no matter how little I eat. And that haunting not-light that seems to chase me from dream to dream, room to room, eating my lights sometimes, no matter how many I turn on. And that cold, restless, gnawing fear that something is not as it should be. That something in my life is missing ... but i don't dare dwell on that too long, because i start to think wild, impossible, terrifying thoughts. Thoughts that aren't present in the pure darkness of night or the honest light of day.

I'm not afraid of the dark, not exactly, but when i think about it, i'm not really afraid of anything at all, except for the truth that lies within the deepest part of my soul.

[Anita Blake]

ok, i posted this in my reflections, but i thought it deserved a little spot in the prose section too ;) :p hope no one minds. :D It's a totally true story by the way, it happened about a half hour ago. :)


As is my hobby of late, I sat in my living room in the dark, stretching. I leave the lights off because i live in a high rise, and have large windows that look out into another high rise. Often i can see residents in their homes, so i turn my lights out that they can not see me as i stretch and look out on the ocean.

Out, over the bay, a large block of white cloud approached, lit by the twin lights of the moon and the city lights. The cloud appeared a large square, and it was moving towards the city, like a giant blanket to cover the city in it's snowy purity.

The cloud moved quickly, and i was enthralled to watch it come slowly, inexorably ltowards the city. The cloud was white at it's nearst corner, but the far end of the cloud looked dark and menacing. As it approached, it's shape began to stretch out and elongate, growing longer to cover more of the city in it's dark web, oh so slowly, but fast enough for these human eyes to watch in fascination with a slow dread building through my limbs.

Closer yet it came, and the ends began to curl out in short, stubby fingers. It began to resemble a freakishly deformed hand, greedy, grabbing for as much of the city as it could take, straining just to touch it. I began to make out fanciful shapes in the cloud, puppet faces, sensual lips, bats, cats, birds, mutant babies, oh so many visions! The fingers began to give way to more shapes, more dark images of dread and fear. The closer it came, the more fingers it grew, on each finger grew grotesque and bizarre images.

As the front of the cloud moved past me, i was forced to behold the dark, yawning mass that came before me now. The end of the cloud seemed little nearer than it had when i had first seen the cloud. Shapes were harder to make out here, larger and more abstract, as if reality had but a tenuous grasp on this part of the cloud.

A gaping hole opened, appearing like a gash that had been cut into the dark grey mass, revealing a deep dark sapphire blue sky, and one twinkling star. The layers of water vapour in the cloud became perceptible, if not visible, the shape of the electricity holding the water vapour together. No mysticism here, no vague images of awe-inspiring doom, merely a feeling of awe at the natural order of the unverse, that water vapour can be held in the sky, loosely bound together, torn apart by the winds that created them. Forces of nature in their purest scientific form.

A thought flickered in my mind... "the images are but a fancy, and only a fool would take them to have any meaning." Very nearly I agreed, only to be caught offguard by another thought.

"but could not the science of nature force such shapes out as a symptom or precursor to a greater natural phenomenon, and we have merely assigned our images to match these warnings?"

A third thought attempted to sum up for me, "Why can't both things be true? Is it impossible for two differing ideas to concurrently be true?"

The revelation that there is more than one right way was hardly new, but it seemed to hit home in a way that was very real to me. The notion that what we refer to as 'fantasy', or superstition, might not be any less true than 'reality' or 'science'. Different, yes, but no less true.

The cloud continued it slow enveloping of the city, as if it were drawn to the vibrancy and electricity of the city itself. It seems doubtful that few other than i sat and saw the cloud that ate us alive.