Menephe

I have to say, I feel truly alive when I’m sitting here under the delicious SoCal sunshine. It’s not quite summer yet, which means the days are perfect and the nights bring a slight chill. But right now, oh it’s perfect. I sit at my favorite table, sipping my magnificent vanilla latte, face turned up into the slight breeze that’s blowing, computer open and waiting. Oh yes, I could live a million more days like this. This is when my stories truly come alive. I take another deep breath, inhaling the comforting smells of a beach town: sea salt, brine, sweet coconut, and wafts of pineapple. I could get lost in those smells. I look to my waiting screen and my fingers just fly. I don’t even control what comes out. I know better. The world creates itself and whirls onto the screen, faster almost than I can type, but my fingers do what they do best and keep up with the demands of a hungry new existence. 

I’m mid-sentence when a woman clears her throat. I look up in irritation, ready to wreck havoc on whosoever interrupted this sacred moment. My fingers stumble, stop. There is something so terribly arresting about the figure that stands before me. Her eyes are so dark as to be black, but deep inside, you can see the light of something shining through. It’s a light that draws you in with the promise to devour you completely. Her long hair softly clacks in the wind; beads, bone, and gems peeking out between curled strands. The bits of curl not held down expand, as if trying to catch as much of the passing wind as possible. Across her brow rests a cut of onyx, shaped into a half-moon. The string of gold and pearl holding it to her head is ornately woven through her hair, bringing a touch of elegance to an otherwise wild appearance.

She snaps her fingers in front of my eyes, breaking my fixation and bringing me to an unsettling truth: I know this woman. I’ve imagined her so extensively, it’s impossible for me to not immediately recognize her; down to the frown forming on her face, creased brows showing impatience and anger. Oh, yes. She’s very, very capable of anger. I try to muster a word, any word, something to say to break this spell and bring me back to myself. If I could just utter one word, I know, I’m absolutely certain, that I will wake up and find that I’m in dire need of a vacation. At least, maybe, put the story away. Of course, the mind that was so active moments ago, has utterly betrayed me, leaving me with a blank mind and no words. Even my fingers offer up no help, wiggling futilely in the air, waiting for something to transcribe.

Finally, the woman snorts, grabs me roughly, and starts dragging me away from the coffee shop. This has me even more stunned than before. How is it possible that she can even touch me? Surely, I’ve now completely lost it. I’ve gone too far into the land of storytelling. I don’t know how, but I’ve opened my mind to such an intense level of creativity, that my main character, right out of the story I was passing from Universe to Laptop, is alive and here, and dragging me down the street. I have no clue if she even knows where she’s going, because this world is far from the world I made for her. She finally stops in front of my apartment building and looks angrily at me. 

“I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re doing, but you fucking fix it. Go inside to that shit-hole you sleep in and you fucking fix it. If you ever see me again, just know that you failed and I’m here to fix it for good.”

With that she turned and walked away until I lost sight of her rounding a corner. I can’t say how long I stood there, wondering what the fuck had just happened, but after deciding that I wasn’t going to wake up, I walked back to the coffee shop to grab my things. Thankfully, everything was where I’d left it. I looked at my laptop and suddenly that blinking cursor took on an ominous feeling, like the time ticking away on a bomb. I looked at the last sentence I had written:

Menephe had no more room for tears, for now she was truly alone.

The cursor continued to taunt me, asking me - what’s next? Do you dare to carry on? Do you dare to put in the last of what your mind had wrought on this world? Are you so far gone that you believe yourself to be a god, capable of creating living, breathing beings? Beings so powerful they could cross dimensions? I laughed a little at that and sat back down, convinced now that I really did need to take some time off after putting in the last few sentences that would mark this story as complete. I took another deep breathe and finished the story with a satisfied clip of the keys. I shut my computer down, gathered my things, and walked the few blocks back to my apartment. For one brief moment, as I turned the corner onto my street, my throat held tight, wondering if she would be waiting there for me, like she promised. But no one was there and I let my breath out in an amused whoosh. I walked up into my apartment, throwing my things down and jumping in the shower.

As I fell asleep that night, the full moon’s light floated in to lightly touch my face, followed by the whispers of the wind outside. Just as I passed from this world into that of dreams, I could hear the gentle clacking of beads and bones and gems in the wind...

This post was inspired by the following writing prompt:

You are a daydreamer by hobby and a fantasy fiction writer by vocation. You love coming up with fantastical worlds, characters, creatures and storylines. One day, during one of your writing excursions at your favorite cafe, you are interrupted by someone. It’s one of your characters.