Two (Art Prompt Writing Contest #7)

The water started to boil over, so she removed it from the burner, wary about whether or not her ramen was given the proper amount of time to cook or not. She decided to let it sit for a while longer in the tepid pot, cook a little more, when the doorbell rang.

Wait, what?

Flannery was not accustomed to visitors and had nearly forgotten what the doorbell even sounded like. She couldn’t decide if she was delighted by the prospect of having someone besides Mittens to talk to, or if she was annoyed by it, because, darnit, the Andy Griffith Show was about to come on, and her ramen was just waiting, steaming, anticipating the several thousand milligrams of sodium that the little, silver packet would deliver.

Absolutely yum, in her words.

The doorbell rang again, and then a third time, before she mustered the gusto it took for her to face people, tie up her hair, and answer.

And why, hello.

The woman standing before her was, all in all, quite hot. She nearly glowed, her neat brown hair glistening in a perfect waterfall down her back. She wore a white dress, not a really wedding-y one (Thank God! thought Flannery). She was pretty thin, with just enough thickness to dine on, thought Flannery, and her eyes had a strange, striking innocence to them. They were crystal blue. Her chin curved down to a near point, and her voice was soft when she spoke.

"Hi there. Is this human-world?"

"It's whatever you want it to be, cutie.” She responded, bothered by how much she sounded like one of those 24/7 diner waitresses, with a pencil under her ear and four kids to feed at home. She tried to recover with “How can I help you?" She wasn’t very sure who this was or why they were on her doorstep, but Flannery pushed those thoughts away, feeling confident she could get this angel to sleep with her or, at the very least, give her good company. Sex was preferred though. Flannery pulled her heather cardigan closer to her, remembering she wasn’t wearing a bra under her tank top.

The woman giggled, a short thing, the laugh making her body jolt "I just wanted to see your house." The way she said 'your,' like, meaning Flannery and Flannery specifically, sent shivers down her knees. She suddenly felt very fat and considered throwing away her ramen when this woman wasn't looking. No one likes a pufferfish.

“Well, please come in. I look a mess, I know.” Flannery retreated inside, frantically collecting bills that littered the in-table, and stacking solo cups inside each other. Her sanctum felt-all-of-a-sudden like a rat-hole, and she briefly considered that, you know, the two were very likely the same.

“So what do you do in your free time?” the woman asked, her voice like silk, like eggnog minus the alcohol.

Flannery spun to her, flushed, didn’t say “Masturbate incessantly,” didn’t say “Keep a video camera on my cat Mittens till she does something stupid so she could go viral and I could live off of her immense internet wealth,” she responded “I like to draw things.” She ran her fingers through her sea-salt blonde hair.

“Oh really? That sounds very interesting! I love art. My Father has a special affinity for ‘making’ things” She giggled again. The girl seemed more a caricature than a person, like the giggly fan girl or the blonde that’s ‘never been to a place like this before,’ but her presence made Flannery feel a lot less alone. She spoke again “Can I see some of your art?”

“Sure thing” Flannery tried to keep her eyes from dropping to the girl’s chest, tried to lift them back up to her baby-blues, continued “I wouldn’t really call my drawings art though.” Flannery tried to sketch the girl’s breasts in her mind, how they’d look exposed, how they’d feel in her mouth.

Flannery went to her couch and retrieved the one work she’d ever had framed: a desolate highway, with a sign that simply read “Welcome to Reality.” Remembered it was a prize winner, ages ago. She held it in front of her, cocking one hip with a grin. Show off her fun side and all. “Pretty cool, right?”

“Yes, quite cool!” She said the word as if she’d never heard it. Her eyes searched the drawing. “It is so dark, so bleak.”

“Well, life’s bleak.”

“That can’t be true! God loves you. More than us, even.” She commented, with a hint of something. Jealousy?

Flannery thought ‘Frick, she’s a Christian.’ She spoke “Well, God hasn’t sent me any Valentines in a while, so I’m a little skeptical about whether or not He’s still into me.” And she jutted out her pink tongue. Fun side, keep it fun.

“So you used to go to church?” the girl asked, intrigued. She crossed the room and sat on the old couch that lined the far wall.

“Yeah, ‘used to’ is the correct term.” Flannery replaced some scattered DVDs into the little bookcase that withheld her small TV. She looked at one case, scuffed, disappointed. She used to take care of these things.

“What happened?”

“Ya know, boy I loved got cancer, we all prayed over him, I cried for weeks, and God killed Him anyways. Pretty typical tale.” Flannery had this well-rehearsed, told it like a newspaper headline, distanced it from herself.

“That sounds quite atypical, Flannery.”

“How’d you-?”

“God loves you a crazy bunch. He always talks about you. Flannery this, Flannery that. That’s why I thought this would be a great first stop for my tour of human-world!” The girl spoke, plainly.

“Why do you keep saying that, ‘human-world?’” blankly. Somewhere else.

“Oh, it’s nothing.” She giggled.

All at once, Flannery was confronting things she’d buried years ago, opening wounds that had closed shut, scarred over. Josiah. Hot summers, red skies, popular lips. Then the late nights, the cool hands, the empty eyes. The day the warmth went away.

‘Welcome to Reality.’ She mouthed. She went to work again, hands unsteady, crumpling up wrappers and rolling up empty potato chip bags, stood in the kitchen by herself.

She missed Josiah. This stranger came into her home, and knocked the one thing over that was fragile inside Flannery, and now she stood, trash can piled up, wrappers in her hands, somewhere between crying and shutting down.

The girl showed up in the doorway, leaned on the post, spoke again “Flannery? May I see where you sleep?”

Flannery lit up, felt warmth again. The woman was finally making a move, even if it was when she was off-guard. “Yeah, here.” And she started down the hallway, her feet a little heavier than before. Her heart beat hurriedly and she could feel blood rushing, excited, nervous, broken, uplifted again.

She rolled a few empty bottles of vodka under her bed, labels new, smoothed out her blankets, and turned to see the girl step inside the threshold.

“So what is it like, to dream?” The girl asked, perplexed, curious. Her dress graced the wooden floorboards, swiveling about her still ankles.

“To look at you” Flannery breathed.

“Aww, how sweet.” She spoke genuinely, her joy warm, burning like a star.

Flannery sat on the bed, gestured for the woman to sit too. The bed creaked under their excess weight. Flannery straightened her arms behind her back, allowed her cardigan to slide off her shoulders. She allowed her fingers to brush the woman’s, whose were cold, almost alarmingly. Her throat caught, her breath fast, unnoticeably, but fast.

“So why’d you really come here?” Flannery spoke, eyeing the girl’s neck, imagining the way it’d move against her lips. Her body ached to lean to her. Right then. No, now. No, wait.

“Just to meet you. To see what reality is like.” The girl looked at their hands, almost atop each other now. Her eyes darkened.

“You know what the reality is?” Flannery asked, taking a breath.

“What?”

“I want you,” releasing her breath, pressed her hand between the woman’s smooth legs, felt the warmth, and took her face, pulled gently at the girl’s bottom lip with her teeth.

“Flannery?” the girl sounded hurt almost.

“My angel…” Flannery moaned, took the girl’s hand, put it to her own chest, wanted her to feel how soft the flesh was, how erect her points were. She shut her eyes, and lightly pressed her mouth against the woman’s own.

The girl didn’t respond, didn’t move the hand, didn’t turn her head to leave. She wasn’t sure what was happening, but she didn’t resist, let this suddenly foreign lady lead her. She looked down at Flannery, at this woman, sea salt hair, crumbs in her tank top, bed-spread bought for her when she was a teenager, never changed it, and then she closed her eyes.

“Is this love?” She spoke, when Flannery moved her kisses down to her alabaster neck.

Flannery laid her, back down, across the bed and hovered over her, kissing various parts of her body, moving the white dress when it got in the way. The woman shut her eyes, hard, trying to bridge a connection between herself and Flannery, deeper than the wet mouth on her shoulders, the fingers dancing over her skin, deeper than the feet that now lay still on Flannery’s bed.

Did she come here for this?

She came to see Flannery.

She came to see what it was like to be a human, to be preferred by her own Father.

She felt her wings shrivel, felt something inside move, like rain beneath her skin. She felt a drum beat unlike the ones she knew, inconsistent, unsure and violent. Her hands were under Flannery’s clothes, the fabric and soft flesh moving like a needle through a thread-work, in, out, between.

Then she smelled something familiar.

“Flannery?” She asked.

Flannery stopped, looked into her, curious, bothered, a little in love “What is it?”

“I think I smell something burning.”

“That’s just me.” Flannery’s eyes flashed, glanced down, re-met. She kissed the girl’s forehead, cold, untouched. New.

“I’m serious!” For the first time, the woman felt urgency, felt alarm. She pushed Flannery up, gently at first, then with force. “I’ll go see.”

Something awful and hellish was inside of her, and she wanted it out, tried to shake it off, wasn’t sure if it was possible to remove. Was that Feeling?

She walked, out of the room, leaving Flannery unzipped, a mess, waiting, and swiveled into the kitchen where she saw the fire, a dancing, orange spirit that spread over the temporality it found. It looked like it’d come from the stove, jumped to the curtains. A grey and white cat brushed by her ankles, abrasively.

“Flannery! You’re home is on fire!”

She heard footsteps, then Flannery was behind her, lifting her dress over her head, leaving it in a disheveled pile on the hardwood, ran her hands over the woman’s new breasts, down her belly. Flannery bit her ear, replied “It’s fine.”

The woman felt the heat on her face, the acrid smoke caking her insides, she felt herself take her first breath, and it was painful, made her eyes shed their first tear. Or was it their second? She pulled from Flannery, her fingers unlacing from around her midsection, and headed for the door.

“Where are you going, my angel?” Flannery stood, perplexed.

“I’m leaving! I will die if I stay here!” And for the first time, she felt fear, like bony fingers, digging into her stomach, grabbing at her throat. She suddenly didn’t see Death as an equal, but as a disciplinary, looming Thing that she was at the mercy of.

“Didn’t you come here for me?” Flannery called out, the naked angel nearly to the door, flames lighting her hair up, invitingly.

The angel paused. What had she come for?

She wanted to see why her Father loved these creatures so much more than He did she. She wanted to know what it was like to be real. Did she come for Flannery at all? And why? She touched her lips, wet, pain arriving suddenly, alarmingly, where Flannery had bitten them a little too hard. She touched her body, brimming with ecstasy, with unknown currents and waves of emotions pulling it to and fro. And she looked to the half-naked woman, Flannery, her head now crowned in fire, her shorts unzipped, her hair a mess. A mess. And she saw the hurt.

“I have to go.” And she hurried out the door.

Flannery, now realizing the extent of her situation, ran to find Mittens, curled up in a ball on the couch, resigning almost as flames spread like cancer through his milieu without cause or warning, and she picked him up, his body warm, his manner peaceful, and she pursued the naked angel out the door, only then realizing she was topless, hopeless.

When she got outside the house, now coughing, now awake, she stopped to look back at the house she’d made for herself, this environment where she thrived, a disease in warm blood. Flames were now apparent on the outside of the house, waving ‘farewell’ out of the windows to Flannery from her spot at the end of the driveway, where she held Mittens, nearly asleep, against her chest.

It was cold out, and she felt her nipples grow firm, began to understand how ridiculous she looked. The waves beat the beachhead with silent remorse.

She wasn’t processing, she wasn’t looking for an answer or screaming to God for her misfortune, or trying to decide how to proceed.

She watched the sky, empty, but for a person, ascending, hurt, ashamed, and naked.

~

Thanks for reading my submission, and God bless!
I so wanted to submit this to the Writer's Block, but I ran out of time :/