Category: creative writing

pipe bomb dream 4

Sophi NielsenLeave a comment

That night. She’s punching their shared wall. He hears her. Dull thuds. Walls are difficult to punch. 

“Cal,” Silas says. “Cal.”

“Stupid. So stupid,” she says. She uses punches as punctuation marks.

“What,” he says.

“Felt so. Helpless.” Punch, punch. Punch.

“Well…” he says. Resigned. That’s the way it is. She stops.

“He couldn’t even say it.” Her eyes are green. “He couldn’t say it was over.” She punches the wall. Guard up. Jab. She punches in pattern: 1-1-2, pause, 1-1-2. 

He holds her wrists. To stop her.

“Stupid,” she says.

“Stupid,” he agrees.

pipe bomb dream 3

Sophi NielsenLeave a comment

That evening. She walks past the couch. He’s on the phone.

“What I-?” Silas says. Stuttering. He’s caught off guard.

The phone buzzes.

“It was two dates,” he says. Defensive. Cal sits down next to him. Watches.

The phone buzzes. “Where were you last night?” the girl on the phone says. Silence. Silence. “At least you could have told me that you didn’t love me!”

“I-” His voice is pitched. About to break. Cal holds his wrist, takes away the phone, hangs up for him. To stop him. His head fills his hands. Silence. “How do you even know if you love someone?” he asks. “Or if you don’t.”

“Don’t know,” Cal says.

“How can you tell someone then?”

“You can’t, I guess.”

pipe bomb dream 2

Sophi NielsenLeave a comment

The morning. The room has one window. He gets up. The carpet is green. Used to be. There is a door.

Another room. A kitchen. Smells. Someone making eggs.

“Good morning,” she says. There is a smile in her voice. She likes him. She’s not mad.

“Good morning,” Silas says. There is blood in his head. Throwing itself back and forth.

“I made us breakfast,” she says. Us, she says. He mimics her. Smiling. Happy about breakfast.

“You shouldn’t have.” He returns the pleasantry. He accepts the eggs. Doesn’t eat much. Doesn’t know what he’s done.

“Not hungry?” she asks. There are tiny twists of etiquette. Expectations, ways to be rude. He can’t focus. The blood won’t stop throbbing. He pauses too long.

“Uh…getting over a stomach bug.” Wrong. Now she’ll worry about getting it. Don’t look at her face.

“Can I use your phone?” She nods and points. The phone is green. He dials.

“Hello?” she picks up. There are machines in the background. Loud.

“I..uh..I’m going to be late for.” Pause. “Lunch.” Pause. “To work on the project?” Silence.

“Do you know where you are?” she asks. He looks down. Looks around. Looks out the window. The kitchen floor is linoleum. “Ask her address so you can call a cab,” she says.

“I don’t have any cash.”

“You better not be in Somerville again.”

“Thanks,” he says. The phone is green. Has a handprint where the dust was. The kitchen walls are cracked. Stripped some places of white paint. “What’s your address? I need to call a cab,” he says. Pause. “After breakfast.”

“I thought you weren’t hungry.” Accusation.

“Changed my mind?” Weak. A question.

“It’ll get cold.” Like she is. He sits down. Blood pushes forward. Pushes back. Stiff smile. She smiles back, hesitantly. Make conversation. Something. Anything.

“What are your plans for the day?” he asks. Attempting charm. She looks at him. Looks down. Her eyes are brown.

“Lunch with my brother.” Her brother lives nearby. “He’s running the marathon.” Her brother is a runner.

“Nice. Tell him good luck.”

“I will.” The table is cheap wood. Looks like linoleum. Linoleum has too many syllables. “223 West Street, Somerville.” Silence. “My address.”

“Shit.”

“What?” Silence.

“Same house number as…my aunt.” Weak. She laughs, weakly, in response.

“What a coincidence?”

“Right? You mind if I…?” He points to the phone. Too quickly.

“Go for it.”

He dials. Looks back. Too fast. Her hair is brown. He holds his head. Did he like her last night?

“Shit.”

“What?” She already picked up.

“Sorry.”

“You’re hungover. What’s the address?”

“223 West Street.” Silence. “Somerville”

“Shit.”

“Sorry.”

“I’ll honk,” she says. He hangs up. Sits down. Her lips are colorless. She smiles. Forced. His throat is dry. Don’t ask for water. Ask her something. Small talk. Her brother. Ask about her brother.

“So…how long has your brother been running marathons?”

“He was a track star in high school. He ran his first marathon senior year, so…six years?”

“Nice.”

“Does any of your family…?”

“No, not us. We’re mostly sedentary. I dance. Contra, like in Pride and Prejudice.” He grins.

“I know,” she says.

“You told me.” Pause. “Last night.”

“Oh.” He goes silent. Doesn’t know what he’s said and what he hasn’t.

She gets up.

“Do you want coffee?”

“I…sure.” Pause. “Thanks.”

“Sure.” The coffee maker churns. Too loud. It starts to drip. Drips. Too slow. He holds the cup. Silent. Too silent. She holds hers. 30 minutes. Drinking silent coffee. He must have waited 30 minutes to get here.

A car honks from the street. His blood pounds on his skull.

“Must be my ride,” he says.

“Your cab?”

“Yeah, my cab.”

She doesn’t point out the plot holes. The stairs are rubber. Circles for traction. Not too fast. He reaches for the car door. It moves away. Moves away again. She lets him in. Grins.

“Never gets old,” Cal says.

“Nope, it does,” Silas says.

He gets in. Pause. His head is in one hand, his fingers are pressed into his eyes. To drive away the headache. The radio is too loud. More than 11. Loud enough to drown out thoughts. He turns it down.

“What happened?” he asks.

“Lucas. Found him with some girl. In bed with.”

“Oh. She cute?”

Pause.

“Sure. Why not?” Pause.

“Hadn’t heard from him in a week, now this.”

“Oh.”

She turns the music up. The skin on her knuckles is broken.

“What’s that?” She looks at her hand.

“Went to the gym. Felt like punching something.”

“Or someone.”

“Can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Illegal.”

“Really?”

“He thinks we’re friends.”

He laughs. “How?”

“It’s just a word, isn’t it? I have a convincing smile.” She grins.

“I’m convinced.”

“You should be.”

pipe bomb dream 1

Sophi NielsenLeave a comment

“What’ya working on?” is what the shop mechanic always says when someone new walks in the door. Because you never knew what people were working on. It always surprises you. And they always have stories. The machine shop is in its morning lull. Two boys at the mill grinding down a part for their electric car. It was a school team or something. Neither of them are electricians. That surprises him. One girl at the lathe but he hasn’t asked her what she’s working on. A stray strand of hair falls over one eye, but she hasn’t pushed it back.

“What’ya working on?” he asks.

“Part of a pen. For my father-my dad.” She doesn’t look up. Corrects her formality. “He always carries one in his shirt pocket. It ruins the shirt so my mom stopped buying him shirts with pockets.” He nods.

“If you need anything just give a shout.”

“Thanks.”

He is rearranging the drill bits. Always get messed up. People not looking where they put them.
The girl’s phone rings. She stops the lathe. “Hello?” Pause. “Do you know where you are?”

bottoms dream 12

Sophi NielsenLeave a comment

Raymond’s fingers trembled over the words of the tattered paperback. His voice did not rise above a whisper, melancholy settling deep into his bones.

“The emotions that go with these images of bottoming are reluctance, loathing, sadness, mourning, inhibition, enclosure, lethargy…”

Rose’s head had fallen against his shoulder as the bus bumped along to God knows where at God knows what time in the morning. Their only guide the roles assigned by lot. She could have leaned against the window, but the window did not offer the numbness that took away the burning of her blood through her veins. Her role the inward pressure on drowning lungs. Impossible apart.

“…or that sense of depth that presses on us as depression, oppression,
suppression.” Her touch was a strange sensation, like warm ocean water spreading from his left side to his right, filling the space his emotion had left. His role the rationality of murder to save one’s own life. Impossible apart.

“Our downward imagination has entered the earth.” Raymond gently grasped Rose’s hand on the palm where there was no physical scar. He rested his head against hers.

“Bottom’s dream.” My blood is yours.

quarantine 1

Sophi NielsenLeave a comment

The air of the cavern-like dining hall was literally filled with insects: butterflies, dragonflies, beetles, but no bees or horseflies. The ground was carpeted with small, harmless furry animals: rabbits, mice, ferrets, gerbils, and everything in between. But the benches were
also filled, with humans.

Mycha started to walk through the fray.

“This is the Harmless Animal Sector, pretty self explanatory,” she explained, as she dodged a butterfly and stepped over a rabbit. “We don’t have to worry about them much. They know that one foot, or antenna, out that door and who knows what could happen? If someone happened to swat them or, god forbid, step on them, it would be such a tragic
accident. But after all, only an accident, of course.” Mycha’s smile made the air seem colder, and harder.

Next was the Semi-Harmful Animal Sector. It was bigger and felt a little less homey.

They walked through multiple sub-sections: stinging insects, biting insects, venom-less snakes, wild dogs, birds of prey. There were even more in the wings, Mycha told him.

After that, Mycha, who smiled too often and too cold, took him to the Dangerous
Animal Sector.

And this section felt like a prison. The air was somehow even harder. The walls were grey cement, the only furniture was hard and metallic, and hardly anyone was around, especially not in animal form.

Mycha motioned Neal into a smaller hallway decorated with its own set of locked stainless steel doors. Mycha pushed him through a smaller door at the end of the hallway. It was lead to a stairway and a small observation room with a one-way window. Even before he looked, Neal didn’t want to see through that window. Mycha gave him another chilly smirk.

“They were waiting for you. How nice.” She held down the intercom button.

“Bring her in, Vanessa.”

“Acardi, call me Acardi. We’re not on a first name basis, Barton.” Mycha released the intercom and shook her head, still smiling.

“Oh, Vanessa, always so formal.” But Neal wasn’t watching Mycha anymore. He was
looking through the window, and he knew he would regret it.

The guard called Acardi came through a cleverly hidden door on the far side of the room, roughly pushing a girl, short and almost too thin to be healthy. Neal guessed that it wasn’t by choice.

From the high observation window, he felt like he was watching a movie. No, dolls.

He was watching a game of make-believe that felt all too real. [He dissociates here] He was far away, so much bigger than that small, struggling figure, but he felt so close.

But he kept his jaw steel and his face hard. Mycha was grinning.

“You know, it’s your first day, let’s get closer.” Neal wanted to shake his head quickly and back away, like the shy kid he had been just a few years ago, but he [suppressed the instinct and] instead he gave his sadistic colleague a curt nod and followed her down a narrow metal ladder that took them to the stage of the scene that had started just minutes ago. And Neal looked where he knew he would regret.

Acardi had forced or maybe allowed the short, thin, handcuffed girl to fall to her
knees. Neal pursed his lips.

“Those handcuffs look…different,” he noted. Mycha shrugged.

“Iron, stops them from shifting as long as they’re touching it.” Neal nodded but he
wanted to scream.

“This is the fox that’s been causing all the trouble,” Mycha smirked. “Used to be a
Semi-Harmful animal, now she’s a little bit more, and gets her own…special treatment.” Acardi kicked the girl with her rubber boot. The girl barely flinched. She looked so broken; Neal doubted they could break her anymore.

“No moving,” Acardi ordered. The fox’s eyes were clenched shut and she didn’t
move. Acardi nodded at the door. “Subject ready.” Neal wanted to shiver but he was already
cold, hard, steel. A man in a white lab coat came through the door with a petri dish, a
scalpel, and some tweezers. The fox’s back was facing Neal, so he was forced to look where
he would regret. The man pulled the stretched and bloody collar of her T-shirt down to
expose her shoulder blade. He made an unceremonious incision. The blood started again,
Neal supposed, to flow. The fox flinched her eyes shut tighter but made no sound, and she
did not move. The man was not done. He pushed the tweezers even less ceremoniously into
the incision and pulled. The flesh ripped. The girl’s lip curled up, but still she did not move
and she made no sound.

“Flesh sample,” Mycha grinned.

Neal knew his eyes were wide, but at least his jaw was still steel. He wanted to
throw up.

The flesh sample went into the petri dish and out the door with the man in the white
lab coat who was too bored for the blood that poured down the back of this small
unmoving fox-girl. Acardi forced the girl off her knees. The blood still ran on pale skin like
wax, but it was too fast for dripping.

Neal wanted to do something that he hadn’t done, or even thought about, for years, almost a decade. Neal Grover wanted to cry

viviocentrism + vampires 5

Sophi NielsenLeave a comment

You flick open your pocketknife and grip the handle. It’s two in the morning. Your friend’s breathing has finally slowed. You’ve eased him over, but the back of his head is not looking at you, not yet. In your other hand, you clench a wrinkled Wikipedia article. Your lips press themselves together as you read again: 

The alp also possesses an “evil eye” whose gaze will inflict illness and misfortune. Removing or damaging this eye also removes the alp’s malicious intentions.

The back of his head blinks at you. It then stays open, frozen as if in fear. You cough, bile catching at the back of your throat. You grip your knife even tighter by its sweaty hilt and pose it over a soot-colored iris.  

“It is our responsibility to preserve the most lives possible in any given situation,” you whisper, a reassurance. Holding your breath, you plunge the knife home to its gelatinous target. Your hands splatter black with blood. This is what you can do. This is what you have become. 

vivocentrism + vampires 4

Sophi NielsenLeave a comment

You leave the room to your friend’s triumphant slap on the back. 

“Told you I’d see you in semi’s.” You take his praise in your usual joking way, but you then continue to stare. Your gaze, though you don’t know it, holds sadness and fear in equal measure. Your friend pulls back and scrunches his face at you. “What’s your problem, man?” he snaps, like he has communicated nothing out of the ordinary. You shake your head. 

“Nothing, just…thinking.” He shrugs and turns away. And the back of his head winks at you. 

viviocentrism + vampires 3

Sophi NielsenLeave a comment

You wake up to your friend and roommate sitting on your chest, and you can’t breathe. You struggle to throw him off, curling and slapping ineffectually at his legs.

He grins, assuring you that it’s all a joke.

“Good, you’re up.” And he gets off your chest. You do not respond, still not forgiving him for the tightness in your lungs. He grins and turns away. “You’ve got a big day today.” He tosses you a button-up. “Quarter-finals, gotta look sharp.” You sigh and pull yourself out of bed still refusing to talk to your infuriatingly chipper roommate.

He doesn’t watch as you pull on your trousers but thumbs through your flows from the other day. You keep them carefully labeled and organized so as to never misplace your record of a debate.

“Is this even English?” your friend teases. You shrug into your starched and stiff-collared shirt.

“Vowels waste time. I can read them just fine.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” your friend snorts, and for some reason he flips through your unused paper, pristinely unfolded and clipped to a legal-sized clipboard. He leaves the hotel with you, following you to the debater-modified classroom, the illustrious location of quarterfinals. But suddenly becoming inexplicably nervous, he leaves you, mumbling something about getting breakfast or maybe coffee too if he’s in the mood. You quickly forget about his strange departure, reading into only his
sly “I’ll see you in semi’s anyway” and writing off any inconsistencies in his behaviour. The round begins following an exchange of flash drives and disclosures.

Your opponent stands up to give her first speech, and you reach to pull a few sheets of paper from your clipboard. But as you pull off the blank pages, an unfamiliar folded printout slides to the floor. In a flurry of swift action, you pull it back to the table and tuck it under the other sheets on your desk. You write furiously to make up for the first few seconds of the speech. Five minutes in, your opponent launches into the body of a particularly long piece of evidence, slurring her words slightly to make time for other cards. You can’t catch a word, and you’re tempted by the mysterious paper peeking from your flows.

Unfolding it carefully, you recognize a Wikipedia article and wrinkle your nose at the title: Alp (folklore). But your opponent continues to slur through a wordy card by the National Science Foundation. You have time. You begin to read:

Not to be confused with the similarly named Alp-luachra, the alp is sometimes likened to a vampire, but its behavior is more akin to that of the incubus. It is distinct from both of these creatures in that it wears a magic hat called a Tarnkappe, from which it draws its powers…Its victims are often females, whom it attacks during the night, controlling their dreams and creating horrible nightmares (hence the German word. Alptraum [“elf dream”], meaning a nightmare). An alp attack is called an Alpdruck, or often Alpdrücke, which means “elf pressure”. Alpdruck is when an alp sits astride a sleeper’s chest and becomes heavier until the crushing weight awakens the terrified and breathless dreamer. The victim awakes unable to move under the alp’s weight…The alp is often associated with vampires because it will drink blood from the nipples of men and young children, though women are the preferred victim of the invariably male alp, for it favors the taste of breast milk.

Your partner looks at you sharply.

“Cross-Ex?” she asks pointedly. You fold the paper.

“We’ll take a few seconds of prep.” Your partner looks back at her flows and nods at your decision like she agrees with it.

Only you know that she’s furious, hiding her angry anxiety under a mask of easy calm. But it’s not in her best interest to make you look bad.

In five seconds, you scribble a couple questions. Debaters love to hear themselves talk. It should be easy to fill three minutes.

And it is. Your partner quickly forgets your mishap.

The round ends leaving you with the triumphant feeling of doing the best you could. It’s not a crushing victory, but you’ve done nothing wrong.

You forget about the round and the deliberating panel of judges as your friend slips into the back of the room.

It occurs to you that you’ve never seen him without his hat. You stare at him until one judge collects the signed ballots and clears his throat, but he never once catches your eye.

viviocentrism + vampires 2

Sophi NielsenLeave a comment

You hear sirens and run. Within the characterless walls of the high school hosting this big-deal national tournament ring the sounds of disgust and fear.

Everyone is running away, but you, through some inexplicable self-destructive urge, run towards the sounds of fear.

You come across one victim and you come across another, and the only word you can think of no matter how inhumane is littered. The first you see is a man, his shirt ripped open at the front. His heaving chest marks him as still alive, barely. Below his collarbone and above his navel the man is bleeding, bitten, from his nipples.

Even through your senseless horror, you continue forward in a torrent unquelled. The shut-eyed, almost-dead victims continue to litter the grimy floor as you follow them to their source and some sort of explanation. Only the females do not bleed, but bite marks still punch in, dark purple around their breasts, clearer and deeper along the edge of the nipple.

You reach the epicenter in trance-like agitation. Your friend is there, amidst the ambulances and squad cars. You run up to talk to him, but he is in handcuffs, and the officers are pulling him back. He opens his mouth to you, blood spilling from his gums. 

“This is what could happen,” he warns you. “This is what I can become.”