Category Archives: pain

A Mother’s Lament, Nina D’Arcangela #flash #fiction by @Sotet_Angel #pain #anger #angst #POTD

A Mother’s Lament

Look at them. They stand there, dullards staring upward, not an original thought in their skulls. They’re sheep, cattle, suckling piglets awaiting the slaughter. They’ve grown soft, ineffectual, flaccid – just as he did. Can you imagine allowing yourself to be dragged naked through the streets, strung upon wooden posts, stabbed without uttering a single plea? No wonder those who follow do so with vacant stare and limp aptitude. It sickens me to look upon them, reminds me of my own crushing disappointment – the mother of one so weak willed. Yet they erect this edifice, this monument to a girl named Mary and pray before her shroud covered head. That girl is long gone of this earth, as is her passive nature. Millennia now I have endured his shame, but no more. I shall quake the very ground they stand upon as they cry out to me, beg that I beseech my child forgive them.  My child died, do they not remember? They are the ilk that killed him long before he was crucified.

~ Nina D’Arcangela

© Copyright Nina D’Arcangela. All Rights Reserved.
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Waves by Nina D’Arcangela @Sotet_Angyal #pained #horror #prose

Trapped within this bubble, I feel nothing of the arid landscape that surrounds me. I sit in subjugation, offered scraps to feed upon; amuse-bouche for the soul, or so I imagine. Apportioned morsels to sustain me, but never more than your callous ego will allow. Yes, I have licked the plate and the tang has seared my tongue, left a residue of shame that will forever taint my palate. I once soared with as much grace and majesty as the prey that circles overhead – a dangerous companion to adopt, folly perhaps, as I know what it awaits.

Freedom, such a simple thing, stolen from me by destiny’s choice; a truth mourned beyond measure. I was vibrant once, as vibrant as the now desiccated tree before me. I see its brittle limbs, its exposed bones; the crack that foretells of the next fractured moment. I live that moment with every breath, forever caught just before the fall, perpetually suspended in a state of flux. With bowed back, I am forced to genuflect, to stare into a shallow pool that lacks reflection; a me without identity, stripped of all dignity. With broken wings, I stagnate in this cage never to glide on lighter waves of air again.

© Copyright Nina D’Arcangela. All Rights Reserved.

Chewing by Nina D’Arcangela @WiHMonth @Sotet_Angyal #WiHM8

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Chewing

Ripping, rending, tearing at me, everyfuckingnight!

Why does it always have to be this way? This thing over and over again? It wasn’t supposed to be like this, not for me. I was always a good girl; I excelled at everything! What did I do to deserve this? Why did he choose me?

I swear to God there is no reason it should have been me! Not that I wish it on some other girl, I mean, I’m not like that – that’s not right, right?

Do you have to chew so fucking loud?

Isn’t it enough that he took what he did? Isn’t it enough that I have to live it every fucking night when he comes home? Do I really have to hear it again and again? I swear I’ll puke if he starts slurping! Who’m I kidding, does he ever not slurp? He always fucking slurps; he rips, he tears, he chews, he slurps! I mean seriously, fuck me!

I just wanted to see the kittens, that’s all. I wanted to see their cute little faces all snuggled up and hear them making tiny little mewling sounds. That’s what he said… how was I supposed to know he was a complete douche bag? Jay said he was cool, we’d hung with him a few times – I mean, sure, we all knew he was lying about his age, but he was so fucking hot and didn’t mind picking up beer for us. Maybe I flirted a little… Why didn’t I just stay outside and fucking wait for Jay like he told me to?

Maybe no one will ever know; maybe no one will ever find out; maybe no one will ever smell it… Oh God, why me? I’m not the one this was supposed to happen to! I’m not, goddamn it! Fuck him, fuck his apartment, fuck his blonde hair and fuck his blue eyes! I knew better, I know I did. I just didn’t think it would happen to me…

Ugh, chew with your mouth closed PLEASE!

How did I let this happen? I was just hanging out on the porch waiting for Jay when jerk-off drove up and asked if I wanted to see his kittens. Of course I wanted to see his kittens, what girl wouldn’t want to see his fucking kittens? It was kinda weird the way he asked me to come around the back to go upstairs, but we’d hung out at his place before… it seemed cool.

Ah, crap, he’s friggin’ slurping again… dude, really?

Like I said, I’d been to his place before, Jay wasn’t gonna be back for at least another half hour, so why not go see the kittens, right?

So I walk around to the back and go upstairs with him ‘cause he doesn’t want to bother coming around front to let me in – yeah, I’m a friggin idiot, I know, you really don’t have to say it. We get up to his apartment and he’s holding a bag of groceries and asks me…

Come On… more chewing? Doesn’t this guy ever get sick of it?

I say sure when he asks me to hold his sack (yeah, he’s real fucking funny, this one) as he opens the door to let me step in. Okay kiddies, time to pay attention because this is where the ride gets interesting.

The door closing behind me takes place in a sane and still perfect world; but as the sound of the deadbolt being thrown begins to echo softly through the darkened living room; time begins to ebb away from me in a way I’ve never experienced before. It slows down; not the slowness of an extended moment when a bottle crashes to the tile floor, but the acute awareness of an animal that instinctively senses a predator nearby; heart racing, hearing razor sharp, eyes dilating to fix on the impending threat.

As the deadbolt is thrown, I begin to turn wondering why lock the door? In the span of a heartbeat that last 7, 8, maybe 9 seconds in my distorted time frame; he locks, I turn; he smiles, I drop …the bag hits the floor. Before the scream can escape my lips, he reaches out and yanks me back into a vise-like grip. This is wrong; every fiber of my being is screaming it, my brain is trying to process it, my body is in shock – utterly immobile. What’s happening? Oh God, I know what’s happening…

That’s when I hear the crack.

It’s odd really, in movies or on TV, when you see someone get their neck broken, there’s always a sigh followed by a pregnant pause, then the body falls to the floor and… cut! That’s a wrap folks; thank you very much – the Craft food cart is set up in the lot! Well, it doesn’t go down that way for me.

In a single fluid motion he snaps my neck to the side and begins dragging my body through the double doors into his bedroom. I’m not supposed to be able to feel anything at this point, right? Then again, this wasn’t supposed to happen to me, remember?

Every one of my senses is in overdrive. I feel the fibers of the carpet scrape my bare legs; I feel the overly indulgent sheets that this low-life piece of shit sleeps on hit the side of my face as I’m tossed on the bed; I feel his disgusting fetid breath on my neck tainting my skin with its rotting odor. I’m pulsing with terror as he rips my sundress off with one swift yank from behind. I’m desperate to protect myself; desperate to get away; desperate to strike back – but I can’t, my limbs won’t move! My quivering flesh responds only to his septic touch. The pain is excruciating; my broken and abused body lies there waiting for the release that only death will bring it.

…I must have passed out…

Ripping – rending – tearing – slurping; what the fuck is that noise? I can hear the sheets on the bed as they wrinkle beneath me, I can smell how green the pistachio paint is on the walls, I can taste the blood of the small man nailed to the cross that hangs above his dresser, I can even count the change laying on the bedside table; but I can’t feel a fucking thing – and have no clue what that noise is! Then he grants me a view by shifting so I can see him in the mirror, and what I see is him carving slices of meat off my now paralytic back while he chews them in ecstasy. Sticky red blood mixed with fatty globules slide over his chin and down his grotesquely malformed chest – he’s eating me! First he used my body like I was an extra in a grindhouse flick, now he’s fucking eating me?

Oh God… Am I awake again?

Why am I still here? Why must I lay on this bed day after day, waiting for it to end? Why didn’t I just die like I should have?

Dude, really? Do you have to fucking slurp when you eat me?

~ Nina D’Arcangela

(psst! This one was a twofer if you read carefully…)
© Copyright Nina D’Arcangela

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Stop by my other blogs for more Women in Horror Month content!
Spreading the Writer’s Word – A new Horror Flash-Fiction from a different female author daily in February!
The Road to Nowhere – Horror movie picks by The Damned staring strong leading ladies daily all month long.

And don’t forget to visit the Women in Horror Month official web site
for more great 
WiHM8 events and posts!

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My Watcher by Nina D’Arcangela @WiHMonth @Sotet_Angyal #WiHM8

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My Watcher

My watcher gazes upon me, great despair and longing seeping through her gently fluttering lashes. She lives a life of torment, a life filled with a depth of pain and depravity that rivals my own. Closer she wishes to draw, trying – always trying, but the measure of her success is a cruel and harsh one that denies, not grants, the wants of those like us. Unable to do more, she watches.

She watches as I sink ever further into the squalor that is my self-imposed exile, my place of preciously preserved pains, the darkest recesses of my mind where even I cannot find respite from my own deranged ramblings. Gasping for a breath that will never come, hope a thing lost to a moment that can never be regained, I will forever dwell in this chasm of nowhere. Capable of infusing life into me once more, yet unable to wade such a distance, she must simply watch as I succumb.

She watches as I prance about in this tattered garb, seeming to most a thing so giddy; a toy bright and shiny – all the while, inside… nothing but a fool. She sees my cracks, my flaws, all that makes me unworthy. She is witness to the tarnish that dulls my plating, the rust that flakes my surface, the debris that hinders my step. She gropes at the pile of destroyed dreams, hoping in vain to free me; the more she digs, the deeper the rubble becomes. She must watch as I succumb to what others have done, and what has become of me.

She watches as I shatter into innumerable shards, only to suffer my tears as I collect each delicate fragment to me; insistent upon rebuilding my ruined castle once more. Tears of acid crawl down my cheeks, the madness that accompanies them the crumbling of the world – my world – should they ever truly be unleashed. A steady stream of tangible harm inflicted by so many, each droplet a testament to the life I bear. Her desperate plea for me to hush heard only as an echo in my ear. Her arm stretched towards me, wanting so much to offer reprieve, is hindered by obstacles both beloved and unfair. She must watch as I succumb to what others have undone within me.

She watches as I flay open my own flesh for allowing moments of weakness, glimpses of joy, lies of happiness that happen in an instant, gone all too quickly. Brief encounters, an hour, perhaps two. Touching, loving, seeing, hearing; feeling – breathing; for the first time in so long, breathing. A small step that leads to a brighter existence, a false step placed upon undulating ground. A promise of the sweetest forever, but no promise ever made, a faith always held – a mourning that shall never end, my forever, my reality.  This she must watch as I succumb not to what others have undone, but what I have done to destroy me.

Would I give so much more for even a lie of something less, if that lie was not this? With all the wasted remains of me, I would…  But my watcher stands as guard. She will not allow one to crumble, for the other would fall, no longer even the loathsome wreckage that now exists. Scalding tears pour in a cascade of deafening silence from her eyes. She must always watch me from behind a glass wall that cannot be allowed to shatter for all that would be lost.

A pile of forever swept to the side so that the tendrils of this now never break for what should have been.

~ Nina D’Arcangela


© Copyright Nina D’Arcangela

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Stop by my other blogs for more Women in Horror Month content!
Spreading the Writer’s Word – A new Horror Flash-Fiction from a different female author daily in February!
The Road to Nowhere – Horror movie picks by The Damned staring strong leading ladies daily all month long.

And don’t forget to visit the Women in Horror Month official web site
for more great 
WiHM8 events and posts!

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Good Grace

A drabble written for a Pen of the Damned photo-prompt. For this piece, I am both photographer and word twister… 😉

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Good Grace

The metamorphosis begins with the lick of first dew. As Mother’s milk rains down, do we not feel the fracture, the impending breach; do we not begin to break under her ever present gaze? To hold fast we strive, yet a fool’s errand that. Mother will have her way, with rod or lash; we will obey. Extruded beyond time, a limit reached, one gives way with a whispered screech of banshees yet unheard. For as the coil rips asunder, so does the edge tip; the ferry no longer granting safe passage, we no longer the guardians in Mother’s good grace.

Head over to Pen of the Damned to read the other
photo-prompt flashes in this collection.



© Copyright Nina D’Arcangela.

 

 


Red

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Red: taint of the broken; stain of the brazen.
To sip of such delicately tinted nectar would bruise it eternal
leaving a residue of rouged pain in its quickening wake.

© Copyright Nina D’Arcangela.

 

 


Child of Seed

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Mother, how could you? You’ve spoken to this recalcitrant child of seed, creating beauty in my malformed pulp through your tantrum of destruction; but this hurts me – leaves me a damaged husk straining to survive. Is this your intent? Am I to twist and writhe until all that once flourished is a tangled mass of malcontent? Mother… how could you?

© Copyright Nina D’Arcangela.


Drops

With each tear that fell from her cheek, another drop of laudanum fell from the pipette. Chewing her lower lip, she wondered if the choice she’d made was a just one. Closing her eyes, she drew forth a fond memory of her once vital son laughing as he played – a sound she’s not heard in some time. Her knees buckled as her resolve strengthened. A few more drops and his pain would be ended. Climbing the stairs, the glass of apple juice trembling in her hand, she choked back her own wail of agony.

© Copyright Nina D’Arcangela.


I Know

I sit here alone, thoroughly abandoned, and deserving so. Awash in paralytic dread, I mourn what I have not yet lost, but know will soon be stolen from me. I yearn to believe hope is not dying, I long to hold it near, to cherish it dearly. I ache to know some degree of stability; struggle to somehow make it last, even for just a moment longer. But assigned the jester’s roll, I am yet again the patch, never the permanent fixture. Brilliant shimmering trinkets surround me, I see their shine, their gleam, yet I shield my eyes from the pain I know awaits if I gaze upon them. To feel what I have felt, to know what I have known, to watch it dissolve from a distance is a torture I cannot express. I batter my fists impudently against this unrelenting barrier, but again, I act the fool. I can only hide for so long. Reality slams against my senses, intrudes upon my torment, dares me call this solace. This damning truth insists that I allow the glimmer to dim, to see with wide eyes what would be shown to me, that which will be stolen from me. Yet still, for all the anguish, the tears, the pain that will not allow me to draw even a single quelling breath, I see beauty. I see only you.

© Copyright Nina D’Arcangela.


Red and Blue – Coffin Hop 2014 | #horror #COFFINHOP @coffinhop @Sotet_Angyal

Red and Blue

I curl up next to the fireplace, rest my head against the surround. A goblet of heavy merlot in my hand; heavy for its body or heavy for my longing, I cannot say. As I stare into the crackling blaze, my mind wanders. So many memories from years gone by, so much love shared here, in this very room. My soul shrieks with grief as I collapse into a ball, sobbing.

The fire now a blur through wet eyes, my head lolls and I glance toward the tree with its twinkling lights, glittering balls and brightly wrapped packages tucked neatly below it. You always were such a perfectionist. My eyes flutter shut as the day you dressed the tree forces itself upon my mind. You were so happy, so blissful to pick the largest one available. I recall joking that one of us would have to move out so the tree could move in. You kissed me with icy cold lips and a bright red nose. Little did I know how soon I would long to feel that frigid touch once more. Your enthusiasm knowing no bounds, you spent the next week arranging everything just so; making sure that the colorful glass baubles were placed with precision, everything to an exacting measure. I recall jokingly moving a strand of tinsel when you were not watching, only to reenter the room moments later to find it placed back in its original position. The gifts. Oh, how you tortured me over the gifts long before the season began. A sad smile steals across my lips as I think of the hours you spent fretting over the perfect surprise for each of our friends. As I sip from my glass, a slight chuckle escapes me only to end in a sob as I recall your distress over wrapping each gift in the proper color foil. God, how you loved this day.

I think back upon the last evening I saw you. I was standing at the island between this room and the kitchen preparing dinner; you remembered one final detail that you couldn’t do without. I kissed you as you bounded past me, told you not to be long and that I loved you. You grabbed your coat from the hook and turned to me, purse in hand, golden locks bouncing and smiled before replying as you always did – not nearly the way I love you. I smiled back; you left. Two hours later, a knock sounded on the door. I wasn’t worried, you often became infatuated with something or other and lost track of the time. As I moved to open the front door, I noticed the bare flicker of red and blue light drifting in through the balcony doors. Seeing the officers standing upon the threshold, I walked to the glass, placed my palms and forehead to it, and knew in that moment… you were gone. When I came to after passing out, the officers helped me to the couch and explained that there was an accident at the corner – our corner, and a young woman had been hit by a car that ran the red light. You were that young woman.

My eyes crack open seeking a red light on the tree, your tree – our tree. But instead, my sight finds the red fairy lights you used to decorate the balcony. Barely able to stand, I stumble to the sliding doors. As I fumble to open them through my tears, the merlot in my glass pours onto the white carpet. My addled mind tells me how angry you’ll be if I don’t clean the deep burgundy spill right away. Finally managing the lock, I step through onto the bitterly cold veranda. Standing at the rail, I exist in a halo of red light, my long chestnut mane whipping in the wind. Another balcony, one belonging to our neighbor, is adorned in blue twinkling lights. I wonder why I’d not noticed it before now. The blue and red lights blur together as my inebriated mind struggles to adjust. Five stories below, more lights twinkle, cars rush past; the ground wears a fresh blanket of snow. I’m so tired, and the blanket seems so inviting. Please, don’t go without me – words I should have spoken that night. Letting myself lean forward, a blur of red and blue swirls all around me. I grasp the railing, sink to my knees and crawl back inside. Too much a coward to follow you; too devoted to allow your memory to die.

© Copyright 2014 Nina D’Arcangela. All Rights Reserved.


Coffin Hop Goodies!

How do you get them? Comment on my Coffin Hop 2014 posts on this blog – I’m posting something new each day, so keep coming back for more chances to win. When will they be announced? When the hop ends (after October 31st). What are they going to be? A surprise! I like surprises, don’t you? ;}

Don’t forget to visit my other two blogs that are participating:
Spreading the Writer’s Word
The Road to Nowhere…

and the Sirens Call Publications blog:
The Sirens Song

Plus all the other amazing hoppers!
Coffin Hop



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