Its dirt-faced mask revealing hints of pale grey surface, stretched high towards the blue yonder, and merely scraping the sky, assumed itself a spear bursting from the earth. Crawling with vines of veridian-bled veins and rock softened to the pulp of disgrace, it is no wonder this tower isolates itself from the concrete jungle by which it was misplaced. It rather undermines than embraces the beauty that surrounds it. Silences the colours that scream so loudly to be heard. Attracts merely the dust along the wind and the waste vegetation of the earth. A canvas for elements that aren’t so lucky as to be granted exposure in status, and the only thing that would ever bow down at its feet is the dirt, the same dirt walked over by the feet of a vagabond.

One who dwelled within its diadem would find themselves next door to the celestial heavens. And that lucky one presented much, much worthy than a vagabond.

Geneva propped herself on two blackened elbows, as she did every morning, on the balcony fencing, palms cupping her face for the 3 hours she spends watching the sunrise. Then. at exactly lunchtime, or what lunchtime was perceived to be when one didn’t have a clock, she would venture out. Timing her journey, she’d follow a strict schedule that objectified she be back before noon, not a minute after. She’d run-not walk-down to the stream, where everything grew around the water; her supermarket. Once she had met her standard supply for the night; this included a basket of non-poisonous berries, a tin can of fresh stream water, two fists of yellowing wheat grass, and whatever game came lurking in broad daylight. Some times she was so lucky as to find a pit of worms out there in the open, still freshly viscous, not yet crisped by the scorch. She would head back the same way she came, and in the same manner-maybe even more so.

By the time she’d get back, the sun would have fallen behind the tower. For her to see it once more was the tower’s purgatory.

Safe in her haven of 50 feet above the ground, anxious Geneva prepped her nighttime meal. She placed it on the floor and squatted before it against the wall, beneath the window. It called her to ravage, yet she refrained in uncertainty. When her hunger outgrew her delay, she’d ravish in her meagre feast while the sun grew weary. By the time she’d picked at the last few berries, slurped their juices from her fingers, the night would have fallen, and so would have her heart.

Her arms would obediently embrace her knees, and the walls, though flat, seemed to embrace her. The silence would hang in the air, and the air would press against her ears. Geneva despised the silence, its mockery prolonging the moment of its break.

That moment provoked the worst of her fears. In that moment, survival became rather a luxury than an instinct. A moment in which her human form was of no superiority to the animals. When she was indecisive about life, as now it was suddenly a curse much rather than a blessing. This was decided by the hours that separated day from night. During day, she exercised power, the badlands at her service. But by night, her reign eroded to beggar. The night degraded her to the perfect fit of the victim. Her predator, the carnivorous terrain.

The land mutated into a savage beast, its tongue a bed of grass. A walk among those taste buds was a walk among the tombstones. A mass of forsaken flesh and bone would dissolve to petty ruin if her feet were to ever fall upon this Earth’s defying proportion.

The only mass withstanding the beastly hunger amidst its very floor was the tower to which Geneva called “Friend”. But even rock may be defeated. Though it not be devoured by beast, rock erodes by time. And with rock consumes the sweet, strayed soul of Geneva.

 

 

 

 

Image: https://www.google.ca/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjdxNag_-DQAhUUVmMKHQzFDXUQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmadetobeunique.deviantart.com%2Fart%2F3d-Fantasy-Castle-Stock-Parts-33-side-kingdom-485086917&bvm=bv.140496471,d.cGc&psig=AFQjCNH-Jyhk1Pt-j8Ick6KGxpfMFmTn9A&ust=1481162408990984

 

Descriptive

Water

It takes its own aim. Travels wherever the path is open, devours whatever stands in its way. It’s what feeds the drought and swallows the rain. What fills the fallow crevices of the earth, what projects the blue of the sky. It blesses thirst but curses breath. Embodies unconstrained power.

Step inside where you’ll find yourself standing between life and death. Peer into the clear blue that embraces your bottom half, granting you grace in your movement. Your other half hovering above its surface, in a different time; a time that moves fast, ungraceful.

They approach you, arrive so close, then elapse into itself. Banished by the impeding shore. Bear witness to the changeless activity of the rolling waves. Watching water is like watching a single scene stuck on repeat for the ceaseless duration of eternity-just not as boring.

 

Expository

How To Become Famous

Want to reach Queen B’s level?

Step 1: Possess an outstanding talent that will outshine the other 7 billion human beings on the planet.

Step 2: Avoid Simon Cowell.

Step3: If it means wearing a 40-pound raw meat dress to the Grammies, be willing to go great lengths to get the attention of every reporter in Hollywood until your face grazes the cover of People magazine-one of the world’s top celebrity-gossip magazines.

Step 4: Get used to criticism and flashing lights.

Step 5: Remember that fame is a dish best served hot!

 

Persuasive

 

Do you want to build a snowman?

The snow has fallen, and you only see it as a great, white burden. But no one asked you to shovel your driveway-well maybe the city did and it’s also the only way to get to work in the morning, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. Like blank paper, snow is white and waiting for you to create something out of it. Why put it aside into towering banks that risk avalanching onto your driveway at the rev of an engine, when you can accumulate every last bit into a big, smiley man of snow? One who reminds your entire neighborhood how to have fun, and well, to smile! Give life to the snow, or has it fallen for nothing? Make it big, or does snow’s abundance bear no purpose? Even if your the man of the house, expected to shovel the driveway just to get the heavy job done-go ahead, build a snowman, I won’t judge.

 

Narrative

When I was little, I visited this old man in Sri Lanka. He returned the favor a few years later, but because he was finally blessed with the birth of a grandchild. Unfortunately, the child arrived at a time when all the old man’s young years of overdrinking and addiction showed signs of catching up. He fell sick and was soon hospitalized. The doctors found in his body exactly what they expected for a man with as many records of intoxication and alcohol abuse as he to have. This is what they dreaded, because then the only thing they could tell him was to “go home, spend your last days with the people you love, it’ll be shortly now”. And even when he’d be home, he wouldn’t fully be there. His abilities would gradually demur, his senses would slowly diminish, and he would fall in and out of consciousness. Death would be too close for the family, but too far for him.

The next time I visited him, he was undernourished, nearly skeletal. His skin was probably paper thin, a single layer and then immediate bone. His belly stuck out about 2 feet from his chest, filled with nothing but water. The sheets missed his feet and I witnessed the decaying crust on his toes. One of his hands rested on the pillow, the other clasping his head. His eyes were drained of their color, murky pupils staring off into the distance, right passed my face. I watched in sorrow, hovering over the old man that was not really there anymore. Just that toxic mass, lying on a bed he couldn’t get up from.