Sep 7, 2016
I don’t [go down easy]
I don’t [bow out quiet]
I never lost a war
Unless I didn’t [fight it]
seen from China
seen from Russia
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Sweden
seen from Russia
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Germany
seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from Russia
seen from Germany
seen from Pakistan
seen from Germany
seen from Russia
seen from Canada
I don’t [go down easy]
I don’t [bow out quiet]
I never lost a war
Unless I didn’t [fight it]
Someone: “Chell, what’s your favourite color?”
Chell: “Imagine this: a very bright blue glowing light, slowly flickering out into a deadened grey by the force of coming into contact with a metal wall. 57 times.
That’s it.”
C+ !!!
Send me a letter with a +
My muse will talk about three of their favorite things that begin with that letter.
“If you’re expecting me to say cake... or core... you can shove it.”
“Coats are good. I will fight someone for a good coat.”
“I like cats well enough. They aren’t too demanding, and they’re great for keeping out unwanted guests.”
“When there aren’t too many of them, clouds are nice too.”
b+
Send me a letter with a +
My muse will talk about three of their favorite things that begin with that letter.
“Breezes are nice. Being able to feel air moving on its own, not caused by something mechanical and threatening... it’s nice.”
“I like my bed. A lot.”
“...”
“...”
“...”
“I fucking love bread.”
t+
Send me a letter with a +
My muse will talk about three of their favorite things that begin with that letter.
“Trees, I suppose. They’re useful. They grow on their own without being told what to do. They’re taller than anything else and don’t care if they’re in anyone’s way. Nothing stops them. I admire that.”
“Tea is alright. Doesn’t come around often, but sometimes it’s nice to have something other than water.”
“... Those little things that grow from the ground. Turnips? I like those.”
Walk Far Away
The lift lurched upward, resuming its ascend into the world above. In that brief moment it had stopped, Chell was certain she was going to die. The turrets that stood before her, their red eyes trailing over her center, all it would take was one well aimed shot, one quick movement on the turret’s part and everything would end. She had come this far only to now be defenseless and with nowhere to run, freedom dangling above her head and Hell burning beneath her feet.
But the sound of gunfire, that final nail in her coffin, it never came.
Instead, the turrets’ eyes dimmed, and soft notes began to ring out of their vocal processors.
It was a tune Chell had never heard before, not that she would have remembered it anyways, but as the melody progressed on, following her up the elevator shaft, surrounding her, she couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of calm.
But it wasn’t over yet.
She had been traveling up the shaft at its usual quick pace, seeing nothing but grey walls and occasional fluorescent lights between the cracks, but now the lift began to slow and suddenly the world around her opened up into a large room.
A room filled with turrets.
There were hundreds, no, more than hundreds. All of varying shapes and sizes and colors, and as the lift continued to rise Chell could just make out a turret in the far back of the room that appeared to be taller than small building.
Every instinct in her body told her to run and hide, to flee from this place by whatever means necessary, but as the melody continued to play, Chell’s fears slowly and steadily began to dilute.
Slowly, quietly, it came to a close. The lift was barely halfway out of the room, and for that single moment panic began to resurface in Chell’s mind. But barely a moment later, the melody picked up again, and the first words of a song began to be sung.
“Cara bella, cara mia bella!”
The words washed over her, their meaning lost in the barrier of languages, but Chell could feel them. She could feel the words that should have been nonsense to her ears, but their emotion drove their meaning home. The voice came from a single large turret in the center of the room, but the words provided came from something now far below.
“O cara mia, addio!”
Everything had happened all at once, the world flashing before her in riffs of orange and blue, the Voice ever present in an exchange of taunting to treaty, the air rushing past her as the oxygen was sucked out of her lungs into the dark cold of space. It had all happened in an unrelenting blur, never once stopping for her to catch her breath.
The world had stopped now, and yet Chell couldn’t take in any of the oxygen readily available to her.
“Perché non passi lontana?”
She had spent the past however many days running without ceasing, without being allowed rest for even an hour and never once had her legs given out on her. But standing in that lift, listening to the words of the song Chell had never known, should have never known, her knees went weak, sinking her to the floor.
“Cara, cara mia bambina...”
The world was no longer in focus. There was a moist fog shrouding the view of the turret orchestra now far below. Chell shut her eyes tightly, trying to push past the lump that was now forming in her throat, but all this did was allow the tears to fall more easily. Her body began to shake, softly at first but growing more intense with each passing second, with each repeating phrase.
“Ah, mia bella!
Ah, mia cara!
Ah, mia cara!”
Chell understood. She had no reasoning or expectations or evidence, but she understood. The Voice that had held her captive, that had stolen away every right she ever had, the Voice that had turned soft, that had screamed in defiance on her behalf... The Voice that now sang her farewell with a sorrow that Chell didn’t know the Voice could feel.
She understood.
Oh, she she didn’t want to, but she understood.
“Oh cara, cara mia...”
For the last time, the Voice faded away and Chell was left in silence.
The world now laid out before her was bright and blue, devoid of any walls to hold her inside.
And Chell never felt so alone.
Word association: Betrayal
Core
Bring Chell to the dentist they said.
It would be fun they said.
‘Ma’am, please stop attacking our x-ray machine with a metal chair’ they said.