Shancia Speaks: Short Stories Superb!

The sirens bellow in the moonless crevices of your mind and tension ravages. The images of the ones who have scarred you flash wildly like a slideshow, but this one is slow, intentional, piercing, deliberate, a malicious impetus. Something whispers to you and you spin around to lock gazes with the monster. Oh, the way she lurks, the way she creeps. With nowhere to run, you recoil, and the vibrations of your fear reverberate against the rugged walls and ricochet, pounding your gut.  As the monster ensues, its shape becomes more apparent and you squeal because the features are familiar. Jaw dropping realization leaves you stunned and the sirens bawl with incertitude. This time the flashing carries nausea and you almost gag. You know this monster, she is a reflection of you, but she exists in an altered state of paranoia and with only one mission, to subdue......you. She arrives with harsh memories that batter you all over, stinging with every blow. Her poking draws your breathing fur...

You indulge where you can remain the longest because home is where the truth always lies. Escaping it can be found in a girls' night out or a cook-out with the boys, but the imminent truth is, you must return to lay your head. While in your leisure settings, you make thousands of attempts to prolong the conversations, to distract those around you from checking their phones to realize the late hour, which would cut the night short and leave you to face your fears.  You hurriedly suggest another outing before this one is done. You mask who you are under the halo of "one life to live," and you spare no effort to plan how you will engage yourself night after night, day in day out. You see, at home, the truth waits with a whip, ready to entangle you and lash out of you what you desist from accepting. When the door closes upon your return, you are forced to face yourself, the one no one else knows, the one who can be hideous, the one who might be tormented, the one who just wan...

You used to love me so delicately. I shriveled at the way you always took your time with me. Prolonged, unyielding hugs were your signature love language. Oh, how I enjoyed you caressing me! There was so much I could accomplish with the time you used to give me but these days, I cannot even breathe, one blink and you retreat.  These days, however, I look for you, in the face of my clock, in the rising and setting of the sun, but I just cannot seem to unearth you. You keep doing me wrong, twisting my soul in agony because you do not love me anymore. What kind of games are you playing? Why do you insist on running this daunting race? Love me again like before, take your time with me.... please, I beg. I once relied on you for pleasure, to help me evade the knots that entangled in my mind from a disastrous week, a week that poked into the fragility of my mental faculties and left me sapping. What happened to us? My lover, my friend, my chill pill, where are you hiding? You and I were ...

Of course there were other people there, but only the two of us existed. Entwined in the chords of soulful rhythms and lyrics that endorsed our presence there tonight, the groove was just immaculate. Perhaps even the light of God shone down in that very moment because where there is love, there we find the Lord, right? This was risky but it was the perfect thrill. So, maybe this was the devil, with his conniving self, twisting the truth to make it taste and feel so healthy, so nourishing, so good. Satisfying! An eclectic mood, right there, we danced. The song said something like "no other woman like you," and the idiot in me melted like a marshmallow over a wood fire, fire indeed for that man surely brought the heat. Into my eyes he peered and gosh, his lips acted like bottle openers flinging stoppers in the smooth way that only the barman did. He was inside my thirsty cave in an instant and I dared not hesitate as I let him fill me up, fuel me, for it was going to be one hel...

Raised on the nourishment of aggression and regret, Sarah has come to associate pain with love. So, she reduces herself each time to fit in dark spaces that are always grueling to climb out of. Vulnerability has become the cloak Sarah wears and every human being she encounters abuses their sixth sense and prowls. As if "use me" were engraved on every inch on her skin, Sarah was always entrapped by people who got paid to take advantage. For a name as biblical as Sarah, she sure never felt the embrace of God or maybe he did surround her but her fragility blinded her capability to see and feel His love. So, for a long time, in fact, for the most part of her life, she subjected herself to being an ornament for men who had no souls, for friends who slithered like snakes, and for family members who chose who to love and attach value to. Sarah sees her mother and father in every being she confronts. They feed her nothing but garbage but the taste is similar to the stares her mother ...

To the people who hurt me and act like I handed them the knife, I hope one day as you are walking with the pride you feel at taking my power, you stumble and step onto a knife so sharp; one that pierces and makes you scream in anguish, and then you will feel just an ounce of the pain you dared to cause me. I hope one day your spit balls up in your throat when you attempt to spread another lie and I anticipate that white poison just lounging there, choking you until you have no choice but to swallow that lie in an excruciating long gulp.  I am usually stunned by a trigger, by a rush of what you did, and the electro convulsion of your dreadful laboratory experiment with me as your subject, just rushes up my esophagus, jolting me into a shudder, causing me to spill the unsettling ingredients of forgiveness all over the floor. You did it with a smirk, and you schemed too, and that is what I despise, yet now I must forgive. You gave me deceit, but I must repay you with forgiveness.........

Like scenes from the famous Bridgerton, like the newly found fame of Amelia from Princess Diaries or like colored flowers blooming in a wondrous pattern, the epic scene of the event grounds was a delight to the human heart. No one came to play any boring games and confidence was the most alluring scent. The decor was timeless and was a testament to the grueling labor, retractions, changes, positioning, blending and installing that the managers had to endure. It was all worth it! Riveting antiques from all angles, not a soul could dare say they felt no buzz. Ladies flushed as they blushed, with fashion that hugged their different bodies in unique styles and celebratory pride. Decadent statement pieces and transformative looks were a key feature of the day. In times past, the women would win the crown for their beauty and their ensemble, but the men were blushing too, matching their female counterparts with riveting garments, fit for kings. For those who did not make it to find themselve...