In And Out (Of Sync)

In and Out (Of Sync)

A short story about Fundy, and how he interacts with water and his family.

Words: 610

Trigger warnings: Brief mention of grief, death, and blood

⛈️🦊🕯️

He stood where the land met the rolling waves, watching as the wind picked up and threw the water down again. Pushing. Pulling. Pushing. And pulling again.

A breath. In and out. Pushing and pulling.

The air was wet and cold. Sharp.

A breath. In and out. A push. A pull.

He brought his arms above his head, slowly. And then down again. Push, pull. In, out.

Again. A breath. In and out. Up and down. Push and pull.

One leg over the other, bare feet on freezing sand, sticking to his skin despite quick spins.

In and out and up and down and push and pull and forward and backward.

Feeling the sea and the land colliding, eyes closed, he moves his body in harmony. In tandem. In sync. In and out.

Hands on his chest and then off. On and off.

Eyes open and then closed. Open and closed.

Arm over arm. Over and then under.

Blood warm. Warm and cold.

Memories swimming. Swimming and drowning.

Hands being held and let go.

A mother and a father.

Dead. Alive.

He’s alive. In and out and open and under and closed and swimming and off and dead and alive and in and out.

A raindrop on his nose. And arm. And head. And open eyes.

Drawn to the sea like his mother before him. Drawn to his mother like his father. Scared like a father. Curious like a mother. Dead. And alive.

And yet so peaceful.

A mother’s voice.

In.

“I’m here, Fundy. I see you, my son.”

And out.

Grief, Fundy has found, has a push and a pull. It came in suffocating waves and fast currents. High and low tide. Receding shorelines and tsunamis.

Fundy never knew his mother, so he began to dance again. The rain hit him with increasing intensity.

And yet, there are bright shining memories of her at the edge of his vision. A sure voice.

Especially by the water. He could feel her in the push and the pull. The neverending cycle from sea to sky and back again.

He reached his arm out with closed eyes, lunging parallel to the sea.

Memories of pictures and stories told by his father flooded through Fundy, clenched his chest, furrowed his eyebrows.

He knew his father.

Such confusion and anger surrounded, clouded his father. Peace, his mother. Chaos, his father.

In.

Sweltering heat.

In.

Fire.

In.

The taste of warm blood.

In.

A lighting strike.

In.

Explosions.

In.

A comforting hug.

Out.

In.

Fundy closed his eyes.

Out.

He leaned backwards, out of the lunge, into a stretch.

The rain moved swiftly onwards towards the mainland. Fundy watched it go. As the thunder continued to clap and lightning lit up the sky, Fundy could hear the booming message.

In.

His father’s voice

“Fundy, my son. How proud of you I am.”

Out.

In.

And

Fundy brang his feet to meet each other, one arm outstretched towards the storm and the other reaching towards the calming sea.

In and out but both moving.

Pushing and pulling and both changing.

Up and down but both infinite.

Forward and backward but both steps.

On and off and open and closed and over and under and warm and cold and swimming and drowning and holding and letting go and dead and alive and it’s all the same.

The storm and the sea. Both are made of water.

Both are the same.

Everything. From the sun in the sky to the sand on the beach. The plants growing and the animals that eat them.

In one singular moment, Fundy felt that peace. The certainty. The balance. The understanding.

Out.

I love them so much i might die

The GIGGS & Co. mega-compilation

(HUGE volume and flashing lights warning)

Flame

A word vomit about c!quackity and how he interacts with the world

Word count: 510

The flame was calling out to me like a siren’s song

Warm and inviting

Bright, inspiring

Glass floors and glass windows

Watching the sun come and go

A Bobeche is reaching out to me like a martyr, caught up in an age-old war

Looked into your eyes, unfamiliar gold pooling there

The rain bore down on my skin, mixed with my blood sweat and fucking tears

This whole time, I fought for you while you were forgetting me all along.

I’ve done things a monster couldn’t fathom

I am cruel. I am curt. I am undeserving.

The axe in my hands speaks, judge jury and executioner

Standing at the grave of an enemy, in death I envy you

You travel beyond the turbulence of your mistakes

I’ve scared a lot of people

Don’t know if that counts as hurting.

Or maybe I just failed at the hurting part, only intimidating before they call my bluff

Small boxes and sprawling skylines, chasing a feeling of home I never had

Going through the motions, just to look back and say I did

This all feels so familiar, i’ve smelled this candle before

Left burning while everyone goes out to a party

Stuck.

But, not stuck alone. No.

Surrounded by things to find pleasure in.

And yet, everything I touch burns instead of smiling

Is there anything more gratifying than taking a few papers, a table, a dream, a child down with you as you plummet?

Maybe it’s because the candle is worried that no one will notice if it blows out.

People will notice a house fire, though.

The candle won’t be blamed. The candle has no feelings. The candle is only an extension of the lighter, that is an extension of the person holding the lighter.

Lighter, touch me. If I am going to burn, let it be a pretty match to set me off. Oh, how I’ve watched you rust and peel, Lighter. You are not the shiny thing you once were. But, that potential for destruction has always burned inside you. Just had to squint your eyes, and we look the same.

You light a cigarette and sit next to me. You tell me what you want. I tell you what I need. Never the same things.

I am sick. I am sick and twisted probably, so far gone. I have never been lower before, will never be higher again.

You, Lighter, you find purpose in me. And I find satisfaction in you, and a quicker death.

I will never envy you, Lighter.

I will die. You will become useless, still alive but without purpose. You will sit by my grave, jealous of travel beyond the turbulence of mistakes.

Oh, Bobeche, catching my scalding wax. I am sorry that I bleed out into you

We are tied to each other, stuck like a candle to a candlestick.

I know that I am hurting you, I know that I should conserve myself.

But, it is Warm and inviting

Bright, inspiring

Drawn to the Lighter like a moth is to a

Guys im so normal about the wild robot (i cried so hard i had a meltdown)

No but the way the longer the movie goes on the dirtier and mossier Roz gets so at the end it look like she has fur?!

An Introduction to my Searing, Scorching, Blistering original characters.

Wiljem:

"A stranger stared back at him [in the mirror] with a cold gaze and the beginnings of a beard. He traced the uncanny person’s face, from the sharp chin to the piercing cheekbones. It almost looked like a skeleton, with the near absence of cheeks. The only color on its face was in its intense eyes, but even there the color was dull."

A middle child made the oldest thanks to tragedy, Wiljem is Taher’s brother. He used to be quietly positive, a homebody who ignored responsibility. When his safety net, his family, was ripped away from him, he was thrust into a leadership position and was suddenly solely liable for Taher’s survival. On top of this, Taher reveals his abilities as an avatar of the sun. This is normal in their home country but something which is being persecuted after being conquered by a neighboring, much more powerful, country. He travels far away from all he used to know to protect Taher, and now must battle his mental health issues, their poverty, and Taher’s growing itch for independence.

Taher:

"Into the light of the room, illuminated with a few dozen candles, walked a boy with bright eyes and a sharp nose. His face was expressive, with his eyes soft, eyebrows raised, and lips suggesting a smile."

Taher was too young to know his parents when they were alive. He grew up on the move with his two older brothers, Wiljem and Tirakem, inching to the border of the newly conquered territory and, hopefully, to safety. His brothers shielded him so well from the horrors surrounding them, that he was able to mature properly. Then, only a couple days from the port that would take them far away, Tirakem got sick and passed quickly. In his grief, Taher let out the brilliant light of an avatar of the sun, which alerted the conquerors to his existence. Without Tirakem, Taher was hit full force with the reality of their situation. Now, comfortably out of the country for years, Taher pushes and prods at Wiljem to let go of the past and stop treating him like a child. When refused, he takes matters into his own hands. 

Liizesk:

"She was a shorter woman, with old scars painted across her body. Especially up her arms and by her nose, freckles stood out against the pale of her skin. She looked young, about Wiljem’s age. Maybe only a little bit older. Pale blonde hair was parted in the middle of her scalp, and ran down to just above her neck. It was cut at a sharp line. Precise."

Liizesk was a part of the high society of the colonizing country, a noblewoman. She spent her life being comfortable and doted on, described as the greatest beauty the country had seen in a long time. She was on the way up from her already high status. Then, she fell madly in love with another noblewoman. They got to know each other, slowly, and well within the confines of societal expectations. They both knew that they were in love. Soon, Liizesk got a marriage proposal from a promising prospect, but they had both agreed to become spinsters, so she turned it down. She was shunned, but she ignored it because she was happy. Or, she was, until she found out that her lover had not turned her proposal down. Furious and ostracized, Liizesk confronted her. The other noblewoman apologized profusely and shared that she was only going to be married to him for a year in order to get enough money for Liizesk and her to run off together and live comfortably. For a year, Liizesk waited. She never came. Who came instead? The police, accusing her of homosexuality. She fled, and now has a seething fury beneath her eyes always. She joined and clawed her way to the top of the black market to keep herself safe.

Rahn:

"The right half of their body was tan, small and infrequent cicatrices running up their body. Their left side, however, was horribly blackened with scars. They looked charred. Running from their fingertips to their shoulder, up their neck and to their face, it looked as if someone had left them in the oven for too long."

Born of an unwilling marriage between a colonizing soldier and a colonized avatar of the dark, Rahn’s mother hid them in the dark’s domain, a forest that colonizers were too afraid to enter. Rahn was raised by the souls of their ancestors buried there. About a decade later, the colonizing country realized they could weaponize the dark by torturing avatars of said magick. Rahn had to flee and worked with the ancestors to try and stop the dark from becoming dangerous or engulfing towns that wouldn’t survive it. Each time, the angry and confused dark domain stained more and more of their body. When they were near death, getting weaker every day, their family forced them away to forge their own path. Lonely, they made quick friends with Aire and Liizesk and now participated in the black market to keep themself from being too bored and to use their magick on the down low. 

Aire: 

"Tall and muscular, the voice belonged to a towering man. Only barely shorter than Wiljem, he held himself straight-backed and confidently. He had blue-inked tattoos all over his body. Waves on his arms, sweeping, detailed designs along his chest, and smaller symbols on his neck. Within some tattoos, there seemed to be sentences written in a language [Wiljem] couldn’t understand."

Aire lived on a string of islands largely untouched by the main colonizing country for a long time. He enjoyed his community, a large family of interconnected clans. Days were usually warm and the ocean was cold. Honesty, selflessness, and positivity were the pillars of his life. The islands wherein he lived held the perfect environment for planting a specific plant that the colonizing country had run out of space for. Once discovered, the islands were ransacked. Of course they fought and tried to discuss and grieved, the wars waged for 6 years. But, Aire’s people cared about their people more than the land, while the colonizers were willing to throw away thousands of lives for the cause. So, they lost. They were given to the next full moon to leave or assimilate. Aire was one of the last to leave and a raging storm separated him from his community. Making friends at his new harbor where they had agreed to meet if they lived, he is a part of black market to support Liizesk and Rahn. 

Jeb: 

"The young, dark haired Jeb responded, letting a lazy smirk rest on their face comfortably. Leaning against the bar casually, they looked towards Wiljem. With that flash of teeth and dimples, the overwhelming screams of loosing bets faded away."

Jeb grew up in this country, in this massive port city. He was raised in the orphanage, never adopted, and now spends his time oscillating between his 3 jobs and sleeping, with the occasional lover joining him in the bed. He is a caring and intuitive person who is never quite looking past tomorrow. He met Wiljem on a cold night and was immediately smitten. The two dance around each other, unsure what the other wants, while Jeb worries about Wiljem’s wildly fluctuating moods and memory. 

Tirakem:

"Tirakem had more freckles than [Wiljem] did. While Wiljem preferred helping around the house, Kemmie was out in the sun, playing and adventuring more often. He was older, too, and he refused to cut his hair. As it got longer over the years, it lost some of its curl to the weight of it. He also had more scars, known to be less careful than any of his family members. But, it strengthened him."

Tirakem was the firstborn of the family and spent his days running through the hills by the house, following foxes to rivers and collecting rocks. He was always dirty, cut, and smiling. When Wiljem was born, he channeled that energy into protection, bringing home berries to eat and sticks to stoke the fire with. His parents only trusted him with the information that Wiljem was an avatar of the moon, but to keep it quiet as the war marched ever closer, even from the boy himself. When the next boy was born, Tirakem was training to fight. But, when the time came, he was too late. His parents were slaughtered, but he was ready to take on the role of guardian as his father gave him instructions on how to flee and the knowledge that Taher was an avatar as well, of the sun. Stressed constantly and selfless to a fault, a virus latched onto him and ate at him for months before becoming evident a few days from the border. His last thoughts were sorrow, that he could not do what he promised his father, and glee, to see his parents again.

I entangle our fingers, intertwined. The forest is alive and the sun is awake. I stay still and the smell of pine saunters past me, not paying me any mind, but there nonetheless. I look at you as you are engulfed by the earth, your hands are so spiky. It’s a fucking scarecrow again.