Absinthe’s eyes did not follow her steps for so taken was she with the scenery that she could not deny herself diversion. A woman stood some two feet from her, pale skin shimmering as if dusted with flecks of diamond, fiery red locks piled haphazardly on top of her head, several tendrils falling loosely to adorn her cheeks. Though she wore a gown of pumpkin hue, a token of wealth given the surrounding squalor, her features were gentle, her violet eyes as wide and unassuming as a field of wildflowers. She stood alone, peering deeply into the sea of people as if looking for someone. Her hands nervously clutched at a piece of paper and more than once her eyes fell upon the crumpled slip hoping to gain some assurance. There were creatures that appeared from the pages of an HP Lovecraft novel so terrifying and ill-formed as to make it difficult to ascertain their precise physiognomy. There was a young girl with a shock of shaggy white hair and a pair of hirsute goat legs of a matching color. Her pretty face was so littered with tattoos that her features were not immediately differentiated. Her human upper half like-wise was covered in vicious jets of black ink, a cross between tribal and extraterrestrial Absinthe thought but to her eyes the symbols were meaningless. The fawn (if she could be labeled such in the absence of horns) wore nothing more than a leather brassiere and matching black thong, neither modest nor a slattern (though perhaps vulgar). If anything she seemed a woman of her own design. “Keep your eyes in your head girl…not a good neighborhood to be drawing attention…” The Abyssinian said turning around briefly before speeding up to a slow trot. Keeping close behind Absinthe tried to focus on her feline companion and the cruel architecture but the bone wings of a handsome man, the tail of a roguish girl, the ram horns of a flat-faced demon called to her inner child, to the part of her that needed desperately to believe in magic and the supernatural. Her mental status was the subject of intense debate, disposed to hallucinations, she did not want to dismiss the possibility of a true alternate reality.
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The building was a massive stone structure, something akin to a cathedral, replete with obfuscating stain glass windows, gargoyles, and doors large enough to allow for the passage of a small private aircraft. Outside of the building there were performers of varying sorts a pair of Pierrot who had no faces beneath the masks they wore, jugglers who threw not colorful pins but shrunken heads, contortionists, and barefoot dancers in long colorful skirts. So much to see and yet Lilith bade her inside impatiently. At the entrance stood a woman not unlike the dancing women outside; she had the same mysterious dark features and Bohemian dress, the only difference was that tucked into her sleeve was a burnt and unformed limb. She cradled the partial appendage as if a small child though she did not seem particularly adverse to its presence and made no particular effort to conceal it. “What can I do for you miss?” The woman asked her voice cheerful, her accent clean and British. “She’d like to have a look at the Public Sensoriums…” The cat answered, the woman’s dark hair and eyes both dropping forward. “Aren’t you a peculiar-looking psychopomp…more cute and cuddly than any I’ve seen…” The woman teased and the cat turned her proud head sharply clearly insulted by the condescending coo in the woman’s tone. “Now I’ve gone and insulted her…” The woman sighed sounding more surprised than apologetic. “Follow me then…no use pouting aye cat? It was a compliment…” The woman chided but she did not appear to be winning favor.
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Absinthe entered a small circular room ensconced with colorful cushions but no furniture or art besides the azure crystal that stood on a pedestal in the center of the room. “Just lay your hand on the stone…if you get spooked just pull away…its as easy as that….I warn you its a bit intense…unlike a movie it engages all your senses….perhaps even some senses you aren’t familiar with…” The feline said hopping up on a cushion. Five full rotations and Lilith would settle, Absinthe knew well her feline companions compulsions. Turning away from the cat she placed her fingers tentatively on the radiant sphere and closed her eyes. The cool surface tingled like the fuzzy static from an old television set.
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Her head filled with thunder, with the rush of a pulse so frantic she thought her ear drums would split open. Rain spilled hotly between her fingers, on her lips like salt and she realized it was not rain at all but her own tears. She felt the need to manually extract her breath, she kept clutching at her loose dress, as if it were strangling her. Her chest spasmed painfully, her hysterical heart, imposing on her ribs with such force that she could not stop herself shaking, with such force that she felt the traumatized organ would soon be shadowed by the bones encasing it. She opened her eyes, burning, blurred and before her stood a tall dark-haired man, whose face was too asymmetrically cruel to render it attractive. “Must you cry…” The man snapped impatiently, causing Absinthe to involuntary step backwards. Her eyes darted frantically around her, she was in the city, people passed her but did not offer her even a passing glance. In the distance she saw a courtyard with the enormous stone statue of a naked woman, couples, and families stood around the monument deep in their own engagements. She felt drawn to the park, to trees and the central Goddess, into the open, into the light where she felt certain the man would not be able to act on her in any ill-fashion.
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Sensing her intentions the man’s hand clamped around one of her frail freckled wrists. “Let go! You’ve no right to me…” The voice was not hers but the words had stood before her own mind tremulous and imperative. “I paid good money for you…and I intend to extract every cent from that flee-ridden hide of yours…” The man snapped, his tongue spewing venomous with the over-enunciation of his words. “I-I’ve changed my mind….oh God forgive me…I’ve changed my mind….” Absinthe tried to cross her chest but the man grabbed her other hand and she felt the bones inside of his iron grip crunch sharply, brutally, nearly to the point of fracture. “N-no please take your money back…there’s plenty of girls wiling….I-I’ve never done this…I was desperate…but I-I just can’t…it isn’t how I was raised…” She pleaded panicked she began to pull violently, willing to drag the man with her if need be. If only she could edge herself into the light, away from the alley, he might get spooked by the threat of exposure. The man’s eyes flashed black and he thrust her viciously, she tripped over the curb and landed on her backside with an audible thud. Scrambling up Absinthe removed the money from her dress and offered it to him, hands shaking so violently that she feared her grip would betray. The man tore the money from her and grabbed her roughly by the hair. “I’d better never see you turning tricks again or I’ll take this as a personal rejection…I’ll rape you before and after I kill you understand?” He growled the words into her ear, carious breath drawing the contents of her stomach upward. Dropping to her knees in the dirt on release she had never felt so relieved in her whole life, no matter that she would go another night with her only meal being that which she could beg off the rat catcher.
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Submission for
and
Just to make sure you understood this isn’t Absinthe’s memory its a memory that was imbedded in the sensory stone but a memory nonetheless. I have done flashbacks a few times so I thought it might be alright
mindlovemisery 