[x]

The Patient Eric sat alone in the sterile white room, humming a tune and tapping his foot in an attempt to pass the time. He looked around the small room for a clock. Finding none, he frowned. Hadn't there been a clock the last time he was here?

The door opened and a man walked in. He had black hair and a starched coat, the same pristine white as the walls. Eric looked up at him and smiled.

"Ah, Dr. Chang!" he said brightly.

"Mr. Eric Fleming. You look well. What seems to be the problem?"

"Well, I've been having trouble sleeping. I've been feeling alright physically…. I figure it might have to do with stress at work," said Eric, his grin fa

Tribute to MemoryThe old woman next door played her depressing version of Happy Birthday to You on her piano again, and Lisa couldn’t study.

The music wasn’t loud, but it seeped through into her apartment with its slow pace and low notes and bothered her, even though it was ignorable and she was comfortable in good company.

“There she goes again with the sleepy music.” Mark placed his Calculus book on the coffee table, leant back into the couch, and yawned. “What’s this, the eighth time this year?”

“The first time,” Lisa said. “And how’s it sleepy music?”

“It’s making me d

Commander PinkNEW LOCATION! See comments for link.

"Something gets to him. Something gets to everybody." Luke took a flattened sandwich from his ammo box and pulled it apart with thick brown fingers. That was something Win noticed about everyone here, even the new guy—they all had strong hands. He hated to look at his stupid pale, spindly fingers. "Like me, music gets to me sometimes, you know?" Luke said. "The right song plays, and I'm bawling. There's gotta be something that could break him, you know?"

"Don't be juvenile." Brutus tore his sandwich into huge chunks and looked to Win. "Edwin, you gonna eat or what? Commander'll bite your head off if

Dissatisfied with Silence "How is it?"

He keeps trying to make conversation, like we actually have anything to talk about. I don't look into his chocolate-caramel eyes, but instead keep my neutral expression fixed on my fork. I've only been picking at my food--a lavished slab of steak and mashed potatoes. The basil is wet and dark green. It sticks to the fork as I tilt it this way and that; just minuscule motions as I watch the light of the fancy chandeliers that the metal throws back at me. I cannot see my face within the silver, nor can I see his. The pretty reflections seem to come from an entirely different world, taking the low light of the resta

Infinite Infinitesimal InfinitiesInfinite Infinitesimal Infinities

Everything is infinite; only we aren't. Our inconsequential lives don't allow us the time; we parcel it out individually, as we see fit. A slice to art, a slice to sex, a slice to words, a slice to thought, a slice to cycling trivialities. And no matter how many slices we serve ourselves, there is never enough and we never are full. So we hunger, but there is no mercy; we never starve.

Words are infinite. We, as humans, never tire in our experimentation, twisting and wringing out old verbs and adjectives for new meaning, and usually finding it, weaving tales of wonder for all to gawk at on our looms of drea

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"Don't worry about it," he reassured her. "It's nothing to be afraid of."

"It's different for you; you've done all of this before. I-I haven't. It's my first time, so I have no idea what to do." She was so nervous that she was shaking, but at the same time her cheeks were flushed with excitement.

"Stop worrying, babe. Just follow my lead and you'll do fine."

When she looked at him, she could see it in his eyes. He was ready to go, but she was holding him back. She was still afraid, but he was worth it. If he was ready to go there, then so was she.

"Alright then," she took a deep breath in a

Crisp White LinenCrisp white linen sheets, strewn haphazardly across the soft hotel bed, crinkled underneath her slight frame as she shifted uncomfortably. The sound of running water floated out of the en-suite bathroom and across the bare hotel room to where she sat, naked and perfectly still. Sun light creeps in through the thin gauze of the curtains that hung over the large floor to ceiling windows looking out over the car park. Clothes lay strewn across the floor of the hotel room; some in shadow, others highlighted by the morning sun. A mobile phone vibrates on the wooden bedside table and the young, slight, petite woman reaches out her pale white arm sl

Dear StrangerDear Stranger,
I hope you are reading this letter before you have gone outside. I imagine you will have a few questions on your mind when you see how things are out there. Luckily, you happen to have this conveniently placed "doggy-door" through which I have slipped the letter you now hold in your hands.
First, I would like to apologize for the state of your mailbox. By this point I imagine you have ventured outside and seen a few things worth the raising of an eyebrow or two and I assure you, all will be explained. The mailbox. I am deeply sorry for the condition it is in. You may notice that the box itself is hanging askew, the flag seems to have disappeared(I searched high and low, I promise.), and the post seems to be broken in several places though I have done my best to repair it with duct tape. It might also be worth mentioning that it has been moved several feet to the left.
You see I was driving home late last night from work (They have me working another man's shift while

Heart, Have No PityThe train sways from side to side, gray subway lights washing away all color from the world, and the shuffle on his music player is playing only the songs Jesper hates. He hits the skip button again and again, tries to keep his briefcase pinned between his legs. There is a coffee stain on his shirt, but he did not have enough time to sprint to his bedroom and change before he had to leave to make his train on time. He cannot afford to be late again.

Skip-skip-skip. He should stop allowing his sister into his apartment; she always deletes his good music and replaces it with pop that Jesper despises. He thinks he hears his station being called

The Belly of a WhaleThe belly of a whale is cleaner than you'd think. It's the seashore on a wet day: a red beach with red clouds and red sand. And the voice of the whale is the voice of God.

God sings, "You were delicious."

"Spit me out." I'm on my knees, though my god cannot see inside itself to find my supplication satisfying. "I'm a wicked man. You don't want to devour wickedness, oh Lord. You'll be disgusted when you know you've devoured such a polluted thing."

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"I've murdered a man."

"So have I."

"I've murdered a woman, too."

"So have I."

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God laughs. "The ship I sank held hundreds."

This calls for humil

Glass CoffinThe first thing she heard was her heart thumping in her chest. It was beating faster than normal, and almost seemed to be moving up toward her throat. The feeling of adrenaline still coursed through her veins and the smell of the fiery cabin still floated just beneath her nostrils.

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Dry BonesSometimes I replenish my whiskey bottles with water
And swirl it around. I drink up
To make sure I didn’t miss a single drop of that alcohol.
Diluted or not, I ache for it.

Grief.

But not as much as I ache for you.
I would rinse you out and sip all of your insides.
Then I would drag your skeleton out of your skin.
Help me. Worm your way free.

Grief,

My love.

I would jumble our bones together. Mix us up.
Not so we would be two with replaced bones.
No, I want us to have four arms, four legs. I want,
I want us to have two heads and a long twisted spine
Of vertebrate upon vertebrate.
I want us to clank out hollow sounds
When we come r

Last Cigarette

LAST CIGARETTE

I sat out on the pool deck of the Sea Sprite hotel late on a Sunday night in June, watching the moonlight dance on the waves crashing against the beach. It was quiet, empty and cold. Wisps of marine layer traced the sky, obscuring the stars, scenting the air. The cherry of my Winston 100 burned brightly in the dark.

I'd come out here to ignore myself, and maybe try to destroy myself a little more. The six pack of Corona Extra sweating beside my deckchair.

Sundays always felt sad these days. Lonesome. Visually pretty, but mentally depressing. Sundays meant some kind of end, somehow unknown.

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swallowing silver spoonsShe counts thirty-one days during every odd month and thirty days during every even month (apart from February, but that doesn't matter, everything else is the same). There are twenty-four hours in a day, and she thinks that doesn't matter, either, because it leaks away just like the number of days.

The days pass in a blur and she wonders what happens if she oh, just happens to glance out the window because she thinks that the world's going to end anyway. Might as well just sit here.

So this is life, broken and battered after withstanding just a few years of marriage, but then again, she never quite expected him to die early. Just one of th

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nauseated is the prettiest emotion i've felt so far cause for once, i can see an actual physical rejection, rather than these invisible strings snapping on the inside, but never showing even a blemish on the outside.

my screams have begun to ferment as they remain bottled up in what i imagine to be gruesome-colored vials within the shelves of my intestines. each vial must be carrying individual, heart-straining yelps, yelling and sobs f

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this is about forgetting

by *linaket, Nov 2, 2012, 9:51:36 PM
Literature / Prose / Fiction / General Fiction / Flash Fiction & Vignettes

This is the thing about forgetting:

For weeks you bury your face in the clothes you wore when he was near and the smell is a comfort and a torture. You decide that the torture is not worth the comfort so you leave them draped across the back of a chair and place things on top of them to stop yourself until one day you shove your hands through the pile until your fingers wrap around the fabric and you yank it free only to realize it was pointless. Even his ghost is gone.

The next thing that leaves is the way his voice looked in the dark. Those few sentences become blurred and rough around the edges. What you remember drops in your stomach in a different way.

You run your fingers over your bottom rib and remember his lips there. You remember that instant, that moment, because it was different. It had never happened before. It seemed special, it seemed like it was yours. Then, you realize you can’t remember what side it was. And it mattered. That was what you were supposed to remember.

You forget his hands behind his head, his shut eyes. You don’t forget the feeling of failure. That you remember. You know that will never go away.

Somewhere in the middle of all the forgetting you remember how you held your arms together. How he seemed surprised at how pale you were in the industrial glow. You want to think this made you special. You know it didn’t.

This becomes your ritual: you curl up on the bathroom floor clutching your head and tell yourself repeatedly that it is over. It is finished. It will not happen. Stop it. Just stop it. You have trained yourself for years to slip into that place, a place where he is with you. It has always been your comfort, but it is gone. You tell yourself that it is gone. Stop it. Just stop. But you can’t—you refuse.

this is about forgettingby *linaket

Literature / Prose / Fiction / General Fiction / Flash Fiction & Vignettes

idk what I'm doing.

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~CherryBlossomSpring Nov 12, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

Beautifully written, Miss *linaket.

Thank you for thoroughly expressing my feelings. I am really glad I am watching you on dA. You have such a beautiful way with words and such a clear description of human feeings without just saying in a simple sentence "I miss you". To be honest, I just follwed your for LW but your other works, as I am seeing now, are just as magnificent. This is short and bitter-sweet. Keep up the great work!

*TouchedBy-AnAngel Nov 11, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

So much beauty in this. Great work!

+ fave

=Sammur-amat Nov 11, 2012 General Artist

Congratulations on the well deserved DLD, sugar

*linaket Nov 11, 2012 Writer

Thank you so much

=Sammur-amat Nov 17, 2012 General Artist

You are most welcome!

=DailyLitDeviations Nov 10, 2012

Your wonderful literary work has been chosen to be featured by DailyLitDeviations in a news article that can be found here [link]
Be sure to check out the other artists featured and show your support by

ing the News Article.

=Sammur-amat Nov 5, 2012 General Artist

This made my eyes want to bleed- in a very oh fuck this is so sad and beautiful it reeaaaallllly hurts sorta way, mind you

*linaket Nov 11, 2012 Writer

I am going to consider this high praise?

=Sammur-amat Nov 17, 2012 General Artist

Only the best<3

=EmmyIsAZebra Nov 5, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

OMG Lina, this piece is so powerful and raw.

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