Pattern

Every few weeks, I attend a free-association writing group in my city. We're given a single word as a prompt and then we free-write for 30 minutes. Somehow it always happens that my free-writing turns into blood and guts and death, even though that's not at all what I usually write about; my current work that I'm querying is more twisty politics and LGBT romance. This piece flips back and forth between first person and second person, which was completely unintentional. I considered editing it but I wanted to present my work in its original form. I kind of like it this way, actually - a little something different. A little extra creepy, like the narrator isn't quite sure whose head they're in.

This week's prompt word was "pattern."

--

A pattern. A row. A line. Of dots.

Of dots.

Of dots.

Of dots.

Of DOTS.

You hate them. You hate the dots. Every dot, every time, every line telling you how long it’s been since you first got here. Is that a dot? No, just a speck – a fleck – a bit of blood from the last time they came.

My speck. My dot. My line of clots and blots and just saying it to myself – HA I have to laugh aloud.

Are these more reliable than the ones I’ve made on purpose? How many splotches on the walls, telling me how many times they came? Is it once a day? No windows, no way to tell.

Could really use a clock. Clock would be nice. Ticking away dots of time: DOT – there’s a second. DOT – there’s another one. Just try it. Open your cracking, bleeding lips and say it. DOT. DOT. DOT. One second, two seconds, three seconds, there they are, gone.

Whittle away a day just saying what you have to say to make the day go away.

Dot.

A creak in the corner. A creak, a squeak, a sound where there oughtn’t be. Turn your head, ignore the crumbling of the dried blood that cakes your neck, ignore it, ignore it, ignore it as those little – dots – skitter down your skin, down your chest, down onto your legs and the dust.

Where’s that squeak? Where’s that creak?

Mouse? No – just dust bunny.

Dust bunny? No – just mouse.

Mouse.

Little eyes. Dots. Little tail. Line of dots. Fur. Each one ends in a dot, a drip drip drop of water.

Water. Lick those dry lips, lick them, lick them, even though it’ll just make them hurt more in a minute when the dry parched air sucks all that lovely spit right back out. You want it, you want that one moment where they don’t hurt. Or at least they hurt less, like eating a square of chocolate to take the edge off a caffeine withdrawal headache.

No. Not a square.

A dot.

A nice little dot, round, like an M&M, though it’s been so long since you had one.

Red. Yellow. Green. Green? Yes, green. Blue. Brown. Is there orange? I remember the packaging, but I can’t remember the colors. Brown package for the normal – boring – yellow for peanut, blue for crispy. Something else, something new – peanut butter? Red. Red bag.

All those lovely little dots rolling around inside that bag. I want them. I want them. I want them.

Dot.

Dot on the wall. That’s mine, on purpose. How many, how many, see them, count them, lose track because you’re thinking about your lips again, dear god won’t they please give you more water, please, you won’t try to drown yourself again, you promise, you’ll be good, you’ll drink it, smear it on those parched dry cracking crackling bits of flapping skin you once called lips.

Please. Just a drop. A dop. A dot.

One.

Little.

Dot.

Give it to me. I want it. I can do it, I can make them proud.

Don’t make me make more dots.

Dot.

Roll on your back. Sometimes it hurts less. Sometimes it hurts more. Doesn’t seem to be a pattern. A hit here, hurts like hell. A hit just a little to the left – dot – hurts like a paper cut. Can’t say why. Can’t say what they want. Never will, never will, can’t because I never will.

A squeak, a creak. Stop, mouse, I don’t want you here. Just another reminder, another set of dots, another something reminding me that the whole world is just dots upon dots all arranged in those patterns that I can’t tease apart, can’t make out, can’t figure out the why, tell me who can I cry to to make it better, to tell me how to make these dots fly apart and just be

Dots

By

Them

Selves

Like me.

Dot.

I am dot.

I am Dot.

I am the dot. I am the one here, I am the spray along the wall there, I am here, I am everywhere in this goddamn motherfucking room and yet, and yet, and yet, no one seems to care that this room is all marked up in me. Me, me, me, dot, dot dot. Can’t make them go away, your mouth is too dry to even wet your lips a second time. Probably shouldn’t, shouldn’t try, just gonna make them crack again and then where will you be, trapped in that vicious cycle, that slippery slope, slippery sliding all the way down until there’s no more lips there’s just cracks and blood and the constant throbbing pain. I know, I know, stop telling me, I know.

Can’t a body ever just shut up?

Can’t a body get a moment of peace?

Peace. One. Syl. La. Ble. Word. One. Sec. Ond. One. Dot. Of. A. Word.

Dot.

Tick.

Dot.

One dot, one second, holding all those other dots inside, how can it do that? How is that fair? I never gave that dot permission. I never said, hey, yeah, go ahead, hold onto my dots for me, will ya? Thanks pal, I’ll be back to get them in an hour, just need a little “me” time, ya know? Yeah, me too.

But nah. That dot, this dot, the one that’s coming here it comes GRAB IT nope it’s gone, all of them, just taking my dots and locking them away. Not fair. Never said you could. Mine. Mine. MINE.

Mine. My dot.

Dot. This dot, that was made by me. When I first arrived, when they first brought me here. Back then, I thought the dots would end. I thought the days would pass.

Now, I have to make my own time.

Dot.