Singing to the Void

Singing to the Void
---
I continue to sing into nothingness
A voice to go unheard.
These scraps of melody
Not meant for anyone
Drift slowly into nothing
As I fade to Black.

Perched
---
Finch on curled branch
as if asking me the time
tilts her tiny head

The Time?
---
"I'm afraid I don't,"
I shrug an apology.
She flits off, annoyed.

Warmth

At first, she wondered why she was always so warm. She was far too young to have hot flashes, wasn't she? She had lost two children in the womb, it drove her husband away and she was so alone. Always so hot! She held ice cubes and they shattered in her hands from the heat. She thought she was dreaming when she dropped a cube in her hand one day and it disappeared, a puff of steam coming up from where it should have landed.

Later that day she accidentally sautered the door shut by touching the hinge. Suddenly, the loss of her children made sense. She'd baked them in the womb, stifling their life before it had the chance to begin. Her husband's complaints about how hot she made the bed. She cried and it smelled of sulfer.

Meeting the Weavers

I found out today that I was not the only one who could do this. I turned down a narrow alley and nearly ran into her. I knew she couldn't see me, but she knew I was there. Her skin was an unhealthy white, as if she'd never seen the sun, and over her eyes there was a bloodstained scarf. She held the loom like those frescoes of angels with harps in the heavenly chorus, and turned her face up to mine, an unsettling smile spreading across her face. She began weaving.

I pulled out the paper I had pre-written in case of emergencies. It read in my neat, even script a single word, "Sword." I reached through the paper and pulled out the one-handed, simple but sharp sword that lay in wait within, just in time to block a wicked-looking trident from goring me. I hadn't even seen the woman reach through her loom, but I knew what she had done. I stepped back and took a deep breath. This would be one hell of a fight.