Edgar Allen Poe

This is my attempt to mirror his personal style of writing...

In the small, white room she sat. The only form of movement in the room was of her shoulders, as they moved up and down struggling to keep time with her persistent lungs. Inside her body though, a battle raged on. Her heart beat with intense and uneven lurches of pain. Her mind spoke so loudly that she was unable to scream. Her blistered hands were tied to the wall she rested on with decrepit, dirty ropes the color of sewage water. Her eyes remained shaded in an odd color of pink, always stagnant with tears that never faded. Shattered remnants of hope and love that once possessed her lay unrelenting and unwavering on the cold linoleum floor of her chamber. For her love, for him, she would live in this corpse like state until her lungs gave out. Only in this action would she understand that as fast as she catapulted herself to the highest depths of self sacrifice, she fell through the shallow, icy surface of her failures. She was not alone though; in her barrier of loss sat four figures of unthinkable scope. Three of these were of her likeness, in physicality and emotional stature. They, as still as she, were cloaked with truth so that their eyes shone a bright blue, so cold it could penetrate skin. In each pair of eyes lay her story; the sacrifice she made, the expectations she never rose to, the truth she never had courage enough to face. Despite the fact that each unyielding glance she received from her angels tore through her like lightning, it was the fourth member of the circle that carried the most power over her. He had outsized eyes, wet with tears and brimming over with emotion. He wore a complacent stare, full of passion that lay unwritten in her own, stale watch. The sentiments that filled her heart each time she looked up into his facade subsequently sent her into a more hysterical silence than before. A familiar, smug visage; a look worn by one cradled by the safety invested in the worship of another. A look of love; a look she once wore. The familiarity kept her in her corner, fixed to her rigging made of movable knots as weak as her body's rhythm. As weeks passed, the look of adoration developed into a tangible sound. The lips of her company lay immobile as always, yet her eyes lay wide with shock as she heard the whispers become more prominent. At first they were merely a montage of phrases her love once spoke to her. As hours departed, words of anguish; of the darkness that consumed her and drove him away, appeared and faded like smoke. Her heart beat too fast, her sobs welled up in her chest causing a raw, burning pain to melt its way across the planes of her throat like licks of orange flames. The stares of her visitors grew stronger, breathing in time with the murderous poetry. As the fifth hour curved closer to the next, her hands curled into fists. As they began to slither with motion, they slipped from the confines of their chains. She stood, slow and steady, on her knees as she felt the blood pulse through her veins, too fast so that they created a shivering sensation throughout her body. As she gazed through the corner of her eye, she stopped, only to shoot a glare across the room to the corner where her guests once sat. She peered with increasing curiosity into the once full space, pondering how it could now lay so still. It was as if no one had ever moved in the room besides herself. With less than eager movements, she maneuvered herself onto her hands and knees and began to progress to the tall white double doors, carved with glossy patterns and gleaming with the reflection of light. She turned the cold, silver doorknob and stumbled into the bathroom. Now shuffling faster, she crawled, dragging her knees and tearing her skin, to the unusually white base of the sink. with struggle she stood, and felt her body convulse under the unanticipated feeling of her limbs under her nonexistent weight. Slowly, in one minute movement, she lifted her head to peer into a foggy pain of glass hanging above the fixture. her breathing ceased as she took in the ghastly sight. Deep rings of purple overtook her face and radiated from the bottom of her under eyes. Her cheekbones lay sallow, like craters. Her skin took a ghastly, yellow tone. This was a face that had come to her in nightmares, a face that had haunted her memory since the moment he closed the door on the future that had been promised to her. Her boney, shaking hands positioned themselves upon either side of her face. she shuddered, and bumps rose along her arm and stomach. At that moment an emotion shot through her, stronger than the first that had engulfed her aching heart not moments before. Who was this body? this cadaver that only sought to breath in truths meant to damage, meant to kill. There was no life in this corpse. its only purpose was to serve as a casket for the soul that lay inside, painfully waiting for the day it would be carried away to a better place. With impetuous actions, two arms reached top pull a wooden stake from the pule of untouched firewood. Rapidly, she swung her arms, sending the wood into the basin of the sink. Her hand quivered as it reached to enclose itself around a rather jagged piece. In one fleeting shift of her fingers blood began to drip from her wounded neck. As her body emptied itself of the life she felt it no longer deserved, and before her eyes could completely fog over, she was afforded a glance to the entrance of her deathly chamber. A familiar, mud brown loafer carried its proprietor through the french doors. It took only three words to bring her to life, and three words to carry her out of it.

The end.

Copyright Yasamin Aftahi 2011