The prompt: Write something that begins with a screech.
Just so you know, I'm changing the screech to a scream. Because I want to and you can't stop me. (Is that against the rules? Too late now...) Here goes:
Some days she screams, she throws and bends and falls. Some days she blinks, and remembers, and waits. She's not sure which days are which anymore. There aren't really any days here, anyway, and she can't actually do any of those things. But she thinks about doing them.
She can recall certain things. She thinks about the weeds on the side of the road. She thinks about rollerskating. Once she thought about the way sunlight streams through a window thrown open, and the smell of spring filling the house, but only once.
She can't stand to think about light.
She can sing. No, hum. She wouldn't want to open her mouth. That's when the dirt comes in. But she can hum, and keep time with the words in her mind. Three hundred and twenty-seven different songs, before she can't remember anymore and has to start over at number one.
Once she was a fighter, kicking against the pricks. In the beginning she did kick, but the earth presses down on her legs and strangles their strength to move. She tried to beat against the heavy soil, but all she could do was curl her fingers into mud-encrusted fists. Her arms are caught too tightly for anything else.
There are too many pricks. She doesn't kick anymore.
But sometimes she thinks about kicking.
