Reegan – Phantasmagoria

Clink…clink…clink

The metallic sound was grating. It wrapped around the girls ears. Bled into her skull and out of her ears like a lazy centipede. The intangible sensation of liquid noise leaking out of an aperture.

Clink…clink…clink

It had started out as this deafening obstruction. Something which screeched and howled and battered itself around. A gargantuan metallic presence. But it wasn’t living. It was just a machine. At least the girl had thought so…but that had been several hours ago.

Clink…clink…clink

It had to be eight hours…maybe nine…no it was probably ten. The shifts lasted twelve hours. Yes it had to be ten hours so only two more to go. No three. Maybe four if she miscounted. What if it really was only seven hours?

 The girl didn’t know anymore…she didn’t focus on the minutes so much now because her head had started to feel weightless again. Her hands turning into something synthetic and separate from her body moving with the mindless shuffle of boxes being folded around her.

Clink…clink…clink

Mouth full of invisible cloth. Soaking up the moisture. If there was even any left to spare. Eyes rocking back and forth ever so subtly as they hummed to themselves. The girl let her head roll forwards as the buzzing in her head mingled with the sound behind her eyelids. Cicadas were trapped in her skull flapping madly and now they wanted out. So they were going to carve there way out of her eyes. Escape in a flurry of bright hypnotic noise and wet glittering wings.

Her head snapped back and she rubbed her eyes furiously. Her neck grew taunt as she felt it crack and she crumbled in an instant. Her hands scrabbling at her sore neck, jabbing at her eyes as she let out strangled gasps which clawed out of her throat so a scream could rip up the stagnate atmosphere.

She writhed on the ground, screaming because maybe then she could override the gentle humming behind her eyes. Thrashing because maybe she could shake the cicada’s out of her ears instead. The grey scale room blended into a smudged abstract blur, the awful rustling noise beating into her head like a metallic heart. Hands digging into flesh so the pain could make everything else stop.

” GOD JUST MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP, MAKE IT STOP! “

There was the muted shuffle of anxious feet and the girl in all her writhing and tossing around felt hands grasp at her. Latching on like a vice and pulling her from the ground. Sight came back to her in a paralyzing lurch as she hoisted to her feet the room returning to her like color bleeding into a light sketch.

The room. In all of it’s horrendous monotony. Bulky and indistinguishable metal contraptions  and churning gears made up the backdrop of a city full of conveyor belts, automatons and people clothed in a sickly white folding boxes. The girl pressed her fingers gently to her eyelids. They fluttered briefly and she pulled her hand back, fog starting to surround the edges of  her mind. She thought she had heard someone scream but when she looked around she was met with blank stares and a few terrified gazes.

A familiar hand grasped her from behind breaking the surreal moment . The girl whipped around heart clamoring up her chest. She struggled briefly before recognizing the face in front of her.

Anna.

Her dark eyes stuck out on her gaunt face making her look like an emaciated owl and her olive skin felt clammy against hers.

The girl ceased her rickety movements and slumped into her arms the faint feeling in her head finally swelling over. She felt Anna lean her against the frigid rail of the conveyor belt before stepping cautiously back in case the girl lost balance again.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

” I…I think so. But someone else isn’t. I heard them scream. We should get help.”

“That was you.”

The girl shook her head partially out of confusion and partially because it still felt foggy.

“No I heard her…just now.”

Anna placed a skinny arm on her shoulder.

“Winona…your not well…you can’t go back to work. You need to rest.”

The girl almost didn’t recognize her name. No one used their real names. Some days it seemed like Winona was an imaginary friend who was rarely mentioned because she was no longer real or interesting to the one who made her up. Anna was the only one who used her name. However it could be a perilous thing to just causually blurt out such things so these moments were fleeting and far between.

“I have to! I’m already behind as it is!” The girl then leaned forward to whisper in Anna’s ear.

“I’ll get in trouble…again.”

“I’ll take the blame…I don’t care just please rest for a moment.”

In that moment she felt another fluttering sensation in her skull. The cicada’s. Restless and desperate for open space which the confines of her mind could not provide. Perhaps the scream she heard was from someone who had them as well but could no longer keep them inside. Could not longer block them out. Anna didn’t understand what was going on but she did. Oh god….this may be worse than she thought. And the worst part. This was happening inside so who would believe her.

” I’m fine Anna…”

The girl turned her back on Anna’s lanky figure and resumed folding the boxes sliding tiredly past her as if they had grown sick of being handled. Touched. Confined and controlled. She felt bad for whatever may be inside the rough cardboard exterior. Imprisoned within wrapping paper and held down by elastics which served as cruel little corsets without the lacy allure grasping at the ribs. Holding flesh against bone and cutting into it’s contours not as sharp as knives but tight enough to make it feel like knives.

There was an echoing sigh before the distorted sound of retreating footsteps resounded from behind her. Her fingers grasped at the edges of the box the sharp bits of the board cutting into her palms granting her focus. She pressed harder drawing a few pinpricks of blood which spiraled down her hand. Miniature rivulets running serenely down. Ruby streams carrying along invisible fish with sweeping tails which fanned out in a wave of bejeweled scarlet and fiery orange before folding back again. An ornate koi posing as a living breathing fan.

The girl continued folding and packing letting her now numbing hands gain a consciousness of their own once again. Only once did she pause to survey around her for she worried that perhaps she really had been imagining the girl she thought she heard scream. But there was nothing. Only the usual line of people pressed up in a claustrophobic inducing cluster around her, robotic as ever. Maybe the girl had gotten up and just resumed her work like nothing happened? Generally everyone here was very proficient at returning to their duties no matter the disruptions temporarily jarring their concentration.

The girl held on to this nagging perplexity as she turned back to the boxes. Questions sometimes cleared the fog in her head. Masked the flapping of iridescent wings beating around like her skull was a crystal they tapped against. The pattering of tiny anxious legs which would occasionally scuttle atop the softness of her brain. It was often ticklish enough but it was also very uncomfortable turning something silly into a nuisance, which eventually divulged into another headache.

Clink…clink…clink

The metallic monster was at it again. But her head had cleared enough that she could confirm it wasn’t alive. But she had four more hours to go still, perhaps this concept would change once more. The girl shook her feet trying to get the blood to flow a little as she had forgotten to give them a good stretch several hours ago and as they settled back onto the concrete a crunching noise met the heel of her worn shoes.

She lifted her foot in one creaking motion and stuck to the bottom among bits of sharp pebbles and chalky dust was a shimmering wing crushed into an emerald glitter between two globs of dirt.

It was the missing wing of a cicada.

A/N: An except of an original story concept. Will be compiled with the rest of the short story concepts and turned into the screenplay for a T.V show. For now I want to get out the crucial bits of the time line in short story form before it is converted into a screenplay.