Good Times

Now and then I sit and stare out of the window wondering how I got to this place in my life. Once i had been young and carefree; willing to do almost anything for a good time. But things have changed now and I am calmer and more set in my ways. Things I once did now appall me. I lived hard and fast and have the scars and body art to prove it. When your young you think the whole world is your oyster to use a cliched phrase. I really thought I would live that kind of life forever. I was stupid. Now I know that the things we do catch up with us and we will have regrets. But sometimes despite everything I remember myself then and feel a little wistful. Wistful for the beauty, the youth the innocence I had. Now as a sit and stare out of this barred window in this maximum security prison with all the other murders I know that beauty, youth and innocence do not last for ever and if I had been smarter I would have used those things wiser instead of wasting them a good time.

The Dance

On the edge of the dance floor stood the girl. She was small for her age and covered from head to toe in unrelenting black. Her classmates would have been surprised to learn that she loved to dance for they had never seen her dance at a single dance over the last four years. She had come to every dance but she always stood on the sidelines, alone. At this ,their Prom and final dance of High School, she came alone and stood on the side of the dance floor in her black dress. Not a single peek of skin was revealed by her dress. Most of her classmates could not remember if they had ever seen the girl's skin other then her hands and face for it seemed she was never without a long sleeve turtle neck and long pants. But none of her classmates ever really paid attention to the girl in black. There were ,at every High School, those kids everyone considered odd and she was one of them at their school. So when the clock struck midnight and she vanished from her spot no one seemed to notice. If they had been paying attention they would have seen the air next to her shimmer for a second and her quickly slip through the shimmer. If someone had noticed her disappearance and followed her through the shimmer they would have believed that the punch was spiked and what they were seeing was all in their imagination. For through that shimmer was another dance floor identical to theirs, except instead of the frolicking young students from Peyton High School the dance floor was full of monsters, demons, witches and vampires. And there on the dance floor was the girl in black, no longer in black but free of the constraints of the human world she removed her long dress to reveal a shimmering silver strapless dress. Her tattooed arms waving to the music she danced with her friends and practiced her magic. Reveling in the freedom to be herself.

When she returned home that night and her parents asked how the dance was she would replay as always, " It was fun." And her parents would be happy that the daughter they loved but who seemed so odd and weird to them at least made the effort to be normal every once in awhile.