An exercise in patience. That is what this is. Every word, every space must be perfect, chosen specifically for this task, this opportunity to create from nothing a brilliant masterpiece. Hand over hand, tedious inch over tedious inch over tedious inch, I sap the last reserves of my tired strength to bring phrases up from the depths of a black pit and reveal them to the warm sunshine. To bring my inner soul into the light. I run words over my hands and through my fingers and watch fascinated as they spill over to rest upon the page. I write.

The bell tinkled softly as he walked in. Another naïve boy who still believed in love. His clothes were neat, but quite obviously plain. Not very well-to-do then. He would still pay. Lovers always did. Gold, silver, anything flashy.

"Excuse me, sir. Do you carry turquoise rings?"

"Not diamond?"

"I'm not getting engaged," he laughed. "My sister's turning five tomorrow." His voice sobered. "I might not see her again. My father is dead, so I'm leaving her behind with my mom to go work."

He picked a ring, carefully counted out the coins... Maybe true-blue, humble, turquoise love does exist.

"That was very brave of you," they say. "Thank you for sharing your experiences."

My speech is about insensitivity, small actions that make up huge consequences that we don't fully realize. About that one person who is going to die by suicide within the next fourteen minutes. About the depression that crushed my light in middle school. That's not it, though. I also speak about hope, the fact that it can be a good thing that small stones have big ripples.

They applaud my courage.

But I am not brave. Telling the story is my way of easing the pain.

I am unseen—nobody ever watches street orphans, so I slip under the fence. A curtsy to the hawthorne, to the faeries, and then I am in the door, tiptoeing through dusty, musty shelves. Nobody knows why the book-keeper disappeared, but I do. It's this book: The Leprechaun. I close my eyes; run my fingers over the scarlet-red cover with gold-etched clogs. I long to go where he did, the land of the fey, away from this heartless land. Faeries, take me, too! I open my eyes to color streaming through the windows, illuminating a mystical gate: pot of gold.

"Saki, behind you!"

The warning is nearly lost in the confusion as she turns and tries to bring her blade up to parry the incoming burst of magic energy. Suddenly, she is pierced through.

Her friends run to her, shouting, cursing. She knows they're trying to say something, but, oh, she can't hear. Her vision clouds over. Trying to speak, she gasps, breathless, as her tears run helplessly away.

A trap. This wasn't supposed to happen. They'd promised her if she came… and now her friends would never know that by trying to save them, she had killed them all.

Binary is the language of the computers, the un-living and the unloving. Words spoken daily that are, quite frankly, unspeakable—simply meaningless strings of zero's and one's.

However, what if I whispered this to you: 01001001 0100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 0100000 01111001 01101111 01110101.

"I love you."

Some believe it's a stretch to call binary a language, but is it? Although no one alive speaks it, what it does speak speaks volumes. It speaks of being able to contact loved ones far away. It speaks of artwork saved for future generations. Maybe it is much more than just a language.

I woke up in this life wrapped in a cocoon where all was black, but now I've cracked it and am standing in the light. I don't know how to do this; my wings are wet, they droop, encasing my body. I think… before… I didn't have wings at all. I guess I must have grown, although I thought I would never escape the dark. I shake off my wings; I want to feel the sunshine and touch the clouds. What were my dreams, before the blackness came? It doesn't matter anymore. I've changed, and now I want to soar.

She lies, curled up, underneath a quilted coverlet, dreaming of stars and sunshine. You stand a moment, watching her small nightgown rise and fall with each childish breath. You trace her long hair in its gentle waves across a plain, white pillow. You put out a hand to touch her face, imagining the way her little grey eyes shine when she calls good morning to the birds. You see the way her young face turns solemn with concern when you're sick. Suddenly, you take a seat beside her, your daughter, gently wake her, and tell her that you love her.

I am nearly invisible, and yet I cloud your sight.
I am lighter than the fog, but still I dim the light.

I whisper in your ear;
I brush against your skin—
If I still dream of you and me, do I sin?

Do you care if I'm here?
Can you see me?

Do you look for me now?
Can you hear me?

I am there, then I'm here, then I'm not.

I'm floating in… and out… of nightmares

I vanish out of sight,
Disappear in the light,

Lost.
Caught.
Scared.

I am nothing to you now… just the mist.

He wanders along the long and lonely streets, pausing at each corner, hesitating at each turn, his soul a moment full of silence. He lingers at the lighted doorways of the pubs housing the only people not yet quite asleep. He waits for a scene to strike him, to tell him that there is still some beauty left in this world, that there is darkness, there is hatred, but also light. So onward he walks, towards some unknown destination, finding himself still caught in the curtain of mist. He is in need, just hoping for some light to shine through.

The world is twisting, plunging through a darkness far deeper than the black of ebony, then suddenly, they're upon it, raining down upon its back, beating it into the ground. A crack, then another, and then another. A circus master with his whip, and here's the show: a million searing bolts flashing through the sky. Here's the display of crazy power, a spectacle of rawest beauty that will catch our every eye, make us hold us our breath until the next boom of the cannons.

Tomorrow morning the circus will be gone, searching for a place to mount its stage.

She is singing in the forests, spinning through the meadows, looking for a place to lay her head.

She is dancing in the mountains, running through the valleys, looking for a place to make her bed.

She flits on wings like faeries, she sings just like a song,

She never has a lot to say, but when she does she's never wrong.

She is brushing through her golden hair, weaving daisy chains, looking for a man to call her own.

She is sitting in my carriage, smoothing out her dress, I pray she loves me 'nough to call this home.

Honestly, I don't think I can wake up to another day. The sun is staring at me, yes, but I can't stand the creaking of my bed as I roll onto the floor. I don't want to face the staring rows of white bristles that chafe against my teeth. I just hate mornings.

In the end, there's really only one thing that can compel me to rise up from my tomb, drawing me up despite my furious struggles. I sit up slowly, take a sniff to confirm my suspicions, then bound recklessly down the long and tangled stairs.

Ahhhh… Bacon.

There's a layer of pure-white cream shielding us from the sun. It seems to be so clean, yet there are hints and small swirls of gray you can just barely discern if you look hard enough. I don't think they mar its beauteous perfection, but instead of the glaring, blinding brightness I was expecting, the little tastes of pinkish purple dim the tones of light. In any case, the sky's bleak, yet hopeful, indecisive, waiting in high anticipation for whatever is to come. Will it sugarcoat the world or attempt to wash it all away? It doesn't yet know itself.

Dear readers:

I regret to inform you that from this point forth, I will be discontinuing my writing career due to a myriad of unforeseen hindrances. I apologize profusely for not being able to satisfy your wishes. I myself will always think with regret upon the drabbles that could have been written but now never will. You know that I would continue if I could. However, due to the responses of several of my commenters, I believe that this is for the best. It was wrong to poison your minds with my half-illiterate fumbling.

I remain, no longer,

Kobayashi Kyoko

Sunlight floats through the window down to where I sit, curled up, holding my knees. I can't bear to watch you... die, but (do you know?) I pray for you every day. Things happen even if we don't want them to: such is life. There's still hope, though, far more than enough for you and me and everyone else in this broken world. I want you to see that. Heartbreak comes and goes, life dips and turns and twists in ways we'll never be ready for, yet happiness is waiting for you just past the suffering. Please accept its gift...

From inside the warm cloud of air, you watch the outside of the windowpanes. Fog blurs the cold shapes and colors moving fast in the background. Protected from the blanketing rain, somehow the downpour still tears at your heart: no matter how warm it is inside, you feel the distant chill trying to invade and possess you. You're trying to forget the past; but it won't leave your mind. Raindrops just keep chasing each other down your windowpane like the troubles that chase each other one by one—Tears chasing each other down your face until they are all gone.

Bending slowly in the wind,
The long reeds whistle—
Sending through the messenger wind
An Oriental epistle.

There is just a single leaf to ask
This humble invitation
For you, behind your mask
To make a visitation.

"Here is abounding feast
And you our only guest;
Our shoots, to say the least
Will provide abundant rest."

Dark black fur and then a stripe of white
And also a slowly growing smile
This bamboo strong and light
Will help your time away to while

For bending slowly in the wind,
Long reeds whistle—
Sending through the messenger wind
An Oriental epistle.

"Long life to you, O mighty king!
And to you, fair sirs and ladies!
My song is come, thru this hall to ring—
My dance, to away your hours."

She bowed to the left, and bowed to the right,
Then one high, clear note she sang,
Standing graceful and tall in angelic white;
The whole crowd hushed to see her.

Her tune shifted up, then down again,
And as it began to dance, she joined it;
Her song rang all throughout the glen
As she wove between the pillars.

One more note, and then a curtsy
To the silent trees.

There's nothing she can do, so she stumbles backward apologetically, saying: "Sorry, sorry, sorry…" Her voice trails off; her parents' hasty actions have already lit the kindle, and your eyes are too hungry for revenge to be quenched. She is young, ten at the most, with short, Asian, straight-cut hair and wide, scared, eyes. Her traditional silk clothing catches slightly on the rough ground as she totters, poised to turn and run. You admire her courage, though, the little wench is lasting longer than you thought she could. Her silent tears are almost enough to put out the deadly fire.

The school itself was old and slightly run-down with a thousand-year-old green and white crest emblazoned on each side of the heavy metal gates. Kenton Secondary School; one of the only public schools in that day that still had uniforms and morning assembly: a school that had zero tolerance of disobedience and a myriad of codes that ruled student life down to the minute… while at school. When not at school, many Kenton students relieved their locked-up feelings and expressions by posting ridiculous entries on various online journals describing the horrors forced upon them daily. Overall, they enjoyed themselves immensely.

They finally stop when he falls off the bed, hitting the carpet with a soft thump. His world flies open to reveal pitch darkness, and he lies there shocked, stock-still. His gaze seeks the blurry LED display of his alarm clock; it reads "12:17". That's what he's stuck in, then: the silence of the midnight hours. Still half-caught in the horror of his nightmares, he forces himself to seek the warmth of his blanket. Because his legs are still shaky, he tries to climb and falls in panic, until he finally tucks himself in on the ground and … sleeps.

I swear I'd never thought about it—it never even crossed my mind until, like a bomb, you dropped it. How long had you hidden it, inside? Tell me, did it change the way you thought of me? I didn't suspect, so unknowingly, I wrapped the noose around my own neck. Dear friend, why did you wait? We talked so much. I trusted you with every fiber of my being, more than I had trusted anyone else in all my life of fifteen years; and now, even if I have not changed to you, what I mean has changed to me.

what is
bottomless?

allegedly,

pits of despair and
passionate loves are;
fountains drinks from
cheap food-courts are;

but how about
a soul?

surely,

those appearing
shallow who-

allegedly,

are nothing but a shell
caring about naught but appearance
caring about nothing but the crowds
and the parties and the games

aren't really so shallow
in their soul?

actually,
there's a hole they cannot fill
on their own,
so they turn to shallow means
to fill it;

but they're never
satisfied-

are they?

over the hotline there's a voice-
it's crying.

"nobody can reach and understand me..."

the maze is bottomless.

As he sat on the chafed curb staring out into a world of loneliness where cars whiz by without a thought, he noticed a crack in the pavement across the road. Even the most unimaginative of people will, when desolate, start to see simple details that stick out and make them stop and stare.

The more he frowned at that crack, the larger it grew, until it was splintering down the entire sidewalk.

What on earth...?

With a massive effort, he pulled the pieces back together in his mind, and stood panting, glaring with reproach at a perfectly concrete sidewalk.

In a sonata, the development is the part when life gets interesting and things begin to change. The key changes and there are plot changes, all carefully placed between a theme and its reiteration, the lifeline to the piece. Chord progressions shift with ever-changing moods, feeling through a blindfold for the feelings of the one who plays…feelings wrapped up in the story the artist is continually constructing—my own. Music is a blind element, for there's only so much I can portray of the conflict, plot, and resolution: small touches from my heart and small sounds flying from my crying soul.

The story is amazing, and so is the writing. The words flow; and the characters know only as much as they should. Will I ever become as good as this? The plot flies by, paragraph by paragraph, page by page, and my eyes skim the chapters with such intensity that I have to lean back a little and shut my aching eyes for a moment. In no time at all, I'm back at it, scaring the words out of their dark corner and into the sunshine. I can't help but be glad there is still another page after this one.

Summer salt beneath my feet,

I'm breathing in the dusty heat.

Gatherin' drops of sun in my wide-spread arms.

Twirling up and spinning down,

I tried but couldn't hear a sound

Except for the singing of a shining sea.

A million melodies in the sky

Do you know the reason why

My pounding slippers match your beating heart?

It's 'cause we were meant to be

Forever and always, you and me

Long-lost friends laughing in a sugar sea

The summer salt you left for me

Sits on a shelf where it will be

There for another hundred years to come.

A group of kids,
Maybe teenagers,
Shouting, laughing.

She fought to ignore it, but
A piece of that pandemonium
Tore at her soul.

She dreamed that
A peace in that pandemonium
Would save her from her depressing thoughts.

But was it not better to just become
A piece of that pandemonium
As well?

She grew desperate,
But no peace
Arrived to heal her hurting heart.

She was just one
Piece in the pandemonium
That couldn't quite grasp the strange mosaic.

Time taught her the abstract art - she forgot
About peace.
The clamor softened…

And a soul began to die.

"I am a teenage girl living in the 21st century.

My name? The circumstances that drove me to attempt suicide? Unimportant.

I just want to say that life's a storm, but there will always be someone out there looking for the right person with whom to share their umbrella. And if it doesn't seem like that now, you just wait and see. Someone is weaving their way through the hurting crowd, trying to spot a glimpse of your tear-stained face, and when that person finds you, everything will be right."

The car radio goes dead, and it begins to rain.

You still remember the fantasy in those days that made the classroom your entire world: the time when school was a place for amazing adventures. Dragons on the whiteboard came to life. Yard stick swords cracked as knights fought for her hand. Teachers always appeared in time to save the day for their young mage apprentices, and everyone knew that markers wielded magic stronger than that of any wand.

And paper clip crowns made her a princess in your eyes.

Her spell lasted a decade before you realized that it's true: the prince always wins his princess in the end.

He yelled that he didn't want to talk to me anymore. Something incoherently back and I was breaking down at the dinner table. Then he was upstairs, in his room, and I was, too, in mine, sitting with my back against the door to lock everything out—and lock my emotions in. I'd no clue what had just happened, what had gone wrong, what I had done, and it hurt too much to think we would never understand one another. My younger brother knocked quietly. I ignored him, but refusing to leave me, he whispered to the door, "I love you."

The snow showers down relentlessly like ashes from the sky after a wildfire. Curious, isn’t it, that two things can coat the world the same way, but with such vast difference in welcome? I have seen firsthand the terror wrought by a swarm of fluttering ashes and experienced firsthand the happiness a snowstorm can bring-- “Thank God for no school.” Yes, we have fooled ourselves into forgetting that cold is not as deadly as fire; we snuggle on the hearth, secure in our bubble of warmth, and gaze out in wonder at the beautiful flakes that will kill someone tonight.

Nobody can claim that friendships are not magical, that relationships are not powerful, that two, or three, or ten are not better than one; for when the world is spinning a hundred times too fast and you stumble through the darkness, there must be somebody to catch you. He will hold you in his arms and the world will realign to a new anchor, drifting out of sight, fading from your mind as you find relief in the tears you can only cry when leaning on a dear friend's shoulder. And then you will understand that you are not alone.

I know that you are watching your handiwork with sleepy delight. Oh, Monsieur Weariness, why must you plague me so? You creep past my defenses, sabotage my thoughts…  As my mind falls prey to your siege, thoughts run away in trains the speed of light, trying to escape your influence, but we both know that's impossible. My eyes are open, yet I can’t see much. What is this? I’m not thinking about anything anymore! Pull it together. Stay focused-- I’m rambling, I know it. Maybe I should just go upstairs and sleep… Just this once, I’ll surrender myself to you.