Dream Weaver

Dream-weaver, weave a dream

A single thread, a silver beam

Through the needle of my mind

Like silver thread through needle's eye

The cursed star, its golden beam

Shakes the fabric, rips the seam

Not for a thousand days of sun

Would I give up a single one.

So dream-weaver, weave your dream

With silvery thread on golden scene

And paint it on my restless mind.

Like endless canvas. I am thine.

Sukuna (Medium's Short Story Contest Version)

The lights go out. For the third time this week, my house, all of Glanvilles, maybe all of St. Philip’s parish, is plunged into darkness.

Beep. Beep. Beeeep. My computer’s backup power supply wails in the dark. I stumble from my homework at the dining table to the computer desk and snap the thing off.

“Dem damn disgusting!” Mama, my grandmother, says from the veranda. She’s talking about the Antigua Public Utilities Authority’s constant “load-shedding” to perform “scheduled maintenance”.

Mummy rustles in the kitchen and strikes a match. A spark jumps in the dark and Mummy light a candle. Pale yellow light floods the kitchen from the long stick of wax.

“You need more light right,” Mummy asks coming to stand over me with the candle. I recoil. I’ve been accidentally dripped on with hot wax too many times in my fifteen years.

“Nope,” I say, “Study break.” I snap my thick red Principles of Business textbook shut and jump up from the table. Five long strides bring me to the front door. I yank it open. It creaks a long heightening creak and I hop unto the veranda.

The moon is full and white tonight. Our street is bathed in a pale blue light that casts every color into a shade of navy. In the soft light I can make out the stout shape of my grandmother with her legs and arms crossed sitting on her little white bench in the west corner of the veranda. She faces the street. In the east corner sits Bramble, the man that raised my father and my aunt Cynthia while my real grandfather ran off to England. Bramble sits on a concrete block and taps his walking stick rhythmically against the short decorative block wall.

A Midnight Encounter

Be on the lookout for this piece in the first Winter edition of the Medium. It's been submitted and confirmed for printing already but I'm too hyped up about it to wait three weeks to post it on my blog.

At 1:00AM I sat in the basement of 3565 Wideridge Road. The two storey duplex house belonged to the woman I called Aunt Angie and her husband George. I used their house as a weekend escape from campus life. The basement living room was my main station. The muted TV threw patterns of colored light across the room that reflected off the smooth white surface of the humming refrigerator and the quietly bubbling aquarium that housed a single yellow fish. I sat in the folded out futon bed with my laptop on my folded legs. I pecked and tapped at my touch pad, Photoshopping a perfect white lotus into my brother Eden’s super short black hair. His attempt at a sexy smoldering expression coupled with the flower tucked behind his ear drew a chuckle from my lips.

I thought of emailing the picture to Eden. I chuckled again, started to close my computer then stopped. Footsteps creaked on the wooden floor above my head. I suspected it was Nathan, my aunt’s eldest son, looking for midnight snacks. The creaks became dull thuds as he entered the tiled kitchen. There was no creak of the fridge door, no slamming of cupboard doors. The thuds continued then died suddenly. He had reached the carpeted stairs that lead down to the basement where I sat.

I looked up, a snarky remark at the tip of my tongue. A bulky figure emerged from the shadow of the stairwell. It wasn’t Nathan. It was George, my aunt’s husband, in pajama bottoms. And shirtless. A fine line of graying hairs ran up his bulbous belly and spread out across his flabby chest like the mouth of a river feeding into a lake. His slippers shuffled against the carpet as he dragged himself across the room. I tried not to take too much notice. A prickle of discomfort played at my spine.