Fucking Ginsberg

[Chase†]

She awoke to the smell of flowers.

Each little area had different kinds, all blossoming freely in their sections, colors in blocks, organized and sectioned so that each would blossom without the shadowing of another species. In the center area, surrounded by a circle of bricks to match the pathways, were dozens of sunflowers, golden yellow petals standing out more than any other hue in the garden. Mai didn't know why this place was unchanged, considering the amount of time she thought it to be abandoned. It reminded her of something she had to read in her english class, some hack poet she disliked named Ginsberg. But the flowers were much more beautiful, more tangible than that man's useless words. These flowers were of real beauty. She smiled for a moment, thin-lipped and tight, more out of the necessity to try and break the current moods she felt when she had awakened.

Her sleep had not been restful, but like most dreams she only vaguely remembered parts. Flashes on a reel, bits of light and images mixed together. When she had first opened her eyes, she thought she was still in the dream, a cloudy haze in her vision. It must've been the drugs affecting her mind, it worked wrong with the other pills she took. Mai thought she saw Kim.

Only, it was a rotting corpse, with golden blonde hair like the color of the sunflowers, clumps missing to show decaying flesh. Her discolored eye focusing at the Mai lying on the floor, the other eye a mush in the socket, maggots crawling through the meat and liquid. The lips were curled back flesh, torn and dried out, dirty as the Kim's bright white teeth shone brightly with nothing to cover them. A bone finger pointed straight at Mai, lifting from the side of her bloody and dirt encrusted rags to reveal her killer. Mai nearly tore at the bricks she was lying on just to move away from the abhorred thing, but when her vision cleared the corpse seemed to disappear.

Her chest heaved, and she felt her stomach lurch before she could get a hold of her senses. The vomit that filled her mouth and spilled out onto the lillies burned her throat, the stomach acid taste hitting her tongue and making her want to vomit once more. She closed her eyes and held her stomach, kneeling on the bricks in her jeans. Once she settled, she wiped the remaining vomit from her lips and tongue with her sweater sleeve. Some of the puke had stained her clothing with a light cream color.

Mai remembered what happened, and what they expected her and others to do. First thing was first, though, and she looked around for her bags. The duffle was easy enough to spot, the large black bag had a strap wrapped around one of her ankles. She untangled it from herself and opened the zipper to find her clothes, and half a bottle of the anti-depressants she had taken with her on the trip. The smell of the vomit was nauseating to her, and she pulled out a change of clothes; her jogging uniform. She stripped off her sweater, shirt and jeans, leaving her in her small training bra and underwear. Her ribs stuck out from her frame, and her collar bone protruded from her chest. A few new bruises on the outside of her thighs were a dark blue. She pulled on her spandex shorts and slipped on her babydoll t-shirt, one that Jack had bought her for her birthday. The jacket she stuffed back into the bag and she discarded the jeans.

The day pack was a few feet from where she had woken up, with something strapped to it. It looked something like a long, thin blade, with a beautifully fashioned hilt and sheath. It didn't fit the type that Yoko had kept on their fireplace, but she could tell it was oriental in its origins.

So this is my weapon?

She tied it around her waist and started to browse the garden, where she noticed the sunflowers. All alone in the center of the display, standing upright, "perfect beauty of a sunflower! a perfect excellent, lovely sunflower existence!" And she began to tear them from their roots, to toss them upon the bricks. When Mai left the gardens with her two bags and her new weapon, the place was unchanged, save for the centerpiece, which was now a mess of upturned dirt and snapped stems.

((Continued in If Words Could Kill They Probably Will))