Carve to The Soul
Adriana had been rummaging through racks of long dresses she had longed for prom, but unfortunately, each dress she found had been flawed as if the company had not wanted any business. Two clothing associates, one male, one female, hovered over Adriana, intently eyeing her petite frame. They had been talking amongst pretty much the entire store although the conversation had meant to be between themselves. She had always tried to zone out voices that had obviously been accentuated, but it was so difficult to do so.
As if their unwarranted conversation and staring eyes weren’t premating her brain enough, both clothing associates reached into their back pockets for lighters and tobacco. “There’s nothing else to do,” said the male associate. The female associate nodded and lit away. “Nothing else to do but invest time in physically deteriorating your body in a store with apparently no other being present. Be my guest, inhale, and puff fiery fumes,” said Adriana.
The sales associates continued doing what they were doing but this time, their cheeks turned into ruby red cherries.
Then, the female finally said, “I didn’t even see or hear you there. You are so tiny.”
“Well that’s convenient,” said Adriana. “I’ll make sure to tell your boss of your sense impairments, physically and mentally.” The male and female associates rolled their eyes lamely, refusing to continue the unsolicited conversation. In between, the cigarette smoke had died down thankfully, but something stronger had replaced it.
A woman in a red leather suit, black shades, and bucket hat appeared to be guarding the elevator. She turned her head from side to side mechanically, watching the two clothing associates and Adriana. She was clutching a keen knife between her palm and thumbs and locked her eyes with their pairs of eyes.
“Be silent and be still. No exceptions! If you follow these instructions…the rest goes as you predict it should,” the woman in red said.
“Nice fire red lady! I need something like that for prom, you know? Form-fitting, sexy,
yet elegantly adequate,” said Adriana.
“What the hell did you just say to me, slim girl”? said the woman in red.
“Nothing particularly interesting.”
“Then don’t waste your last breathe on something petty.”
“Slim girl, huh?” said Adriana. “Cus that’s exactly what I wanna be.”
With this, she began twirling her body like a ballerina, holding a nonexistent prom dress over her moving body across the entire store. The clothing associates looked at each other, then held hands, crouched down, and shut their eyes hoping that when they reopened, this madness would dissolve into nothingness.
“Can you not follow simple instructions? Simple. Simple sacred rules for your soul,” said the woman in red.
She began walking toward Adriana, following her every twist and turn even though Adriana’s eyes had been sealed to get the effect of dancing with her feet, her heart, and not her eyes. Adriana could feel the shift of weight under her feet with someone so close to her. She could taste the air that pulled her closer to the woman in red, like a magnet being forced to attract and attach to another mad magnet. She sucked in her breath and looked down as the woman in red caught up to her, and twisted the chiseled knife into her soft chin.
“Now stay crouched down, slim girl!” said the woman in red.
Despite the blood trickling down her chin, Adriana couldn’t help but find patterns woven into other delicate patterns on the floor. The blue roses overlapped one another like lily pads in a picture-perfect pond. Dark carbon black outlines etched deeply into each rose to highlight each petal. The velvet floor, because of its rug, combined all the elements of beauty within a dress. She smiled at the thought of ever retrieving this blue rose velvet dress, for it was literally under her planted knees, and so she contemplated on how she would actually snatch the knife from the women in red, by executing her minimal but constructive experience in Tai Kwon Do, to then carve up the rug, and take the scraps to her great grandmother. Her great grandmother would craft that blue rose velvet dress just so. She laughed a laugh so laughable that she snorted. Me, a slim girl, high jump kicking a red lunatic with a knife for my one true love—a prom dress?
“I’m awfully sorry for my snorting fit. Really, I am,” Adriana said as her shoulders shuddered from the laughter. “Sacred rules for the soul, amen,” she said through her snorts, and with that sorry remark, Adriana would never get to feel even half sorry again.
The knife pierced her skin to the flesh in her heart to the muscles thumping within. The blood drip dropped down her stomach to her to torso to her knees and onto the blue rose velvet rug. The knife, now full of crimson, crass crime, struck her heart without heart, and allowed her to bleed out, extracting her sacred breath that was no longer breathing.
Adriana pondered on how little she told her mother she loved her. She pondered over the lack of embrace she had with her boyfriend. She pondered over missing school. She thought about her travels to Portugal. She thought about how her dad would feel. She thought about her dog, Lucky. She thought about her soothing candles. She thought about her unfinished poems. She thought about her fun sister. She thought about the woman in red, and prayed a mini prayer for the woman in red’s sacred soul.
Adriana couldn’t help but drift into unconsciousness and stillness to become lifeless; because at last, she had found the dress of her dreams. There it was. There it was. There it was. Enlaced in her brain, forever, that blue rose velvet dress.
thewordyou 