A dark haired women sits in her room all alone thoughts racing in her brain. She prepared for her worst attack yet on someone who she claimed to love. Her heart raced as she thought of her plan to escape once her crime was done. Her plot was so slip some poison in her husbands food during breakfast the following morning. He loved her cooking more than any other food and she knew if she whipped up some of her tasty foods for him, he'd be quick to gobble it all down. She only wanted to take this action because she knew it would mean lots of insurance mone for her to spend and enjoy. Her love that she had once had for her unsuspecting husband had been taken over by greed and desire for wealth. They had no children and she felt like there was more to life that she currently had and so her plan formed within a single night and the next morning she would prepare a delicious looking meal for her husband not knowing it would be his last.

 

It was around 1 in the morning in a strange neighborhood and I was just laying in my bed thinking about my life and just stuff going on like normal teenagers do and for some reason I had the most weird but interesting idea come to mind. It was so random because I wasn’t even thinking about this idea but it just all of a sudden came up and I became very intrigued. I wanted to make a plan and murder someone. Some people who know may be like why? What's wrong with you? Are you ok? But really I just wanted to see what it would be like being in that situation and I want to see what cool ideas come to mind. I was struggling a little at first with some ideas but then my lightbulb lit and I was like this would be perfect. I would have to plan this out perfectly and nothing can fall out of place. I would need a few things for this idea to work smoothly. First I would have to get a giant flying alligator and put it under my control. I use my bright red eyes and make them glow into the eyes of who I want to be under my command. The spell lasts however long I want. It could be a couple days, a couple hours, or even just a couple minutes or seconds. I was super excited. I knew that this plan would come together nicely. Next I would mind something or someone that I wouldn’t like and use that as my target. I had super powers so I could go invisible so no one would suspect me or technically my alligator as the murderer. I would make us both invisible in front of the target. Then I would put the alligator under my command so then he would do exactly what I would say. I was really having so much fun planning this and I couldn’t wait to see what would happen. I put the alligator in my command and boom there creature was dead. It was a 6 ft giraffe who could talk. It was screaming in pain but again no one would know what would happen because we were both invisible. It was like I was the smartest person in the whole world. I was really happy with myself and I was really excited that my plan worked and I can't wait to see what other cool ideas can come to mind. 

My arm hurts. Well, my forearm, I guess. I’ve been carving away at this linoleum cut for hours. A linoleum cut is hard to explain. It is like a thick, heavy sheet of clay-like material, cemented onto a weaved surface. You take these really sharp scoopers --I’m sure there’s a professional name out there somewhere-- and you cut away certain areas so that the linoleum can print a picture. So, when you roll on, let's say, some black ink, it will only transfer onto the highest raised surfaces, or, the parts of the linoleum that you didn’t cut away. Anyways, it’s really important that you keep your head screwed on correctly, so that you make sure to only cut away the parts that you don’t want to show up in the final piece. It’s satisfying to make a linocut, but also really difficult. I always imagine before starting one that it will feel like smoothly carving away a fine substance, but it’s never like that. Instead, you have to push with all of your might into the scooper --but not too much! If you put just too much power behind your carve, then you’ll lose control and scrape away bits that you didn’t mean to, and there’s no way of reversing that, is there? And there’s the other thing, see. You’re supposed to keep a smart form, because there is this big wooden block-like thing that lets you push at the linoleum slab without manhandling the opposite side to keep it stationary. Because, imagine this-- you’re holding the slab secure with one hand at the top, carving with another, and whoomp! You lose control like you will always eventually do, and suddenly there’s an inch long piece of metal topped with a razor edge lodged in the palm of your unsuspecting hand. My art teacher, she has a photo of one of her old student’s stitched up hand taped to the top of the box that holds all of the scoopers in it. You can’t start a linocut in her class without this very detailed explanation from her. Fair enough. 

Anyways, my forearm hurts. The prints take such unusual muscles to finesse, so unless you did this stuff for a living, it would always feel unnatural to your tendons, as it does. So when I stand up from my dining room table and stretch around to hear my back go cra-cra-cra-cra-cra-craackk, I also twist my wrist in all sorts of unnatural directions to set the lactic acids free. Then I’ll roll my head, which will probably earn me a few more satisfying pops, before standing to grab myself a blood orange-- aranciata rossa-- San Pellegrino. 

Sofia is stretched out sideways on the bed, legs leaning over the edge, duvet and covers tangled beneath her. One pillow is crushed below the strands of black hair that stream from her head. Makeup already put on, Sofia has her lids closed. She is asleep, from what Katya can tell. 

They had been talking before Katya had begun the process of covering her face, and Sofia had gotten noticeably bored. Katya thinks back to when they were in the market, when Sofia had smudged the patch of lipstick with her finger. Katya had been desperate, crying, she had gotten out, but he would find her. Yet, Sofia had just wiped it away, like all he had done was nothing. 

Sofia’s eyeshadow is red, and cakey. She is elegant as a koi in a decorative pond, the folds of her spanish dress fanning out like a mockery of fins. Her dress is a deep wine color, her lips to match it. It is tight against her frame. She is beautiful in a deathly way. Katya eyes the unscrewed white cap in front of her, which belongs to the bottle of pills on the vanity’s surface. Three of them are now missing, and they’re working quickly. Katya can feel her brain moving in odd places as she watches Sofia sleep.

They need to move fast. He will be at the harbor soon. Katya looks down at her dress. It is a lovely creamy white. He had bought it for her when they were in St. Augustine that first time. Katya reaches up, her hand clothed in a black glove, to feel the string of pearls against her breastbone. Her fur shawl moves against her exposed shoulders, it’s silk underside catching against the little blemishes on her back. Her brain is weaving again, she knows it, trying to catch on to odd things. 

Katya steals another look at the sleeping Sofia and knows their plans are secure. She opens the vanity’s drawer and takes it out. The pistol is old, and it is engraved in Italian, which she still does not speak despite how many times she’s been brought here. Oh how nice it will feel, she thinks, to stain this dress with his blood. The numbness has settled in for too long but crimson will ruin this talisman’s whiteness well. She felt almost like when the orange sun was setting behind the marketplace. It had fixed something within her. Something had clicked into place and let out a ding like that of an oven. It had lit up Sofia’s eyes like splashes of fire. 

Katya looks back up in the mirror and smiles at herself. She is heavy lidded, holding the gun like one might hold a small book. She brings the hand not holding the gun’s handle (delicately, like the trigger will go off if she squeezes anywhere on its body), extends a finger, and pulls at the corner of her bottom lip. It quivers as she smears her lipstick just a small bit. Just where it counts.

A kettle boils, lets out a piercing screech. The large domes of liquid rise and pop, just as blood curdles, with a white shine and glimmer to highlight and contrast the piercing color that rips through the rods and cones all the way within the eye. They would have never seen it coming. There’s this tense, tingly, all encompassing pull of his internal strings that happens, when just one too many things go wrong. Self restraint tugs and twists his nerves into unbearably uncomfortable positions, taking inspiration from a marionette, one held up with thin black thread. The thread becomes one with itself, to the point in which every force applied to it creates no movement, not a budge. One by one the threads will snap all the way to a microscopic level, unable to be seen. Building up and up until the delicate puppet begins to strain, hanging with one less thread at a time. However, as if being held captive by magic, it never falls to the ground. It’s left to linger and wallow, as there’s no way to feel the release, without falling to the inevitable depths. It’s never taken away into perceived relief. It miraculously stays, swaying by a thread. 

Attentiveness. Suddenly, everything feels different. There’s no weight, no crushing, no suffocating. The rocks along the sand have a special pattern to them today. This one looks more speckled than others. I feel like I’ve never seen water move this way, seamless and beyond. It moves like silk, floating among the gentle breeze of the world. The seagulls seem to be on my side today. I like the way this one looks at me. I will go a step further today. I don’t care if I get my shoes wet today. I don’t care if I get blown away today. I feel okay today. The sky seems a different color blue today, or maybe I’ve never cared to notice. Everything seems particularly large today, as I feel particularly small. I am in acceptance today. 

“Hi, cube.”

It blinks.

“Hey, cube?”

It blinks again.

“Why do you never talk to me?”

It doesn’t blink.

“Don’t be like that, cube.” 

I lie down next to the cube. I look at the cube. I sigh. 

I move my finger toward the cube. “Can I at least touch you, cube? It’s been so long; since…”

The rumbling returns. I take my hand back.

“Okay, cube.”

I press my thumbs together.

I stare at the white walls again. 

“I don’t like white very much.”

I hear it blink twice.

“What’s your favorite color, cube?”

Three wet blinks. I don’t like to look at the cube when it gets like this.

“I think I like green.”

No blinks.

“Maybe you're right. I haven’t seen green in a long time.”

It blinks. I almost look.

The walls haven’t changed.

“Cube?”

The rumbling is quiet this time.

“Please talk to me, cube.”

The rumbling gets louder.

“It’s been so long.”

Blink. Blink.

“Please.”

The room is turning black.

“I’m so alone.”

The rumbling is shaking the room.

“Please, cube.”

I look at the cube. It looks me in the eye now. 

“Why won’t you talk to me?”

Its eye is dry now. Mine are wet.

“I’m so, so, alone, cube.”

I sob.

“Please.”

The room is black.

“I don’t like black, cube.”

Everything is white.

I sit up. I see the cube.

“I like white.” The cube speaks.

I don’t say hi to the cube today.