one
he had asked someone else to marry him. he wouldn't admit it but i knew it was true. days earlier, we had been laying in bed and were talking about our pasts as we do when things are very good or very bad - some sort of clearing of the etch-a-sketch to see where we'd end up were we to restart this picture. he told me he'd never loved her. not a little, not at all. and it was meant to comfort me, but it just made me sad. and somewhere between his secret proposal and that night something had been destroyed irreparably and i was desperate to know what.
two
carnival grounds. there is one booth encased in glass, and it is some sort of halloween display, filled with death and demons, the sort of thing we are meant to save for last. next door there is a booth with four barrels. we are lined up waiting to see a priest. he will prick our fingers with a pin and we will dip our hands into the barrel of our choice. it is ritual, it is meant to awaken something within us. i choose the farthest barrel, hesitate before touching my fingertip to the surface. when it connects i see things, unspeakable things that i can't identify but know to be frightened of. when i pull back, i am seeing everything reflected back at me as though i'm on the other side of a mirror. someone is pounding on the glass of the next booth and i watch the crack form and spiderweb to the bottom. the barrel overflows and the blood seeps from one booth to the next. i run.
i hide in an artists studio, still like a sculpture as these creatures run through. my boyfriend is there and i think he is a hero, but i will soon be proven wrong. there are darts with four prongs of poison and they are being shot everywhere, turning people to dust upon contact.
