When Mauve tattooed the letter 'M' on her upper left arm, everyone simply assumed that she had tattooed the first letter of her name.
It was a nice tattoo. Three inches wide and four inches long, the thin black outline of the 'M' was entwined with ivy spiralling up and down its edges. It was a piece of art, no one denied that.
But when a second 'M' popped up right below the first one, some eyebrows were raised, some heads got cocked to the side.
'Your initials, right? Mauve…it's Martins, isn't it?' Mauve nodded and smiled thinly the first time someone asked that. Then she just nodded.
The second 'M' had daisies sprouting out of the two parallel lines on the side. The outline was black again, but the daisies were white with a yellow centre. All in all, it complemented the green ivy quite well.
The scabs on the daisies hadn't completely healed when a third 'M' materialised half way down Mauve's left arm etched in front of a large pink lily.
Three 'M's. Eyebrows were drawn in quizzical expressions. Mauve just shrugged.
In the flat she shares with no-one, Mauve washes blood off her hands in the kitchen sink, brushing away at her fingernails using the steel, wiry sponge she usually uses to scrub pots with.
She wipes her hands on the dish towel and sits at the kitchen table where a High School yearbook is open. A red cross quarters each of three different faces; Ivy Reynolds, Daisy Stevens, Lily O'Keefe.
Mauve grabs the red pen buried in the middle of the open book. A smile snails its way up each cheek as another face is crossed; stroke, stroke. Samara Lawrence.
Mauve reaches for a blank paper, sketches the four-by-three inch 'M' – her own chosen brand for 'Murderer' – and then pauses. The pen hovers motionless for some long seconds until Mauve's head shoots up, panic clouding her expression.
For Trifecta. The word is BRAND.
I missed writing though, so I'm glad I'm back with you all.
A girl was dancing in the street, her braided hair spinning at the exact same angle as her skirt. Her figure shone bright with each revolution that brought her out of shadow and into the pouring sunrays caressing the asphalt.
A man leaned against Bidwell's doorframe, looking on but not seeing the girl. His eyes were glazed over like he was recalling something distant.
The images are seared inside my mind still. Only the useless details though. Years of therapy have yet to bring back the face of the man who left the bag against the hydrant, right before it all went black.
For Friday Fictioneers. I added my dark tale to the many dark inspirations that this week's picture has instilled in the brilliant minds of the Fictioneers.
Smoke burned my eyes. Through tears I could see a crimson moon rise from behind the hills, dripping red, shedding blood as it went up, ridding itself from the filth of our victory.
For Trifecta. I posted this just in time! Hope you like it.
It is a crude drawing, done in orange crayon – the kind with the tick tip and pasty wax that seeps into your fingers and leaves them sticky until someone comes along and stretches your hand into the basin to wash it all off. The figures are clear; two adults and a child. Not a family though, not even resembling one.
I remember drawing that picture. I was four, sitting on a low red plastic chair. Miss Jane was hustling like a nesting hen, yammering that we were going to be late for the Christmas play rehearsal. It wasn't the nativity that year, for a change. I was to play a tree; I can't remember what the rest of the act was about.
All the other children gathered their things, but I lingered on my picture. There is an orange uneven line still, to the side of the left figure where Sammy, that little busybody, tore the paper away from me; 'Miss Jane told us to stop drawing!' Her piping voice still rings in my ear, as clear as the image of that pig-like nose she had. I hated that girl! I remember the fury that twisted my stomach into tiny moth balls when I saw my masterpiece ruined, and I remember the feel of the moist pig-like nose flattening against my fist.
'That's it!' Miss Jane had screamed in my face, but then she paused when she saw the orange figures on the white page and her face changed.
It was all headmasters and social workers and foster parents after that. They tried to help, of course, but I didn't want them to, not for a very long time. For years I didn't even know what had started all the meddling and I resented it, all of it; we were happy, I thought, and they should have left us be. Only now I remember why it all had changed. Now as I hold this yellow, dog-eared drawing in my hand… I understand.
For Trifecta. The word this week is CRUDE. I am missing too many of these challenges lately, but work is like bitchy hag on hormone pills right now. I'll try to keep up where I can though.