Someday may never rise in opalescence, nor the soft down of evanescent grey…someday…the construct of whimsy and longing…an entity of insincerity, a ghastly nightmare galavanting as the sum of all parts, amorphous in existence and mocking in familiarity…someday…a construct of fairy tales and the formidable ever after, deceptive and destructive…but Today…ahhh Today…where the Witching hour drapes me in velveteen voices and gossamer strands…where I am synonymous with the end, and yet, still outliving time…where a chorale of colours prisms my mind and gilded edged cards call my sentient name in geometric forms…for I exist on the fevered breath, grazing blood lusting fangs, in an honouring of the milky white moon…

E. A. O'Connell. March 26, 2021.

Winds thrash, howling a wanting song that wraps about her head, playing chaos in a spiraling fugue about her body, robbing her of all modesty, silhouetted skeletons backlit by western sky downing, shiver the timbre mimicking the sensations running her spine, a blushing moon in full, ascends in metered time with the descent to her knees, her eyes the star flecked abysm, beholding his advancing darkness, the lipstories he spun from rising action through climax to resolution, fuse their mouths with flame and sin, their hands running curves and dips, as planchettes giving voice to desires and devilry, giving into dysequilibrium and pleasure

E. A. O'Connell. January 29, 2021.

{Excerpt of a View}

 …I turn from the passenger window, a blur of wilderness in oceanic hues, the secreted capsule beneath my tongue, gives me impulse to crack it between my teeth and let the contents drain down my throat…my teeth grind, I’m holding onto something that’s no longer mine…I turn to the driver, contemplate his profile, feel my impulse shift to my fingers, a singular twitch, I shift my position until it’s the back of his head that has my attention, enrapt with deeds, clandestine and sinful…The moon, an eclipse of emotionless inquisition, howls at the back of my eyes, hollows of ruin, and I submit to the darkness…I clasp my hands to his eyes, ‘It’s time,’ he takes his hands from the wheel, his weight on the accelerator, to get as much distance from his passenger, he ignores her…words and flesh…she’s a phantoglyph, a memory in horrific figure, an unwinding of mental fitness…but he believes he can out run her, he can secret a portal of escape in the speed and immediacy of a head on collision…she laughs a hallowed tone, and eases back into her seat, as comfortable with his death as she is her own…he sets his sights and tenses, as she lights up and inhales an incense of clove and brimstone clouding the raw salt air…the impact phases her not, leaving him a rotted waste that she tsks at, “foolhardy imbecile,” she vacates the wreckage, standing beside his corpse of bad decisions, she clutches the ill-fitting flesh at the back of his neck, and drags his dead weight from self-destruction, down upon the unforgiving earth, and through her ever advancing steps towards his reckoning…

{Excerpt Of A View} E. A. O'Connell. January 17, 2021.

My telescopic eye captured at the forefront of an abandoned night sky, clear of clouds and absent of celestial bodies, His stoic silhouette, firm in meditation. His body a deeper shade of sound. His feet planted upon ghostly earth. His back the burgeoning shower of thought illuminated in starlight. My voice, ill-fitted with language, escaped on a sigh, stolen by Zephyrus to the heighth of sequoia, where it was lost amongst vixen screams and screech owl trill. Ill-fated. His proximity gained distance at my intrusion. His matter vibrated and scattered at my hand in attempt, leaving a tenebrous pool of escape. I’d scream into the nothingness, a ripple upon His surface would suffice. All too aware of my place. I opt instead to swallow my tongue and resume my four seasoned silence. Taking to the wilds of my nature, I let free my devils, I commune within my shadow, and walk the well worn path towards the cold light of the moon.

E. A. O'Connell. August 20, 2020.

The propofol hit my vein with a swelling pain that pulled my eyes to the back of my right hand, my concentration on the blooming fire that took me under to a waiting room of slow flowing silence and dove walls…immobile…incoherent thoughts…and then laughter pulled me towards a yellow haloed white light…bound in my anesthesia…a gurney rushed breeze and the laughter echoing a corridor, off walls or off my mind?… …laughter, the unceasing laughter, and the nurse’s question pulling me from the dark of my eyelids…Who’s with you?… …the laughter, days later, still haunts the back of my thoughts… …laughter not my own…

E.A. O'Connell. August 19, 2020

{Excerpt}

Pall of mine, a thin overlay of navy linen wedded to my curves as funerary fine to a third degree murder. At the Moon’s behest, my eyes are prised open, allowing Venus’s light to glint as dancing spectres in my periphery. At the Sun’s bidding, my eyelids are drawn shut, obsidian mirror orbs take residency at my pineal eye, alien and all knowing, they meld into one before receding. At His summons, the commonplace shadows of night convene as a gallery within his surgical theatre. He draws back my cover, revealing me bare, a cavity of absence where my heart once echoed of anticipation and trepidation at proximity. A resounding silence, weighted with need, draws His finger to my lips, pulling a slow deliberate line to my sternum, where His hand splays. Bending to my ear, He whispers in a cicada percussion, the silence of my cavity commencing a serpentine coil, thickening a knot of roots and vines, replicating an anatomical heart. His luring call, brings hover flies to imbibe of my humid flesh. His seductive song, the warmth that stirs a rising from the roots to my ribs, the discarding of earthbound flesh for wings, and my own bewitching song of reply. He calls forth a shadow, its arachnid precision of silk, stitching shut my flesh. A second is dispatched to the far reachings of the night, where it draws the curtains of the theatre, closing us off from all spying eyes, as I recover my sentient bearings in the face of His want.

E. A. O'Connell. August 14, 2020.

Upon Her Return (A Short Story)

Morning broke as it always had, paying no mind to the frivolities and plights of man— not so much as a passing sigh from the sweeping clouds as they coasted above the roofs of the infected, the dying, and the dead. Day 72 of the quarantine. Sunrises still beckoned to her, even through the monotony of hours in isolation that kept many in bed later and later. The promise of dawn's possibilities had brought her to the french doors that looked out on the tiny cluster of town homes that made a quaint neighborhood feel like the lost ideal of a village. She watched the horizon set ablaze by a dying star, repurposing the budding trees and birds that flew by as a shadow puppet theater, allowing her mind to wander into a tale of fantasy— even if for an absentminded moment of escapism. She hadn't noticed how he quietly entered the room and stood by her side. 

In an inquisitive tobacco timbre that landed unexpectedly soft upon the ears, he questioned, "What do you see?" 

Without taking her eyes from the earth nature was unreservedly reclaiming, she replied, "Confusion. Fear. Frustration and guilt. Greed. Hate. Sadness and anger. Grief. Sickness and death." 

Looking down to her impassive profile he furthered, "A bleak view, wouldn't you say?"  

She countered, "It's a bleak time. Last week I watched from here, as two children...a boy and girl of 5 or 6...who knows, maybe younger...were playing in their yards— yards that were separated by another. I imagine they were coincidentally outside at the same time to get sun and fresh air. The little boy caught sight of the little girl...and I'm assuming they knew each other, that they're friends, schoolmates, obviously neighbors. I watched as they would look towards one another and how they gravitated towards the chain link that fenced them into their own yards. I couldn't hear them, but it seemed like they were talking. I watched as the little boy looked towards his house and without hesitation, he climbed over his fence and walked to hers. They kept the proper distance between each other at first, but then she approached and without reservations of any kind, she reached through the barrier and he placed his hand in hers. It's that desperation for human contact with the outside world, with friends and family you've become isolated from...not by choice mind you...by necessity, by the necessity to live. Separate to survive. Her mother came out in hysterics, screaming through her face mask. His mother came out and pulled him from the little girl, ripping the connection. Blame and apologies and tears. Fear. So much fear at a tender moment, that a few months ago would've been cherished and captured in photo or video on those mothers' phones. Sometimes I wonder if the fear and how it builds and infects is worse than the goddamned virus."

In that tobacco timbre he exhaled a, "hmmm" and slowly nodded his head.

"You know early news reports stated that it was mind control, some stated that it was a placebo effect of sorts to subliminal messages, but then they began reporting it was a virus that started in an animal and spread to a single human and then humans worldwide. Most recently it's been reported as most likely biochemical and it has a more sinister nature, being released on the world as a test, if you will, for someone to analyze and calculate and devise, before unleashing the true weapon. To think all this loss and destruction is simply the result of a desire for power— a power no doubt born of the triple threat: greed, fear, and hate."

Silence seeped into the minute space between them, giving pause to the ache she felt soul deep, to the desire to turn around and attempt to recapture a lost breath. The silence entwined them and she looked up at his face— for all he'd known and all he'd bore witness to, his face never gave away the harsh realities he'd gathered like trinkets in his pockets; no dark bags about his eyes and deep frown lines about his mouth, as mementos of pain and loss. His nature was sweet and docile, as was evident in his ageless visage. She did her utmost to secret a smile from him, but he caught a glimpse of it in her treacherous cheek; the sleight of flesh in a dimple that mirrored a constellation— and the tone of her next words certainly didn't mask it. 

"There is hope, though. And love. So much love. They're something of a package deal, I suppose. The other day I could hear my neighbors through that wall, laughing with excitement as they spoke. I could hear the words positive, baby, pregnant. In the vice grip of uncertainty, they were genuinely happy. In a time when 24 hours are tallied by the number of deaths, they were tracking the growth of a life. In a time when the backs of minds are weighted by probable funeral preparations, they were daydreaming future family vacations. That's a happiness born of a hope and a love that no manifestation of Death—no unenlightened spin that man puts on the cruelty of Death's hands— can claim as its own and steal away with in its pockets."

A momentary chuckle issued forth from her partner as she continued.

"Two nights ago I stood in this very spot and listened as my neighbor on this side cried. It was a fear-laced cry of loneliness. She has lived here for a couple years now. No visitors that stay the night. No parties. I never even see evidence of her going away for a long weekend. I could hear the deck door two houses down open. The lady who lives there is a doctor, as is her husband. When all this started he took the kids to stay with relatives, to keep them safe from infection at the hands of himself and their mother. He opted to stay in a hotel near the hospital he works at, while she returns home from what I can only imagine to be the longest shifts of her career. I heard her door open and she asked of the crying neighbor, 'Would you like to talk?' And on a sob her neighbor replied, 'That would be nice.' I should've felt bad eavesdropping, but it was such a raw moment of selflessness that I couldn't tear myself away. Here is a woman who just worked ungodly hours, in the trenches of sickness and death, no doubt missing her family and worrying about their safety, and she's giving of herself at a time when she should be selfish, simply asking her neighbor to share why she's crying. And she did just that. She shared how being completely alone in her house during the ceaseless quarantine has had a negative effect on her. How she misses work, because that was her way of getting out and being around others. How she would work all available extra shifts, just to have somewhere to be and people to be around. How she has trust issues from her past that keeps her from relationships, and how if she comes out of this situation alive, she'll be getting a cat. They both laughed. It was a moment purest in form— just one person listening to another, allowing them to open up and unload. Listening and laughing, and from just that simple an action— generosity and an offering of hope. And it culminated with gratitude. Two words, two syllables— thank you —but those words held such wealth for the future. I like to imagine that they were both seated on the floor in front of their open sliding screen doors, perhaps unknowingly sharing a drink, and forging a relationship to be something more than just being acquaintances on the other side of this sickness. I think we often take for granted the simplicity of kindness. I think we often forget that it isn't just one life— our life spinning —it's a world of nearly infinite lives spinning madly about us, intertwining. It's easy to forget our humanity. It's a thing of sheer wonder and beauty when we witness tenderness bloom against a harsh backdrop."

With thought and compassion he offered, "Like a flower that grows through concrete." 

A singular "Yes" escaped her in a barely audible whisper.

"Annie, what seed did you plant in this unforgiving terrain?"

Puzzled she answered, "I don't know." 

With more thought she continued, "I don't really agree with the idea of this being an unforgiving circumstance. It just is. My mind actually goes to thoughts of forgiveness and acceptance and appreciation, and I suppose a small part of me wonders of the impression I'd leave in remembrance. But then I look over there at the cherry tree and it all makes sense to me and the worry washes away. I wait each year for that tree to bloom. I think about it through Summer, Autumn, and Winter; the anticipation and appreciation of its beauty, for its sheer existence and being. Everything I need to know in this moment is in that one pink bloom. That one pink bloom that by day's end will be five, and by tomorrow afternoon nearly half the tree, and by the day after that— full bloom —and before long pink petals in shower, leaving only green in their place, and then bare limbs at Winter's return. If you pay close enough attention, you'll understand the language Spring's speaking in— renewal —as she does each and every year. And when given time, this world will heal and be renewed as it has done countless times before. And in time, so shall my soul. I don't think the question that matters in this moment is what seed did I plant in others, the question that matters is what seeds did this world plant within me...to carry me through...and the answer lies in the peace with which I welcome my evolution."

Death took her hand into his, giving it a tender squeeze, as she gave one in return.  


E.A. O'Connell