The Word Was HORROR
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By Rinn Zerrudo
A young girl with only blank white sockets for eyes and wearing a white dress was standing outside my wide-open door looking right at me. I was flat on my back, my head turned to my left when I saw her.
I knew I was dreaming, and I couldn’t move.
I was surprised to find myself opening my left eye, still in the dream, to take a peek. I saw the telltale skirt of a white dress, now just at the edge of my bed.
I shut my eyes, suddenly feeling afraid. I was screaming in my head: “Get away from me.”
Then a small hand brushes against the inside of my palm.
And everything went cold.
By Sunny Marie
...I said, “yes”.
I answered my cellular phone. It was my Mom. So terribly worried about her. Frenzied thoughts leaped through my mind, like the flames of a fire. Is she okay? She’s talking, that’s a good sign, isn’t it? She’s not slurring her speech as much, that must be a positive thing.
The nurse had told me the night before, “She’s resting. Don’t worry. She’s stable, and resting.”
Brain tumors. The words fell flat against my head, like a ton of bricks dropped from a bridge, their weight crushing my skull.
“A what? Tumors? Tumors in the brain? Metastatic lung cancer? And pneumonia?”… My heart skipped beats, little girls jump roping inside my ribcage…. Because she said, “Sunny, call hospice, I want to come home.” …. “Okay, I will,” I said. The little jump-roping girls started playing bongos, thump, thump thump, thump…. Then she spoke again, “I don’t want to die alone here.”
….I replied in a voice that sounded far away (to me), and foreign, lost in an abyss of confusion “I won’t let that happen.”
And I called.
And she came home on September 11th, 2017
(“Sunny, I made it to 9-11!”) and died around 1 in the AM on September 15th, 2017.
Not a greater horror, have I ever known… than to witness my first dead person, my Mama. So cold, so peaceful, so cold….
The man that came to retrieve her body, smelled of cigarettes…
…loaded her on the gurney…. Crunching plastic, heavy thud, crunching plastic being folded, fuzzy burgundy blanket, wrapped in plastic. Click, click…strapped in for her journey to the funeral home…
I went outside and watched them load her body into the van. I smoked the cigarette. …tears, no noise, tears leaking down my neck.
Went inside.
Empty bed.
So cold.
By Aparajita Dutta
As a child
She was scared of scarred faces
Masked teeth, eyes bursting candies.
An alibi to drag her
Into something to get frightened of.
Rosy bloody lips
A horror for her.
She would crawl into her father’s arms.
Now, she understands
The glare beneath a suited horror
That came with roses dipped in
White paint,
Hands smeared with love
Looks copying Prince Charming;
Then she understood the meaning of
Horror
When words and gestures of love
Opened doors to penetration
Opened doors to violence.
Now she understands
What horror means
And external scars are just
Stories of a wounded soul.
By Kasturi Basu
I have experienced this word… yes I am talking about HORROR.
It was around 7 in the evening, was doing my maths homework, and was alone there, that day, there was a power cut occurred in our area. So I was enjoying my candlelight study time. Suddenly, I Heard My Mom, She was yelling my name from the courtyard.
I was almost on the verge of completing one interesting maths problem. And I didn’t reply. She called again, this time I convinced my reluctant self that, just hold on there, any way you are going to see her in a while, will ask her why she called …. and became busy with my maths homework.
Within two minutes power was back and my room was bright again, by that time my homework was over. So decided to meet mom. I got up and started towards the courtyard. As I reached the main gate, my mom came out from her room, pulled me inside and said: “I Heard That Too”!!