** Old Friends **

Day 1,736, 02:45 • Published in USA USA • by Blue Holt


“…Savor the moment, already.”

I murmured, under a foul, sinister stench emanating from my old friend Remy Martin, poorly aged much as I had myself. The inconsistent radiance pierced Remy’s form and quietly danced shades of amber across the length of an old desk kept in the confines of my study, torn asunder by a seemingly endless abyss of books and disheveled papers. The cool, crisp early morning air floated inward at a sluggish pace, giving up no further than where the candlestick met the waning glow of the nearly full moon setting above the horizon. The morning’s breath simply was exhausted; sympathy was in ready abundance.

The inviting warmth of my nearby bed blasted forth as a beacon through the most tempest sea swirling inside my mind. Denizens of memories and terrible wars, friends and allies held captive by thunder strikes and brutally powerful riptides. Waves of terror-filled emotion slammed hard upon a fractured bow, a ship held together by sheer will and wood as delicate as the sand of an island’s shore.

“…DAMN IT!” I exploded, springing forward with the equivalent fury of such a storm. Recollecting hazy thoughts while fighting to clear my vision from a dreamland’s fog, my attention shifted to once where Remy sat, as he now was visiting the carpet and leaving a soggy reminder of our troubled relationship.

I bellowed a grunt at the inconvenience of having to pick up this wasted lout. It was harsh enough to muster any energy to lift up myself.

With the squeak of my chair, straining the legs underneath weight bitterly gained, an inexplicable anomaly glared towards me from the corner of my eye, just beneath the shadowy cover of an ancestral cabinet passed down many generations. I froze and gazed back, intent as predator and prey suddenly enveloping my own form, caressed in a sense of familiarity despite my drunken state. In great care, thought converted into motion fluidly, finding my boots merely gliding along en route to this strange object, much akin to an icy Winter spent amidst loved ones on a frozen lake, skating lightly and frolicking freely.

“What… what is this?” I loosely spoke, with a puzzled expression. One hand found quick comfort retrieving a narrow edge, holding it safely away in distance.

A silver frame.
A glass case.
Remembered pain.
Familiar face.

An old friend viciously leered towards my direction.

The cheap, plastic panel came easily removed from the back, revealing another piece lost in the shroud of time. More faces. More eyes. More reasons.

“To think I could have forgotten…”


~ B. Holt

(Testing out the waters again. Great to be back! Looking forward to writing some amazing stuff. Here's a treat. ~)