RHAX

They would hold hands.  Sometimes, when things were quiet between them, Chaitte would drum her fingers along his knuckles.  She would play beats, some of them almost familiar, most of them strange tapping rhythms that he didn't understand.  She would tap, tap, tap until the admittedly sensitive skin between his fingers was sore.  He would twist his hand away and refuse to hold on again until she would pout and stomp away. She liked to doodle.  On post-it notes, on scraps of paper, on notebooks, and even on tables.  She liked the focus it gave her, because for just a minute, she wouldn't think of anything else but the little box or figure tha

Darya had been killed in winter, and per his family's request (though it almost killed him to do so), he returned home for the candle light vigil.  They stood in a freezing downpour, holding hands over the tenuous flames that marked the end of his sister's life.  There had been a memorial erected to her; it was vandalized often but his father took painstaking effort into fixing it.  It seemed empty. His little sister, who wore pigtails throughout middle school even though the other girls made fun of her, was gone.  His baby sister, who would stamp her foot and scream until red faced when he mocked her by calling her "Darling Darya", was dead

Shahin poured two glasses of wine.  Chaitte was laying on her stomach, bare feet bobbing in the air, toes wiggling to some music that only she could hear.  She loved to lay on his carpet.  She said it was luxurious and sinful to have carpet so plush.  The quaint apartment she owned had dented wood flooring.  Charming, in a rustic way, but lacking the warmth of the high end designer carpet that decorated the floors of the large flat he rented.  Shahin never considered himself shallow, but he did enjoy the finer things in life, and nice carpet was one of them.  But to lay on it the way Chaitte did?  He couldn't bring himself to.  The joys of so

Shahin was glad for a professional reason to meet Chaitte.  There was something about her that made him uncomfortable.  Perhaps he was more used to the sly, passing glances women gave him that either indicated attraction or dismissal.  He was no social savant but he could read the basic human emotions.  It was the little nuances that threw him off.  Chaitte didn't quite dismiss him, but she had made no clear overture of friendship either.  It was somehow distressing as he was used to one or the either, yet refreshing.  There was little pressure to involve himself in her beyond this project.  That had always been one of Shahin's failings his f

He met her on her on the first day of classes.  Shahin was a returning student, having previously obtained his bachelor's in physics.  After halfway gaining his Masters, he realized he had no interest remaining in the field he had so previously adored.  Suddenly, it seemed to cold, too analytical.  Perhaps it was a reflection of how tiring he found himself.  Of the three children his parents had, he was the one who espoused affection.  Shahin was never a touchy child, wincing away from hugs and shaking his head at kisses.  His older brother Roshan was like their father; ebullient and with a face that always failed at poker.  Darya, their youn

Sing it to me again, that word that makes me shiver so. Bitch. God I love it when you say it. I feel so vindicated. Free. As if you've stripped it all away, and all that's left is me as I am. Call me a bitch again, because I have no more fake smiles to give. Call me that, and know, I have no kindness left for you. Tell me it's my fault, again. I have the patience of a saint. Someday, someday soon, you'll realize no one person carries the blame. Let me know how fat I am, demand I shed away, each ounce gained upon my hips. If I grow thin, dear, it ain't for you. 'Cause there's a man out there, love, and he's singing a dif

     I woke up to the sound of my own yelp.  I gripped the blankets around me, squeezing my eyes shut against the lasting, heart pounding fear.  Guilt ate at me.  I should have reasoned with Nanave.  Now he was probably long gone or still here and in danger.  I bit my lip and tried to fight away the memory of the nightmare.  Outside the world was tinged with pink, dawn having approached while I was busy being scared out of my mind.     Mona!     It wasn't my fear any more but that of Nanave's.  Images assualted my mind.  A man walking and a hidden, red-eyed monster rising out of the tide to crush the man with hundreds of pounds of muscles