The road to my revolution; a slave’s diary:

The road to my revolution, a slave’s diary:

By Danielle Parrish

 

Month 1: The sale of a new slave.

I’m awakened with a sharp slap to my cheek, the cool air stings my taut limbs as I dangle aimlessly from a long chain. The chain is long enough that I am on the floor but just short enough to prevent my escape, with a torturous intent on breaking my will. Today is the day that I am sold, like cattle with no rights and barely the will to speak. My name is, Etris. Etris Domica Corinis.

Or at least it was until I was captured. My life before slavery, is a memory long lost amongst the torture and beatings to break me. I was a farmer, on the borders of a neighboring province that was under siege by roman legionnaires. I remember bloodshed, and the pain in my side as I was knocked unconscious by a roman soldier, The last thing is saw under his helm was cold unfeeling eyes. Trained to kill.

 

Back to the present, where I find myself at now – in a room with people being slowly dragged out by chains, I recognize a few of my fellow country men as they walk past- hope all but lost.  A guard comes for me next- he looks at me with disdain in his eyes and spits, actually spits. “ sporcizia”. Filth. Thats is all I am degraded to as i am hauled out to the markets with the others, the future is all that awaits me now.

 

Month 2 : The fields in which my freedom grows.

 

I was lucky enough to be sold to a wealthy patrician who works in the senate. I spend my long days working with my fellow brothers in the fields, guards keeping an eye on us as we work, to make sure that we don’t escape.  We eat very little, while the foods that we cultivate are used for lavish parties for the masters co- workers and their wives. Most of the food we have to haul out again, unable to touch or eat any in fear of losing limbs. So much food wasted, and for an ungrateful pig that whips his slaves and starves them, while we suffer- under his cruel reign.

 

Month 3: Revolution, but at what cost ?

 

Rumors amongst the slaves have grown from murmurs to wakes, a man named Spartacus is rallying all those who wish to join the revolt. I am well used to the life of a slave now, freedom all but a foreign concept. Besides once a slave, you are your masters for life- unless he grants you freedom, fat chance of that happening in my case.  I’m thinking about the revolt -I wish to be free so much, but at what cost to I value my life.

 

Month 4: A lesson learned is a person punished.

 

The days are longer, more guards are hired, slaves that I befriended in the fields have been slaughtered for trying to escape. My owner make a show of it, executing them in out fields on crucifixes. They hang there even now – 3 weeks after their death, out in the fields, a reminder of what awaited those who wish to be liberated. The fields stink like death making the days even  longer and my stomach weaker with every glance.

 

When will this war end ? Spartacus wants freedom- but how many lives will it cost ?- death is ever present on this road to my  revolution.

 

Body Of Glass- poem – Danielle Parrish

Body of glass-

by

Danielle Parrish

The leftover pieces of a burnt down house

The monster that will never see the light of day.

now uncaged, breaks its bounds and runs astray.

Wishing all her pains away.

Her body of glass, once a temple, now holds.

The scars and cracks of someone else’s mould.

Tears fill in her cracks with a solemn cry

only nightfall holds her tight.

Walking feels like needles of grass on a cold bitter day.

Talking feels like sandpaper wearing her away.

Laughter once a distant memory,

with the one she thought would change her story.

Bitter how the wind changes it’s ways,

willing two people to break and fade away.

Alone she sits broken and used.

her body of glass is now the only thing that holds the clues.

Turning Pages- Short story- Danielle Parrish

I live a paper life, always turning pages. I have knowledge that things can always change chapters, and stories. The people that read me always change and the care that the used with me deteriorates, I am broken, beaten and torn, used till I break. One day my cover fell off, and I was thrown away, in the trash with other things that people  now had no need for. Things that weren’t shiny or new like the books on the shelves, people judging me because of my looks, refusing to read my story. In the trash I begin to see a figure, one with a pile of old books in her hands, just like me.

She reaches in and picks me up tentatively, and squeals hugging me close to her chest. I don’t understand why, all the new books with shiny covers were inside the library doors,but she picked me. I begin to tell her my story, page to page, from my back cover to my title.

Then when she was done I sat on a dusty shelf full of broken books with missing pages and covers, I feel at home, where I belong. At last a place for me so share my story to those who look past my cover.

When I was on the shelf in the library I realised, you just need the right person to pick you up to turn the page.

My Demons: short story

My demons:

School……where to begin.

during the day students come in troupes ready, or not so much so to start the day.

only after the incident everyone has been on edge…for whatever reason they don’t look to thrilled to go past Room: 2964.

Alissa?  someone queried drawing my mind out of thought.

Are you daydreaming again?

No Miss. it wont happen again. I dwelled the usual routine reply.

sniggers  and a few worried glances were the only thing on the classes mind as the teacher, obviously sleep deprived sighed.

this was going to be a dull day. Surprisingly I wasn’t fazed in the least, the only thing now thats remotely close to normal for me is dull days and I like to keep them that way.

After recess was english, how I loved that class something about being near that problematic room gives me an edge on my writing funnily enough we were on the topic of scary stories, most of the class were either half asleep or just in there to get the grade. But for me. For me it was this wonderful thing I get to write, something I haven’t been able to do since the incident something just felt. off.

As the class started our ever enigmatic and perky teacher Mr. gordinski. Yes, any jokes passed now were the usual for him- comes with the name I shrugged internally. I was working on a project about poltergeists, and trying to put a twist in an age old paranormal horror topic. And. It. Was. Hard. I worked through the class finishing the lesson with a huff, Mr. G came over and inspected my work. I looked out the window…such a calm day, although for autumn cam was a blessing.

I never expected your work to be so, thrilling Alissa. he quoted in a thick accent that I couldn’t quite place.

Just one of those creative days I guess. And with that I was out the door.

The other lesson- math- the popular choice passed by with a few, minor, issues. other than that it was a good as deadpan depressing.

At lunch a few of us- the weird ones- as they call us sat out the front of the abandoned class and ate, Emily, Clara and I. We were weird because it didn’t phase us when the noises came, Because we were the only ones who could hear them- it just felt…normal. We all knew it was coming- everyone in our group knew- we checked our watches, 1:25, And thats when it happened chronologically as usual. A banging noise suddenly emitted loudly from inside the room beside us, as it usually did so we paid it no mind. But as I ate I couldn’t shake the feeling that today had been too dull, almost as if I was invisible to the world.

The noises continued, moaning began, The group sat frozen. Paralyzed with a capital P. The voices. Our names, it sounded surreal. But the thing that worried me the most is the memories…. My eyes began to droop, losing consciousness. Fire. I remembered fire, burning, abandoned. I knew no help was coming but somehow I still screamed for help. Hoping someone could hear us. It all burned my friends are on the floor with skin peeling and shrill voices raw with the blistering pain and the smell of smoke.. Everything around me stopped. The room, my old classroom. crawling to the teeth with the spirits of my dead friends, Emily and clara. They are dead.

I regained consciousness, apparently it had only been 5 minutes since I was out. A teacher inspected me, but the warm hand against my cold skin did nothing to improve my state of health.

I informed my friends on what happened in my “flashback”- if you could call it that. I’d opt for nightmare.

I wish I didn’t, oh I should have listened to that tiny voice.

My friends looked at me but not as friends- as dead people- rotted flesh-  bloodshot eyes, a mask of fear striped my emotions as I looked at my own body, it matched theirs.

the disappearances were us- the people faded, our minds had supposedly created a dreamscape of what would happen in the real world, the living one. I felt lightheaded- was this all an illusion ?

What is the truth? I looked to my friends we were in the same position. We never left the classroom, this is all a memory.

I was dead, my friends are dead…..the noises are us…..our minds blocked the memory, submerging it with useless information.

But if we died there, why haven’t we left?

Who killed us ?

(could the people hear us screaming as we did?)

(Are we scaring them?)

A small yet dislocated and  persistent voice drew my from my thoughts again,

Al-isss-aa

We’re not done with you yet….

Emily dropped next was clara, shocked and painfully.

I was next…………but what is death- without pain?

I fell ontop of Clara’s lifeless (if it could get anymore) corpse.
And what happens when you die if you are already dead?

-Danielle Parrish

Tick, Tock :

Emaline shivered and turned in her bed before deciding to finally get something to eat, and perhaps a new blanket. She made her way across the old creaking wooden floorboards towards the kitchen, careful not to make a sound and wake her parents from their soundless slumber. Passing the grandfather clock that was passed down to her from, ironically her grandfather.

The kitchen was filled with knick knacks that were like a minefield of clutter to her footfalls, Emaline saw what she desired and with a hungry click, what ravished her eyes under the light of the fridge was a milk carton. Being the teenager that she was, using glasses in the middle of the night meant cleaning…and lots of it. but as she turned away from the fridge another click of the closing door was someone. Emaline mumbled “mum, go back to bed….please” she moaned placing the carton of milk down on the counter. It didn’t reply or yell  at her it just stood there, head tilting and long brown hair in a friz, wearing bed clothes that looked like she wore the sheet around her body.

“mum, seriously go back to bed, god” taking a swig from the milk carton and putting it back in the fridge. Before she turned around she could hear something shuffling closer, from a third person view the body was so close Emaline’s skin prickled at the close contact, breath quickening and eyes dilating in shock. The fridges cold exterior was like a warm summer day that she wished she could meld with desperately, suddenly a voice, not unlike her mother’s but a voice that sounded like it hasn’t been used in years “Tick, tock your time is up, look at the clock and let the world…….STOP” It proclaimed with a sing song melody.

Emaline’s parents bolted up as a scream from down the dark and cold hallway, scrambling to reach the door. Blood lined the hallway as they approached the kitchen, Too shocked for words and wordless anguish seeped over them as their daughter sprawled out below the kitchen counter a soundless scream on her face and a single tear down her cold left cheek.

The blood dripped down the hallway into Emaline’s room, Her father went to check as her mother cradling Emaline’s lifeless body against her chest muttering and sobbing incoherent english.

Passing the grandfather clock that was almost about to chime 12 in cold fear, his heartbeat matched the chimes of the clock as he approached his late daughters bedroom.

The handle of her room painted with blood stopped Henry as his eyes follow the trail back into the hallway. A body was in the bed as he pushed open the door with a creak, as it turned to face him the voice returned “Tick,Tock the clock has stopped all is silent as the body’s drop”.The last thing he saw was black eyes and a open mouth into an abyss.

The crack of two snapped necks and a scream, all is silent but the tick tock of the grandfather clocks chime at 12, The time has stopped.

The boy with blue eyes and tears that make rain for the skies:

Tom was twelve years old. He was lithe but stronger than his peers. He had curly red hair that fell on his eyes like a mop, he also had porcelain skin, pale and easily burnt in the harsh summers of Australia. His eyes were a piercing cerulean blue with flecks of green, a palette of stars in the galaxy was the only way to describe how entrancing they were, no one knows where they came from as no on in his family had anything close to it.

His lips were always curled into a small frown, and was almost always the main point in starting a conversation with him because he looked so miserable amongst the sea of smiles at his school, although that was mainly because he didn’t want to leave his first and only safe haven known a home, and come to live in a small cottage that his father bought overlooking a deep sea, like his eyes. His father wanted to move because Thomas’s mother had died of cancer a year ago. On the way home from school walking up the dirt trail that laced the grassy hills with gravel and dirt,Thomas would often see his father staring of into the sea as he reached the windy summit that grass danced to. If only they knew at his school, if only they knew.

-Danielle Parrish

Echo’s Eden:

Echo’s Eden:

In Echo’s brain the shadows roam freely without a care

In Echo’s head the shadows aren’t really there

echos in her mind bring her to the point of pain

nobody believes Echo because she’s always on her own

all through life and death her shadows will never leave her alone.

No friends and many enemies but the thing

that trumps them all is her memories

only her memories are full of disdain and hate

where people like her suffer the same fate

but one day she writes a letter to a far and distant home

telling them about the shadows and how they roam

in echo’s head all is going numb

because in echo’s head the shadows fade

just like her life becomes.

But In echos eden she is finally free

free of like and a set destany

where people like her don’t suffer the same fate

they make there own without any hate

because in echos eden the shadows all act like me.

-Danielle Parrish

A Hospital Of Souls:

A Hospital Of Souls:

The lights are dim my life support is fading

thin I can’t take anymore of the oxygen in my lungs.

It’s poisonous venom is swallowing me in,

I await for the melodious voice of death becoming.

The souls around me are in a chorus of yearning.

Pain, thats all I feel now an empty shell spilling it’s contents

into the air amongst the others in the rooms over there

A hospital of souls fresh for the reaping,

if only it was like the life they’ve been stealing

. For only a breath separates me from life and death…

…a somber embrace.

I’ve finally reached the end.

This is my fate.

– Danielle Parrish

Kiss and Tell:

Kiss and Tell:

You say you don’t kiss and tell

but I said I knew that story well

You say your not a pretty face

you’ve come to take me away

But I see through the lies, through the disguise

an angel in the daylight

but a womaniser in anothers bed at night

if only there was someone new

Something to look forward to

if only I knew that the life I needed is not with you.

If only I could rewrite, and ignite the possibilities

never having to see your face amongst all atrocities

Only that day will never come because fairytales always end with happiness

but this is the real world where un-pragmatics steal princesses

all their dreams locked away, you said you didn’t kiss and tell

oh, if only I knew that story well.

• Danielle Parrish

The Five:

The Five:

–  By Danielle Parrish

There are five of us

We run between towns

Hide in the shadows

Become the unseen forces

We govern the city

We keep its peace

We tie the world together

Just to make ends meet

You don’t notice the disturbances

As you walk amongst our surfaces

Making your mark as you walk your path

The five of us wonder, if ever we will be discovered

When we are in plain sight

Although you start to wonder

Who are these five, these numbers?

Earth

Water

Fire

Wind

Soul

The five that the world relies on

The laws we set and abide from

We are the five, the numbers

Don’t forget us, human

Souls always forget the five.