Temporal Stories

There once was a woman who lived in a castle.
The castle was set in a field of corn, giving the woman a breath taking view of her land.
She wore her heart on her sleeve, freely giving to anyone who asked.
Some people took from her, but never gave anything back.
This made the woman very vulnerable to the Curse.

The curse had many names, but no one in any of the lands could agree on an antidote.
Her breath quickened and her emotions festered.
The walls had eyes and were judging her.
She would become suffocated and scared.
The pain was unlike any wound felt by man, one she would not wish on her worse enemy.
Darkness settled in the land, but she was the only one to see it.
No one else could see the dark clouds descending on her land, but others saw a mist with their own eyes.
The fog would become so dark, she could not see where she could escape to.
She wanted to ask for help from others in the castle, but the mist choked the words out of her.

Silence.

This was her curse.

One day the fog came in and she tried to scream for help.
Almost no one knew that she used her last breath to cry out because only a few could hear her plea.
She knew of a potion, a drastic potion, that could end her pain.
So instead of the horribly ironic set of Medea, she locked herself in her chambers and took the potion.
She wanted to fly above the choking fog, because she could not see anything else around her in the thickness.
She did not think anything was left of her land.

So she drank the potion one sip at a time.
One (bottle) to forget.
One (bottle) to remember life before the curse.
She tried other potions to see if they would work.
More and more she wanted to fly.
It was getting harder to remember what life was before the curse.
One, two, three more sips for the pain.
She just wanted the pain to stop.

She did not know others had heard her cries.
She did not know there were others in the Darkness who could help her see.
Who wanted her to try to break the unbreakable cure.
So she did not fly higher than the birds.
The choice to drink the potion had not given her wings, it just made her sick.
From her sickbed and for months after, she vowed to become stronger so she could learn to fly on her own.

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"The only real difference between medicine and poison is the dose... and intent." -Oscar Hernandez
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There once was a woman who lived in a studio apartment.
Her place was located at the edge of a bad neighborhood, but it was her own little place by the Ocean.
She wore her heart on her sleeve, right above a scar few noticed.
Some people tried to take from her, however she did not give pieces of herself freely these days.
Many people knew her, but she did not think she had many friends.

The woman has anxiety around social situations to the point where it will cause her physical pain, something many people don't know.
She lives her life anxious about what other people think about her and if they are being honest with her.
The woman does not comprehend subtly at all and occasionally ends up in awkward situations.
Luckily she has an amazing friends and family to help her when she needs.

One day she thought her friends were talking about her behind her back.
Through the "he said, she said", she became anxious and couldn't think straight.
She wanted to fly with the birds above the human world below and to not feel the pain she was in at that moment.
At that time she saw one of her best friends walking past and waved her over to where she stood.
Her friend told her to relax and go have a drink at the bar, so off the woman went.

One (drink) to remember.
One (drink) to laugh.
Drinks 3 through 8 were also to remember and to laugh.
In her ankle boots, she soared over her friends at the bar.
Her friends.
Her social anxiety, her fear of what others thought of her, was gone for the moment.
She could breath.

The moment bought her time to remember: This fog would lift and things would be okay.
Things change and relationships change, it's okay.
It's nearly impossible for someone to have the exact same relationship with someone else from month to month; some people will grow closer and others will grow apart.
She just needed time to remember.
She needed to remember that she had learned to fly on her own.

She left the bar with some friends at 1am and stopped by another friend's apartment.
A little after 3am, she walked into her own little apartment in her own little town.
She tasted rum and cigarettes on her lips as she kicked off she shoes to lay down.
The woman plopped down amidst her blankets and pillows to fall into a deep slumber.
When she woke up, she was still anxious but she was okay.
She brushed her hair, changed clothes, grabbed her lunch, and left for work.
Things would be okay for the woman.

She knew things would be okay.