The Adventures Of Red Writing Hood

I pull the blankets over my head and allow the fabric to smother me with soft kisses.   I feel for the button of the flashlight in my hand and turn it on, marveling at the warm yellow glow it gives.   Placing the end into my mouth, I use my two free hands to open the book to the last page I read.   Positioning the flashlight in the central location where it isn’t too bright on my page or too dim to read with, I scour the pages of the book.   Every so often I click off my light, pull the blankets down to my toes, and take a gulp of fresh air.   Its briskness causes my lungs to gasp at them, and I feel myself going lightheaded as the surge of oxygen makes its way through my body like a pulse of lightning.   With one last breath, as if I’m getting ready to dive into an ocean to explore the depths of the sea, I allow myself to sink from the surface of fresh air; down, down, down.   There I fall, until the blankets are embracing me once more.   I...

         “ If I told you that a long time ago the entire world rested in the hands of one very unruly child, you probably wouldn’t believe me. So that is why I don’t tell stories to people that often. I can't really, because not everyone is willing to believe a cloud is talking to them. Some are just too unimaginative to believe it,”         “I believe you, sir,” Came a small voice. Sitting in the puffy white hands of the age-old cloud, a child with a pair of yellow pajamas, curly red hair, and big eyes perched happily.         “Oh, Piper. I know that it is easy for you to believe in me. You are but a girl. Someday you will forget, when you are all grown up.” He looked up to the stars that lit the night sky and twinkled playfully to the sleeping earth below them.         “I guess I won’t ever grow up then,” She smiled widely and lay her head ge...

     The music pattered like raindrops in my drizzly mind. My head swayed with the motion of my fingers tapping the black and white keys. A combination that I made up as I went, the music was slow and sad.    A tear fell and slid in a crack on one of the keys. I remembered how it got there on mothers piano, this piano. My eyes flicked to the bloodstains on the once white windowsill. Papa.     Then I remembered the screams and the horrific crack as my little brother was thrown against the sofa. Four. Josef had been just four years old--a mere baby.    I closed my eyes, forbidding more tears to escape. Then they fell like the souled rain that dropped through the smoke of the crematoriums.    My mind went back to those days cooped up in the rotting pigstye. I saw people dropping like harmless flies wherever I looked. There was no use to make friends, for I was certain that they too would perish, I remember the smell of burning peo...

   His hands were small and cold. I massaged the wrinkles that had creased around his jagged fingernails. Unlike my own, there were no freckles dotting the back of his hand. His red hair that used to match my own was faded and cut short. He looked at me, and I at him. One resemblance that time hadn't destroyed was our big brown eyes. And then, just moments later, even this was taken away from me as he closed his eyes, never to open them again.    I felt like crying out. Felt like shouting at the doctor for not trying harder to keep his heart beating. But in my head I heard the rhythmic tune of the first song he ever taught me. It was a common reminder that time is a race humanity never wins. Time going round the clock. Tick tock, tick tock... He always taught me to sing in a deep tenner. Each day begins on the dot. Tick tock, tick tock... He taught me to think about the words. Time... And apply the meaning to your vo...

   Victoria was tall, with sharp cheekbones and hard curves. She had a small stomach, and hardly looked like a healthy woman at all. In her large yellow shopping bag her baby boy slept soundly, hidden so no one would suspect he was there.      One word echoed in her head: Run. Run. Run. She must get away from him, she must take Eli and hide from the terrible man her husband has become. She tried to quicken her pace, walking steadily, her other two bags bouncing at her side. Thump, thump, thump. Hopefully no one would spot her out through the crowd.   She could think no more as tears burned her pale, sunken cheeks as the thought of what she must do enveloped her anew. She walked until her long, thin legs stopped at the New York Orphans Home. She reached down and peeked at her baby boy sadly.             “I love you Eli,” She whispered, a sob catching her throat. He whimpered softly, bu...