A Heavy Rain

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s_huruma_icon.gif nightmare_icon.gif

Scene Title A Heavy Rain
Synopsis Huruma's paid a visit in baptismal white while she dreams.
Date November 12, 2009

In dreams, somewhere in Nigeria


The dreams that haunt Huruma's sleeping world are much like reels of memories to begin with; retracing bits and pieces of her past and inserting bites of imagination and her current life here and there. Nightmares, on the other hand- nightmares are not like her dreams. Her very own nightmares are at their core, metaphorical and consist of imagery that even Freud would have quite the time with.

Sometimes her mind flits back and forth through dreams and nightmares; a pleasant memory of Europe, followed moments after by whiteness and the pull of chains on limbs, the piercing of skin over biceps and quadriceps all the same. And eventually, her sleep carries her back to the visions of Arab Africa where for some reason or another, Old Lucy's has moved to. In life, her sleep can be fitful at times, though she always gets enough of it.

A mother may forget her child, When stirred by passions fierce and wild-

It is not whiteness this time, but neither blackness- the world is a dark tone of brown. Warm glows are still hard to find, though the one coming off of a meditative Huruma is hard to miss; yellow, gold, faded sepia against her skin. Sleeping in a dream? Not unheard of- then again, Huruma is like anyone in never knowing reality from falseness in slumber. Where she lies curled up is another story. Another shape, molded out of the brown of her temporal world; the dark woman contrasts against the lighter hues around her. A bowl. A bowl formed of a sheet of brown- held by undefined arms that push from the walls. The headboard of the valley formed by this is that of a faceless skull, caramel and ivory in its silent attempt to escape from what seems like that skin- the film that clings to arms, to bowl, and to a shapely bosom at the skull's base. There is already something amiss to Huruma here- the feeling of unfamiliarity and something tense even though she seems serene.

Perhaps as her eyes remain open, white shapes peering over the curve of her forearm to the seamless figure looming overhead. Bit by bit, the world hardens and cracks, turns soft, reforming into earth.

"You forgot me first, mzaa Ala. Leave me be." And like some manner of petulant child under a parent, Huruma rolls over onto her other side to face away from the prying embers in the figurehead's sockets.

"But you still forgot them"

Southern dulcet tones are out of place in a location like this, in a land like this. Not out of place to the woman who the dream belongs to and she could pick it out of a myriad of others that's for sure. Vibrant blue eyes belong to someone who's face to face with Huruma. A seriousness settled on her pale face as she gazes at Huruma in baptism white, hair covered beneath a fall of crisp linen meant to cover the head.

"Did you mean to forget? Forget them, both of them?"

Huruma's eyes snap open from their closed state as she rolls over to only come eye to eye with the least likely figure that she ever expected to appear; especially during the time that Huruma spends and allocates to communicating or not communicating with the powers that be in her multifaceted world. The voice, at first, sounds like it echoes out of the bowl around her. It does, however that is surely not the source. Shock turns to anger even before the older woman is able to comprehend Abigail's divine presence in Ala's pocket, much less what she has said.

When Huruma gathers herself to her feet, the dichotomy between herself and Abby in her linen cover is even more clear; Huruma herself is bare, the sepia and gold beating in her aura dissipating to be absorbed in light by the shine of white from the girl opposite.

From shock to anger, Huruma goes to something affronted now that there is nothing but silence; there is an accusation in what Abby's ghost speaks, intentional or not. Earth molds softly under Huruma's feet, the flash of white teeth showing in a grimace of confusion and an angry hiss of stale, false air.

"What?"

"You heard me" Calm as can be, with not a line to mar her face or drop of sweat. "When did you last see them? Did you even look back? Did you even look?" Abigail's fine chin lifts high, stopping at an arrogant hilt so she can look down her nose at Huruma. "Every mother looks for their children. They can feel when the very last thread that ties them to the world has been cut" Her hand lifts, thin fingers making an abrupt scissoring motion as if the very thread she speaks about is snipped at it's source. Forefinger and middle finger meet, separate and then snap back into meeting.

"Have they been cut?"

Them. Plural. Huruma ransacks her memories only to have Abigail make it clear for her. It is only for this reason that the tall dark woman appears to shrink back when the little blonde angel stares down her nose at her. Huruma's brow lowers as Abby continues, her own stare now keening and murderous. By the time the girl finishes, Huruma's nostrils flare with each rigid breath and the finer details of her face have since wrinkled in distaste.

"They were better off dead than with me. You do not know the first thing…" Her smooth voice rises in volume steadily, the sound of the words from her chest coming lastly with a feral rumble, each word opening her lips and baring the front of a mouth now lined with sharp slender teeth. "I cut them myself."

Around her, the ground shifts idly- not undulations by far, but merely the tremors alluding to something that may be stirring just below the surface.

"I don't think you did" Statement, accusation, Fact. Abigail bends her knees, crouching down to bring herself closer to the other womans level. The hem of the simple cotton dress brushes against the moving ground and yet doesn't seem to dirty for it at all. Still pristine in a way that seems unnatural. Blue eyes are shuttered by the lowering of eyelids before they rise again. The eyes don't quite match the bearer of the face in the real world, but they're close

"You tried. How did it feel? To try and kill the flesh of your flesh?"

"To try and kill the hearts, of your very heart?"

A lone finger with it's perfectly manicured nail reaches out to touch the center of Huruma's chest, just below the collarbone. Not where the heart really is, more the metaphorical, spiritual heart. "Animals kill their young. They abandon them because if they stay-" Abigail pushes with that finger, pushing Huruma back a fraction of an inch. "They'll eat their young. Protection of the species, Darwin, evolution. Survival"

Shoulders are squared beneath the white that covers her up. "Where did you leave them again?"

Not only does the earth move under the surface- the motes of dust and dirt that would normally threaten to cling to the cotton make a point of avoiding attaching to it. Those that reach the air go onward to float off. The mounds of Ala's arms and breasts collect into clay, a mould of a round face seeping over the sharp ivory of her bony head. Abigail's presence makes her own return tenfold.

Huruma's eyes center on Abby's ethereal pair. The finger that touches to her chest feels as if it were a rod of steaming iron; there is a white hot heat there as Abigail pushes that miniature distance, and when Huruma makes to move backwards, her spine is met with a wall of lukewarm red clay. The only sound from Huruma, vibrating through Abigail's touch, is that rumbling growl past bared teeth- those that indeed belong to some manner of great beast rather than humankind.

Perhaps it was to keep them from her- perhaps it was to keep them from growing up in such a world- and perhaps the spectre is correct in saying that Huruma discarded her two children to actually preserve them. Huruma, by nature, is pressed to keep believing that she ended their lives; being wrong is not her strongest suit. She wants to say that it felt Right- Right to kill them. Try. According to Abigail, it was the latter of the two without so much as a question. "…I did it for them…to protect them. From…everything.

"Lagos." Huruma's face tightens just slightly- first muscle-wise, and soon, literally. The maturity of her face drops away, in a shift leaving her young again. No older than twenty, no younger than sixteen. Her build is not as tall or as statuesque as it was just seconds ago; her frame is lanky and carrying the permeable sort of awkwardness that always comes with having grown quickly in a short time.

She was a kid too, once. One may argue that Huruma had to mature quickly at a young age- but out of sheer luck she did not lose her childhood entirely. Perhaps it was even partly the natural fear of a child that brought her to this space in her mind.

It brings Huruma down to Abigail's age possibly,but the finger still pressed to Huruma's chest as she shifts her body-weight despite the protestations or assertions from the black woman about doing what was best for them. The finger sinks into the other woman's chest along with her other digits, little by little pale flesh enveloped as if she's fighting some great force to even do so. Pink lips barely brush the other woman's ear and the cotton that conceals most of the blonde hair obscures vision.

"Where did you leave them? What did you do to them that makes you think that they're dead. That makes you think that the threads were cut" She doesn't look to see the progress of her hand, just keeps talking in that oh so quiet voice that drips honey. "Did they cry Huruma when you tried? Did they cry when you left them? Did you care that they cried, that they were needing you and you turned your back and didn't have the decency to look in and inquire. See if they really had died?"

Abigail moves then, insinuating herself between Huruma and the other force in the room, body to body. Her arm draped over the other womans shoulder as her hand still seeks out her heart and makes steady ingress. The other side of her face now gets the whisper of cotton, pale cheek to dark earlobe and whispering words again. %R%R"Do you even remember their names woman?"

Cotton over her vision and a hand that threatens to reach through her; Huruma's hand finds Abigail's where it sits on her sternum, fingertips first. The dark hand contrasts against pale skin set aglow in whiteness of dress. The thin muscles in her forearm tighten before her fingers do, curling around Abby's wrist like bracelets. Her eyes find Abigail's face, black pupils dilating under a formless shadow that looms in her head.

"Of course they cried. Of course I cared- that was the point- to spare them." Her whisper back into the linen sheet nearby comes rigidly. "But then I just left them at hospital-" So at the least, a part of her didn't want to actually do it. The other side won out, in the end. Huruma's hand remains on the girl's wrist as she moves around to her back, the dreamlike warmth from the touch being just that- dreamlike.

"Yes. I do. I gave them names…" That fact makes certain that part of her wanted to keep them both; she did not have the mental or physical means to do so. Not back then.

"It was raining when they were born."

Like it is now. Like the fat drop that lands on the slope of Huruma's cheek with a sound that seems to be far louder than it should be. Abby's hand sinks in, fingertips chasing the edge of the woman's heart before she starts to pull back, blood streaking on her hand as she extracts it, making no effort to shake off her wrist. She places her palm on the woman's chest again though, leaving a hand-print of blood there.

"The world turns, you move on, leaving them behind because you cannot keep them, cannot care for them." The rain starts to fall more than just the single drop, continuous fat drops that hit here and there on Huruma, marking the white fabric on Abigail. Not immune to it all like she is the dirt. "But you haven't gone back, haven't checked. You think of them." Abby's palm rises, thumb leaving a bloody mark on the woman's forehead. Immune to the water that falls from the heavens in this nightmare.

"Oh you think of them. Don't you. of late. Stuck in your head, lodged in there." Two lines, parallel in the center going down.

"you don't feel the thread cut. I bet, if you digged, you could find it. but do you care now to do it hmmm?"

Huruma's hand finds the joints of Abby's, shadowing it like a cloak as it moves. The ground below, when hit by the droplets, ripples like water. The formation of the goddess at Abby's back has long since hardened and polished itself as the girl's image works its words. The rain drops onto Huruma's head and shoulders first, hitting her with dull pecks of sensation as rain will always do. The waterworks strengthen gradually, the rumble of a storm in the dark above them. The twinkles of white stars glimmer past the masses of clouds. Now the water comes down in a sheet, layering sheens over Huruma's skin and darkening the white of Abigail's baptismal white linens.

Though her hand follows, Huruma does nothing to deter the prints being drawn over her chest and her face. If there is any reaction, it is one that brings a somber stare to her face, to the ground that is now sogged with rain.

"I think of them every day." Her admission is surprising and not at the same time; they are- were her children. "…You're right, I don't. If this stands to carry over to the outside world, it remains to be seen.

Hands are withdrawn, Huruma released to let her deity take her back against as she slips from around the back of her to the front. She crouches down again, planting a palm on the ground as if washing her hands in the dirt that ripples from the falling rain. Rinse her hands then use the hem of her dress to wipe them dry, smears of dirt and blood latching into the fabric, staining it, marring it's pristine surface even when wet.

No verbal assurance that maybe she'll remember this in the waking world, no clapping or words of encouragement for thinking about her babies every day. Just Abigail turning back towards Huruma, fingers scissored again as she reaches towards the black woman again, grasping a hold of some invisible yet still tangible thing that when she tugs, the other woman can feel the pull on her own self.

Huruma's hand lowers back to her side, eyes watching the younger girl's every movement, from minute to the grand gesture of her scissors, and the pull of something threaded through her ribcage.

Ala may be at her back now, but there is a looming shadow that falls over Abigail as she stands there with her last gestures; even with the rumble of stormfall, there is an audible rumble above it- a breath inward, filling lungs with wet air. The rain stops falling onto the blonde. The shadow turns the earth below a shade of black over brown, turning white to a dull silver.

Lurking above the girl now is a form in the sky, melting out of the clouds. A reflective surface at first, it molds into the outline of a skeletal giant; bones black, covered in a shimmer not unlike that of an oil slick. Rainbow curls amongst the tar-covered bones. A pair of hands hover in the air, pointed fingers shifting downward to form a cage around where Abby stands.

The rumbling breath turns into a hollow howl of air through what sounds like a funnel. A head dives out of the clouds, a blackened skull with an open maw- its teeth are sharp, dripping- and its eye sockets house pinpricks of brilliant red light seeping forth from the two pits.

Huruma herself has done nothing once this apparition appears- in actuality, the arms of the woman at her back have begun to close around her.

One movement is all it takes, one tug as if to straighten, tighten whatever it is that she holds in her hand from within the fingered cage that's enveloping her. "Remember how it feels. Then ask yourself, whether you did it"

The cut comes, two pale fingers clamping together as if they were a pair of massive irons hears used to cut fabric in the back rooms of matronly seamstress shops. What feelings come with it, this Abigail doesn't know and doesn't see as it comes with the descent and blacking out of her form, glimpses of white here and there that are cut off.

"Whether it happened"

She is no more, unseen, unheard, leaving Huruma alone.


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