Kora and the Anemone's

Subject: Kora and the Anemone's Sat Mar 23, 2013 4:06 pm

Prologue

The idea of a creator has always scared me. Everyone grasps onto this belief that there is an entity (or multiple ones) that has the power to make everything and they hold it close. How could anyone—anything—even begin to imagine what every single living and nonliving thing would look like? How do you go about making it into existence? How do you make something out of nothing?
That power scares the living daylights out of me, and yet, everyone else seems to embrace the idea of it. They make it full of hope. Hope, hope, hope. That’s really all it is about. Religion thrives on hope.
People want to know why bad things happen and why they should stay alive in this meaningless place. They want to know that when they die, it’ll all be okay. They will go to the greatest place ever and stay for eternity. The creator will take away the bad nuts, and the creator will punish them.
I wasn’t buying it. Why wouldn’t this almighty being just blast away all the evil in the world? Short, sweet and simple. If I was cared about so much, why did my life suck fish balls? Apparently, the answer was “free will”. In case you haven’t noticed, I have no control over the weather and whether it kills all of my crops or not. Basic human knowledge, nowadays. What does free will have to do with droughts or floods and whatnot? Nothing.
Maybe in older times, it would make more sense. You didn’t sacrifice your absolute BEST cow and, in vengeance, the goddess of agriculture killed off your crops. But now, we have a better understanding of science and such. Free will literally has nothing to do with this (except maybe for pollution and such).
So my question of “why does my life such fish balls” has never been fully answered. And I was okay with that. I came to terms with that. But things have really changed recently.
In short, I was an atheist. The whole life-after-death thing was ridiculous to me. I knew that it was too good to be true, you know? No one ever said life was fair.

Chapter 1

I woke up to the hellish sound of Satan, my digital alarm clock. My hand shot out and flailed around the night table. There you are, I thought as I slapped it with unnecessary force. I glared at the screen. A bright red 4:15 A.M. glared back at me. Why is my alarm set for 4:15 in the morning? I mentally shrugged and rolled over. I pulled my black covers back over me and snuggled into the warmth of the imprint my body had made. The dark walls of my room enveloped me and I sighed. Sleep was good. My eyelids were heavy and begging to be shut. I obliged them. I drifted off.
Glass shattered outside of my bedroom. Begrudgingly, I opened my eyes and glanced at Satan again. 4:18 A.M. Two minutes, really? I slid out of bed. “Mom,” I moaned quietly.
My mother was strange. That’s all I really could say about her. She had some mental disorder, I believe. But no one really would, or could, tell me what it was. I—we had no family, at least to my knowledge. She would have mood swings, so I guess she was bipolar. But it was worse than that. Her screeches would wake me up in the middle of the night. Whenever she actually fell asleep, she would usually wake up either throwing things or maniacally laughing. And honestly, I wasn’t sure what to do about it. Usually if I just hugged her for awhile, she’d calm down. I would brush my fingers in her hair through her fits and she’d relax into my arms.
She told me she took care of the doctor’s appointments herself. She had been prescribed medications, but it still was bad. The actions I took, or rather the lack of action, with the situation was what really bothered me. I just didn’t know what to do. I was twelve years old when everything started. I probably should have gone to a doctor myself, but what if they took me away from her? That’s something I just couldn’t handle. I was a selfish daughter, I know. But something inside of me couldn’t let her go. And at sixteen, I still hadn’t matured, I guess. I didn’t know what was wrong with her, but there was something wrong with me. The guilt overcame me sometimes. I told myself as long as I took care of her and she wasn’t a threat to herself or anyone else, then I would keep her. As of that time, she hadn’t shown any signs of trying to hurt anyone. I just really hoped she wouldn’t.
I walked out of my room into darkness. That was strange because I usually had the lamp on in the living room incase anything happened in the middle of the night. Did she break the lamp? I thought it had been the glass vase of roses that had been delivered the other day. The cool tile made me want to go back into the warmth of my room. I splayed my hands out and moved them through the air, feeling for the light switch that should be somewhere in front of my door. I tried to walk as straight as possible, but I felt myself slightly veering to the light. My hand it something. A nose. I jerked back and held down a shriek. “Mom,” I questioned. There came no reply. “Mom?” Again, nothing. I felt a warm, wet sigh caress my outstretched hand. I started to breath heavily. My fear of the dark really wasn’t helping the situation. “Okay, this is not funny,” I coughed out, desperate for my mother’s voice.
I heard a rustle of clothes and a few steps in front of me, I thought a floorboard creaked. I started to back up when the ceiling fan above me started to move. I looked up and light filled the room. My eyes shut quickly. “Ow.” I made a note not to stare at lights, even in the dark because you never know when they might come on. Rubbing my eyes, I glanced around the room.
The lamp that was usually on had remained intact. At least she hadn’t thrown that. A picture frame with me graduating from middle school was oddly swaying as if someone was moving it from side to side. The bright yellow wallpaper made my eyes burn even more. My eyes finally reached my mother who stood rigidly at the light switch I had felt for earlier. Her jet black hair looked greasy and stringy. Her high cheekbones made her face look gaunt. The darkness of the shadows on her face contrasted with her pale skin, giving her an almost ethereal glow. She looked like a ghost. I shook my head. I was letting my frightened state get the best of me. “What did you break, mommy,” I sighed. I was completely exhausted.
“Who sent those flowers? Why would someone send us flowers?” She pointed to the floor without answering my question. I followed her finger down. Glass and flowers covered the tile. We owned a flower shop, so I could understand why she was confused. But she was overreacting a bit.
“I don’t know. They were delivered yesterday.” I looked up at her. She scrunched her eyebrows together.
“And the person who delivered them…didn’t say who they were from?”
I shook my head. “All he said was, ‘Be careful, the vase is fragile.’” I glanced back down to the mess. That’s strangely ironic.
“Did they come with a card,” she pressed.
“No, Mom.”
Her voice was cracking and starting to rise. “Do you know what those are?”
“Anemone,” I supplied, thoroughly confused as to where this was going. Of course I knew what flowers they were. We worked with flowers. That’s what I did with my spare time.
“ANEMONE FLOWERS, KORE,” she cried out.
“Mommy, it’s okay. Come on.” I reached my arms to her.
She batted them away. After taking a deep breath, she looked directly into my eyes and gave me the saddest look I had ever seen. “They were made from Adonis’s blood, dear. Aphrodite had fought with Persephone for so long over Adonis and he was gone.” Her eyes grew dark. “All she could focus on was her pain. She didn’t even care about Persephone not getting to see him in his last moments. She started to cry and grieve and make a big show, but, in the end, there was nothing she could do for him.”
I stared at her, waiting for her to make a point.
“You just don’t understand, Kore. I don’t know how to make you UNDERSTAND.” She had started screaming. Her head jerked up and her eyes widened.
“Mom?”
“I’m so sorry, dear.” She quickly glanced me, but she immediately turned her gaze back to me. She was hiding something. My brows furrowed and I started to turn around when someone hit me in the back of the head and I fell over.

Subject: Re: Kora and the Anemone's Sat Mar 23, 2013 10:03 pm

Author's Note: The title is supposed to be "Daffodils and Anemones" and her name is Kore* anyways. Typos. Razz