Ever Day

First came misery. Misery was followed by discomfort. Discomfort preceded resentment and misery, discomfort, and resentment led to terrifying rage.

What will you do?

Lree had dreamt this dream before. It was the only dream she had ever dreamt. Scenes changed and actors varied but the feeling was familiar and the question was always the same.

What will you do?

What did that even mean? What would she do? What could she do? And about what? The dream had begun to fade and the more she tried to remember it the less she actually could. Soon she was left with little more than a general sense of unease which only made her feel that much more miserable. She couldn’t even remember why she had originally felt miserable—perhaps she was feeling miserable now only because she thought she had been miserable before.

Eventually she’d awaken from this disconcerting cycle of self-doubt feeling not only miserable but uncomfortable, resentful, and quite, quite angry. This time, though, it was different. She awoke shrieking.

Lree sat straight up and almost immediately slumped forward, catching half of her face in the palm of her hand. The fight had not gone well and it achieved nothing save for a swollen cheek, split lip, and a bit of crude otoplasty. Generally speaking, the entirety of her face ached and, upon looking at her hand, oozed. She wiped much of the alarmingly colored discharge on the rock she called a bed and in doing so spotted her needlessly aggressive wakeup call. A small, sharp, and evidently malicious blade of grass had managed to navigate a system of minute cracks in the giant stone that acted as her pillow. Snatching it from its tiny exit she glared at the bastard weed in contempt. Though her sight was still a little blurry and the lighting was less than ideal she noticed a bit of red liquid dripping down its tip.

What will you do?

Dropping the malignant sprout Lree stumbled to her feet and staggered out of her room into the sweet-smelling night air. The sky was filled with the sound of bristling leaves and the sight of twinkling lights and she hated all of it. She would tear the heart from this wretched darkness and watch it whither in the shining. If she could.

She set her misery aside and did her best to pass off her aches and pains as nothing more than inconveniences. With a heavy sigh she shuffled over to a particularly flat rock just outside the entrance to her room. Unlike other rocks that typically feature a bit of moss or additional rocks on top of them this one carried a change of clothes and several rolls of leather bandages. She hated that.

She tended her wounds first, resulting in the bulk of her small, deeply dark ochre frame being wrapped in thick bandages. She then turned her attention to the clothes, converting what had only moments ago been a rather festive party dress into a significantly less festive pile of ribbons. Lree continued to wrap herself in the remains of the dress until she felt only just uncomfortable. She hated that, too.

For brevity’s sake, let’s just assume she hates everything.

A vast field brimming with wild grass lay before the great bramble walls that surrounded the inner complex. This made it difficult, if not impossible, for Lree to go anywhere outside of a stone path that had been laid between her rocky home and a rough trestle that created an exceedingly small hole in the thorny wall. Beyond the wall she could clearly hear activity—a horrible chorus of laughter, music, and frivolity that caused her to shiver. It had to be coming from the courtyard far beyond the massive hedges that bound her to this dreadful place. Or that were supposed to bind her, that is.

It had taken her a long time and was excruciating work but it was now complete. Again. A narrow path had been carefully cut from behind her home to another hole in the hedge wall: a secret hole. She used this route to escape the confines of her cold, little cave and explore both her benighted prison and the shining beyond.

Unfortunately, her surreptitious excursions never lasted too long because the field that surrounded her home grew quickly. Lingering gave the passageway time to repair itself. Once the grass was high enough she would be trapped outside the wall. Horrible as it was, her cave was safe. Safer, really.

What will you do?

Lree ran her hand through her hair, an activity that proved to be quite the challenging obstacle course for her four frail fingers. She was sick of this place. Sick of the night—the oppressive and never-ending night. Mostly, she was sick of herself. Each and every resentment left a stinging scar on her psyche. It was her feelings of hope, however, that left the deepest, most painful scars.

It was by no coincidence one such scar that would inspire Lree to come to a particular decision, the quality of which would have to be determined at a later time. It is safe to say, however, that it wasn’t a well thought out decision. Of course, this had never stopped her before.

Somewhere not terribly far from Lree’s little stone house was a much larger, more important house almost bereft of stones. Within this house, which really was more of a grand lodge, up many flights of stairs and past countless rooms, we find ourselves in a gallery of sorts. Abstract sculptures stand like sentries before the portrait-laden walls. Said portraits are just as abstract as the sculptures, depicting scenes, landscapes, and possibly people in the most unusual fashions using mediums that may or may not be actual paint. At present, the most conspicuous object in the gallery is an enormous coat rack rocking back and forth anxiously.

“She’s not there,” said the soft-spoken coat rack. “She’s not anywhere.”

A chair at the head of the gallery cackled. “Where or where has our little flower gone, I wonder.”

“I don’t think she’s here. Inside, I mean. She probably escaped through the, uh...maybe...”

“Don’t strain yourself, dear—It was a rhetorical question. It doesn’t matter. She’ll be back. Our little flower is bound to me, after all.”

The coat rack wasn’t so sure. Not this time, not after the incident—but the chair didn’t need to know about that. “Yes, mam,” it said weakly. “Maybe I should check things out anyway. I can go find her, bring her back, and...”

“You will do no such thing,” said the chair with sudden authority. The coat rack stiffened—not an altogether unusual thing for a coat rack to do—and would have apologized had it not been interrupted. “Leave. Go about your duties. I will deal with our little flower myself when she returns.”

The coat rack gave an awkward curtsy and floated out of the room, closing the massive door behind it. Moments later, the massive door opened again.

“You sent for me?” a new voice said. It was much different from that of the coat rack’s. It was prim, proper, and quite deliberately seductive.

“You are aware of the situation,” said the chair as more of a matter of fact than a general inquiry.

“I am.”

“Fine,” said the chair and with that the door closed once more. The chair was alone with its weird sculptures and weirder paintings. “Little flower,” it sighed, “you disappoint me.”