This story began as a writing prompt from Sara Crawford’s The 30 Day Writing Challenge. Leaving my plot to chance, I was to write down random characters, locations, and conflicts and put them in three separate bowls and draw my fate. My choices from the lists provided were: A cat with insomnia, Texas, Someone has to give up an addiction.

The thing is, I found I related to Glory more than I expected, so I pulled the shell of a story from my blog and attempted to make something of it.

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Glory

by A.D. Sams

There was an infernal clacking in her ear. It started off as an annoyance then grew to an intensity that ripped through her head. The room was moving again. The pain, there again. She had just been floating, hadn’t she? She remembered the needle and the sting and the fire and…

No, the bone man came and drew her back to the ground. He spilled the ravens from his chest, their feathers like knives. They flew over her skin and took the red ribbons; the purple stems ripped from her arms and clanged against the ground. She ached a moment of truth before the bone man shattered her body across the floor.

Awake at 4a.m. again.

It’s not as if sleep was a hard thing to do, but the loud noise she heard startled her past salvaging rest. Who was she kidding? She had as much insomnia as the damn cat. Another boom echoed across the wooden floor followed by the sound of a soft thud and a heavy plastic vase rolling back and forth. Dennis, the cat, took offense to just about anything on any surface. Not that she had much money for decorations, but she liked that vase.

Glory swung her thin legs off the edge of the bed. She could see the bruises were healing. The pale, green splotches reminded her of things she’d rather forget. She was sweaty and her hair was stuck to her neck. The house was freezing. No, it was the middle of summer.

Her toes were tender and she could feel every groove in the floor where she slowly she set the pressure of her body weight onto her feet. Her body ached. Every bend, every curve, everything hurt. She was a cavity and her bones were the only thing keeping her together.

The rolling vase finally stopped, but she could hear Dennis pouncing on to something else. She walked slowly into the living room to see a bare mantle and a scatter of magazines, a cup, and that extremely loud vase on the floor. Dennis shoved her purse off the table while he stared at her.

“You’re lucky you’re cute, Mr. Menace.”

He was a pain in her ass, but he was the only thing in her life that never let her down.  After she moved back to her little house, Dennis stopped sleeping. She blamed the country air. It seemed to set everything on end in this little piece of Texas. Maybe she’d grown too used to the ever-present noise of the city to distract her from the noise in her own head. She felt more bare here, raw and electric. This must be what life feels like when you take the blanket off.

She took her fifth trip the bathroom for the night. It was listed as a symptom. Anything that didn’t come out the top, came out the bottom. She felt jagged inside. Her legs were stinging as if her veins had been replaced with needles. That’s all she was, needles and bones. At least she was building up from where she started.

A voice too loud for her head came from the front porch.

“Glory, Glory! Woo hoo, my Gloraaayyy! Let me in, baby,” the voice drawled.

She didn’t need this right now. Not ever again.

She forced herself to leave the bathroom. Dennis hissed. Glory shoved the panic down as she opened the door, leaving the torn screen door shut.

“Well, don’t you look pretty?” Lie.

“What do you want, Merle? It’s 5 in the damn morning.”

“I was just in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by for a visit.” Lie.

“I live 40 miles from everything for a reason. What do you really want?”

He opened the screen door. She didn’t have the reflexes or strength to try and stop him, so she did what she could and kept her distance. He sneered at her as he walked into the kitchen and sat down.

“You could offer me a drink. Ain’t no reason to forget your manners.” He was digging in his pockets. An unlit cigarette hung from his lips. She watched it bounce when he talked and wondered if he even realized it was there. She grabbed a cup, filled it with water then slammed it down on the table hard enough to spill half of it everywhere.

“Damnit, woman! I thought you’d be happy to see me!”

“Aint’ the first time you’ve been wrong.”

“Heard you were tryin’ to kick. You and I both know that ain’t gonna happen.”

“You don’t know anything about me. Not anymore.”

“Well, we’ll see how you’re doin’ when I come back then,” Merle tossed a little bag onto the table and got up.

He walked over to Glory. He was too close and he stank. A smell like that could only come after one of his famous two week episodes. Glory’s stomach curdled. She could barely make out the features of the man who once seemed like a god to her and wondered how many times he’d shit himself in the past few days.

His hair was greasy and his eyes glassy. He tried to kiss her, but she turned her head.

She almost threw up. He laughed at her as he walked out the door.

“See you later, baby.”

She knew that part wasn’t a lie.

She sank into the kitchen chair and stared at the bag for a long time. Time pounded away in her head, but still she sat and still she stared at this little piece of snow. Glory was a stubborn woman and when her mind was made up there was no freight train big enough to push it. She moved her toes across the groves in the floor again. It still hurt, but she chose to feel it.

Taking the bag full of everything her body screamed it wanted, Glory walked to the bathroom. She tried to hold her stomach in as she dumped the heroin into the water. She shook, but the tremors weren’t as bad as they were the day before. She flushed.

Dennis wrapped himself through her legs, the sensation almost too much.

“Let’s go to bed,” she said as she resisted the urge to scoop up her cat. The feeling of his fur and claws would overwhelm her, another facet of withdrawal. She watched him walk to the bedroom, feeling better just because he was there.

The cat jumped onto the bed and curled himself into a ball, waiting for Glory to join him before he drifted to sleep.