Contest Entries - Suddenly aware - Red Thread - Realisation

Suddenly aware - Red Thread - Realisation

Jan 7, 2023

238

2 Mins Read

This is based on my poem 'Red Thread'. It takes place after the poem does - the main character is the speaker.

You can find the poem in my poem book 'poems' issue #12 'Red Thread'.

I think the OG poem actually came from a prompt Marcus Twainius The Second gave me?

This is a bit long? Or short? I don't know, it was fun to write though!

Who will die next?

Who

will

die

next?

I can't hold onto a single thought for longer than a moment.

I shake

involuntarily

as I rock

voluntarily

in the corner of my office.

I haven't left for days,

I can't face them - the surviving.

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Who will be the next

to knock on my door and look at me

expectantly

as if I know what's going on?

as if I were the only policeman for miles,

which, of course,

I am - aren't I?

Red thread is clutched in my sweaty hand,

pooled on the floor,

stretched like lasers across the room.

What has happened to my town, my home -

it cannot be natural.

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It just can't.

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Ten deaths in a week?

Twenty in three?

Ten

Twenty

Eight

Red

Dead

Dead.

No footprints I can photograph

and pin to my corkboard.

No suspects I can interview

No DNA on the scene, no scene, no nothing.

Like a stupid detective novel

with no conclusion.

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Like a stupid detective novel.

Like a stupid

detective novel.

Like a

stupid

book.

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In a book

everyone dies,

and the cause?

and the murderer?

and the reason for it all?

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The writer.

The author.

The killer.

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I rake my hands through my unwashed hair.

Where did I come from?

What's outside my town?

Do I have parents?

Did I exist

before I arrived here?

Do I exist

at all?

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I stand

for the first time in hours.

I pull

all my doomed 'evidence' off my walls,

I write

three words on lined paper before

I rip

out the words I wrote and

I pin

them to the corkboard.

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I stand.

I pull.

I write.

I rip.

I pin.

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One word

HERE

another

FICTION

another

ME.

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I cut some red thread

from the messy pile upon the floor.

I connect

HERE

FICTION

HERE

again.

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I think, perhaps, I've solved the case

at last.

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