Harmony Clare, August 2005
The wine was a deep purple as it sloshed all around and inside the bottle which was shoplifted from a liquor store nearby, the rooftop was slightly uncomfortable but it was better than getting her ear yelled off by her mother who was raging. It’s literally only some drugs, and they aren’t even that bad. One-time things never hurt anyone. Harmony thought to herself as she downed the rest of the wine, leaving only purple drops left in the bottle. Done, already? Again? She frowned and threw the wine bottle which smashed against a nearby roof, she shook her head, rolling it around because it felt stiff and reached into the pocket of her hoodie, one hand coming up with a lighter and the other with a cigarette.
She held a hand over the cigarette to keep it from blowing out as she lit it and took a deep drag from it. She leaned back on her forearm as she inhaled from the cigarette and blew out into the sky, laughing as she felt the high hit her, losing control of all of her senses. Took away from the stress of her opium addiction confirmed, failing grades, and all the b-tches in her school. “This is for you dad.” Harmony laughed hysterically as she lifted her middle finger to the sky. “Now I know where I get my drinking and drug issues from. Like father like daughter, no wonder mom hates me as much as she hates you.” Harmony threw her head back and laughed deeply as drops of water begin to fall down on the roll. plip, plop, platter. A sequence of falling raindrops that soaked her natural brown locks she ran a hand through her curls as she looked up at the sky. “Oh f-ck, seriously?” The cigarette in her hand went out as she placed the lighter in the hoodie and sat up as the rain soaked her through. Despite how bad it was, she wouldn’t go inside, she didn’t need her mother’s knowing face. Must be a bad rain storm, but Harmony wouldn’t know, they hadn’t paid their wifi bills in a while, or cable so no connection to any weather networks, not to mention she’d been suspended from school. Any messages of the school would’ve been deleted as Harmony cleverly blocked the phone number.
Harmony rocked back and forth on the roof, the rain pouring, mixing with her ears althogh she didn’t know why she was crying. It was a mix of emotions that one couldn’t explain, despair, sadness, depression, hopeless, missing. She faintly recalled Kai from her school, attempting to get her to stop acting out and her laughing. Ha! That’s rich, you don’t give a d-mn, you just need a f-cking charity case.
Harmony looked down and frowned at the water levels rising, she began to feel a small sense of panic, was it a flood? The water reached the window,Mom. Harmony moved to the roof, she couldn’t go in the way she entered, the water filled it out, she began to smash her fists into the brick roof of the house, yet no success her hands bloodied and pieces of brick and mortar in the wounds. Tears leaked from her eyes at the pain, she panicked and screamed, a pain grew in the center of her back and she felt the feeling of something growing around her. She reached to her back and felt the thick feel of a vine and she looked around her to see rain vines sprouting from the flooded grown. They begna to poud into the roof furiously, fracturing before completely destroying. Harmony’s surprise was immense but she couldn’t pause, her ADHD kicking in as she dropped in from the roof into the attic. A wave of her hand and the vins spreaded from her back and latched onto the door, yanking it off it’s hinges,
Harmony ran throughout the houses, tearing room doors apart and searching them, screaming, “Mom? Mom? MOM?! We have to go! Where are you?!” Blood began to trickle from where the vines had emerged but Harmony couldn’t pause to look at it. She ran down the stairs to the first floor, it was flooded with water. “MOM!” Harmony looked around the first floor, she kicked off her gym shoes and dove into the water, holding her breath as her heart beated furiously and began to kick her legs, swimming around. Her eyes began to burn as she entered the kitched, Where could she be? Harmony’s feet touched the floor and then stepped on something soft, like skin. She looked down to see her mother, blue and her eye’s lifeless with her hand on the basement door which was under the kitchen rug. Harmony screamed underwater, which resulted in her swallowing water, Harmony began to flail before catching herself and regaining focus. She couldn’t find the difference from the water around her and the one that came from her eyes. Her vines latched onto her mother’s body, dragging it up.
Harmony got tired as she dragged her mother’s body up the stairs and to what was left of the destroyed roof, standing up on the roof. She looked around and cupped her hands around her mouth and screamed, “Anyone there?” No response except for the fierce winds and the pounding rain striking each centimeter of exposed skin. She looked at her mother and began to give her CPR, but no response, Harmony placed her ear to her mom’s chest and couldn’t discern a beat. For the second time again she cried once more. The wind swallowed up her howls and curses to the gods above and most of all her father.
Hours passed but a small boat came, too full to take on a dead body. Harmony listened lifelessly as the driver apologized, Harmony reached for the lighter in her jacket and set her mother on the piece of wood and ignored the gasps as she sparked the lighter and set it on the wood, despite the pounding rain the fire soared to the sky and consumed the body. Well, you always wanted to be cremated as the Greek culture dictates. Sorry mother, goodbye. Harmony didn’t know where she was going or what but as she sat on the boat and it speeded past her old home, she wasn’t coming back her, and that truly scared her inside.