Waltzing to Aretha Franklin

[TW: HOUSE FIRE]

Pietra despises the color gray.

It’s.... it's like, the most boring color to ever... to ever even exist. Did it even count as a color? It shouldn’t. It’s so dull. So lame.

All she can manage at the moment is to stare up at the gray ceiling in utter disgust. Her brain is... it's fuzzy, really.

Cotton balls have been shoved down her ears and in her mouth... An incredibly... an irritating ringing is piercing her skull like a... like something that cuts meat.... cuts meat, cuts bone...

In any case, it's causing a throbbing migraine to worsen with every passing second. A sudden, sharp pain digs into her lower back, and she’s somehow sweating and freezing cold at the same time. It's... I.... she's... huh.

Pietra barely processes the sound of glass shattering. Her eyes stay locked on the ceiling. She blinks; the world only gets blurrier.

She’s laying on her back — her fingers twitch against something rough and scratchy — and though logically she knows she’s still, she can’t help but feel like she’s swaying in a hammock. She's weightless; like she’s on a swing set and stuck perpetually in that split second between flying and falling.

Pietra squeezes her eyes shut. Something warm runs down her face.

Is she crying? Her eyes are burning something awful, but she doesn't think she’s crying.

She’s tough. Her abba always says so.

Tough girls don’t cry.

The tween takes a deep breath. Well, tries too. The air almost immediately gets stuck, unreachable, her mouth and nose smothered as if by a pillow. Pietra’s throat shoots up in flames. Her lungs. Her mouth. All of it is on fire. She moves her head to the side, causing a fresh spike of pain to shoot through her skull.

She coughs. She spits.

Something metallic dribbles out of her mouth.

Gross.

“…Hey! What you want?...” 

Somewhere far, far away, Aretha Franklin is singing.

Pietra is certain her eyelids have been superglued together, but she’s slowly able to pry them back open, fully expecting to be at an Aretha Franklin concert.

Instead, she is met by the bane of her very existence.

Gray. Gray.

Oh, and would you look at that? More gray.

How surprising.

Huh.... there's a lot of black up there, too. The various shades of gray and black are swirling together, dancing and swinging each other gracefully through the air. Would you look at that?

The sky is waltzing.

“…Do you know I got it?...”

The girl ruefully wishes she could dance.

It’s a strange, fleeting thought, considering she has hated the activity her whole life. Cross country’s more her style. She always had resented anything implied to be “girly” or feminine her entire life; but now she’s filled with visions of gorgeous dancers’ swaying, their dresses twirling and spinning, flowing like water, and she finds her harboring resentment incredibly stupid.

Pietra tries lifting her fingers up to join the waltz, but her arm is lead. Unresponsive. Dead weight. Something sharp stabs through her shoulder. She winces, causing the throbbing in her head to twist like a knife.

Her mind is made of feathers. Thoughts keep fluttering away before she can grab them. She’s too slow.

Always too slow.

“… just a little bit… just a little bit...”

Pietra blinks sluggishly, struggling to keep her burning eyes open. Fire ants are crawling all over her skin, digging into her flesh. With great difficulty and effort, the girl pulls her heavy hand off the prickly carpet and rubs her face clumsily, trying to get rid of the infuriating bugs.

Her hand splatters against something sticky. Numb fingers smear it over her face.

Prying her tired eyes open again, she stares at her scarlet hand.

Somehow, deep down, the tween knows the red should worry her, but she only feels relief.

Finally. Pietra thinks. A bit of color. All the other dancers are probably going to be jealous of the red.

“...I ain't gonna do you wrong while you're gone…”

“Respect” is such an odd song to play during a waltz, but somehow it works.

Pietra smiles and wistfully wishes her little sister could see the dancing sky. She’d love it…

Wait.

The girl freezes, her smile slipping away and her heart leaping. Where was her baby sister? Where was Emily?!

Fuck.

Pietra groans — it comes out as a wheezing cough. There was.... she had been paid to watch the kid, right? Yeah.... Abba was.... his work.... he'd been....

Theres dust in her mind and dust floating around her head.

Emily is going to get off the bus any minute. What.... time is it?  Frantic fragments of memories flash by her eyes. She can’t remember the time. All she knows is she forgot all about her sister.

She can’t believe she forgot.

Her abba is going to kill her.

Pietra clenches her fists. All she wants to do is fall asleep right here in this stuffy living room with the dancing wisps of gray and not wake up until noon tomorrow. Moving seems impossible, but... well... sister.

She readies herself for a moment, before shoving herself onto her elbows as fast as she can, ignoring the excruciating pulling in her abdomen and the way her arms scream at her.

` Or maybe it was herself who screamed.

It’s hard to tell.

“…All I'm askin'…”

Gravity pulls her head down, her chin getting stuck on her chest. The ground sways below her. Her cherished Walkman is sitting a few feet to her left, dented and covered in ash. The grey and black is everywhere. It’s blocking her lungs; suffocating her. Something so beautiful immediately becomes terrifying. The waltz turns violent.

The stairs and kitchen are glowing orange. Splashes of red drip up and down the black wall, laughing in the face of the gravity that’s trying to shove her back down.

Cobwebs of cracks travel up a shattered window. Her eyes barely adjust enough to see the burned papers dancing around her head, getting lost in the music. The fire waltzes with the smoke, leaping from wall to wall.

“…Is for a little respect when you come home…”

Suddenly the world twists and lurches to the side. The floor rushes up to meet her. Pietra’s head smacks against the ground, her throbbing headache barely aching anymore. Something shatters and sharp raindrops pour from the sky, grazing her cheeks. A new, siren-like ringing joins the noisy symphony, along with distant, muffled shouting.

“...when you get home, now (just a little bit)...”

She understood now.

Fire.

“…R-E-S-P-E-C-T…”

Her house was burning.

“…Find out what it means to me…”

Her eyes drift shut as the urge to sleep becomes too much. The house is on fire, and she forgot to grab her sister off the school bus.

“…R-E-S-P-E-C-T…”

She was going to be in so much trouble when her abba got home.