Anticlimactic

Forty seven minutes had passed since she turned into Seventh Avenue. Still, the Ameonna stood in front of the locked gates, gazing almost desirously behind the rusty iron bars.

Except for the few dark strands that danced to the cold breeze, the Ameonna was as still and silent as the night itself. The December rain fell about her, light, and glued her white sundress to her unmoving body.

Erika fell into the shadow of the sunshade, wriggling her toes when they started to get numb. She observed the woman from a few meters away, hidden from sight and shielded from the rain by the broker shop’s overhang.

Although the woman was spoiling her plans, Erika couldn't help but admire her fairy-like form. Her long raven hair slid down her back in wet waves, contrasting against her pale, ashen skin. Light blue eyes were unfocused and lifeless, as if they had lost the will to just see anymore. She was thin, too thin that it would be a surprise that her legs still held her. The Ameonna’s lips were curled in a sad smile that seemed to be permanent.

Any other day, any other second, Erika would have stamped this woman as absolutely bonkers; clinging obsessively to her past, so much so that she let it take over her health. She wouldn't have given her another glance because she was no big mystery. She was just the same as the others around her: predictable, banal, human.

But today was different. Today the woman intrigued her.

She had seen this woman only twice before, during the rare yet routine moments when she opened the main door of her shabby one-storey house. The Ameonna always stepped out to greet the world on every fifth of December, for the past eight years, her feet taking her on a ten mile journey across the town to the gates of the graveyard on the other side of the town.

She never took her car, or the bus; she never not walked. And she never got in once.

She just stood in front of the gates, simply staring inside at the grey headstones, at the dead cemetery, which was usually closed by the time her slow gait came to a stop.

The town people stopped gossiping about her odd ritual after the first three Decembers. They eventually got tired of her grief and the strange things it made her do. People no longer took a sudden jog by her house on the fifth, or point in wonder and worry when she came out once in a year, sicker than the previous time. The Ameonna had become a bore.  

Erika was, or rather- had been, the same. She had never actually cared much about the woman in the first place. The first time she had seen this woman, by chance, Erika had instantly nicknamed her the Ameonna, the Japanese spirit, due to her ghostly appearance. Erika had regarded her enough to give her a nickname, but never more to learn her real one.

So why was today any different?

Erika let out a quiet sigh into the night when she realized that this December wasn't going to be any different. The Ameonna was going to stare for fifty minutes, maximum, and then walk back to her house by midnight.

Just as Erika had predicted, the woman stirred after five minutes, as if awaking from a trance.

But instead of walking past the broker shop in her usual light walk, the Ameonna stopped right after five steps and stood staring at an alarmed Erika.

To say Erika was scared would be an understatement. She was petrified.

Why did the Ameonna stop? Why did she stray off her course? Did she figure out what Erika was up to?

Fear and confusion pulsed along her veins, sending her heart into overdrive. But it was completely irrational; there was no reason for Erika to fear the sickly woman nor there could be any way that the woman knew about Erika’s plans of grave-robbing. Just no way.

Erika had never confided in anyone about her secret hobby. She was never one to talk more than necessary; her words were clipped and her answers precise, giving away only a few aspects of her. Nobody knew about her deeper than what she had let off on the surface.

The Ameonna took a step forward, then another, her head gradually tilting and her brows sharply furrowing in what seemed like sympathy.

Erika didn't move, she couldn't. She watched with bated breath as the woman finally came to a stop a few inches before her.

A drop of sweat trickled down the side of her face, instantly chilled by the December cold. It sent a slight shiver down her spine, and set off goose bumps along her arms like falling dominoes.

“Oh honey,” The Ameonna started, a soft sigh of disapproval lacing her words. “You’re standing on poo.”

I just found out that 'Anticlimatic' is actually spelled 'Anticlimactic'. Weird, isn't it? So anyway, one thought led to another thought and there you have it: a quick story by me. 

Yes, I do write. Sometimes. When I discover things like Ameonna and that I pronounced and spelled a word wrong my whole life, I write. It's a really strange motivation. 

- Alex.