It's still a few days too early for New Years, but I got this idea really randomly, and I just couldn't let it fly away, so, early Happy New Years!
_______________________________________________________________
It was New Year's Eve, the snow delicately twirling around in the navy skies, saying hello to the gleaming stars and the laughing moon, before landing safely on the blanketed roof-top of a house. The house was giving off a soft, warm, faded yellow glow, and if one stayed quiet, you could hear raucous laughter and loud cheers from a party echoing inside the house.
It was this party that 23 year old Mark was at, skirting around the huge salad of drunk, sober, nearly drunk, and barely sober guests, beer freshly taking from the ice box in hand. He, of course, was completely sober, considering he had only had one beer so far, and had a high alcohol tolerance level, and it was precisely this sober-ness that prompted him to maneuver through the massive throng of crazy, frolicking, hyper college students, college graduates, and just over all excited people, all to reach a familiar, extremely familiar, aloof face on the other side of the sea of jumping people. Somewhere behind him, a high pitched shriek sounded along with angry yelling as a girl beat her boyfriend in some sort of Wii game.
Wincing as a clearly drunk classmate shouted something in his face and gave him a sloppy, badly aimed one arm hug, he dodged the few final people to reach his destination.
Raising an eyebrow along with the hand holding his beer in a queer greeting, he yelled over the blaring music (Did they really just change the song from his favorite to something by-who was it, ah right-Carly something, Jedi? He didn't care. He didn't like it) at the glaring girl, "Hey loner, long time no see!"
An annoyed frown flashed across the dark haired (Actually, not just dark haired, dark everything, from clothes to shoes) girl before she settled for sneering out, "For good reason too, loser."
Strangely enough, Mark just chuckled before leaning against the wall next to her and staring out at the crowd. (The number of sober people was significantly less than before he crossed the room. Had it really taken that long? Or were they just really good at getting drunk fast? Why did he even know half of these people...)
Taking a chug of his beer, he offhandedly commented, "God, , I missed your terrible sense of humor."
"And, god, Mark, I always hated you as a person over all," she slyly teased back, hiding a nostalgic, minuscule, just barely there smile behind her slender glass of red wine.
Barking out a short laugh after a roll of his eyes, he asked, "So how's Simone been?"
"Still an aggravating idiot," she muttered, blushing as she took yet another sip of her wine.
"Oh please, after what, 8 years, and you still put up that act? You're a hoot, Avery."
Avery began to blush more fiercely as she stammered out indignantly, "It's not an act! And no one says 'hoot' anymore! A-anyways, how's Nickie been? I haven't talked to her in months."
He laughed out, longer, and more heartily this time (Oh how this reminded him of the old days), before saying, "Flitting about, worried, of course. Although, all her new dress orders really should be a good thing."
"She always was strange," she snorted.
"Oh? And what about you? What sort of high class wine is that, you snob?" he snickered, taking another gulp of cold beer.
Frowning, she twirled the wine around in the glass a bit before answering, "Merlot. I don't particularly like it, but," sighing, she continued, "I guess it's better than that beer. Makes people act like cavemen."
"Hey! Beer does not make people act like cavemen!" he shouted indignantly. Unfortunately, his point was pathetically cut off as, near the middle of the room, another familiar, too familiar, face leapt, no, grand jeté'd, into the air, shouting some drunken slur, and broke out into a terrible, ear shattering rendition of some ungodly song (no one could tell, to be honest, it was that off-tune).
"Whoohoo...! I-I can f-fly you guys! Look at me soar! I believe I can flyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!! La-la-ahhh-hahah! Butterflies!"
Mark's hand flew to his forehead without further instructions from his paralyzed in horror brain. Avery began laughing, even crying tears, leaning against the wall with her arms, as she shouted out in glee, "No, not cavemen. Like Brad!"
"Brad always was a stupid idiot," he groaned, face lightly pink from his humiliating old friend.
By now, Avery had stopped choking on her laughter, and had instead settled for another sip of her wine and a triumphant smirk.
The clock clicked as another minute passed. It was only a few minutes from the next year.
Glancing at the clock, Avery sobered instantly, retaining her cold expression. Following her gaze, Mark sighed in melancholy.
"So, yet another year flew by, hm. I wonder where our lives went," he hummed sadly, taking a small, tasteless drink of his no longer cold beer.
She gazed into her wine intensely, as though the swirling, sloshing color would tell her all the forgotten jokes, hazy summer days, and joyful laughter that made your stomach hurt.
She sighed as well, and whispered, "Don't we all want to know. Some days I look into the mirror and wonder if I'm doing the right things in this world."
Suddenly, as though her words had hit a trigger in him, Mark pushed off from the wall and swung around to face her, the condensation from his beer glass flying away into the crowd.
"Don't say that! It's the New Years! It's time to look forward to a new page! You're doing the best you can, we all are. And we can be tomorrow's heroes, I'm sure!" he exclaimed, arms flailing in exaggeration.
Avery frowned.
"You're drunk, Mark."
"No I'm not, and you and I both know that. It's true! We, we can be like the Avengers, or, or the Teen Titans! We can save the planet together, save the people! We can make a difference, Avery, as much as you don't want to believe it. You just need some confidence."
The crowd had all settled down behind them, and began to count down, staring fixedly at the small television screen.
10
"Mark, you're crazy. What can we do? The world's too big for just us to change it. We're not living in a fairy tale, idiot. This is reality. Grow up already," she snapped heatedly. Her glare had no power though. Instead, it was tired, so so tired of the world, already defeated by too many, too too many fights.
He smiled softly at her, "Maybe that's the problem, Avery. We all grew up too fast. We've all stopped believing. But, Avery, maybe we really can, and we've just given up too early."
9
8
7
She stopped glaring at him, and looked out at the jumble of limbs crouching around the couch in the living room in contemplation.
"I guess. Who knows."
"No one. That's what makes it an adventure."
She smiled and wondered under her breath, "An adventure? Like...like when we were kids?"
"Like we're kids again, except this time, it won't have to end once the sun sets past the purple hills," he murmured, grinning down at her."
6
5
4
3
"Come on," he said, tilting her remaining beer towards her. Seeing her blank stared at the green glass bottle, he laughed and said, "A toast silly."
She grinned, (for real this time, so happily, so joyfully, like she had when they stilled swung from the metal bars of the playground across the street), and laughed out, "A toast!"
2
"To us! And to changing the world!" he cheered happily over the noise of the rest of the party.
She grinned to the point her face could stretch no more, and exclaimed, "No, not to changing the world! This, this is a toast to beating it!"
He blinked, confused, before slowly grinning along with her, and shouted, "To us, and to beating the world!"
"Cheers!"
1
"Happy New Years!"
And was it a happy night indeed.
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Somewhere, Nowhere, Everywhere, Anywhere
They were two of a kind. She, she was a caged animal, frozen in the same glass box for all her life, wishing, wanting, clawing for a way out, pulling at her hair in frustration at the repetitiveness of everything, at the cruelness of life for making her suffer through the same things over and over again, at her lack of ability, of freedom, to find who she was, and not who others wanted her to be. He was a lost soul, fluttering from city to town to village to countryside, then to yet another city. He was so so lonely, always the outsider, who didn't know the jokes, who didn't know the rules, the manners, the ways of living. He was always shrouded in a mist of not knowing, of clueless-ness, and of the utter desperation of not belonging.
They met on a subway to nowhere. She had been sitting in the very last seat in the furthest corner of the train, staring out into the grey skies and dead grass. He had just gotten on, and had flipped his hood up, slouching to avoid attention. The train had jerked, and both had been startled into looking up, and that was when their eyes met.
Now, looking back, they could both laugh at how cliche it sounded, that they met with just a snap of the fingers, too coincidental to have been by chance, but all the same too well planned to have been on purpose. Of course, they had broken the supposed what seemed romantic cliche, considering they were now more like siblings, but nonetheless, it was laughable.
After that jerk, that clicking moment where their gazes met, he had awkwardly shuffled to sit next to her. They said nothing, just stared out opposite windows together, his gaze on the grey skies, hers on the dead grass.
They stayed there until the subway had gotten to the very last stop, a small town in the middle of nowhere, and had to get off before they were kicked off.
Once off, they parted ways, only to meet again in a small cafe in the town in the middle of nowhere, and once more, they stared out the window together.
No words were needed for them to keep meeting in that small cafe in the town in the middle of nowhere, and eventually become friends.
_____
They always had the strangest conversations. The kind with long periods of silence that to any stranger would seem awkward, but to them was perfect. She would daydream about the wonders of the outside world, and he would tell her of the glowing cities he felt so lonely in. He would sigh about not fitting in, and she would laugh and tell him of why he should hate fitting in, and how it felt to be trapped.
Once, it had just finished raining that morning, in that town, in the middle of nowhere, when she had opened her mouth after swallowing a gulp of dull tasting hot chocolate, and said, "Let's go exploring."
He continued sipping his coffee, before answering, "Where."
"Nowhere. Anywhere. Somewhere. Just somewhere where we can pretend to be anywhere but here, and nowhere else."
He drained the rest of his drink, and pushed his chair back.
"Then come on. Let's go explore nowhere."
____
They ran down stone cobbled streets that had soft green grass peeking from between loosen stones, and between wooden houses painted cheerful colors, sad colors, and old, faded colors. They slid between alleys that were still shimmering from that morning's shower, and found shaky wooden doors that led to long forgotten rooms.
Together, she found a way out in the form of secret passageways and lost memories, and he found a way to belong, by the hand on his arm, dragging him to everywhere.
Together, they found the nowhere where they belonged.
Because here, nowhere was everywhere, anywhere was somewhere, and they could forget about all the pain and the suffering and the sad, sad, sadness, and the melancholy that chained their lives.
To them, nowhere, was home.
They met on a subway to nowhere. She had been sitting in the very last seat in the furthest corner of the train, staring out into the grey skies and dead grass. He had just gotten on, and had flipped his hood up, slouching to avoid attention. The train had jerked, and both had been startled into looking up, and that was when their eyes met.
Now, looking back, they could both laugh at how cliche it sounded, that they met with just a snap of the fingers, too coincidental to have been by chance, but all the same too well planned to have been on purpose. Of course, they had broken the supposed what seemed romantic cliche, considering they were now more like siblings, but nonetheless, it was laughable.
After that jerk, that clicking moment where their gazes met, he had awkwardly shuffled to sit next to her. They said nothing, just stared out opposite windows together, his gaze on the grey skies, hers on the dead grass.
They stayed there until the subway had gotten to the very last stop, a small town in the middle of nowhere, and had to get off before they were kicked off.
Once off, they parted ways, only to meet again in a small cafe in the town in the middle of nowhere, and once more, they stared out the window together.
No words were needed for them to keep meeting in that small cafe in the town in the middle of nowhere, and eventually become friends.
_____
They always had the strangest conversations. The kind with long periods of silence that to any stranger would seem awkward, but to them was perfect. She would daydream about the wonders of the outside world, and he would tell her of the glowing cities he felt so lonely in. He would sigh about not fitting in, and she would laugh and tell him of why he should hate fitting in, and how it felt to be trapped.
Once, it had just finished raining that morning, in that town, in the middle of nowhere, when she had opened her mouth after swallowing a gulp of dull tasting hot chocolate, and said, "Let's go exploring."
He continued sipping his coffee, before answering, "Where."
"Nowhere. Anywhere. Somewhere. Just somewhere where we can pretend to be anywhere but here, and nowhere else."
He drained the rest of his drink, and pushed his chair back.
"Then come on. Let's go explore nowhere."
____
They ran down stone cobbled streets that had soft green grass peeking from between loosen stones, and between wooden houses painted cheerful colors, sad colors, and old, faded colors. They slid between alleys that were still shimmering from that morning's shower, and found shaky wooden doors that led to long forgotten rooms.
Together, she found a way out in the form of secret passageways and lost memories, and he found a way to belong, by the hand on his arm, dragging him to everywhere.
Together, they found the nowhere where they belonged.
Because here, nowhere was everywhere, anywhere was somewhere, and they could forget about all the pain and the suffering and the sad, sad, sadness, and the melancholy that chained their lives.
To them, nowhere, was home.
Friday, November 28, 2014
Red Words, White Wall
It started when he stumbled into the newly opened bar on a late Friday night. One of his colleagues at the firm he worked at had gotten engaged, and to celebrate, he was dragged into this cacophony of shaking glasses, toxic drinks, seizure inducing neon lights, and intoxicated people who could dance about as well as his fifth grade math teacher could draw (the man was terrible). He had given a slur of pathetic excuses, but in the end, he still found himself faced with more people that should have fit inside this small building.
He had only lasted a total of five minutes, and one sip of a drink that look like the potions a witch in a cartoon would make (it tasted like poison too), before he had a pounding headache and had to slip outside. Gulping in the city air that, for once, didn't smell polluted to him, he rubbed his eyes and glanced around. The street was empty, with the nearby streetlight flickering eerily, as though it were from a horror movie. The only bodies around were either passed out from the drinks ( he shudders at the thought of the unsightly liquids) or murmuring to a pole while tripping in circles. Looking away from the embarrassingly drunk people, he saw a little bookstore just a few shops down the road. It was practically hidden from view, snugly squeezed between two huge glass jewelry stores that had more ads pasted on their windows than the number of people in the subways in New York. A faint yellow light came from it's plain windows, and inside, he could just barely make out some tall shelves. Deciding that it was better than going back inside the bar, he headed towards the store.
Moments later, he found himself in a completely different world. The smell of musky books overwhelmed him as a friendly old woman greeted him from behind the counter. It looked family run, with mismatched pillows and blankets piled up in the corners, and stacks of books strewn about. He slowly browsed the towering wooden shelves, eyes not looking for anything in particular. He was simply looking for the sake of having something to do. He had reached the back of the small shop when he tripped over a pair of dark blue, denim clad legs. Startled, he blinked at the legs moved, and a pair of ripped burgundy sneakers, laces frayed and dangling, filled his vision instead.
"Oh god! I'm so sorry! Are you alright?" a voice laced with worry asked.
He slowly nodded, confused and he was gently helped up and placed back down onto something soft. It was a mountain of pillows.
The pale face of a boy, just barely reaching adolescence, tilted ever so slightly to the right, was staring at him. He blinked again, and before he could process anything, his own voice filled the air with a loud question of, "Why is your hair grey?"
_____
And that was the start of a strange friendship, or companionship, as he preferred. The young boy, it turned out, was actually not so young. In fact, the silver haired man was only one year younger than him, at the tender age of 22, and well versed in the ways of society.
His name was Gavin, and he was an artist, who really, wasn't so much an actual artist rather than a lover of creating beauty. He was currently studying at the University just a few blocks down from that bar that started everything, and was playing around with, or, as the student preferred, "experimenting with" several forms of art, from painting to graphic designing. The number of whimsical ideas that the man could spout greatly contrasted the seriousness, strictness, and conventional-ism of himself. In only the first few weeks of their new friendship, he had heard that messy head of bleached hair tell him "Alex, dream more!" at least a thousand times.
Yes, that guy was an enigma, but, he mused, their contrasting personalities was probably what made them such close friends.
Gavin, he found, was painfully shy, at first. The night of their first introduction, Alex had done all the talking, and it wasn't until their fourth meeting that Gavin loosened up enough to start talking nonsense. He had bleached his hair at the age of fifteen, as a rebellion against his strict step-father, and he had kept the look. His hated tying his shoes because it meant he would have to bend down and stop walking (he was a very impatient person). His clothes consisted of skinny jeans, paint stained graphic tees, and faded cotton button ups.
He liked sweet drinks, and hated artichokes with a burning passion. He liked it when Alex wore casual clothes instead of his pristine suits and classy dress shirts and pants. He didn't like Alex's colleagues (he called them idiots, not to their faces of course). He liked kittens, but not puppies. He liked the color dark red.
Alex prided himself in how well he knew Gavin.
But one fact that he knew all too well bothered him.
In all five years he had known the man, Gavin had never let him anywhere close to his apartment, despite the number of times Gavin himself had slept over at Alex's own flat. And, the man never would, it seemed.
But that fact was bound to change eventually, he decided, and it did.
__
They had been out celebrating Alex's birthday, and, much to Alex's chagrin, Gavin insisted on buying him red wine (he hated alcohol, it made people do stupid things). The energetic young man had claimed he liked the color of the drink, and continued to force him to drink it. After an hour and thirty-two point four minutes (he counted how long it took him to cave in to Gavin's demands each time; this was a new record), he agreed to the wine, and to the picnic in the nearby park.
Unfortunately, Gavin was, apparently, a very light drinker, and after four glasses, Alex found himself dragging the guy down the street.
Fortunately, with the drunkenness came the loosened mouth, and opportunity to see the mysterious man's apartment finally arrived.
He found them both staggering down the old street, past the dreadful bar, and the old bookstore where they had met so long ago, into an elevator of a quint little complex full of friendly, inviting neighbors, and into Gavin's abode. He ceremoniously dumped the passed out man onto a dark red couch (the guy was heavy), and began exploring the unknown territory.
It seemed normal at first. Messy (as expected), but clean enough to sustain life (by Gavin's standards). Paint stained the tables and chairs in the kitchen, and pens and erasers and crumpled up sheets of paper were thrown about the living room. It wasn't until he reached the bedroom that he began to notice something strange.
There weren't any mirrors.
Frowning, he made his way into the bathroom, and found the entire mirror duct tapes over messily. A sharpie was left lying next to the sink, and it was a bright red color. Words of the same color was scratched all over the white walls. Words that scared him.
Ugly, stupid, idiot, useless. I hate you. You should hate me. I hate myself.
He traced each word with a trembling hand.
Was this the reason why he had been forbidden to step a foot into his home?
How long had this been going on? How long had his friend, his closest, dear friend, been suffering like this?
And why?
His throat began to clog up, and he promptly marched out of the bathroom and snapped the lights off.
__
The next morning, he interrogated his friend.
He may have had to tie Gavin to a chair to get the words out, but he was desperate.
He refused to let this go on.
I hate mirrors, because I hate having to look at myself.
The next day, they went to buy a gallon of dark red paint, and together, they covered the malicious words on the walls, stroke by stroke.
Those were things people have said to me. I've told them to myself too.
Alex now visited Gavin every night, as soon as he was out of work. The man had refused to go to therapy, saying he was fine, nothing was wrong.
He hadn't liked it, but he didn't want to force his friend into sitting in a cold metal chair for an hour each week either, so they found themselves sharing bowls of chocolate ice cream over old cartoons and Disney movies every Friday night, until Gavin had loosened up enough to talk to Alex.
Sometimes, they would fall asleep on the couch from staying up all night talking, confessing, and listening, and understanding. Other times, the night would end with Alex comforting his friend, as Gavin cried over decades worth of pain and self-loathing.
No one wants to be my friend. I don't want to make friends. I don't even know why you stay with me.
The next morning, they would do random things, enjoying the relaxation they both needed, one from his own biting, snarling, vicious thoughts, the other from the pure stress of work and supporting another person's mind.
I don't like the way I live, but I don't want to change either. I'm too, too...something.
That Christmas, the first thing Alex went to do was buy a large mirror for Gavin's bathroom, and the silver haired man watched, tears welled up in his eyes, as he sharpied a border, three inches thick, around the glass, made purely of words he could think of to describe, no, compliment, his friend.
Funny, creative, energetic, free.
Two days later, he found himself back in the old bookstore where they had first met, and found his friend had written down everything Alex had done for him, and the old woman from the store, along with Alex's colleagues (who were no longer idiots, apparently, and rather, "cool people who think you're a hero"), had helped Gavin contact several publishers.
The book was dedicated to him.
He might have face-planted onto the floor again, but this time from shock of seeing his name on the very first page of the book.
But it was fine, because he was happy, and Gavin was happy, and everything had worked out in the end.
(Until he was pulled into the crazy bar again to "celebrate".)
He had only lasted a total of five minutes, and one sip of a drink that look like the potions a witch in a cartoon would make (it tasted like poison too), before he had a pounding headache and had to slip outside. Gulping in the city air that, for once, didn't smell polluted to him, he rubbed his eyes and glanced around. The street was empty, with the nearby streetlight flickering eerily, as though it were from a horror movie. The only bodies around were either passed out from the drinks ( he shudders at the thought of the unsightly liquids) or murmuring to a pole while tripping in circles. Looking away from the embarrassingly drunk people, he saw a little bookstore just a few shops down the road. It was practically hidden from view, snugly squeezed between two huge glass jewelry stores that had more ads pasted on their windows than the number of people in the subways in New York. A faint yellow light came from it's plain windows, and inside, he could just barely make out some tall shelves. Deciding that it was better than going back inside the bar, he headed towards the store.
Moments later, he found himself in a completely different world. The smell of musky books overwhelmed him as a friendly old woman greeted him from behind the counter. It looked family run, with mismatched pillows and blankets piled up in the corners, and stacks of books strewn about. He slowly browsed the towering wooden shelves, eyes not looking for anything in particular. He was simply looking for the sake of having something to do. He had reached the back of the small shop when he tripped over a pair of dark blue, denim clad legs. Startled, he blinked at the legs moved, and a pair of ripped burgundy sneakers, laces frayed and dangling, filled his vision instead.
"Oh god! I'm so sorry! Are you alright?" a voice laced with worry asked.
He slowly nodded, confused and he was gently helped up and placed back down onto something soft. It was a mountain of pillows.
The pale face of a boy, just barely reaching adolescence, tilted ever so slightly to the right, was staring at him. He blinked again, and before he could process anything, his own voice filled the air with a loud question of, "Why is your hair grey?"
_____
And that was the start of a strange friendship, or companionship, as he preferred. The young boy, it turned out, was actually not so young. In fact, the silver haired man was only one year younger than him, at the tender age of 22, and well versed in the ways of society.
His name was Gavin, and he was an artist, who really, wasn't so much an actual artist rather than a lover of creating beauty. He was currently studying at the University just a few blocks down from that bar that started everything, and was playing around with, or, as the student preferred, "experimenting with" several forms of art, from painting to graphic designing. The number of whimsical ideas that the man could spout greatly contrasted the seriousness, strictness, and conventional-ism of himself. In only the first few weeks of their new friendship, he had heard that messy head of bleached hair tell him "Alex, dream more!" at least a thousand times.
Yes, that guy was an enigma, but, he mused, their contrasting personalities was probably what made them such close friends.
Gavin, he found, was painfully shy, at first. The night of their first introduction, Alex had done all the talking, and it wasn't until their fourth meeting that Gavin loosened up enough to start talking nonsense. He had bleached his hair at the age of fifteen, as a rebellion against his strict step-father, and he had kept the look. His hated tying his shoes because it meant he would have to bend down and stop walking (he was a very impatient person). His clothes consisted of skinny jeans, paint stained graphic tees, and faded cotton button ups.
He liked sweet drinks, and hated artichokes with a burning passion. He liked it when Alex wore casual clothes instead of his pristine suits and classy dress shirts and pants. He didn't like Alex's colleagues (he called them idiots, not to their faces of course). He liked kittens, but not puppies. He liked the color dark red.
Alex prided himself in how well he knew Gavin.
But one fact that he knew all too well bothered him.
In all five years he had known the man, Gavin had never let him anywhere close to his apartment, despite the number of times Gavin himself had slept over at Alex's own flat. And, the man never would, it seemed.
But that fact was bound to change eventually, he decided, and it did.
__
They had been out celebrating Alex's birthday, and, much to Alex's chagrin, Gavin insisted on buying him red wine (he hated alcohol, it made people do stupid things). The energetic young man had claimed he liked the color of the drink, and continued to force him to drink it. After an hour and thirty-two point four minutes (he counted how long it took him to cave in to Gavin's demands each time; this was a new record), he agreed to the wine, and to the picnic in the nearby park.
Unfortunately, Gavin was, apparently, a very light drinker, and after four glasses, Alex found himself dragging the guy down the street.
Fortunately, with the drunkenness came the loosened mouth, and opportunity to see the mysterious man's apartment finally arrived.
He found them both staggering down the old street, past the dreadful bar, and the old bookstore where they had met so long ago, into an elevator of a quint little complex full of friendly, inviting neighbors, and into Gavin's abode. He ceremoniously dumped the passed out man onto a dark red couch (the guy was heavy), and began exploring the unknown territory.
It seemed normal at first. Messy (as expected), but clean enough to sustain life (by Gavin's standards). Paint stained the tables and chairs in the kitchen, and pens and erasers and crumpled up sheets of paper were thrown about the living room. It wasn't until he reached the bedroom that he began to notice something strange.
There weren't any mirrors.
Frowning, he made his way into the bathroom, and found the entire mirror duct tapes over messily. A sharpie was left lying next to the sink, and it was a bright red color. Words of the same color was scratched all over the white walls. Words that scared him.
Ugly, stupid, idiot, useless. I hate you. You should hate me. I hate myself.
He traced each word with a trembling hand.
Was this the reason why he had been forbidden to step a foot into his home?
How long had this been going on? How long had his friend, his closest, dear friend, been suffering like this?
And why?
His throat began to clog up, and he promptly marched out of the bathroom and snapped the lights off.
__
The next morning, he interrogated his friend.
He may have had to tie Gavin to a chair to get the words out, but he was desperate.
He refused to let this go on.
I hate mirrors, because I hate having to look at myself.
The next day, they went to buy a gallon of dark red paint, and together, they covered the malicious words on the walls, stroke by stroke.
Those were things people have said to me. I've told them to myself too.
Alex now visited Gavin every night, as soon as he was out of work. The man had refused to go to therapy, saying he was fine, nothing was wrong.
He hadn't liked it, but he didn't want to force his friend into sitting in a cold metal chair for an hour each week either, so they found themselves sharing bowls of chocolate ice cream over old cartoons and Disney movies every Friday night, until Gavin had loosened up enough to talk to Alex.
Sometimes, they would fall asleep on the couch from staying up all night talking, confessing, and listening, and understanding. Other times, the night would end with Alex comforting his friend, as Gavin cried over decades worth of pain and self-loathing.
No one wants to be my friend. I don't want to make friends. I don't even know why you stay with me.
The next morning, they would do random things, enjoying the relaxation they both needed, one from his own biting, snarling, vicious thoughts, the other from the pure stress of work and supporting another person's mind.
I don't like the way I live, but I don't want to change either. I'm too, too...something.
That Christmas, the first thing Alex went to do was buy a large mirror for Gavin's bathroom, and the silver haired man watched, tears welled up in his eyes, as he sharpied a border, three inches thick, around the glass, made purely of words he could think of to describe, no, compliment, his friend.
Funny, creative, energetic, free.
Two days later, he found himself back in the old bookstore where they had first met, and found his friend had written down everything Alex had done for him, and the old woman from the store, along with Alex's colleagues (who were no longer idiots, apparently, and rather, "cool people who think you're a hero"), had helped Gavin contact several publishers.
The book was dedicated to him.
He might have face-planted onto the floor again, but this time from shock of seeing his name on the very first page of the book.
But it was fine, because he was happy, and Gavin was happy, and everything had worked out in the end.
(Until he was pulled into the crazy bar again to "celebrate".)
Friday, November 7, 2014
From a Window Sill
He was born into the world of crime, and he was perfectly fine with it.
At least, until now.
__
The moon was hanging low in the cool navy sky, and the moist stone paved roads of the sleeping town was silent, with the occasional drip, drip, dripping of water trickling down the steep rooftops high above.
His footsteps were precise, accurately calculated from years of sneaking around, to the point they were as silent as the footsteps of mice. He hurried down the alley way, glancing around suspiciously. He knew better than to let his guard down, for only a mere second of distraction could mean the difference between a night of riches well spent and a cold eternity behind bars.
Soon, he had reached his destination, the house of the tailor's family. The small, fogged windows emitted a warm, soft, yellow light, and he jumped up, hooking his fingers on the window sill, to wipe some condensation off and peer in. What he saw made him catch his breath.
Inside, in front of a blazing fireplace, was the tailor and his family. The old tailor was chuckling joyously with his elegant wife, while the younger of the two daughters was giggling, spread out on the floor like a butterfly. The elder sister was smiling to herself, while carefully working on some embroidery. A silk handkerchief of sorts.
Absentmindedly, he thought, "A piece of silk like that would sell well."
He spent the another lingering moment hanging in front of the window, watching the love-filled sight fill his mind with curiosity. How did it feel, to be in a family? How did it feel to be in front of a fireplace like that?
He was slapped out of his revelry at a stray bird's croak off in the distance. Hopping back onto the stone path, he thought, "I'll steal from them tomorrow."
And, with that thought in mind, he slunk back down the path.
After all, it was too dangerous to steal from a whole family while they were all wide awake.
He would steal from them tomorrow, he promised himself.
But that promise never got fulfilled.
__
It was now months since that fateful one-sided encounter, and he still found himself peering in through that small foggy window each night, without ever taking anything from that house. He was beginning to believe he was losing his touch. (But that just didn't make any sense, because he could still steal from the other houses, no problem. So why was this any different?) Night after night, he would hop up, wipe the window with his tattered, frayed sleeve, and just watch the tailor's family go about their lives, without ever realizing he was there.
It made him begin to wonder why, (even though he knew the answer). Why did this one house make all the difference in his own survival? Crime was his air, stealing was his blood. Why couldn't he just take the riches and go?
But, at the end of each night, he still found himself stalking away in the shadows, thinking to himself, "I can go one more night without bread. I can go one more night without a bed. I'll just take the silks and stuff tomorrow."
And, of course, during the daytime, while he was hiding from the many swarms of guards that marched around town, he would stare up at the clouds and the bright blue sky (if he could see it, for desperate times call for desperate measures), and his thoughts would wander.
What would it be like to have a mother with soft, silky hair, and an even softer voice?
What would it be like to have a father who spends his days snipping away at bright, beautiful cloths?
What would it be like to have an energetic younger sister?
What would it be like, to have her smile at me the way she smiles so lovingly at the rest of her family?
What would it be like, what would it be like?
And thus, the seasons passed, and he found himself in spring, still clutching that window sill, and peering in.
He refused to admit that he wished he was in there too, with them.
__
It was a few more months or so, (he didn't count, because thieves don't count the days, they just live), when all his dreaming got smashed by a cold, cruel (handsome, smart, rich, honorable) iron fist.
By now, he could admit to himself, yes, he wanted to live in a family like that, yes maybe he had a slight crush on the older sister, yes he wished he could be married into the family, and sit in front of the fireplace with them.
But he's a street rat, a thief, a scoundrel, and criminal, and heavens know people like him don't deserve to have such a wonderful life.
He had leaped onto the ledge like usual, but when he peered inside, there was one extra person in front of the blazing fireplace.
It was a well-dressed young man, decked in the finest of cloths (or at least, the finest he ever saw in his miserable, wretched life), and bejeweled with emeralds and sapphires and diamonds. He was laughing with the tailor, and his wife, and the younger sister. He was holding the hand of the older sister, who was not working on her embroidery, rather, leaning on the man's shoulder, and smiling lovingly up at him.
On her left hand, was a sparkling emerald ring.
Something in him clenched and jolted in agony, as a sour feeling spread throughout his chest. Because, oh, how that strange man fit so well into the same picture he himself wished to be a part of. For some unknown reason, his vision blurred, and he dropped down onto the pavement with a loud, careless, heavy thump.
Stumbling like a drunk down the alleyway, he thought, "That ring would make quite a fortune."
A sneering voice at the back of his head mocked him, saying, "No you won't, You couldn't steal from that family if your life depended on it."
His chest squeezed painfully, yet all the same, a numbness was spreading through him.
Because heaven knows a thief doesn't belong in that picture. No matter how much he wished.
And, bitterly, he thought, maybe he deserved this punishment, for all his crimes the skies frowned down upon, and for ever letting his guard down. (What happened? What happened?) He was simply getting taught a lesson, and he was fine with it.
He was a thief, his life was the steal. He was fine with it.
But as he trudged down the road, his heart no longer bleeding, rather, rattling like broken shards of glass instead, he could have sworn he heard a pitying voice, so similar to his own, tell him, "No, you're not."
At least, until now.
__
The moon was hanging low in the cool navy sky, and the moist stone paved roads of the sleeping town was silent, with the occasional drip, drip, dripping of water trickling down the steep rooftops high above.
His footsteps were precise, accurately calculated from years of sneaking around, to the point they were as silent as the footsteps of mice. He hurried down the alley way, glancing around suspiciously. He knew better than to let his guard down, for only a mere second of distraction could mean the difference between a night of riches well spent and a cold eternity behind bars.
Soon, he had reached his destination, the house of the tailor's family. The small, fogged windows emitted a warm, soft, yellow light, and he jumped up, hooking his fingers on the window sill, to wipe some condensation off and peer in. What he saw made him catch his breath.
Inside, in front of a blazing fireplace, was the tailor and his family. The old tailor was chuckling joyously with his elegant wife, while the younger of the two daughters was giggling, spread out on the floor like a butterfly. The elder sister was smiling to herself, while carefully working on some embroidery. A silk handkerchief of sorts.
Absentmindedly, he thought, "A piece of silk like that would sell well."
He spent the another lingering moment hanging in front of the window, watching the love-filled sight fill his mind with curiosity. How did it feel, to be in a family? How did it feel to be in front of a fireplace like that?
He was slapped out of his revelry at a stray bird's croak off in the distance. Hopping back onto the stone path, he thought, "I'll steal from them tomorrow."
And, with that thought in mind, he slunk back down the path.
After all, it was too dangerous to steal from a whole family while they were all wide awake.
He would steal from them tomorrow, he promised himself.
But that promise never got fulfilled.
__
It was now months since that fateful one-sided encounter, and he still found himself peering in through that small foggy window each night, without ever taking anything from that house. He was beginning to believe he was losing his touch. (But that just didn't make any sense, because he could still steal from the other houses, no problem. So why was this any different?) Night after night, he would hop up, wipe the window with his tattered, frayed sleeve, and just watch the tailor's family go about their lives, without ever realizing he was there.
It made him begin to wonder why, (even though he knew the answer). Why did this one house make all the difference in his own survival? Crime was his air, stealing was his blood. Why couldn't he just take the riches and go?
But, at the end of each night, he still found himself stalking away in the shadows, thinking to himself, "I can go one more night without bread. I can go one more night without a bed. I'll just take the silks and stuff tomorrow."
And, of course, during the daytime, while he was hiding from the many swarms of guards that marched around town, he would stare up at the clouds and the bright blue sky (if he could see it, for desperate times call for desperate measures), and his thoughts would wander.
What would it be like to have a mother with soft, silky hair, and an even softer voice?
What would it be like to have a father who spends his days snipping away at bright, beautiful cloths?
What would it be like to have an energetic younger sister?
What would it be like, to have her smile at me the way she smiles so lovingly at the rest of her family?
What would it be like, what would it be like?
And thus, the seasons passed, and he found himself in spring, still clutching that window sill, and peering in.
He refused to admit that he wished he was in there too, with them.
__
It was a few more months or so, (he didn't count, because thieves don't count the days, they just live), when all his dreaming got smashed by a cold, cruel (handsome, smart, rich, honorable) iron fist.
By now, he could admit to himself, yes, he wanted to live in a family like that, yes maybe he had a slight crush on the older sister, yes he wished he could be married into the family, and sit in front of the fireplace with them.
But he's a street rat, a thief, a scoundrel, and criminal, and heavens know people like him don't deserve to have such a wonderful life.
He had leaped onto the ledge like usual, but when he peered inside, there was one extra person in front of the blazing fireplace.
It was a well-dressed young man, decked in the finest of cloths (or at least, the finest he ever saw in his miserable, wretched life), and bejeweled with emeralds and sapphires and diamonds. He was laughing with the tailor, and his wife, and the younger sister. He was holding the hand of the older sister, who was not working on her embroidery, rather, leaning on the man's shoulder, and smiling lovingly up at him.
On her left hand, was a sparkling emerald ring.
Something in him clenched and jolted in agony, as a sour feeling spread throughout his chest. Because, oh, how that strange man fit so well into the same picture he himself wished to be a part of. For some unknown reason, his vision blurred, and he dropped down onto the pavement with a loud, careless, heavy thump.
Stumbling like a drunk down the alleyway, he thought, "That ring would make quite a fortune."
A sneering voice at the back of his head mocked him, saying, "No you won't, You couldn't steal from that family if your life depended on it."
His chest squeezed painfully, yet all the same, a numbness was spreading through him.
Because heaven knows a thief doesn't belong in that picture. No matter how much he wished.
And, bitterly, he thought, maybe he deserved this punishment, for all his crimes the skies frowned down upon, and for ever letting his guard down. (What happened? What happened?) He was simply getting taught a lesson, and he was fine with it.
He was a thief, his life was the steal. He was fine with it.
But as he trudged down the road, his heart no longer bleeding, rather, rattling like broken shards of glass instead, he could have sworn he heard a pitying voice, so similar to his own, tell him, "No, you're not."
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Path Made New Each Day
Just a quick side note: Sol in here is the Latin word for sunlight. Also, I chose the name Eve, to represent the evening.
_________________________________________________________________________________
It was this path that Eve's dark olive eyes skimmed down, tree by tree, as the van thumped and bumped towards the town. She gave a heavy sigh, watching as her reflection was temporarily fogged up.
Such a dreary place.
An unwilling move to a terrible looking town. Such was her fate, it seemed.
The town floated into view, grey wooden two story house by grey wooden two story house. A sharp, pointed clock tower stabbed into the fog ahead.
One by one, the dull houses passed by, until they reached the one she would call home.
Hopping off the van, she vaguely called back, "Going to go venture around. Be back later."
And thus, began Eve's journey.
__
Fog was everywhere, and all one could see, from the nonexistent sky above her head to the muddy ground she was squelching on. It seeped into her socks, and under her torn sleeves, tickling her with cool tendrils.
It spiraled up and it danced down, twisting and turning into a ribbon, swaying in the air, as though to tell her, "Follow me". Curious, Eve followed the lively mist, eventually stumbling into a stone fountain that she could have sworn had not been in front of her before.
Looking up at the crumbling stone fountain, void of water, she mumbled to herself incoherent words of confusion.
Click.
Suddenly, with a snap of someone's fingers, the fog vanished. Blinking rapidly to herself, Eve looked around at the change of sight. Now, she could see in front of her, as clear as could be, all the broken glass windows of the circle of seemingly abandoned shops circling the dry fountain. Shivering a bit, Eve gulped in a breath for courage, and brought her foot forward.
One. Step. Forward.
Click.
In the blink of an eye, she collided with a warm body, and tumbled back against the fountain, only to be splashed with icy water. Shaking her head, she brought her now wet hand up in front of her face, and swung around to see the fountain gleaming with vigor, the crumbling grey stone now shimmering marble, and crystalline water pouring into the bowl below.
"Are you alright," a whisper sounded behind her. Flinging back around, she found her face to face with a slim figure exactly her height, that was wrapped in a deep burgundy cloak. The hood was flipped, shadowing the person's face so only soft strands of hair and a sleek black ribbon could be seen peeking out from under the cloth.
Choking on stale air, she strangled her shock before it could surface, and managed a jerky nod.
"Good," the voice continued, reached a slender, pale grey hand out from under the red cloak to tug the hood down, "because we wouldn't want our precious Eve to die just yet, now would we?"
She gave out a hoarse scream of horror at the sight, for the sight was not hideous, but rather, haunting.
Flawless skin and a beautiful face was accompanied with eyes that were all black, from what would be the white of the eyes to the iris, save for the blood red pupils that began to glow brighter and brighter.
The creature, monster, thing, ignored her continuous screams as it reached a hand out to gently place on her head, and muttered, "Now now, our fallen angel. It's time to go back to sleep again."
Click.
__
Gasping, Eve jerked awake, giving a yelp of pain as her head hit the glass window of the moving van. Clutching her chest, she felt her heart fluttering and her mouth sucking in breath after desperate breath.
Black eyes. Red. Red. Water.
Slowly calming down, she turned her head to was tree after twisted tree fly by.
Sighing, she thought, "Such a dreary place."
Black eyes. Red. Red. Water.
An unwilling move to a terrible looking town. Such was her fate, it seemed.
Closing her eyes heavily, she drifted off into a dreamless sleep, with a single haunting whisper echoing in her mind before unconsciousness.
"It's time for another new day, Sol."
__
At the edge of the horizon, where the sun gets eaten up by darkness, and shadows lurk during the day, is a peculiar town that goes by the name of Eves. It's isolated, and avoided by society as a whole, and an eerie place the forgotten and the defeated who came down the dusty grey path of twisted dead trees called home.
And it is here, where the sun get's swallowed up by another world, as the gears of time keep clicking forward, preparing for a new start, a new day, and a new story.
Click.
Once more, the path is forgotten, and walked down till tragedy at sunset.
Saturday, October 25, 2014
This is Home
At age seven, home was that white walled, navy blue trimmed house with bright green grass and pretty, delicate little flowers that she had been living in since she could remember.
Back then, she was still too young, too naive, too blind to see through the forced, plastic smiles on her parents' faces, and the lack of simple warmth in the big house.
She was still a child who was taught that home was where you grew up, and she accepted that fact without a question.
Her impressionable mind didn't question why the house echoed silence everyday, or why dinners were tense and awkward, or why she was the only one who ever looked up from her plate of microwaved food. She never questioned why her mother stayed locked up in her room, and her father stayed locked up in the room at the opposite end of the hall, or why her bedroom was all the way downstairs, or why the curtains were never drawn back to let in some warm sunlight on a lazy Sunday morning. She never questioned why mother and father never whispered soft lullabies or told her bedtime stories or gave her lingering kisses on the forehead at night.
She had long since defeated the lurking monsters under her bed, and what with her never leaving the house, except for school, she never noticed anything wrong with her house.
The house was her home, and at age seven, she was sure of it.
__
At age eleven, home was still that white walled, navy blue trimmed house. There was no more grass, as no one bothered to water it, and no matter how hard she tried, how many fertilizers she went through or how much water she gave them everyday, she couldn't bring back the pretty little pink flowers. They were too delicate for that place, she figures. At a place where you had to fight for a "Good Job." and nobody gave a second glance at the hard work you put into keeping the place together.
Dinners were no longer eaten at a table together. Microwaved dishes had turned to her sweating in the kitchen, trying to lift heavy pots and pans, just to make sure her mother and father wouldn't starve in their rooms. The rooms felt stale and musty to the senses, seeing as none had seen a glimpse of sun since she had been younger than the age of seven.
The house still echoed silence, but now her ears were no longer so deaf. Her mother and father no longer bothered straining their muscles to give what could just barely pass as a smile. The house remained isolated from the outside world, and although the outside seemed passable as a normal house, the inside and the family inside was anything but. The curtains stayed closed, dusty and stiff from lack of use through the many, many empty years of her childhood. Her room was now the only semi-bright place in the house for her. The two doors upstairs remained locked up and closed, only opening for a plate of hot, warm food that was cooked with blood sweat and tears, so many tears. The lullabies were left missing, the kisses missed, and the bedtime stories replaced with more silence. Not even crickets in the summer dared to penetrate the wall of isolation that house had.
Now, she began to question this place. The place she called home seemed nothing like what their friends at school complained about. They would whine about nagging from their parents, and the lack of peace and quiet from their bothersome family members. But to her, it didn't sound so bad. Her house never had, and never did have, noise, excluding the accidental drop of a metal pot, or the sound of another glass cup getting dropped onto the tile floor of the kitchen. Thus, the questions began to surface. How come their homes had green grass and pretty flowers? How come they could lift their curtains away from the dirty, stained windows? How come their parents talked to each other? How come their parents yelled at each other, laughed with each other? How come their parents also had their silent moments, but those moments were shared, not taken individually? How come they had rooms upstairs? How come they heard bedtime stories and heard sweet lullabies when they were young? How come her house seemed to grow colder and colder each day she came back from school? How come, in her home, there was nothing but bleak foggy grey colors, and black, and white, while the outside world was so full of colors, colors that were bright and burning, cool and calming, or soothing and passionate?
How come her home was so different from everything else?
At age eleven, her house was still her home, but it was no longer such a seemingly cheerful place.
__
At age fourteen, she had no home.
The house of peeling white walls (white like the color of ripped up paper) and fading blue trimmings (such an ugly blue, ugly, ugly, ugly, too dull, too grey, a colorless color) was now a place for her to sleep, eat, and take shelter from the outside, but nothing more, nothing less. Doors never opened never would be opened, and curtains were forgotten about. She had now gotten a lot better with cooking, to the point loud metallic bangs and piercing sounds of shattering glass disappeared from the infuriatingly empty, aching silence in the house, leaving nothing but a hole even more empty, damp quiet in their place.
The house didn't echo silence anymore. Now it echoed hollow loneliness as she sat, feet aching from shipping food and other necessities up to the two rooms, up that long, infinitely long, dark, sorrowful stretch of stairs. The grass had all died, and she had long since given up in reviving them. This place was no place for such lively colors. No, all that belonged here was grey and black and white and everything else dead and hollow and meaningless, just like her. Lullabies and whispered songs and soft kisses were glared at for never being there for her, just like her parents. School was no better either. Her parents' house, for that was all she would call it now, cut her off from society, so while her old friends were having sleepovers and slumber parties, full of gossip and giddy giggling, she was drifting further and further away from everyone else, locked up behind those ugly walls.
She had stopped questioning why this place was no longer home. Instead, she spent her free time staring at her blank ceiling (blank, just like her existence, just like her home), just staring and trying her best to ignore how lifeless this place was.
At age fourteen, she knew better than to call this place her home, or that she ever had one, but she knew she couldn't leave just yet, so she just kept on pretending everything was alright, and there was still a point for her being on this planet.
__
At age seventeen, she had no home, she had no friends, and she had no family.
She was a single body in the mass of millions, drifting aimlessly. The doors were still closed, the curtains still ignored, she still cooked dinner, and the house was still cold, dark, miserable, and achingly empty of life. She wandered day by day repeating the same sequence. Wake up, go to school, pass school, go back to that dreadful place, cook, eat, finish homework to the point it was passable, pass some time, then sleep, and repeat the next morning. She tried to block out how lonely and broken and how much pure, liquid pain she carried in her everyday by plugging in her headphones and blasting the loudest songs she could find. Because maybe if she heard noises ringing in her head, she could pretend, just for that moment, that she had a home, she had friends, she had a functioning family, and she wasn't so alone in this cruel world. (It never worked for long.)
Her life was empty, like her house, and herself. She had no meaning, no goal for the future. She had nowhere to go, so she was stuck in this terrible house, filled to the roof with invisible sneers at how much of a failure she was. How could she achieve anything in life if she couldn't even keep her home together? Why would anyone disagree with her when she said she was worth nothing? Why should anyone care?
At age seventeen, she had lost her entire existence along with her hope of a home.
__
At age nineteen, she still had no homes, no friends, and no family, but she finally had a way out.
She was no longer a drifting soul in the world. She had found a possible anchor, and no matter the millions of risks and reason why she should fail, she simply couldn't, and wouldn't let this chance to leave this cold, cruel, miserable, terrible, painful, empty, lonesome, aching, dark and sad place.
She had found herself lost in a part of downtown she had never been to before, (Although, she had basically spent her past nineteen years locked up behind those no longer white, no longer blue walls, so she honestly knew nothing about the town at all) when she bumped into an author. After awkward first exchanges and some fumbled conversations, she found herself persuaded into trying to write a short story for the young writer, and a month later, she had applied for several universities for a chance to get a degree in literature. One more week or two, and she had gotten in to one of them, not a very famous or large scale school, but somewhere out in the real world (So many new colors, so many new sounds, so much she had missed for too long).
She found herself packing her duffle bag, taking what little was significant to her gradually rebuilding heart, and ditching that dreadful place that she had been tied to for too, too, much too long, without a single word of goodbye shared between her and the two adults who she called her parents.
At age nineteen, she was finally, finally, finally leaving, off the find her calling in the world.
__
At age twenty-two, she wondered what she considered her home now.
She had traveled far and wide, searching for inspiration. She had graduated, gotten publish (Her first book, ironically, was about an orphan looking for a place to call home), and was now returning to her apartment, shared with her roommate from college (They had worked so well together, they simply couldn't think of parting), in a peaceful, beautiful, bright town along the western coast. She had made new friends, ones who didn't care how she grew up, who didn't mind how she was strange and different, and sometimes barricaded from the rest of the world for periods of time.
Looking out the car window, she saw she was going over a hill like road, and nearing the peak. Below her, glimmering golden lights of the town shimmered like glitter scattered carelessly over a black cloth. The moon and the stars timidly peaked out from behind some gentle violet, pink, blue clouds to say hello. As the road continued downwards, the view vanished, but it had stayed long enough for her to make her mind.
This. That view. Her apartment. Her friends. Those were home. She had traded her loneliness and wishes for lullabies and bedtime stories for uncontrollable laughter over movies shared over microwaved popcorn and cans of soda. She had traded locked doors and closed curtains for sun filled days at the beach or at the park with her friends. She had traded dead grass and wilted pretty pink flowers for beautiful stars both above and below her, displayed in all its shimmering glory against the deep, majestic blue of the night.
At age twenty-two, she had found her home at last, and it wasn't her house, or her family, simply, where she belonged.
Back then, she was still too young, too naive, too blind to see through the forced, plastic smiles on her parents' faces, and the lack of simple warmth in the big house.
She was still a child who was taught that home was where you grew up, and she accepted that fact without a question.
Her impressionable mind didn't question why the house echoed silence everyday, or why dinners were tense and awkward, or why she was the only one who ever looked up from her plate of microwaved food. She never questioned why her mother stayed locked up in her room, and her father stayed locked up in the room at the opposite end of the hall, or why her bedroom was all the way downstairs, or why the curtains were never drawn back to let in some warm sunlight on a lazy Sunday morning. She never questioned why mother and father never whispered soft lullabies or told her bedtime stories or gave her lingering kisses on the forehead at night.
She had long since defeated the lurking monsters under her bed, and what with her never leaving the house, except for school, she never noticed anything wrong with her house.
The house was her home, and at age seven, she was sure of it.
__
At age eleven, home was still that white walled, navy blue trimmed house. There was no more grass, as no one bothered to water it, and no matter how hard she tried, how many fertilizers she went through or how much water she gave them everyday, she couldn't bring back the pretty little pink flowers. They were too delicate for that place, she figures. At a place where you had to fight for a "Good Job." and nobody gave a second glance at the hard work you put into keeping the place together.
Dinners were no longer eaten at a table together. Microwaved dishes had turned to her sweating in the kitchen, trying to lift heavy pots and pans, just to make sure her mother and father wouldn't starve in their rooms. The rooms felt stale and musty to the senses, seeing as none had seen a glimpse of sun since she had been younger than the age of seven.
The house still echoed silence, but now her ears were no longer so deaf. Her mother and father no longer bothered straining their muscles to give what could just barely pass as a smile. The house remained isolated from the outside world, and although the outside seemed passable as a normal house, the inside and the family inside was anything but. The curtains stayed closed, dusty and stiff from lack of use through the many, many empty years of her childhood. Her room was now the only semi-bright place in the house for her. The two doors upstairs remained locked up and closed, only opening for a plate of hot, warm food that was cooked with blood sweat and tears, so many tears. The lullabies were left missing, the kisses missed, and the bedtime stories replaced with more silence. Not even crickets in the summer dared to penetrate the wall of isolation that house had.
Now, she began to question this place. The place she called home seemed nothing like what their friends at school complained about. They would whine about nagging from their parents, and the lack of peace and quiet from their bothersome family members. But to her, it didn't sound so bad. Her house never had, and never did have, noise, excluding the accidental drop of a metal pot, or the sound of another glass cup getting dropped onto the tile floor of the kitchen. Thus, the questions began to surface. How come their homes had green grass and pretty flowers? How come they could lift their curtains away from the dirty, stained windows? How come their parents talked to each other? How come their parents yelled at each other, laughed with each other? How come their parents also had their silent moments, but those moments were shared, not taken individually? How come they had rooms upstairs? How come they heard bedtime stories and heard sweet lullabies when they were young? How come her house seemed to grow colder and colder each day she came back from school? How come, in her home, there was nothing but bleak foggy grey colors, and black, and white, while the outside world was so full of colors, colors that were bright and burning, cool and calming, or soothing and passionate?
How come her home was so different from everything else?
At age eleven, her house was still her home, but it was no longer such a seemingly cheerful place.
__
At age fourteen, she had no home.
The house of peeling white walls (white like the color of ripped up paper) and fading blue trimmings (such an ugly blue, ugly, ugly, ugly, too dull, too grey, a colorless color) was now a place for her to sleep, eat, and take shelter from the outside, but nothing more, nothing less. Doors never opened never would be opened, and curtains were forgotten about. She had now gotten a lot better with cooking, to the point loud metallic bangs and piercing sounds of shattering glass disappeared from the infuriatingly empty, aching silence in the house, leaving nothing but a hole even more empty, damp quiet in their place.
The house didn't echo silence anymore. Now it echoed hollow loneliness as she sat, feet aching from shipping food and other necessities up to the two rooms, up that long, infinitely long, dark, sorrowful stretch of stairs. The grass had all died, and she had long since given up in reviving them. This place was no place for such lively colors. No, all that belonged here was grey and black and white and everything else dead and hollow and meaningless, just like her. Lullabies and whispered songs and soft kisses were glared at for never being there for her, just like her parents. School was no better either. Her parents' house, for that was all she would call it now, cut her off from society, so while her old friends were having sleepovers and slumber parties, full of gossip and giddy giggling, she was drifting further and further away from everyone else, locked up behind those ugly walls.
She had stopped questioning why this place was no longer home. Instead, she spent her free time staring at her blank ceiling (blank, just like her existence, just like her home), just staring and trying her best to ignore how lifeless this place was.
At age fourteen, she knew better than to call this place her home, or that she ever had one, but she knew she couldn't leave just yet, so she just kept on pretending everything was alright, and there was still a point for her being on this planet.
__
At age seventeen, she had no home, she had no friends, and she had no family.
She was a single body in the mass of millions, drifting aimlessly. The doors were still closed, the curtains still ignored, she still cooked dinner, and the house was still cold, dark, miserable, and achingly empty of life. She wandered day by day repeating the same sequence. Wake up, go to school, pass school, go back to that dreadful place, cook, eat, finish homework to the point it was passable, pass some time, then sleep, and repeat the next morning. She tried to block out how lonely and broken and how much pure, liquid pain she carried in her everyday by plugging in her headphones and blasting the loudest songs she could find. Because maybe if she heard noises ringing in her head, she could pretend, just for that moment, that she had a home, she had friends, she had a functioning family, and she wasn't so alone in this cruel world. (It never worked for long.)
Her life was empty, like her house, and herself. She had no meaning, no goal for the future. She had nowhere to go, so she was stuck in this terrible house, filled to the roof with invisible sneers at how much of a failure she was. How could she achieve anything in life if she couldn't even keep her home together? Why would anyone disagree with her when she said she was worth nothing? Why should anyone care?
At age seventeen, she had lost her entire existence along with her hope of a home.
__
At age nineteen, she still had no homes, no friends, and no family, but she finally had a way out.
She was no longer a drifting soul in the world. She had found a possible anchor, and no matter the millions of risks and reason why she should fail, she simply couldn't, and wouldn't let this chance to leave this cold, cruel, miserable, terrible, painful, empty, lonesome, aching, dark and sad place.
She had found herself lost in a part of downtown she had never been to before, (Although, she had basically spent her past nineteen years locked up behind those no longer white, no longer blue walls, so she honestly knew nothing about the town at all) when she bumped into an author. After awkward first exchanges and some fumbled conversations, she found herself persuaded into trying to write a short story for the young writer, and a month later, she had applied for several universities for a chance to get a degree in literature. One more week or two, and she had gotten in to one of them, not a very famous or large scale school, but somewhere out in the real world (So many new colors, so many new sounds, so much she had missed for too long).
She found herself packing her duffle bag, taking what little was significant to her gradually rebuilding heart, and ditching that dreadful place that she had been tied to for too, too, much too long, without a single word of goodbye shared between her and the two adults who she called her parents.
At age nineteen, she was finally, finally, finally leaving, off the find her calling in the world.
__
At age twenty-two, she wondered what she considered her home now.
She had traveled far and wide, searching for inspiration. She had graduated, gotten publish (Her first book, ironically, was about an orphan looking for a place to call home), and was now returning to her apartment, shared with her roommate from college (They had worked so well together, they simply couldn't think of parting), in a peaceful, beautiful, bright town along the western coast. She had made new friends, ones who didn't care how she grew up, who didn't mind how she was strange and different, and sometimes barricaded from the rest of the world for periods of time.
Looking out the car window, she saw she was going over a hill like road, and nearing the peak. Below her, glimmering golden lights of the town shimmered like glitter scattered carelessly over a black cloth. The moon and the stars timidly peaked out from behind some gentle violet, pink, blue clouds to say hello. As the road continued downwards, the view vanished, but it had stayed long enough for her to make her mind.
This. That view. Her apartment. Her friends. Those were home. She had traded her loneliness and wishes for lullabies and bedtime stories for uncontrollable laughter over movies shared over microwaved popcorn and cans of soda. She had traded locked doors and closed curtains for sun filled days at the beach or at the park with her friends. She had traded dead grass and wilted pretty pink flowers for beautiful stars both above and below her, displayed in all its shimmering glory against the deep, majestic blue of the night.
At age twenty-two, she had found her home at last, and it wasn't her house, or her family, simply, where she belonged.
Monday, October 20, 2014
And the Seconds Still Keep Going
An incredibly short piece that I might rewrite later. Just got inspired randomly, and decided, "Hey, why not.".
__________________________________________________________
It was evening, with the warm, silky sunlight slipping past the silhouettes of tall, proud trees and magenta and royal purple hills that lined the distance. Birds were chirping and whistling, hurrying back home to reunite with their family, and their comfy nest. The people were all indoors by now, laughing and chatting casually over hot, steamy plates of food and icy bowls of sweet, sticky ice cream. Children were telling their parents about their day with lively animations, while others were simply enjoying some relaxation after a long day. A gentle summer breeze strolled through the streets, between the yellow and blue street lights, and through welcoming windows. The city was at peace.
But warmth never reached the dorm of F241.
_____
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Slowly, every so slowly, one eyelid was heavily raised to reveal a single, blank dark green eye. Sliding his gaze to the clock ticking away by itself up on the wall, the eye opened up a bit more to focus.
9:47
Ah.
So he slept the entire day. Oh well. Giving out a soft groan, the body rolled from the bed onto the ground with a thump that was muffled by the many blankets and pillow strewn about. Shakily, he managed to stand up by applying all his weight onto his desk. With his free hand, he grabbed the bottle of water, and chugged what remained down. Blinking a few times, he looked at the clock once more, mesmerized by the repetitive clicking noise of the second hand as it just ticked on and on and on. It was, for some reason, soothing. The only noise he had heard for days, other than the occasional slam of a car door down below. Carelessly tossing the empty plastic bottle behind him, he trudged back to his bed a few inches away, walking as though the gravity had increased by a threefold. Once his knees hit the cold wooden frame, he let himself loose, and collapsed onto the messy bed with a flurry of blankets and pillows bouncing up in his wake.
Turning so he was curled up into himself, the dead green eyes lazily focused on the second hand of the clock again.
Tick. Tock. Tick.
9:48
Time to go back to sleep, he guessed.
One pale, skinny arm shot out from under his body to latch onto one of the grey blankets, and reeled it back in to drape over his stomach. Lifting his head onto a grey pillow, the green eyes closed slowly again.
9:49
_____
The slivers of sunlight were gone now, and in their place were a multitude of tiny, sparkling stars that glittered across the deep, rich, blue sky that blanketed the city. Hot and steamy plates of food were now scraped empty, and icy, cold bowls of sticky, sweet ice cream had long stopped melting. A gentle summer breeze strolled down the abandoned sidewalks, and weaved between the yellow and blue beacons that lighted the way along the empty streets. The city was happy.
But not the person in dorm F241.
__________________________________________________________
It was evening, with the warm, silky sunlight slipping past the silhouettes of tall, proud trees and magenta and royal purple hills that lined the distance. Birds were chirping and whistling, hurrying back home to reunite with their family, and their comfy nest. The people were all indoors by now, laughing and chatting casually over hot, steamy plates of food and icy bowls of sweet, sticky ice cream. Children were telling their parents about their day with lively animations, while others were simply enjoying some relaxation after a long day. A gentle summer breeze strolled through the streets, between the yellow and blue street lights, and through welcoming windows. The city was at peace.
But warmth never reached the dorm of F241.
_____
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Slowly, every so slowly, one eyelid was heavily raised to reveal a single, blank dark green eye. Sliding his gaze to the clock ticking away by itself up on the wall, the eye opened up a bit more to focus.
9:47
Ah.
So he slept the entire day. Oh well. Giving out a soft groan, the body rolled from the bed onto the ground with a thump that was muffled by the many blankets and pillow strewn about. Shakily, he managed to stand up by applying all his weight onto his desk. With his free hand, he grabbed the bottle of water, and chugged what remained down. Blinking a few times, he looked at the clock once more, mesmerized by the repetitive clicking noise of the second hand as it just ticked on and on and on. It was, for some reason, soothing. The only noise he had heard for days, other than the occasional slam of a car door down below. Carelessly tossing the empty plastic bottle behind him, he trudged back to his bed a few inches away, walking as though the gravity had increased by a threefold. Once his knees hit the cold wooden frame, he let himself loose, and collapsed onto the messy bed with a flurry of blankets and pillows bouncing up in his wake.
Turning so he was curled up into himself, the dead green eyes lazily focused on the second hand of the clock again.
Tick. Tock. Tick.
9:48
Time to go back to sleep, he guessed.
One pale, skinny arm shot out from under his body to latch onto one of the grey blankets, and reeled it back in to drape over his stomach. Lifting his head onto a grey pillow, the green eyes closed slowly again.
9:49
_____
The slivers of sunlight were gone now, and in their place were a multitude of tiny, sparkling stars that glittered across the deep, rich, blue sky that blanketed the city. Hot and steamy plates of food were now scraped empty, and icy, cold bowls of sticky, sweet ice cream had long stopped melting. A gentle summer breeze strolled down the abandoned sidewalks, and weaved between the yellow and blue beacons that lighted the way along the empty streets. The city was happy.
But not the person in dorm F241.
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Four Faces, Four Lives
She was a dark individual. Didn't like to speak out in public much. Kept to herself. Liked wearing black.
People called her "emo" or "goth". She didn't care. It wasn't like they were her friends anyways.
Now, she was in no way shy. If anyone bothered to try to get a rise out of her, a few needles would be thrown, and the disturbance would stalk away, pretending that they hadn't just been told off by one of the school freaks.
But overall, she was dark. Dark as a shadow.
She trudged to school every morning with her face half hidden by the hood of her jacket, head bowed. She would slide between the chattering crowds until she reached her destination, then find an isolated corner, and just stand. Then, she would watch everyone else go about their daily lives, and she would just observe.
She doesn't believe in friends. Why would she need anyone else, if they would do nothing but hurt her in the end? You gain friends, only to lose them later on. It was better to go at things alone. It was what she lived by, and she was fine with it.
She knew she never belonged anywhere. She didn't care. She had stopped caring ages ago. Sure, one day she might get close enough to someone to call them a friend. Maybe they would get her to slip that hood off her head. And she would probably end up hurt once more. But it didn't matter right now.
She didn't need to worry about the future. It wasn't like it mattered to her anyways.
_______________________________________________________________
He was one of the semi-cool kids, and he knew he was just so, so, so close to being considered an actual "cool kid". He had worked for so long and so hard for that moment, and it was just within his grasp.
All his childhood, he'd been picked on, whether it be for his wire-framed glasses, or his tacky hair-cut. As a naive child who was a year younger than everybody else in his class, he hadn't understood why they picked on him, or why they seemed to hate him so much. But as the years passes tortuously, he began to notice things, and understand things little by little, until one day, the answer to all his problems arrived. He just had to be like the rest of them.
They had picked on him because he was different. They had hated him for being considered "smarter" than the rest of them. They were jealous. Thus, they began to take him apart, piece by piece, starting with the things they could consider themselves better on or at. So, they ripped him apart, starting with his glasses. Then his hair. Then his clothes. Then him.
It was that moment of great discovery that led him to create this life's goal. Be a "cool" kid. It wasn't that hard to figure out, really. All he had to do was mimic the older kids. The ones the "cool" kids who picked on him looked up to.
So, over the course of a single summer, his glasses went and got traded for contacts, his hair styled to look messy, effortless, yet artistically placed, and his clothes thrown away and replaced with skinny jeans and tight button up shirts and leather jackets. Those were all the easier things to be done. Now for the actual test. He had to be socially ahead of them.
Throughout the years of his middle school and the beginnings of high school, he put most of his time and effort into chatting with people, watching what they did, and doing what they did, but adding a touch more of pizzazz into it all. It took months and months more but he got what he wanted. Everyone now knew who he was, and everyone respected him. He was the role-model for the freshmen, the cool shortie for the seniors. He was in. And he was happy.
Because even though he lost himself in the process, at least he had taken himself apart willingly, and carefully, unlike their vicious ripping and tearing.
Anything was better than that pain.
_______________________________________________________________
She was the queen of the school. Best of the best. The most glamorous person to walk the campus. But she felt like nothing but a plastic doll.
She didn't know why they chose her to be their royal highness. She never volunteered, nor had she been willing. But for some strange, unknown reason, it just happened, and it was stuck as that.
They crowded around her like ants to fallen candy, and it bothered her to no end. She just wanted her own life, with her own space, and she had stated it a million times before. So why couldn't they do as she asked?
She didn't purposely try to attract all that attention, it just happened. She didn't try to look pretty, they just said she did. It confused her and annoyed her and puzzled her to no end.
So maybe the limelight was addicting. It did feel nice to be acknowledged everyday.
They all swore loyalty to her, every second, every minute.
So why did she feel so lonely?
She knew they didn't mean half of what they told her. She also knew that she had made many enemies who wanted her tragic fall to happen all too soon. Of course, she just ignored all the voices. Why should she bother to listen to them at all anyways? It would only bring her down. Down, down, lower than ever. Yes, it would only bring her down.
It wasn't like she asked for any of this in the first place.
_______________________________________________________________
He was a high school kid with the wimpy body of a child in elementary school. His body was skinny beyond compare, to the point a leaf could simply snap him in half, like a stick. He didn't have any muscles to show for, and he wasn't tall enough to look at a majority of the school's guys, younger and older than him, in the eye. The way he walked, it was like he was trying to curl in on himself. He would slouch over his books and papers, clutched tightly to his chest, knuckles white. His eyes would dart back and forth, like an animal hunted as prey. His shirts were too long and baggy, and his pants were stiff and plain, like clothing from the decade before. He had large, heavy, thick metal framed glasses that slipped down the bridge of his nose every three seconds, with lenses thick enough to pass as windows.
He stalked around the school trying to be a shadow. Of course, it never worked. He would always be found, and he would always be targeted. No matter how hard he tried to blend in, they always managed to spot him, locate him, then fire their bullets at him.
His life was a battle field, and he was the lone, ammunition-less soldier standing at the center of a barren, dried out, dirt field, his enemies with their guns locked and loaded, pointed all at him, from all angles. The guys would lift him up in the air by his crooked collar, and toss him back down like a rag doll. The girls would sneer at him behind their perfectly manicured hands. Together, the entire student body would laugh at him, jeer at him, pick on him, because he was just that weak, and just that hopeless.
He had long given up for a way out.
The fight was long since over.
_______________________________________________________________
The bell rang at last that afternoon as the caged students began to stream out of the cracks and corners of the school. It was a long, exhausting morning, and everyone was ready to relax at lunch.
A girl dropped her all black backpack down against the far corner of the theater with a thud, and plopped down beside it. Leaning back against the cool walls, she sighed, and closed her eyes.
Sadly, the peace wasn't kept for long. Panting could be heard, along with suppressed giggles, as loud, heavy footsteps stomped through the redwood doors and down the aisles. He was decked out in the newest leather skinny jeans, complete with a graphic shirt and a plaid button up over it. His snickers died down as he realized he wasn't alone. A glare was shot at him, fierce and dark, like the girl who it came from.
"Oh, uh, sorry, did I intrude on something?" he began to apologize. She just rolled her eyes, and shifted so her entire side was pressed against the wall.
"No. Just that you walk like the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk, and you're dressed like you belong in a 13-year-old girl's dream boy band," she snapped back. Was it really that much to ask for a life isolated from society?
People called her "emo" or "goth". She didn't care. It wasn't like they were her friends anyways.
Now, she was in no way shy. If anyone bothered to try to get a rise out of her, a few needles would be thrown, and the disturbance would stalk away, pretending that they hadn't just been told off by one of the school freaks.
But overall, she was dark. Dark as a shadow.
She trudged to school every morning with her face half hidden by the hood of her jacket, head bowed. She would slide between the chattering crowds until she reached her destination, then find an isolated corner, and just stand. Then, she would watch everyone else go about their daily lives, and she would just observe.
She doesn't believe in friends. Why would she need anyone else, if they would do nothing but hurt her in the end? You gain friends, only to lose them later on. It was better to go at things alone. It was what she lived by, and she was fine with it.
She knew she never belonged anywhere. She didn't care. She had stopped caring ages ago. Sure, one day she might get close enough to someone to call them a friend. Maybe they would get her to slip that hood off her head. And she would probably end up hurt once more. But it didn't matter right now.
She didn't need to worry about the future. It wasn't like it mattered to her anyways.
_______________________________________________________________
He was one of the semi-cool kids, and he knew he was just so, so, so close to being considered an actual "cool kid". He had worked for so long and so hard for that moment, and it was just within his grasp.
All his childhood, he'd been picked on, whether it be for his wire-framed glasses, or his tacky hair-cut. As a naive child who was a year younger than everybody else in his class, he hadn't understood why they picked on him, or why they seemed to hate him so much. But as the years passes tortuously, he began to notice things, and understand things little by little, until one day, the answer to all his problems arrived. He just had to be like the rest of them.
They had picked on him because he was different. They had hated him for being considered "smarter" than the rest of them. They were jealous. Thus, they began to take him apart, piece by piece, starting with the things they could consider themselves better on or at. So, they ripped him apart, starting with his glasses. Then his hair. Then his clothes. Then him.
It was that moment of great discovery that led him to create this life's goal. Be a "cool" kid. It wasn't that hard to figure out, really. All he had to do was mimic the older kids. The ones the "cool" kids who picked on him looked up to.
So, over the course of a single summer, his glasses went and got traded for contacts, his hair styled to look messy, effortless, yet artistically placed, and his clothes thrown away and replaced with skinny jeans and tight button up shirts and leather jackets. Those were all the easier things to be done. Now for the actual test. He had to be socially ahead of them.
Throughout the years of his middle school and the beginnings of high school, he put most of his time and effort into chatting with people, watching what they did, and doing what they did, but adding a touch more of pizzazz into it all. It took months and months more but he got what he wanted. Everyone now knew who he was, and everyone respected him. He was the role-model for the freshmen, the cool shortie for the seniors. He was in. And he was happy.
Because even though he lost himself in the process, at least he had taken himself apart willingly, and carefully, unlike their vicious ripping and tearing.
Anything was better than that pain.
_______________________________________________________________
She was the queen of the school. Best of the best. The most glamorous person to walk the campus. But she felt like nothing but a plastic doll.
She didn't know why they chose her to be their royal highness. She never volunteered, nor had she been willing. But for some strange, unknown reason, it just happened, and it was stuck as that.
They crowded around her like ants to fallen candy, and it bothered her to no end. She just wanted her own life, with her own space, and she had stated it a million times before. So why couldn't they do as she asked?
She didn't purposely try to attract all that attention, it just happened. She didn't try to look pretty, they just said she did. It confused her and annoyed her and puzzled her to no end.
So maybe the limelight was addicting. It did feel nice to be acknowledged everyday.
They all swore loyalty to her, every second, every minute.
So why did she feel so lonely?
She knew they didn't mean half of what they told her. She also knew that she had made many enemies who wanted her tragic fall to happen all too soon. Of course, she just ignored all the voices. Why should she bother to listen to them at all anyways? It would only bring her down. Down, down, lower than ever. Yes, it would only bring her down.
It wasn't like she asked for any of this in the first place.
_______________________________________________________________
He was a high school kid with the wimpy body of a child in elementary school. His body was skinny beyond compare, to the point a leaf could simply snap him in half, like a stick. He didn't have any muscles to show for, and he wasn't tall enough to look at a majority of the school's guys, younger and older than him, in the eye. The way he walked, it was like he was trying to curl in on himself. He would slouch over his books and papers, clutched tightly to his chest, knuckles white. His eyes would dart back and forth, like an animal hunted as prey. His shirts were too long and baggy, and his pants were stiff and plain, like clothing from the decade before. He had large, heavy, thick metal framed glasses that slipped down the bridge of his nose every three seconds, with lenses thick enough to pass as windows.
He stalked around the school trying to be a shadow. Of course, it never worked. He would always be found, and he would always be targeted. No matter how hard he tried to blend in, they always managed to spot him, locate him, then fire their bullets at him.
His life was a battle field, and he was the lone, ammunition-less soldier standing at the center of a barren, dried out, dirt field, his enemies with their guns locked and loaded, pointed all at him, from all angles. The guys would lift him up in the air by his crooked collar, and toss him back down like a rag doll. The girls would sneer at him behind their perfectly manicured hands. Together, the entire student body would laugh at him, jeer at him, pick on him, because he was just that weak, and just that hopeless.
He had long given up for a way out.
The fight was long since over.
_______________________________________________________________
The bell rang at last that afternoon as the caged students began to stream out of the cracks and corners of the school. It was a long, exhausting morning, and everyone was ready to relax at lunch.
A girl dropped her all black backpack down against the far corner of the theater with a thud, and plopped down beside it. Leaning back against the cool walls, she sighed, and closed her eyes.
Sadly, the peace wasn't kept for long. Panting could be heard, along with suppressed giggles, as loud, heavy footsteps stomped through the redwood doors and down the aisles. He was decked out in the newest leather skinny jeans, complete with a graphic shirt and a plaid button up over it. His snickers died down as he realized he wasn't alone. A glare was shot at him, fierce and dark, like the girl who it came from.
"Oh, uh, sorry, did I intrude on something?" he began to apologize. She just rolled her eyes, and shifted so her entire side was pressed against the wall.
"No. Just that you walk like the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk, and you're dressed like you belong in a 13-year-old girl's dream boy band," she snapped back. Was it really that much to ask for a life isolated from society?
Amused by the attacks, the boy settled himself down into the red velvet seats closest to the corner the girl had confined herself to, and replied, coolly, "Why so harsh? I won't hurt you."
"Don't talk to me like I'm a frightened puppy."
"Fine, fine. Jeez. I'm Aleq, with a q. I think this could be the start of an interesting friendship."
Another glare.
"Who ever said that."
"I did. So? Waddya say?"
She hesitated, and in that moment she paused the gates banged open again, as a girl covered in pink flew into the theater, and slammed the doors closed just as loudly as they had been forced open. Pressing her ear to the wood to check for any sounds from the other side, she gave a sigh of relief, and slid down the wooden panels, not noticing two pairs of wide, shocked eyes directed at her. Fluttering her perfectly shaded eyelids open, she gasped at her apparently unnoticed audience.
"Oh, I'm sorry! Did I intrude on something?" she exclaimed, scrambling to get up and dust herself off.
Snickering at the lines she said, Aleq waved his hands around lazily, while the girl just scoffed, and turned to face the wall once more.
Flushing at the sudden awkward air, the princess of the school shifted from one foot to the other, unsure of what to do.
As the three fell into a unanimous silence, sniffles could be head coming from behind the violet curtains on stage. One by one, they caught on to the strange sounds, and Aleq hopped up to gently pull back the cloth, only to find a scrawny kid hunched over his knees, wiping his eyes. Glancing up, the boy's hands flew up to his glasses and he began pleading, "Wait, wait! Please don't hit me! Or, at least let me take off my glasses first..."
Raising an eyebrow, Aleq slowly replied, "Nooooo, why would I hit you? That's just mean, dude. It's like a lion picking on an acorn."
From the corner, the shadow retorted, "Really, a lion and an acorn? You just dropped to a new level of stupid."
Turning around to shoot a glare towards the corner, Aleq turned back around and stuck a hand out to the sniffling boy.
Trembling, the boy slowly took the inviting hand, and let the other boy lead him gently down the stairs, and into a velvet seat. At this time, the princess also shyly shifted towards the front of the theater, and delicately sat down on the ground next to the girl in the corner. She decided to ignore the pointed look shot at her.
Slouching in his original chair, Aleq pointed a finger at the girl in the shadows, and asked, "You never replied. So, waddya say?"
Squinting suspiciously at the other three, she opened her mouth once or twice, only to close it again, without a sound. Eventually she managed to mutter, "My name's Estella."
Giving out a burst of tinkling laughter, the girl beside her clapped her hands together twice and giggled, "Oh, you're so anti-social Estella! My name's Annabelle! Nice to meet you all!"
"I-I'm Shawn," the boy stuttered out.
"And I'm Aleq, with a q! You already know that though, don't you Estella," Aleq cut in boisterously. This resulted in a third glare shot at the laughing guy, and a quiet, "Shut up already. I've only known you for about two minutes or so and I already know I'm going to hate you."
More laughter came out of that, this time joined in by melodic bell-like giggles and soft chuckles from the shy Shawn.
Estella just muttered darkly to herself under her breath, blushed, and curled up against the wall.
Sighing in joy, Annabelle mused, "You know, even though it's only been a few minutes, it feels like it's been so much longer, hasn't it? It's been a long time I've ever felt this relaxed!"
Pushing his glasses up, Shawn whispered, "That sounds so cliche."
Estella left her ball of black auras to give Shawn an incomprehensible look.
"Ah, I-i-i'm sorry! Did I offend you or something? I'm sorry!" Shawn stuttered desperately. Aleq was snickering into his palm next to him, while Annabelle gave an amused smile.
"Chill. You didn't offend me. And stop smiling at me Annabelle!" Estella ended with a shout.
"Ah, I'm sorry. It's just you're so funny!"
"Tch. You know there's a poem called Annabelle Lee. She dies. Stop giggling like a school girl Aleq!"
"A-ah! E-estella please calm down!"
"Yeah, Queen of Darkness. Calm down," Aleq teased.
"Shut up you!"
Giggling, Annabelle whispered to herself, "This seems like the start of a new beginning."
And for the rest of lunch, the theater was filled with angry shouts, playful teasing, gleeful laughter, and panicked stuttering.
_______________________________________________________________
So maybe being alone did get a bit...lonely sometimes. So maybe she might take the risk this time.
_
And maybe, popularity wasn't what he wanted in the first place. Maybe it was just some actual friends.
_
_
And possibly, she had asked for it all, because she never actually tried to step out of the spotlight. Possibly, all she needed to do for it all to stop was to stop caring about what they all would say.
_
And somehow, he might not have lost the battle just yet, because there was still people out there who could and would for some reason fight with him.
_
But all that mattered was, that that day was a new start for all four of them. And it was the start of a new future as well. Because for all their difference, in the end, they were all destined to walk the same path, the four of them, together.
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