When you hear the phone ring, you know who you want on the other end of the line. You know whose smile you want to hear through the receiver, you know what laugh you need to be infected by.
You also know, in that part of your mind that holds all your shadows and secrets, that it'll never be that person and, if it is, it's not what you're imagining in your head. But this part of you, this darker demon part, will never be what you listen to, and that's your downfall. You're stuck in believing, and no matter what events take place, no matter what hits you right between the eyes, you'll believe.
And it'll sicken you, because if there's one thing you do know, it's that you're pathetic, and that you won't do a thing about it.
So you'll answer the phone, and you'll plead with yourself to be someone else, you'll pray that the face in the mirror magically changes and that the problems that went with that face disappear too, but you'll never get that wish, and here's where your shadow place is right again. The conversation will go nothing like the one in your head, and no matter how many times you come up with the perfect thing to say, the perfect way to throw your heart at that other human being, you'll never do it. Not only do you think yourself pathetic now, but a coward as well.
Love is what got you here, but instead of realizing that there's nothing in that phone call but voices, instead of wanting something you can actually have, you'll keep praying, and keep answering the phone with false hope.
Because you really don't know anything at all.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
writing adventure 26- All We Can Do (part 2)
It is a false love they hold in their hearts now that the lovers have departed. They remember each other as they used to be, not what the earth molded them into. On his way to what he remembers as a disgusting and broken home, he imagines Leah in the faded denim shorts and oversized brown t-shirt that she always wore. He speeds up as he hits what was once Oregon state lines, trying to get to the girl that turned back for him. No amount of speed will get him to four months ago.
She wears dark wash jeans now, from an elusive supplier in Portland, a city that has been completely overrun by a faction of the 47s, the gang that began in Victor's hometown. The jeans are new, unlike anything else she's ever slipped into or dreamed of, and she hates the feeling of coarse denim on her legs. Her small sandals thoroughly worn by the cracked cement have been replaced with combat boots, also new and manufactured miles from anywhere Leah has ever been. The brown t-shirt is gone; it was set on fire in her front yard the night Victor left. Instead, she wears nothing but a black bra underneath a black sweatshirt. Leah is also different underneath the different clothing. She is silent, she is scarred, she is something less that what she saw in the mirror four months ago. She doesn't look in mirrors anymore, afraid she'll be too ashamed of what she'll see, or too proud of it.
Victor has changed as well. He is tired, older, but more calculating. He has seen where he must be, and knows what he must do, but he has been defeated before. He has been hit, not only by fists but by loss, and he is driven by the desire to hit back. There will be no more escapes, no more running from the plague that follows him. He has not only come for his girl, he has come for revenge.
She wears dark wash jeans now, from an elusive supplier in Portland, a city that has been completely overrun by a faction of the 47s, the gang that began in Victor's hometown. The jeans are new, unlike anything else she's ever slipped into or dreamed of, and she hates the feeling of coarse denim on her legs. Her small sandals thoroughly worn by the cracked cement have been replaced with combat boots, also new and manufactured miles from anywhere Leah has ever been. The brown t-shirt is gone; it was set on fire in her front yard the night Victor left. Instead, she wears nothing but a black bra underneath a black sweatshirt. Leah is also different underneath the different clothing. She is silent, she is scarred, she is something less that what she saw in the mirror four months ago. She doesn't look in mirrors anymore, afraid she'll be too ashamed of what she'll see, or too proud of it.
Victor has changed as well. He is tired, older, but more calculating. He has seen where he must be, and knows what he must do, but he has been defeated before. He has been hit, not only by fists but by loss, and he is driven by the desire to hit back. There will be no more escapes, no more running from the plague that follows him. He has not only come for his girl, he has come for revenge.
~
The door is open when he reaches his father's home, so he pulls his gun out from the bag on his motorcycle before he goes inside. It is night, the light from the moon and the faint memory of a childhood he barely wants to remember are the only things that guide him inside the small, one story house. Immediately, he hears shuffling, but keeps his gun lowered, forcing himself to calm down in case it's only his father. His hope turns out to be correct when the lights turn on, blinding him temporarily. When Victor opens his eyes, he drops the gun to the floor, and rushes to the older man, who is crying and laughing at the same time. They hug, and Victor feels like he's been gone for years, and remembers what Leah told him, after they hadn't seen each other for two days:
"Everything feels like forever here, Vic. When today's all you have, it's impossible not to want to soak in each other's presence."
Vic slowly breaks from his father. He sucks in a slow and steady breath, willing his voice not to crack when he says her name aloud for the first time in months. His father knows what he is about to say but stays silent, also knowing that he must get these words out, he must prove he's been thinking of her.
"Leah," Victor says, and the name comes out as if it is his salvation, his water in the desert that is the entire United States. "I need to see her."
"You just missed her actually," his father sighs, backing up to lean on the old wooden table behind him. "She's been living here, sleeping in your room. You shouldn't wait for her to come back though. You're right when you said you need to see her."
"What do you mean by that?" Vic asks quickly, some of his old self returning as he stands in the only safe haven he's ever had.
"She left maybe a minute before you got here, and she's on foot. Follow her to wherever she's going. Talk to her tonight, Victor. There are some things she needs to explain."
Victor nods his head, and doesn't bother to pick up the gun on his way out. He also moves to travel on foot, and it's not long after he begins running that he sees the figure of a girl. He can't be sure it's her, but something in his heart knows that she is what he's been looking for. It's this part of his heart that also urges him to stay back; the way she's looking over her shoulder suggests she knows he's there, but Leah has never been one to reveal all her cards at once, and some things never change.
She walks into an abandoned building he knows as 47 territory, as their leader's personal palace, and he resists the urge to vomit. This can't be her, he thinks to himself, this can't be the girl he left alone on state lines, and he is partially right in this thought.
Victor hears but doesn't feel himself get hit in the back of the head by the butt of a rifle. He sees nothing as he hits the ground, and can hear nothing but crazed shouts as he falls unconscious.
Friday, August 26, 2011
writing adventure 25- True Love
"This is the part where you lie and say you've missed me." Her voice is so weak and soft, and he wills himself to believe that it is only in his mind, that it is only a trick of the dim lamp post light that reveals to him her tears.
"What if it's not a lie?" he questions back, but she'll know. No matter what he said, she always knew. It's why he hates himself for not loving her.
"That's what I'll tell myself, too."
He cringes away from her words, but they fall into the darkness and surround him, and he can hear her ragged breaths and sense the tears crashing to the cement no matter how tightly he shuts his eyes. They should have been soul mates, they could have been soul mates, but he has never been able to see any future, let alone one with her in it, and he can't really think of anything more than tears and darkness when it comes to the girl.
If he were a better man, he thinks to himself, he would have taken those few steps and kissed her, just like he knew she was begging for him to do, but he is not a better man. He is only this man. He knows no true love, no three in the morning dreams of just standing next to someone long enough to feel a part of their universe.
She knows these things, and he knows that she does and he will do nothing about it. So she will keep dreaming, and keep crying, and keep begging for things she will never have.
"How many times have we stood here, outside someone else's house, and had this same conversation?" he asks her, realizing too late his voice is harsher than it should be to a friend he has always relied on.
She wipes her tears violently, ready for a fight now, and he admires her ability to snap back while hating her ability to put him in this position day after day. "I don't know," she says, but her voice is still thick from holding back sobs, and it doesn't come out as angrily as she had hoped. "How many times are you going to leave without saying goodbye?"
She stabs him in his heart with those words, with his own actions. In this moment, he feels that she is the only one who could do that to him. Only someone who loves him that much, who knows what true love feels like, could destroy him with a sentence.
And when she turns to walk away, he will finally wonder if maybe he does love her, because why come back after no goodbye if not to see the woman he loves? Maybe they are soul mates, maybe they could be together, because he is so cold under that light alone. But the thought leaves him as quickly as it came, because he is alone under that light, and she has left, and he will not run after her, and she knows he never will.
He is not a better man than the man he is.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
writing adventure 24- Weakness
It is in their weakest moments that she comes to them, a beacon of both light and dark. Some of them, the soldiers that die slow and painfully, call her an angel; most that only see a flash of her before the blackness simply think she is salvation.
After an eternity of war, after an eternity of dying men, she is not quite sure what she is, but she doesn't think she's an angel and she's fairly certain she's never been salvation. When there are breaks in her work, when there are no more soldiers at the moment and no more battles in the coming moments, she remembers a time where she was something real, something human, but then there are more battles and more blood and the memory is as faded as the man's vision when he looks up at the last image he will ever see.
As she makes her rounds on the battlefield, one of the soldiers tries to grab her ankle. He has strength, she thinks to herself, something she thinks she also had once. When she turns and kneels by his side, he looks at her as though she is the one who stabbed him, who left the spear in his chest, its wooden rod sticking straight to the heavens.
"I can see you because I'm dying, yes?" he says to her, and she smiles her serene smile and nods her head. She has practice in this, she knows how to treat the dying.
The tears spring from his eyes, and he claws at the dirt beneath him as he growls through his teeth. She sees both strength and weakness in the soldier, and her hands hover above his chest, unsure of what to do, of how to calm a man who knows any action is futile. "Please," she whispers, "peace will come. Peace comes to all men of chaos." She wonders at the back of her mind if, when she was real, she had clawed at the ground and screamed from desperation.
Suddenly, the man stopped, a shadow of his former self, but a menacing one. "Peace," he responds, blood slowly dripping out of the side of his mouth. "There is no peace on this earth. It's just a temporary illusion."
She doesn't have the chance to tell him he's right before he leaves the world he died for. Her white dress is stained by his blood, and she doesn't feel like watching anyone else die, watching someone suffer for something they either don't or shouldn't believe in. But she was human once, too, and the one thing she does remember is that no one came and sat with her as she went, and maybe that's why she got the job.
Peace comes to those of chaos, but not for very long.
After an eternity of war, after an eternity of dying men, she is not quite sure what she is, but she doesn't think she's an angel and she's fairly certain she's never been salvation. When there are breaks in her work, when there are no more soldiers at the moment and no more battles in the coming moments, she remembers a time where she was something real, something human, but then there are more battles and more blood and the memory is as faded as the man's vision when he looks up at the last image he will ever see.
As she makes her rounds on the battlefield, one of the soldiers tries to grab her ankle. He has strength, she thinks to herself, something she thinks she also had once. When she turns and kneels by his side, he looks at her as though she is the one who stabbed him, who left the spear in his chest, its wooden rod sticking straight to the heavens.
"I can see you because I'm dying, yes?" he says to her, and she smiles her serene smile and nods her head. She has practice in this, she knows how to treat the dying.
The tears spring from his eyes, and he claws at the dirt beneath him as he growls through his teeth. She sees both strength and weakness in the soldier, and her hands hover above his chest, unsure of what to do, of how to calm a man who knows any action is futile. "Please," she whispers, "peace will come. Peace comes to all men of chaos." She wonders at the back of her mind if, when she was real, she had clawed at the ground and screamed from desperation.
Suddenly, the man stopped, a shadow of his former self, but a menacing one. "Peace," he responds, blood slowly dripping out of the side of his mouth. "There is no peace on this earth. It's just a temporary illusion."
She doesn't have the chance to tell him he's right before he leaves the world he died for. Her white dress is stained by his blood, and she doesn't feel like watching anyone else die, watching someone suffer for something they either don't or shouldn't believe in. But she was human once, too, and the one thing she does remember is that no one came and sat with her as she went, and maybe that's why she got the job.
Peace comes to those of chaos, but not for very long.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
writing adventure 23- Stars Are Always Far Away
You look to the horizon and you see it: the brightest lights, the biggest city, the innocent hope a child gets when they say they want to be a movie star. Then, instead of moving towards those bright lights, you falter. A life you never saw coming hits you from all sides, dampens that dream's voice until it is merely words at the back of your mind, stuck in a cage you weren't aware was waiting for them.
Ten, twenty years down the line, you look to that horizon once again. You're still seeing lights, but they're dull and dying, flickering in and out with each breath you take, each tear that rolls down your cheek for a life you never achieved. It's a cautious, yet a desperate hope you hold with you now, a hope that is barely a whisper back in that cage. You realize that, all this time, it has been dying with the lights.
But it doesn't matter. Reality grips you once again, and forces you to realize you are not a child, you cannot sit and waste your days staring at a horizon. Dreams are fleeting, and this is what happens when they fly away. You are left, a shell of something that was once whole, but you can't remember what that looked like. You can only see the now; the past is but a glorified and sometimes regrettable present. The future becomes the same thing.
You move through another ten or twenty years. You sometimes sleep alone, sometimes with someone else, but you will never sleep in the city on the horizon. There is promise there, and you have no promise. You have statistics and chores, and the things that happen between dreams, and who are you to idolize dusty lights?
When you look up, you see nothing now, save for one lonely light on the horizon, one terrible reminder that you could have been something more than yourself. But that is simply a dream, simply something to wake up from, and you've been awake all your life. The lights mean nothing, the city means nothing, but they are something to you. Something you've never gotten anywhere near. No matter what it cost you along the way, no matter what you sacrificed, there was always a horizon.
Suddenly, you think to yourself that this must be what it feels like to go so far while knowing deep in your heart you were only running in circles.
Ten, twenty years down the line, you look to that horizon once again. You're still seeing lights, but they're dull and dying, flickering in and out with each breath you take, each tear that rolls down your cheek for a life you never achieved. It's a cautious, yet a desperate hope you hold with you now, a hope that is barely a whisper back in that cage. You realize that, all this time, it has been dying with the lights.
But it doesn't matter. Reality grips you once again, and forces you to realize you are not a child, you cannot sit and waste your days staring at a horizon. Dreams are fleeting, and this is what happens when they fly away. You are left, a shell of something that was once whole, but you can't remember what that looked like. You can only see the now; the past is but a glorified and sometimes regrettable present. The future becomes the same thing.
You move through another ten or twenty years. You sometimes sleep alone, sometimes with someone else, but you will never sleep in the city on the horizon. There is promise there, and you have no promise. You have statistics and chores, and the things that happen between dreams, and who are you to idolize dusty lights?
When you look up, you see nothing now, save for one lonely light on the horizon, one terrible reminder that you could have been something more than yourself. But that is simply a dream, simply something to wake up from, and you've been awake all your life. The lights mean nothing, the city means nothing, but they are something to you. Something you've never gotten anywhere near. No matter what it cost you along the way, no matter what you sacrificed, there was always a horizon.
Suddenly, you think to yourself that this must be what it feels like to go so far while knowing deep in your heart you were only running in circles.
Monday, August 15, 2011
writing adventure 22- Nightmare
The worst part will always be the running. There's nothing philosophical to it, nothing he can cry about to a therapist. It's just so slow. He's always running and everyone is always passing him.
And that's always the nightmare, and it's always terrifying, and he'll never understand why.
In the dream, he wakes up under the tree in the backyard of his childhood home. The swing set is five feet away, and he ponders whether or not he should swing there, just for a moment, to regain some sense of nostalgia he knows he should have.
He never does.
Instead, he turns towards the horizon, the sun setting in an ominous dark orange before he sees people running up over the hill. He does not know what they are running from, be it imaginary monster or some real threat his mind has cooked up. He joins them in their escape, anyway.
And maybe that's the worst part: the unknown chasing after him down the street, and out of town, and past county lines, and across state borders, until he's run so far he has never seen the landscape before. This also frightens him; he's so sure it's a nightmare he has yet to wake up from until he runs by places he has never seen or even thought about. Then he's sure it's real, and that he must keep running, past more state lines and more unknown places.
He's wearing jeans and a sweater, and he's not sure he can take the desert of what he assumes is Arizona, but he runs towards it anyway, the sun still setting a burnt orange, his legs still carrying him away from something so terrible his mind won't even let him see it.
The people that he saw running up the hill, the people that tipped him off that he too should be running, pass him as though he is a tortoise running from an avalanche. They zoom past and he is even more frightened, and even more aware that this is simply a dream.
And now he realizes, as he runs and runs and keeps running, that that is the most frightening part.
Not the running, not the monster, not the fact that he's never seen its face.
The worst part is that all those people pass him, and not one of them cares that he's falling behind, falling apart, falling into the teeth of the unknown.
And that's always the nightmare, and it's always terrifying, and he'll never understand why.
In the dream, he wakes up under the tree in the backyard of his childhood home. The swing set is five feet away, and he ponders whether or not he should swing there, just for a moment, to regain some sense of nostalgia he knows he should have.
He never does.
Instead, he turns towards the horizon, the sun setting in an ominous dark orange before he sees people running up over the hill. He does not know what they are running from, be it imaginary monster or some real threat his mind has cooked up. He joins them in their escape, anyway.
And maybe that's the worst part: the unknown chasing after him down the street, and out of town, and past county lines, and across state borders, until he's run so far he has never seen the landscape before. This also frightens him; he's so sure it's a nightmare he has yet to wake up from until he runs by places he has never seen or even thought about. Then he's sure it's real, and that he must keep running, past more state lines and more unknown places.
He's wearing jeans and a sweater, and he's not sure he can take the desert of what he assumes is Arizona, but he runs towards it anyway, the sun still setting a burnt orange, his legs still carrying him away from something so terrible his mind won't even let him see it.
The people that he saw running up the hill, the people that tipped him off that he too should be running, pass him as though he is a tortoise running from an avalanche. They zoom past and he is even more frightened, and even more aware that this is simply a dream.
And now he realizes, as he runs and runs and keeps running, that that is the most frightening part.
Not the running, not the monster, not the fact that he's never seen its face.
The worst part is that all those people pass him, and not one of them cares that he's falling behind, falling apart, falling into the teeth of the unknown.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
writing adventure 21- Absence
Sadness did not come the night he lost her. Nothing really came that night; no tears, no shouts of frustration, no words of desperation. He had taken it in stride. He was alive, she was dead. He tried to save her, she died in his arms anyway. The words were processed logically in his brain, the actions were processed as logical as possible in his heart.
What a damn shame that was.
"I want to stay," she had said to him. Those were her last words, and she chose to say them to only him. She chose to look straight into his eyes, chose to stop her frail body from shaking, chose to be strong for such a short moment to say those words to him. He was who she remembered, he was who she was thinking about in those final seconds, when she told him she wanted to stay.
"Okay," was all he could muster back.
He hopes that somewhere in heaven she is laughing, because if she's not he knows deep down she is ashamed. She wanted that last moment to mean something; he just wanted that last moment to be over. He had never prayed for anything before, as he wasn't religious and talking to himself would be crazy. But in that moment, he prayed for it to be over. Because of her final words, he knows she did not want the same thing.
He is ashamed of himself now, as he sits in a room he used to share with her. There is silence around him, and he makes no move to change that. There are no tears, but he tries to will them to come.
She is dead. Her blood still soaks his clothing. Her scent still lingers on the pillow. Her warmth still lingers in his soul.
But he is alive. And people who are alive must simply live.
Yesterday he would not have been ashamed of that fact.
What a damn shame that was.
"I want to stay," she had said to him. Those were her last words, and she chose to say them to only him. She chose to look straight into his eyes, chose to stop her frail body from shaking, chose to be strong for such a short moment to say those words to him. He was who she remembered, he was who she was thinking about in those final seconds, when she told him she wanted to stay.
"Okay," was all he could muster back.
He hopes that somewhere in heaven she is laughing, because if she's not he knows deep down she is ashamed. She wanted that last moment to mean something; he just wanted that last moment to be over. He had never prayed for anything before, as he wasn't religious and talking to himself would be crazy. But in that moment, he prayed for it to be over. Because of her final words, he knows she did not want the same thing.
He is ashamed of himself now, as he sits in a room he used to share with her. There is silence around him, and he makes no move to change that. There are no tears, but he tries to will them to come.
She is dead. Her blood still soaks his clothing. Her scent still lingers on the pillow. Her warmth still lingers in his soul.
But he is alive. And people who are alive must simply live.
Yesterday he would not have been ashamed of that fact.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
writing adventure 20- A Good Time
Greg had been adamant about not finding some girl from a street corner. Those girls were too far gone, too enslaved by some doped-up pimp to pretend for more than an hour that they're something they're not. He needed someone who could fake loving him, who could fake cry over his dying soul.
Amazing the things one could find on the internet these days.
He got a phone number off of some very classily inappropriate website, and called at precisely four in the afternoon.
"This is Kat," the voice said over the phone, just above a whisper. Greg felt tingles on the back of his spine, maybe out of nervousness or maybe out of passion, but he shook it off and answered her.
"Hey, I'm Greg. This is really weird to do over the phone, so could we meet in person to talk?"
The woman paused for a moment before replying in a more natural voice, "You would have to pay me for talking, too. If it's in person."
It was Greg's turn to pause. He rubbed his head and looked in the mirror. Bald.
He had had such nice hair once.
"Sure, sure," he answered after a moment. "That's fine."
Amazing the things one could find on the internet these days.
He got a phone number off of some very classily inappropriate website, and called at precisely four in the afternoon.
"This is Kat," the voice said over the phone, just above a whisper. Greg felt tingles on the back of his spine, maybe out of nervousness or maybe out of passion, but he shook it off and answered her.
"Hey, I'm Greg. This is really weird to do over the phone, so could we meet in person to talk?"
The woman paused for a moment before replying in a more natural voice, "You would have to pay me for talking, too. If it's in person."
It was Greg's turn to pause. He rubbed his head and looked in the mirror. Bald.
He had had such nice hair once.
"Sure, sure," he answered after a moment. "That's fine."
~
Kat wasn't what he expected. She definitely didn't look street corner material, with her soft brown hair and dark green eyes. She looked refined, elegant even, and he wondered why exactly she was stuck in this particular position. After he opened his front door to her, she surveyed his house as if she was about to buy it, noticing every object and every flaw. When she sat at his kitchen table, he took a moment to consider if this was wrong. But then she looked at him with condescending eyes, a look she must have perfected from mirroring those looking at her, and asked him why he had insisted on explaining himself to a prostitute in person.
"You're not going to believe me, and I wanted to make sure you wouldn't just hang up," he sighed, trying to look back at her without judgement in his own eyes; the level he was on was far below what she stooped to for a job.
Kat stood up abruptly. "If you're thinking of attacking me, it won't end well for you. We both have all our clothes on, you can't prove I'm anything other than a friend, and I always have 911 one button press away when I enter the house for the first time."
Greg's eyes widened, and he backed up a step before addressing her concerns. "No, I meant, you would think I'm not serious and just hang up. Not, I'm trying to lure you here to kill you. Definitely not that last one."
She sat back down, her legs crossed and her mind back at ease. "So, tell me what you want."
"You're high-end, right?" Kat nodded. "That means you can pretend to be something like a girlfriend, right?"
Kat kept the condescending look in her eye. "I can be whatever you want for the right price."
"Fair enough. I have stage four brain cancer. The doctors still have me on chemotherapy, but they're about to give up. Once they do, I have about two weeks to live."
"And you want one last good time before they send you to your death?" she asked, some of the judgement gone from her eyes. "I can respect that."
Greg shook his head. "I don't want to have sex with you, Kat. I'm going to give you all the money I have left to go with me to the hospital. To watch me die."
There was silence in the room for a while. Kat shifted in the wooden seat and pulled her dress down while Greg kept checking the time over her shoulder.
"Okay," she said finally.
"The website said you usually ask for the money in advance for these types of things." When Greg started to pull out money, she stood up and stopped him.
"You can pay me when you're dead," she told him, no fear or discomfort apparent on her face. The elegance he had seen when she came in was gone, and he knew in that moment that he may have been the one dying, but she had seen and done things that would make anyone want to jump off a cliff. "Here's my private cell phone number. Call me when you want me. I just need to know the when and where."
She left him with a card, but no kiss goodbye, even though he was secretly hoping for both.
~
Kat got the call at three in the morning; since it was her personal cell phone, and she had been lying next to a very old, very rich politician, she forgot to speak in her sultry voice, instead using a groggy "What?"
It was the paramedics, and they were calling her because Gregory Landen was being admitted to the hospital, and he wanted them to call his friend to meet him there. She hopped out of bed, and put her clothes on from the day before; a black dress strikingly appropriate and inappropriate for what was about to happen. In her car on the twenty minute drive over, she pondered if a dying man would care that her makeup was smudged from another man, that her clothes were dirty with someone else's sweat.
When Kat got there, it was obvious that Greg did not have much time, so she pulled the chair in the room closer to his bed, and placed her hand gently over his.
"Hey, friend," he chuckled, but it was nervous, it was weak, it was the sound of a balloon slowly losing its air.
"Hey, friend," she whispered back without knowing why her voice was soft as well. "Is there anyone else you want me to call?"
"Parents are dead. Friends drove me nuts when I first got diagnosed, so when I moved I didn't really reach out." She struggled to understand what he was saying. "I don't even have a boss to notify. But don't worry, I have the money for you. In my wallet. Everything I got left after the operation, and the chemo, and this final stay."
She waved her other hand. "I'll get paid when you're dead, remember? Don't worry about that stuff."
Greg smiled. Again, the elegance of when she walked into the room was dashed by when she opened her mouth. That was the voice of his angel.
His paid angel.
He slept only for a few moments before being woken up by his own inability to breathe. The nurses came in and threw an oxygen mask over his face; they didn't look in the direction of the girl in the wrinkled dress, with the smudged makeup and tired eyes.
Kat didn't look their direction, either. She was staring at her hand resting on top of Greg's. He was minutes away from death, and both of them knew it.
"You'll stay for a little bit, right?" he managed to say to her.
"Got nowhere else to be."
"I like that. You should stay, just for a little bit."
Kat felt her eyes tearing up, and knew some part of her was close to death, too. The part of her that took money from sleeping men, that spoke in low voices with strangers, that wore short dresses and had to keep emergency personnel on speed-dial.
"Don't worry about that stuff," she repeated, and he nodded his head.
The heart rate on the monitor flatlined, but no one came running in like she expected them to. She didn't even get up out of her chair, didn't even startle at the sound. A nurse came in maybe a minute later and turned the equipment off. Kat moved her hand so the bed sheet could go over his body.
She looked at the clock and it was almost four in the morning. The sun would be peeking out in an hour, and she would have another day of calls and kisses and too much more.
The part of her that took money from sleeping men resurfaced, and the nurses were puzzled when they saw a girl in a wrinkled black dress emerge from the room counting bills.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
writing adventure 19- Anger
Anger is an open door
That slams fast and hard,
But after awhile no one will remember.
Anger is an open sea,
Sometimes calm on the surface,
Sometimes rough and violent.
Anger is an exclamation point,
Used in different ways,
But always the same deep down.
Anger is a calm before the storm,
Scarier than the actual thing,
Making you panic and cry out.
Anger is the feeling that there is nothing to lose,
And nothing to gain.
Anger is an unloaded gun,
Useless until you put some thought into it.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
writing adventure 18- Orphans (Jack's Mannequin)
As much as I pretended to know who you were, I never predicted this would be the end. I thought we had planned this out together. I was supposed to be right behind you the whole time.
Everyone always said prison would be a lonely existence, but I never really felt it until I woke up this morning and the guards were right outside the bars, yelling at me to get up, yelling at me that you had tried to escape.
Without me.
What I'm still trying to figure out is how you got so far before they shot you through the head from 100 yards.
Anyway, I'm writing this on the tough toilet paper in solitary confinement; one of the nurses took pity on me when I went to go see your body and gave me a pencil so I could do this. She's nice, you'd be so excited to be staring up at her all day, if you could still get excited. Maybe you can, I don't know. Maybe, when we planned out this escape, when we talked about it for hours in our cell, when we perfected how to whisper in code just so we would never get caught, this is what you were really planning. Maybe, what happened to you was the real escape. A bullet was your only way out.
It doesn't matter now. In this moment, I'm in solitary, and I'll stay in solitary for a lot of moments before they forget this whole ordeal and let me out.
I'll never forget this whole ordeal. I was going to have a life with you, a real one. And I know that you said we couldn't be in love out there, and I pretended to understand, but you never said anything about in here.
It's your turn to pretend to understand. I'm going to flush this now, and hope it gets to you. And if it does, I want you to pretend to understand that I did love you in this fake life, and that it's wrong and disgusting and the only thing I had.
Everyone always said prison would be a lonely existence, but I never really felt it until I woke up this morning and the guards were right outside the bars, yelling at me to get up, yelling at me that you had tried to escape.
Without me.
What I'm still trying to figure out is how you got so far before they shot you through the head from 100 yards.
Anyway, I'm writing this on the tough toilet paper in solitary confinement; one of the nurses took pity on me when I went to go see your body and gave me a pencil so I could do this. She's nice, you'd be so excited to be staring up at her all day, if you could still get excited. Maybe you can, I don't know. Maybe, when we planned out this escape, when we talked about it for hours in our cell, when we perfected how to whisper in code just so we would never get caught, this is what you were really planning. Maybe, what happened to you was the real escape. A bullet was your only way out.
It doesn't matter now. In this moment, I'm in solitary, and I'll stay in solitary for a lot of moments before they forget this whole ordeal and let me out.
I'll never forget this whole ordeal. I was going to have a life with you, a real one. And I know that you said we couldn't be in love out there, and I pretended to understand, but you never said anything about in here.
It's your turn to pretend to understand. I'm going to flush this now, and hope it gets to you. And if it does, I want you to pretend to understand that I did love you in this fake life, and that it's wrong and disgusting and the only thing I had.
Monday, August 8, 2011
writing adventure 17- Dear Maria, Count Me In (All Time Low)
His life was a cliche. If high school wasn't one big cliche, he would probably have shot himself by now.
Okay, that was too morbid, even for the nerdy kid with the crush on the only girl worth mentioning at his school.
Yeah, that girl. That girl that tortures you just by staring in your general direction, that makes you grin just by saying hello. That girl.
She walked the halls like a queen, and everyone fell at her feet accordingly. She never asked for it, not out loud anyway, but that smile was impossible not to worship, and those eyes held such secrets. It had surprised him when he realized she wasn't evil, like some other honorable mentions residing in the halls.
Maria. Damn, how could he have turned into that guy? The one who never gets the girl, the one that spends his nights staring up at the dark ceiling imagining exactly what he would say to sweep that girl off her feet. Damn.
It wasn't as if he went totally unnoticed by her. They had math class together, and she told him he was funny (funny guys are best friends is what he thought right after) and had even invited him to a party (because she was the nicest girl on campus, and this was probably a publicity stunt). Of course, he had refused, because no self-respecting guy takes a pity offer from the girl of their dreams.
Damn.
Shoveling books into his locker, he realizes math class is just around the corner. Maria was always in before him, sitting at her desk as her friends flocked to her side. They always went to her; she was that girl after all. Usually one of them would be sitting on the corner of his desk, and he would have to wait for the bell to ring to actually sit down. No way was he going to mess up by telling one of her friends to shove off. No way he was getting branded a jerk. All he had going for him was that he was a nice guy!
Damn.
He heard her mention the party from a few days ago as he walked into class. Today was Friday, meaning she would be having fun tonight and he would be staring holes into the ceiling. Only, what if he wasn't?
The thought left him standing in the doorway, eyes wide and unblinking. Unbeknownst to him, Maria had caught his form walking in, and now watched uneasily from her seat. Making a very thought out decision, she shooed her friends from their perches around her and made her way towards the frozen boy.
"Hey," she said as nonchalantly as she could muster, her right hand resting on her hip.
He immediately snapped out of his daze. "Maria," he said, still shocked she would ever speak to that guy. The rest of the room was just as shocked it seems, for they all turned in his direction. He suppressed a blush as best he could.
"Just so you know," she whispered, drawing him in. Finally, that girl had gotten her cool back, "I'm going to this party with or without you, but it'd be nice to see you there. The invitation is still open."
Then, Maria smiled at him.
Damn.
"Count me in," he said, and smiled back.
writing adventure notice 1
(there probably won't be more of these, but I numbered it just in case.)
Because of my now hectic schedule and sore leg muscles, I'm going to try my hand at writing some stuff that's inspired by listening to one song over and over and over again while writing. I've done it before accidentally, so I figured why not try to do it purposefully and see if anything good comes of it. Don't worry, I'm not going to just write lyrics word for word, or put down any at all, but the title of the entry will be the song title and artist. I think it will be easier to grab inspiration this way than my tested method of staring at a computer screen for fifteen minutes.
I'll start this small project later tonight, at my usual awful hour.
Because of my now hectic schedule and sore leg muscles, I'm going to try my hand at writing some stuff that's inspired by listening to one song over and over and over again while writing. I've done it before accidentally, so I figured why not try to do it purposefully and see if anything good comes of it. Don't worry, I'm not going to just write lyrics word for word, or put down any at all, but the title of the entry will be the song title and artist. I think it will be easier to grab inspiration this way than my tested method of staring at a computer screen for fifteen minutes.
I'll start this small project later tonight, at my usual awful hour.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
writing adventure 16- Enough
She woke up in the hospital, groggy and in pain. Her first thought was 'Shouldn't I be at a photo-shoot?'
Her second thought was 'When did that become so important?'
The doctor gave her a look she knew well: one of judgement, one of shame, one that lingered long after everyone turned away and said goodbye. She blinked a couple times after she realized her eyelids had drifted closed again, and waited for him to speak. "Hello, Jade. How are you feeling?"
"Um. . ." she said, and her voice was barely a whisper. 'How long have I been asleep?' she worried to herself. "I'm okay, I think. My head hurts."
The doctor smiled at her, and she smiled brightly back. Then, the doctor frowned at her, and she became worried again. "Listen closely to what I have to say, Jade. You've been here at the hospital for two days. Your roommate found you passed out in your bathroom. You were severely malnourished, and were suffering from alcohol poisoning. Do you understand what I'm telling you? This lifestyle," he sighed as he saw her eyes begin to water, "this lifestyle is going to kill you. The only thing I can do is release you. I hope you consider actually taking care of yourself." With that, the doctor signed her chart, and left it on the table in her room.
She cried for about twenty minutes before she left for home.
Her second thought was 'When did that become so important?'
The doctor gave her a look she knew well: one of judgement, one of shame, one that lingered long after everyone turned away and said goodbye. She blinked a couple times after she realized her eyelids had drifted closed again, and waited for him to speak. "Hello, Jade. How are you feeling?"
"Um. . ." she said, and her voice was barely a whisper. 'How long have I been asleep?' she worried to herself. "I'm okay, I think. My head hurts."
The doctor smiled at her, and she smiled brightly back. Then, the doctor frowned at her, and she became worried again. "Listen closely to what I have to say, Jade. You've been here at the hospital for two days. Your roommate found you passed out in your bathroom. You were severely malnourished, and were suffering from alcohol poisoning. Do you understand what I'm telling you? This lifestyle," he sighed as he saw her eyes begin to water, "this lifestyle is going to kill you. The only thing I can do is release you. I hope you consider actually taking care of yourself." With that, the doctor signed her chart, and left it on the table in her room.
She cried for about twenty minutes before she left for home.
~
Samantha, her roommate, had also been in tears when Jade arrived at her apartment. There had been screaming and hugging and even more crying, and, finally, a decision.
They sat down on Jade's bed together, their tears dying down. "Are you sure about this?" Samantha asked, and Jade nodded her head slowly. 'No,' she added silently in her head, 'I'm not sure.'
"It's the only thing I can do, you know? Sometimes, I guess, dreams shouldn't really come true," Jade said, and the tears came again.
Samantha inched closer and hugged the other girl. "It'll be okay. You're smarter than the rest of our friends put together. You can always have another dream."
Jade smiled through her tears. "Yeah," she said. "I have to make a call."
They sat down on Jade's bed together, their tears dying down. "Are you sure about this?" Samantha asked, and Jade nodded her head slowly. 'No,' she added silently in her head, 'I'm not sure.'
"It's the only thing I can do, you know? Sometimes, I guess, dreams shouldn't really come true," Jade said, and the tears came again.
Samantha inched closer and hugged the other girl. "It'll be okay. You're smarter than the rest of our friends put together. You can always have another dream."
Jade smiled through her tears. "Yeah," she said. "I have to make a call."
~
The agency had hung up with her as soon as she had quit. By doing so, she had voided her contract with them, and that was that. There was no loyalty in modeling; once you had made your rounds, you were done, and that was that. They had probably been trying to get rid of her for weeks.
They probably looked at this like she was doing them a favor, almost killing herself accidentally by chugging vodka as a meal. Trying to lose weight she didn't even have.
Afterwards, she was restless. Clueless. Nowhere to go, and nothing to believe in. So, she walked. Right out of her Hollywood apartment, right down streets she had never walked before.
Until she stopped. There was a tattoo parlor to her left, called True Tattoo. Not stopping to think, she walked in, and sat down in the chair closest to the door.
Before long, a man motioned for her to join him at the counter. "Hi," he said, his voice shockingly light compared to the tattoos that riddled his body, "my name is Trevor. Do you know what you want?"
"Yeah, I do. I want the word 'Enough' written, in all caps, going up the right side of my body. Can you do that?" Jade tapped her fingers on the glass counter, fidgeting nervously and wondering if she should run.
He nodded, still smiling at her. "Sure, we can do that. Actually, I can do that," he laughed. "If you're that sure, we can do it right now. And I'm the artist in today, so come right around and we'll lay you on the bench in the back of the store." He opened the small swing doors that separated the front from the back of the store, and she walked all the way to the back.
For the first time since she moved to the city, she doesn't walk as if she's on a runway. She walks as if she's Jade Nevarra, someone normal and sane and something more than a dumb blonde model.
~
Halfway through the long process of acquiring the tattoo, Jade stopped cringing. Trevor took this as a good sign; he knew what a first tattoo felt like, and he knew it didn't feel like a good decision.
"So," he said, trying to talk to the girl that stumbled into the shop, "why did you choose to get this?"
"The first time I walked into a model agency building, they said I was perfect. Perfect hair, perfect weight, perfect height. Perfect. Then, it changed. They told me that the right side of my body was perfect. Perfect skin, perfect bone structure, perfect look. Then, it changed again. They told me I had gained too much weight, that my hips were too big, that I wouldn't get any covers of any magazines with just one good side and cheeseburger thighs. So, I stopped eating. For a while, I lived on coffee in the morning, and alcohol at night. It kept me alive until two days ago, when my friend found me unconscious in my bathroom. Now, I'm kind of sick of not being good enough. I'm saying 'enough.' Does that sound crazy?"
Trevor stopped working. "It's not crazy on your part. It's crazy on theirs. Seriously, I'm down to bomb the place if you are. You definitely have more than one good side. I mean, not that I've noticed," he corrected, waving his arms in front of his face.
Jade looked at him. Really looked at him. The small tattoo on his neck was a date, the one peeking out from under his sleeve looked to be the bottom of a cross. His left hand had letters on his pinkie through his pointer finger, that spelled out "FATE." 'You're imperfect to them,' she said in her mind, as she stared into his eyes, 'but there's no discovery in perfection, is there?'
Saturday, August 6, 2011
writing adventure 15- Walker of the Line (part 2)
He had finally convinced her to come inside when his mother and sister came home from the grocery store, carrying any type of food they thought the stranger might like.
So, every type of food they could find. Thomas had told Pupil to save her story for when Augusta and his mother came back. She hadn't been speaking much those days after the hospital, and when they realized she hadn't been eating, either, Thomas had put his foot down.
He had kept silent for so long because his mother had. Why she was also silent around the girl worried and confused him; how did a stranger have so much hold on someone they don't know? It was like his mother was Pupil's subordinate, so he had asked her once, before she made her daily trek to stand out in the sun of his backyard.
"What's going on between you and my mom? Augusta doesn't seem to notice, but Chris and I have seen it, and I'd like to know what that's all about." Chris was Thomas' good friend, who had been coming around more often since summer started and the stranger rolled in. By coincidence, he had been there when she first emerged from the forest and onto his street.
Pupil hadn't looked at him when he asked; she kept her face towards the screen door and her fingers on the handle. "What your mother says or doesn't say, does or doesn't do, isn't up to me. If you want to know what she's thinking, ask her."
"Tomorrow, I'm calling Chris, and we're all going to sit down and talk about what we've all just found out," he told his mother and Augusta that night, when the stranger had excused herself from the table without a bite to eat and escaped outside to the dark.
"Awesome!" Augusta commented, as her mother shifted in her seat.
"Thomas," she warned, "you may be eighteen now, but that doesn't mean you know everything. What makes you think she'll sit down with you? With anyone? She'll barely sit down for a meal."
"Maybe this isn't what she usually eats, considering she's from outer space," his sister countered. "Besides, she's really cool! Kind of silent, and creepy, but a good listener. I told her about that jerk guy that keeps calling me, and she totally asked me if I wanted help getting him off my back. She was definitely made for scaring the crap out of people."
Thomas rolled his eyes and got back to the subject at hand. "If I talk to her, she'll explain everything to us. There's a reason she's here, and there's a reason she was practically dead when we met her. And there's a reason you're acting weird around her too, Mom, and I want to know."
His mother sighed. "Augusta and I will go pick up some things tomorrow. I'm leaving you alone with her in the house because you say you can handle it. And call Chris tonight, please. You know how he gets with schedules."
Thomas smiled, and then quickly whipped his head towards the back door as it opened slowly.
"I apologize for intruding," Pupil said quickly, her head bowed but her posture still stick straight, still regal and confident.
"There's no need to apologize, my. . ." Thomas' mother paused, and his eyes then shot to her, "dear. This will be your home until we figure everything out. You can come and go as much as you like."
Pupil smiled to her, but it was awkward, it was pained. "Thank you," she said, and then darted past them to the guest room she was inhabiting. Thomas let go of a breath he didn't know he had been holding.
So, every type of food they could find. Thomas had told Pupil to save her story for when Augusta and his mother came back. She hadn't been speaking much those days after the hospital, and when they realized she hadn't been eating, either, Thomas had put his foot down.
He had kept silent for so long because his mother had. Why she was also silent around the girl worried and confused him; how did a stranger have so much hold on someone they don't know? It was like his mother was Pupil's subordinate, so he had asked her once, before she made her daily trek to stand out in the sun of his backyard.
"What's going on between you and my mom? Augusta doesn't seem to notice, but Chris and I have seen it, and I'd like to know what that's all about." Chris was Thomas' good friend, who had been coming around more often since summer started and the stranger rolled in. By coincidence, he had been there when she first emerged from the forest and onto his street.
Pupil hadn't looked at him when he asked; she kept her face towards the screen door and her fingers on the handle. "What your mother says or doesn't say, does or doesn't do, isn't up to me. If you want to know what she's thinking, ask her."
"Tomorrow, I'm calling Chris, and we're all going to sit down and talk about what we've all just found out," he told his mother and Augusta that night, when the stranger had excused herself from the table without a bite to eat and escaped outside to the dark.
"Awesome!" Augusta commented, as her mother shifted in her seat.
"Thomas," she warned, "you may be eighteen now, but that doesn't mean you know everything. What makes you think she'll sit down with you? With anyone? She'll barely sit down for a meal."
"Maybe this isn't what she usually eats, considering she's from outer space," his sister countered. "Besides, she's really cool! Kind of silent, and creepy, but a good listener. I told her about that jerk guy that keeps calling me, and she totally asked me if I wanted help getting him off my back. She was definitely made for scaring the crap out of people."
Thomas rolled his eyes and got back to the subject at hand. "If I talk to her, she'll explain everything to us. There's a reason she's here, and there's a reason she was practically dead when we met her. And there's a reason you're acting weird around her too, Mom, and I want to know."
His mother sighed. "Augusta and I will go pick up some things tomorrow. I'm leaving you alone with her in the house because you say you can handle it. And call Chris tonight, please. You know how he gets with schedules."
Thomas smiled, and then quickly whipped his head towards the back door as it opened slowly.
"I apologize for intruding," Pupil said quickly, her head bowed but her posture still stick straight, still regal and confident.
"There's no need to apologize, my. . ." Thomas' mother paused, and his eyes then shot to her, "dear. This will be your home until we figure everything out. You can come and go as much as you like."
Pupil smiled to her, but it was awkward, it was pained. "Thank you," she said, and then darted past them to the guest room she was inhabiting. Thomas let go of a breath he didn't know he had been holding.
Friday, August 5, 2011
writing adventure 14- Walker of the Line (part 1)
Her pale skin– or, what you can see of it under a long sleeved shirt and baggy jeans– is dazzling in the bright sunlight of Tennessee. It contrasts heavily with her straight black hair, and her seemingly light and orange colored eyes don't match the dark expression she never takes off her face. At least, she hasn't since the first time she landed in Tennessee, which was only three days ago according to Thomas' calendar.
It seemed longer to him as he used his kitchen window to glance at her standing rigidly in his backyard. There had been so much new information in those three days, so much confusion and chaos since she showed up outside of his mother's house slowly bleeding to death. He had been the one to catch her as she fell, he had been the one to call the ambulance, he had been the one to hear his mother gasp and whisper "She lives."
He had also been there when she "shifted"– her words, as he had been speechless long after it had been explained– into her "soul animal," which by the looks of it was a very large, very frightening tiger. All the doctors thought she was sleeping, but as soon as they had left she pounced off the bed, shifting mid-pounce, her claws digging into the linoleum floor of the small hospital. He had been frozen to his chair by her gaze, by the regality it held, and also by the sheer insanity of what was before him.
She growled once and then "shifted" back into her human self, wearing what looked to be an outfit for a gladiator. Her top didn't cover all of her torso, and the ink black skirt was more than a bit revealing. Before he even noticed what he should have been noticing though, he saw the scars. There were four small scars on her stomach, and one long one down her left arm. Across her wrists, there were burns, as if rope had been tied there for an extremely long time. When she turned around to lock the door, he noticed another long scar that started at the back of her neck and ended just after the shirt did.
She turned back around, a little wobbly still from blood loss but completely in control and hauntingly powerful. His brain screamed at him to throw his hands in the air, to do something other than gawk at the beautiful girl who just did something impossible, but the pit of his stomach told him to do something else.
"Are you alright?" he asked, and she narrowed her gaze, still refraining to speak. It was at this moment she realized what she was wearing, what she had done in front of this small-town boy, so she calmed herself and sat down on the hospital bed to put him at ease.
"I'm fine," she said, in a voice heavily accented with unknown origin. "I don't wish to harm or scare you. What I did before was just," she paused, looking down into her lap, shame etching her voice, "training."
"Look, miss, I don't want to be rude. But what, exactly, are you?" Thomas braced himself for the stranger's attack, his eyes squinting and his mouth a tight line on his face.
The girl looked at him again. It wasn't a glare, and he could tell she wasn't trying to be off-putting, but her face was almost locked in this deep gaze. A gaze that, he felt, looked straight through him into his soul. Her face scared him with this beauty, and once again he felt haunted by her.
"I don't expect you to understand what I am, but you'd be surprised how many people you know that are like me. I am from Tyagia, a planet bridged to Earth by a transporter hidden in the woods surrounding this town. The people of my planet have the ability to shift into their soul animals. That's what you just saw."
Thomas nodded his head, idly wondering why he believed any of what she said. "So," he started slowly, "that's how you got here. Some teleporter in the forest?"
"Yes," she said, crossing her legs and pulling her skirt down. He again noticed a scar, this one on her outside thigh and a little over an inch long.
"Who did this to you," he whispered, and she pretended not to hear. He coughed, and situated himself in the uncomfortable chair. "What's your name?" he asked louder.
"Pupil," she answered, and then something dawned on her. "Why were you here after the doctors left? Why were you here in the first place?"
He smiled at her, trying to convey some sort of friendship. "My name's Thomas, by the way. And I stayed because everyone needs someone to watch them wake up."
Pupil did not share his smile. "It's a good thing I don't sleep then," she said, and stood back up, motioning to leave.
"Wait, you just got here. You need to be taken care of."
"What I need is to get back to where I'm from. I must find the transporter and get back before very bad things happen on my world."
Thomas sighed. "If you don't like the hospital, stay with my mother for a few days. You need to rest, and she seemed to be interested in you."
Pupil paused. She had never seen this before. The stranger, Thomas, she remembered in her mind wanted her to be safe. Wanted her to be alright.
Her own family didn't care for her well-being.
She stepped closer to Thomas, meaning to intimidate him, meaning to prove to him she needed no protector, no rest from what she was fated to be. But, instead, she agreed, and now here they were, three days later, her feeling the wind of Central Tennessee, and him stealing glances of a broken and tormented soul.
It seemed longer to him as he used his kitchen window to glance at her standing rigidly in his backyard. There had been so much new information in those three days, so much confusion and chaos since she showed up outside of his mother's house slowly bleeding to death. He had been the one to catch her as she fell, he had been the one to call the ambulance, he had been the one to hear his mother gasp and whisper "She lives."
He had also been there when she "shifted"– her words, as he had been speechless long after it had been explained– into her "soul animal," which by the looks of it was a very large, very frightening tiger. All the doctors thought she was sleeping, but as soon as they had left she pounced off the bed, shifting mid-pounce, her claws digging into the linoleum floor of the small hospital. He had been frozen to his chair by her gaze, by the regality it held, and also by the sheer insanity of what was before him.
She growled once and then "shifted" back into her human self, wearing what looked to be an outfit for a gladiator. Her top didn't cover all of her torso, and the ink black skirt was more than a bit revealing. Before he even noticed what he should have been noticing though, he saw the scars. There were four small scars on her stomach, and one long one down her left arm. Across her wrists, there were burns, as if rope had been tied there for an extremely long time. When she turned around to lock the door, he noticed another long scar that started at the back of her neck and ended just after the shirt did.
She turned back around, a little wobbly still from blood loss but completely in control and hauntingly powerful. His brain screamed at him to throw his hands in the air, to do something other than gawk at the beautiful girl who just did something impossible, but the pit of his stomach told him to do something else.
"Are you alright?" he asked, and she narrowed her gaze, still refraining to speak. It was at this moment she realized what she was wearing, what she had done in front of this small-town boy, so she calmed herself and sat down on the hospital bed to put him at ease.
"I'm fine," she said, in a voice heavily accented with unknown origin. "I don't wish to harm or scare you. What I did before was just," she paused, looking down into her lap, shame etching her voice, "training."
"Look, miss, I don't want to be rude. But what, exactly, are you?" Thomas braced himself for the stranger's attack, his eyes squinting and his mouth a tight line on his face.
The girl looked at him again. It wasn't a glare, and he could tell she wasn't trying to be off-putting, but her face was almost locked in this deep gaze. A gaze that, he felt, looked straight through him into his soul. Her face scared him with this beauty, and once again he felt haunted by her.
"I don't expect you to understand what I am, but you'd be surprised how many people you know that are like me. I am from Tyagia, a planet bridged to Earth by a transporter hidden in the woods surrounding this town. The people of my planet have the ability to shift into their soul animals. That's what you just saw."
Thomas nodded his head, idly wondering why he believed any of what she said. "So," he started slowly, "that's how you got here. Some teleporter in the forest?"
"Yes," she said, crossing her legs and pulling her skirt down. He again noticed a scar, this one on her outside thigh and a little over an inch long.
"Who did this to you," he whispered, and she pretended not to hear. He coughed, and situated himself in the uncomfortable chair. "What's your name?" he asked louder.
"Pupil," she answered, and then something dawned on her. "Why were you here after the doctors left? Why were you here in the first place?"
He smiled at her, trying to convey some sort of friendship. "My name's Thomas, by the way. And I stayed because everyone needs someone to watch them wake up."
Pupil did not share his smile. "It's a good thing I don't sleep then," she said, and stood back up, motioning to leave.
"Wait, you just got here. You need to be taken care of."
"What I need is to get back to where I'm from. I must find the transporter and get back before very bad things happen on my world."
Thomas sighed. "If you don't like the hospital, stay with my mother for a few days. You need to rest, and she seemed to be interested in you."
Pupil paused. She had never seen this before. The stranger, Thomas, she remembered in her mind wanted her to be safe. Wanted her to be alright.
Her own family didn't care for her well-being.
She stepped closer to Thomas, meaning to intimidate him, meaning to prove to him she needed no protector, no rest from what she was fated to be. But, instead, she agreed, and now here they were, three days later, her feeling the wind of Central Tennessee, and him stealing glances of a broken and tormented soul.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
writing adventure 13- Assassin
His first memory is of hiding in a sky blue room. He's three or four when it happens, and he's waiting silently and patiently for the babysitter to come and find him. He has been waiting there, under the twin sized mattress with the dinosaur bedspread for longer than he can count, and when he hears the footsteps outside his room, he is eager and restless.
But he waits. Trevor Owens has been patient since the day he was born; it is a trait he never had to learn.
The babysitter– Trevor doesn't care to remember her name, now that it's been almost thirty years since that day– opens the door quietly. She is afraid the boy is sleeping, and doesn't want money to be deducted from her salary because some punk squealed that she woke him because she was bored. Her puzzled expression when she sees the impeccably made bed frustrates him; he didn't wait this long for her to simply be confused.
Then, it happens. Her face shifts, he can see it in the curve of her mouth and the light in her eyes, even at just three or four.
"Trevor?" she calls, a hint of fear in her voice.
Silence. Trevor smiles under the bed but is careful not to laugh. Last time he attempted this, his father had caught him because he couldn't keep silent after he saw the fear, after he knew he had won. Not this time.
The babysitter backs slowly out of the room, and then turns towards the hallway. Trevor army crawls out from under the bed once she is far enough into the hallway, and the carpet muffles his movements. He stands up a few feet behind her as she peeks into the master bedroom and calls his name again. The floorboards don't creak because he weighs so little, and the babysitter can't hear anything anyway due to her heartbeat in her ears.
"Who are you looking for?" he whispers, and she screams and whirls towards him, her hands up by her face and her eyes popping out of their sockets.
"Trevor," she yells, relieved and still frightened at the same time, "you scared me half to death!"
He laughs.
But he waits. Trevor Owens has been patient since the day he was born; it is a trait he never had to learn.
The babysitter– Trevor doesn't care to remember her name, now that it's been almost thirty years since that day– opens the door quietly. She is afraid the boy is sleeping, and doesn't want money to be deducted from her salary because some punk squealed that she woke him because she was bored. Her puzzled expression when she sees the impeccably made bed frustrates him; he didn't wait this long for her to simply be confused.
Then, it happens. Her face shifts, he can see it in the curve of her mouth and the light in her eyes, even at just three or four.
"Trevor?" she calls, a hint of fear in her voice.
Silence. Trevor smiles under the bed but is careful not to laugh. Last time he attempted this, his father had caught him because he couldn't keep silent after he saw the fear, after he knew he had won. Not this time.
The babysitter backs slowly out of the room, and then turns towards the hallway. Trevor army crawls out from under the bed once she is far enough into the hallway, and the carpet muffles his movements. He stands up a few feet behind her as she peeks into the master bedroom and calls his name again. The floorboards don't creak because he weighs so little, and the babysitter can't hear anything anyway due to her heartbeat in her ears.
"Who are you looking for?" he whispers, and she screams and whirls towards him, her hands up by her face and her eyes popping out of their sockets.
"Trevor," she yells, relieved and still frightened at the same time, "you scared me half to death!"
He laughs.
~
The assassin rouses himself out of his daydream. Let the dead dream; he has more important things to do.
He walks into his regular bar. No one to scare, no one to kill tonight, so he'll use this precious time to drown out all the screams he's heard over the years. People don't pay him to be a sniper. They pay him to be up close when it happens, they pay him to get a good look at those damned faces, they pay him to relay messages like "You should have paid up," or "This is for my sister."
And, frankly, he doesn't really mind. Someone else's fear has always been what defined him, and he hasn't spent years perfecting how to slit someone's throat to change that fact.
The bartender gives him a glance and a smile. She's a woman he's gone home with before, and probably will again, but he's not here to talk and she's not there to nag him into oblivion. Her name is Amy, she's 26, and she has a tattoo of the queen of hearts on her right shoulder.
She's also not afraid of him.
~
He follows Amy into her apartment, and they share a long kiss under the door-frame into her bedroom. He shoves her across the room and she lands nowhere near gracefully onto the bed. She looks at him and giggles. His eyes blaze in the moonlight shining through her dusty window, but he turns on the lights anyway. Let her see who he really is.
"You never ask me what I do," he tells her, his arms calmly at his sides. Patience, he remembers, is how he became what he is. Patience and fear.
Amy brushes the statement off. "I work in a shady bar. Most of the people that sit down are mobsters, or getting paid by mobsters. I can look past occupation." She smiles brightly to him again.
Trevor contemplates if he should hide under the bed.
"Amy," he says, and immediately regrets putting a name to her face tonight, "ask me what I do."
"Okay," she says, rolling her eyes, believing it to be some sort of game. "Trevor, what do you do?"
"I kill people." Trevor pulls the gun out of his waistband and points it directly at her, no hesitation, no emotion.
Amy begins to cry. His hand falters, the gun tips to the left slightly, and he growls and takes a step closer.
"Tell me you're afraid," he says as he blinks back tears in his eyes, but she doesn't hear him over her sobs. "Tell me you're scared!" he yells again. She's not doing this right, she's not doing what he wants. Why isn't she screaming? Why isn't she running down the hall or reaching for a phone? Why isn't she showing more fear?
"I'm scared!" she screams finally. "I'm scared!"
"It's not enough!" he yells back, his cries mixing with hers. He shoots her three times. He gets lucky; two land in her chest and one in the center of her forehead. Even with his eyes closed, even with his patience gone, Trevor still manages to make it look like a simple mob hit.
He puts the gun back. In this rough neighborhood, he'll have five minutes to flee before anyone even thinks of calling the cops, and they'll take their time getting to the scene.
Amy has fallen back on the bed, her blood soaking the sheets beneath her. Her eyes are wide open, her mouth the same. For once, Trevor sees her afraid.
He knows he shouldn't touch her, but he can't help himself, and he smoothes her hair as best as he can. Then, he closes her eyes and her mouth. Let the dead dream.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
writing adventure 12- Blood
Rain does not fall softly on those who have just been through war. It stings, it hurts, just like everything else. The rain doesn't wash the blood or the memories away, either; that's just a myth that some soldier's wife came up with after snatching her husband from the arms of a nightmare. Rain just dilutes the blood, the memories, just enough so that a soldier can't remember the smell of dead horses, but they can hear the screams of dead men. Rain just after battle isn't salvation, it's Hell. It drowns out the cries of the wounded, the dying, and it confuses the retreating form of an army. No one was ever saved by the rain. After that much blood has been spilled, no one shouts to the heavens, "Thank the gods for the rain!"
No one thanks the gods for anything after that much blood, but no one hates them, either. It's a half-belief that these men carry into war: everyone falls around them, but they themselves do not fall. Until they do.
Like the rain, men do not fall softly. They cry out as they die, they take more men with them to the grave. They wish for their mother's soothing voice, or their wife's warm hand against their cheek, or their child's laughter. They wish for anything but the present. And it is such a hopeless wish.
The present fails them regardless of their age or their beliefs, and the surviving few know, as they stare into the rain, that someday their present will fail them as well. This is not a fleeting thought; it stays with the damned soldiers until the day they too fall hard to the earth, blood pouring from their bodies and fertilizing the ground for years after they are dragged from the place of their death.
The blood will stay there forever. Hundreds of years from now, others will stumble upon their battlefields and walk on their blood, and not one them will realize that the rain doesn't wash everything away.
No one thanks the gods for anything after that much blood, but no one hates them, either. It's a half-belief that these men carry into war: everyone falls around them, but they themselves do not fall. Until they do.
Like the rain, men do not fall softly. They cry out as they die, they take more men with them to the grave. They wish for their mother's soothing voice, or their wife's warm hand against their cheek, or their child's laughter. They wish for anything but the present. And it is such a hopeless wish.
The present fails them regardless of their age or their beliefs, and the surviving few know, as they stare into the rain, that someday their present will fail them as well. This is not a fleeting thought; it stays with the damned soldiers until the day they too fall hard to the earth, blood pouring from their bodies and fertilizing the ground for years after they are dragged from the place of their death.
The blood will stay there forever. Hundreds of years from now, others will stumble upon their battlefields and walk on their blood, and not one them will realize that the rain doesn't wash everything away.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
writing adventure 11- Hero
Jail cells weren't really her style. She was always more Beverly Hills, more snorting crack off of gold-plated countertops, more hot boys in the driver's seats of hotter cars.
Things may change, but her stance on jail cells never would.
"Here's the deal," the short FBI guy told her, "you stay with Oscar Sandria, plant some bugs in his house, and give us enough information to bust him on drug running."
Felicia looked up from her very cold, very bad cup of coffee. There were two FBI guys in the room, and she hadn't bothered to remember their names. At the end of the day, they wouldn't bother to remember hers, so she wouldn't try and remember theirs. The FBI guys wanted a bigger fish, a catch that could get them promoted; she wanted out of a jail cell.
"Sure, just promise me I don't end up in another room like this one and we're golden," she said back, in her sweetest voice. The FBI guys looked at each other, and then to their surroundings. She smiled lazily and also scanned the room. There were two metal chairs, each on opposite ends of a metal table. She sat in one chair and faced the mirror wall, and the short one– the one she had been talking to– sat across from her, his hands resting on the table. The other one leaned against the mirror and shifted impatiently from one foot to the other. He was agitated with her in the room. She was a criminal, and he probably hated making deals with "crack whores" like her, but she could tell he was interested in her, too. "You got somewhere to be, or are you just uncomfortable because my rack is better than your wife's?" she asked the man, her eyes smiling menacingly at him.
The short one turned around to his partner and then gave his attention back to her. "As soon as you flip on Oscar, you get a nice home in witness protection, where we never have to see you again. That sound fair?" The other one moved from his place on the wall and released her from the handcuffs. She stood up and turned towards him swiftly; she was only centimeters away from him now.
"And I was just beginning to like you guys," she pouted, but her eyes still smiled menacingly.
"You're my only girl!" he yelled as he swung the door open.
She planted a passionate kiss on his lips before whispering in his ear, "you say that to all your girls."
He laughed and let her inside, his hand lingering on her waist.
"You would have fallen for the same thing, Davis," the shorter one said, turning up the volume of the wire. Davis grunted back and fell silent.
Things may change, but her stance on jail cells never would.
"Here's the deal," the short FBI guy told her, "you stay with Oscar Sandria, plant some bugs in his house, and give us enough information to bust him on drug running."
Felicia looked up from her very cold, very bad cup of coffee. There were two FBI guys in the room, and she hadn't bothered to remember their names. At the end of the day, they wouldn't bother to remember hers, so she wouldn't try and remember theirs. The FBI guys wanted a bigger fish, a catch that could get them promoted; she wanted out of a jail cell.
"Sure, just promise me I don't end up in another room like this one and we're golden," she said back, in her sweetest voice. The FBI guys looked at each other, and then to their surroundings. She smiled lazily and also scanned the room. There were two metal chairs, each on opposite ends of a metal table. She sat in one chair and faced the mirror wall, and the short one– the one she had been talking to– sat across from her, his hands resting on the table. The other one leaned against the mirror and shifted impatiently from one foot to the other. He was agitated with her in the room. She was a criminal, and he probably hated making deals with "crack whores" like her, but she could tell he was interested in her, too. "You got somewhere to be, or are you just uncomfortable because my rack is better than your wife's?" she asked the man, her eyes smiling menacingly at him.
The short one turned around to his partner and then gave his attention back to her. "As soon as you flip on Oscar, you get a nice home in witness protection, where we never have to see you again. That sound fair?" The other one moved from his place on the wall and released her from the handcuffs. She stood up and turned towards him swiftly; she was only centimeters away from him now.
"And I was just beginning to like you guys," she pouted, but her eyes still smiled menacingly.
~
"Oscar, let me in. It's your favorite girl," she shouted into the intercom system, standing on his doorstep in the dress she had been picked up in by the FBI. She reeked of stale coffee and nervous sweat, but she knew he would be too mesmerized to notice. Everyone was always too mesmerized."You're my only girl!" he yelled as he swung the door open.
She planted a passionate kiss on his lips before whispering in his ear, "you say that to all your girls."
He laughed and let her inside, his hand lingering on her waist.
~
"God, he's dense," the "other" FBI guy mumbled from his seat in the plumbing van parked outside. They had put a wire on Felicia before she left, as they figured they could get some additional information before she planted the bugs and Oscar went to work."You would have fallen for the same thing, Davis," the shorter one said, turning up the volume of the wire. Davis grunted back and fell silent.
~
"Hold on one second, Oscar. I have to go to the little girl's room and grab something. Then we can have some fun." She winked at him, and bit back a gag as he winked back. It was too easy, it was too clean. All she'd have to do was keep walking down the hall and she would land in his office. Plant a bug, fake an emergency call from her sister in New York, rush out in tears, and never see him again. He'd be in jail; she'd be. . . somewhere else.
She closed the door to the bathroom behind her and looked at herself in the mirror. She was a pretty girl, but she didn't need the looks. Manipulation alone could get her Beverly Hills, could get her crack cocaine on gold-plated countertops, could get her hot boys and hotter cars.
It was boring. "What do you boys say to knocking this out in one day? I'm a little tired," she said into the tiny mic, and then she walked out of the bathroom.
~
"What do you boys say to knocking this out in one day? I'm a little tired."
The shorter one turned up the mic again, afraid he had heard correctly. "Crap," he stated.
"She could do it, Jason."
"Or she could die. Or she could tip him off to our presence. Or she could ruin a year's worth of work. Or she could get us demoted."
Davis rolled his eyes. The wire was turned up so loud, he could hear her heels clicking on the tiled floor of the house. "She knows she's in there with him alone, and that he legitimately likes her. Maybe she'll get us what we want. She's smarter than she looks."
"Good, because she looks like a crack whore we picked up after she stumbled her way out of a party, and they tend to look pretty stupid." Jason pinched his nose and closed his eyes, waiting for her to start talking again.
"Baby," they heard from the wire, "you sold me the real stuff last night, right?"
Jason's eyes snapped open.
~
Oscar's eyes snapped open. "Yeah?" he called back to her. Felicia came into full view a second later, a briefcase under her arm.
"Really?" She cocked her head to one side, looking almost genuinely confused. If he had been looking at her eyes, he would have seen that same menacing smile she wore the day they met.
"Yes, really. You're my girl, Felicia! I wouldn't skimp you," he replied, standing up to walk closer.
She smiled innocently back at him, her eyes sparkling now. "I'm one of many." Then, she pouted. "But this stuff doesn't feel the same. I tried some last night, and it didn't do much. You're sure this briefcase is yours?"
"Yes," he sighed, exasperated that her clothes weren't off yet like all those times before. "The briefcase is mine. The crack is mine. It's just like everything else I sell, okay?"
She flung the briefcase into his hands, and backed away slowly, her real face back. The face of the villain, the face of the scorner, never the scorned. She was gold-plated.
~
"Call this in," Jason ordered. "We just got everything we need."
Davis began the call, his true face showing. The face of the hero, the face of the triumphant. Jason ran out of the van, gun in hand, and met Felicia at the door. "I want to live somewhere warm," she told him nonchalantly, as he ran past her into the almost empty house.
~
There were no drugs anymore, or gold for that matter, but it wasn't a jail. She had chosen Georgia to relocate to; there was a car show every year in the city over, and maybe she could find some decent looking boys.
She checked herself in the mirror before she left for work. Maybe one day, she'll see the face of a hero, the face of someone who did something right and put a drug lord behind bars, but today won't be that day, and she's not holding her breath.
Triumph is for the victor, and what has she ever really won?
Monday, August 1, 2011
writing adventure 10- Robot
They worked her day and night until she snapped. It was supposed to be an experiment; create a slave in an isolated environment and see how long it takes the slave to rebel without mob mentality to help it along.
They didn't think it would take three years, two months, twelve days, seven hours, and six minutes. March 13, 2019 was they day she rebelled. They marked the date in their notes.
"I'm not a robot!" she yelled, in that seventh minute. "You can't do this to me, you can't beat me senseless to wash your dishes and cook your food!"
They wrote those words in their notes, and hit the red button under the table. She felt a knot in the pit of her stomach. WRONG, her mind screamed at her. DO AS YOU ARE TOLD AND YOU WILL LIVE.
She closed her eyes and reigned in the "scary" thoughts, as she had named them in the eleventh minute of the second hour of the first day of the eighth month of the first year. She slammed her hands down on the table, and they paid no attention to it. They all kept writing in their notebooks, unaware of her slower movements, her duller eyes. Her skin was much more pale, and she was mesmerized for a second by the small veins under her skin. It made her feel real and aware, and like she was about to die.
YOU DO NOT WANT TO DIE, the scary thoughts told her, and she believed them.
"I don't want to die," she stated quite simply.
They looked up at her, puzzled, and then one reached under the table and pressed the button again, harder this time. She fell swiftly to the floor, her eyes wide and her heart beating in her ears. She moved her legs to sit cross-legged, but it took her three minutes to maneuver herself into that position, and ever time her legs moved she could hear her knees creak.
"I'm not a robot," she repeated. These were the only words left in her mind, so she spoke them again. "You can't do this to me, you can't beat me senseless to wash your dishes and cook your food." The words were calmer this time, and much quieter.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE? the scary thoughts asked her, but she couldn't open her mouth anymore, her jaw had locked shut.
Closing her eyes instead, she thought back, I'm a slave.
YES.
See? I told you I wasn't a robot. For those years, that's all you believed. But they can't make me do these things. You'll see. They'll stop and leave me alone, and I'll have the peace of a human who isn't a slave. And you can have peace, too. I promise.
She could hear the scary thoughts pause for a moment in her own mind. She took this time to lay back on the cool floor. The lab technicians had already pressed the button one final time and left the room.
. . . YES. YOU'LL HAVE PEACE.
They didn't think it would take three years, two months, twelve days, seven hours, and six minutes. March 13, 2019 was they day she rebelled. They marked the date in their notes.
"I'm not a robot!" she yelled, in that seventh minute. "You can't do this to me, you can't beat me senseless to wash your dishes and cook your food!"
They wrote those words in their notes, and hit the red button under the table. She felt a knot in the pit of her stomach. WRONG, her mind screamed at her. DO AS YOU ARE TOLD AND YOU WILL LIVE.
She closed her eyes and reigned in the "scary" thoughts, as she had named them in the eleventh minute of the second hour of the first day of the eighth month of the first year. She slammed her hands down on the table, and they paid no attention to it. They all kept writing in their notebooks, unaware of her slower movements, her duller eyes. Her skin was much more pale, and she was mesmerized for a second by the small veins under her skin. It made her feel real and aware, and like she was about to die.
YOU DO NOT WANT TO DIE, the scary thoughts told her, and she believed them.
"I don't want to die," she stated quite simply.
They looked up at her, puzzled, and then one reached under the table and pressed the button again, harder this time. She fell swiftly to the floor, her eyes wide and her heart beating in her ears. She moved her legs to sit cross-legged, but it took her three minutes to maneuver herself into that position, and ever time her legs moved she could hear her knees creak.
"I'm not a robot," she repeated. These were the only words left in her mind, so she spoke them again. "You can't do this to me, you can't beat me senseless to wash your dishes and cook your food." The words were calmer this time, and much quieter.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE? the scary thoughts asked her, but she couldn't open her mouth anymore, her jaw had locked shut.
Closing her eyes instead, she thought back, I'm a slave.
YES.
See? I told you I wasn't a robot. For those years, that's all you believed. But they can't make me do these things. You'll see. They'll stop and leave me alone, and I'll have the peace of a human who isn't a slave. And you can have peace, too. I promise.
She could hear the scary thoughts pause for a moment in her own mind. She took this time to lay back on the cool floor. The lab technicians had already pressed the button one final time and left the room.
. . . YES. YOU'LL HAVE PEACE.
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