Mirror - Poetry

I reflect the woman
Who sighs as I let her down
The uncertain, the reserved woman
She is calm, a hesitance inside her
Squinting to see her soul

The more I stare
The more I see

I reflect the child
Who laughs and dances
The innocent, the carefree child
She is bright, a sparkle in her eye
Her soul clear as crystal

Intertwined these two beings
Like deep black coal that woman
Aged into a diamond this child

Goodbye School - Non-Fiction

I'm facing the last days of my high school career. Am I scared? No, there's nothing to be scared of yet. Am I happy? If happiness is leaving bad memories and annoying people behind, then yes. Will I miss anyone? With all the social networking that goes on, everyone I know is just a click away. What have I learned? Apparently everything I need to know...

Only a few more times I will walk down the narrow corridors of Cansfield High Specialist Language College. Even less times, I will wake up early to trudge to the school. Never again, will my name be called on the morning registration. Only four more times, I will write the candidate number 4308. The uniform I wear will become a faint memory as next year it's out with the old and in with the new. The five years I spent there as a student will be reduced to mere memories and the odd photograph. School books will be thrown away, uncompleted homeworks will remain uncompleted, letters will be thrown away.

Would I like to thank anyone? Do you thank people for doing their job? No, but I probably will.
Will I visit? I doubt it, I'm not that kind of person. Should I keep in touch with my friends? Maybe, but people change, grow up and move on.

I have two maths exams and two german exams left. These last few days have been a flurry of revision. Linear equations, correct grammar, expanding brackets and correct use of tenses. I know when they're done I can't change what I've written, in a way, that idea calms me. So, I'm leaving. I'm moving on, I'm starting a new chapter in my life with new people and new things to learn.

Am I scared? Yes.

Confident - Fiction

A sudden breeze swept up the hill like a whispering falcon, brushing my hair over my face in a veil of tangles. A smile spread across my face as I opened my eyes for the first time in a while, taking in the glorious fall sky. The sight was dramatic and soothing at the same time; from the golden blood of a dying sun to the clouds of gray gauze it seeped into, I found it almost impossible to look away.

Almost.

But even with the muted light and the irresistible natural splendor, there was something even more captivating that called to me. It was the sound of his guitar, a bright tinkling of falling water, that stole my will with a thousand times the intensity of the sweetest siren song. Slowly I surrendered, my eyes confirming the likeness between the sight before me and the one I had fabricated in my mind. He was sitting cross-legged, his slender arms cradling an old acoustic: an animated portrait of true ease. I propped myself up to get a better look at his face and couldn’t help but smile when I found it deep in concentration.

For a moment I only watched and listened, mesmerized by a simple melody that was both familiar and foreign. He stole a glance to see if I was watching, only to quickly look back at the fret board and recover a missed note.

“Since when do you play?” I asked, my smile growing wider.

He took a moment to respond, filling the silence with a bittersweet symphony. “Since you wanted me to.” His smile lit his face for an instant before it hardened in concentration once more.

I frowned. “I don’t remember that. As if you needed another way to upstage me.” My tone was playful, but my thoughts remained serious. Although his playing was far from perfect, having him pick up an instrument was not something I had asked for.

“You wanted me to become more … genuine,” he said softly. “I knew this would be real to you.” He let a final chord ring out, then abandoned the weathered instrument and focused on me.

My lips tightened into a line. “I don’t want to talk about this when I’m here,” I sighed, lying back in the grass. “Let me dwell on this when I’m alone. For now, let’s just –”

“Exist?” he finished, his voice heavy with intimation. A moment passed while we listened to the wind in the nearby trees and searched for words when nothing was meant to be said.

I let out a breath I had been holding and looked at him. His eyes burned into mine, trying to show how much it hurt to remind me. In a desperate attempt to keep my mind busy, I heaved myself up and pulled the silent guitar into my lap. My fingers pulled awkwardly at the strings until they recognized a pattern and prompted the shining wires to keep up, singing a tranquil tune. I wasn’t very good, but I was thrilled when I saw him watching out of the corner of my eye.

“You really should play more,” he said softly, shifting his weight so slightly that I almost didn’t notice. I looked up through my eyelashes for a second.

“I should be doing a lot of things right now. You know how crazy it is. Schoolwork, my jobs, those art projects …” My list could go on. “This, however, this is not one of them.”

I hardly noticed that I had stopped playing.

Somehow I wanted that to hurt him; I wanted for him to say no, he needed me, or that this was all that really mattered. But he just stared with stony sincerity and eyes that burned like dying suns. It made something inside me break.

My heart lurched when I understood: there would be no protest; he would not fight. This was a decision he would have me make alone. I wanted to cry out in agony, for the sole factor of my heartbreak would not be enough for me to abandon my common sense. But a word, one word of encouragement from him, would set my will on the other side.

Knowing that, he remained silent.

For a moment, out of pure desperation I held my breath to see if he would fold. Maybe at the last minute he would murmur the words that I so severely needed to hear. But after the coldest silence I could imagine, we both knew the decision I would be walking away with.

I swallowed hard and lowered my eyes from his face, terrified by my sudden urge to lose control. Time raced against me with a mocking grin as I stood quickly; I couldn’t allow myself to change my mind.

I ached to leave him with some kind of parting gesture, but I only yanked the guitar from the ground and let my footsteps take me away. Perhaps I turned back to look at the field once I reached its end, just where the grass sprouts through the frayed edge of the ribbon of road. It’s possible that my eyes scanned the golden horizon for a moment longer than absolutely necessary, making sure of my decision.

But I’m sure I would have seen nothing more than I expected to see: a lonely wind combing through an empty, dying field.

***

My lungs pulled in a gasp of stale air that did little to satisfy the ache that wracked my body in the form of frantic heartbeats. Fire pulsed through my veins to pool in my fingertips and toes while I struggled against the millions of invisible restraints holding me to the bed. I opened my stubborn eyes to the dull light that streamed wearily through my window and strained to loosen my joints one by one.

Good morning.

Perfect - Fiction

The eyeliner makes the dark circles less pronounced. The lip gloss hides the trembling. The ponytail conceals missing patches of hair. The Abercrombie sweater covers bruises. I might look at bit thinner, but everyone will ask about my new diet. My hair might not shine the way it used to, but the pink ribbon will distract curious eyes. One hour of preparation and I look like myself. One hour of preparation and no one will know. One hour out of 24. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it – wasting a twenty-fourth of my day on a lie. But then I see my wispy hair and baggy eyes, and I have to do it.

Checking my makeup one last time, I push my sleeves up, though not past my elbows. I slip on a cute pair of flats – heels are too dangerous with shaky legs – and grab my Hollister bag. Padding downstairs, I inhale the scent of waffles and syrup.

“Morning, Mom,” I call.

“Morning, baby,” she chirps. “Did you sleep well?”

“Better than I have been.”

She sighs, and her eyes look a hundred years old for a minute. “Any improvement is good,” she says half-heartedly.

“Of course.”

“I made waffles.” Her offering.

“Thanks, Mom. Smells delicious.” My offering.

I sit at the table and she hands me a plate. The thought of all that food turns my stomach, but I force a smile and thank my mother again. She busies herself at the sink and fills the silence with chatter. When she turns around, she takes in the waffles still on my plate, only missing a few bites. I smile apologetically.

“I’m not very hungry this morning.”

“You’ll need your strength for this afternoon.” She bites her lip. She doesn’t like to bring it up over breakfast. I eat another bite.

“I packed your lunch.”

“I’m 18, Mom. I can pack my own lunch. You have more important things to do.”

She reaches for the paper sack. “But now I know you’ll have something to eat. And you need to eat, okay? You have to keep your strength up.”

Sighing, I take the bag. I know this peanut butter and jelly sandwich won’t be eaten, not any more than the one yesterday or the day before. And even if I do eat it, I’ll just throw it up later. Anything consumed after 11 ends up in a plastic basin at 4:07. It’s just the way it works.

“Hon, have you thought about what I said the other day?” she asks.

I shrug noncommittally.

“Sweetheart, you can’t hide this forever. Eventually you’re going to miss school and people will start asking questions.”

“Mom, I have two months left of high school. I can make it ’til then. I’m class president and probably valedictorian. I was voted ‘Most popular,’ ‘Most fun to be around,’ ‘Best smile,’ and ‘Most likely to succeed.’ I’m the girl who’s got it all together. People don’t want to know that the girl who’s got it all together, doesn’t have it all together. People don’t want to know that girl is dying!”

“Honey, don’t say that. You’re not dying.”

“Yes, I am. I have cancer. You heard Dr. Morrison. I have maybe a year left. But that means I can graduate and then never see those people again. I’ll die and they’ll feel sorry for me, but at least I won’t have to endure their pity.”

“But …,” she tries to interrupt.

“Mom, listen to me. I don’t want to be the girl everyone looks at and whispers, ‘Look at her. Poor thing, she has cancer.’ I can’t handle that. I want to be normal. Just for these last two months.”

“Okay,” she whispers. “Okay. Just remember, it’s okay if you don’t have it all together. Sometimes things just fall apart and there’s nothing we can do.”

“Thanks, Mom.” I grab my bag and lunch and kiss her on the cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” my mom replies. This exchange, once taken for granted, is now a vital part of every morning, every afternoon, every night. Three little words, followed by four more, have come to mean more than an entire conversation. They bridge all gaps and disagreements, because we both know there is now a finite number left.

Keys in hand, I open the door and blink in the early morning sun. My silver car waits in the driveway and as I walk toward it, I check my reflection in the tinted window. Perfect.

A Quick Photo - Suprise, Dash!

Dash The Rabbit

Forever - Fiction

In the days of the war, when men and women ran headfirst into ­barrages of gunfire, there was not one person unaffected. Soldiers died, and families submerged in sorrow when the officer knocked on their door. I was no different. I was the naive, fresh-out-of-high-school girl who married a reservist, and then paid the price for my innocence.

I remember that hour vividly: the meek face of the officer, the wind nudging the clouds over the sun, down to the small flag waving on my porch. I bit down on my lower lip. This was the moment that had starred in my nightmares for seven months. At any second, I would wake up and be staring at the ugly popcorn ceiling of my bedroom. That relief never came. Zachary Atmos, my husband, was killed trying to protect an injured comrade.

Exactly one week later, in a whirl of color and people talking too fast, I followed my brother-in-law to my seat at the funeral. It was a miserable day. Rain had poured relentlessly for two days. In my self-pity I believed that the angels were crying.

The militaristic funeral service was covered by neon blue tarps; the riflemen seemed unfazed by the cold. In unison, their guns fired three times in salute to my husband. With every ringing shot, I shook.

I wondered what he had heard in his final moments. Was he in pain when he died? Had he thought of me? What if I had joined alongside him and been deployed also? Would things have been different? Now there was no way of knowing.

Like the statues placed around the cemetery, I was similarly stone-faced, but with ribbons of moisture running down my face. I was crying. I and the attendees around me were like a black-clad sculpture garden, conveying solemnity in our midst. I moved only to accept the flag that was laid over my husband’s coffin. Over the sheet-like drone of the rain, a single bugle player performed the lonely tune of Taps – a lullaby for the dead.

Then, as quickly as everything had begun, it was over. I was walking away, my face downcast toward the sidewalk. I wondered if Zack was watching me, if he was feeling okay. My mind was so wrapped in these questions, I wasn’t paying attention. The stiletto heel of my shoe wedged into a crevice, causing the other to slip on the concrete. My leg flew up while the other collapsed under me. I don’t remember much of the initial fall, but I must have yelled, for the ducks nearby retreated to their hidden nests in the reeds.

My dress was wet and my tumble broke my umbrella. My bangs stuck
to my temples, pressing the newly acquired grime to my face. Forcing myself to my knees, I noticed a diluted film of red coating the ground. Only then did the palms of my hands and my right knee begin to sting. For the millionth time that day, tears flew to my eyes and threatened to spill over my lashes.

My marred hand went to my face instinctively, smearing blood on my cheeks and sending mascara around my eyes and brows. I caught my reflection in a puddle, my shoulders falling at my pathetic image.

Great tufts of hair hung matted, ­soggy, and windblown. My makeup ran in deformed rivers. My black gown was wrinkled and stained with blood. Suddenly, the smallest flash of light caught my eye. Centered neatly in my V-shaped collar hung the necklace I had put on that morning. My gaze was locked on the tiny charm on the delicate chain. Zack had given me it shortly before he was deployed. It depicted the face of a wolf. The flat back of the charm had a single character in Japanese hiragana: Kokoro – the word for “Forever” or “Always.”

I knelt there in the rain and wind, contemplating … always … always … The word sounded so comforting. My fingertips grazed the cool metal at my throat, and I stood. I gathered my purse and my useless umbrella, standing straight and tall. The pendant on my necklace rested comfortably at my heart like unbreakable armor.

A few hours later, I was home, bathed and warm again, hands and knee bandaged with care. Huddled by the fireplace with a book, I looked into the flames, where I swear I saw him smiling his dorky grin at me.

Don't Cry Butterfly - Fiction

I didn’t care. Really, and truly, if you had asked if I cared, I might have said “Do what you want; I’m not your Boy Scout leader. I don’t care”. And maybe, maybe you would have gently pulled my face up to yours and read the lie that was plainly written all over my face. And maybe you would have been able to see the heart wrenching pain in my eyes; bursting with tears that refused to be shed. And maybe you would have said “Butterfly, don’t cry I will always be there. I promise.” And lift me up so I could kiss you, because, of course, I can’t reach all the way up those basketball legs. The kiss would be brief and sweet, your way of reassuring me that all would be right in the world. You’ll see.

Of course, you didn’t do any of those things before you went off to “serve your country” and “be a man” and give everyone “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But what about my happiness? What about that? Didn’t that matter to you at all? But I suppose that I should try to be fair. You did write a note to me. It has a lot of letters from the alphabet that piece together a message about why you did this. But I don’t care about that part- I care about the part that reads “I love you; you are my angel from heaven above.”

And the part about this that makes me want to hide from my grief and pain, is how I’ll never get to say it back to you.

Our First Kiss - True Paragraph

"Close your eyes" I say to him, he looks wary but he still does it. I lean forward and place my lips on his. He's not expecting it so he jumps. "What was that?" he wants to know.
"Your first kiss" I reply, with a smile. I realise pretty quickly that I want another, but instead of suprising him again, I ask. This time he goes for it a little more readily than I, a cheeky bit of tongue and everything. "What was that?" I ask, slightly shocked by his technique.
"A French kiss" he grins.

Hospital

Apologies for the extreme lack of new material, I seem to have got myself into hospital :{ X

Digital Art (Photoshop) - Beauty

Plain, Simple, Brown. - Fiction

I didn't want to like him. He was just so charming.

This might sound like every other love story, and it may be, but it may not. If you don't read on, you'll never know.

My name is Emily Brown, which I've always been quite happy with. I think it makes me sound pleasant but ordinary, and I prefer to blend in. Now, I suppose it's only polite to tell you a bit about myself before I jump into my story. I am five feet, two inches, have brown hair that comes to my shoulders, and I am not talented in any special way. These are the basic facts of me, and I think these are all I ought to tell you.

His name was Andrew Rivers and he was perfectly wonderful in every way. When he first came to my school in twelfth grade, he was a bit eccentric and didn't fit in right away. He was into music and played the drums and the guitar, although he wasn't good at either. What he was good at was singing, and when he did, you wanted to cry and laugh and sing along with him all at once.

My name is Emily Brown and his was Andrew Rivers and I loved him.

About two months into my last year of high school, Andrew asked me out. I was surprised since I had hardly ever talked to him, but I didn't have a boyfriend, and I didn't know how to say no.

It may help you to know that at my school there were couples that were simply together for the name, and some that were together only to have a date for dances and for kissing and other such things. When Andrew asked me out I had no idea what his intentions were, and I didn't like having no idea. I'm by no means a confrontational person, but I was starting to feel offended that after I had said that I would date him, he hadn't said another word to me. So I went up to him and we had a little talk.

Me: “Hey, Andrew.”

Andrew: “Hey.”

Me: “So …”

Andrew: (annoyingly, nothing)

Me: “You asked me out.”

Andrew: (nothing again)

Me: “Why?”

Andrew: “Why'd I ask you out?”

Me: “Right.”

Andrew: “I felt like it.”

Me: (irritated) “You felt like it?”

Andrew: “That's what I said, isn't it?”

Me: (infuriated) “I'm sorry. Actually I'm not. I didn't realize you were such a jerk, and I don't want to go out with you anymore.” (I'd never dumped someone before, okay?)

Andrew: “Are you dumping me?”

Me: “What do you think?”

Andrew: “Why?”

Me: “I feel like it.”

Andrew: (smiling) “Do you like Chinese food?”

Me: “I hate it.”

Andrew: “You've never had it.”

Me: “How do you know?”

Andrew: (laughing) “I'm good at reading people.”

Me: “Well, obviously you suck, because I've had Chinese food a million times and I hated it every time.”

Andrew: “Would you like to go out with me tonight?”

Me: “You're asking me on a date?”

Andrew: “Yes.”

Me: “Read my answer.”

Andrew: “Wonderful! I'll see you tonight. Be ready by six. Ish. Sixish.”

I hated this strange boy who I'd only really talked to twice. He made me infuriated. The only problem was, I couldn't figure out if I liked that or not.

That night at sixish sharp, Andrew showed up at my doorstep. My parents have never been into meeting my boyfriends, but as I was stepping out, he stepped in. He walked right into the living room where my parents sat watching the baseball game.

When he came back out I asked, “What'd you say?”

“I told them I'd have you back by eight.”

“Ish?”

He laughed. “Nope. Just eight.”

We didn't talk much on the car ride. He had a CD playing that sounded kind of like Bob Marley, but I'd never heard the song before. It wasn't until we got there that I realized I didn't know where we were going. A small sign stood in front of the building but the name was too peeled away for me to be able to read it. What I could read was the sign beneath where the name should be, and it said, “The best Chinese cuisine for miles.”

“Chinese, huh?”

He smirked.

We walked inside and it was only then that I realized exactly how small the building was. There were little tables in the center of the room, about five of them, and a couch against one wall for sitting while you waited. As if. There was no waiting; we were the only customers. A sign read “PLEASE SEAT YOURSELF,” but I guess because of the lack of business, a waiter came over to seat us. He tried to show us to a table, but Andrew said, “Oh, no, thank you. We'll be sitting down here.”

He strolled over to the couch and at first I thought he wanted us to sit there, but then he grabbed two pillows and placed them on the ground a little way away from the tables.

I looked at him, baffled.

“Authenticity,” he said, smiling. He was always smiling.

I, personally, couldn't see how sitting on the floor was authentic.

***

There were many other dates, all very unusual. I was used to dances and movies, but with Andrew I got sunsets and local concerts. Once he took me to a bingo night that his aunt was hosting. Oddly enough, that was the night we first kissed.

I remember so clearly the day of graduation, the day I realized that Andrew and I wouldn't always be together. After we threw our hats and got our diplomas, he found me.

“End of high school, huh?” he said.

“Yeah.”

“What do you want to do, Emily?”

“With my life?”

“Sure.”

“Be with you.”

He didn't smile like I wanted him to.

“Don't you want to go to college?”

I sighed. “Want to, or have to?”

Now he smiled. “You choose.”

“I should. Go to college, I mean. I found one that'll accept me.”

There was a long pause before I said, “Andrew, what about you?”

“What about me?”

“What are you gonna do?”

“I dunno. Do what I do best, I guess. Play my music.”

“Oh. Yeah. That's cool. See you later?”

“When would I see you?”

“I see what you mean.”

“Bye, Emily.”

“Bye.”

Thinking back, I wish I had said something better than bye. I wish I had told him that I loved him more than words could describe and that when he sang to me I felt like I was all that mattered in the world. I wanted to tell him that if he had just asked, I wouldn't have gone to college. I would have played his music with him.

I'm sitting at my computer right now, looking at a name on the screen on a website called “peoplefinder.” I want to call him and hear his voice, but I'm afraid. I'm afraid that he won't be my same Andrew.

I get a glass of cold water and sit on my couch. I picture myself having one last conversation with him.

Me: “Hey, Andrew.” (I say it so casually, just like old times.)

Andrew: “Hey, Emily.”

Me: “Why are you wearing a tie?”

Andrew: “Why shouldn't I be?”

Me: “I don't know.”

Andrew: “I have a job.”

Me: “Good.”

Andrew: “I'm a lawyer, Emily.”

Me: “That's great.”

Andrew: “You don't sound like that's great.”

Me: “Don't I?”

Andrew: “I live in an apartment in the city. I talk on the phone with other businesspeople.”

Me: “I'm proud of you.”

Andrew: “I have a diploma hanging up on the wall of my office. My office.”

Me: “Do you play music anymore, Andrew?”

Andrew: “Music.”

He looks at me as if he doesn't remember the word.

Andrew: “No, I don't play my music anymore.”

Me: “Oh.”

Me: “I loved you, Andrew.”

Andrew: “Loved? Past tense?”

Me: “I think so.”

Andrew: “I love you.”

Me: “Why'd you ask me out?”

Andrew: “I thought you were beautiful and smart, and I loved how shiny your dark brown hair was. I liked how you weren't too loud, and you didn't wear low-cut shirts like most other girls.”

Me: “I wish you'd said, ‘Because I felt like it.'”

Andrew: “Sorry.”

Me: “Me too.”

Andrew: “I have to be going.”

Me: “Yeah.”

Me: “Wait!”

Andrew: “Yes?”

Me: “I'd never had Chinese food before.”

Turn Around

YES
I can see you
We're in the
SAME ROOM
Yet you're
Pretending I'm
NOT HERE
Because you don't
Want to
KNOW.

Photography - So far from home (Click to view)

Elton John and David Furnish

At the end of the day when everything turns out right, I smile.

Elton John and David Furnish

Every time. Each time.

Every time we fight, I'll stay quiet from now on,
Each time I do wrong by you, I'll wait until the anger has gone.
Every time I cry, I'll wipe away my tears,
Each time that we disagree, I'll try to hide my fears.
Every time I say sorry, I'll make sure that's the end,
Each time I write a message, I'll think before I send.
Every time you're sad, I'll make sure that it's alright,
Each time that we fall out, I hope we make it up by night.
Every time I say "I love you", I hope you say it too,
Each time you kiss my lips, I smile 'cause I know you do.

Sadness...

Sadness is a ghost,
A lingering spirit never to leave,
Hanging around your whole body,
Swallowing you whole just like when,
At night, you let the pitch-black air cover you in a blanket,
So you can dream about how you wish things were,
How things could have been,
And when you wake up, it just makes your illness that much worse.

Sadness is a way of life,
A disease spread by just a simple look,
Or a conversation,
Or when you notice someone's secret tears,
It eats away at you,
Until you're in pieces,
Shattered in the dark,
And you're digging around in the past,
Trying to put yourself back together,
But the infection is already in your veins,
And no matter the time that goes by,
It's incurable,
And it never leaves.

Sadness is your lost memories,
Distracted and confused,
You miss the good times,
And you can't get them back,
Sadness is the necklace Mama gave you,
That fell off and is lost,
Carrying with it a sort of medicine,
Temporary, but numbed your disease,
And now it's gone,
Like the snowman you made with Daddy,
That melted away on the approach of spring one night,
And with the now liquid snow came your remembrance
Of Daddy's deep chuckle when the deer ate its apple eyes,
And his hands on yours, helping you form its body.

Yes, memories melt away, just like that snowman,
And yes, memories fall off, just like your necklace,
But sadness never does,
It hangs above your head,
And when you start to forget about it,
You breath it in, inhale it,
And once again
You are haunted.

Failing

Failure,
The word sounds miserable...but it's not all bad.
There are always second chances,
Another chance,
to do things over.
You've not failed yet.

Drama!

Hey viewers,
Sorry I've not been as active as I should. I've been rehearsing for my final exam in drama. I'm excited, but seriously it's nerve wracking! We've got 7 hours of rehearsal today then we're performing to a live audiance. My lovely boyfriend will be there so I guess my performance is for him, a dedication or something.
Wish me luck X

Kiss Me One Last Time - Fictiom

I’m pouring raspberry iced tea into wine glasses; we’re out of wine and I’m feeling an urge to be sophisticated.

Three ice cubes for him, none for me. Inexplicably, I've never liked ice in my drinks.

I look up, my gaze falling on Tommy. We are in the middle of watching Dark Shadows, since apparently it’s a crime that I hadn’t yet seen it. It is entertaining, but really, I’m only watching it for Tommy. He lives vicariously through Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, I think.

I take the wine glasses in my hands and close the short distance between our tiny kitchen and the couch, setting the drinks on the coffee table. In my absence, Tommy has stretched out to occupy the entire length of the couch, which gives me no choice but to lie down on top of him. I am more than happy to do so.

As I gently climb over him, his arm comes up around my shoulders, pulling me down next to him. His head turns and his stunning blue eyes meet mine. He smiles and I momentarily forget how to breathe.

We have been married for a year and a half now, and we see each other constantly, but somehow I am still blown away by his looks. He is easily the most attractive man I have ever seen, and I can’t help but notice that every time I look at him. On top of that, I am hopelessly in love with him. So things have worked out pretty well.

My hand is resting on his, and my head falls onto his chest as he strokes my hair.

Johnny Depp is now sprinting dramatically from whoever is pursuing him. Tommy is watching intently. I hate to distract him, but he’s seen this before and I can’t help myself. I press myself firmly against him and kiss him.

He looks at me, grinning sweetly. “What was that for?”

“Do I need a reason?” I ask softly, and kiss him again.

The look in his eyes is incredible, and makes me remember the first time he looked at me like that.

We had been dating for six months, and Tommy had just driven me home from an amazing dinner. We were standing outside the door to my apartment, trying to find the willpower to tear ourselves away from each other. I thanked him for the date, he complimented my dress for about the twentieth time, and then he kissed me. Now, we had kissed before that, but there was something else in that one. Something that made it... intoxicating. We pulled away, and then I kissed him back, knowing it was late and I needed to say goodnight. Three fantastic kisses later, I managed to pry myself away from him and unlock the door. We said goodnight, and right as I was stepping through the doorway, I turned and said,

“Kiss me one last time.”

And that was when this breathtaking expression graced his features. A mixture of surprise, utter delight, and one other thing. I didn’t recognize it then, but I know it well now.

It was love. Pure and honest love.

And that’s the look he’s giving me right now. It’s absolutely glorious.

He kisses me one more time, and then his gaze falls back on the glowing television screen. I don’t mind. His thumb is tracing tiny circles on my arm. I would be content to stay like this for days.

However, before I know it, and much too soon, the movie is over. It is close to midnight and we should both be getting to bed so we can get up for work in the morning.

I start to lift myself off Tommy, but he pulls me back down and envelops me in his arms. I smile into his chest. He smells like rain.

We stay like that for a while, and then he stands up.

“All right sweet, I’m going to bed,” he says in his sultry baritone, turning off the TV and placing the untouched wine glasses back on the kitchen counter.

“I’ll be right behind you,” I reply as he comes over to kiss me goodnight. “I love you.” I mean it with every fiber of my being.

He smiles broadly. “I love you, too.” he says, then turns in the direction of our bedroom.

I sit for a moment, watching him. Then,

“Tommy?” I say.

He turns back to me.

“Kiss me one last time.”

He does.

Hurricane Emmy - Fiction

Grandma’s old stuff is always fun to go through, the idea of holding history in your hands! Grandma is the old lady who lives down the street, we aren’t really related, however, she never had any children so I’m her granddaughter.
I walked over to Grandma’s house an hour before lunch, she likes baking before lunch. Inside was like a whole world compacted into a single house. Artifacts from all over the world sat, carefully placed, on dressers and shelves. Native American, Old French, Chinese, and some other culture I couldn’t place. It always smelled of cookies and banana nut bread, not that ‘old people smell people relate with the smell of strong powders and too much perfume. I walked down the front hall very slowly admiring the pictures, like I had done each time I came over.
“Grandma?” I called out, standing still so I could listen for her silent shuffling feet. My eyes caressed the wall where pictures of Grandma as a woman, maybe in her mid-thirties.
Nothing.
“Emmy?” My voice rang out, ”It’s Chess, where are you?” I shouted as I passed through the house, circling through the kitchen into the living room and onto the little library, that was part of a little sunroom. I hastened my pace as I neared the kitchen for a second time, then stopped and looked around just in case.
And I found it.
Dear Chess,
I’ve stepped out for another adventure! You can look around the attic
while I’m gone, if you get bored.
See you Soon!
With Love your Emmy
It was written on a torn piece of paper, and curiosity got the best of me so I looked on the back.

"9-4-38 Kristy"

A simple date and that’s all that it said.
“The attic!” I exclaimed, feeling more and more ridiculous, “Right.” Emmy usually gave me little history lessons when I came over. The attic was where we had our discussions because it was full of Grandma’s possessions, full but not organized. “9-4-38” I muttered, thinking of what I knew of 1938. I repeated the date out loud, thinking over and over. “Grandma…was in New York around then.” I stated my conclusion, as the attic door clicked open. I crossed the room and opened the window seat Grandma kept her childhood trinkets, toys and journals.
Inside the compartmented seat was a box labeled ‘Storm ‘38’, I opened the box and found it full of pictures, letters, articles from old newspapers, and at the very bottom was a beige journal with the name Emmy embroidered on the top right corner. The weight was more than it would have appeared to be. It’s pages were weather damaged and faded in some areas.
I opened the cover and began to read the words and thoughts of a younger Emmy. Most were records of sunny days and happy times at the beach, or written memories of Emmy’s life in the northern coast. I flipped and read through with a thirst until I reached my lesson for the day.
September 4, 1938.
I stopped. My thirst for the past not quenched but I just couldn’t continue with the fire I had had. Maybe it was the blotches of ink on the page that made me realize that Emmy had been crying when she wrote this entry. But I read on.
 -
Dear Diary,
Rivers of water now rule the streets, while the tears and distress overcome us all.
The day woke with normality, a typical rainstorm brewed in the dawn to caress the Earth through the day. The fishermen left with unease even though the winds were fierce and powerful but were on their side, and the rains angered and fought with the sea. A hurricane was in our midst. No one dared to brave the roads and those who had woken with unease left in the early morning, leaving streets partially abandoned.
Kristy and I sat on the couch looking out of the windows from a distance. Watching trees dance in the winds, being soaked with rain, shaking in the cold. I held on to Kristy, as if the wind would break in to our home and steal her away from me. Meanwhile, Mum and Dad paced the hallway trying to think of the safest thing to do.
Minutes passed, that felt more like eons, but no change of good came. Instead the roads and alleyways flooded pulling out the abandoned toys of the neighborhood. Nicholas’ bike was pulled down to the roaring bay and David’s new baseball bat floated on the churning waves. About an hour later the water began to spill into the house, creeping like a lion stalking its prey. I pulled Kristy up off the couch and ran upstairs to hide, while Mum and Dad attempted to secure all of the windows and doors.
There was a shutting sound from across the hall where Mum had gone, then a shatter of glass. I told Kristy to stay there and ran to the other room. Dad beat me there, but couldn’t keep what had happened. Mum was gone. The window was smashed to pieces and the old shutters were flapping madly in the wind. Dad ushered me out of the room, but there was no point because I was running across the hall, back to Kristy. I just held onto her, fighting the threatening tears and shaking my head when she asked where our mother was.
There were loud whistles, thuds, and slashes, and as the storm continued the house shook a few times. With each thud Kristy screamed out with fear, and with every time the house shook she cried into my shoulder.
We stayed huddled in the bathroom for hours and the thuds finally stopped as well as the house’s shaking but the rain poured down still and the wind howled. We got thirsty and hungry as the day struggled along, so we drank water from the faucet in the bathroom and ate peppermints we found in Dad’s coat pockets. Later we heard screams from outside, I held onto Kristy, and Dad went across the hall to find out what was happening. Tommy and three year old May were floating down the flooded street on an old sled. Dad had come back to tell me about them being in trouble and then went to go help them. We waited, but Dad didn’t come back and there were no shouts or cries for help.
I told Kristy I was going to go get pillows, however Kristy disagreed and I couldn’t argue with why. Last time someone went off alone they didn’t come back. So we went together, quickly, to our bedroom and grabbed some pillows and blankets and snuck around for some candles and returned to the bathroom. As the day passed Kristy began to fall asleep and I just sat there against the wall holding her.
-
My vision blurred as the entry came to an end, or at least that’s when I noticed it. I thought I knew a lot about Emmy, and I couldn’t describe how it felt knowing that my entire conception of her was completely off base. She was still the only woman I knew to have traveled all over the world, acted as a nurse in over sea wars and still come home and lived a life of adventure. She is the bravest woman I have ever known and even though she is no young dancer anymore she is still beautiful. The diary doesn’t change who I know her to be only made what I knew of her more astounding.
I looked at the next page; it had the consecutive day but was written in the same pen and splashed with tears and smeared in dirt as the previous entry. So I picked up on that day Emmy had taken the pain inflicting time to write down.
-
The next day it was sunny, Kristy and I stayed side by side the whole time as we ventured the ruins of our house. It was a mess, I went to the stairs, Kristy holding my side, and looked at the flooded downstairs. Thankfully the water only went passed the first step. I piggybacked my little sister to the kitchen and found some apples that had survived and avoided the polluted water. We ate while sitting on the counter tops, in silence. When Kristy was full we went back upstairs and changed into clean clothes and drier shoes.
The house was quiet but a little after lunch Kristy heard shouts outside.
-
I stopped reading, again, and looked at the pictures that were bundled together with ancient rubber bands. The first picture was taken from, what I guessed was, an attic showing the destruction of a neighborhood; a rocking chair floated close to the edge of the picture. Then a house, flooded with polluted muddy water. The pictures all seemed the same, until the last one. A girl sat wrapped in a towel with a pained, grim look on her face. Her hair was soaked but you could still see the curls her hair had, her cheeks had patches of mud caked to her skin and you could see the paths tears had eroded into the dried dirt. But what caught my eye was the little doll she held in her stiff hands. It was small, a perfect little girl with red curls and a cherry smile holding an even smaller teddy bear.
I looked back in the window seat, a funny feeling tickling my memory. There, at the bottom, was the doll from the picture. Gingerly I picked up the tender doll with both hands, careful not to damage it in anyway. Its dusty skin had patches of mud on the bottom of the dolls skirt. I briskly dusted the excess layer of ‘skin’ off the doll and watched it crumble into a fine sediment as it fell to the floor.
Setting the doll down I looked back into the hidden chest. Newspapers and picture frames still littered the floor. I picked up the top paper reading the headlines YOUNG GIRL ORPHANED and below the bold print was a picture of the little girl the same girl in the other picture, holding the doll. Only she was with people, a woman dressed in a flowing dress and caring smile, a man in shorts and a loose button up shirt, and another little girl in a polka dot dress. The orphaned girl was wearing a solid coloured dress and a hat; she was smiling and hugging the younger girl.
I picked the journal up once more, turned the page to the next entry, not bothering to finish the one I started, and began to read what happened next.
-
The doll fell out of the boat and Kristy cried out, yelling “save my dolly”, but before waiting she dived into the river, like we do when we go to the pool. But the river was only three feet deep at best. I yelled for Kristy not to jump but I was too late and she was determined to save the last things our parents had given her. Kristy hit her head, receiving a concussion. I rushed over to her and got her into the boat, and ducked under the water for the doll. I gave Kristy the doll and noticed her breathing was weird, so I pulled the boat as fast as I could trying to find someone, anyone so Kristy could get help. When I managed to get the little raft to the end of the street Kristy wasn’t breathing. She died before I managed to find anyone to help us.
-
I felt so connected to Emmy, through her story, I couldn’t keep reading. Emmy had lost her entire family in one storm. Her mother lost through a window, her father taken during a good deed and her sister under her watch. She felt responsible for her sister’s death.
I heard a jingle of keys, downstairs.
“Chess?” an old voice called from the kitchen. Grandma. I sat the journal down and took the doll from my lap and sat it down nest to the journal; while I rushed down to see Grandma, as if the storm had been yesterday.
“Yes? I’m here.” I said, noticing she had grocery bags I grabbed a few from her little wagon she was using. “How was your day?”
“Beautiful. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and we are all in good health,” she said with a smile.
I couldn’t help but smile back. Grandma Emmy had gone through so much and she looked at the brighter side of everything.

Later I looked up more information about the hurricane of 1938. Emmy had survived a hard storm. When Emmy and I talked about what happened she confessed that she felt responsible for the death of her little sister and for not staying with her mother and calling out for her father to stay closer to her like she wanted to do. But that she also lived as much as she could. Not just for her, but for her little sister and her deceased parents. Grandma was meteorologist for 20 years and she specialized in hurricanes and tornadoes. As well as being an active participant of a volunteer group that worked for natural disaster preparedness and recovery.

Time Of Death - Fiction. I've Been Watching Scrubs Again.

The first death on your watch isn’t even your fault. You’re just one of the many interns who rush to the bedside when the code is called, peering at the doctors crowding around. As the patient gasps and chokes, you too gasp and choke as each electric shock blasts through the body. The doctors are grim-faced but determined; you hopelessly wonder why they even bother. Again and again the voltage is cranked up, but thunderbolts can only do so much.

The doctor holding the paddles slowly turns away from the flaccid flesh and another quietly asks, “Time of death?” You back away, feeling as if the defibrillator was really meant for you as your heart pounds out its own furious pace. A devastated mother takes your wrist. “Time of death?” she whispers, mis­taking you for a doctor, someone who tried his best to resuscitate her darling daughter, someone who knew what he was doing, someone with guts enough to challenge death. Not a first-year intern who never could remember which number was the systolic for blood pressure, not someone who didn’t even dare to take blood sugar levels.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” you blurt. “You’ll be able to talk to the doctors inside…” you mumble, patting the trembling hand. She bites her lip and nods, letting go of the scrubs that you shouldn’t be wearing, the scrubs reserved for those who can save lives, not for those who don’t even know how to gently break death to a loved one.

The third death is similar, only this time you’ve been dragged along for scut work. You’re the one ramming your hands into the sternum, trying to force the fluttering heartbeat into your rhythm. You’re the one leaping out of the way of the defib paddles, jumping back to start compressions again. The patient bottoms out, but after the paddles thunder a third time, you can feel the thump of the heart, tangoing with yours as you collapse against a chair, arms quivering with strain. You shudder with relief. You brought him back. You saved him. You.

The eighteen death is the hardest. That little baby in neo-natal care should never have been forced to live on machines. Each breath is a struggle, and the medications are flowing in a poisonous concentration for such a small body, yet the parents insist on continuing the farce of life. They’re unwilling to bear any grief while their baby boy wheezes and thrashes weakly, seeking comfort but receiving only the hard embrace of a hospital cradle and the groan of machines.

The mother shrieks, “He’s blue! Do something!” After you reach the crib and despair at the readouts, you motion the code team away and beckon to the mother and father.

“The best thing for him is to take him off the machines,” you say.

The dad glares. “You want to kill him.”

They don’t understand the torture they have put him through. “If he even survives a year, he will be severely physically and mentally disabled. For life,” I persist.

The mother moans, “He’s blue! I don’t care. Just save him! Now!”

You nod at the code team, maneuvering yourselves around the tiny crib and pulling off the oxygen mask, trying to fit your large palms against the flimsy baby with his face scrunched up in a silent wail. The heart drugs aren’t having any effect due to the amount of medication already flowing through his body.

“Use the shocker!” the mother wails.

“We can’t!” you snarl, trying to give compressions to a weak chest and an even weaker malformed heart. “Your baby is too small and his heart is deformed! If we do, we’ll kill him!”

The code leader shakes his head. “Time of death ….”

“No!”

“3:36 p.m.”

The thirty-third death is the best death. You’re the one in charge. If a code is called, you will wield the paddles, call out “Clear!” You have the final say on time of death if it occurs. You won’t let those words pass your lips.

But she smiles at you through her pure white hair. “I’m ready to leave. Are you ready to let me go?”

You sob, throw down the clipboard. “No, Mum! I don’t want you to.”

She still wears the tender smile of years past as her body wastes away and shrivels to a mere fraction of her vitality. “But it’s necessary. I need you to. And you know it.”

“Mum ….”

And she brushes her hand against yours, squeezing it once before closing her eyes. “You’re ready.”

You kiss her cooling cheek then note: “Time of death: 9:12 a.m., Thursday, April 24 ….”

If there's one good thing you do today...

...make it this
 http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/rachaellea29

I don't usually get involved but Rachael's my friend and I've watched her slowly lose her nan to cancer. It's heartbreaking to see her struggle through every day without her. Just, take a look. Okay?

Thanks x

A Short Play About Cheese. True Story.

Me: Do I like this cheese?
-Mum walks in-
Me: Ah, you'll know. Do I like this cheese?
Mum: Yes
Me: Then I shall eat it in abundance.

I Wish For Her - Fiction

“Is that her?”
“What? Who?”
“Shh … here she comes.”

“Oh … her.”

We avert our eyes as she walks by. We clutch our books tightly to our chests, stare down at our shoes, and hold our breath as she passes. Whispers follow her like shadows as she scurries up the stone stairs, through the metal doors. Lisa and I exchange looks. The bell rings in our ears, and we head inside.

“Who’s she with today?” Lisa asks at lunch.

“Toby,” I scoff, biting into my ­sandwich.

“Figures. Apparently they had a great time at Jack’s apartment last weekend.” I make a face.

“Disgusting.” Lisa laughs.

“I bet she has all sorts of diseases.”

“I bet she’s wearing his hoodie. The one that smells as bad as he does.”

“I bet she’s gonna be one of those girls who never goes to college and ends up on the street.”

“I bet she’s gonna be a …” I look around to make sure no teachers are listening, “whore.”

That’s her new name. It spreads like a foul disease around the school, through the hallways, passed from one lip-gloss-smeared mouth to the next. Some kids just call her “The W,” or “The H” for the stupid ones who can’t spell. It’s what she is. It’s who she is. And none of us like her. None except Toby and Mitchell and all those guys who are too dumb to see her for who she really is. We see her kissing guys in the alley after school each day, like she doesn’t even care, like she doesn’t even know.

Don’t worry, we’re gonna make her realize who she really is. We’re gonna make her feel so bad she’ll shrink like a little mouse and learn her lesson and stay away from all of them, especially Devin, who liked me all of year seven ’til she stole him last summer.

We isolate her. We don’t speak to her, not even when she asks what the homework for last night was. Find it out yourself, stupid. We leave notes in her locker, and we snicker as she walks by.

Have you learned your lesson yet, princess? Are you ever gonna stop wearing so much lipstick and eyeliner and skirts that are way too short? Are you ever gonna put out that cigarette or throw out those bottles? You’re 13 – what’s wrong with you? Didn’t your parents ever teach you what’s right and wrong? Half the year hates you. Sticks and stones, you say, but soon it’ll be real. I will smash up your pretty face if I have to. I’ll break your bones. I could snap your neck over my knee.

***

I walk home from Lisa’s house, and I take the long way because I want to look at the moon and the stars. I want to cross the cornfield, because once I saw a shooting star. I have to walk through the sketchy neighborhood to get there, though, but I should be okay if I hurry.

Suddenly, I hear a man’s voice ­coming from one of the houses, the one with the tiles falling off and the rusty car in the driveway. He is yelling. I rush behind a tree, heart ­racing so loud I’m sure he can hear. Suddenly I see a familiar figure. It’s her. She and the man are yelling at each other. He lashes out at her, and I wince. I can hear the slap.

And then the door closes. She is alone, and she sits on her porch steps. And she cries. I’ve never seen her cry before. Alone, with no boys, out in the cold night, crying, crying, crying so hard she can’t breathe. Her tears make ugly black lines down her face. And suddenly, she looks up, and our eyes lock. I run.

I run past the houses and the deli and the gas station with the creepy owner, and the ice cream store where we get really great slushies. I cross the street, my heart racing, out of breath and into the lush grass of the cornfield. I collapse on the ground, my arms and legs spread apart, trying to catch my breath and hold back the tears, though I can’t understand why they’re coming.

She was so alone. So sad. She is loved by no one but those boys. And I’m not sure they even really love her.

Suddenly I look up and see something sparkle across the indigo sky, a little explosion of white like a firecracker on bonfire night. I close my eyes.

And I wish for her.

Too Late

Oh why have we settled in the unquiet darkness,
where the noise of the silence overwhelms our hearts?
And we fall apart –
the sun sets and it rises –
we make shapes of ourselves no one can see.
Oh why are we lost in these tears
if we’ve forgotten how to cry?
If absence makes the heart grow fonder
can we hold on much longer?
We are burning in a drought of faith,
unnoticing as the stars are earnestly shining,
desperately bleeding light.
Oh how ironically hopeless
is every star’s forgotten fight,
for we are just uselessly drowning
under the weight,
under the honesty of the unspoken.
Oh the noise of the silence overwhelms our hearts.
I believe we are skillfully crafted
inexplicable accidents,
and our hero – the potter –
is too late.

Just Like You - V.Short Fiction

Today, I made a boy out of pillows and old clothes to look like you.
I told him that I liked his eyes, that they were a spectacular shade of blue. He did not ­compliment me back.
I read him my poetry. He did not offer me a ­critique or wild exclamations of how much he loved my writing. Instead, he stayed quiet.
I walked with him in the woods behind my house. He did not try to hold my hand.
I baked him a lovely chocolate cake – your ­favorite. He did not flatter my delicious ­baking skills.
And when he grew tired I set him down next to me on the bed. He did not caress me, he did not kiss me, he did not whisper sweet nothings in my ear, and he did not tell me that he loved or needed me.
Yes, I made a boy out of pillows today. He doesn't just look like you; he acts like you, too.

Shitty Mascara - Short American Style Fiction (Lot's of research on the Americanisms)

I wipe at my stupid eyes with the back of my hand, and it startles me for a second that my tears are gray. I dunno why it surprised me; I mean, I buy the s***ty mascara that’s $1.99 in the 20 Items or Less checkout lane. Why spend oodles of green on something I hardly ever use?

I just wanted to look nice, you know? Like those girls who’re just naturally fake pretty. The girls who can blend shades of eyeshadow like no one’s business, and match their lipstick to the exact color of their toenail polish or whatever. Seemingly effortless, yet impeccably coordinated.

This is good stuff, I should write for a living – solely on the subject of beauty queens with superiority complexes, of course.

I just want … God, what do I want? I want to feel the sun on my face and paint the clouds and hear the music in the trees and love myself and love someone else and just feel perpetually beautiful.

But that requires the $14.99 waterproof, fire-retardant, Grade-5-hurricane-resistant mascara, not the tube that’s two bucks in Lane 4.

My shoes are dirty and outdated, but that’s how I like them. I like these shoes. They’re comfortable. Why do I need new, expensive, fashionably appealing shoes in order for someone to say, “Hey dogg, you look nice today”?

And why is it that whenever I get deathly bored and slather cheap, pore-clogging makeup all over my face everyone suddenly says, “Wow, you look pretty!”? Since when is “pretty” about whale blubber and cocoa butter?

I’ll tell you one thing, though. I most definitely am not crying about some stupid XY.

Definitely not.

I’m crying for all the whales that have to give up their fatty insulation so that some fugly anorexic super bitch can paint herself pretty every freaking day, giving him something halfway decent to oggle all the time.

Seriously, I’m not leaking saltwater over a guy.

I just think it’s cruel and unfair that the fat-endowed marine life population doesn’t even get the slightest warning that they’ll soon be on a cosmetics endcap at K-Mart.

He could have at least broken it to me gently, you know? We’ve been friends since the George Bush/Al Gore debacle.

I mean come the Bette Midler on.

I spill my blood, guts, and viscera out to this guy and he throws down the “Let’s just be friends” card without a second thought?

It’s just … it’s common courtesy to ease someone into heartbreak, not smash it over their head like a whiffleball bat.

You know what? I’m going to take my $1.99 checkout Lane 4 mascara and chuck it right at her big, stupid square head.

Opulence - Short Fiction Set In America (For my USA readers)

I’ve been watching him for days now. When he leaves his house to go to school, I’m the one carefully tailing him, switching cars every day to make myself look less suspicious. If he ever sneaks out of his second-story room, I’ll be the one silently watching from a nearby tree. In class when he turns, feeling eyes on the back of his head, I’m the one who sent the hair on the back of his neck up on end. I am the girl whose shadow is always slightly overlapping his.

Being assigned to watch him almost makes me
feel like I’m not a stalker. Though I’m only 17, I’m a full-fledged member of the organization known as O.P.U.L.E.N.C.E. I’ve been with them since the ­tender age of five. It’s my home. Being an orphan, my office is also my permanent residence, the couch a fold-out bed. There are many others like me: no family. A lot of us are loners and haven’t chosen this route for ourselves.

I’m a tracker. I have been for years and some might say that I am the best at not being the best. In other words, I’m great at being invisible. Or at not being noticed. It’s not as hard as the others in the organization think. Being young and female is good, since most we track are young. Seeing me around younger people – my age, actually – doesn’t raise alarm bells. It helps that I’m cute. With a small frame, light hazel eyes, and short blond hair that curls under my chin, I don’t appear threatening. Of course, my ­organization-funded training doesn’t back that theory.

Soon I won’t be tracking down others with the power. They are finally going to give me an apprentice. After years of mastering everything I’ve been taught, they see my potential. That’s not to say I know everything. Even with my extended life I won’t be able to learn all the things I want to. If only this annoying boy would show the signs. It’s been almost a week. If he doesn’t show soon, they’ll reassign me. That much longer until I get my apprentice.

So here I am, sipping a latté and waiting for the Target to leave for school. I have been put in all of his classes in case something happens there, though I graduated high school years ago. Private tutors sped things up. With no family or personal ties, I had lots of time to devote to my studies. Martial arts black belts. Twelve languages, not including English. Everything a girl needs for a serious career in the agency. Such positions of power are not handed out easily. You must prove yourself many times over.

The Target and I have never spoken, but I know a lot about him. His file told me some, but after watching him for only a few days, I feel confident in saying that I know things no one else does. Not just the obvious, either. He resents his father and is protective of his mother, which makes me suspect the father is less than faithful. He smiles often but doesn’t make a lot of eye contact. He usually only speaks when spoken to. Although he has many friends, he isn’t close with any of them. The Target is observant, a watcher. This leads me to believe we would get along if he shows any promise.

I look down at my watch, then back at his house a few blocks away. The Target is late, which means I’ll be late too. Today my ride is a shiny black sports car, not out of place in this suburb full of midlife-crisis men. I turn on the engine impatiently. I’m fiddling with the radio when I hear something. I don’t feel any immediate danger, and I know to trust those feelings. But I ­also know that something is off.

Just as I am about to get out of the car and pretend to look in the trunk, the passenger door opens. I look up in surprise as the Target slides into the seat next to me. I grin, quite pleased by this turn of events. This is definitely a good sign. Perhaps intuition is strong in him. That would be good for my apprentice to have, complementary. I could handle having to deal with that.

“Hello, Lenna. Why have you been following me for a week now?” the Target asks lightly, conversationally, his first words ever said in my direction.

Ah, one of my many aliases. The organization set it up so that whenever I’m on a case, I get a new name, past, and present. It’s very powerful. The organization can basically do anything it needs; it has people everywhere imaginable. I’m just one of many, though there aren’t that many at the top, as I am. They don’t trust many to be trackers. Or to be apprentices. All of the full members have the power, though we control others to get things done.

My smile deepens as I say in my authoritative, professional voice, “My real name is Jade. I am a witch of the moon and a tracker for the organization known as O.P.U.L.E.N.C.E. You are also a witch. We would like to formally welcome you into the organization as my apprentice. Here is my card for verification.”

Jade Wordsworth
Tracker for O.P.U.L.E.N.C.E
Official Political Understanding Lending ­Everyone ­Navigation for Co-Existing Ethereals
Office hours: 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Mon-Sat
Phone: 555-5555
Proud league of witches of the sun and moon.
Worldwide.

“What do you mean ‘moon and sun’? Or ‘tracker’?” he asks, still looking at my card like it’s going to ­disappear.

“Types of magic. Moon is all about spells, the sun is more potion-based, though each type of witchcraft involves the other somehow. As a tracker, I find people like you and I bring them to O.P.U.L.E.N.C.E. Every witch must register, train, and become a member by law. In fact, the organization is like a government targeted toward witches,” I explain with a smile, loving the fact that this time I get to teach the newbie.

“Magic? Seriously?” he asks, eyes wide, meeting mine. They are large, yellow, and catlike.

I click a button on my left, automatically locking the doors. I put the car into drive, pulling out onto the road. As an afterthought I add as a courtesy, “I think you had better come with me.” .

Him, Her and the Receptionist - Fiction

Our daily jog together. At least I like to think of it as our jog. It’s not like we actually run together, but in close proximity in separate universes.

It is hard to remember the days when we did not run together. My elliptical jogs right behind his treadmill and always keeps up. It would have been so easy to say hi the first time. But with each passing day, it has gotten harder and harder, and now impossible. We have had occasional looks back and forth, but those were probably coincidences. Of course I ­always look at him. As for the times his glance met mine, perhaps something else called his gaze. And I’m way too shy to budge from my routine to approach confirmed rejection. Why can’t he just make the move? I know, that’s a funny one. Look at him and then look at me – especially without makeup!

I don’t turn red from exercising, but I do blush when I’m nervous or embarrassed. So my cover story would be that my redness is from my heavy-duty workouts. After all, I am at the gym. I’m struggling to keep up with myself. My mind is going faster than the elliptical. My fervent fears, my neurotic nerves, my taxing trepidations, my angry anxieties whirling through my brain. Now I’m really dizzy.

Even he has flaws. It’s not like I think he’s perfect or anything. How could he be perfect with shoes that smell like that? He comes close to perfection. And his feet come close to me as he lifts them on the treadmill upwind of my elliptical. Just as my iPod advances to the next song, a wave of toxic air per­meates my nostrils. “Tell me how I’m supposed to breathe with no air? Can’t live, can’t breathe with no air … If you ain’t here I just can’t breathe. There’s no air, no air,” sings Jordin Sparks. Whew, how can I breathe in this air? Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Ahh. How can toxic air be refreshing? But amid these toxins, there is some sweetness. I can just sense it; I have that tingling feeling in my nostrils.

It’s hard for me to hold back a little smile. I can’t get away from it this time. It draws me closer. The occasional silent connection I have with him is worth the foul air I endure. I must be high on either the stench or endorphins, because I don’t believe in drugs. I am exercising longer than usual. I am pumped. I am not getting tired. Exercise is a healthy form of procrastination for what I might do next.

The elliptical bars are sandwiched ­between my palms and my fingers. I am pushing on them with all my strength. Just as I alternately push and pull on the levers – left, right, left, right – my strength to contact him alternates with my fear of rejection. Our closeness has been on a meta­phorical treadmill – no matter how hard I try, no ­matter how fast I run, we don’t get any closer. The counteracting forces of acceptance and rejection are pulling on me equally. I am in equilibrium. I am moving at a constant velocity on the elliptical, but I can’t get myself to move toward him. Physics. Echhh!

I try to look cute in my gym clothes, but it’s hard. The mirror tells me I look fat and ugly. Those are the only things the mirror ever tells me, besides red hair, freckles, Raggedy Anne.

My pink good-luck sweatband hasn’t brought me any luck. I’m going to go buy some new coloured ones. I’m getting kind of sick of pink. People must think I wear the same sweaty headband every day, but I have dozens of them from that sale at Costco. I know that’s what he’s thinking when he turns around: freak, loser.

Droplets of sweat drip down my face, ravaging my pores and burning the roots of my confidence. But he gives me a feeling all over my body just by looking at him. So I know it’s worth it.

The odor burns my nostrils, but I can’t resist. I tiptoe into the hallway outside the men’s locker room; one hand holding the heart-shaped Post-It, the other plugging my nose. I see them resting on the wooden bench, right where he left them after “our” jog, laces untied and tongues forming obtuse angles. Why are they here? My hands are shaking and my legs are trembling, but I bite the corner of my lip and stick the note face up in the heel of his right shoe.

I am leaving the gym and I can’t stop thinking about him. Still. I hope he feels the same. But he won’t. I hope he will call. But he won’t. It’s been seven minutes since I put my note in his shoe and put my heart on the waiting list for rejection.

I enter my apartment and begin pacing. It’s been an hour and three minutes. I shouldn’t have done it. He doesn’t like me. It’s ­going to be awkward. No way. I’m not giving in. I’m not going to change my workout routine. But it will be hard to look at him tomorrow. I hope he saw the note before he put his shoes on. If not, I hope the ink doesn’t smear.

***

There she is. I could set my watch by her if I had one. Same gym. Same time. Same workout. Same as me. She never misses a day. I don’t think I ever will either. My mom and dad are both kind of, I don’t want to say chubby, but yeah, they are. I can’t let that happen to me. But I have another reason too.

Crack. Crack. My neck always cracks when I turn my head swiftly to check the clock behind me. At first this was a pain, but then I saw her. When I realized I got to look at her every time I turned to check the time, my neck strain didn’t bother me. I must be discreet. I love looking at her, but I don’t want her to know that her beauty keeps me staring. At least not quite yet. I’m not a stalker, just shy. I want to talk to her. I want to go up to her. But what if she thinks I’m just hitting on her? I’m really interested in knowing her. How is she supposed to tell the difference?

What a cutie. She’s just my type: tall, slender, and I can tell her skin is smooth. The cutest freckles. Milk chocolate eyes. Her gorgeous, wavy red hair is tied is back in a ponytail and she wears a pink headband. She must love pink. She should, it’s her colour. Her hair sways with every step. Thank you, pink headband – not a hair is blocking my view of her face.

What I like most is that she doesn’t act like she is beautiful. She doesn’t know how nervous she makes me. She doesn’t know the grace she exudes. She has a story to tell. I want to hear it. But I’m afraid to ask her. Wimpy, maybe. Intimidated, definitely. I feel like I’ve watched the same Candid Camera episode 5,500 times. My failed attempt keeps replaying in my head. With every day that I say nothing, she’s more and more likely to think I’m either gay or I need a watch.

I want to know her name. Seeing her every day for weeks, I refer to her as Pink Headband. How pathetic. I have to know her name. At least for now, it would be easier to ask the receptionist for Pink Headband’s name than to ask her. At least if she refuses, it won’t be as humiliating as a no from Pink Headband.

So I make my way to the desk. I say excuse me to the nerdy girl behind the counter. I have caught her staring at me in the past, but the one time I actually want her attention, she’s preoccupied. I’m the only person here. The phone is resting comfortably on its hook. But she is talking to someone or something nonetheless. I sigh. I’m getting impatient. I feel like I’m hailing a taxi. Waving and waving, and they just drive by. Same with her. I’m waving and that freak seems to be talking to her stapler. Finally I get her ­attention. I ask. She answers. I write “Molly” on the envelope containing my note to the woman I used to know as Pink Headband. I ask the ­receptionist to please give it to her.

As I sit on the bench outside the men’s locker room, I fight my urge to chicken out and retrieve the envelope. I bolt into the locker room to take a shower. The hot water is soothing. Shoot! I left my shoes on the bench. Not to worry. Who would want to steal those smelly old things?

Realizing I must have left my cell phone in my car, I get dressed quickly, jump into my shoes, and leave. I don’t want to miss her call.

***

I hate working at this place. Why do I work here? I need out. I need a work out. I’m so funny. I always laugh at my own jokes. Ha ha ha, snort, snort.

All day I inhale air tainted with the smell of sweat. And no, it’s not me doing the sweating. Oh, here comes Mr. “I’m so much better than you that I won’t respond when you greet me.” I scrunch my nose to push up my glasses, the way I always do when my hands are busy. He’s headed right toward me. It seems like he needs to ask me something. This will be a first. How will he do this and still keep his perfect record of never saying a word to me? Of course, it must be so hard to say “good evening” to someone who has just said it to you.

I can feel my nervous twitch starting up again. My top lip is moving diagonally; my invisible enemy has strung a thread through my lip with his needle. I try to yank it in the other direction, back into place, but it won’t budge.

The name of the girl in the pink headband? Uhhh. The girl in the pink headband! If she’s wearing her pink one today, it must be either Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. Gross. But apparently he either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. How sweet. For once he is nice and it is hard to hate him. He writes “Molly” on the envelope and hands it to me. Sure I’ll give it to Molly, all right.

He heads for the locker room; he is out of sight, but he sure isn’t out of my mind. Neither is the favor he asked of me. He wants me to give the envelope to Molly. Sure I will. I’ll be as good at giving this to Molly as he is at responding when I say hello. Actually, better because now my paper shredder’s name is Molly. Molly loves envelopes. She’ll fall bin over wheels!

***

Is there something in my shoe?

Dirty Laundry - Short Story (Fiction)

He is your world. He is the one you would live and die for. You love the colour of his skin – different from yours – the perfect balance between light and dark, day and night. You love the way he tells you he loves you. He says he'll marry you someday.

But your mum does not approve. You wonder every day how anyone can be so bigoted. Has she not felt the way you do at some point in her life? She doesn't understand, just rants and raves about your “taste in men” in that nasally voice you hate – the one she only uses when she's angry.

Later you sit on your bed, and turn up the volume on your iPod. “All the Same” by the Sick Puppies blasts through the ear buds.

Wrong or right … black or white … if I close my eyes … it's all the same.

Your mum has forbidden you from seeing him again, and your dad's taken to keeping a shotgun in the living room.

In my life … the compromise … I'll close my eyes … it's all the same.

You remember telling him you were afraid but that you wouldn't stop seeing him. He asked you to run away with him, just drop everything and run, figure it out as you went. But you said you wanted to wait and see if it would blow over. The look in his eyes was sad, as if he knew your parents would never accept him.

You hop off your bed and start shoving clothes into an duffel bag, making a trip to the bathroom for your toothbrush. You head to your desk and stare blankly at a piece of paper, pencil in hand. You write a quote that has been in your heart from the minute your parents told you that you were making a big mistake. It's short, but it's all you need to say.

You head down the hall to the laundry room. Your mom has piles of clothes on the floor, organized by color. You grab bits from every pile and toss them to the middle, creating a mound no longer separated into lights and darks.

Green, yellow, red, blue, black, white – all heaped into one huge pile. You lay your message on the top. It doesn't say who you're with or where you're going, but it wouldn't be hard to figure out.

“Laundry is the only thing that should be separated by colour.”

Meaningless Beauty? - Poem

I looked upon the sky one peaceful night
While I was gloomly strolling ‘long the shore.
A gaze at stars so countless and so bright
Had made me think about my grief no more.


I pondered over planets’ splendid grace;
Of black holes, comets, all the glorious things.
I longed to see the great Creator’s face
To thank Him for the joy His handwork brings.


But men today say there is no Divine,
Convinced that all was brought forth just through fate.
“From specks to worlds we know of,” they explain,
“And wonders went on blooming to this date.”


But see from birth of space to man’s advance.
Oh, how could these have happened all by chance?

Morning Horror Story - Poem

Every morning I lie there sleeping,
When my peace is destroyed by a god-awful beeping.
My dreams shattered, sudden and drastic,
By this evil, awful, red-eyed chunk of plastic.

I roll over in pain and hammer on the snooze,
Grumbling, groaning, thinking 'Why must this thing torture me so?'
'Don't make me get up, just five minutes more!'
The same thing I've said every morning before.

It's not that I'm not a morning person, or that I dread the coming day,
It's just that I hate waking up in this way!
I'd much rather rise up along with the light,
Shining through the window, glowing, beaming, bright.

But the sudden screaming, the unbearable fuss,
Makes me want to scream, cry, and even begin to cuss!
Especially the knowledge that all of my sorrow
Will be repeated the same time, same way, tomorrow.

Tired

No more stories tonight, proof reading takes a lot out of you.

Also, I'm pretty sure I broke my ass today climbing over a wall.

Shorts and poems could still be posted before I hit the sack
X

Photograph My Feelings - Fiction

His words drown together, lost somewhere between his mouth and my ear, until she nudges me.

“… However, Ms. Lock, we are concerned about her low attendance, failing grades, and frankly, her overall well-being.” He pauses to glance at the montage of papers spewed across his desk and scribble, presumably, nonsense. “Many of Rachel’s teachers and superiors have expressed great concern and brought it to my attention numerous times. Now I understand the circumstances, but Ms. Lock–”

“Don’t be silly; call me Kari,” she interrupts as she lends him a closed smile. She tucks her chemical blond hair behind her ear, which is visibly weighed down by her faux diamond earring. She scoots closer to him.

Words no longer retain form, accompanying the hum of the heater. My eyes are engrossed in the carpet’s pattern, following each zig and zag, until finally I end where I began.

He hands her an official Harper High pen and points to the line on which she is to provide a signature, as he summarizes five pages of legal information. He claims he’s found the perfect program for me. He says lots of other youth who have faced similar obstacles as me have been very responsive. He says he thinks that I will be too.

I silently wish him luck with that.

No, I am not going.

I’m a lot of things but not a charity project. Nope. Never. No, thank you. She can’t make me go. Can she? She makes me go, despite my pleas.

***

I step outside into the unwelcomingly brisk morning and begin to unwrap a granola bar. Kicking a small pebble, hands safely tucked in pockets, I watch my breath, like smoke, exiting my body, vaporizing into air. Maybe this is as close as I’ll ever get to proof of my existence.

I enter the building which he claims will save me. Taking my time to roam this unfamiliar territory in search of room 201, I find the hallway to be unusually narrow, almost as if its walls are closing in on me.

I take two deep breaths before entering the room. The door creaks open, and I get the uneasy sensation that I’m not only late but intruding on an exclusive moment. I am greeted by blank stares and a middle-aged woman sporting blond pigtails and a feigned smile, complete with a coral pink lipstick smudge across one tooth.

She leaps from a plastic chair and shrieks a welcoming serenade, assuring me that my tardiness is excusable because it is my first day, but to never let it happen again. She looks me straight in the eye and gives me the firmest handshake I’ve ever received.

I enter the circle of chairs. However, it seems to have taken the shape of a blob. I find myself in the middle of a mousy freshman dressed in head-to-toe purple and a boy who reeks of Indian food.

I look around from chair to chair, searching for a familiar face. Some look like they’ve been messed up. Most look completely normal, but they don’t fool me. No, I see past the pink eye shadow, the beat-up jeans paired with punk-band T-shirts, and the brand new team jerseys. If I were religious, I’d find myself right here, in this very room, praying to God that I’m not that easily read.

Pigtails hands each of us a journal. She tells us that anything is fair game, just as long as we write each day. She says it’s important to get our thoughts onto paper, even when they seem miniscule. Miniscule – I know what that feels like.

I am scared to open the journal. Words are dangerous, especially when we write them down. If I’m not careful, they might betray me.

The next morning, Pigtails asks if I will read my first journal entry aloud. I shake my head no. She doesn’t push me and quickly moves on, telling us that the visitors in the room are our new counselors, here to meet with us individually. I feel terrible for mine.

I am paired with a Mr. E. Tear, as he formally introduces himself, but says that I should call him Emmitt. In return, I tell him my name is Rachel, and that that was probably as much as he’d ever get to know about me. I make sure he knows it’s nothing personal.

“I agree, I’m not much for talking,” Emmitt replies with a wink. “If you keep it between you and me, I want to be here just about as much as you do. This counseling gig is only temporary.”

I nod in acknowledgment.

Once I arrive home, I smell the foreign scents of a home-cooked dinner. I make my way into the kitchen to find my mother in his lap.

“Rachel, honey, you remember Daniel, your principal, right?” she asks, almost as if she’s mocking me.

He shifts her from his knee onto a separate seat, standing as he brushes the wrinkles out of his suit. “Rachel, it’s wonderful to see you,” he states.

I laugh out of despair, pivoting in the direction of my room, leaving her to apologize for me.

***

Sometimes I play a game. I let my alarm clock sound, without shutting it off, as I lie in bed, counting the hours until someone, anyone, notices.

Emmitt looks surprised to see me, but he never asks me why I haven’t been showing up. I sit down and he hands me a photograph of a woman. She isn’t beautiful by society’s standards. However, the more I contemplate her crooked nose and the way her freckles mask her face, the more she begins to grow on me.

Emmitt tells me how sorry he is he never took his own passion for photography more seriously. He says it’s the only thing that makes him feel worthy of occupying a life, that in his mind, capturing beauty and humor on a five-by-seven sheet of paper, is the biggest miracle he’ll ever perform. That maybe his art could change anothers’. He says that for the most part he hates people. All they do is care about themselves.

“We’re just too single-minded!” he keeps exclaiming, as he grabs what little hair he has in frustration. At the end, I’ll ask that he bring another picture next time.

I fumble through my journal until I find a fresh sheet of paper. Sometime after learning of Emmitt’s fire for photography, I lost my fear of words. And suddenly, I’ve become addicted to them, to thinking that my words are important enough for paper. In some ways, I blame Emmitt.

Pigtails asks me to read a journal entry aloud again. I lower my head until my eyes reach the piercing white of the paper.



The Daisy

Has Faith departed
Love departed
Both stand in Blank’s shadow
She stands the same as yesterday
Peeling the Daisy’s petals
Each descends slowly
Kissing the grass beneath
Aging into ivy
“Blank made me do it!” she exclaims to
Boy
Boy stands the same as her
Only three states away
Daisy in hand
Feet covered in petals



I raise my head to the class.
“Roses are red,
Violets are blue.”

***

Emmitt says he has what no one else has: A third eye. He believes the lens of his camera allows him to see things his own two eyes can’t. I map my finger around the fiery red curls of the girl in his photograph as I just listen, soaking in his truth.

***

I enter my house. The lights are dim and the atmosphere cold. The sound of rain pattering against the rooftop is accompanied by sniffles from the kitchen where she sits, cupping a cold coffee mug.

The telephone base flashes, indicating missed calls. Once she sees me, she lifts her hand to her mouth as tears stream down her face, hitting the blanket that lies upon her lap.

Once I sit down across from her, she slides what seems to be my journal across the table. I open it, scanning my words and my thoughts, confirming my assumption. I stand up, heartbeat increasing. My mind goes blank as I grab my journal, holding it as close to my chest as possible, as if somehow this can flood the words back into my heart and off these public pages.

“What are you doing with this?” I ask, and my words wobble and hands shake.

“Rachel, I just want you to let me in again. I want to know you like you used to let me.”

I am no longer in control. I cry. I cry so hard I start to heave. I cry about her and about me, but mostly out of humiliation.

“You know, sooner or later you’re going to have to say something to me,” she sighs, defeated, like a balloon whose air is slowly let out. “I liked your poems,” she tries again.

“You had no right to read them. These,” I point to my notebook, “these were private.”

“Oh, Rachel, don’t be a drama queen,” she chuckles.

“I hate you,” I spit.

“Damn it, you will not speak to your mother that way. I raised you better than that.”

“My mother? You haven’t been my mother in four years. Four years. You let man after man into your life, and put me second behind loser after loser.”

She rolls her eyes. “Rachel, don’t make it about that. This has nothing to do with that.”

“THAT? For that, I’ll always hate you – for ­bringing him into my life, for letting him touch me the way you let him. That has everything to do with this.”

I go to bed with complete intentions never to wake up, but when I do, I grab my journal and begin to write. I write about love, deception, hope, and mostly about myself.



Mirror

I reflect the woman
Who sighs as I let her down
The uncertain, the reserved woman
She is calm, a hesitance inside her
Squinting to see her soul

The more I stare
The more I see

I reflect the child
Who laughs and dances
The innocent, the carefree child
She is bright, a sparkle in her eye
Her soul clear as crystal

Intertwined these two beings
Like deep black coal that woman
Aged into a diamond this child

***

Once I enter room 201, I search for Emmitt. I think today I might show him what I’ve written.

“Rachel?” Pigtails gets my attention. “I’d like you to meet Mrs. Price, your new counselor.” She places her hand upon the small of my back in an effort to guide me toward her, but I don’t move.

“New counselor? What?” I ask in confusion.

“Mrs. Price will be replacing Mr. Tear. I really think you’ll enjoy her,” she tries to convince me by wrinkling her nose and flashing a blindingly white smile.

Pigtails grabs the arm of a woman dressed in a men’s forest green pantsuit and points in my direction. The woman furrows her eyebrows before her hand reaches for mine. I shake it as she introduces herself. I am not impressed. She isn’t Emmitt.

I don’t last long under the instruction of Mrs. Price. I turn to walk away from room 201, most likely for the last time. My pace increases as I enter the hallway. I push the door open, and as the blistering breeze hits my face, I begin to run. I am running because I don’t know what else to do. I run for freedom, for security, but more for answers.

My eyes scout out a payphone along the sidewalk. I thumb through the battered, hanging telephone book. My eyes reach Tear and my finger finds Emmitt. I dial his number, and am greeted by a chorus of rings.

“You’ve reached Emmitt …” I smile. “And Lindsey!” a woman’s voice interrupts.

I hang up because I feel like I’ve just spied on him, like I’ve just imposed. Of course he has a life of his own. I knew I wasn’t the only part of him. In fact, who am I to say I was a part of him at all? Not once had I talked. He knew hardly anything about me. Frankly, he knew nothing about me. So why had I expected him to stay? I wasted his time. He lasted longer than he should have.

“Emmitt stopped by,” my mom calls from the living room. “He dropped off a letter. It’s on the kitchen table.”

I take it to my bedroom, where I stare at it for a long time. Placing it inside my weathered journal, I decide not to open it. I like to imagine what the letter says sometimes. Maybe he tells me he’ll be coming back, that Mrs. Price was only a substitute, and that it was just a big misunderstanding. Or possibly, he writes of how he wants to take a photograph of me, and the letter describes a time I was to meet him. Maybe, it wasn’t a letter at all, but a newspaper clipping he thought might make me smile.

***

Tonight I can’t sleep. The noise beyond my window­sill awakens me. I switch on my bedside lamp, and open the drawer where my journal lies. I click the pen and begin to write a note I know I will never send.



Emmitt,

I don’t think you know this about me, but I have learned to love writing. In a way, it has become my third eye, letting me see the world beyond the capacity of my own. I think you gave that to me. Thanks for letting me listen.

Rachel

Let's Get Some Coffee - Mid-Length Realistic Fiction

I hate coffee. I hate the taste, I hate the smell, I hate the way people get artificially addicted to it, like it's a trend. People joke about needing coffee to function. It's stupid until you see them without coffee – then it's ugly.

But for you, I'm going to try. I've obviously tasted coffee, but I've never sat down and just drunk it. I'm going to. I'm going to brave the nasty smell and bitter taste and silly stereotypes. Just for you! I'm not sure why. I barely know you. In fact, I've never actually met you. We're meeting for coffee. I've never met someone for coffee. It's so normal and casual. It's so wild and strange. Everyone meets people for coffee. It's nothing extraordinary. Nobody meets people for a chai or an iced tea or something silly like that. Just coffee. So that's what I'm going to do for you. It's new. It's exciting.

Let's not start this off with illusions or lies. I'm not sure what to think of coffee. A lot of people like it, but a lot of people like smoking or heroin. It doesn't make those things healthy. Maybe a lot of people like you, too, but I'm not sure what to think of you either. Are you too bitter, too strong? Are you unhealthy? I want you to be healthy. I want you to be sweet, even if it's bittersweet. I want to like you. Maybe I do. Maybe it's just coffee I'm not sure of. Maybe it's me I'm not sure of. All my thoughts and feelings are mixed up with the past and the present and the smell of coffee in my mind. Please don't hate me.

In a way, this scares me, this meeting for coffee. In a way, coffee weirds me out. I don't want to be one of those people who needs tons of flavors and sweeteners with their coffee. I don't want people to look at me with my coffee and laugh and say, “You want a little coffee with your cream and sugar?” Of course there should be some sweetness. Life needs flavor. It needs cream and sugar. But the point of drinking coffee is to drink coffee. It shouldn't be all hidden, like you're ashamed. If you like coffee and you want to drink it, then go for it! Don't water it down. I don't want to feel like a wuss, like a coffee fraud. I don't want people to look at me and think, Oh, look at that stupid girl drinking coffee just to impress that boy. How pathetic. That's just a sad, ridiculous situation to be caught in.

I'm an honest person. So that's why I'm telling you from the start that I'm not sure about coffee. That's why I'm telling you I'll try it just for you. That's why I want to like coffee for you. So, here we go.

I look down at my lap in the car. I check my reflection in the side mirror. My hair looks decent, but is it good enough? Should I really be wearing this outfit? Is there time to turn around? No. It'll have to do. Funny how much better it looked in the safety of my room, away from this pressure, the pressure of going out for coffee. I'm nervous. I shift my feet and rhythmically move my legs, as I have a habit of doing.

I wonder for a moment if you have nervous habits, or any habits. Do you talk with your hands like me? Are you as clumsy as me? Oh, God, I'm going to spill the coffee on myself. I can see it coming. I take a deep breath so I won't forget. Sometimes I panic and forget to breathe. Honestly.

I can almost smell the coffee already. I wonder if you'll like me, if you'll be impressed by me. Will you find me boring? I think about the way my grammar mysteriously becomes awful when I talk to you, and I wonder if I'm going to embarrass myself.

Now I'm scared to talk at all. Will I be too bitter, too strong? And there's definitely no time to turn back? No, it's just coffee. What if I hate it? Will you hate me? It's just coffee. Hot, steaming, bittersweet coffee. There's no turning back.

I arrive, barely on time, where I promised to meet you. To meet you for coffee. I get out of the car with a sense of growing up, of being incredibly old and yet monumentally young. I'm a silly girl, meeting a boy for coffee for the first time. If I don't like it, I could be stranded here, in Vineland, New Jersey.

I go inside, trying to put some confidence in my step. I'm telling my legs, “Be strong. Don't be clumsy or shy. Be strong. Strong like coffee!”

I see you, I recognize you from your photos, and you recognize me. You know it's me. You come over to say hi. You're smiling, my heart's racing and I'm nervous, I'm scared, oh, I'm so alone, but, God, it's so good to see you smile, to finally see you at all, to hear your voice, to meet you for coffee. I smile back and I know it's going to be all right.

We're two writers, two nervous, silly, like-minded people, pushing our way through a common ritual, meeting for coffee. We shake by with all the wrong verbs and stutter in and out of vibrant, dramatic adjectives. We're putting color in black and white and we're adding flavor with sideways glances. We're accustomed to this, to the frightening mix of hormones, caffeine, and words. We're just young and the same. It's just another conversation – Hi, how are you? Good, you? Good. Wonderful. Cream and sugar. We look around us like tourists, like we've never seen a coffee shop. I decide to be natural and confident. I decide to be strong.

So I look you in the eyes, even though I never look people in the eyes, even though I have self-esteem problems and I'm nervous and I think you'll hate me, even though I wear glasses and I'm terribly self-conscious. I look right into your eyes and say the line I've been writing, rearranging, editing, and rehearsing in my mind the whole way here.

“Let's get some coffee.”