10.31.2013: AAAAH LAST DAY!!!! 541

Well here we go. One more day. I can’t wait. I can’t wait to feel excited and thrilled and passionate about something again. I can’t wait for the moment of despair that will inevitably come. And I can’t wait for the moment when I will push past it, and write on, and on and on. I can’t wait for the rush of words pouring in a steady wave from my head and my heart all the way into my fingers and onto a page of pure madness that only I can understand.

I just can’t wait.

And lucky for me, I don’t have to. Because in less than an hour, it will be here.

Okay, well here is a quick little blurb of a story to go with this because I’m actually not going to stay up until midnight (I know, bad Laura!) I need to rest up so the rest of the month can be spent in glorious writing bliss.

~*~

Snow falls softly as I stare out the window into the white glow of radiant winter wonderland. I sigh, remembering. The way he smiled comes back and hits me like a blast of that icy air. And I feel my throat tighten in spite of my resolve. Christmas is different this year.

“You want some hot chocolate?” Mom calls from her post at the cupboard. Eyes roving, she spies what she wants and pounces like the red fox going after a mouse. I nod. It’s almost dark out, now that the days end before five o’clock. It is an eerie symptom of winter in the Northwest, and I’ll never really grow used to it, no matter how long I live here. But the tree’s magical glow softens the gloom a bit, even though every ornament is a reminder. Mom hands me my steaming cup of cocoa, its delectable aroma slipping through my nose and into my mouth.

“Thanks.” I say quietly. She says nothing.

We say nothing together and are content just to stare out into the cold and the growing darkness and remember when things were different.

A barrage of barking breaks the silence as my three Corgis yipe excitedly. Their noise startles me and a sizzling splash of creamy chocolate falls like snow on my lap. My dad is home. He says nothing too as he comes in and shakes the winter frosting from his shoes. His every movement is draped with heaviness.

Things used to be different. I miss my daddy’s smiles.

Before someone would have been sure to say, “Well who’s excited for Christmas tomorrow?” or “What are we having with the ham?” or “When will Aunt Lily and Uncle Jake get here?” But now we say nothing. No one wants to remember that tomorrow is Christmas and no one has any appetite for the ham, and we all know that Aunt Lily and Uncle Jake aren’t coming this year. They sent polite excuses. But we know. They are afraid because things used to be different.

We are too busy with our thoughts. And no one tries to be cheerful. We’re not exactly dreary or downtrodden, but being cheerful just isn’t important this year. This year is different.

Because this year there is no Ricky. 

800ish

K well I free wrote like crazy. But I am crazy, so if you read it you might end up crazy too, therefore not posting it on my blog. Yep. It was like a thousand words or something altogether. Yay for me. But help. I can't write this essay and it sucks and arrrgghhhhhh why won't things just go the way they're supposed to for once? So. Freaking. Annoyed. Btw, learn to shut up for five seconds people. K bye.

Shadows

“Who are you?” She whispered to the dark that dove throughout the room.

“A ghost of the dreams you thought you had forgotten.” Came a silky smooth reply. She smiled in the silver sweetness of the moonlight that slipped in through a slit in the curtains.

“And why do you come to me now? To what purpose, if the memories are already lost?” The voice was cultured and dulcet, hinting at a sweetness now embittered by mistrust.

The silence thickened as phantom footsteps ceased to rove about.

“To give you what you seek.”

“And what do I seek?” She asked, the question dripping with cynical decorum. His reply was suddenly fearsomely close to her ear, though the darkness showed nothing there.

“To no longer be alone.”

The mask of coy skepticism fell, and she whirled to catch the shadow of a nameless thief. He was already gone. 

10.29.2013: 217

How long to wait upon the edge of this calling trilogy?

Until darkness spreads, takes hold and all valor withers with the sun

Ask in the echoes of the diamond calling

The voice that lingers is not mine

No hope or no adversity

A state of meandering death

It spits and spins and snakes around them

Those hands of black fire clinging on

Is there no man left to take up the call of honor?

The old of heart and spirit ache

And the young in body have fled from noble aims

No reverberation left to call them back

No voice in beauty remaining, to beckon home the ones to whom the world might 
Turn

In darkness lost the ways of hope uniting

In shadow fall the memories of a future now slipping away

The arms of the rich reach ever inward

And those of the needy stretch out for her own claims

A man’s heart is his own, consumed with his growing self

The sun fades to a star, and the stars grow to universes of cold light

They burn themselves into oblivion

And all Shattered excellence falls into the realm of memory

No more to fall in day’s last dawn

The trees are dead

And words of splendor lie forgotten under Autumn’s ghosts of red

Okay. Well here goes take two :)

I don't want to do this. I think, flanneling along the lines of infamy that spin through my head. I don't want to do this. But I do.

The door in my basement is white wood, engraved with a hundred names that bleed down its grainy rings in swirls of black ink. Of course, it isn't real. It doesn't exist. My struggling mind tries to convince itself that reality has abandoned me. I don't want  to know what's on the other side, don't want to open the door and curse the consequences. I don't. But I do.
I have to know. Something about it compels me.
So I grip the latch. There is a moment of indecision that toys with my head as I ponder what might linger behind those tainted boards, and then I give in to the the wave of curiosity that breaks over me, stealing any reason left inside. I open the door. The black names hit me like a wall, but I'm pulled through, looking onward at the sudden sea of faces which engulfs me.

They stare at me, their eyes locking on, as if sensing a predator, one who does not belong. Panicking, my left brain shouts at me. It isn't real. You're not here. You're back in the basement and the only door is the one that leads back up the stairs.The dull quarters of my unimagination try to convince me that none of what I perceive truly exists. But it does; somehow I know this.They are real. Wafting ghosts of human forms, their eyes spheres of midnight onyx. They drill into me.
 Each has a name pasted on his forehead. Each has a word written on his wrist. And each has a symbol engraved upon his heart.

And together they chant with one voice: "You're the one. You're the one. You're the one." Those accusing words echo on and on both in whispers soft and in screams and wails.
Fear so deep and so real slithers through every vein in my body and I gasp, unable to form words of apology. I recognize them now. They are the scars that I've inflicted. The hurts that I have unleashed on every single person who has walked through my life.
A thousand I'm sorrys would not fix it.
Tens of thousands of remedies could not heal that empty vacuum of emotion.
And no door shall ever open for me, the chance to make amends.

First Draft 803

Yikes. The basement is even more revolting than I expected, but hey, I’m getting paid, so I shouldn’t mind a little nastiness. Singing along with my ipod as I work, I stack boxes and shovel up old magazines. Mom told me to be done by dinner. She and Aunt Marieta went out together to talk about Nana. It’s odd, since they’ve met up weekly for years and have spent every moment trying not to talk about Nana. Now that she’s dead, I guess they figure they’re pretty safe: neither one can suggest going to talk to her. The whole thing makes me sad. I never really knew Nana. She had a falling out of massive proportions with my mom and my aunt when I was about two. No one ever mentions it, and for years I never even thought about Nana. Now that she’s passed and I’m in her basement, though, things are different. I see old photographs of my mom, and pictures of Pop and his fishing boat, and vintage nineteen thirties dresses that half my friends would kill for. It all makes me wonder what kind of woman she was. Finally, I see a black and white photo of Nana herself, wearing a string of pearls. And then I see a door.

Unexpectedly glaring out at me from behind a pile of old hunting jackets, a red wood door stands brazenly, old, rigid, and intricately beautiful. The door is a piece of the past, and was, even when Nana moved here in 1931. Its dusty details speak of centuries gone by. So what’s it doing in a mid nineteen thirties, stoic, outlandishly dated little farmhouse?

My curiosity officially peaked, I grip the handle. As soon as I do, the sights and sounds of Nana’s basement fade. The music from my ipod spirals lower and lower. Intuitively, my wrist spins and I pull. The room beyond the door is dejectedly black, empty and also so completely silent. I feel as if I had been deaf a thousand years after only a few seconds within it. I fumble for a light, but find not even a wall. Somehow no light from the rest of the basement penetrates into this room, though the door is still wide open. I step in, feeling that I should speak, but somehow knowing I cannot and should not. The quiet seeps into my soul. I walk deeper into the darkness, and gradually I feel warmth, like I am walking closer to an oven or a heater. Then----a light flickers like the beginning of an old movie projected onto a wall. In front of me a small black and white room drifts into existence. In it, a girl near my age stares out the window, smiling, her lips moving in a silent song. The film speeds along and I see her looking older, wearing a full red skirt that seems charcoal in this black and white world. For an instant, I glance down at my palms and see that they too are white, stained with the old-timey appearance of Mayberry, North Carolina. Deep down inside I know I should be freaking out, but I don’t. It is like in a dream when you know that you’re dreaming, and yet ignore the fact and continue acting as if everything is real. I feel the world of olden days creep into my skin. The girl in the room in front of me is laughing now, talking with a woman. Their lipstick smiles are sweet. But in a moment, the woman is gone and the girl cries alone. She grows older and older, and smiles again, but her freckled grin is tinged with sadness. By and by I see her rocking a baby, then holding the little girl’s hand as she plays with her in the old room. Another baby girl slips into the picture. The young woman grows thinner, her hair gets shorter, and the little girls spring taller. The room stays the same. I begin to recognize the woman as my Nana. The second little girl is my mother. Then the time comes when the woman rocks another little baby in her arms, while her daughters speak angrily from the corner. My mom takes the baby back in her arms, that baby who is me, and leaves, forever it would seem. At last the woman sits across from me on the creaky ivory framed bed, an old woman with white hair and tired blue eyes. Somehow I know they are blue. Like mine. She looks out the window and smiles.

Just like that, the room flickers into darkness again, and I’m left standing in the echoes of the past. The door calls me, and I walk quietly out into the light of my Nana’s basement. Behind, I hear as the door closes firmly. But when I turn, there is only the flowered paper of the basement wall and a pile of old hunting jackets. 

Taylor Everling: 603

Okay, well I’m doing this thing. I like to call it, “dispassionating.” Basically, a few weeks before I begin a huge massive story project like the one I’m about to embark upon, I write about nothing interesting. My characters have no zing. My plots have no sympathetic qualities, and any storyline that does hold promise is cut off before I can get sucked into it. That way I have no passion for writing anything. Until…

I allow my writing brain to wrap its little self around the character whose mind, heart and soul, I shall inhabit for the next thirty-one days. That probably sounds a bit creepy. It is a bit creepy. But I like to step into my character’s shoes and walk around for a few days before I begin to sculpt her destiny. Therefore my next few blog posts should be fairly random and hopeless. Don’t get attached to the characters because they’ll probably all die. Or I may be super random and post all my college application essays on here just for fun. Essentially, my brain is dead, I have no motivation, my lack of social life gives me zero inspiration, and I have no clue how my poor novel is even going to pan out. That being said… wait, did I just use the cliché “pan out” expression? What am I becoming? Oh dear me…. K well as I was saying. This novel is off to an even worse start than my last one, if that’s possible, and what’s worse I am bound the confines of it being my semester project for civics. Which means that I can’t do an emergency evacuation of this plot (again, like last time) if I need to. Which means I’ll actually have to commit to something for once. Which means November is probably going to be an even tougher month. Oh joy. I just love senior year. Oh wait, no I don’t.

Sigh. Thank goodness for writing. Someday I’m gonna write a bestseller, make a million dollars, and buy my daddy a boat and a house on Lake Martin.

Just keep telling yourself that, Laura. Just keep telling yourself that.

So here we go. Her name is Taylor Everling. She’s nineteen years old, has freckles, hazel eyes and redish brown hair, and she’s about to become my life for the next month. Let’s make this good, Taylor. You and me. We got this.

Time to write ourselves a novel, or in your case, an existence. You ready to live? I’m just going to take a moment here and apologize for what I’m about to do to you. You’re going to have to make some really bad choices, feel regret, learn to cope, make another huge enormous decision and then get on with the rest of your life.

So let’s go. Let’s write. I’m not by any means close to being half-way ready, but I’ll have to be. And I’m excited. It is a chance to escape being me for a month and be you instead.

Being Taylor Everling might just be a lot more interesting than being Laura Stewart. After all, you have a million problems that someone might want to read about. All I have is the intrinsic typicality of a high school senior who does what is expected of her and never has any adventures for the books. You’re my ticket, Taylor. And together we’re going to make a story that might just change someone’s mind someday. Even if it is just one person, one reader, one mind, one life that is touched through our endeavors, it will be worth it.

322

“Are you kidding me?” He shouted, his voice careening off the walls at Soupe du Jour. “Thirteen dollars for a freakin’ cup of soup?”

“Grandpa, calm down, it’s my treat.” Isa stammered hurriedly. The waitress’ face was Christmas red, her lips pulled together in a shriveled line.

“No, no, no! This is stealing. No one should pay that much for soup!” He slammed his wallet down on the table, shaking his finger at her. “I used to be able to take my wife out to get dinner, see a movie, and go somewhere for coffee afterwards all for seven eighty-five. This is criminal.” His blue eyes flashed.

“Well sir, you’ll have to take it up with my manager. I don’t make the prices.” The waitress said stormily, her dark eyes flashing back at him.

“Well just you go and get him.” Came the demanding reply. Isa pulled at her earring and grimaced.

“Grandpa, its fine. You don’t need to make a big deal out of it, okay? I want to have a nice lunch with you, not have a confrontation with some manager.” She frowned.

“No. They’re going to hear my complaint. Nobody should have to pay thirteen dollars for soup.” He crossed his arms stubbornly. Isa sighed.

“There’s some old crank out there who wants to talk to you about our prices.” Abigail knocked at Mr. Beal’s open office door. “Do you want me to ask him to leave?”

Her boss sighed. “No, I’ll go talk to him. After all, our generation owes his that much respect.” Mr. Beal walked calmly out into the restaurant, smiling weakly. “Hello sir, how can I help you?” He said to Isa’s grandfather. Just then a masked man entered the restaurant and threw grenades at everything and the entire place went up in flames, making this entire story irrelevant.

Aka, I’m very tired and I just want to go to sleep for a thousand years. 

Words. 

Tales of a Songbird

I smile.

I smile from the window seat as he plays, his fingers dancing across the keys as snowflakes waltz through a storm. He doesn’t see me smile, but he feels it, deep down within, and he plays even more gently, strongly, laughingly, beautifully, painfully, for feeling it. At this moment he is unaware of my very existence, and that of every other person in the world. So I smile, wishing to feel that sweet oblivion. The baby grand glistens in the white light of an autumn sky that pours past my back and through the window. It is a very different instrument from the one he learned on, less homey perhaps, but that doesn’t matter to him as it might to some. It is not the piano itself that he loves, this I know. The song is one I have never heard before, but somehow it escapes being unfamiliar. He says that is because I am one of Silent Musicians; which means that although I cannot play, sing, or even whistle the simplest tune, I can feel, and so I am able to hear as well as the one who makes music. The song ends, and drifts into another. He doesn’t want to stop playing. His eyes rest sleepily closed for a moment, then flutter open again. He looks out into the gray day, but he does not see me, or anything else that floats lingeringly out in that world of city. He is staring at emotion.

He is staring at love, hope and despair.

The music fades into sweet sorrow and my eyes mist over with excess admiration. It is a tragic melody, but still I smile. I smile because I know that I could sit here and listen forever, if only life would grant me my first best wish. And I smile because I know that if nothing ever came to interrupt, not hunger nor age, nor sleep, nor death, he would play for me forever, and never regret the years lost.  

10.23.2013: 500

Inhaling heavily, I took another long sip, the bitter liquid tumbling down my throat like a bath of numbing peace. I stumbled forward, head reeling and eyes sagging, as I heard the pitter patter of precious little toes behind me, their stickiness clinging to the wooden kitchen floor. I shoved the bottle into the cupboard and turned around. Amelia’s eyes were red with sleepiness and her mouth puckered worriedly. I clutched at the counter top in order to keep my balance.

“What are you doing up, honey?”

“Daddy, I’m too tired to sleep. It’s boring.” She murmured in that adorable way that made my dead heart flutter with a spark of life. She was the only one left to make me feel that electric pulse. Her eyes darted back and forth from me to the window and to the tv and back to me, hunting for entertainment. “Read me that one story.”  She demanded.

“Which one is that, sweetheart?” I slurred, trying to string my words together in a way that made sense to a four year old. I squeezed my eyes closed, ridding my head of its fogginess. “I think it would be better if you just went back to bed. You know, if you just stay there with your eyeses closer for long enough you will fall asleep eventurally.” I stopped, hearing myself and reddening.

“Daddy you’re talking weird.” She accused. I swallowed numbly.

“Go to bed, Amelia.”

She looked up at me and I could feel a hand gripping my heart and squeezing it into dust. For the first time in her short, innocent little life, my child stared up at me with fear in her eyes. I was no longer her father, her hero or her ideal. I’d fallen. I guess I’d hoped it would be when she was fifteen, not four.

“I want my mommy,” She said softly.

“She’s not here.” I snapped, regretting the harsh words and my bitter tone. The phrase tasted sour as it came out of my mouth, tinged with bile, anger, and regret.

The tears came, filling her eyes with the salty sting of betrayal. I wished I could cry too. I wished I could shed tears and feel the relief that came with them. I had no peace. Only anger. And grief.

“When will she come home?” My little girl’s fat ruby lips whimpered helplessly. Exhausted and tipsy, I sank down into my easy chair and motioned for her to come over to me. She walked slowly, mistrustfully.

“She’s not coming home Amelia. Mommy died, remember?” She shook her head.

“But I want her to come back.” Climbing up onto my lap, she kissed my cheek, wrinkling her nose at the strong smell of beer on my shirt. The phrase so easily summed everything up.

“I want her to come back too.” I said. I tucked Amelia in and read her “that one story.” Then I poured out the liquid that was killing me.

As it had killed her. 

Obtuse: 650 words

I don't know what to do. 

 I'm lost beyond words. I'm out of ideas. I have nothing. There doesn't seem to be any hope left. Deep down I know that's not true. There's always hope, even when the whole world is starving and lusting and growing more and more depraved, murderous and apathetic and the national debt ceiling continues to tip-toe higher into the lives of the next generation. Even with all that, there is still hope. It is fact.
And yet... fact and feeling sit on opposite poles. 

I don't want to go back tomorrow, or the next day or the next or ever again.I admit that freely. I don't want to go sit in that room and watch as their mouths clickety-clack and their eyes rove the surroundings. I can see my words travel in through one ear and out the other. Not that I say much that is mind-blowing. I don't have great lessons to teach or tremendous inspiration to offer. I'm simple, tired and lost. 
Because they don't care. 
And now after all these months, it is wearing on me, and I begin not to care too. 

Apathy. It is the worst enemy of all. Apathy. It is worse than death, because in a way it is a living suicide. I don't want to throw away my ambition, but I see it slipping away before my eyes. 

On Monday my English teacher assigned a word in class for me and my classmates to write about: The word is "Obtuse." 

I'll be honest, when he said it, the meaning escaped my memory and all I could see was the brazen figure of a triangle etched into my mind after 180 days of geometry. It took a dictionary definition to remind me, and after reading the phrase that followed "obtuse" I felt the cold grip of conviction on my shoulder. 

I am obtuse. 
I am apathy. 
I am pretending not to see, for the fear of what will come.
I am conquered.
I am allowing something unimportant to become everything.

I am insecurity. 


In many ways it all goes back to eleven years old and the brown-haired boy who said, "You're not good enough. Pretty enough. Smart enough. Thin enough. Godly enough." And thus began my ever upward climb for perfection, and the pattern that developed: strive, fail, become defeated. I would work hard, but not hard enough, and spiral deep into depression whenever I did not succeed. I want to be loved. Liked. Thought well of. So I keep my mouth shut. I stay seated. And I stay safe.

I am obtuse. I know what I should say, but I don't say it. I know when I should rise to the defense of the defenseless, but I keep my eyes down and pretend not to see. I am obtuse. 

But obtuse is not me. 

I will fail, not once but many times. Probably daily. But the only way to truly fail, is to give up trying altogether. I will not let myself give up. I will cease to be obtuse. 

Instead I will be acute. What better way to be? 

So this goes out to You. If you're reading this: I'm sorry. I'm sorry because I've failed you by not speaking up. And You, I'm sorry because I've failed You by failing to listen. And You, I'm sorry because I've failed You by failing to defend myself against the stones you throw. And You, to You I say I'm sorry because You've given me everything I need and I do not heed Your advice. 

And to You: I am sorry for not giving back, after everything You have given to help me succeed. 

Lastly, to You. Because I have not remembered Your words, those special words You sent me on the night I needed them most.

"You are the light of the World. A city on a hill cannot be hidden." ~Matthew 5:14

So no more hiding in the winepress. 
I will no longer be obtuse. 
And obtuse will not be me. 

Poem: 209

Ordinary hero

Where can you be?

Oh ordinary hero

Why don’t you come to save me?

Could it be I’m waiting

In a room full of lies?

There’s fifteen pennies in a wishing well

But no one even tries

I’m waiting here still watching

And I’m always keeping faith

I might be alone

But your legend gives me strength

Oh ordinary hero

Don’t keep me waiting long

I don’t want to wait forever

But I will if I belong

You know I’m still staring

Into that midnight sky

And I’ll always be here hoping

Even if I’m hoping in a lie

Maybe no one else remembers you

But they haven’t got me forgetting yet          

So ordinary hero

Don’t you dare forget

I’m waiting for the moment

 When you’ll fly into my life

I’m hoping for that magic dust

To lift me up into the sky

Ordinary hero

Sometimes I do have doubts

There’s ordinary villains

And thick black walls of clouds

I’m counting on you for sunshine

And I’m casting all into my faith

God wouldn’t leave me here alone

Without one more to pray with

So ordinary hero

I’ll wait for you a thousand days

And if you never come to me

Then I’ll stay waiting here always

279

I close my eyes and wait, the smell of smoke filling my nose, my head, my soul. My heart beats faster, and then grows slow again in its rhythmic venture. The screaming has stopped, its guiding presence leaving me dimly aware of my surroundings. Without that voice, there is no reason to continue fighting the impossible. I’m left alone in a red world.

 I think of the outside, of the greens and blues that shine on in some corners of the countryside. I think of everything I’ve had and everything I’ve lost. I remember faces, eyes in particular. Some I remember, smiling. Others cause my own to tear, or at least I believe it is the sentiment and not just the ash. All around me the flames rise. I sink to the floor, my back against an as yet un-charred pillar. One pair of eyes stands out among all the rest. I try not to see them. I try not to imagine the way they’ll look when someone mentions my name.

I breathe deeply, the mask wearing itself thin. Resigned, I pull it off and drop it beside me, feeling the fire of heat fill my lungs in that terrible, familiar, lustrous way that keeps one’s senses begging always for one last gasp of fresh winter air. I hear shouting through a wooden muffler, cries of hard-working men that will fight this monster with every last drop of will that they possess, all for me. All for me.

But it doesn’t matter anymore. So I blink once more, and my eyes see into hers. After that I close them and wait, as the red monster reaches out for me.