Nathan remembers when his puppy died. It was hit by a car. He found it, with its innards pouring out over the asphalt. Its eyes were unfocused. Its breath was ragged.
Its name was Ludwig.
He was seven.
And as he kneeled by it he thought, I can see how its insides work.
And with his bare hands, he had pulled apart the tears in the flesh, and Ludwig had whimpered. But he kept going, poking organs as the tiny heart pumped blood over his hands. Then slowly the whimpering stopped, and so did the heart.
He carried Ludwig up to his tree house, where he kept a Swiss army knife his dad had given him but his mother wasn’t supposed to know about. And he took Ludwig apart then, the way he had taken apart the TV remote. He laid its organs across the tree house in a line, wondering what they all did. This must be the heart, and this must be the stomach, he remembered thinking. But he had known nothing about anatomy then.
Then he had turned to the bones. He carefully cut the skin and fur away to stare in awe at how perfectly Ludwig’s skeleton must have fit together before it had been smashed by the car. And how perfectly all the inside bits must have worked together, to make one perfect little terrier.
He wished be had spent longer watching Ludwig as it had died, to see such perfection in work.
He watched the body bits rot slowly over the next few weeks. The flies were annoying, but he liked running his hands over the decaying flesh, pondering how it had all once been wrapped up as a warm little puppy.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Second and final part of SHOTGUN WEDDINGGGGGGGGG
He arrived late that night– pulled up in his old Buick. Matilda’s parents were already asleep. They were in the guest room, with me and Matilda each taking a couch in the family room. Your grandpa was taking my old room. Matilda liked my old room, with the grand looking mahogany desk I got from when your grandpa redid his office. It was tres chic, she said. She did that sometimes, spicing up her conversation with French. Like, instead of just saying RSVP, she’d say répondez, s’il vous plaît. She took it for three years in high school. I thought she was brilliant.
Your grandpa didn’t even knock. He just walked in, kicked off his boots, sat down at the kitchen table, and waited for us to find him. Matilda was falling asleep in front of the TV, but I woke her up and dragged her over to meet him. She was groggy and he was pissy from all the hours of driving– he did it all in one shot, can you believe it?– but I thought them meeting went as well as it could have.
Is it a boy or a girl?
Was the first thing your Grandpa said. I guess he thought it was obvious who he was and who she was. So she answered,
We want it to be a surprise.
Got any names? He asked.
And it went on like that. She didn't even blink at how blunt he was. And I think he approved of that, because he never complained about her later. He never said anything about her later, actually, but if he’d known something was up then, he would’ve complained.
Your grandma didn’t show up to greet him that night. She was awake, knitting, but she didn’t go to meet him. She still talked to him regularly and they got along fine, but seeing each other face to face was always awkward for them. See, they hadn’t really been getting along right since I entered the fifth grade, but then this whole thing about an affair he had when I was a baby came out and she couldn’t even look at him for weeks. She’d just leave notes. That was a hard time for me.
So some part of me was afraid he’d be like that with Matilda, since that’s how I had always pictured him interacting with women: they couldn’t make eye contact the first time. But it went fine, like I said.
And after maybe an hour of talking we all went to bed. Just like that. We were all in this one small house, all asleep, all just a few paces from each other, and nothing happened. Looking back, I can’t believe the whole house didn’t explode from that.
And then breakfast came, and Matilda’s dad and your grandpa must have met. I’ll never know how that went, because no one will talk about that damn morning. But when I walked into the kitchen, both the men and Matilda were sitting around not talking. Matilda was still in her pajamas. Her dad was reading the newspaper. Your grandma was cooking bacon and scrambled eggs, but she didn’t seem bothered at all by your grandpa being right there, so I was relieved. I sat down in the one free chair next to Matilda and took her hand in mine. She smiled at me.
It was her last smile.
And then her mother came in, dressed in one of her favorite sun dresses, and asked where the spare chairs were.
And your grandpa just looked at her with the most peculiar face. And when she managed to drag a chair from your grandma’s room into the kitchen, he asked,
Who are you?
She stopped and blinked and laughed.
You must be the last in-law, she answered, beaming.
But he just repeated,
Who are you?
And she stared at him in confusion, and he stared back at her, glaring hard. And they just look at each other for a while, and we didn’t really think anything of it. Until her mother suddenly started screaming. And she ran out of the kitchen, and I guess went back to the guest room. Her husband rushed out afterward along with Matilda, and your grandma and I could hear then trying to comfort her through her screams. She was just saying gibberish at that point, and it didn’t make any sense.
What was that all about? Asked your grandmother angrily, waving a spatula at your grandpa. What did you do to her?
He just sat there and stared at where Matilda’s mom had been standing for a while, then finally he said,
We’ve met before.
And he stood up and walked out of the house to his Buick and drove away. He hasn’t visited your grandma since.
Matilda’s mom cried for hours, curled up on the guest bed, and we couldn’t get her to say anything. Matilda tried comforting her, but she’d just get more hysterical with Matilda in the room. So Matilda and I sat on the couch in front of the TV where she’d slept and didn’t say much to each other. I rubbed her back and she rubbed her expanded belly. Your grandmother just went back to making breakfast. She brought it to us on plates, but we didn’t eat it.
Then finally the screaming sobs stopped, and her mom limped out and collapsed next to her on the couch.
My baby… my poor, poor baby… she kept saying, and stroking Matilda’s hair.
I’m glad you’re feeling better, I said after a while. But then the woman glared at me.
This is all your fault! She bellowed, and she pick up a ceramic bird your grandma had on the coffee table and threw it at me. She almost hit Matilda, who jumped up and grabbed her arm.
But her mom was back into her hysterics again, and she was screaming and throwing things at me, telling me it was my fault, my fault such an awful thing would happen to Matilda.
Then Matilda cuffed her mother across the face finally and told her to cut it out; she loved me.
And her mother said,
Matilda, you are not your father’s daughter.
And she collapsed on the couch again, crying and crying. Matilda looked very confused, but then it suddenly clicked in my head, and I couldn’t move. I just stood there blankly like your grandpa had sat there. Matilda left her mom after a few moments and waved her hand in front of my face.
What’s wrong? What’s wrong? What the hell is going on? She kept saying. Then she punched my shoulder when I didn’t say anything. But this one thought kept going through my brain:
Dad had had an affair when I was a baby. And he had met Matilda’s mother before. And Matilda was not the child of her father.
And I really hope I don’t have to spell it out for you.
After I snapped out of it, I kept repeating that to Matilda until she got it.
That’s crazy, she said, laughing hoarsely. You’re insane. Or joking. But that’s impossible.
Impossible.
It was a crazy theory. I tried to explain it to my mother and Matilda’s father, but they had about the same reaction.
Crazy. Impossible. Insane.
But then, through all her sobs and hiccups, Matilda’s mother confirmed it. We all sat for a while, just staring at each other. We didn’t know what to do. My mother started crying. I wanted to cry. Matilda’s father eventually got up and locked himself in the bathroom.
But Matilda didn’t cry. She just rubbed her belly and stared out the window. Then after a while, she quietly got up and walked out the door. I tried to stop her, but she gently pushed my hands away and said she just wanted to take a walk, sort some things out in her head. It was a reasonable request, so I let her go.
And she never came back.
We called the police that night when we couldn’t find her after driving around the neighborhood. We stayed up all night, and the next night her parents relocated to a hotel. They couldn’t stand to be around us anymore.
The police found her six days later. They tracked her down to an abortion clinic using her credit card transactions. She had apparently hitchhiked down to Atlanta from your grandma’s neighborhood. She had had a hard time finding someone to abort the baby, since she was so far along, but she had done it, and physically she was well enough. She was reunited with her parents at a police station, and they went back home to Arizona.
I found this out through a police phone call. Her family never contacted us again after her parents left.
I never went back to Arizona. I don’t know what happened to all my stuff there. I don’t know what happened to Matilda or Bill Manellas or any of my friends I had there. There was nothing I could do, and facing Matilda and her family would have just made it worse for both of us. Everyone just wanted to forget those months I’d spent in Arizona ever happened. I stayed in Georgia and went back to college. I met your mother a few years later. I was never quite over Matilda, but your mom. She was amazing. I hope Matilda got over what happened and found someone else too.
So kiddo, now you know the darkest secret of our family. Don’t worry; you don’t have any long lost siblings running around out there. But here’s what I want you to remember:
You go on in life, you’ll get hurt. You may never recover fully. Crazy, impossible, horrible things can happen to you. You’re not invincible. And I don’t want to ruin your mood for your wedding, but know that these things can happen to you, no matter how nice a person you are.
But the world will go on, whether you like it or not. I found my happy end, and I pray to God Matilda found hers.
Your grandpa didn’t even knock. He just walked in, kicked off his boots, sat down at the kitchen table, and waited for us to find him. Matilda was falling asleep in front of the TV, but I woke her up and dragged her over to meet him. She was groggy and he was pissy from all the hours of driving– he did it all in one shot, can you believe it?– but I thought them meeting went as well as it could have.
Is it a boy or a girl?
Was the first thing your Grandpa said. I guess he thought it was obvious who he was and who she was. So she answered,
We want it to be a surprise.
Got any names? He asked.
And it went on like that. She didn't even blink at how blunt he was. And I think he approved of that, because he never complained about her later. He never said anything about her later, actually, but if he’d known something was up then, he would’ve complained.
Your grandma didn’t show up to greet him that night. She was awake, knitting, but she didn’t go to meet him. She still talked to him regularly and they got along fine, but seeing each other face to face was always awkward for them. See, they hadn’t really been getting along right since I entered the fifth grade, but then this whole thing about an affair he had when I was a baby came out and she couldn’t even look at him for weeks. She’d just leave notes. That was a hard time for me.
So some part of me was afraid he’d be like that with Matilda, since that’s how I had always pictured him interacting with women: they couldn’t make eye contact the first time. But it went fine, like I said.
And after maybe an hour of talking we all went to bed. Just like that. We were all in this one small house, all asleep, all just a few paces from each other, and nothing happened. Looking back, I can’t believe the whole house didn’t explode from that.
And then breakfast came, and Matilda’s dad and your grandpa must have met. I’ll never know how that went, because no one will talk about that damn morning. But when I walked into the kitchen, both the men and Matilda were sitting around not talking. Matilda was still in her pajamas. Her dad was reading the newspaper. Your grandma was cooking bacon and scrambled eggs, but she didn’t seem bothered at all by your grandpa being right there, so I was relieved. I sat down in the one free chair next to Matilda and took her hand in mine. She smiled at me.
It was her last smile.
And then her mother came in, dressed in one of her favorite sun dresses, and asked where the spare chairs were.
And your grandpa just looked at her with the most peculiar face. And when she managed to drag a chair from your grandma’s room into the kitchen, he asked,
Who are you?
She stopped and blinked and laughed.
You must be the last in-law, she answered, beaming.
But he just repeated,
Who are you?
And she stared at him in confusion, and he stared back at her, glaring hard. And they just look at each other for a while, and we didn’t really think anything of it. Until her mother suddenly started screaming. And she ran out of the kitchen, and I guess went back to the guest room. Her husband rushed out afterward along with Matilda, and your grandma and I could hear then trying to comfort her through her screams. She was just saying gibberish at that point, and it didn’t make any sense.
What was that all about? Asked your grandmother angrily, waving a spatula at your grandpa. What did you do to her?
He just sat there and stared at where Matilda’s mom had been standing for a while, then finally he said,
We’ve met before.
And he stood up and walked out of the house to his Buick and drove away. He hasn’t visited your grandma since.
Matilda’s mom cried for hours, curled up on the guest bed, and we couldn’t get her to say anything. Matilda tried comforting her, but she’d just get more hysterical with Matilda in the room. So Matilda and I sat on the couch in front of the TV where she’d slept and didn’t say much to each other. I rubbed her back and she rubbed her expanded belly. Your grandmother just went back to making breakfast. She brought it to us on plates, but we didn’t eat it.
Then finally the screaming sobs stopped, and her mom limped out and collapsed next to her on the couch.
My baby… my poor, poor baby… she kept saying, and stroking Matilda’s hair.
I’m glad you’re feeling better, I said after a while. But then the woman glared at me.
This is all your fault! She bellowed, and she pick up a ceramic bird your grandma had on the coffee table and threw it at me. She almost hit Matilda, who jumped up and grabbed her arm.
But her mom was back into her hysterics again, and she was screaming and throwing things at me, telling me it was my fault, my fault such an awful thing would happen to Matilda.
Then Matilda cuffed her mother across the face finally and told her to cut it out; she loved me.
And her mother said,
Matilda, you are not your father’s daughter.
And she collapsed on the couch again, crying and crying. Matilda looked very confused, but then it suddenly clicked in my head, and I couldn’t move. I just stood there blankly like your grandpa had sat there. Matilda left her mom after a few moments and waved her hand in front of my face.
What’s wrong? What’s wrong? What the hell is going on? She kept saying. Then she punched my shoulder when I didn’t say anything. But this one thought kept going through my brain:
Dad had had an affair when I was a baby. And he had met Matilda’s mother before. And Matilda was not the child of her father.
And I really hope I don’t have to spell it out for you.
After I snapped out of it, I kept repeating that to Matilda until she got it.
That’s crazy, she said, laughing hoarsely. You’re insane. Or joking. But that’s impossible.
Impossible.
It was a crazy theory. I tried to explain it to my mother and Matilda’s father, but they had about the same reaction.
Crazy. Impossible. Insane.
But then, through all her sobs and hiccups, Matilda’s mother confirmed it. We all sat for a while, just staring at each other. We didn’t know what to do. My mother started crying. I wanted to cry. Matilda’s father eventually got up and locked himself in the bathroom.
But Matilda didn’t cry. She just rubbed her belly and stared out the window. Then after a while, she quietly got up and walked out the door. I tried to stop her, but she gently pushed my hands away and said she just wanted to take a walk, sort some things out in her head. It was a reasonable request, so I let her go.
And she never came back.
We called the police that night when we couldn’t find her after driving around the neighborhood. We stayed up all night, and the next night her parents relocated to a hotel. They couldn’t stand to be around us anymore.
The police found her six days later. They tracked her down to an abortion clinic using her credit card transactions. She had apparently hitchhiked down to Atlanta from your grandma’s neighborhood. She had had a hard time finding someone to abort the baby, since she was so far along, but she had done it, and physically she was well enough. She was reunited with her parents at a police station, and they went back home to Arizona.
I found this out through a police phone call. Her family never contacted us again after her parents left.
I never went back to Arizona. I don’t know what happened to all my stuff there. I don’t know what happened to Matilda or Bill Manellas or any of my friends I had there. There was nothing I could do, and facing Matilda and her family would have just made it worse for both of us. Everyone just wanted to forget those months I’d spent in Arizona ever happened. I stayed in Georgia and went back to college. I met your mother a few years later. I was never quite over Matilda, but your mom. She was amazing. I hope Matilda got over what happened and found someone else too.
So kiddo, now you know the darkest secret of our family. Don’t worry; you don’t have any long lost siblings running around out there. But here’s what I want you to remember:
You go on in life, you’ll get hurt. You may never recover fully. Crazy, impossible, horrible things can happen to you. You’re not invincible. And I don’t want to ruin your mood for your wedding, but know that these things can happen to you, no matter how nice a person you are.
But the world will go on, whether you like it or not. I found my happy end, and I pray to God Matilda found hers.
Naruto Fanfic of which I HAVE NO MEMORY
One.
The most awkward moment of Sasuke’s life is not when he tripped into the kitchen table and knocked a bowl of hot soup into a visiting Hyuuga representative’s lap, nor when Kiba thought it would be funny to take his clothes while he was in the shower and he was forced to walk across the gym to Iruka’s office in nothing but a towel. It is not even the time when some idiot pushed Naruto into his face and then– well. Some might call it a kiss, but it most certainly was not a kiss and don’t you dare hint that is was, cretin. (And he most certainly did not enjoy it, no no.) No, the most awkward moment of Sasuke’s life is sitting down for tea with Orochimaru and his henchman Kabuto for the first time.
He has been here for about a week, gotten lost twice (why does every room look exactly the same?), and coolly explained his way out of admitting to being lost twice. He has met a wide variety of freaks, and learned a total of three new jutsu, all of which are useless.
Everyday at about 2:00, Orochimaru had given him an hour break from training and disappeared for said hour. Apparently, it was teatime.
“This is quite an honor for you,” Kabuto says to him as he pours three cups of tea. “Not many are allowed to Orochimaru-sama’s teatimes.”
“Hn,” says Sasuke. It is secret code for “I am not quite sure how to respond to this.” Having tea is not strange. The floral saucers and matching cups, along with the cucumber sandwiches and mini-hot dogs, however, are quite strange indeed.
“I’ve been quite pleased with you so far, Sasuke,” says the Sannin. “But I fear you have a long way to go to beating Itachi.” Sasuke’s eyes narrow.
“Hn.” This is secret code for “Don’t bring up touchy topics at teatime.”
“I hope you will continue to work as hard as you have this past week. After all, we can’t have you slacking off.” Orochimaru smirks before taking a sip of tea from his rose-encrusted cup. “Oh, minty.”
“I hope it’s not too strong,” says Kabuto anxiously. “I noticed I let the Earl Grey sit a bit too long yesterday and you only managed to finish one cup.”
Orochimaru waves dismissively. “I never really cared Earl Grey anyway. What brand is this?”
The two converse about tea for a good fifteen minutes as Sasuke glares at his own drink. He refuses to touch such a girly cup¬– it would lose him too many man-points.
Man-points are very important to Sasuke. Ever since that conversation he overheard between Ino and Sakura about how he’d look good in a certain dress, he’s been keeping tabs on his man-points. He got man-points for going head-to-head against Kakashi during the bell test. He got even more man-points for becoming a human pincushion during the whole wave country thing. And he THOUGHT he’d get major man-points for going up against Gaara during the Chunin exams, but that… that didn’t work so well.
“Sasuke!”
Our brooding shinobi abruptly looks up from his tea upon hearing his name.
“What?”
Orochimaru’s brow furrows slightly. “You should pay more attention, Sasuke-kun.”
“Hn.” This is secret code for “Shut the hell up.”
“You’ll need to be most attentive for your mission next week.”
“Mission?” Sasuke very carefully controls his face. He didn’t come here to do Snakeman’s chores.
“Yes,” replies said Snakeman. “You’ll need to practice in a practical setting after all.”
“Hn,” says Sasuke, which is secret code for “Tch.”
The Snake Bellyache Curing Jutsu, the Fuzzy Slippers Jutsu and the Fang Shining Jutsu hardly needed practical application to perfect. In fact, Sasuke doubted he would ever use them. Ever. He would much rather learn something he could use to maul a certain brother of his–
“Oh, and I’d like you to join me for tea from now on. So we can… get to know each other.”
¬–but getting out for a while seemed like a good idea.
-
“Hey Sakura, what do you call a fish with no eyes?”
Naruto grins at her across an empty bowl that once contained ramen. She smiles weakly back at him, looking up from her own untouched bowl.
“Only you would be telling stupid jokes at a time like this,” she says.
“’Time like this’? Sakura, cheer up! I’ll only be gone a few years.”
Sakura snorts. “You’re right; you’ll only be gone three years. It’s not like that’s a long time or anything. It’s not like that’s over a hundred and fifty weeks or a thousand days or anything.”
Naruto frowns slightly, then brightens up again, “You calculated that fast.”
This produces a small laugh from Sakura, “Only fast for you, Naruto.”
“What! I’m not that bad, you’re just– are you going to eat that?” It dawns on Naruto that his bowl is empty and hers is full.
“Naruto!” Sakura whines. “I’m all depressed and too upset to eat, and you’re telling fish jokes and trying to take my food.”
“No!” Naruto puts on an exaggerated face of horror. “I’m asking you if you’re going to eat that because you should and I’m concerned for your health.” He pauses. “But if you’re REALLY upset and on the verge of tears and all that, I could totally give you a nice, comforting hug. And then I could totally help you finish that ramen because, you know, you’re too depressed to eat and it’d be a waste to let it get cold and stuff.”
Sakura glares at him, grabs her chopsticks, and shoves as many noodles as she can into her mouth. “Nod on yewr life, Nalutow.”
Naruto grins again. “What was that, Sakura?”
Sakura takes a moment to chew the massive starchy blob and swallow. “This ramen is MINE, Uzumaki Naruto.” She skillfully maneuvers a piece of pork into her mouth and chews it defiantly at him.
He snorts. “Are you SURE Ino’s the pig, Sakura?” She sneers playfully at him in response.
Naruto’s final dinner at Ichiraku and in Konoha– at least for a few years– continues in a similar manner. He and Sakura tease each other, carefully avoiding the topic of his absence in the coming year and a certain Uchiha Sasuke. He even follows Sakura back to her parent’s house, not because she needs to be walked home, but because this is the last time he’ll see her face to face for a long, long while.
“You’ll write to us?” Sakura asks as they stand awkwardly in front of her door.
“Yeah. Definitely.”
Silence. They’re only twelve and have no idea how to say a proper good bye. So Naruto improvises.
“Sakura, what do you call a fish with no eyes?”
She rolls her own eyes in response. “Not that again.”
“Please?” Naruto does his best impression of a puppy face.
“Ew, creepy! Now you’re going to give me nightmares.”
“Ah, Sakura, you’re so mean.”
She beams at him, reaching behind her for the doorknob. “I know.” She opens the door and looks back at him, unsure what to say. “Um.”
He smiles sheepishly back at her. “Good bye?”
“Yeah, good bye.”
Sakura enters her parents’ house and closes the door behind her. Naruto turns from her house and walks casually back the way they came– his apartment is on the other side of town.
In the morning while Saukra is washing her face, he meets Jiraiya at the Konoha gates. As she’s double-checking that the scrolls she had being studying with Tsunade the day before are still in her bag, he takes one final look over his shoulder at his village.
-
Sasuke’s mission turns out to be some dumb assassination thing. Some guy ran off with the results of some experiment and Orochimaru wants him dead and the data back. No details except the necessary profile of the soon-to-be-dead man are provided, which irritates Sasuke. Almost as much as his teammates irritate him.
“If you’re so good at finding things, then why couldn’t you find a brush this morning? Or some breath mints?”
“Wow, Suigetsu knows what breath mints are! My eyes are opened!”
“Screw you, Karin.”
Sasuke discreetly turns from them and rubs his temples. He’d met with them at a smaller training ground than usual to work on “teamwork.” The group of three Sound-nin they should be beating to a bloody pulp (for practice, of course. It’s not like Sasuke ENJOYS such things) are staring at them, bewildered.
It had started off alright. They had introduced themselves, glared at the practice team some, then started the spar. Karin had fluttered her eyelashes at him a few too many times, but Sakura had done worse. Then Suigetsu had cracked an inappropriate joke about Karin’s short shorts and she replied with a snide remark about his teeth and it had all gone downhill from there.
“My haircut is very stylish and sexy, thank you very much, unlike THIS thing.” Karin reaches out and grabs Suigetsu’s hair, yanking it toward her. He grabs the offending hand with his left hand and tries for her neck with the other. She ducks, her spare hand flying for her kunai pouch.
Someone clever on the opposing team takes this moment to send an Earth jutsu their way, and the two suddenly find themselves up to their waists in dirt. They stare down at themselves in horror for a moment, but then Suigetsu remembers Karin’s hand is still in his hair and he punches her squarely in the shoulder.
“You can’t hit a girl!” Karin screeches in anger.
“Women’s lib, stupid.”
Sasuke smacks his forehead. He’s definitely lost some man-points.
-
“Ero Sennin! What do you call a fish with no eyes?”
“Really bad porn.”
“…I am never going near anything you write EVER.”
It is these delightful words that start off Naruto’s three-year journey of training fun. Incidentally, by the end of it Naruto will be completely immune to the horrors of fish porn. And even though the idea scares whatever bajeebies are out of him, his morning of marching down the dirt road with Jiraiya goes much better than Sakura’s.
-
Sakura walks into Tsunade’s office, hangs her bag on a hook by the door and turns to smile at her shishou, only to have a fist collide with her mouth at top speed. It has enough force to send her through the still open door and across the hallway.
Sakura lies on the tiled floor, stunned. Too stunned to notice the pain in her now bleeding lip and too stunned to even consider getting back up.
A shadow falls over her, and she leans her head to stare up at Tsunade’s scowling face.
What the HELL crazy woman what does she think she’s–
“You just died,” the hokage announces, “And now no one’s left to heal your dying teammate.”
Oh.
Sakura sits up and nods dumbly back. “Understood.”
“Did you reread those scrolls we went over?”
Tsunade extends a hand and pulls Sakura to her feet, her expression still hard. Sakura watches her wearily, afraid of another surprise punch to the face.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Can you recite them by heart?”
“Forwards and backwards.”
“Good.” A small smile. Tsunade returns to her desk and Sakura follows to stand awkwardly before her. She’s only been training under Tsunade a few days and she’s still quite intimidated by her title as Hokage and reputation as a Sannin.
“Go find Shizune have her fix up your face. Then go do your usual exercises– add fifteen laps.” Tsunade then gives her an almost pathetic look. “Then come back and help me do paper work for a few hours.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Sakura’s outward expression is determined. Inwardly, she wants to cry from the torture of physical work she is about to endure. Not only will it freaking HURT, but by the end of it she will have most definitely lost several sexy-points, not including the ones she just lost of getting randomly punched in the face by the Hokage. Ino would so be in the led by the end of the week. Or day. Or hour.
And on top of that, Tsunade expects her to do paperwork afterwards. While this is more sexy than running fifteen laps, it is an offense to her apprenticeship. And her lip hurts. Her entire face hurts, actually.
Sakura grits her teeth as she marches down the hall to Shizune’s tiny office and reminds herself why she is doing this. She is going to become an awesome shinobi, she is going to get Sasuke back and dammit, she is NOT going to lose to Ino in sexy-points.
“SHANNARO!”
Shizune opens her office door in time to watch Sakura punch the air and scream SHANNARO for no apparent reason like some sort of crazy person who would punch the air and scream SHANNARO for no apparent reason.
“Can I help you?” Shizune is bemused. Sakura is embarrassed.
And that’s how the morning started.
Two.
It takes four days for Sasuke’s “team” to develop some semblance of unity. As long as he stands in between Karin and Suigetsu, the two annoyances don’t try to kill each other. And if they do, Sasuke chucks shuriken at both of them. Incidentally, Kabuto ends up sewing Suigetsu’s ear back to his head.
“What were you telling me about a ‘semblance of unity’ this morning?” The medic-nin asks as he leans over the stretcher containing Suigetsu and his bleeding ear.
“They weren’t listening to me,” Sasuke explains.
Kabuto smirks as he pokes Suigetsu’s ear with a needle and an unnecessary amount of force. “You really weren’t meant to be a Konoha shinobi.”
This bothers Sasuke for some reason and he hns. This is secret code for “Don’t talk about touchy subjects while sewing ears back to heads.”
“I didn’t come here to have my ears cut off,” Suigetsu whines at Kabuto. “And why is prissy-boy in charge? He’s been here like two weeks.”
“Sasuke is… special to Orochimaru-sama.”
Sasuke finds this statement very creepy and excuses himself to let Karin out of the closet he had locked her in after she had tried to run off with Suigetsu’s severed ear. Because Karin’s the type of person who’d take a severed ear if it got attention from Sasuke and infuriated screams from Suigetsu.
The three of them leave tomorrow to find run-away-research-man and babysitting these two was severely straining Sasuke’s man-points (although talking off Suigetsu’s ear in a rage filled shower of shuriken had won him a few). He is not going to enjoy this mission. He knews it.
Sulkily, he opens the closet he had pushed Karin into after he and Suigetsu had wrestled the ear away from her.
Karin explodes from behind the door, throwing herself at him. There are straws from a broom in her red hair.
“Sasukeeeee,” she shrieks. “I’m afraid of the dark!”
As a trained ninja, Karin is by no means bothered by the dark. In fact, she is rather skilled at maneuvering herself about in the dark without being detected. Or getting straw from a broom in her red hair.
“Save meeee, Sasukeeeeeee,” she whines into his ear.
She has officially out creepy’d Sakura and, grabbing her wrists, Sasuke throws her back toward the closet and slams the door shut. He braces his shoulder against to prevent her from opening it has he fumbles with the lock. Her creepiness is getting to him.
“Why are you so mean, Sasuke?” the redhead croons through the keyhole.
“Hn,” Sasuke grunts. This is secret code for “Oh my god please someone make her go away.”
He finally hears the click of the lock and bolts down the hallway. It’s 2:00 and teatime with Orochimaru suddenly seems more fun than training.
-
The first stop on Naruto and Jiraiya’s journey is a brothel. Typical, thinks Naruto. He ends up sitting in a backroom with an off-duty prostitute. It is a position no twelve year old should ever be in and wonders if he could sue Jiraiya for child abuse.
“Probably,” says the off-duty prostitute when he voices this question. Then she offers him a cigarette. “Smoke?”
Naruto stares at it disgustedly. “No thanks.”
“Whatever.” She places the cigarette she had offered him in her own mouth and leans in toward one of the candles on the low table to light it. Her thin hair comes dangerously close to the flame and Naruto winces. She straightens up, takes a drag, and blows smoke across the table at him. Naruto winces some more.
“So, um…” Naruto squirms as she stares at him with a look of utter boredom on her face. “Why aren’t you… uh… working?”
She takes a long drag on her cigarette. “Herpes flarin’ up again.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” Naruto isn’t really sorry; he’s just confused about what you say to a whore with herpes.
-
HOW DO I NOT REMEMBER THIS
HOOOOOW
The most awkward moment of Sasuke’s life is not when he tripped into the kitchen table and knocked a bowl of hot soup into a visiting Hyuuga representative’s lap, nor when Kiba thought it would be funny to take his clothes while he was in the shower and he was forced to walk across the gym to Iruka’s office in nothing but a towel. It is not even the time when some idiot pushed Naruto into his face and then– well. Some might call it a kiss, but it most certainly was not a kiss and don’t you dare hint that is was, cretin. (And he most certainly did not enjoy it, no no.) No, the most awkward moment of Sasuke’s life is sitting down for tea with Orochimaru and his henchman Kabuto for the first time.
He has been here for about a week, gotten lost twice (why does every room look exactly the same?), and coolly explained his way out of admitting to being lost twice. He has met a wide variety of freaks, and learned a total of three new jutsu, all of which are useless.
Everyday at about 2:00, Orochimaru had given him an hour break from training and disappeared for said hour. Apparently, it was teatime.
“This is quite an honor for you,” Kabuto says to him as he pours three cups of tea. “Not many are allowed to Orochimaru-sama’s teatimes.”
“Hn,” says Sasuke. It is secret code for “I am not quite sure how to respond to this.” Having tea is not strange. The floral saucers and matching cups, along with the cucumber sandwiches and mini-hot dogs, however, are quite strange indeed.
“I’ve been quite pleased with you so far, Sasuke,” says the Sannin. “But I fear you have a long way to go to beating Itachi.” Sasuke’s eyes narrow.
“Hn.” This is secret code for “Don’t bring up touchy topics at teatime.”
“I hope you will continue to work as hard as you have this past week. After all, we can’t have you slacking off.” Orochimaru smirks before taking a sip of tea from his rose-encrusted cup. “Oh, minty.”
“I hope it’s not too strong,” says Kabuto anxiously. “I noticed I let the Earl Grey sit a bit too long yesterday and you only managed to finish one cup.”
Orochimaru waves dismissively. “I never really cared Earl Grey anyway. What brand is this?”
The two converse about tea for a good fifteen minutes as Sasuke glares at his own drink. He refuses to touch such a girly cup¬– it would lose him too many man-points.
Man-points are very important to Sasuke. Ever since that conversation he overheard between Ino and Sakura about how he’d look good in a certain dress, he’s been keeping tabs on his man-points. He got man-points for going head-to-head against Kakashi during the bell test. He got even more man-points for becoming a human pincushion during the whole wave country thing. And he THOUGHT he’d get major man-points for going up against Gaara during the Chunin exams, but that… that didn’t work so well.
“Sasuke!”
Our brooding shinobi abruptly looks up from his tea upon hearing his name.
“What?”
Orochimaru’s brow furrows slightly. “You should pay more attention, Sasuke-kun.”
“Hn.” This is secret code for “Shut the hell up.”
“You’ll need to be most attentive for your mission next week.”
“Mission?” Sasuke very carefully controls his face. He didn’t come here to do Snakeman’s chores.
“Yes,” replies said Snakeman. “You’ll need to practice in a practical setting after all.”
“Hn,” says Sasuke, which is secret code for “Tch.”
The Snake Bellyache Curing Jutsu, the Fuzzy Slippers Jutsu and the Fang Shining Jutsu hardly needed practical application to perfect. In fact, Sasuke doubted he would ever use them. Ever. He would much rather learn something he could use to maul a certain brother of his–
“Oh, and I’d like you to join me for tea from now on. So we can… get to know each other.”
¬–but getting out for a while seemed like a good idea.
-
“Hey Sakura, what do you call a fish with no eyes?”
Naruto grins at her across an empty bowl that once contained ramen. She smiles weakly back at him, looking up from her own untouched bowl.
“Only you would be telling stupid jokes at a time like this,” she says.
“’Time like this’? Sakura, cheer up! I’ll only be gone a few years.”
Sakura snorts. “You’re right; you’ll only be gone three years. It’s not like that’s a long time or anything. It’s not like that’s over a hundred and fifty weeks or a thousand days or anything.”
Naruto frowns slightly, then brightens up again, “You calculated that fast.”
This produces a small laugh from Sakura, “Only fast for you, Naruto.”
“What! I’m not that bad, you’re just– are you going to eat that?” It dawns on Naruto that his bowl is empty and hers is full.
“Naruto!” Sakura whines. “I’m all depressed and too upset to eat, and you’re telling fish jokes and trying to take my food.”
“No!” Naruto puts on an exaggerated face of horror. “I’m asking you if you’re going to eat that because you should and I’m concerned for your health.” He pauses. “But if you’re REALLY upset and on the verge of tears and all that, I could totally give you a nice, comforting hug. And then I could totally help you finish that ramen because, you know, you’re too depressed to eat and it’d be a waste to let it get cold and stuff.”
Sakura glares at him, grabs her chopsticks, and shoves as many noodles as she can into her mouth. “Nod on yewr life, Nalutow.”
Naruto grins again. “What was that, Sakura?”
Sakura takes a moment to chew the massive starchy blob and swallow. “This ramen is MINE, Uzumaki Naruto.” She skillfully maneuvers a piece of pork into her mouth and chews it defiantly at him.
He snorts. “Are you SURE Ino’s the pig, Sakura?” She sneers playfully at him in response.
Naruto’s final dinner at Ichiraku and in Konoha– at least for a few years– continues in a similar manner. He and Sakura tease each other, carefully avoiding the topic of his absence in the coming year and a certain Uchiha Sasuke. He even follows Sakura back to her parent’s house, not because she needs to be walked home, but because this is the last time he’ll see her face to face for a long, long while.
“You’ll write to us?” Sakura asks as they stand awkwardly in front of her door.
“Yeah. Definitely.”
Silence. They’re only twelve and have no idea how to say a proper good bye. So Naruto improvises.
“Sakura, what do you call a fish with no eyes?”
She rolls her own eyes in response. “Not that again.”
“Please?” Naruto does his best impression of a puppy face.
“Ew, creepy! Now you’re going to give me nightmares.”
“Ah, Sakura, you’re so mean.”
She beams at him, reaching behind her for the doorknob. “I know.” She opens the door and looks back at him, unsure what to say. “Um.”
He smiles sheepishly back at her. “Good bye?”
“Yeah, good bye.”
Sakura enters her parents’ house and closes the door behind her. Naruto turns from her house and walks casually back the way they came– his apartment is on the other side of town.
In the morning while Saukra is washing her face, he meets Jiraiya at the Konoha gates. As she’s double-checking that the scrolls she had being studying with Tsunade the day before are still in her bag, he takes one final look over his shoulder at his village.
-
Sasuke’s mission turns out to be some dumb assassination thing. Some guy ran off with the results of some experiment and Orochimaru wants him dead and the data back. No details except the necessary profile of the soon-to-be-dead man are provided, which irritates Sasuke. Almost as much as his teammates irritate him.
“If you’re so good at finding things, then why couldn’t you find a brush this morning? Or some breath mints?”
“Wow, Suigetsu knows what breath mints are! My eyes are opened!”
“Screw you, Karin.”
Sasuke discreetly turns from them and rubs his temples. He’d met with them at a smaller training ground than usual to work on “teamwork.” The group of three Sound-nin they should be beating to a bloody pulp (for practice, of course. It’s not like Sasuke ENJOYS such things) are staring at them, bewildered.
It had started off alright. They had introduced themselves, glared at the practice team some, then started the spar. Karin had fluttered her eyelashes at him a few too many times, but Sakura had done worse. Then Suigetsu had cracked an inappropriate joke about Karin’s short shorts and she replied with a snide remark about his teeth and it had all gone downhill from there.
“My haircut is very stylish and sexy, thank you very much, unlike THIS thing.” Karin reaches out and grabs Suigetsu’s hair, yanking it toward her. He grabs the offending hand with his left hand and tries for her neck with the other. She ducks, her spare hand flying for her kunai pouch.
Someone clever on the opposing team takes this moment to send an Earth jutsu their way, and the two suddenly find themselves up to their waists in dirt. They stare down at themselves in horror for a moment, but then Suigetsu remembers Karin’s hand is still in his hair and he punches her squarely in the shoulder.
“You can’t hit a girl!” Karin screeches in anger.
“Women’s lib, stupid.”
Sasuke smacks his forehead. He’s definitely lost some man-points.
-
“Ero Sennin! What do you call a fish with no eyes?”
“Really bad porn.”
“…I am never going near anything you write EVER.”
It is these delightful words that start off Naruto’s three-year journey of training fun. Incidentally, by the end of it Naruto will be completely immune to the horrors of fish porn. And even though the idea scares whatever bajeebies are out of him, his morning of marching down the dirt road with Jiraiya goes much better than Sakura’s.
-
Sakura walks into Tsunade’s office, hangs her bag on a hook by the door and turns to smile at her shishou, only to have a fist collide with her mouth at top speed. It has enough force to send her through the still open door and across the hallway.
Sakura lies on the tiled floor, stunned. Too stunned to notice the pain in her now bleeding lip and too stunned to even consider getting back up.
A shadow falls over her, and she leans her head to stare up at Tsunade’s scowling face.
What the HELL crazy woman what does she think she’s–
“You just died,” the hokage announces, “And now no one’s left to heal your dying teammate.”
Oh.
Sakura sits up and nods dumbly back. “Understood.”
“Did you reread those scrolls we went over?”
Tsunade extends a hand and pulls Sakura to her feet, her expression still hard. Sakura watches her wearily, afraid of another surprise punch to the face.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Can you recite them by heart?”
“Forwards and backwards.”
“Good.” A small smile. Tsunade returns to her desk and Sakura follows to stand awkwardly before her. She’s only been training under Tsunade a few days and she’s still quite intimidated by her title as Hokage and reputation as a Sannin.
“Go find Shizune have her fix up your face. Then go do your usual exercises– add fifteen laps.” Tsunade then gives her an almost pathetic look. “Then come back and help me do paper work for a few hours.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Sakura’s outward expression is determined. Inwardly, she wants to cry from the torture of physical work she is about to endure. Not only will it freaking HURT, but by the end of it she will have most definitely lost several sexy-points, not including the ones she just lost of getting randomly punched in the face by the Hokage. Ino would so be in the led by the end of the week. Or day. Or hour.
And on top of that, Tsunade expects her to do paperwork afterwards. While this is more sexy than running fifteen laps, it is an offense to her apprenticeship. And her lip hurts. Her entire face hurts, actually.
Sakura grits her teeth as she marches down the hall to Shizune’s tiny office and reminds herself why she is doing this. She is going to become an awesome shinobi, she is going to get Sasuke back and dammit, she is NOT going to lose to Ino in sexy-points.
“SHANNARO!”
Shizune opens her office door in time to watch Sakura punch the air and scream SHANNARO for no apparent reason like some sort of crazy person who would punch the air and scream SHANNARO for no apparent reason.
“Can I help you?” Shizune is bemused. Sakura is embarrassed.
And that’s how the morning started.
Two.
It takes four days for Sasuke’s “team” to develop some semblance of unity. As long as he stands in between Karin and Suigetsu, the two annoyances don’t try to kill each other. And if they do, Sasuke chucks shuriken at both of them. Incidentally, Kabuto ends up sewing Suigetsu’s ear back to his head.
“What were you telling me about a ‘semblance of unity’ this morning?” The medic-nin asks as he leans over the stretcher containing Suigetsu and his bleeding ear.
“They weren’t listening to me,” Sasuke explains.
Kabuto smirks as he pokes Suigetsu’s ear with a needle and an unnecessary amount of force. “You really weren’t meant to be a Konoha shinobi.”
This bothers Sasuke for some reason and he hns. This is secret code for “Don’t talk about touchy subjects while sewing ears back to heads.”
“I didn’t come here to have my ears cut off,” Suigetsu whines at Kabuto. “And why is prissy-boy in charge? He’s been here like two weeks.”
“Sasuke is… special to Orochimaru-sama.”
Sasuke finds this statement very creepy and excuses himself to let Karin out of the closet he had locked her in after she had tried to run off with Suigetsu’s severed ear. Because Karin’s the type of person who’d take a severed ear if it got attention from Sasuke and infuriated screams from Suigetsu.
The three of them leave tomorrow to find run-away-research-man and babysitting these two was severely straining Sasuke’s man-points (although talking off Suigetsu’s ear in a rage filled shower of shuriken had won him a few). He is not going to enjoy this mission. He knews it.
Sulkily, he opens the closet he had pushed Karin into after he and Suigetsu had wrestled the ear away from her.
Karin explodes from behind the door, throwing herself at him. There are straws from a broom in her red hair.
“Sasukeeeee,” she shrieks. “I’m afraid of the dark!”
As a trained ninja, Karin is by no means bothered by the dark. In fact, she is rather skilled at maneuvering herself about in the dark without being detected. Or getting straw from a broom in her red hair.
“Save meeee, Sasukeeeeeee,” she whines into his ear.
She has officially out creepy’d Sakura and, grabbing her wrists, Sasuke throws her back toward the closet and slams the door shut. He braces his shoulder against to prevent her from opening it has he fumbles with the lock. Her creepiness is getting to him.
“Why are you so mean, Sasuke?” the redhead croons through the keyhole.
“Hn,” Sasuke grunts. This is secret code for “Oh my god please someone make her go away.”
He finally hears the click of the lock and bolts down the hallway. It’s 2:00 and teatime with Orochimaru suddenly seems more fun than training.
-
The first stop on Naruto and Jiraiya’s journey is a brothel. Typical, thinks Naruto. He ends up sitting in a backroom with an off-duty prostitute. It is a position no twelve year old should ever be in and wonders if he could sue Jiraiya for child abuse.
“Probably,” says the off-duty prostitute when he voices this question. Then she offers him a cigarette. “Smoke?”
Naruto stares at it disgustedly. “No thanks.”
“Whatever.” She places the cigarette she had offered him in her own mouth and leans in toward one of the candles on the low table to light it. Her thin hair comes dangerously close to the flame and Naruto winces. She straightens up, takes a drag, and blows smoke across the table at him. Naruto winces some more.
“So, um…” Naruto squirms as she stares at him with a look of utter boredom on her face. “Why aren’t you… uh… working?”
She takes a long drag on her cigarette. “Herpes flarin’ up again.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” Naruto isn’t really sorry; he’s just confused about what you say to a whore with herpes.
-
HOW DO I NOT REMEMBER THIS
HOOOOOW
Monday, December 14, 2009
My aunt was raised
being told she couldn't
go to college
because she's a woman.
And my grandmother was raised
being told that because she's white
she has more rights
than some other people.
And my grandfather was raised
being told because he's
the wrong type of white
he shouldn't speak his native language
and he should try to blend in
with other whites.
And if they aren't forgiven
then how can
your upbringing
validate that marriage
is just for a man and a woman
or a woman and a man?
being told she couldn't
go to college
because she's a woman.
And my grandmother was raised
being told that because she's white
she has more rights
than some other people.
And my grandfather was raised
being told because he's
the wrong type of white
he shouldn't speak his native language
and he should try to blend in
with other whites.
And if they aren't forgiven
then how can
your upbringing
validate that marriage
is just for a man and a woman
or a woman and a man?
Sunday, December 13, 2009
When it rains
it leaves behind that damp smell
of grass and earth and trees
and i think of the mountain
where i spent the my summers
wading in a pond and catching
newts and tadpoles
and how even in july
it got so cold at night
that we built fires.
And when i hear that song play
i think of the book i read
while i listened to it over and over
and the story and the song
are unrelated
but i can't think about one
without the other.
And when i drive down this one stretch of road
even in the day
i feel the tension and paranoia
that was brought on by the scary story
someone told me
as we drove to my house.
And so i wonder
if you me tell this is a nation
an entire nation
over and over
will i one day
see only what you told me
when i think of this nation
and forget all
other faces?
it leaves behind that damp smell
of grass and earth and trees
and i think of the mountain
where i spent the my summers
wading in a pond and catching
newts and tadpoles
and how even in july
it got so cold at night
that we built fires.
And when i hear that song play
i think of the book i read
while i listened to it over and over
and the story and the song
are unrelated
but i can't think about one
without the other.
And when i drive down this one stretch of road
even in the day
i feel the tension and paranoia
that was brought on by the scary story
someone told me
as we drove to my house.
And so i wonder
if you me tell this is a nation
an entire nation
over and over
will i one day
see only what you told me
when i think of this nation
and forget all
other faces?
Saturday, December 12, 2009
SHOTGUN WEDDINGGGGGG.... part 1 :D
I’ll start in the middle, simply because that’s where you’re heading off to now. Marriage, I mean. I’ll start with my wedding. Not to your mother though, but to Matilda. I know you’ve always been curious, seeing as she’s a bit taboo in our house and all.
It was a shotgun wedding, you know. She was two months pregnant. Not even showing. But we had it two weeks after she came out about it– her mom insisted on it. The old lady still had her wedding dress, and I rented a suit, and we went down to the chapel and had the smallest ceremony you’ve ever seen. Your grandparents didn’t even have time to fly down for it. Not that your grandpa would have, he’d never travel that far. He’s stubborn like that. Just as well, I guess. Anyway, bada-bing, bada-boom, we were married.
I liked her, you know. Matilda, I mean. She wasn’t just some floozy I’d happened to knock up. I hadn’t been as in love with her as I was with your mother, but I was twenty and I thought hey, this could work out. I’m telling you this so you understand I didn’t mean for it to turn out so bad.
She didn’t move in right away. I was still in a one-bedroom apartment, she still had too much attached to her parents’ house. She still had a ton of stuff from her childhood. Toys, photo albums. Stuff like that. I offered to help her clean out her stuff and her parents said they’d find us a bigger place to live. You know, somewhere where the bathroom wasn’t so small the door wouldn’t open all the way because the sink was in the way.
I remember sitting in her room in her parents’ house with its rose-covered wall paper. I was on the floor, and she was piling dolls into my arms. She had tons of them– all different brands and sizes. She was going through them– she kept this all in this huge plastic bin– and picking out all her favorites.
If it’s a girl, she said to me, patting her stomach.
It’s okay if you want to keep your dolls, I said, thinking she just didn’t want to let everything go.
No, I have to grow up. Why can’t you understand that? She said.
She sounded kind of mad at me then. I kept suggesting she keep things if it made her sad to throw them out. Like her prom dress. She was just nineteen, you know, it would’ve still fit her. Not in a few months, of course, but maybe after the pregnancy she’d’ve still been able to squeeze into it. I guess we’ll never know now. Anyway, she nearly cried while she was putting it into the trash bag full of clothes her dad was going to take down to Good Will. I didn’t want to see her cry.
I don’t know what happened to all those dolls she dumped on me. I just handed them over to her mother. I hope they went to little girls who wanted them.
After a while Matilda’s dad found us a new apartment. It was still pretty small, me still working at the gas station and all, and Matilda’s tips disappearing and all that, but it was a bit bigger. Matilda wasn’t all that satisfied with it– she wanted this duplex her dad had found, but there was no way we could’ve afforded it.
Hey, you know why your grandparents divorced, right? Grandpa had an affair. Can you believe that? Guy as strict as him, shacking up with some tourist chick he met downtown. Said he was getting frustrated over Mom’s behavior, whatever that means.
Anyway– oh, how we met?
I met her at my work– I’d just dropped out of college. Gone west. Not far enough west though, never made it all the way to California. One minute I was filling up my truck in this godforsaken town in northern Arizona, the next I was talking to the gas station owner, who’d noticed my plates.
Georgia, eh? He said to me. Been driving a while?
Yeah, I said. Hoping to make it big on the West Coast.
He laughed. Then he said, Hey, you know, you don’t really sound like you’re from Georgia.
Nope, I said, Grew up Baltimore. Moved South in high schools when my folks broke up. Mom had some family in Athens.
Hey now, said the man, I have some family in Athens to. ‘Cept my Athens is in a whole other country. That’s how I put up with all this sun.
We both laughed over that. Then we got to talking, and since it was late in the day anyway, he offered to up me up for a night. So I went home with him, met his wife and two little boys, and I slept on their couch. I didn’t eat dinner with them; I just excused myself and went to a McDonald’s or a Burger King or something. I felt guilty enough as it was.
Then in the morning I woke up to the guy– his name was Bill, Bill Manellas– is telling me about how someone just called in sick and he’d pay me for the day if I filled in. And since I was near out of cash by that time, I agreed.
Now, I didn’t know anything about working gas stations, but I’d done retail before, and so he set me up at the cash register, and I sold people chips and colas and crap all day. And what do you know, the poor guy who actually worked for Bill had some horrible disease and couldn’t come in for two whole weeks, and so I just filled in for him and stayed with Bill and his family. Then next thing I knew Bill was hiring me full time and I was renting a run down apartment.
Matilda came in looking to buy cigarettes. She asked me what brand was good, and I thought wow, what’s this girl trying to do? So, not being a smoker myself, I said my father liked Marlboro. Then she laughed and said her mother used to smoke a pack of them a day.
Used to? I asked.
Well, she says she quit, but I’ve seen her lighting up out behind the diner we both work at, she answered.
Wow, I don’t think I could ever work with my mother or my father, I said.
So she said, It’s not so bad. Mom’s always forgetting her tips, and so the other girls just hand them over to me, and you know, I don’t always give them all over to mom in the end.
And so we kept talking and twenty minutes later I had her number and she walked out without buying anything. Then the next day I called her up, we set up a date, and it all went from there.
After the second date she took me home to meet her folks. I remember her mom taking my face between her hands saying,
Gosh does your face look familiar. Doesn’t he look like someone from church?
I don’t think so, her husband said back.
And no one could place who I looked like, but it was enough that I got her approval.
At least until I got Matilda pregnant, then she slapped me across the face. And she screamed,
You men, you think you can just take a girl to bed with you and just send her off. Well you listen up, you’re marrying her good and proper, and you make sure she’s happy and your kid stays healthy.
And I didn’t know why she yelled this, because like hell would I have just sent Matilda off. I told you, I loved her.
Anyway, I told her mom that and that we’d get married right away, and she still looked mad, but she still put up with me.
So we had our wedding, and Matilda and I managed to settle into our new apartment. She was pretty bloated by then, and her mom wanted her to quit work. But Matilda liked her independence, and she had that thing about wanting to grow up, so she kept working. I think that’s why she went to buy cigarettes that time we met, you know. To make herself grow up.
Then one day we were having dinner with her parents and she said,
You know I’ve never been out of Arizona?
And her dad said,
Nonsense, you went to Utah on that field trip that one time.
No, she said, I had a stomach virus and the teacher made me stay behind, remember?
And they prattled on about that for a while, then she suddenly announced that she wanted to met my parents before the baby was born.
Oh honey, her mom said. But plane tickets are so expensive.
And then Matilda got up, went to the back off the house and came back with a jar full off money.
I’ve been saving my tips, she said.
And then I knew her tips weren’t being stolen, but that probably she was stealing some of her mom’s tips. And what do you know, she had nearly enough in that jar for two round-trip tickets down to Atlanta.
And so it was settled. We were going to visit my mom in Athens. I called her, and she was so happy. And she called my dad and got him to agree to come down for the weekend to meet Matilda. I don’t know how she convinced him– guilt or black mail maybe. Or maybe it was the Braves game he wanted to take me and Matilda’s father to; I have no idea.
Oh yeah, Matilda’s parents came. It was a last minute thing, you know. They decided they’d rather meet their in-laws than buy a new washing machine. I almost wish their old one had broken down completely so they wouldn’t’ve.
So we all flew down to Atlanta and my mom picked us up in her old van. Everyone got along real well– I was thinking the whole time, Hey, won’t our baby have such a nice family? Maybe we can get together again for Christmas or something.
Then the next morning your grandpa showed up and it all went to hell.
It was a shotgun wedding, you know. She was two months pregnant. Not even showing. But we had it two weeks after she came out about it– her mom insisted on it. The old lady still had her wedding dress, and I rented a suit, and we went down to the chapel and had the smallest ceremony you’ve ever seen. Your grandparents didn’t even have time to fly down for it. Not that your grandpa would have, he’d never travel that far. He’s stubborn like that. Just as well, I guess. Anyway, bada-bing, bada-boom, we were married.
I liked her, you know. Matilda, I mean. She wasn’t just some floozy I’d happened to knock up. I hadn’t been as in love with her as I was with your mother, but I was twenty and I thought hey, this could work out. I’m telling you this so you understand I didn’t mean for it to turn out so bad.
She didn’t move in right away. I was still in a one-bedroom apartment, she still had too much attached to her parents’ house. She still had a ton of stuff from her childhood. Toys, photo albums. Stuff like that. I offered to help her clean out her stuff and her parents said they’d find us a bigger place to live. You know, somewhere where the bathroom wasn’t so small the door wouldn’t open all the way because the sink was in the way.
I remember sitting in her room in her parents’ house with its rose-covered wall paper. I was on the floor, and she was piling dolls into my arms. She had tons of them– all different brands and sizes. She was going through them– she kept this all in this huge plastic bin– and picking out all her favorites.
If it’s a girl, she said to me, patting her stomach.
It’s okay if you want to keep your dolls, I said, thinking she just didn’t want to let everything go.
No, I have to grow up. Why can’t you understand that? She said.
She sounded kind of mad at me then. I kept suggesting she keep things if it made her sad to throw them out. Like her prom dress. She was just nineteen, you know, it would’ve still fit her. Not in a few months, of course, but maybe after the pregnancy she’d’ve still been able to squeeze into it. I guess we’ll never know now. Anyway, she nearly cried while she was putting it into the trash bag full of clothes her dad was going to take down to Good Will. I didn’t want to see her cry.
I don’t know what happened to all those dolls she dumped on me. I just handed them over to her mother. I hope they went to little girls who wanted them.
After a while Matilda’s dad found us a new apartment. It was still pretty small, me still working at the gas station and all, and Matilda’s tips disappearing and all that, but it was a bit bigger. Matilda wasn’t all that satisfied with it– she wanted this duplex her dad had found, but there was no way we could’ve afforded it.
Hey, you know why your grandparents divorced, right? Grandpa had an affair. Can you believe that? Guy as strict as him, shacking up with some tourist chick he met downtown. Said he was getting frustrated over Mom’s behavior, whatever that means.
Anyway– oh, how we met?
I met her at my work– I’d just dropped out of college. Gone west. Not far enough west though, never made it all the way to California. One minute I was filling up my truck in this godforsaken town in northern Arizona, the next I was talking to the gas station owner, who’d noticed my plates.
Georgia, eh? He said to me. Been driving a while?
Yeah, I said. Hoping to make it big on the West Coast.
He laughed. Then he said, Hey, you know, you don’t really sound like you’re from Georgia.
Nope, I said, Grew up Baltimore. Moved South in high schools when my folks broke up. Mom had some family in Athens.
Hey now, said the man, I have some family in Athens to. ‘Cept my Athens is in a whole other country. That’s how I put up with all this sun.
We both laughed over that. Then we got to talking, and since it was late in the day anyway, he offered to up me up for a night. So I went home with him, met his wife and two little boys, and I slept on their couch. I didn’t eat dinner with them; I just excused myself and went to a McDonald’s or a Burger King or something. I felt guilty enough as it was.
Then in the morning I woke up to the guy– his name was Bill, Bill Manellas– is telling me about how someone just called in sick and he’d pay me for the day if I filled in. And since I was near out of cash by that time, I agreed.
Now, I didn’t know anything about working gas stations, but I’d done retail before, and so he set me up at the cash register, and I sold people chips and colas and crap all day. And what do you know, the poor guy who actually worked for Bill had some horrible disease and couldn’t come in for two whole weeks, and so I just filled in for him and stayed with Bill and his family. Then next thing I knew Bill was hiring me full time and I was renting a run down apartment.
Matilda came in looking to buy cigarettes. She asked me what brand was good, and I thought wow, what’s this girl trying to do? So, not being a smoker myself, I said my father liked Marlboro. Then she laughed and said her mother used to smoke a pack of them a day.
Used to? I asked.
Well, she says she quit, but I’ve seen her lighting up out behind the diner we both work at, she answered.
Wow, I don’t think I could ever work with my mother or my father, I said.
So she said, It’s not so bad. Mom’s always forgetting her tips, and so the other girls just hand them over to me, and you know, I don’t always give them all over to mom in the end.
And so we kept talking and twenty minutes later I had her number and she walked out without buying anything. Then the next day I called her up, we set up a date, and it all went from there.
After the second date she took me home to meet her folks. I remember her mom taking my face between her hands saying,
Gosh does your face look familiar. Doesn’t he look like someone from church?
I don’t think so, her husband said back.
And no one could place who I looked like, but it was enough that I got her approval.
At least until I got Matilda pregnant, then she slapped me across the face. And she screamed,
You men, you think you can just take a girl to bed with you and just send her off. Well you listen up, you’re marrying her good and proper, and you make sure she’s happy and your kid stays healthy.
And I didn’t know why she yelled this, because like hell would I have just sent Matilda off. I told you, I loved her.
Anyway, I told her mom that and that we’d get married right away, and she still looked mad, but she still put up with me.
So we had our wedding, and Matilda and I managed to settle into our new apartment. She was pretty bloated by then, and her mom wanted her to quit work. But Matilda liked her independence, and she had that thing about wanting to grow up, so she kept working. I think that’s why she went to buy cigarettes that time we met, you know. To make herself grow up.
Then one day we were having dinner with her parents and she said,
You know I’ve never been out of Arizona?
And her dad said,
Nonsense, you went to Utah on that field trip that one time.
No, she said, I had a stomach virus and the teacher made me stay behind, remember?
And they prattled on about that for a while, then she suddenly announced that she wanted to met my parents before the baby was born.
Oh honey, her mom said. But plane tickets are so expensive.
And then Matilda got up, went to the back off the house and came back with a jar full off money.
I’ve been saving my tips, she said.
And then I knew her tips weren’t being stolen, but that probably she was stealing some of her mom’s tips. And what do you know, she had nearly enough in that jar for two round-trip tickets down to Atlanta.
And so it was settled. We were going to visit my mom in Athens. I called her, and she was so happy. And she called my dad and got him to agree to come down for the weekend to meet Matilda. I don’t know how she convinced him– guilt or black mail maybe. Or maybe it was the Braves game he wanted to take me and Matilda’s father to; I have no idea.
Oh yeah, Matilda’s parents came. It was a last minute thing, you know. They decided they’d rather meet their in-laws than buy a new washing machine. I almost wish their old one had broken down completely so they wouldn’t’ve.
So we all flew down to Atlanta and my mom picked us up in her old van. Everyone got along real well– I was thinking the whole time, Hey, won’t our baby have such a nice family? Maybe we can get together again for Christmas or something.
Then the next morning your grandpa showed up and it all went to hell.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
NANOWRIMOOOO #2
Further lack of proofreading abounds. :D
--
He smiled at that, his lips curling up at the sides, but the rest of his face remained passive. “No, I don’t think you’d want me to.”
She wasn’t sure what that meant, and Ariel gave a curt nod before turn walking down the quiet hallway as quickly as possible. “See you around,” she said without looking back. He said something in reply, but it was quiet and she couldn’t make it out as she turned the hall corner sharply.
That, she decided as she heaved herself against one of the heavy double doors at the end of the hall and practically fell into the chill of the October evening, was strange. She had talked to a janitor here once before, when she had been haplessly locked out of a classroom where she had left her sweater, and he amiably rambled on to her about his sister’s cat’s surgery as he searched for the right key. In high school, one of the janitors had been a genuine mute, and the other two were twins who spent their free time constructing models of cathedrals out of pretzels. She was pretty sure they had won some sort of prize for that. They had all been on varying levels of the strange-spectrum, but at least they blinked and didn’t stare at her with their eyes that just wouldn’t blink. They had also never helped her scour a room for a lost item for twenty minutes, though.
“I guess there always is a silver lining,” Ariel muttered as she navigated threw the college parking lot. She knew McTavern’s was directly behind lot C, but she had not known that she’d have to scale a seven foot ledge and a chain linked fence to get to it. She moaned audibly as she approached the wall of agglomerated clay and stone that had been left behind when the ground had been leveled for the parking lot. She could walk around the school and then around the block, but that would take ages and she could see the glow of McTavern’s through the crisscrossed twists of the rusty wire fence and hear the faint mix of laughter and voices and music on the breeze.
She took it back. There was no silver lining here.
Squaring her shoulders, Ariel marched to the ledge. There was a battered white Land Rover parked facing the wall, lonely in the otherwise empty lot. Ariel climbed onto the hood, then froze when the thought struck her that perhaps this car belonged to the strange janitor. But that was silly, she told herself; even if it did he’d have no way to know she’d climbed and stood on his car.
Shaking now, she got to her feet, balancing herself on the curved surface of the hood by gripping a rock jutting from the dirt wall. It was essentially a cross section of the once hilly area that was once Rockmont State Community College campus, and the residual mix of stone and mud was wonderfully uneven. With the Land Rover giving her a boost, Ariel gripped the grassy top and used another jutting rock as a stepping stone. Her other foot found a foothold somewhere on the rough ledge wall, and she pushed up with her legs and transferred her hands to the chain linked fence. In this way she climbed to the top of the fence, swung her legs over and climbed down the other side into the grassy median at the edge of McTavern’s parking lot.
That wasn’t nearly as traumatic as I expected, she thought.
The parking lot was packed. Ariel wove her way through the menagerie of motor vehicles and to McTavern’s front door, which she opened uncertainly. The sound of hundreds of conversations between hundreds of people and the beats of a brass band errupted from within, and Ariel paused in the doorway to allow her eyes to adjust to the light.
The hostess, who stood at attention at a podium by the door, shouted something Ariel couldn’t understand at her.
“Excuse me?” Ariel shouted over the noise, approaching the podium. A group of teenagers entered behind her, crowding through the glass doors, and swarmed the hostess. Ariel found herself pushed into the main part of the restaurant as the group whooped and high-five the hostess, whom they apparently knew. At least, Ariel hoped they knew her, with the way that one boy immediately swung his arm around her shoulders.
Ariel drifted past tables crammed full of chattering people. Empty beer pitchers and chip bowls were everywhere, and employees were bustling about picking up dropped and forgotten forks and taking orders, cupping their ears to try and hear over the din of the merriment.
She spotted Bryan in a corner both filled with somewhat familiar faces– most of these people had gone to high school with her, though none of them in her year. She squeezed past a high chair and wondered over to him.
“Hey!” she yelled, waving unenthusiastically from the head of the table. Conversation stopped, and everyone turned to stare at her. “Uh, hi,” she said, blushing. She doubted any of them could hear her.
Bryan look confused for a brief moment, but then his face lit up with a cheery grin. “Ariel!” he called and waved for her to sit down.
There was a great shuffling and rearranging of people then, and three people flailed their way out of the booth to let her sit next to Bryan, laughing as they untangled and retangled their limbs. Bryan introduced them as friends from Rockmont High, and like Ariel, they all seemed aware of who she was, though she doubted she had ever said more than two words to any of them.
“Were you in my Spanish class?” the girl on the other side of Bryan, Theresa, asked.
“I think so. Spanish III with Señora Wright?” Ariel answered, picking at the half eaten plate of french fries someone had shoved at her. They were cold, but she didn’t mind.
“Yeah!” Theresa giggled. “And she didn’t understand the subjunctive at all, remember?”
Ariel laughed wryly at that. Señora Wright had not been the most competent teacher.
“Aw, I liked her. She was nice,” Bryan chided.
“You just liked the easy A,” Theresa teased. “Señora Wright was in looove with him,” she went on, turning to Ariel and wrapping her arm around Bryan’s. Bryan reciprocated the action by covering her hand with his and pulling her closer, almost into his lap. Both grinning and giggling, they were quickly distracted from Ariel by each other.
Ariel fixed her gaze straight ahead of her as not to stare, a nervous smile plastered across her face. She felt like someone had poured a glass of ice water over her head, the chill trickling down her neck across her back. Bryan had said this wasn’t a date, and while her mind agreed that she had expected no such thing from him, just a chat with a friend and a good time at a party with familiar faces, she found herself envious of Theresa and how well she seemed to relax and lean into Bryan.
You’re being stupid; he’s just some guy you ran into one day, she reminded herself. Stupid, stupid, stupid. To distract herself, she focused on the conversation going on across the table from her.
“Yeah, I was visiting my brother down in Milton, and, well. You heard what happened, right?” A man Ariel thought was named Jordan was animatedly gesticulating his story. A chorus of nos and whats answered him. “This chick was murdered like two blocks down from him. It was way gruesome: her body was all twisted up, and the new lady said her face was screwed up like she was screaming or something.” There were gasps and his audience had gone relatively quiet. Bryan and Theresa were still busy with each other, Ariel noted with some discomfort. “The weirdest part, to me at least…” Jordan leaned forward conspiratorially. “There was no blood. Not a drop. Nada.”
There was a moment of stillness, then the man next to him guffawed.
“That’s the most retarded thing ever,” he said. “You don’t have to make someone bleed to kill them, man.” Ariel mentally agreed. They continued with this discussion, but Ariel was distracted by a vibration in her pocket: her cell phone.
parked car in rmscc lotmctvrn lot 2 full keys under seat likeusual
Ariel rolled her eyes at her father’s text. He had started text messaging her instead of calling like a normal parent a few months ago in some sort of attempt to bond with her and seem like a “cool” parent. He had figured out how to added spaces, thankfully, but Ariel still cringed every time he tried to use texting slang, like using the number two instead of the proposition “to.”
She sat without speaking for a while after that, just listening to other people talk. Eventually Bryan and Theresa broke apart, and the older girl excused herself to the bathroom. Bryan turned to Ariel, snatching a cold french fry from her plate.
“Sorry about that,” he apologized. “She has, uh… very distracting assets.”
Ariel tried to smile and failed. She imagined it looked more like a grimace, but either Bryan didn’t care or didn’t notice.
“So how’s college? He asked, casually draping an arm across the back of the booth’s seat. “Still acing everything? I bet all the professors think you’re great.”
“I guess I’m doing alright,” Ariel replied. “I had a disagreement with my English prof today, though.”
Bryan raised his eyebrows. “What type of disagreement?”
“Oh, it just– you know,” Ariel babbled. She suddenly felt embarrassed. How could she complain about a C on a paper to him? He’d probably made tons of Cs before and been perfectly happy with them. “I thought he’d graded me a bit low is all. I mean, I don’t think I got enough credit for all the work I did.”
“That sucks,” he sympathized. “I bet you did awesome on… what was it?”
“An essay,” Ariel answered, perking up at the opportunity to tell her story. “It was on my interpretation of TS Eliot’s ‘The Wasteland.’ Ever read it?”
Bryan shrugged lightly. Ariel went on anyway.
“Well, anyway, I did all this research and worked really hard gathering my thoughts on it and– and I wrote three drafts of that paper, and he tells me I haven’t backed up any of my arguments.” Ariel fumed, gripping the edge of the table with all her might. “Just because he doesn’t agree with me doesn’t mean my ideas are invalid or, God forbid, wrong.”
Bryan, who had been eyeing her death grip on the table with a bit of caution, leaned over and patter one of her white-knuckled hands. “I totally know where you’re coming from. These intellectual types, they think they know everything just ‘cause they have a fancy degree, but really–” He broke off when Theresa reappeared. Everyone shifted again, getting out to let her in and then sliding back into the booth, all yelling and laughing at each other. In that moment, Ariel completely lost Bryan’s attention as he turned to Theresa, wrapping an arm around her waist and picking something out of her hair.
Like a monkey, Ariel seethed. Both of them.
She didn’t want to be there any more, with all these people she barely knew and the screaming child one table over, and Bryan with his hands on Theresa. Without a word, she climbed over her neighbors and stomped from the booth to the restaurant door and out into the night.
The car was in the college lot. This was inconvenient, but it was better than having to wait around from someone to pick her up or take the city bus. Ariel trudged through two lanes of cars before pausing to think. She could go back over the fence and down the ledge, possibly risking her neck again, or she could walk around the block, the longer but safer route. The breeze nipped at her too-thin jacket and blew her hair across her face as she squinted toward the main street. It seemed so far away, but the fence was right here… She shivered and decided to take the shortcut.
Getting over the fence proved simple enough, but as she was trying to find a decent foothold in the dirt ledge, Ariel lost her foot and fell the rest of the way, landing on her bottom and skinning the palms of her hands as she tried to stop herself from all backwards. Shaking, she picked herself up and blew on her stinging hands. She wasn’t bleeding, but her hands were raw and the top layers of skin were peeling away. Her butt was sore, but that would wear off soon. At least, she hoped it would as she limped across the lot.
There was no car in sight. Ariel bit her lip. Her father must have parked it in a different lot.
Bracing herself against another blast of cold air from the autumn weather, Ariel wrapped her jacket tighter around herself and head toward the alleyway between Reinhurst Hall and the administration building, where the college hid its dumpsters and recycling bins. This would take her straight to parking lot A, where, as it was where she was dropped off every morning, Ariel presumed her father had left the car.
It was too cloudy for much light from the moon to make it through, but the general light pollution of the town made it easy enough to see in the open parking lot. The alleyway, however, was full of suspicious shadows. Ariel stopped at the mouth of the alley under the pretext off blowing on her still burning hands some more.
There was a scream, then it was abruptly cut off. Ariel froze, staring bug-eyed down at her palms. It had, without a doubt, come from the alley before her. There was shuffling noise in front of her, quiet but desperate. Slowly and painstakingly, she lifted her face to the alley. There was a bang then, like something thick had been hit against metal. Judging by how close it seemed, Ariel guessed someone had hit something against the dumpster closest to her.
She wanted to run. Every part of her told her to leave as quickly as possible and keep out of it. But what if some was hurt? What if she could help? She had no idea what was going on, really, behind that dumpster.
It took every ounce of willpower she had to take the step steps necessary so that she could see behind the dumpster. She nearly screamed herself. It was the janitor. He had someone else pinned to the brick wall, another man. The man’s face, which she could so clearly see, was contorted in pain, his mouth hanging open as if he meant to scream but couldn’t. He head was twisted to the side, his ear pressed against his shoulder, as the Janitor poured over his neck. It was almost like the janitor was kissing him, there on his exposed, meaty neck, but the man was staring at her in such intense, horrified pain–
He was staring at her.
Ariel felt a squeak escape her throat, disobeying every message her brain was sending throughout her body to stay as silent and still as possible. The janitor straightened, raising his mouth from the man’s neck and started to turn–
Ariel ran.
--
He smiled at that, his lips curling up at the sides, but the rest of his face remained passive. “No, I don’t think you’d want me to.”
She wasn’t sure what that meant, and Ariel gave a curt nod before turn walking down the quiet hallway as quickly as possible. “See you around,” she said without looking back. He said something in reply, but it was quiet and she couldn’t make it out as she turned the hall corner sharply.
That, she decided as she heaved herself against one of the heavy double doors at the end of the hall and practically fell into the chill of the October evening, was strange. She had talked to a janitor here once before, when she had been haplessly locked out of a classroom where she had left her sweater, and he amiably rambled on to her about his sister’s cat’s surgery as he searched for the right key. In high school, one of the janitors had been a genuine mute, and the other two were twins who spent their free time constructing models of cathedrals out of pretzels. She was pretty sure they had won some sort of prize for that. They had all been on varying levels of the strange-spectrum, but at least they blinked and didn’t stare at her with their eyes that just wouldn’t blink. They had also never helped her scour a room for a lost item for twenty minutes, though.
“I guess there always is a silver lining,” Ariel muttered as she navigated threw the college parking lot. She knew McTavern’s was directly behind lot C, but she had not known that she’d have to scale a seven foot ledge and a chain linked fence to get to it. She moaned audibly as she approached the wall of agglomerated clay and stone that had been left behind when the ground had been leveled for the parking lot. She could walk around the school and then around the block, but that would take ages and she could see the glow of McTavern’s through the crisscrossed twists of the rusty wire fence and hear the faint mix of laughter and voices and music on the breeze.
She took it back. There was no silver lining here.
Squaring her shoulders, Ariel marched to the ledge. There was a battered white Land Rover parked facing the wall, lonely in the otherwise empty lot. Ariel climbed onto the hood, then froze when the thought struck her that perhaps this car belonged to the strange janitor. But that was silly, she told herself; even if it did he’d have no way to know she’d climbed and stood on his car.
Shaking now, she got to her feet, balancing herself on the curved surface of the hood by gripping a rock jutting from the dirt wall. It was essentially a cross section of the once hilly area that was once Rockmont State Community College campus, and the residual mix of stone and mud was wonderfully uneven. With the Land Rover giving her a boost, Ariel gripped the grassy top and used another jutting rock as a stepping stone. Her other foot found a foothold somewhere on the rough ledge wall, and she pushed up with her legs and transferred her hands to the chain linked fence. In this way she climbed to the top of the fence, swung her legs over and climbed down the other side into the grassy median at the edge of McTavern’s parking lot.
That wasn’t nearly as traumatic as I expected, she thought.
The parking lot was packed. Ariel wove her way through the menagerie of motor vehicles and to McTavern’s front door, which she opened uncertainly. The sound of hundreds of conversations between hundreds of people and the beats of a brass band errupted from within, and Ariel paused in the doorway to allow her eyes to adjust to the light.
The hostess, who stood at attention at a podium by the door, shouted something Ariel couldn’t understand at her.
“Excuse me?” Ariel shouted over the noise, approaching the podium. A group of teenagers entered behind her, crowding through the glass doors, and swarmed the hostess. Ariel found herself pushed into the main part of the restaurant as the group whooped and high-five the hostess, whom they apparently knew. At least, Ariel hoped they knew her, with the way that one boy immediately swung his arm around her shoulders.
Ariel drifted past tables crammed full of chattering people. Empty beer pitchers and chip bowls were everywhere, and employees were bustling about picking up dropped and forgotten forks and taking orders, cupping their ears to try and hear over the din of the merriment.
She spotted Bryan in a corner both filled with somewhat familiar faces– most of these people had gone to high school with her, though none of them in her year. She squeezed past a high chair and wondered over to him.
“Hey!” she yelled, waving unenthusiastically from the head of the table. Conversation stopped, and everyone turned to stare at her. “Uh, hi,” she said, blushing. She doubted any of them could hear her.
Bryan look confused for a brief moment, but then his face lit up with a cheery grin. “Ariel!” he called and waved for her to sit down.
There was a great shuffling and rearranging of people then, and three people flailed their way out of the booth to let her sit next to Bryan, laughing as they untangled and retangled their limbs. Bryan introduced them as friends from Rockmont High, and like Ariel, they all seemed aware of who she was, though she doubted she had ever said more than two words to any of them.
“Were you in my Spanish class?” the girl on the other side of Bryan, Theresa, asked.
“I think so. Spanish III with Señora Wright?” Ariel answered, picking at the half eaten plate of french fries someone had shoved at her. They were cold, but she didn’t mind.
“Yeah!” Theresa giggled. “And she didn’t understand the subjunctive at all, remember?”
Ariel laughed wryly at that. Señora Wright had not been the most competent teacher.
“Aw, I liked her. She was nice,” Bryan chided.
“You just liked the easy A,” Theresa teased. “Señora Wright was in looove with him,” she went on, turning to Ariel and wrapping her arm around Bryan’s. Bryan reciprocated the action by covering her hand with his and pulling her closer, almost into his lap. Both grinning and giggling, they were quickly distracted from Ariel by each other.
Ariel fixed her gaze straight ahead of her as not to stare, a nervous smile plastered across her face. She felt like someone had poured a glass of ice water over her head, the chill trickling down her neck across her back. Bryan had said this wasn’t a date, and while her mind agreed that she had expected no such thing from him, just a chat with a friend and a good time at a party with familiar faces, she found herself envious of Theresa and how well she seemed to relax and lean into Bryan.
You’re being stupid; he’s just some guy you ran into one day, she reminded herself. Stupid, stupid, stupid. To distract herself, she focused on the conversation going on across the table from her.
“Yeah, I was visiting my brother down in Milton, and, well. You heard what happened, right?” A man Ariel thought was named Jordan was animatedly gesticulating his story. A chorus of nos and whats answered him. “This chick was murdered like two blocks down from him. It was way gruesome: her body was all twisted up, and the new lady said her face was screwed up like she was screaming or something.” There were gasps and his audience had gone relatively quiet. Bryan and Theresa were still busy with each other, Ariel noted with some discomfort. “The weirdest part, to me at least…” Jordan leaned forward conspiratorially. “There was no blood. Not a drop. Nada.”
There was a moment of stillness, then the man next to him guffawed.
“That’s the most retarded thing ever,” he said. “You don’t have to make someone bleed to kill them, man.” Ariel mentally agreed. They continued with this discussion, but Ariel was distracted by a vibration in her pocket: her cell phone.
parked car in rmscc lotmctvrn lot 2 full keys under seat likeusual
Ariel rolled her eyes at her father’s text. He had started text messaging her instead of calling like a normal parent a few months ago in some sort of attempt to bond with her and seem like a “cool” parent. He had figured out how to added spaces, thankfully, but Ariel still cringed every time he tried to use texting slang, like using the number two instead of the proposition “to.”
She sat without speaking for a while after that, just listening to other people talk. Eventually Bryan and Theresa broke apart, and the older girl excused herself to the bathroom. Bryan turned to Ariel, snatching a cold french fry from her plate.
“Sorry about that,” he apologized. “She has, uh… very distracting assets.”
Ariel tried to smile and failed. She imagined it looked more like a grimace, but either Bryan didn’t care or didn’t notice.
“So how’s college? He asked, casually draping an arm across the back of the booth’s seat. “Still acing everything? I bet all the professors think you’re great.”
“I guess I’m doing alright,” Ariel replied. “I had a disagreement with my English prof today, though.”
Bryan raised his eyebrows. “What type of disagreement?”
“Oh, it just– you know,” Ariel babbled. She suddenly felt embarrassed. How could she complain about a C on a paper to him? He’d probably made tons of Cs before and been perfectly happy with them. “I thought he’d graded me a bit low is all. I mean, I don’t think I got enough credit for all the work I did.”
“That sucks,” he sympathized. “I bet you did awesome on… what was it?”
“An essay,” Ariel answered, perking up at the opportunity to tell her story. “It was on my interpretation of TS Eliot’s ‘The Wasteland.’ Ever read it?”
Bryan shrugged lightly. Ariel went on anyway.
“Well, anyway, I did all this research and worked really hard gathering my thoughts on it and– and I wrote three drafts of that paper, and he tells me I haven’t backed up any of my arguments.” Ariel fumed, gripping the edge of the table with all her might. “Just because he doesn’t agree with me doesn’t mean my ideas are invalid or, God forbid, wrong.”
Bryan, who had been eyeing her death grip on the table with a bit of caution, leaned over and patter one of her white-knuckled hands. “I totally know where you’re coming from. These intellectual types, they think they know everything just ‘cause they have a fancy degree, but really–” He broke off when Theresa reappeared. Everyone shifted again, getting out to let her in and then sliding back into the booth, all yelling and laughing at each other. In that moment, Ariel completely lost Bryan’s attention as he turned to Theresa, wrapping an arm around her waist and picking something out of her hair.
Like a monkey, Ariel seethed. Both of them.
She didn’t want to be there any more, with all these people she barely knew and the screaming child one table over, and Bryan with his hands on Theresa. Without a word, she climbed over her neighbors and stomped from the booth to the restaurant door and out into the night.
The car was in the college lot. This was inconvenient, but it was better than having to wait around from someone to pick her up or take the city bus. Ariel trudged through two lanes of cars before pausing to think. She could go back over the fence and down the ledge, possibly risking her neck again, or she could walk around the block, the longer but safer route. The breeze nipped at her too-thin jacket and blew her hair across her face as she squinted toward the main street. It seemed so far away, but the fence was right here… She shivered and decided to take the shortcut.
Getting over the fence proved simple enough, but as she was trying to find a decent foothold in the dirt ledge, Ariel lost her foot and fell the rest of the way, landing on her bottom and skinning the palms of her hands as she tried to stop herself from all backwards. Shaking, she picked herself up and blew on her stinging hands. She wasn’t bleeding, but her hands were raw and the top layers of skin were peeling away. Her butt was sore, but that would wear off soon. At least, she hoped it would as she limped across the lot.
There was no car in sight. Ariel bit her lip. Her father must have parked it in a different lot.
Bracing herself against another blast of cold air from the autumn weather, Ariel wrapped her jacket tighter around herself and head toward the alleyway between Reinhurst Hall and the administration building, where the college hid its dumpsters and recycling bins. This would take her straight to parking lot A, where, as it was where she was dropped off every morning, Ariel presumed her father had left the car.
It was too cloudy for much light from the moon to make it through, but the general light pollution of the town made it easy enough to see in the open parking lot. The alleyway, however, was full of suspicious shadows. Ariel stopped at the mouth of the alley under the pretext off blowing on her still burning hands some more.
There was a scream, then it was abruptly cut off. Ariel froze, staring bug-eyed down at her palms. It had, without a doubt, come from the alley before her. There was shuffling noise in front of her, quiet but desperate. Slowly and painstakingly, she lifted her face to the alley. There was a bang then, like something thick had been hit against metal. Judging by how close it seemed, Ariel guessed someone had hit something against the dumpster closest to her.
She wanted to run. Every part of her told her to leave as quickly as possible and keep out of it. But what if some was hurt? What if she could help? She had no idea what was going on, really, behind that dumpster.
It took every ounce of willpower she had to take the step steps necessary so that she could see behind the dumpster. She nearly screamed herself. It was the janitor. He had someone else pinned to the brick wall, another man. The man’s face, which she could so clearly see, was contorted in pain, his mouth hanging open as if he meant to scream but couldn’t. He head was twisted to the side, his ear pressed against his shoulder, as the Janitor poured over his neck. It was almost like the janitor was kissing him, there on his exposed, meaty neck, but the man was staring at her in such intense, horrified pain–
He was staring at her.
Ariel felt a squeak escape her throat, disobeying every message her brain was sending throughout her body to stay as silent and still as possible. The janitor straightened, raising his mouth from the man’s neck and started to turn–
Ariel ran.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
NANOWRIMOOOO
Total lack of proofreading ahead. You're lucky I ran a spellcheck, even.
--
Ariel Anders was not the type of girl who ever wanted to associate her name with being a “daddy’s girl.” From the moment her father had bestowed such a name on her, a name which shared its initials with a fellowship dedicated to maintaining sobriety and its forename with an obnoxious cartoon sea siren, she had been at odds with him. Her mother had left them over a decade ago to pursue her journalism career in New York– Ariel didn’t blame her. West Virginia was sea of boredom and annoying mountains.
So naturally, when her father loaned her his car so she could pick up some meat for dinner, she instead took it down to her friend Katherine’s house.
Katherine rolled her eyes when she answered the door. “Don’t you have anyone else to bother on the weekends?” she asked. Katherine was short in appearance and in nature, making her generally difficult to get along with. But she didn’t complain when Ariel followed her into the living room and silently offered her a bowl of peppermints.
“No thanks,” said Ariel, dropping her purse onto the couch and sitting down seat to it. Katherine took a place in the armchair across from her. “How’s school?”
Katherine groaned. “Awful. I don’t know how you handled so many APs; I’m practically drowning in homework.”
Ariel stiffened. “You’ll get used to it… learn how to manage your time and stuff.”
Katherine shrugged and took a peppermint for herself. “Still, I’m a senior now. Shouldn’t I have time for fun and bullying freshmen?”
Ariel laughed. “Don’t relish being at the top so much. Next year you’ll be a lowly freshman again, and upperclassmen can smell arrogance.”
Katherine paused in unwrapping a second peppermint, the first one still in her mouth. “So you’re getting picked on by upperclassmen at Rockmont State?”
“What?” Ariel sat straight up. “What gave you that idea?”
“Well,” said Katherine slowly. “You’re pretty arrogant, right? You’re always talking about how you’re too good for community college.”
Ariel scowled. “That’s different. I don’t think I’m better just because I happened to be part of a certain class. I know I’m better because I’m smarter than everyone else.”
Katherine snorted. “Says the girl who was rejected from every college she applied to.” Ariel threw a couch pillow at her at her. Katherine jerked to the side away from it, and it knocked over the lamp. There was a thick silence as Katherine righted it, checking for damage. When she confirmed it was unharmed, she burst into laughter. After a moment Ariel joined her, not sure if she meant it or not.
After about twenty minutes of meaningless chatter about the high school and new teachers who didn’t understand the subject they taught and the boys Katherine liked, Ariel picked up her purse and stood.
“I should be going. Can I use your bathroom first?”
“Better than going in our yard,” Katherine replied dryly. Ariel shuffled out of the living room, but instead of going down the hall to the bathroom, she veered left and entered the kitchen. Quietly, she opened the freezer and took a plastic-wrapped steak from the door, hastily shoving it into her purse. Closing the freezer door, she wonder back into the hallway and into the bathroom, where she dutifully flushed the toilet and washed her hands. When she returned to the living room, Katherine barely looked at her over a magazine.
“See you, Kat.”
“Next time find someone else to bug, okay?” said Katherine as she turned a page.
“Will do,” said Ariel as she walked out the door. She wouldn’t, of course, since all her friends had left town to pursue a college degree.
When she arrive home, Ariel’s dad was pouring over papers in his office.
“I’ll put the meat in the kitchen,” she said from the doorway. “Where’s grandma?”
“She went across the street to see how Miss Gables was doing.” Miss Gables had caught an early case of the flu. Ariel’s dad marked something on his papers with a red pen, then glanced up at her. “Where’s the change from the money I gave you?”
Ariel shrugged. “There wasn’t any change.”
Mr. Anders sighed. “Ariel, please.”
Scowling, Ariel removed some money from her wallet and tossed it at his desk. “I don’t see why you care so much about a dollar sixty-two.” Turning on her heel, she stomped back to the kitchen and dropped the steak she had stolen on the table. Someone had left the jar of pickles out. She took one for herself and replaced the jar in the fridge. She then climbed onto the counter herself, dangling her feet over the linoleum floor and letting her ballet flats slide off her feet.
She still had an essay to proofread, but that wouldn’t take so long. She’d already done the calculus assignment and finished up the Spanish worksheet… she took a bite of her pickle. Sunday afternoons were quite dull when you’d already finished all your homework on Saturday.
Ariel sighed and tried to lean against the wall behind her, but the toaster made this to difficult and she settled for a pathetic slouch. It wasn’t her fault, really, that she had nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon than her homework. It wasn’t her fault that Beth and Caroline were in Ohio, and Jackson and Claire and Sibyl were in Virginia, and Daniel had gone all the way to California, and Linda had gone and gotten herself into Yale, that traitor. It wasn’t her fault Harvard and Princeton and MIT didn’t want her. It wasn’t her fault she hadn’t applied anywhere else, either. It would have been silly, and she was guaranteed to get into one of them as a transfer student next year anyway. Maybe she’d even apply to Brown or Stanford or Yale like Linda…
Ariel continued that sour train of thought as she finished her equally sour pickle. Her grandmother came home to find her glaring fiercely at the left sink faucet from her place on the counter.
“Hey, princess. What’s got you down?”
“Meat for dinner’s here,” Ariel answered flatly, and held out the partially thawed meat package. Her grandmother took it from her.
“Ariel, sweetheart, this is expired a week ago.”
Ariel blinked, then giggled. “Sorry. I guess I wasn’t paying attention. Don’t tell dad?”
Her grandmother huffed. “I don’t see how I couldn’t. He’s expecting it.”
“Tell him you didn’t have enough time to left it thaw,” Ariel persuaded, sliding off the counter.
The older woman sighed. “I guess. We have some leftover meatballs I could heat up… and we have a box of bow-tie pasta…” She began methodically gathering cooking supplies.
“How’s Miss Gables?”
“Oh, better,” her grandmother answered vaguely. “Well enough to cook her own meals.”
Ariel drifted out of the kitchen then, up the stairs and into her room. She was turning on her laptop when her cell phone rang.
“Hey, Katherine.”
“Woman, did you take my meat?”
“Kat, why would I take your meat?”
“You took my baby corn last week; why wouldn't you take my meat?”
“I don’t even like baby corn.” Ariel opened Solitaire.
“Everyone likes baby corn,” Katherine hissed.
“Look, even if I did like baby corn, why the hell would I steal it from you? Only creepers and weirdoes do stuff like that.”
“Then where would it go, Ariel? To the magical land of Oz?”
“Look, Katherine,” Ariel whined, “I have a ton of homework due tomorrow. Can we argue about this some other time?”
“Don’t come to my house anymore,” Katherine asserted. “My mom’s seriously pissed about this whole disappearing-food thing.”
“Kat–”
“Don’t.” And she hung up.
Ariel frowned down at her ancient phone. “It was no good anyway,” she muttered to it.
Ariel was still peeved that, although she had had her license since she was sixteen, and even though she was technically an adult, her father still drove her to school. Usually the car ride was passed in sleepy silence, but on that Monday morning Mr. Anders decided to start a conversation.
“How are classes?” he asked.
“Okay,” Ariel answered.
“Still top of your class?” He briefly took his eyes off the road to smile at her. Ariel’s face remained blank and she made an ambiguous noise in the back of her throat.
“Next year,” he tried again, “I think you should apply to WVU. That way you can come home on the weekends.”
Ariel was tempted to hit her head against the dashboard. Instead, she settled for slumping lower in the car seat.
“Dad, you know I want to get as far away as possible.”
“I know, but…” He looked back at her again. “I just don’t understand why. Rock Mont’s a beautiful town, it’s got wonderful people, and–”
“And you still live with your mother.” Ariel stared back at him accusingly. He broke he gaze almost immediately. Most likely it was to continue paying attention to the road, but Ariel liked to think it was the challenge in her eyes.
They didn’t talk the rest of the way, and Ariel didn’t say goodbye when she slide out of the car, pulling her messenger bag along behind her. Her father did, though.
“Have fun at school.”
She was not enter second grade. She ignored him.
Her nine o’clock calculus class was as dull as usual and was followed by a two hour break before her Literary Analysis class. She decided to spend in the student lounge.
Rock Mont State Community College was not very big, and the lounge reflect that. There were five or six round tables scattered about with thread worn couches lining the walls. The was a TV you could watch by tuning in to the correct radio station to get sound, three vending machines, a pinball machine, and a claw machine filled with random plush toys. Ariel deposited her bag on one of the couches and wondered over to it.
The claw machine had been her mortal enemy and best friend ever since she had started school back in August. On one hand, it was the most exciting thing to do on campus. On the other, she had yet to win anything from it and had lost a large amount of quarters. But she had just tricked some spending money out of her father with the whole meat incident, so she fished some loose change out of her pockets. All she had were pennies and a single dime.
“Need a loan?” A voice asked from behind her.
It was a blonde boy she recognized as going to high school with years ago. He had been a year or two ahead of her, but beyond that she remembered nothing about him. She managed to pull her lips into a smile for him, and he grinned back, perfectly aligned teeth behind his thin lips and freckled face. She suddenly recalled that, at some point, he had had braces.
“No thanks,” she said, edging away from the claw machine. “It’s just a game.”
“Come on, it’ll be fun. It’s just a quarter.” And he brushed past her to put a coin in himself. She watched him pick up a stuffed elephant and drop it with the mechanical claw as she grumpily bit at the nail of her right pinky finger. He was taller than she remembered: she barely reached his shoulder. Of course, as she was roughly five foot three, this was not much of an accomplishment.
“Aw,” he turned back to her, pouting. “I can never win anything from these things.”
“Neither can I,” she admitted, scratching her forearm. “But they’re fun, I guess.”
“Hey…” he cocked his head and squinted at her, lazily leaning against the claw machine. “You seem familiar. Did you go to Rock Mont High?”
Ariel stopped herself from giving a snide answer about how most of the students here went to their high school. “Yeah, I graduated this year.”
“Huh, cool,” he answered, and absently began fiddling with the machine’s joystick controller. “I just moved back here… I was working in Charleston for about a year and a half, but you can make more money with a real degree, you know?”
Yes, yes she did know. “Why not go to school in Charleston?”
He shrugged. “I missed this place. A lot of my best buds are still here, you know?”
This boy expected her to know a lot of things, apparently. “All mine left,” she replied bitterly. He smiled in the way people do when they’re not quite sure what else to do.
“Huh. Um. My name’s Bryan, by the way.” He extended his hand to her. She took it.
“I’m Ariel.”
His eyes widened at that. They were hazel, she noted. “Ariel Anders?”
“Yeah.” She wrestled her hand from his grasp. She had a novel in her messenger bag, and she gazed longingly at it past Bryan’s shoulder.
“Weren’t you that super smart girl? Why are you still in Rock Mont?”
She winced. “I… only applied to three colleges. No back-ups.”
“Oh…” he looked at his feet then. “I’m sorry about that. At least you’ll do well here, right?”
“I hope so,” Ariel answered and stared down at her own feet.
“Say…” He stood up from the machine and took a step toward her. “You know McTavern’s?”
Ariel scuffed her foot along the thin carpet. “The place behind the school?” She wasn’t sure where this was going, and she took a step away from him. He didn’t seem to notice.
“Yeah, there having, like, a party this Friday. Live bands and cheap food and free pool and stuff. Proceeds go to the children’s hospital.”
Ariel had never played pool in her life. She had also never been inside McTavern’s. She furrowed her eyebrows. “Are you asking me out?”
He laughed nervously at that. “Well, no, not exactly. But it’d be good to catch up, yeah? Plus, think of the children, Ariel, the children!” He teasingly and lightly punched her shoulder. Ariel’s mouth did a sort of twitch as she restrained herself from the scowl such behavior from a near-stranger would usually warrant from her.
“Maybe,” she muttered.
“Cool,” Bryan beamed. “Seven on Friday, okay? I’ve got a ten thirty class, but I’ll see you around.” He turned from her and half-jogged out of the student lounge. Ariel suddenly realized there were a handful of other students seated at the table and couches, and even though none of them had been paying the slightest attention to her and Bryan, she felt her face go hot.
Thursday night Ariel called Katherine to see if she wanted to hang out Friday night.
“Oh, dude, I’m going to Steve’s with Emily and Nora.”
“Oh. Can I come? I think I’ve met Emily, we get along pretty well, and–”
“Steve doesn’t like you.”
And Katherine hung up on her.
Ariel let out a frustrated gurgle that was meant to be a scream, and threw her phone against the back on the couch on which she was sitting as hard as she could. It bounced off and slide across the hard wood floor and under the coffee table, which Ariel kicked at in frustration. Her leg proved too short. She actually screamed then.
“Ariel, sweetheart.” Her grandmother poked her head into the living room. “What’s wrong now?”
“Katherine is scum,” Ariel seethed and buried her chewed-off finger nails into the arm of the couch. She could think of many more colorful words for Katherine than scum, but none of them were suitable for her grandmother’s ears.
“Oh, honey,” her grandmother waltz across the room and sat next to her, covering Ariel’s thin hands with her own wrinkled ones. “I think you’re relying too much on Katherine for companionship.”
Ariel bristled. “Well what else am I supposed to do? Everyone else left, and dad won’t lend me the car for even a weekend, and–”
“Ariel.” Her grandmother brushed a strand of her black hair from her face. “Surely you’ve got some other people to talk to? Think.” Ariel stared back at her.
“Well… I– I was invited to a party.” Her grandmother smiled and patted her hand.
“See, sweetie? You can still branch out. It’s not the end of the world.” And she got up and went back to the kitchen.
Ariel kneeled on the floor in order to retrieve her cell phone from under the coffee table. She wasn’t particularly interested in Bryan, but she’d be damned if she spent another Friday night home alone.
Friday morning did not go as planned. She received her graded literature essay back at the end of class.
“Professor Hayden.” As soon as the last, half-asleep student had left the room, she cornered the stocky man. “I don’t understand my grade.”
Professor Hayden paused in organizing his class notes, hunched over the small table at the front of the room. “I thought I made myself clear in my comments.”
Ariel could feel the ends of her eyebrows swooping down into a scowl. She fought to keep them level. “Professor Hayden, I have provided ample support for all my claims, all with several examples–”
“Miss Anders.” He straightened up then and gave her a look that was somewhere between a frown and a quizzical glance. “It’s not the amount of support, it’s the quality that I’m looking for.”
“I don’t understand.” Ariel had also considered herself to be good at analyzing text. Surely her three thousand words of claims and proof had some merit to it. Professor Hayden point at the essay grasped in her hands.
“You didn’t allow yourself nearly enough room to discuss all the material you brought up. Had it been teased out, Miss Anders, I have no doubt that you could have made it into a wonderful essay. It would, however, have been far above the word maximum. Please keep this in mind for next time.” He placed his file of papers under his arm with some finality, and faced the door of the classroom. Ariel’s’ facial control slipped and she glowered at him, taking a step to the right to prevent him from further heading toward the door.
“I fulfilled all the requirements you outlined, even if not perfectly. I should get at least a B.”
Professor Hayden pinched the bridge of his nose with his free arm.
“Miss Anders, as I have stated to the class several times, grades are non-negotiable.”
“Dan got a B. He has the grammar of a chimp!” The paper in her hands crinkled loudly as she balled her hands into fists. “I got a 5 in AP Lit– I’m not some nitwit who needs everything she writes combed over for her.”
“Miss Anders, stop.” Professor Hayden stepped around her to the door and opened it. She opened her mouth to protest, but barely got a syllable out before he cut her off. “While I have no doubt you did well in high school, I am not an AP evaluator. You grade remains unchanged.” He left, leaving Ariel alone and fuming in the middle of the empty class room. She stood like that for several movements, letting the rage radiate from her body in waves. When she left like she could talk to someone without yelling at them again, she slowly gathered her belongings and walked back tot the student lounge.
Bryan wasn’t there, but she reminded herself he was just an excuse not to stay home on the weekend. She walked to the claw machine and let her messenger bag fall to the floor beside it. She stretched, rotating her shoulders in attempt to pop her back. This failed, and she grumbled to herself about it as she fished a few quarters out of her pocket. She had thought to ask her table mate in Spanish for change earlier that day.
Seventy five cents later, she was out of quarters and had nothing to show for it. For the briefest moment she was as upset and frustration as she had been talking to Professor Hayden, but it passed quickly, leaving her feeling drained. She had been missing sleep in favor of late night television, which she had taken up in favor of calling one of her out of state friends, who were showing more and more disinterest in her as their college lives became more exciting. Dragging her bag behind her, Ariel trudged over to one of the couches and collapses onto it, telling her a short catnap would be healthy.
She awoke to the sound of squeaky wheels. She rubbed her eyes and sat up. Her neck, which had been resting at an awkward angle to the arm of the couch, decided this was a bad idea and pain shot threw her head. She groaned and peered around the room. It was darker outside, she could see through the windows. There were no students left, just a janitor pulling a noisy trashcan on wheel behind him as he gathered trash bags from the various garbage cans scattered throughout the room.
“What time is it?” she asked.
He pushed his foot into a small waste disposal bin, compressing the chip wrappers and scrap paper within into a more manageable volume. “Seven-thirty,” he answered shortly.
Ariel watched him in silence as he wrestled the bag from the bin, tied it off and chucked into the larger trash can. He had several new trash bag tied to the handle of it, and he removed one and lined the small bin with it. When he was done, he turned and looked her straight in the eye.
“Can I help you?”
It was such a cliché, common sort of thing to say, especially since she was staring, that Ariel should have expected it. She didn’t, though, and blushed. He was much younger than any of the janitors she’d seen at her high school– not much older than her, even. They probably would have overlapped in high school, but she didn’t recognize him. He wasn’t particularly tall, an inch or two shorter than Bryan maybe, and his hair was as dark and black as hers, though, she noted with a bit of envy, much more lustrous. His chin and nose were sharp, almost pointed, and his eyes were a honey brown, sharp, and still staring at her expectantly.
“No, sorry, just trying to get my bearings. I wasn’t planning on taking a four hour nap.”
He quirked a lone eyebrow at that. “Well, the last night class ends at 8:00, so if you don’t leave soon I’m supposed to escort you off the premise.”
Ariel laughed nervously and searched around her feet for her bag. “What if I was still sleep?”
“You know,” he answered, carting the his mobile trashcan back across the room toward the door, “I don’t think they mentioned that in training.”
Ariel had stopped paying attention. She was upside down on the couch, peering under it with her rear in the air. “Where is it?” she hissed.
The young janitor paused. “Did you lose something?”
Ariel clumsily righted herself on the couch and stood, pulling a few loose strands of hair behind her ears. “My bag.” Her eyebrows were down in the frown she seemed to be wearing so often recently. “I’m pretty sure I left it by my head when I fell asleep…” She trailed off, and he sauntered over to her. His walk was smooth and seemed awfully confident for a man in a blue janitor’s uniform. He got down on his knees and checked under and around the couch himself while Ariel stood to the side, biting her nails and wondering if she should try to start a conversation.
“Perhaps it was moved by accident, or you left it somewhere else,” the janitor suggested as he got back onto his feet.
“Oh, um… maybe.”
He helped her look for it, both of them crawling around the floor of the student lounge as he quizzed her on the size, color and contents of her messenger bag.
“Did you have anything valuable in it?”
“Not really,” she answered, peering behind one of the vending machines. There was no way her bag could fit behind here, she realized dumbly. She did, however, find a nickel. She pocketed it. “I usually leave my wallet at home and my cell phone’s in my pocket… I guess the graphing calculator cost a bit, though. And some textbooks?” College text books, she had realized, were quite valuable.
“It may have been stolen,” the janitor said darkly from where he was examining the underside of a table. Ariel choked back a Well, duh.
"That would suck," she said instead.
"You should come back tomorrow and inquire at Information about it," he went on, crossing the room to her with his gliding stride, making him seem completely out of place in a janitor's outfit, and no, Ariel was NOT thinking about that because she had a date tonight.
"Oh!" she gasped, and fumbled to get her cell phone out of her jacket pocket. "I was supposed to be somewhere..."
The janitor stood and watched her unblinkingly as she fiddled with it. The display told her it was 7:53 and she had missed six calls from home. She realized she was also supposed to have been picked up by her father four hours ago. Cursing under her breath, she selected 'return call' and pressed the device to her ear.
The janitor was still watching, standing not five feet from her, without even a twitch of the eyelid. Come to think of it, she had yet to seem him blink: he just stared, stared, stared at everything. Unnerved by this realization, she mumbled an excuse about needing to make a call and excused herself to the hallway, walking as briskly as possible while listening to her home phone ring.
"Hello?" He grandmother had answered.
"Hey grandma," said Ariel as she leaned against a cinder block wall. "Did dad come for me? I totally feel asleep by accident."
"Ariel!" her grandmother seemed oddly relieved; probably just the typical mother bear instincts of a grandmother. "We had no idea where you went. Katherine had no idea, and your father checked around campus--"
"I was just in the student lounge," Ariel explained, smiling bitterly. "Sorry I worried you. But, uh, I was just going to head over to a party at McTavern's."
"Oh," her grandmother seemed surprised. "So you did find new friends over there."
"Well, kind of..." Ariel completely forgot what she was saying as the janitor came out for the lounge, pulling his trash bin with him. Ariel barely heard the next thing her grandmother said as she watched him lock the door. He still wasn't blinking. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"
"I said I'll get your father to drop the car off over there and take the bus back. You be out late, right?"
"Yeah." The janitor stood staring at her again, perfectly motionless. She raised her eyebrows at him in curiosity.
"I don't want you walking all the way home from the bus stop late at night, and I'm sure your father won't want to be up too late tonight," her grandmother babbled on. Ariel was having a staring contest with him now. She was sure that if she watched him long enough he would have to blink, but he was just blandly gazing back at her.
"Oh, Miss NAME's at the door; I'll see you soon, honey. Be safe." Her grandmother made a kiss noise into the phone and hung up. Ariel slowly pulling her phone away from her face, eyes still locked with the janitor's. Her eyes burned, but he was just staring back with total disinterest.
Finally, she blinked. He didn’t.
“It’s 8:00,” he said flatly.
“Good to know,” she answered, frowning slightly. Out in the hallway, it was becoming clear how empty the building was. There was no sound from the surrounding classrooms, just a low electric hum (a projector someone forgot to turn off?) and her own respiration. The janitor didn’t make a noise as he strode toward her.
“I told you, you have to leave at 8:00.”
She had forgotten that.
“Sorry,” she answered, pocketing her phone and averting her eyes abashedly. Wait, no, she thought. Don’t look away from the strange man you’re alone in a secluded place with. “I don’t need you to escort me though,” she added, louder than necessary.
--
Ariel Anders was not the type of girl who ever wanted to associate her name with being a “daddy’s girl.” From the moment her father had bestowed such a name on her, a name which shared its initials with a fellowship dedicated to maintaining sobriety and its forename with an obnoxious cartoon sea siren, she had been at odds with him. Her mother had left them over a decade ago to pursue her journalism career in New York– Ariel didn’t blame her. West Virginia was sea of boredom and annoying mountains.
So naturally, when her father loaned her his car so she could pick up some meat for dinner, she instead took it down to her friend Katherine’s house.
Katherine rolled her eyes when she answered the door. “Don’t you have anyone else to bother on the weekends?” she asked. Katherine was short in appearance and in nature, making her generally difficult to get along with. But she didn’t complain when Ariel followed her into the living room and silently offered her a bowl of peppermints.
“No thanks,” said Ariel, dropping her purse onto the couch and sitting down seat to it. Katherine took a place in the armchair across from her. “How’s school?”
Katherine groaned. “Awful. I don’t know how you handled so many APs; I’m practically drowning in homework.”
Ariel stiffened. “You’ll get used to it… learn how to manage your time and stuff.”
Katherine shrugged and took a peppermint for herself. “Still, I’m a senior now. Shouldn’t I have time for fun and bullying freshmen?”
Ariel laughed. “Don’t relish being at the top so much. Next year you’ll be a lowly freshman again, and upperclassmen can smell arrogance.”
Katherine paused in unwrapping a second peppermint, the first one still in her mouth. “So you’re getting picked on by upperclassmen at Rockmont State?”
“What?” Ariel sat straight up. “What gave you that idea?”
“Well,” said Katherine slowly. “You’re pretty arrogant, right? You’re always talking about how you’re too good for community college.”
Ariel scowled. “That’s different. I don’t think I’m better just because I happened to be part of a certain class. I know I’m better because I’m smarter than everyone else.”
Katherine snorted. “Says the girl who was rejected from every college she applied to.” Ariel threw a couch pillow at her at her. Katherine jerked to the side away from it, and it knocked over the lamp. There was a thick silence as Katherine righted it, checking for damage. When she confirmed it was unharmed, she burst into laughter. After a moment Ariel joined her, not sure if she meant it or not.
After about twenty minutes of meaningless chatter about the high school and new teachers who didn’t understand the subject they taught and the boys Katherine liked, Ariel picked up her purse and stood.
“I should be going. Can I use your bathroom first?”
“Better than going in our yard,” Katherine replied dryly. Ariel shuffled out of the living room, but instead of going down the hall to the bathroom, she veered left and entered the kitchen. Quietly, she opened the freezer and took a plastic-wrapped steak from the door, hastily shoving it into her purse. Closing the freezer door, she wonder back into the hallway and into the bathroom, where she dutifully flushed the toilet and washed her hands. When she returned to the living room, Katherine barely looked at her over a magazine.
“See you, Kat.”
“Next time find someone else to bug, okay?” said Katherine as she turned a page.
“Will do,” said Ariel as she walked out the door. She wouldn’t, of course, since all her friends had left town to pursue a college degree.
When she arrive home, Ariel’s dad was pouring over papers in his office.
“I’ll put the meat in the kitchen,” she said from the doorway. “Where’s grandma?”
“She went across the street to see how Miss Gables was doing.” Miss Gables had caught an early case of the flu. Ariel’s dad marked something on his papers with a red pen, then glanced up at her. “Where’s the change from the money I gave you?”
Ariel shrugged. “There wasn’t any change.”
Mr. Anders sighed. “Ariel, please.”
Scowling, Ariel removed some money from her wallet and tossed it at his desk. “I don’t see why you care so much about a dollar sixty-two.” Turning on her heel, she stomped back to the kitchen and dropped the steak she had stolen on the table. Someone had left the jar of pickles out. She took one for herself and replaced the jar in the fridge. She then climbed onto the counter herself, dangling her feet over the linoleum floor and letting her ballet flats slide off her feet.
She still had an essay to proofread, but that wouldn’t take so long. She’d already done the calculus assignment and finished up the Spanish worksheet… she took a bite of her pickle. Sunday afternoons were quite dull when you’d already finished all your homework on Saturday.
Ariel sighed and tried to lean against the wall behind her, but the toaster made this to difficult and she settled for a pathetic slouch. It wasn’t her fault, really, that she had nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon than her homework. It wasn’t her fault that Beth and Caroline were in Ohio, and Jackson and Claire and Sibyl were in Virginia, and Daniel had gone all the way to California, and Linda had gone and gotten herself into Yale, that traitor. It wasn’t her fault Harvard and Princeton and MIT didn’t want her. It wasn’t her fault she hadn’t applied anywhere else, either. It would have been silly, and she was guaranteed to get into one of them as a transfer student next year anyway. Maybe she’d even apply to Brown or Stanford or Yale like Linda…
Ariel continued that sour train of thought as she finished her equally sour pickle. Her grandmother came home to find her glaring fiercely at the left sink faucet from her place on the counter.
“Hey, princess. What’s got you down?”
“Meat for dinner’s here,” Ariel answered flatly, and held out the partially thawed meat package. Her grandmother took it from her.
“Ariel, sweetheart, this is expired a week ago.”
Ariel blinked, then giggled. “Sorry. I guess I wasn’t paying attention. Don’t tell dad?”
Her grandmother huffed. “I don’t see how I couldn’t. He’s expecting it.”
“Tell him you didn’t have enough time to left it thaw,” Ariel persuaded, sliding off the counter.
The older woman sighed. “I guess. We have some leftover meatballs I could heat up… and we have a box of bow-tie pasta…” She began methodically gathering cooking supplies.
“How’s Miss Gables?”
“Oh, better,” her grandmother answered vaguely. “Well enough to cook her own meals.”
Ariel drifted out of the kitchen then, up the stairs and into her room. She was turning on her laptop when her cell phone rang.
“Hey, Katherine.”
“Woman, did you take my meat?”
“Kat, why would I take your meat?”
“You took my baby corn last week; why wouldn't you take my meat?”
“I don’t even like baby corn.” Ariel opened Solitaire.
“Everyone likes baby corn,” Katherine hissed.
“Look, even if I did like baby corn, why the hell would I steal it from you? Only creepers and weirdoes do stuff like that.”
“Then where would it go, Ariel? To the magical land of Oz?”
“Look, Katherine,” Ariel whined, “I have a ton of homework due tomorrow. Can we argue about this some other time?”
“Don’t come to my house anymore,” Katherine asserted. “My mom’s seriously pissed about this whole disappearing-food thing.”
“Kat–”
“Don’t.” And she hung up.
Ariel frowned down at her ancient phone. “It was no good anyway,” she muttered to it.
Ariel was still peeved that, although she had had her license since she was sixteen, and even though she was technically an adult, her father still drove her to school. Usually the car ride was passed in sleepy silence, but on that Monday morning Mr. Anders decided to start a conversation.
“How are classes?” he asked.
“Okay,” Ariel answered.
“Still top of your class?” He briefly took his eyes off the road to smile at her. Ariel’s face remained blank and she made an ambiguous noise in the back of her throat.
“Next year,” he tried again, “I think you should apply to WVU. That way you can come home on the weekends.”
Ariel was tempted to hit her head against the dashboard. Instead, she settled for slumping lower in the car seat.
“Dad, you know I want to get as far away as possible.”
“I know, but…” He looked back at her again. “I just don’t understand why. Rock Mont’s a beautiful town, it’s got wonderful people, and–”
“And you still live with your mother.” Ariel stared back at him accusingly. He broke he gaze almost immediately. Most likely it was to continue paying attention to the road, but Ariel liked to think it was the challenge in her eyes.
They didn’t talk the rest of the way, and Ariel didn’t say goodbye when she slide out of the car, pulling her messenger bag along behind her. Her father did, though.
“Have fun at school.”
She was not enter second grade. She ignored him.
Her nine o’clock calculus class was as dull as usual and was followed by a two hour break before her Literary Analysis class. She decided to spend in the student lounge.
Rock Mont State Community College was not very big, and the lounge reflect that. There were five or six round tables scattered about with thread worn couches lining the walls. The was a TV you could watch by tuning in to the correct radio station to get sound, three vending machines, a pinball machine, and a claw machine filled with random plush toys. Ariel deposited her bag on one of the couches and wondered over to it.
The claw machine had been her mortal enemy and best friend ever since she had started school back in August. On one hand, it was the most exciting thing to do on campus. On the other, she had yet to win anything from it and had lost a large amount of quarters. But she had just tricked some spending money out of her father with the whole meat incident, so she fished some loose change out of her pockets. All she had were pennies and a single dime.
“Need a loan?” A voice asked from behind her.
It was a blonde boy she recognized as going to high school with years ago. He had been a year or two ahead of her, but beyond that she remembered nothing about him. She managed to pull her lips into a smile for him, and he grinned back, perfectly aligned teeth behind his thin lips and freckled face. She suddenly recalled that, at some point, he had had braces.
“No thanks,” she said, edging away from the claw machine. “It’s just a game.”
“Come on, it’ll be fun. It’s just a quarter.” And he brushed past her to put a coin in himself. She watched him pick up a stuffed elephant and drop it with the mechanical claw as she grumpily bit at the nail of her right pinky finger. He was taller than she remembered: she barely reached his shoulder. Of course, as she was roughly five foot three, this was not much of an accomplishment.
“Aw,” he turned back to her, pouting. “I can never win anything from these things.”
“Neither can I,” she admitted, scratching her forearm. “But they’re fun, I guess.”
“Hey…” he cocked his head and squinted at her, lazily leaning against the claw machine. “You seem familiar. Did you go to Rock Mont High?”
Ariel stopped herself from giving a snide answer about how most of the students here went to their high school. “Yeah, I graduated this year.”
“Huh, cool,” he answered, and absently began fiddling with the machine’s joystick controller. “I just moved back here… I was working in Charleston for about a year and a half, but you can make more money with a real degree, you know?”
Yes, yes she did know. “Why not go to school in Charleston?”
He shrugged. “I missed this place. A lot of my best buds are still here, you know?”
This boy expected her to know a lot of things, apparently. “All mine left,” she replied bitterly. He smiled in the way people do when they’re not quite sure what else to do.
“Huh. Um. My name’s Bryan, by the way.” He extended his hand to her. She took it.
“I’m Ariel.”
His eyes widened at that. They were hazel, she noted. “Ariel Anders?”
“Yeah.” She wrestled her hand from his grasp. She had a novel in her messenger bag, and she gazed longingly at it past Bryan’s shoulder.
“Weren’t you that super smart girl? Why are you still in Rock Mont?”
She winced. “I… only applied to three colleges. No back-ups.”
“Oh…” he looked at his feet then. “I’m sorry about that. At least you’ll do well here, right?”
“I hope so,” Ariel answered and stared down at her own feet.
“Say…” He stood up from the machine and took a step toward her. “You know McTavern’s?”
Ariel scuffed her foot along the thin carpet. “The place behind the school?” She wasn’t sure where this was going, and she took a step away from him. He didn’t seem to notice.
“Yeah, there having, like, a party this Friday. Live bands and cheap food and free pool and stuff. Proceeds go to the children’s hospital.”
Ariel had never played pool in her life. She had also never been inside McTavern’s. She furrowed her eyebrows. “Are you asking me out?”
He laughed nervously at that. “Well, no, not exactly. But it’d be good to catch up, yeah? Plus, think of the children, Ariel, the children!” He teasingly and lightly punched her shoulder. Ariel’s mouth did a sort of twitch as she restrained herself from the scowl such behavior from a near-stranger would usually warrant from her.
“Maybe,” she muttered.
“Cool,” Bryan beamed. “Seven on Friday, okay? I’ve got a ten thirty class, but I’ll see you around.” He turned from her and half-jogged out of the student lounge. Ariel suddenly realized there were a handful of other students seated at the table and couches, and even though none of them had been paying the slightest attention to her and Bryan, she felt her face go hot.
Thursday night Ariel called Katherine to see if she wanted to hang out Friday night.
“Oh, dude, I’m going to Steve’s with Emily and Nora.”
“Oh. Can I come? I think I’ve met Emily, we get along pretty well, and–”
“Steve doesn’t like you.”
And Katherine hung up on her.
Ariel let out a frustrated gurgle that was meant to be a scream, and threw her phone against the back on the couch on which she was sitting as hard as she could. It bounced off and slide across the hard wood floor and under the coffee table, which Ariel kicked at in frustration. Her leg proved too short. She actually screamed then.
“Ariel, sweetheart.” Her grandmother poked her head into the living room. “What’s wrong now?”
“Katherine is scum,” Ariel seethed and buried her chewed-off finger nails into the arm of the couch. She could think of many more colorful words for Katherine than scum, but none of them were suitable for her grandmother’s ears.
“Oh, honey,” her grandmother waltz across the room and sat next to her, covering Ariel’s thin hands with her own wrinkled ones. “I think you’re relying too much on Katherine for companionship.”
Ariel bristled. “Well what else am I supposed to do? Everyone else left, and dad won’t lend me the car for even a weekend, and–”
“Ariel.” Her grandmother brushed a strand of her black hair from her face. “Surely you’ve got some other people to talk to? Think.” Ariel stared back at her.
“Well… I– I was invited to a party.” Her grandmother smiled and patted her hand.
“See, sweetie? You can still branch out. It’s not the end of the world.” And she got up and went back to the kitchen.
Ariel kneeled on the floor in order to retrieve her cell phone from under the coffee table. She wasn’t particularly interested in Bryan, but she’d be damned if she spent another Friday night home alone.
Friday morning did not go as planned. She received her graded literature essay back at the end of class.
“Professor Hayden.” As soon as the last, half-asleep student had left the room, she cornered the stocky man. “I don’t understand my grade.”
Professor Hayden paused in organizing his class notes, hunched over the small table at the front of the room. “I thought I made myself clear in my comments.”
Ariel could feel the ends of her eyebrows swooping down into a scowl. She fought to keep them level. “Professor Hayden, I have provided ample support for all my claims, all with several examples–”
“Miss Anders.” He straightened up then and gave her a look that was somewhere between a frown and a quizzical glance. “It’s not the amount of support, it’s the quality that I’m looking for.”
“I don’t understand.” Ariel had also considered herself to be good at analyzing text. Surely her three thousand words of claims and proof had some merit to it. Professor Hayden point at the essay grasped in her hands.
“You didn’t allow yourself nearly enough room to discuss all the material you brought up. Had it been teased out, Miss Anders, I have no doubt that you could have made it into a wonderful essay. It would, however, have been far above the word maximum. Please keep this in mind for next time.” He placed his file of papers under his arm with some finality, and faced the door of the classroom. Ariel’s’ facial control slipped and she glowered at him, taking a step to the right to prevent him from further heading toward the door.
“I fulfilled all the requirements you outlined, even if not perfectly. I should get at least a B.”
Professor Hayden pinched the bridge of his nose with his free arm.
“Miss Anders, as I have stated to the class several times, grades are non-negotiable.”
“Dan got a B. He has the grammar of a chimp!” The paper in her hands crinkled loudly as she balled her hands into fists. “I got a 5 in AP Lit– I’m not some nitwit who needs everything she writes combed over for her.”
“Miss Anders, stop.” Professor Hayden stepped around her to the door and opened it. She opened her mouth to protest, but barely got a syllable out before he cut her off. “While I have no doubt you did well in high school, I am not an AP evaluator. You grade remains unchanged.” He left, leaving Ariel alone and fuming in the middle of the empty class room. She stood like that for several movements, letting the rage radiate from her body in waves. When she left like she could talk to someone without yelling at them again, she slowly gathered her belongings and walked back tot the student lounge.
Bryan wasn’t there, but she reminded herself he was just an excuse not to stay home on the weekend. She walked to the claw machine and let her messenger bag fall to the floor beside it. She stretched, rotating her shoulders in attempt to pop her back. This failed, and she grumbled to herself about it as she fished a few quarters out of her pocket. She had thought to ask her table mate in Spanish for change earlier that day.
Seventy five cents later, she was out of quarters and had nothing to show for it. For the briefest moment she was as upset and frustration as she had been talking to Professor Hayden, but it passed quickly, leaving her feeling drained. She had been missing sleep in favor of late night television, which she had taken up in favor of calling one of her out of state friends, who were showing more and more disinterest in her as their college lives became more exciting. Dragging her bag behind her, Ariel trudged over to one of the couches and collapses onto it, telling her a short catnap would be healthy.
She awoke to the sound of squeaky wheels. She rubbed her eyes and sat up. Her neck, which had been resting at an awkward angle to the arm of the couch, decided this was a bad idea and pain shot threw her head. She groaned and peered around the room. It was darker outside, she could see through the windows. There were no students left, just a janitor pulling a noisy trashcan on wheel behind him as he gathered trash bags from the various garbage cans scattered throughout the room.
“What time is it?” she asked.
He pushed his foot into a small waste disposal bin, compressing the chip wrappers and scrap paper within into a more manageable volume. “Seven-thirty,” he answered shortly.
Ariel watched him in silence as he wrestled the bag from the bin, tied it off and chucked into the larger trash can. He had several new trash bag tied to the handle of it, and he removed one and lined the small bin with it. When he was done, he turned and looked her straight in the eye.
“Can I help you?”
It was such a cliché, common sort of thing to say, especially since she was staring, that Ariel should have expected it. She didn’t, though, and blushed. He was much younger than any of the janitors she’d seen at her high school– not much older than her, even. They probably would have overlapped in high school, but she didn’t recognize him. He wasn’t particularly tall, an inch or two shorter than Bryan maybe, and his hair was as dark and black as hers, though, she noted with a bit of envy, much more lustrous. His chin and nose were sharp, almost pointed, and his eyes were a honey brown, sharp, and still staring at her expectantly.
“No, sorry, just trying to get my bearings. I wasn’t planning on taking a four hour nap.”
He quirked a lone eyebrow at that. “Well, the last night class ends at 8:00, so if you don’t leave soon I’m supposed to escort you off the premise.”
Ariel laughed nervously and searched around her feet for her bag. “What if I was still sleep?”
“You know,” he answered, carting the his mobile trashcan back across the room toward the door, “I don’t think they mentioned that in training.”
Ariel had stopped paying attention. She was upside down on the couch, peering under it with her rear in the air. “Where is it?” she hissed.
The young janitor paused. “Did you lose something?”
Ariel clumsily righted herself on the couch and stood, pulling a few loose strands of hair behind her ears. “My bag.” Her eyebrows were down in the frown she seemed to be wearing so often recently. “I’m pretty sure I left it by my head when I fell asleep…” She trailed off, and he sauntered over to her. His walk was smooth and seemed awfully confident for a man in a blue janitor’s uniform. He got down on his knees and checked under and around the couch himself while Ariel stood to the side, biting her nails and wondering if she should try to start a conversation.
“Perhaps it was moved by accident, or you left it somewhere else,” the janitor suggested as he got back onto his feet.
“Oh, um… maybe.”
He helped her look for it, both of them crawling around the floor of the student lounge as he quizzed her on the size, color and contents of her messenger bag.
“Did you have anything valuable in it?”
“Not really,” she answered, peering behind one of the vending machines. There was no way her bag could fit behind here, she realized dumbly. She did, however, find a nickel. She pocketed it. “I usually leave my wallet at home and my cell phone’s in my pocket… I guess the graphing calculator cost a bit, though. And some textbooks?” College text books, she had realized, were quite valuable.
“It may have been stolen,” the janitor said darkly from where he was examining the underside of a table. Ariel choked back a Well, duh.
"That would suck," she said instead.
"You should come back tomorrow and inquire at Information about it," he went on, crossing the room to her with his gliding stride, making him seem completely out of place in a janitor's outfit, and no, Ariel was NOT thinking about that because she had a date tonight.
"Oh!" she gasped, and fumbled to get her cell phone out of her jacket pocket. "I was supposed to be somewhere..."
The janitor stood and watched her unblinkingly as she fiddled with it. The display told her it was 7:53 and she had missed six calls from home. She realized she was also supposed to have been picked up by her father four hours ago. Cursing under her breath, she selected 'return call' and pressed the device to her ear.
The janitor was still watching, standing not five feet from her, without even a twitch of the eyelid. Come to think of it, she had yet to seem him blink: he just stared, stared, stared at everything. Unnerved by this realization, she mumbled an excuse about needing to make a call and excused herself to the hallway, walking as briskly as possible while listening to her home phone ring.
"Hello?" He grandmother had answered.
"Hey grandma," said Ariel as she leaned against a cinder block wall. "Did dad come for me? I totally feel asleep by accident."
"Ariel!" her grandmother seemed oddly relieved; probably just the typical mother bear instincts of a grandmother. "We had no idea where you went. Katherine had no idea, and your father checked around campus--"
"I was just in the student lounge," Ariel explained, smiling bitterly. "Sorry I worried you. But, uh, I was just going to head over to a party at McTavern's."
"Oh," her grandmother seemed surprised. "So you did find new friends over there."
"Well, kind of..." Ariel completely forgot what she was saying as the janitor came out for the lounge, pulling his trash bin with him. Ariel barely heard the next thing her grandmother said as she watched him lock the door. He still wasn't blinking. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"
"I said I'll get your father to drop the car off over there and take the bus back. You be out late, right?"
"Yeah." The janitor stood staring at her again, perfectly motionless. She raised her eyebrows at him in curiosity.
"I don't want you walking all the way home from the bus stop late at night, and I'm sure your father won't want to be up too late tonight," her grandmother babbled on. Ariel was having a staring contest with him now. She was sure that if she watched him long enough he would have to blink, but he was just blandly gazing back at her.
"Oh, Miss NAME's at the door; I'll see you soon, honey. Be safe." Her grandmother made a kiss noise into the phone and hung up. Ariel slowly pulling her phone away from her face, eyes still locked with the janitor's. Her eyes burned, but he was just staring back with total disinterest.
Finally, she blinked. He didn’t.
“It’s 8:00,” he said flatly.
“Good to know,” she answered, frowning slightly. Out in the hallway, it was becoming clear how empty the building was. There was no sound from the surrounding classrooms, just a low electric hum (a projector someone forgot to turn off?) and her own respiration. The janitor didn’t make a noise as he strode toward her.
“I told you, you have to leave at 8:00.”
She had forgotten that.
“Sorry,” she answered, pocketing her phone and averting her eyes abashedly. Wait, no, she thought. Don’t look away from the strange man you’re alone in a secluded place with. “I don’t need you to escort me though,” she added, louder than necessary.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Things That Need to Be Written Maybe Eventually
A list of stories I have thought over a decent amount, in no specific order.
1. Deadbeat Vampire Story - High school drop out boy falls in with a group of vampires living together in a cramped apartment and trying not to drive each other TOO crazy, least one have a break down. Which is pretty likely anyway.
2. Nur of Norr - The exciting tale of the redhead born into a world without color and the rather bland exorcist hired to rid her of the demon possessing her... and I guess they fall in love or something. Contains talking demon hats, cook rebellions, and some guy named Shadrack.
3. Maya & her vampy boi - Maya the very eccentric girl and MR. UNNAMED GUY the vampire and how their relationship very much fails. Has a lot of mother-daughter issues and low-self-esteem vs. social retardism and "wait are we even dating why are you sucking her neck LOL" and why is he even a vampire it's not even that necessary to the plot. D8
4. Collab of Untitledness - There's this guy, and his name is Francis, and he abducted this other guy in his own house, and now he's talked to abducted guy's kids about Monopoly. GOD I DON'T KNOW.
5. Mallory the Unfortunate - Set in medieval fantasy world thing, possibly same one as Norr... Mallory is part of a rich-ish family, and so she is kidnapped by land pirates for rather cliche reasons. (What are land pirates? Well they're pirates, but they lost their ship, obviously. Why else would they need money?) And she has a dragon as a side kick and eventually they make it to some random palace, and what do you know I based this idea on the story of the princess and the pea. 8D
6. Subtle - A short story about a woman and her role in society and um. Murder.
7. Evil - A high school decides to become EVIL. yes.
8. 7 Ghosts - This guy in his grandmother's house, and there are seven ghosts. And taxidermy cats that staaare at him.
9. Lampires - It's like vampires... but they're LAMPS.
10. Gawd another medieval fantasy story starring some chick D: - BUT THIS ONE CAN DO MAGIC, GUYS. Taken in as an apprentice to insane woman. There's a parrot, and some fairy guy because it AMUSED ME, and also a knight they have to go rescue because it AMUSED ME AS WELL.
11. 100 Themes Challenge - covering the exciting escapades of a family and their stay at a haunted hotel.
12. Girl Meets Vampire Dream - I am ashamed to admit that I went and did exactly what Stephanie Meyer did. Except it involved a very, very bitter girl, a janitor vampire and a claw machine.
1. Deadbeat Vampire Story - High school drop out boy falls in with a group of vampires living together in a cramped apartment and trying not to drive each other TOO crazy, least one have a break down. Which is pretty likely anyway.
2. Nur of Norr - The exciting tale of the redhead born into a world without color and the rather bland exorcist hired to rid her of the demon possessing her... and I guess they fall in love or something. Contains talking demon hats, cook rebellions, and some guy named Shadrack.
3. Maya & her vampy boi - Maya the very eccentric girl and MR. UNNAMED GUY the vampire and how their relationship very much fails. Has a lot of mother-daughter issues and low-self-esteem vs. social retardism and "wait are we even dating why are you sucking her neck LOL" and why is he even a vampire it's not even that necessary to the plot. D8
4. Collab of Untitledness - There's this guy, and his name is Francis, and he abducted this other guy in his own house, and now he's talked to abducted guy's kids about Monopoly. GOD I DON'T KNOW.
5. Mallory the Unfortunate - Set in medieval fantasy world thing, possibly same one as Norr... Mallory is part of a rich-ish family, and so she is kidnapped by land pirates for rather cliche reasons. (What are land pirates? Well they're pirates, but they lost their ship, obviously. Why else would they need money?) And she has a dragon as a side kick and eventually they make it to some random palace, and what do you know I based this idea on the story of the princess and the pea. 8D
6. Subtle - A short story about a woman and her role in society and um. Murder.
7. Evil - A high school decides to become EVIL. yes.
8. 7 Ghosts - This guy in his grandmother's house, and there are seven ghosts. And taxidermy cats that staaare at him.
9. Lampires - It's like vampires... but they're LAMPS.
10. Gawd another medieval fantasy story starring some chick D: - BUT THIS ONE CAN DO MAGIC, GUYS. Taken in as an apprentice to insane woman. There's a parrot, and some fairy guy because it AMUSED ME, and also a knight they have to go rescue because it AMUSED ME AS WELL.
11. 100 Themes Challenge - covering the exciting escapades of a family and their stay at a haunted hotel.
12. Girl Meets Vampire Dream - I am ashamed to admit that I went and did exactly what Stephanie Meyer did. Except it involved a very, very bitter girl, a janitor vampire and a claw machine.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Meme!
List twelve characters, and GO!
1. Harry Potter
2. Tara
3. Aladdin
4. Michael Buckley
5. Edward Cullen
6. Clopin (Disney verison 8D)
7. Malik
8. Vegeta
9. Kylie
10. Peter Pan
11. Mulan
12. Lavender Brown
1. Who would make a better college professor, Clopin or Mulan? What subjects would (s)he teach?
Disney!Clopin seems to have a pathological urge to narrate things, so... he'd teach, um. Philosophy. 8D ("Who is the monster and who is the man?")
2. Do you think Michael Buckley is hot? How hot?
XD I guess he's cute... I like his enthusiasm? His knee-exhibitionist thing is weird though. D:
3. Lavender Brown sends Vegeta on a mission. What is it, and does it succeed?
15. If Tara had to choose sides between Michael Buckley and Edward Cullen, which would it be?
21. What is Clopin's secret?
1. Harry Potter
2. Tara
3. Aladdin
4. Michael Buckley
5. Edward Cullen
6. Clopin (Disney verison 8D)
7. Malik
8. Vegeta
9. Kylie
10. Peter Pan
11. Mulan
12. Lavender Brown
1. Who would make a better college professor, Clopin or Mulan? What subjects would (s)he teach?
Disney!Clopin seems to have a pathological urge to narrate things, so... he'd teach, um. Philosophy. 8D ("Who is the monster and who is the man?")
2. Do you think Michael Buckley is hot? How hot?
XD I guess he's cute... I like his enthusiasm? His knee-exhibitionist thing is weird though. D:
3. Lavender Brown sends Vegeta on a mission. What is it, and does it succeed?
She asks him to pound Ron into the ground post-break up. It succeeds, along with Voldemort's plan to decimate Hogwarts. D8
4. What is or would be Kylie's favorite book?
4. What is or would be Kylie's favorite book?
It starts with "Clockwork" and ends with "Orange."
5. Would it make more sense for Tara to swear fealty to Clopin, or the other way around?
5. Would it make more sense for Tara to swear fealty to Clopin, or the other way around?
Well, in the Disney movie Clopin is king of the gypsies, and Tara is like part gypsy, and Tara has a fangirl-ish thing for him, so.... yes?
6. For some reason, Edward Cullen is looking for a roommate. Should (s)he share a studio apartment with Kylie or with Peter Pan?
6. For some reason, Edward Cullen is looking for a roommate. Should (s)he share a studio apartment with Kylie or with Peter Pan?
KYLIE. It would AMUSE me.
(In all seriousness, Peter can fly, which would make Edward less "but i r supr monster & i mite kill u by accidentz b/c i am so sparkly and awesum and sht D:" Also they can bond over never aging. D:)
7. Tara, Malik, and Lavender Brown have dinner together. Where do they go, and what do they discuss?
7. Tara, Malik, and Lavender Brown have dinner together. Where do they go, and what do they discuss?
They go to a new age-y vegetarian places because Tara's vegetarian and I think Malik's whole family is too? Anyway. Tara quizzes Malik over Egyptian culture because she likes stuff like that, and Lavender tries flirtatious things on him. All Malik really wants to do is eat and get out, but he answers Tara politely and is nice-ish Lavender. And somehow they find out Lavender's a witch and Malik's all like "OMGWTF D8" and Tara's like "8DDDD" and Lavender tries to give them a tour of Hogwarts. But Tara's a muggle so she realizes she forgot something and leaves, but later se remembers she was supposed to being touring a magic school in Britain and she's all "DAMMIT DD<" and casts a gypsy curse on Malik and Lavender, but Hogwarts has like fifty jillion anti-curse things on it and they're all "LALALA~ 8D", and Tara's not REALLY magic anyway, and I don't know what the hell I'm talking about anymore.
8. Aladdin challenges Peter Pan to a duel. What happens?
8. Aladdin challenges Peter Pan to a duel. What happens?
Aladdin, being bigger, has the upper hand at first, but Peter calls the lost boys to help him. Jasmine's tiger eats them, and Peter flies away. Aladdin pursues on his carpet, but he has a hard time fighting while standing on a carpet. At the last minute genie shows up and Peter is OWNINATED. But they're both courageous Disney heroes, so they shake hands and make friends. :x
9. If Harry Potter stole Vegeta's most precious possession, how would (s)he get it back?
9. If Harry Potter stole Vegeta's most precious possession, how would (s)he get it back?
Vegeta would incinerate Harry. There wouldn't even be dust left. (Incidentally, Vegeta's priced possession would also be destroyed, and Vegeta would stay in his eternally pissed off state.)
10. Suggest a title for a story in which Malik and Lavender Brown both attain what they most desire.
10. Suggest a title for a story in which Malik and Lavender Brown both attain what they most desire.
Love, Revenge, and Smiting Pharaohs
11. What kind of plot device would you use if you wanted Michael Buckley and Harry Potter to work together?
11. What kind of plot device would you use if you wanted Michael Buckley and Harry Potter to work together?
Harry Potter has a huge crush on Miley Cyrus and watches all What the Buck shows about her, and eventually subscribes. He's the some-special-number-th subscriber and gets to meet Michael as a prize or something yaaaaay. 8DD
12. If Malik visited you for the weekend, how would you get along?
12. If Malik visited you for the weekend, how would you get along?
We wouldn't talk much for the most part, but I'd keep playing music late and night and eventually he'd have a fit at me. u.u;
13. If you could command Vegeta to perform any one task or service for you, what would it be?
13. If you could command Vegeta to perform any one task or service for you, what would it be?
Destroying my enemies. D:<>
15. If Tara had to choose sides between Michael Buckley and Edward Cullen, which would it be?
Prooobably Michael. Unless it was sides in some type of physical fight. Tara's not stupid, yo.
16. What might Peter Pan shout while charging into battle?
16. What might Peter Pan shout while charging into battle?
A BIRD CRY OF RAAAAAGGGEEEEEE
17. If you chose a song to represent Vegeta, which song would you choose?
17. If you chose a song to represent Vegeta, which song would you choose?
ICH WILL (no, I have no idea what it's about, but it's angry and called I WANT so... eh.)
18. Harry Potter, Clopin, and Peter Pan are having dim sum at a Chinese restaurant. There is only one scallion pancake left, and they all reach for it at the same time. Who gets to eat it?
18. Harry Potter, Clopin, and Peter Pan are having dim sum at a Chinese restaurant. There is only one scallion pancake left, and they all reach for it at the same time. Who gets to eat it?
Clopin and Peter are both try to sneakily take it, but Clopin's older and wiser and more experienced and gets it first. But just as he's about to take a bite, Harry's like "PFT ACCIO PANCAKE." And then Clopin sings a song of mourning and Peter's like "hmm i see" and Harry's like "WHAT THE HELL, MAN D8"
19. What might be a good pick-up line for Tara to use on Peter Pan?
19. What might be a good pick-up line for Tara to use on Peter Pan?
"I'll be your mother, little boy. ;DDDDD"
HAHA TARA YOU PEDO.
20. What would Edward Cullen most likely be arrested for?
Sparkling in public. Or, you know... eating someone.
20. What would Edward Cullen most likely be arrested for?
Sparkling in public. Or, you know... eating someone.
21. What is Clopin's secret?
He's actually a pedophile. -serious theory-
22. If Mulan and Kylie were racing to a destination, who would get there first?
22. If Mulan and Kylie were racing to a destination, who would get there first?
Mulan would take a horse, and Kylie would have a car. You'd think Kylie would win, but her mom would have the GPS and she'd have lost her cell phone, and she'd end up thirty miles outside of Toronto with a flat tire.
23. There is no 23.
24. "Harry Potter and Kylie reluctantly team up to save the world from the threat posed by Michael Buckley's sinister secret organization. Mulan volunteers to help them, but it is later discovered that Mulan is actually a spy for Michael. Meanwhile, Michael has kidnapped Lavender Brown in an attempt to force their surrender. Following the wise advice of Edward Cullen, they seek out Aladdin, who gives them what they need to complete their quest." What title would you give this fic?
23. There is no 23.
24. "Harry Potter and Kylie reluctantly team up to save the world from the threat posed by Michael Buckley's sinister secret organization. Mulan volunteers to help them, but it is later discovered that Mulan is actually a spy for Michael. Meanwhile, Michael has kidnapped Lavender Brown in an attempt to force their surrender. Following the wise advice of Edward Cullen, they seek out Aladdin, who gives them what they need to complete their quest." What title would you give this fic?
And You Thought the Nigahiga Movie Was Bad
25. If you had to walk home through a bad neighbourhood late at night, would you feel safer in the company of Malik or Vegeta?
25. If you had to walk home through a bad neighbourhood late at night, would you feel safer in the company of Malik or Vegeta?
...toughie. While I'm pretty sure both of them could take care of any shady types, which one would care enough to help me if I got into to trouble? DD8 Ummm.... I think I'll choose.... Harry Potter. 8D
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Waiting for Go-freaking-dot
Texting.
Mrs. Theatre: I wonder what beckett would think abt that?
I wonder indeed.
My version of the movie skips. Some parts are pixilated. You can't always hear the dialogue. I don't know; the file's corrupted or something. But do I care? No.
Because Waiting for Go-freaking-dot is on my iPod. My i-freaking-Pod. Yesssssss.
Will I ever watch it?
Probably not.
Will I ever even look at it?
Only to show it off.
So what's the point?
WAITING FOR GODOT IS ON MY IPOD YESSSSS.
I will carry it with me everywhere, all 1.04 GB of it. I will have it by my side through thick and thin, and I only have it to say I have it.
It's all rather absurd.
Friday, July 3, 2009
NORRRRRRRRRR Enter Shadrack. 8D
After banging my head against a wall for hours trying to get through the next chronological part, I gave up and skipped ahead. OLD WIZARD IS DEAD, FOLKS.
Even less proofing than last time ahead. 8D
--
It took three months for Lord Catherram to find a new wizard. Wizard Shadrack NAMEISH of NAMINGTON was young, but he had served three years as an assistant to the prestigious Wizard HURR and came with generous recommendations. Phrases like “an expert in the fineries of magic,” “competent, clever and highly skilled,” and “exceptional understanding of charms and counter-spells” litter the replies to Lord Catherram’s letters of inquiries. He was hired immediately.
Shadrack appeared on the palace doorstep one afternoon in early June. He was sweating under his emerald robes and the heavy bag on his back, but he still managed to smile at the homely maid that answered the door. She took one look at him, and ran screaming into the interior of the manor.
He had that effect on women, he supposed. A pretty young girl in town had done the same thing at the sight of him. Women of Norr must not be used to proper, handsome gentlemen.
Nonplussed, Shadrack stepped through the door the maid had left open. Like the rest of the town, the antechamber was barren and dull and full of grays. There was no carpet on the stone floor, and no decoration on the wall, save a crooked good luck charm carved into a piece of ash-colored wood that have been hung seemingly at random on the far wall. It was also silent. The cries of the maid had faded, and Shadrack could hear no signs of human life.
At least it was cool inside, he though as he closed the entrance door. With no other course of action available to him, Shadrack wondered deeper into the house.
The manor continued to be colorless and cold, but every once in a while he encountered a hint of its inhabitants. The smell of bread baking, and black leather-bound book someone left on one of the deep-set windowsills (the perfect spot to sit and read while enjoying the sun and not the heat, he noted). And finally, he heard a voice.
At least, he thought it was a voice. It sounded like screeching, dipping low and then struggling up high again, as if it was trying to sing. Shadrack frowned and adjusted one of his gold rings. The letters he’d received from the town lord had spoken excessively of demons, and so Shadrack quickened he step as he followed the racket.
Turning a corner, he found the source of the noise through an opened doorway. It was girl in a rather hideous hat, sitting primly on a chair with her face strained with concentration and her mouth gaping in… well, he supposed it was song. There was an dumpy older woman, maybe forty or so, sitting across from her with her back to him, conducting. There was a dusty piano pushed to the side of the room, hopelessly ignored.
As he stepped into the room, the girl with the hat abruptly stopped the her unholy noise-making and gaped at him in awe. Women of this town certainly were depraved, Shadrack thought, and he made a note to help them.
Then the older woman turned around.
“HOW DARE YOU,” she screamed, and managed to work her shoe off her foot to throw at him with considerable force. It hit him squarely in the stomach. Shadrack winced and unconsciously pressed his hand against the injured area.
“Ma’am–” He had never expected violence from his throng of admirers.
“Who do you think you are?” she shrieked and stood up, just as the girl with the voice of a banshee leaned forward and pleaded, “Mother!”
The woman rounded on him, glaring through a pair of steel glasses. “I supposed you think you’re clever, strutting around in your fancy green clothes, like you’re a bush or something; well I’ll have you know we do NOT tolerate this kind of behaviour here at the palace–”
“Mother!”
“You’re endangering us all, young man. Just who do you think you are?” the woman repeated. Shadrack opened his mouth to reply, but the girl cut up off, a certain amount of worry in her eyes.
“Mother, I think he’s our new wizard.”
The woman’s face shifted form a look of fury to one of horror.
“But– his clothes–green!” she stuttered.
Shadrack was decidedly confused.
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