The Crap I've Written

Because I haven't really completed anything since Obsession, and, as a few of you (coughJULIEcough) know, the first draft was such crap that I am required to begin again, I don't have anything to share. So I'm going to review from memory stories I've tried to write throughout my childhood.

1. Small Things Become Big. I was somewhere between 4 1/2 and 6 1/2 when I 'wrote' this thing. It was more or less a picture book, stapled together. One page had seed and next to it a flower, and a caption. And then there was a baby, and next to it, a girl, and a caption. You get the idea. A raindrop and a puddle, an acorn and a tree. There were five or six pages like that, plus a cover and a back cover. I stapled it all up one Sunday afternoon and 'hot damn! let's get this thing to scholastic pronto!'

2. The Nighttime Ring. I got one page into this, but I was aiming for one hundred and fifty. I was eight years old when I started this, my second summer of camp, and I had started telling everyone and anyone that I was 'writing a book and wanted to be a writer.' I was obsessed with Harry Potter at the time, and the idea of a magic ring that lit up at night time just seemed very cool to me. I can remember a dog named Tiger and a girl eating grilled cheese for breakfast, and an evil genie who wasn't really evil, she was just angry because a sorcerer made a lion eat her legs off every day and then they grew back and she couldn't remember her parents. Yeah. Nice.

3. Blood Mountain. This was based off a dream. I was eleven or twelve and had just gotten back from a vacation to a Maryland ski resort, and decided to ship a girl named Hail to a ski resort where she meets all these famous celebrities and then must battle a bunch of zombie things in the snow, I dunno. Somehow, all the guys looked just like my celebrity crushes, and had strikingly similar names. Coincidence!

4. Total Crap. Yes. I named a story total crap. I set my friends and I as characters and made us fall in love with the actors we were destined to marry. Now you know. The humiliation is going to cease now.

A Shadow You're Seeing That She's Chasing

[alright, this piece is vaguely complicated...vaguely. it's another character piece, and the first part is told from the point of view of Elle, Lila's mother. the next two are from Lila's point of view. it's another sentimental-ish piece. i incorporated a lot of lyrics into it. have fun.]

The silence was suffocating.

It had a pulse, a heartbeat. It lapped against me, like waves against
an isolated rock. I was a boulder off the coast of Cornwall, close enough to the
mainland to be recognized as part of it, but not connected in any way. The water
was the silence and sadness, washing over me, preparing to swallow me whole. I
couldn't fight the current, I couldn't struggle to keep myself floating any
longer. The ocean was going to swallow me whole, and I had no reason to fight
it. What reason was there for someone like me, away from the mainland, alone in
the water?

Lila, she was a bird. She had laughter and song, she was close to the
sun and the sky. She could go wherever she wanted and nothing held her back. The
sadness had no grasp on her; she was far away from its reach. She had no time or
care for the rocks and the waves of lonliness. She would sing and dance her way
through life, away from me. She would follow the sound of drums and guitar
calling her away, in time with a rhythm only she could feel, a rhythm coming
from inside her. She would smile as if everything in the world were in the right
place, tilt her head back and sing along to the Clash, or Joni Mitchell, or Bob
Dylan.

Where was she to sing now? The flat was so empty; the walls grew
higher, arcing over me, towering above me, looming overhead. Everything was so
far away. Everything was gone. And there I was, on the wide, empty shore, gray
waters, gray sands, gray sky. Everything was gray, save for the twinkling light,
the faint glimmer of something beautiful. And there he was, tambourine in hand,
beckoning me forward, calling me to follow him. To take me on a trip upon his
magic swirling ship. My senses had been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip,
my toes too numb to step. I was ready to go anywhere, ready for it all to fade.
He called me to the waves; I promised to go under it.

Lila would be fine. Lila was the sun. The sun that lit the surface of
the ocean, the sun that would never be swallowed. But I, I would be swallowed.
The cold overwhelmed me. He had pulled me under, his current wrapped around me,
holding me beneath the surface. I could only stare up at the smiling sun, its
cold white light, and then its sudden burst of warmth before it blinded me
entirely.

"Mum?"

*

"Mum?"

I leaned over her, her pale moon face staring up at me. It was blank.
Glazed with tears. It was too pale. Her eyes had been bloodshot, but they too
were now pale. Their light blue had been stripped of its starlight, the faint,
twinkling glow that light up when she cried and dimmed in the sunlight. Dead
eyes.

She was dead.

Vomit, of all things, leaked out of the corners of her lips. The pill
bottle had fallen to the floor, the wine had been spilled down her front. Her
antidepressants. Her anxiety treatment. And the wine- the horrid white wine she
drank, until even her tears ran the same color. She'd drowned in it, dragged
down to the depths of the ocean by the medicated weights around her ankles. She
was gone. I'd lost her. Let her slip away. She was away from me now, swept away
by the cold current.

"Elle gave me a bell, what's going- Lila?"

Dad was behind me. She had called him? Wanted him to see her like this?
Her spirit, her body, broken? Broken by him. She wanted him to understand her
sadness. She had planned this. This wasn't one of her passing whimsies, her
sudden sparks, to pick up a paintbrush or belt out a ballad. This wasn't a
sudden wave of sadness. A mistake. She didn't slip away. She'd left. She'd left
me.

"I don't know," I found myself saying. My voice was too frantic, too
high, too panicked. It didn't match the icy cold feeling in me, like artic water
in my veins. "I just got back from Cornwall, and she's here and she-,"


Arms pulled me away from the room, a hand turned my face away. But I
could feel her behind me, I could feel the weight of her ghost, like a giant
magnet on the sofa, pulling everything toward it. It wasn't like she hadn't
thought of it before; when she stared out into the white empty sky and I could
see her soul fly out the window, disappearing into the blankness. It happened,
in the summertime. It happened in the morning. It happened in winter. It
happened on Tuesdays. It happened all the time. She got the urge to go, the same
way I did, the same want to run away and keep running and never reach the
horizon and never look back. She got the urge for going. I guess it was her time
to go.

*

The silence was suffocating.

I couldn't got into the Church. I had never before been in a Church.
For all I knew, neither had she. Why would they bring her, after she died, when
she'd never cared to go while she was alive? It was unnaturally cold for August,
and the chill hung over me like cobwebs. The quiet, though, was cellophane,
clinging to my face and nothing I could do could peel it away.

Her body was in there, but she wasn't. She was somewhere else. A crow,
lifted into the dead sky, floating away to an artic shore. Following the sound
of cries and whispers only she could hear. Beckoned into the ocean and dragged
by the current. There was nothing she could do to fight it. There was nothing I
could do to bring her back; I would be lost in the waters, sailing forever
through the other haunted, lost souls.

I wouldn't be lost like her. I still had a horizon to run to, a dawn
coming for me. I would fly free from her; she was away from me. She wasn't here.
So I did not have to drown in her. I could fly free.

She was gone. I had to let her go.

Meeting Mary

[here is yet another 'vee' piece, the first, actually. much different tone than the other but it's got nostalgic eh...value to me. importance. i can't remember the word. anyway.]

Meeting Mary

At thirteen years old, I looked so odd and uncomfortable no one would have
been surprised if I had told them I was raised at a laboratory, or hospital, or
desert island with only monkeys for company and coconut milk to live off
of.

I was already my full height- five feet four inches-, which I would remain
the rest of my life, but I must have weighed forty pounds, and was mostly leg
with a short, flat torso and spindly arms. My looker years had yet to come, but
at the time, my features could be compared to those of a cross between a cat and
stork- unrelenting gray eyes, highly arched brows, a wide forehead, slim nose,
pointed chin, and pursed lips always kept in an indifferent line. To be quite
honest, I looked and felt nothing more than unhappy. Which I was. School was
hell, home was worse. I could not relax- which explains why, in the few
photographs I have of that time, why I was so stiff and suspicious-looking. That
year, my mother’s big cheat was Archie (Arsie, to me- he was a complete arse),
and my father took to hosting several parties, if only to keep my mother at
home, and not with the Arse.

Parties were miserable, in my opinion. Stella (my mum) liked to dress me up
in ridiculous outfits and style my hair like I was a doll and show me off (for
what ever ridiculous reason) to all the important and equally as stiff as I
acquaintances of her and my father. But I learned things at each and every one
of those horrible parties- people are liars; stupid or nasty children (of which
there were many at these parties) should not be cut any slack because they are
going to end up stupid or nasty adults and I will be forced to deal with them;
marriage is not something I ever will be interested in; bathtubs are lovely
hiding spots; and adults love to fornicate in other people’s bedrooms. But there
was one party, in August, as the summer died and the days grew cooler, that I
would never forget.

It was not held in my miserable home, the Manor of Respected Sir Sheldon
Heath and his wife. It was held in Paris, a romantic city by any standard, in
the home of my mother’s sister-in-law, known to me as Aunt Mona. I can’t say I
liked or disliked her- she was as uptight as any adult, but she didn’t treat me
like an idiot, and she had a huge library. My father had just sold her the
Parisian house, and she could find any excuse to drink wine. A new house was as
good as any, I suppose. My mother had dolled me up in a ridiculous purple frock
with big black buttons down the front, with stockings on my legs and shiny Mary
Jane’s on my feet. Worst of all, she had tied a horrific plum bow in my hair; it
was simple, but I was thirteen and by no means interested in the least amount of
frill. Still, several adults declared me a lovely child, if only for the fact
that I was quiet and intelligent and polite.

“Hello, Mona, darling,” my mother and aunt exchanged a quick peck on the
cheek and a few words of greeting. I stayed quiet at Stella’s side as she
presented me to Mona, who smiling shook my hand before swooping down to plant
her lips briefly on my cheek. No sooner had she stood up then she began waving
at someone behind me. “Oh dear!” she called. “This way!”

I turned to see another woman approaching, a young girl at her side, who
stared at me with wide, fearful eyes. In her hands she clutched a jar of round
candies, gripped in a such a way that if someone were to try to pry her fingers
off, they’d need a crowbar. My brows rose as the pair of them, both quite
similar in looks (much like my mother and I, almost mirror copies, only twenty
four years and four inches apart, when my mum wasn’t wearing heels). They both
had soft brown hair that fell in waves, round eyes, and soft features.

“Stella, this is-,”

I was much too bored to pay attention to another introduction. With
furrowed brows, I turned my eyes to the girl and the jar of candies clutched to
her chest. What was with that? What sort of person, child or not, carried with
them a glass jar of colorful sweets? Under my incredulous glance, the girl
seemed to shrink into her mother, who only then acknowledged her existence. “Oh,
Mona, you know my daughter. This is Mary. And that must be the lovely Octavia,
am I correct?”

Smiling down at me, the woman looked much to nice to be in the company of
my mother. I blinked up at her. Poor thing.“Yes, ma’am. How do you do?” And I
shook her hand and prayed that Stella didn’t read my willing politeness as a
threat- which, she would have, had Mona not distracted her.

“Oh, Vee, you’ve never met Mary before? Oh, I know you two will hit it off.
Mary talks enough for you, I’m sure,” Mona grinned and winked at Mary. I was
certain then that Mona was an idiot- I was fairly certain that this Mary was a
mute. Begrudgingly, my mother dismissed me.

“Why don’t you show Mary around the house, Octavia? You’ve seen it before,
plenty of times,”

Does this prove what a lying sack of shit my mother was? I had never
before seen the house; but earlier, I had noted a deck from the outside, and it
had to be much quieter and cooler out there, as the sun set and the sleepy
streets of Paris dimmed, then in here with a few dozen adults making small talk
and sipping alcohol and tea. “Come on,” I said quietly, and without a word of
opposition, Mary trotted behind me as I sped off on the sticks that were my
legs. I slunk into the kitchen, and out the sliding glass doors onto the deck. I
leaned against the wrought iron railing, sliding out of my uncomfortable, tight
shoes.

“I hate parties,” I said passionately, staring at the French horizon. The
sun had begun to sink, along with any hopes of me surviving that night. I’d end
up butchering all the guests with a steak knife…or diving off the deck
head-first onto the pavement below. “Especially business parties. What is there
to celebrate about business? What is there to celebrate? Happiness cannot be
expressed in a party, and a party cannot make anyone happy, or closer, or
whatever these stupid things are meant to do. No one enjoys them, anyway. They
all complain about having to go to parties, when they’d much rather stay home
and drink, rather than do it in the company of others, where they have to reign
their actions in. Which no one wants to do, especially when they have a glass of
wine or mug of beer in their hands. Though,” I eyed Mary dully. “By the time you
understand what I’m talking about, you’ll likely be like the rest of them.
You’re way to little to be drug to these things. What did your mum do- offer you
that as a bribe?” I nodded to the jar of sweets. She blinked at me
blankly.

“I’m not to little for these things,” she said with a light Irish accent.
“I’m twelve. And no, they weren’t a bribe.” The way she said it made it sound
like ‘Duh, you idiot.’ I gaped at her. Twelve years old? She had to be yanking
my chain- she looked barely nine, let alone twelve. Being twelve made her a year
younger than me, but I felt decades ahead of her. I felt decades ahead of most
people.

“Me dog likes them, but they make him sick. And he’s fat enough
already.”

Something about the matter-of-fact way she said it made me laugh. Lightly
and briefly, but very rarely did I laugh. Especially at that age; I laughed so
rarely then, you’d never recognize the sound as mine. “But you can’t be twelve
years old. You’re so little looking.”

She gave me an appraising glance, looking both affronted and suspicious.
“Just because you’re about twenty three doesn’t mean everyone else is
little.”

That deserved a giggle as well. For one thing, I did not look twenty-three,
and I knew it. But I suppose, compared to the youth and innocence of Mary, I
appeared to be jaded, old, worn. I inclined my head as she opened the jar,
popped a candy into her mouth, and munched away.

“I suppose you’ll want to try one, eh?” she asked, shivering, though it
wasn’t that cold. Before I could answer, she held one out to me. Why not? I
thought, taking it and slipping it past my lips. Holy. Hell. I spat the thing
out, and watched the bright yellow sweet drop down to the pavement and crack
apart. My tongue burned, as if someone had dumped highly concentrated acid and
lemon juice into my mouth at the same time, followed by ten gallons alcohol-free
vodka. I waved my hand frantically, as if trying to push air into my
mouth.

“What the ‘ell wath that thing?” I screeched, my tongue hanging out of my
mouth. Mary didn’t answer; she was roaring with laughter, falling down on the
deck, still clutching the jar in a death-grip. Her face was quickly turning
blue, and through her giggles, she began to choke on the sweet. She turned, on
all fours, trying to cough it out. Without thinking, I slammed my hand on her
back. What a stupid thing to do. What good did it do?

The force of it caused Mary to fall on her stomach; the sweet fell right
out of her lips, rolled across the wood, and fell into one of the cracks. Tears
streamed down her tomato-red face, and she dissolved into giggles. A chuckle
escaped my lips, turning to full-on laughter. Within a matter of seconds, she
and I were beside ourselves with laughter, to the point where she couldn’t
breath. Eventually, she regained her breath, and then we would laugh again until
the cycle repeated itself.

“You should have finished it!” she said when we had calmed down. “It’s
really sour, at first, but if you keep with it, it’s awesome. The best candy
you’ve ever had.”

I scoffed. “Really sour?” I exclaimed. “I thought it was going to burn a
hole in my tongue! It’s the candy of death!” I flailed by arms for emphasis, but
all I did was cause Mary to double over with laughter once again, and I soon
followed in suit.

Most of the evening was spent like that- we would calm down, then someone
would do or say thing ridiculous (usually her, sashaying around the deck in
impersonation of Aunt Mona, or me, attempting to be clever and sounding like a
complete fool. It was, in the end, a wonderful night; we stayed on that deck
long after the sun set. I had never had so much fun in my entire life. When I
had first met Mary MacDonald, I felt as if we were so different, there was so
much separating us, that we would have nothing in common and no common ground to
stand on. But that night, I regressed; I walked backward, moving back in time
until the gap between her twelve years and my thirteen seemed so small and
insignificant.

And on the other end, Mary impressed me that night. Before my eyes, she
changed from a little child whom the adults left me to baby-sit to a person with
thoughts and feelings and ideas that truly made me see things in a different
way.

When it must have been midnight, my dad stumbled out onto the deck,
shit-faced and bleary eyed. “We’re staying with your Aunt Mona, Vee,” he
slurred. “We’re- taking a short holiday in Paris before you go back to
school.”

And Mary’s mother came cackling behind him. “We’re staying here for a week
or two, Mar.”

They both asked us how we were doing, and went on and on for a few minutes,
but all Mary and I heard was ‘You two just keep talking and have fun.’ Which was
okay with me. When they had returned to the party, Mary and I sat down on the
cold wood, legs dangling over the side and arms keeping us plopped up. I looked
over my shoulder, at my red-faced tipsy mother, who was (while my father laughed
with my aunt and a few others) flirting drunkenly with Mona’s French man
neighbor. In a sudden, small act of defiance, I pulled my ribbon from my hair
and cast the horrid thing into the breeze. And Mary smiled at me, as if she was
proud of me. For a moment, the tables had turned, and I was the small child,
just beginning to know discover the world and all its…worldliness, and she was
my mentor, guiding me, our hands held onto the ends of a lilac ribbon as we
braved the wide world.

I’ve learned many things at parties, but that night, I learned something
that even when all else fails, and the world is going to burn a hole in your
tongue, if you stick with it long enough, it’s the best thing you’ve ever
experienced.

Old Character Piece 1

[Just to shake things up and give a break much-needed break from Desperate. This is an old character piece for one of my favorite characters, Vee. It's a journal entry, and there's a lot of back story to it, but I love the voice and some snippets of it, so here it goes.]

Could I have loved him?

I think back and I have no clue. I can’t
honestly remember if I did or not. I would love to say no; one, I never trusted
him, and two, I think I would remember something that monumental. But there are
nights when I wake up and I miss him- my lashes are wet with tears and I can
remember dreaming him up and feeling something…It could be love, it could be my
imagination’s perceptions of love. I don’t know. But there are other nights when
his wolf eyes follow me and I hate him.

He was a beautiful creature.
That I remember clearly- human beings do not deserve to be that beautiful. It
was like all the leftover pieces of heavenly beings- the traits no angel wanted-
had been molded together to form him. Of course, he is just the person I would
be attracted to- he didn’t look like anyone else, he didn’t talk like anyone
else, he didn’t act like anyone else. He wasn’t as predictable as anyone else.
No one could shake me like he could; my very core trembled and burst with every
look, touch, word. He kept me on edge and alert.

Can you blame me for
accepting his ring, then? He was promising to stay with me; security and
instability were wrapping themselves around me in the most twisted of ways. But
I have to ask myself, honestly- would I have agreed to marry him if I did not
love him? Truth be told, ‘love’ and ‘marriage’ were two deities that did not
connect in my head. Look at my parents; if there was any love in that marriage,
it died out by the time I was born. So maybe I did not love him.

What I
do remember is the hate that coursed through me as soon as I realized it had
been him- my parents were laying there on the cold tile floor of my old kitchen,
and he had been responsible for taking their lives. As I am responsible for
taking his. He said to me- they were fools. They stood in His way. We- that
unholy syllable- would stand strong by Him, together. His eyes fell once- his
pearlescent, piercing, too-pale eyes faltered only one time. I think he knew,
then, what was in my mind.

He would not stand with strong, not with me,
not by Him, not at all. His body crumpled, falling between theirs- the world’s
most absurd, beautiful creation broken, dead on the floor of the Heath Manor.
His eyes stared up at me, still alert, still shocked, still searching. Even
death did not dim his eyes. Even death did not shake him from me- my entire life
has been determined by him. He follows me everywhere, watching me, darkening my
days and stalking me in my sleep, whispering in my ear during every sacred
silent moment-

Could I have loved him?

desperate - part II

Ding.




Ding.

A window popped up on Arielle's screen, announced by a digital ringing. New Messages from i.play.pinball x3 !



Arielle smiled. There was only one person in her entire circle of acquaintences that played pinball, let alone advertised that they played pinball, let alone made a list of serial screen names about the fact that they played pinball, and that was Cadance. Cadance, self-declared Screen Name Queen, had more instant messenger identities than Paris Hilton had shoes, for she was constantly growing bored with her old names. Arielle clicked the window opened, instinctively adding this new Cadance alias to her buddy list.

Legally Blonde 2?!
I'm jealous.

Letting her fingers dance out her reply, Arielle wheezed a laugh. "L........o........l. What's....going....on.....there?"

A pause. Ding.

We're up to our elbows in frog guts.
Well, we were.
Now we're up to our elbows in grease-flavored cardboard. Wheeee cafeteria fries!
I haven't decided which is worse.

Fifth period lunch. The highlight of Arielle's day, that today, she was deprived of. "Frog....guts? Now.....I'm....jealous."

Fifth period lunch was a forty-seven-minute block of wonder, brought about by uncensored jokes, unlimited volume, and Kellen. Kellen himself was a six-foot-two block of wonder, topped with the softest brown hair imaginable and eyes like the Adriatic. Fifth period lunch was the only time of day that Arielle found herself within ten feet of Kellen while his girlfriend was nowhere to be found. Fifth period lunch was a wonderful, wonderful time.

Everyone wants to know where you are.
And why you're partying without them.
I assured them that you're on your deathbed.
They're satiated.

"Well....isn't....that......sweet.....of them." Arielle hesitated. Before she could ask Cadance for a play-by-play recount of everything that had occured in her absence, there was a Ding.

Kellan wants to be sure you've left all your worldly possessions to him.
I told him I get your pants.
He said Damn. Lmao.

The Hallelujah Chorus was having a jam session in Arielle's soul. She moved her cursor to Kellan's screenname, mentally noting to thank Cadance profusely when he wasn't around.

"It's......heartwarming......how.....my.......death........is......a........fiscal...........advancement.....for you. Gold-digger."

A pause. Ding. New Message from Kell215.

LoL. Love U.

"You....still.....don't.......get.......my.....pants." Arielle slapped her palm to her forehead. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, DUMBASS!

Aww. ):

Arielle sighed. The twenty-first century came along with a new method of torture, and it was AIM.



[So....yes. Not so proud of this part; less writing and more digital dialogue. Well, more groundwork has been laid out. Sorry for the wait, busy busy busy. More coming. Hopefully better.]

desperate - part I

Click.

Click.

Click.

Clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick.

And then began the profanities.

There were a lot of things that Arielle Apostolos did not appreciate on Tuesdays at three in the afternoon. One was nausea. Another was headaches. A third was unending, excruciating pain. But most of all, on that particular Tuesday at three in the afternoon, when nausea, headaches, and excruciating pain had been boxed into a neat little package of discomfort and tied up in a formaldehyde-laced ribbon, she deeply did not appreciate a truckload of the utter crap dubbed day time television. Even On-Demand featured nothing but sappy love ditties, and, on the other end of the Cinema Garbage spectrum, slasher thrillers- two genres that could only make her more sick.

Tossing the TV remote to her feet, Arielle pulled her laptop out from beneath the couch and let it buzz unpleasantly to life. It was days like this that instant messenger was her best friend, because it was her link to her best friends. With a click of the keyboard she exited out of AIM Dashboard, uninterested in the daily headline of Creepy Banjo Kid From Deliverance- Only Made Three Movies Since!

Whoever wrote that was having a slower day than she was.

Somewhere between the Rocky Statue and Cheesesteaks, Philadelphia should have been famous for its rate of students who spent their school day with their eyes glued to side-kick screens. Not one for statistics, Arielle would have found that disgusting any other day. In fact, most days, she publicly protested the use of phones with full keyboards by singing Barry Manilow at the top of her lungs whenever the piece of technological waste was brought out into the open. But that day, she would step off her ethical soap box and cut the instant-messengers a break; she now understood first-hand the dire need for electronic communication.

XxARxEExLxX - bored, sick, and in desperate need for mental stimulation before Legally Blonde Two fries my brain completely.

Well. She had put her plea for digital interaction out there, and now it was time to wait for someone- anyone at all- to reply, be her virtual White Knight in her damsel in distress moment. Curled up in Snoopy pajamas and knee socks plastered with Bart Simpson's head, Arielle let her eyes glide down her buddy list, stopping at one name...

...No. She dared not message him.

[yayyyyy crappy cliff hanger! if anyone has any ideas where this is going...or gives two cents...please let me know. :))) i'll be posting the continuation of this...piece...eventually! perhaps even tonight! huzzah! cheers!]