narrative

I’ve been standing in line for seven hours. Well, maybe I haven’t been standing for seven hours. I’ve been going back and forth between standing and sitting for seven hours in this cramped Border’s next to the Price Chopper in West Lebanon, New Hampshire. It has been five minutes since the clock turned from July 20th to July 21st. It has been my birthday for five minutes. During those five minutes, roughly twenty-five of the same book have been purchased, and I’m almost up.

I’m an easy crier, which is both super embarrassing and extremely awkward. It’s not that I go around looking for sad things waiting for my eyes to swell up with water so people can watch with uncomfortable looks on their faces. I honestly just cannot control it. I cry when I’m really sad, I cry when I’m really happy. Most of the time, I can keep it in check. I hold it in so it goes away, or I just wait until I’m not surrounded by people who will judge me. But, like I said, I can only do that most of the time.

My english class has to write about a moment when we were happier than we ever have been...ever. Here's a few ideas I have.
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I drink tea through pewter straws from cups laced with ampersands. Green tea on Mondays & Fridays, black tea every time else. I’ve never really been much for the herbal variety. Herbal tea tastes like being someone you don’t want to be. My handwriting mimics the tea. On green days it’s full of cursive letters & swirly “y”s & on black days it’s blocky & full & caffeinated.

"Lissa, you can't do this," said James, grabbing my shoulder and turning me around to face him.
"James, stop telling me what I can and can't do," I said, pinning him up against the nearest wall. I realized that everyone's attention was now on me.
"I've had enough. I can decide what I'm going to do by myself."
"Lissa-"
"I'm going. I'll see you later," I said, and shoving him once more against the wall, I turned and headed off to Riley's.
"Lissa."
I turned on my heels, my anger flaring.

A short story by Joshua Morris, a Young Composer at LCCMF 2010. Based on several key words associated with an interpretative drawing and expression.

Sailing through the night seas, its pale blankets drifting and trailing along it like the lullaby of death, there is but one ship that is at darkness. Floating, flying like the sheet of an August breeze, just maybe, you may see it. Just maybe, you may hear it.

You may hear that soft, painful voice, which dances along the moon-kissed, ocean wind. It's melody soothing the aching heart, cooling that burning fire that rages within the mind, taking away your last doubts like the gentlest of breezes.

The train of her long white dress trails behind her on the newly uncovered path, long hidden by winter. Small, dainty feet inside small, dainty shoes pick their way across cobbled stones on the way to her father's golden garden. Her artistic hand rests on the wooden palisade as she watches a bird fly around a tree branch. With a small wake of wind behind her, she moves on, traversing yet another small path. Finally, she comes to the main gate. It is wooden, with gold plate. She brushes long brunette hair out of her face as she tucks a pale hand into an inner dress pocket.

We spent every remaining day I had left in town together, and we developed a great friendship that will last a lifetime. As I got on the moving truck to go, Gorgie and I exchanged addresses and promised to write as much as possible. We hugged, and I got into the truck, and we drove away. I looked at the address Gorgie gave me and realized something. That address was my old houses address. Gorgie had bought my old house. I knew my stargazing spot would remain a stargazing spot, and I knew this was going to be just fine.

. At first I thought it was a wolf, but then it got closer and I saw it was a girl, and as I saw her even closer, I recognized her. It was Gorgie Lane, she was a girl in my class, we weren’t really friends, more like acquaintances, and had just came to our school this year, she was really nice, one of the nicest girls in the entire school, but we never really clicked. As I watched her more closely, I saw she was walking towards ME. She slowly made her way into my back yard and sat next to me. “Hi” she said, shyly. “Um, hi” I said almost as shy. Silence.

And what if I don’t fit in my new school? What if they think I’m weird because I like to tell the stars my problems? I mean, it’s just not fair! What if the people who buy our house put a hot tub or something right over the place I have spent sleeping under the stars, making up constellation and plotting my career as an astronomer! “Why do grown- ups always think we can just change everything in a snap and not have a problem with it?” I ask the stars. “’Oh, you will make TONS of friends, honey!’” I imitated my mother’s high voice comically to the stars. “It’s just so ignorant.” I muttered.

“Stella! Dinner’s almost ready!” said my mom I walked downstairs to dinner. “It’s your favorite tonight, tacos!” I know she was trying to cheer me up about the move, but it wasn’t really working. “Thanks Mom” I tried my best to sound cheery, I really did, but it still didn’t come out right.

My eyelids flickered open at the start of the beginning of our boat cruise in Greece. I was awoken by the sound of my mother banging on a stainless steel pan with a metal ladle and yelling our names in a high pitched voice. "Hurry up! We don't want to miss the plane!" Richard rolled over and covered his head with another pillow. Victoria and I struggled into our clothes, then hastily dressed Jess. My mother marched upstairs with a full roasting pan of water. She stomped into Richie's room and, ignoring his plaintive yells, dumped the contents on his head. Us girls winced as he shivered.

The gun was cool and even in my palm. I looked up at the cottage cheese ceiling, it sank down to my shoulders and lay it's weight onto me. The walls buckled and fell in shambles at my feet. My father's pragmatic mind shone off of the glass covering a family photo. I was seven. The scars, contusions, were there. Invisible though. They were invisible. As I've grown, nine years later, they have risen to the skin as a body rising to the top of the ocean.

(From Felicity's point of view)
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Flinging the car door open,
I rush to get in the driver's seat.
I have to get there.
And I have to get there now.
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Arriving at the hospital, I run frantically down one of the hallways.
'Room 281,' I had been told.
I scan all the numbers above the doors.
"264, 271, 278....Here it is; 281."
I reach slowly for the doorknob.
Who knows what I will find inside?

"Don't forget the sunscreen!" My mother's yells filled the small house. All five of us were scrambling around, filling our suitcases with all the stuff we might even remotely need tomorrow. "And the glass jars!" my mother screeched. We didn't question her statement, just grabbed the jars which used to have pasta sauce in them, wrapped them in tissue paper, and put them into a large suitcase, which was my mother's. As the sun dipped below the horizon in a brilliant array of colors, we, exhausted, sat down to dinner.

(I've recently started writing a new story and I was hoping I could get some feedback on it. Thanks!)

Prologue
August
I spent the waning hours of summer on a green swing in a playground nestled in an offshoot of School Street, where I spent more than a reasonable amount of my youth and, as it was turning out, my teenage years, as well. I wore my traditional Red Sox hat spun around backwards over my hair, and I had found myself almost entirely alone for most of the evening.

"We are going to Greece!!" My mother's exclamation left my three siblings and myself agape with wonder. "That's great!", my younger sister Vicky said. "Wonderful!", my younger brother Richard exclaimed. Even my one - year old sister, Jess, managed to bang her spoon up and down on her high chair in a form of enthusiasm. However, being the oldest child, I had to ask some questions. "When are we leaving, and for how long?", I asked in a cautious tone of voice. "Tomorrow!" my mother cried out. "WHAT?!" This time, my three siblings and myself spoke in one shocked voice.

Tropical moisture condenses down my arm in the mid-day heat of the jungle. The trees tower over me and my three siblings as we struggle towards that pinprick of light in the distance, our only hope of survival. Being the eldest, I am the girl who always has to care for the younger children. Father, in his dying moments, told me to "keep Richard, Victoria, and little Jess alive and safe". Little would I discover what a task this would turn out to be.

~I'm not sure where this came from. I know I slipped into many cliched zones, but I really tried hard not to! I'd love to hear some feedback!~

Tonight, I came home and kissed my husband flat out on the lips. I held my body up to his, breathed his scent, his cologne, the puzzled look on his face. I gazed into his blue-green eyes, lost in a stupor, and remembered the attraction in our early years. When I tried to pull away, I could feel him gently getting closer, taking advantage of the permission I had granted him.

It sucks to be the goddess of high school romances. I mean, of all the crappy things to be the immortal patron of, I get high school romance? Don't get me wrong, I mostly love immortality. I mean, I can look like any high school age girl I want--talk about making an impact at a dance! I can be the shmexiest girl alive at any given time. Most of the time, in fact, I am the shmexiest girl alive. Take that, teenage models! I get the hottest guys (I mean, minor gods are SOOOOO hot(, and the best food. Ambrosia tastes like heaven on, well, heaven, AND it has no carbs, no sugar, and it's fat free.

This is a repost of the full version of a short story I wrote last night, tentatively entitled May. Feedback is loved... I'm really not sure if this is any good or not, but I'd love it if you could let me you know. Cool. Thanks. Yeah. Oh, warning: this may be slightly disturbing to some sensitive readers, as it involves character death and emotional issues. You've been warned.

My eyes slowly opened onto a shaded room, my comforter sprawled out onto the floor like a body on a crime scene. A fresh bruise had appeared on my forearm, and I felt the sensation of the bruise splitting and tearing as I stretched my arms above my head. I blindly pulled the cord hanging from the window and let the sunlight pour into my room, illuminating the walls that surrounded me. They leaned to me as a stared up at the ceiling, debating whether to get up, or linger in bed for as long as I could get away with.

From Felicity's point of view
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Flinging the car door open,
I rush to get in the driver's seat.
I have to get to the hospital.
And I have to get there now.
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Arriving at the hospital, I go quickly to the front desk.
"Um...Excuse me, Miss. Could you tell me where
Natalie Bachelder's room is?"
Searching through some files in a folder, the woman behind the desk tells me, "Down the hall, room 281."
"Thanks."
Rushing in the direction she had pointed,

The doorbell rang.
“Alyssa, could you get that?” called my mother, from the kitchen.
“Sure,” I murmured, knowing I had no choice.
I made my way down the carpeted hallway, my high heels sinking into the plushy fabric. I could feel the newly made blisters throbbing already, and I felt a surge of rage at my mother course through me.
This was the sixteenth party this month.
I prayed that whoever was at the door was a party guest and not one of my friends, knowing that if they saw me like this, I'd never live it down.
I took a deep breath and opened the door.

"STOP IT!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "DON'T TOUCH HER!, STOP, STOP, STOP!!!" I ripped the leash from his hands. I was in the middle of a dog fight, and it wasn't going well. This man, I had known for so long. HE yes he was the one who had been doing this. Hating them. Stabbing them. Letting them slowly bleed to death in the rusty barbed wire cage he hastily put together all those years ago. Why? Why does he do this? Now, he had crossed the line. You see, he had taken someone from me. Someone very important, and I had found her. She was Kiki.

I was always hiding my "ugly" face behind my long, dark bangs during school. My eyes would never be shown to others, nor would my forehead, or part of my nose and lips.

I'd just hide them, not wanting others to see my face.

I was just sick of people judging me by my looks, so I just kept my looks from viewing point. I'd wear long-sleeves shirts, always wear long pants, even in hot summer, and refused to wear sandals or flip-flops to school, even by the wheedling of my mother.

Old shadows lingered by the sidewalks in the dark night. Lunar light reflected off of her glossy strands of butternut hair and sprung off into the haze. It was the clitter and clatter of stiletto heels that broke her balance. I remember catching her in my arms and looking at the pitiful semblance swathing her face. The relentless tears and shots that she thought would wash away the love settled in her heart. She thrashed him and hated him and tried to forget about him until all that led to loving him even more.

The Pool
Middle school seemed so easy. Getting A's was easy and the summer's were care free. You spent every single day at my house. We spent hours in the pool. Literally coming up with new and increasingly stupid each day. But we didn't care, because we had each other. And even though I knew that once school started you would ignore me for another nine months, I kept inviting you over, because I knew you were my best friend, I just had to remind you.

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