Quietness Renamed

Ho hum, oh look, a new story that's completely unedited and unfinished and weird and YEAH it's goin' up. I hope it doesn't suck, guys. 

"Quietness Renamed"


The power lines were sharply dark and dangled loosely in the pink sky. The pair held hands and her black flip flops slapped the wet pavement quietly with each step.

He wanted to tell her that the sky looked like cotton candy, or roses, or the finger nail polish he would imagine his mother might have worn. He scratched his nose with his free hand instead, and said quietly, “I have to be home by seven, or seven thirty, or something.”

“Okay.” She squeezed his hand tighter.

Lights came on in the houses and over their heads as the sky faded slowly from cotton candy pink to a fiery orange, then blushing red, then bruised purple until entirely deadened black. There were no clouds to break or crowd the expansive air.

She took her hand with its painted nails back for a second and wiped the clamminess off her palms onto her worn blue jeans. They threaded their fingers back together seamlessly, and kept walking, on and away from his house of hollowed sobbing and pain.

“Is your dad okay?” It was a tentative, gentle question.

He didn’t answer.

She felt an aching tiredness for him, through her bones and her toes. She saw behind the black, pressed pants of this morning and the wrinkled white shirt that had been clean, and the tie loosened and sagging from his throat. She saw it all twisting around his brain, worms of thought that wriggled and squirmed unpleasantly when prodded.

After a few moments, she realized the laces on his left shoe were hitting the ground like dull plastic rain drops, thudding quietly, and she squeezed his hand in hers again. He turned to her, and blinked before she saw the blank, hopeless expression in his eyes, and stopped.

“What?”

“Your shoelaces...”

She sat on the ground heavily, not caring if her jeans got soaked through, and took the sopping laces into her fingers, threading them quickly back together in her long pale fingers. He looked up and around at everything as she was sitting on the ground, with eyes that felt huge and dry in his head. He did not squint when a car’s headlights flashed in his face.

He wanted to tell her everything had changed, everything had been skewed into pain from what it had been, and he felt a quietness that had not been there before, and he saw it with a blankness that he didn’t recognize, and everything he saw was dulled.

But he thought she already knew. Because she said quietly, sitting very still and doe-like, looking at the bow tied on his shoe, “I don’t hate anyone.”

And his voice broke when he said “I know.”

He remembered people who did hate though. The woman who had rat poisoning in a coffee mug, and a shotgun just in case, and a Bible from her mother with worn pages. She had been questioned about her whereabouts Wednesday morning, between 6 and 8:30 P.M, and Angeline had yelled at his father, while she was bodily carried from the room. His father, whose face was puffy and red and there were purple bruises under his bloodshot eyes, and he had clutched at his ring, staring at it. She yelled that he deserved it, and you do too you disgusting excuse for a human being, how dare you insult the natural order of life, you faggot.

Faggot, faggot, faggot. His dad had broken then at that word from his father and his childhood and high school and now Angeline.

And the boy sitting close to him paled, eyes saucer-wide, nails digging into his palms from clutching his fists together so tightly, knuckles white.

He watched one of the few people he loved break on that worn, splintery bench. His father’s other half was already gone, somewhere else, but not where Angeline was convinced she would go, oh no, never there. Somewhere else. But it wasn’t with them, back in their clean white house, making blueberry pancakes early Saturday mornings when the light filling the kitchen was orange and yellow, and asking how his day was after he came home from baseball practice, and singing badly to Queen on the radio, and kissing his father lightly, holding his hands, and grinning and dancing in the living room when they didn’t think he noticed, just quiet private love, and happiness and happiness and happiness seemed to be always, but now he was somewhere else. Bright intelligent eyes closed forever and fingers tight and cold and mouth in a straight line on his starkly white face.

And now he was somewhere else. And his father had lost half of himself, and Angeline was going to jail, and their house was a mess, and his grades were slipping, and his father sat most nights and stared at nothing, noticed nothing. But she was here.

And when she stood up and took his hand again, silent, he pulled her to him tightly, wrapping his arms around her shorter frame.

The thought came over and over, why won’t he come home, circling around his brain, a bird squawking loudly and over everything else that was dulled.

He heard distantly “be okay, be okay, please breathe, be okay.” And that was all she said until she went quiet again, and he fingers dug into his wrinkled white shirt almost painfully. Her face turned to his neck and she pressed a kiss there, dry and chapped lips. He hadn’t cried, he never cried, but he choked at this moment, feeling her there with him and he knew she wouldn’t leave. She smelled like her laundry detergent she used, and rain, barely there from hours ago. And she smelled like turpentine that always seemed to linger around her eternally paint-stained hands and face and hair, clinging to her like a tiny fuzzy animal that warmed her and clutched her with small pudgy fingers and smiling like a child.

He felt her heart beat against his chest, and he thought he might love her, maybe. Just for her, in the middle of the rain soaked street.

There was a stinging wetness behind his eyes when he remembered, and felt the quietness touched again by the worm thoughts, and he closed his eyes tightly, and thought about death, and he loved her, and everything with his soul, everything felt sharper.

It was something distant now, to think of goodness, like yelling across a canyon to someone you thought you knew.

He felt a crushing tiredness. She knew, and she knew, and she loved him, just maybe.

The thought fluttered across his mind, a final black bird in the pink sky, of his fading hope, and his new unnamed quietness. That maybe it was new. Something, new.

Some things (Brick, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, playlist)

"I believe in human beings absolutely. Sometimes I'm just a little disturbed by how we rule the world." -Marion Cotillard

I adore this quote... She's so intelligent and gorgeous. I've got to watch La Vie En Rose.

(Okay SPOILER ALERT ahead)

So I just watched Brick, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. WHAT. WHAT WHAT WHAT. It was fantastically weird, leaving a dirty taste in your mouth... There was so much symbolism, I really need to watch it again so it can sink in better (I admit, I was completely distracted by how freaking adorable Joseph Gordon-Levitt was. damn that boy is hot.) ...The birds/feathers, the color red, blue, water, black and white, light and dark, blood, his jacket, the football field and why the camera was positioned so the horizon was low on the screen, ETC. There was so much. My little english-analyzing-brain almost exploded in glee.

One of my favorite scenes was in the room where the brick was kept on the floor; the spinning mirror and the light shone around the room and the creaking and the lights broken and scattered. GORGEOUS. I was holding my breath just thinking that a scene as pretty and tragic as that in a movie like this?

And the very last few minutes, when it's just Brendan staring after Laura walking away, you can watch the change in his eyes... That's a sign of really f*cking good acting. It was so subtly done and so realistic. I'm thinking that the kid was his, actually... I really just need to watch it again so I can catch more of the characterization and plot and such.

But really, what an awesome movie. My respect for JGL just shot up even higher than it was already. I mean, the guy can do something darkly artsy like Brick, and a romantic thing of sorts like 500 Days of Summer, and a strange/interesting/complex/action thing like Inception. And he does it all WELL.

 

Be still my heart. He's wearing a John Lennon #9 Dream t-shirt. Too bad he's older.

And today I made a playlist for days when it's snowing so it makes the sky dark, and you feel a happy sort of melancholy, right? Maybe not. Oh well it's good music anyway.

Let It Be - The Beatles       This song is perfect to start because it's perfect anyway, and the strong confident chords at the beginning.. yes.


Three Hours - Nick Drake     This is perhaps one of his best songs? Not that all f them weren't bloody amazing, Day is Done was second to this one, but Three Hours is long, and never gets boring. Nick Drake is a legend.

Quicksand - David Bowie     If you're gonna ask, yeah that's Robert Smith, I adore him and I think this live version of the song is awesome. I love the Cure :)

Shelter From the Storm - Bob Dylan       Okay I dare you to find a video of the album version of this song. That isn't a f*cking cover. Jesus H. Christ people, there are only so many times a song can be covered before it's worn out.

Blue in Green - Miles Davis       Or, you know, the whole freaking album. It's so genius. 

Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd    Yeah I don't really care if it's a cliched song. Those lyrics are mind-blowing, I mean, "we're just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl year after year"?? That's just amazing!

Mercy Street - Peter Gabriel     This entire album is perfect, really, but this particular song is ace. And thanks to Mat Devine for finding this gem of a clip with Anne Sexton on it... just listen, it's really great.

Beatrix - Cocteau Twins    I'm not sure if enough people know about them and their awesomeness... Treasure is such an awesome album

In My Life - The Beatles     Yeah I'm such a Beatles fangirl but this song gets to me and the video's pretty sweet.

Hero - Regina Spektor   I got totally into this song and her after watching 500 Days of Summer, I confess. She's so adorable and awesome, gotta see her perform sometime.

Dance On Our Graves - Paper Route      I'm DYING to see them live... I own all the music they've released so far. They utterly fantastic and deserve a lot of attention, really

The Wings - Gustavo Santaolalla     Because it's one of my favorite movies and this song is so bitter sweet and pretty and yes.

Mad World - Michael Andrews & Gary Jules       DONNIE DARKO. Is so awesome. And this song is SO PERFECT for the story it's like it was written for it (even though it was originally Tears for Fears... the cover is better.) and the video is awesome, and the whole thing is just so gorgeous. And so it's at the end of the playlist.

So. Yeah! Some of my favorite music.

Some little bitty things

I just want to say. After watching Doctor Who, I will officially be terrified of angel statues. Never again will I go in a church and not kind of fear for my life. Although I've been wanting to just sit in on a few churches, not because I'm looking for a religion, just because I'm curious. I might be able to take a World Religions class next year, that and psychology... It'll be great :)
 
I wrote a few little bitty things... And here they are I guess x]

He liked New York City a lot when it was just starting to buzz in the early morning; when the dawn started creeping down the tops of buildings lazily, orange and yellow winking off high windows and taxis rumbling through the not yet crowded streets, cafes with their open signs turned out to the awakening world, early risers rubbing their eyes and sipping hot coffee.

He liked it just as much as he liked England. New York just had that dirty romanticism that London also had, the feeling of murder and sex and darkly loyal killers and money and drugs. And it also had the feeling of opportunity laced throughout, in the hearts of so many who were gone and so many who had come, all those people who might have starved and lived on the dirty streets in anonymity, hoping for the day of sparkling champagne, women in sparkling dresses, late nights of laughter and theater, and money spilling out of their pockets. 

This one underneath, is sort of based on Native American stories. It's been on my mind a while, and I'm thinking of doing watercolor pictures to go with the story... It could be pretty cool :)

The mountains were not always mountains.

The trees used to control and shape the world, with their long-reaching branches and roots and their endless ideas of things to grow.

But there were other creatures who liked to change things, to destroy things. They were the dragons.

They had sloping bodies with big shoulders and long necks, and jaws that snapped with razor teeth.

The dragons kept growing and growing, and more came into being, and the trees could not control their fire and destruction any more.

The trees did not understand why the dragons wanted to burn and tear apart all they had grown, and it made them sad and distressed.

And so the trees from over every continent, all kinds of trees, met in secret to discuss the burning of the world they loved. But they did not want to kill the dragons, because they loved all life.

They decided to ask the wind, the sweet presence that swept lazily over the land, to help them.

One night, in the pure, starlit darkness, the wind and the trees waited until the dragons were sleeping in the groups they lived with.

The trees quietly threw branches and roots and dirt and water over the dragons, but the beasts started to wake up.

The wind started blowing over their bodies, to hold them to the earth that the trees so loved.

And the dragons grew tired of straining at the deep power that held them down, and they slept.

And the dragons continue to sleep spread across the continents. They are covered in snow and ice and dirt, but they remain alive, until the day they wake.

Well... I hope that's not too weird x]

I might post a story I've been writing a bit later, it's a weird one but oh well. 

Exit Through the Gift Shop and Doctor Who

I recently got around to watching this... Banksy, you are one bad ass mother f*cker. Mr. Brainwash, I really loved your endearing qualities until you sold out the anti-business...? I guess? Anyway. I don't really care about the Oscar buzz, the movie is good, even with it's unfinished and incomplete feeling at the end. It doesn't need an award to confirm its awesomeness.

I don't really care about the idea about the whole thing being fake... It's still an awesome film.

And it says quite a bit about the modern art world and its patrons... No one does anything without technology anymore; the traditional ways are dying... It makes me sad, really. I learned how to paint with a local teacher, and the first thing I learned was how to use the style of the Renaissance painters and their process... There's a lot to be said for the old processes. It teaches patience and it teaches you your style and it helps you love your tools. Loving your paintbrushes and paints and canvas is important, because if they frustrate you then your art will suffer. And impatience in art can be your ruin, really. That's why modern art suffers, I think, people take things like portraits of Marilyn Monroe, for example, and change the color, and then sell it... It's sad, how there is less imagination... There's always limitless opportunity in imagination, and I get the feeling that people have become lazy with the influence of modern technology (not to sound like a freaking 80 year old or anything... oops too late). Turning off your cell phone, closing yourself in a room, and putting on a jazz or classical record really quietly,

I've also been watching Doctor Who. Obsessively. I'm at the beginning of season three, and dear god I dislike Martha. I very much want the Doctor to have his Rose again D': With Rose, he never had to tell her or ask her to do anything, fighting, saving someone's life, anything. Martha always needs instruction and it bothers me.

IF MARTHA AND THE DOCTOR ARE A LOVE INTEREST I WILL BE ANGRY.

Uh.

I am watching the episode "Blink" at the moment, and it might be the scariest one... This episode competes with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode with the Gentlemen. I had nightmares for ages.

"They let you live to death." That right there. Is a creepy line. This episode is AWESOME. The perfect amount of tension and silent disturbance and the teeth on those angels are ridiculously terrifying...

I mean... dear god.

But the Doctor is like the best character ever... I especially am infatuated with David Tennant x] He's lovely!

And I have to say, I totally understand the statue thing. They've always made me nervous, how still and cold they are all the time and their blank white eyes and yeah... So. This episode will only increase the fear, probably. "Yippee ki-yay muther f*cker!"

Bronson & Kill Hannah (shuddup)

Uhm. Kill Hannah was my favorite band in 7th and part of 8th grade. I still read Mat Devine's blogs and such because he's funny as hell. They've put up a new music video for their newest album Wake Up the Sleepers. Here it is, because I think it's actually a pretty good video...

So. There's that.


I also just finished watching the movie Bronson. Wow. One thing to note before I begin: Tom Hardy, I'm not even into super buff guys, or screwy and disturbed ones either, for that matter. BUT. You seem to be the exception. I mean. I have never thought a shirtless, super ripped man was in any way attractive. Ever. Ahem.

I also have to admit: I am a whore for movies where the protagonist isn't actually good, or something is off kilter in their head, something fundamentally off-base is going on. (Black Swan, The Wall, Inception, Donnie Darko, etc.) So Bronson? Was totally my cup of tea.

This movie was dark to the very core. The moments when the camera stayed on his face just too long, those were the beautifully disturbed moments. You could feel his anger that was always close to the surface, always at the core of his being, and it was incredible. You could almost watch the thoughts turning over and over in his mind, but they were just out of reach. Just as Bronson's character was the entire movie, especially the notable scenes when he is on stage, narrating his life to an imaginary audience. The energy that was conveyed through Hardy and the way he portrayed his character was absolutely amazing.

And one of the things that always makes a movie more realistic, I believe, is the weakness of the "strongest" character. The weakness of Charles Bronson was, of course, his inability to know what he wanted with his life, and his stubbornness, which prevented him from actually being motivated to achieve anything. He resigned himself, admittedly rather whole-heartedly, to a life of blood, bruises, cursing, hate, and anger. It didn't help that when he had been in the "funny farm", they had fried his brain with medicine. He was definitely not as clear-headed as he had been before he was slumped in a chair, drooling all over himself and mumbling incoherently.

The colors red and black were unavoidable in the movie, and the symbolism was artfully done. The curtains in his uncle's place, where he met the girl who broke his heart (who was wearing a tight scarlet dress) were a bright red. The paint all over his body when he was painting his "art teacher" (I guess) was a messy black. And one of the most beautifully scarring moments was in the very last scene, when he is in a small cage, alone, covered in black paint and a sharp red light in the room around him, moaning and grunting and, it might be safe to say, suffering. Red and black are, in so many cases, the colors of war and blood and a darkness in the roots of someone's mind, as they are in Bronson.

Bronson embodies the carnal, human urge to feel pain and make others feel pain. I truly believe that this does exist in everybody, some are just better at suppressing it. And it seems that you nearly want to empathize with the man; his creativity, his unrequited love, and the normal childhood that was simply not enough for him: people understand these issues, they've been through them. But he is extraordinarily different, with his need to be famous and always need to make himself feel his own humanity, through bodily harm inflicted by others.

One thing I think was extremely important that made Bronson who he is, was his home life. The moment in the beginning when his parents are smiling down at him, and he is turned away and clutching at the bars around his crib says so much about his dissatisfaction with his situation and himself.

Okay. I think that's all I have to say about that movie. This looks like more of a geeky, English class analysis than a review anyway. Unless they're the same thing. It's late here, and I've been feeling off. I'm gonna post this, hope it's not too terrible, and try and sleep.

They Were The Living Canvas

Hum. I just wrote this really really fast. It's probably not a good idea to keep posting things unedited, but WHATEVER. I thought of the title and went from there...

"They Were The Living Canvas"

It was early morning. The sun was gold and silver and brightly blue in the turpentine stained air.

She ran her fingers over the blank canvas, feeling its roughness. She could close her eyes and see the outlines and shapes and colors, and then when she opened her eyes it imprinted itself on the whiteness. Their faces and eyebrows and mouths, their essences, their stories.  

What makes paintings come alive, she thought, were the veins already in the canvas. Stitches and lines woven together like a heartbeat. All you had to do was listen to the veins and let them speak and write and paint for you.

And so she started in the quiet morning.

The faces were different sizes, some huge and foreboding, only to be covered by smaller faces the size of their eyes.

There were small chins and big doe-eyes and fat lips and pink cheeks and bruises and scars and snarls and smiles and hazel eyes and red hair and purple hair and piercings and make-up and glasses and braces.

Every sort of face that came to her mind went to the painting. And they lived and breathed and whispered to her.

And then it was night. The air was blue and grey and coldly distant, and the sun was gone to see the other side of the world.

The faces grew dark.

She collapsed on the cot covered in a blue blanket in the corner of the room. There were three rooms; bathroom, kitchen, and a huge space with a bed and all of her supplies. And one big window that faced more city than she could dream.

She was alone most of the time.

Then there was a dark sleep.

The woman rolled and twisted and cried fitfully in sleep, the blankets damp with sweat and her jaw clenched.

This was usual. Her paintings had so much life, they tried to take hers, she felt. They didn’t want to be left on the canvas like that, they wanted the freedom she felt flowing through her to them. All the faces. She knew all their stories like they were her own.

It was too dangerous.

The sun woke her again, blinding groggy eyes, and of course the pillow did nothing to hide the sun, so she sat up.

Across the room the faces stared at her.

She made a pot of green tea. And hid in the blandly white kitchen, but she wouldn’t admit that to herself. She would have to sell this painting quickly.

She pulled on different paint-stained clothes and purple socks and shoes, and walked outside with a notebook.

There was a park about a mile away, and she found her black bench and sat with the notebook in her lap.

First the names, then their story.  

GREGORY- fat, dissatisfied, English, widowed. Wife (Maryann) died in childbirth. Since then, he gained weight, started helping her garden grow back, raised his son (Leonard). His son is leaving for America, the year is 1739, and Gregory will live soon alone.

ANGELA- lonely, depressive, not good at committing. Lives with her mother, whom she hates. Dropped out of Julliard College, she was a singer. Now works in King Soopers. Sings in the shower when mother isn’t home. Potential love interest in Sean, the cashier with red hair. He’s too shy.

JOLINE- overly happy. Loves going to punk concerts. Social, but bitchy. Changes her appearance often, unsatisfied with everything she was two days ago. Changes boyfriends just as often. Is now dating a girl named Kimberly.

And the list goes on. There are so many people filling her head that never existed. And they haunt her.

The painting is sold a few weeks later from a local gallery which always puts up her work for her. Prudence, who runs it, loves her work but says it scares her a little. For a few thousand dollars Mr. Jerremy Hyde (“Two ‘r’s, don’t forget” he says in a posh voice) will give it to his fiancee, who “adores the grunge of local artists”, for an engagement present. She thinks it would make a great story.

She takes the check to the bank immediately, and splurges some on a bigger canvas. She won’t use it for weeks, but it’s nice with the feeling of it being there in her presence. It’s a good feeling.

The papers with all the pain-stakingly handwritten stories and details that took hours to finish is burned outside the big window with a cheap blue lighter. She almost burns the tips of her fingers, but the ashes blow away in time. 

Lunar Eclipse from weeks ago

This is what I did watching the lunar eclipse, so I wrote about it. God I'm lame. Blargle.

“‘Mad World” would be a great song for this second.”

There was silence. The moon started being swallowed in darkness.

We clutched mugs of hot chocolate tightly, too much heat soaking into cold palms and fingertips.

“It doesn’t look real. It looks unreal.”

“It looks like a clay-mation ball. Just like, hanging in the sky on string.”

I sighed quietly, watching a cloud of breath float and disintegrate its way to the moon.

My sister  snapped a few pictures. “I’m getting five bucks. Then I can pay off my phone.”

“Bitch.” I laughed, then took a long slurp of scalding cocoa.

“I can pay off my phone bill for the month with it. Be jealous.”

A pause. “It’s too cold, I’m going inside.”

She clicked another few pictures.

The door creaked tiredly, then slammed shut. I heard her boots on the stairs behind the door.

I stared up and up and up, and I felt swallowed by the entire sky that didn’t begin or end. A dark red circle outlined with pale silver along an edge.

“I wish I could dance with you!” I sang quietly, feeling small and like I was everywhere.

“I wish I could dance with you, I wish I could sing with you, I wish I could dance with you, but I can’t... So good night!”

I skipped with the empty mug to the back door humming. Later I didn’t know why I sang, I didn’t remember thinking to myself before I opened my mouth. I don’t know why I want to dance with the moon.

Things for 2011

I'm writing a list of things I have to do in 2011. I will probably edit it but whatever.

-write short stories
-learn all major scales on French horn
-become better on guitar
-watch all movies directly involving the Beatles
-study Donnie Darko until I understand it better
-be Frank for Halloween
-get better than C's in all classes
-climb a 14-er, watch sunrise/sunset/stars
-take walks and be quiet and think
-finish huge John Lennon painting
-get nose ring instead of just a stud
-be good in marching band
-watch all Jake Gyllenhaal movies I haven't seen yet
-finish editing NaNoWriMo novel (Absolutes)
-go to awesome concerts
-chill out and stay with good friends
-try bad things with some friends
-re-watch all episodes of Avatar: the Last Airbender
-read a ton of books I've been needing to
-be a better person
-re-read Lord of the Rings

She Was Red

This is another short story I just cranked out right now. I mean very very short. I'm watching Donnie Darko and feeling rather bleak. Here tis!

(EDIT: I recently went through and edited this, so I'm reposting it...Uh. Yes)

"She Was Red"


What she felt was a pure anger, that only small children truly feel.

Sure, adults and older teens may feel anger, but it is always laced with a poisonous twinge of depression or jealousy, or even just dry grey fingers that scratch with age.

“Mommy, can I have a bouncy ball? I wanna blue one.” Her small fat finger rubbed a greasy mark into the glass holding the toys in. She stood on her tip toes in shiny black shoes. A blue ribbon rested in her hair like a bird, and she would have liked a bouncy ball to match. She liked matching things.

Her mother glanced down at her watch hurriedly, looked to her younger daughter who looked like she might cry, and sighed. She muttered to herself, dug in her purse for a quarter and handed it to her daughter. “Jamie, get your canvas in the car! We’re going to be late!” She was already getting her keys out, and glanced around to look for her son. The keys jingled loudly in the quiet of the store.

The little girl was still angry. The keys were too loud, the little boy in the aisle was looking at her and she was just angry. The bouncy ball that came out was a bright scarlet and she stared at it unhappily. It was big in her pudgy hand. There were swirls of clear spots she could see right through, and she held it up to her big brown eyes.

The mother caught the hand holding the bouncy ball, trying to take her to the car outside, and it rolled and bounced across the streaked white tiles of the floor. The girl shrieked, and the little boy peeked around the corner. He tottered on short legs and his squashed face with its tongue sticking out oddly made her feel sick.

She grabbed the bouncy ball from the hand he was offering it with and glared at him, her face pink.

He stared blankly at her and her mother’s retreating backs and thought about red.

He liked red, he liked red apples, and red bouncy balls, and the lady’s red collared shirt. Joseph thought about visiting his grandfather in the months when there were red leaves and they got to eat fat, ripe apples and make applesauce and cider. Apples were a good thing.

He wanted to follow the lady with the red shirt, but he got to ride in a red car with his mom instead, which was better.

The giant canvas Jamie had just bought was big and white and took up the entire backseat that wasn’t occupied by the small girl.

Jamie liked being dramatic, and that made the girl mad too. He liked being the center of attention and over-reacting to everything. It was completely unnecessary.

“Mom, I need to talk to my history teacher, make up a test for Thursday. We have that Chem lab that’s gonna take two periods no matter what the hell Mrs. L says.”

The mother hummed in agreement. “Don’t forget to.”

The trees blurred and bent as they sped by. Cars stopped and went and people looked blankly at other people.

She was so mad. It was just filling her brain with dark thoughts and she hated being stuck here. With her mother who had bright watery eyes and talked about being late all the time, and her brother who was always talking about dramatic things and what he would paint next and who he was currently dating and what was wrong with them.

The red bouncy ball that she hated spilled out of her slackened fingers and rolled around the car floor. The bumps in the carpet on the floor made it jump around and thunk against the canvas repeatedly. She watched it blankly until Jamie turned in his seat in the front, frowning.

“Stop messing with my canvas.”

The girl nodded quietly and grabbed the bouncy ball off the floor.

She could see the light ahead of their car switch to red. The worst color ever. She stomped her foot uncontrollably on the floor, once, the anger filling and overflowing her heart, and the ball fell again.

The car did not slow down, even though it was supposed to, even as Theresa’s back stiffened and her hands gripped the wheel so tightly and and she screamed and stamped her foot in it’s sensible shoes on the too.

Jamie reached out and grabbed his mother’s shoulder, and the small girl in the backseat sat still, eyes bright and wide.

Her older brother said again and again, very quickly, panic infusing his voice, pitching it higher and louder, “Stop stop stop it’s RED MOM STOP THE-”

The red bouncy ball was dented from the pressure from the mother’s foot and the brake pedal and panic.

The canvas next to the small girl was splashed with thick, sickly smelling dark red and it was torn through with different sized slices of glass, sparkling in the late afternoon. 

A short story

So i wrote this. And I haven't really edited, but... here it is. I'm trying a new-ish writing style so it might seem a bit choppy or something of the like. If anyone is reading this, feel free to critique. I'm just starting to write and finish things on my own now so this is fun at least. Here 'tis! It's called "Only Fear".




“The only thing to fear is fear itself!” A voice yelled, breaking, from the midst of the crowd, a voice from a man dressed in black, and then there was an explosion, and fire, and more endless screaming.

~

“Why did you leave the kettle on?”

“... What? The kettle... Oh, I was making tea.”

The man paused. “But it was whistling when I got home, and you’re just... Why didn’t you get up to turn it off?”

“I forgot I guess.” She turned her face back to the window, grey city spread out below her.

The man muttered under his breath, “You... forgot. Right.” He set the stainless steel kettle back on the stove and turned off the burner, and sighed, digging his open palms into his eyes in frustration.

“I’m sorry, Theo, I didn’t mean to. I got distracted. There was a dog and he was running away, and a chubby man was chasing him and there was almost a car accident. That’s all. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Was he hurt?”

“He fell and probably just scraped his knee.”

“Did the dog get away?”

“No, some couple caught him before he went too far.”

“Oh.”

Theo walked to stand next to her, a warm hand rested on her curved, slouched back. She was dressed in a knit navy blue sweater, the sleeves of which flared and reached past her short, almost chubby hands. They both gazed out at the city, the huge city of people.

~

“Was Adam your brother?”

She paused a moment. “Yes, he was. I haven’t spoken to him in... years. We haven’t spoken in years.”

There were murmurs in the room. The reporters scribbled madly, and she watched them. Watched pens moving rapidly across pads of lined paper, some of the eyes still on her, others turned down to their notes on their laps.

“Why haven’t you spoken to him? What happened between the two of you?”

It was a woman in a pinstripe suit with brown hair pulled tightly back into a bun who asked. Olive made up a story for her, a husband who left, alone in an apartment with Chinese take out and complete focus on her job. Despite herself, she smiled slightly.

“No comment.” And she stood to leave.

There was more murmuring, buzzing going around the room, bees had invaded, she mused. And they all just wanted to know her, they thought they wanted to know her.

~

“What? No, I don’t believe you. She’s not... You’re not...”

“We’re just trying it out, you know? It’s not serious... It’s just like, advanced friendship.” She grinned slightly, hoping it would make him laugh, like they used to when they played hide and seek in the lot by main street. There had been a place to play baseball and there was a basketball hoop and abandoned cars were left and old crates that perhaps used to contain food for the grocer down the road.

“Olive. You can’t do that. It’s wrong, it’s unnatural, it’s absolutely disgusting.”

“What the hell are you talking abou-”

“Shut up. Shut the fuck up Olive!” His fist slammed into the wall, and his face slid into a terrifying frown. He stormed toward her, grabbed her shoulders. He shook her, and the grin fell sideways down her face into a scared look.

“Why would you do that to mom and dad and me? It’s so WRONG, Olive!”

“No it’s not, Adam, get the hell off me!” She slapped at his arms and twisted her teenage body away from his strong arms.

She stepped back quickly, staring in shock. “Adam, I’m- I’m your sister! Are you homophobic? Because there is no reason to be, I’m not gay I just wanted to know I’m sorry I just wanted to tell you, I thought you’d... Well I don’t know. Never mind.”

She turned away from him, frowning slightly.

“You are disgusting. I can’t believe you’d do this. It goes against God, and it goes against nature, and it is disgusting.”

She turned back to her brother, shocked. His face twisted in anger.

The smack echoed through their parent’s living room and the girl stumbled backward into the wall, her head hitting with a dull thud, mouth open in surprise.

Olive clutched her left eye, and screamed in pain.

“It’s a good thing I’m leaving.” He spat in her face.

She looked up at her brother from the ground, she had fallen to her knees. Her hand came away from her forehead over her eye, shaking, a few drops of blood staining her fingers. She moaned when she blinked. Her hand went back up to her eye, and her whole body trembled as she looked back up at her own brother through her blood.

There was nearly a flash of regret over Adam’s face, but she missed it.

The front door slammed, the car started outside, and Olive let out a sob into her still shaking hands, feeling dizzy and confused and achingly sad.

~

“Are you excited?”

“Definitely! I’ve been seeing the previews for ages now, this looks great. Plus, Jake told me about some of the scenery where they’d been, and it sounds gorgeous. I’m kind of jealous Anne got that part, I was thinking of auditioning.”

Theo grabbed her hand and entwined their fingers habitually, comfortably. She beamed up at him, and they walked to their seats, hoping to go unnoticed. As she slid out of her coat put on for the chilling wind outside, a couple walked over to them, conversing behind their hands quietly.

Olive saw them coming, and nudged her boyfriend with her elbow, motioning to the young couple.

“Hey, are you Olive Murphy? I thought I recognized you in the lobby, but wasn’t sure...”

“Yes, I am, hello.” She slapped her publicity smile on her face as the couple grinned. They shook hands, and she said, “Well, I hope you guys enjoy the movie. Jake told me it’ll be great.”

“Oh my god, you know Jake Gyllenhaal? That’s amazing!” The girl stammered out, then blushed in embarrassment.

“Yeah, we have dinner every once in a while.”

“I remember your scene together in “No More Ophelia” with the knives at the mother’s wedding, that was my favorite movie for so long!”

“Thank you, it was fun to film. Jake’s a great guy. I hope you enjoy the movie.”

Olive smiled again and sat down, hoping they would get the point. The young couple did, and they walked to their seats, still chattering.

Theo leaned close and whispered in her ear, “I hope they don’t ambush us after the movie.”

“Me either. They seemed a bit dull. And starstruck. As always”

“At least the lights are dimming now, we can finally see what we’ve been living vicariously through Jake for weeks now.”

“Yeah.”

They held hands again, watching through the previews. Occasionally leaning and making the other laugh quietly with a comment, ignoring the people seated around them.

When it was over, Olive had teared up, and Theo held her hand tightly, face wearing a stoic expression, and they walked out together after most of the credits had passed down the screen slowly, quietly.

They passed the sign out in front of the theater that read Brokeback Mountain, and “NOW SHOWING” in big, block red letters. It had two men, two star-crossed lovers in cowboy hats with a gorgeous mountain range, snow-covered and cold.

Olive wondered about something she had tried to stay away from for years now. She wondered about all the coverage this movie was getting; all the press and previews on television.

And all those people who walked out of the theater after a few… select scenes. She had noticed. How many people around the world walked out of Brokeback Mountain in the theater? Too many was her guess.

She remembered her head hitting the wall and her vision swimming, going funny. And the door slamming loudly and echoing in her head and bouncing around like so many marbles of little thoughts, glassy and colorful and mostly red. Echoing fitfully and forever and it hurt so much.

Her brother hadn’t contacted her in years, and she thought she knew what he would think of this gorgeous story.

She pictured him standing upright and he looked so so tall, and his face twisted and morphed and purple and ugly.

He would probably be wearing black.