Gradually, that was how the world where it was okay to be a geek, a fangirl, a dork, herself, came into being.
It started with an acquaintance who knew the animated series who became a best friend.
It grew with a sister who accepted everything and opened her eyes to new worlds.
But it finally became real to her when she met him, the boy who pushed her fringe out of her eyes and led her onto the dance floor when she was sad. Who had moved closer in the fog and who had taken her hand without asking. The...
There's somebody standing in the corner of my room. His hair is dark. He just stands there watching. I call out to him asking his name, but he doesn't reply. He just stares.
A can't take my eyes off of him. I stand there too, staring at him. Our deep eyes meet and a chill flashes down my spine. As I gaze into the windows to his soul, my breathing quickens as does my heart beat. Here we are, two different entities separated only by the distance of a metre or so. I can't describe the deep dread I feel...
This was it. Their wedding day. As she walked down that aisle, she felt more like she was walking toward a cliff, with a river full of vicious pirahna at the bottom. She took his hand as the priest started the ceremony. she wondered what she had done to deserve this. It hit, then, like a bolt of lightning. It wasn't her. It was Luke. he'd tricked her at the restaurant, paid the waiter to ask her if she wanted water just as he popped the question. She'd replied to the waiter, and next thing she knew she was walking...
The record was broken. That was not a cliché or a euphemism, it really was completely and utterly broken. Snapped in two due to a bit too much rough and a lot of tumble. And it was all Johnny’s fault anyway. Our dad had told us not to touch the old LPs stacked neatly at the bottom of Mum’s bookshelf, but he just had to try it. Just had to see if he could work out the record player – the HiFi as Dad called it. He almost had it too, only he couldn’t find the play button, and when...
"And now, a nice, juicy twist. That's it. Keep twisting. One final push! Aaaaand release. Other side, now. Raise your left hand in the air, look toward the ceiling. Now twist!"
Sweat dripping from my brow down to my neck down to my collar bone down to my underwear. Release. Downward dog.
"Chataranga! Keep going guys, you're doing great!"
Heaviness of covers, you tuck me in as you leave. I don't stir, I don't breathe. Your receding back.
"Now breathe in, and let it go."
There were mountains. There were hours to drive. Everything I measure, I measure it like...
"Quack quack quack!"
*Translation: OH NO! BP!
"Quack quack quack quack."
*Translation: I'll have to move to another pond now...
"Quack quack..."
*Translation: Stupid #$#@%$%$#^#$ humans.
"Quack quack quack..."
*Translation: Or maybe I'll just steal all their rubber duckies. See how they like losing something.
"QUAAAACKKK!"
*Translation: MWAHAHAHAHHAHAHA
Mr Duckie went to become the Robin Hook of all ducks, stealing rubber duckies from all the human children and all the grownups who still like flotation toys. Right now he has a large organization, SOPWRD (Save Our Pond With Rubber Duckies) and has declared Ernie from Sesame Street as Duck Worlds...
Gigantic.
Enormous.
Immense.
Even bigger than Daddy.
Evie looked up at the ship as they waited for the cars to start boarding.
"What happens if it sinks, Daddy?"
"It won't sink, pet."
"But what if it does?"
"It won't." Evie sighed and looked back again. There were people moving around, she could see them. Little ants pulling ropes and other official-looking things.
"Why isn't Mummy coming?"
"She can't, pet. She would if she could."
Evie held tight onto Daddy's hand when the tannoy rang out.
"Please make your way back to your cars now. Boarding will begin shortly."
They went...
The sun seared our backs as we dove hand in hand. We were days from civilization, and it was the happiest we had ever been. The sand invaded every nook and crevice of our lives, but we had no shadows and no secrets, so it was inconsequential.
I looked at my son and saw his mother in him. His eyes were the color of eagle-sky, as if he spent so many hours cloud-gazing that the heavens imbued his irises with their hue.
"What did you learn today, daddy?" He asked me this every evening, knowing I had long been mute....
His back leaned against a wall while his dust ridden face peered down at the ground. His eyes darted from one cigarette butt to the next, and finally, made a triangle with a crushed beer can. Counting the butts and the cans, he slowly peeled his foot off the wall and languidly marched down the street.
"Spare chang'?" he mumbled to a passerby, reluctantly looking into their eyes. No verbal answer came except for the heavy footsteps gaining speed as the man in a white collar shirt passed him.
"Spare chang'?" he grunted again to a group of young twenty-somethings...
I don't know if that was a good idea. Who knows what would come of it? Maybe nothing, maybe something. It wasn't like writing that note was a spur of the moment kind of decision. It was something that I'd thought about doing a million times before. Of course, I'd always thought that I would have used very different words and say something entirely different. I hope I was wise, but I can't tell. I feel like I was just a little girl using grown up words. I don't know if that was a good idea...