rosered93 @ 2008-08-12T03:11:00

2008-08-12T07:37:22Z

Writing (all school assigned), I suppose the two short stories have mild mature themes:

I'm not sure about the names and the title on this.

Substitute

  The rhythm of the music was hypnotic as my body swayed in time.  Our lips moved together and I clung to his body, feeling one step away from falling over the edge.
  “I think I need a drink,” I yelled into his ear.  He nodded mutely, breaking away from my grip with a final, lingering kiss.  Suddenly I didn’t feel like dancing.  I pushed my way through teams of sweaty, pulsing bodies, until I made my way onto the outside deck.
  My head was throbbing to the music.
  “Hey.”  The word came from behind me in a vaguely familiar voice.  I turned.
  “Oh... Hey, Dylan.”  I cringed internally.  Dylan creeped me out.  He was Mike’s friend, but there was something off with the way he tried so hard to imitate my boyfriend.  Same hair, same clothes, same jokes.  He was like some kind of weird, desperate clone.
  “You don’t look so great.”
  “I’m fine, really.”
  “Here,” he said, offering me a plastic cup.  I eyed the contents suspiciously.
  “It’s just water, I promise.”  He put his arms up in a jokingly defensive gesture.
  “Thanks,” I muttered, taking it.  I took a few sips.  It tasted a little odd—I guessed it was some kind of mineral water—but I was too thirsty to care.  I finished the water.
  “So, where’s Mike?”
  “Right here,” his voice interceded.  I turned gratefully as his hand slid around my waist.   “I was just getting her a drink, but it looks like you’ve got her taken care of,” he joked, pulling me close.
  “No, thanks, Mike.”  I returned the empty cup.  When I glanced into Dylan’s eyes, I froze.  The look in them was startling, almost frightening, a kind of carnal adoration.  I looked away and when my eyes returned, his were blank.
  Mike led me back inside.  We made our way back to the living room dance floor.  I tried to reconnect to the music, but my encounter with Dylan had ruined my mood and the throbbing in my head was getting worse; my mind felt cloudy.
  “I’ll be right back,” I said to Mike.  The room was spinning now, my vision was blurring.  I stumbled against people who didn’t give me a second glance.  I lurched forward as my legs gave way.  I fell against a wall and blacked out.

  When I woke up, it was dark.  I felt sick; my entire body ached.  I was lying down on a pillow.  I tried to sit up but my limbs dragged.  Panic shot through my mind.  I realized I was in the back of an unmoving van, my eyes moved to an empty driver’s seat.  I tried to cry out but my tongue was like stone.  My lips refused to move.  My voice emerged as a gargled moan.

  The trunk door opened.  His body was dimly back-lit, his face obscured.  My eyes struggled to focus but all I could make out was a red jacket.  My heart froze as my mind raced.  A hand curled around my ankle.  I was beyond confused, I didn’t know what to do, and even if I had wanted to react, I was in no state to do so.
  He climbed into the van and I lurched involuntarily as the van sagged.  My body moved forward as he crawled towards me.  I tried to see a face, but the light was still behind his head.  His hand drifted up my leg, coming to rest high on my thigh.  I tried to kick but all I got was a flimsy jerking movement.  His other hand moved to my head; he smoothed my hair then brushed his fingers along my cheek.  I tried again to scream, to no avail.

  “Finally,” he breathed.  My foggy mind rushed to put voice to face.

  My heart froze as it clicked.  At the same time, his head turned, his face thrown into relief.

  Somehow the look in his eyes felt more violating that the placement of his hands.

  “Now you see,” Dylan whispered to me, his thumb brushing against my lips.  I tried desperately to move, to cry out, to tell him to get off me.  My attempts were in vain as he leaned forward.  When he spoke, I felt his breath.
  “I knew it the first time I saw you, that we were destined for each other.  That we were soul-mates.”
  I stared at him.
  He stared back.
  “You’re too good for him, you know.  He treats you like just another conquest.  I would treat you like the goddess you are.”  His voice turned bitter, now.  “You know, he didn’t really even like you, in the beginning; it was a bet, that first date.”
  My mind reeled as a tempest of emotion stormed through my body.
  “I—I was the one.  I was the one who remembered your birthdays.  I was the one who suggested those presents you loved.”  His hand brushed the earrings Mike had given me on my last birthday.  “Everything was me.”

  “I’m the one you love.”  His hands were on both sides of my face now, his fingers entwined in my hair.

  “It’s me,” he whispered, his face lowering, “not him.”  His mouth hovered above mine now.  I’d never felt so vulnerable, so helpless.  My mind flashed with all those stories I’d read and heard; stories about girls that disappeared.  I didn’t want to become a face on the six-o’clock news.  I didn’t want to become a case folder, a box in a warehouse.  I didn’t want to become a statistic.
  He moved his mouth closer.  His lips touched mine.

  Headlights flared.

  His head shot up and I heard the crunch of tires against gravel.  A car door slammed.  Dylan scrambled out of the van.  Relief washed through me, promptly followed by panic as a voice sounded.
  “What the hell is this, Dylan?”  Mike’s voice was dangerously low.

  His answer came in the form of an attack.  Dylan launched himself at him.  He was out of my view now and all I could hear were the sounds of them fighting.

  It seemed like an eternity.

  I heard a body drop to the ground, then nothing but heavy breathing.

  I wondered what would happen next, whose face I would see.
His figure appeared, body back-lit, face obscured and, in that eternal second, my mind flashed with unimaginable horrors.

  “Lauren,” he said, and as he moved forward and I saw his face, my eyes overflowed and I cried in earnest.

  “Mike,” I whispered.

I did a reading of this for my grade nine drama performance exam, that worked beautifully.

Famous

  “Weirdo.” “Freak,” they called me, taunted me.  Laughed at me.  Teachers said they couldn’t help if they didn’t know what was going on.  Come forward, they said, we’ll help you.  Lies.  They never helped, they wouldn’t, couldn’t help.  They thought I was crazy, deranged.  They set up “meetings” with the“counsellors”: sessions with the shrink.  I laughed/laugh at them, still.  I have no regrets; all I have to do is reach into my mind and I relive it.

She looks at me.  She’s my reason for life.  She loves me.   She’s dating him but I understand.  She just has to keep up the ruse, cheerleader and quarterback.  She looks at me that way.  Directs her furtive glances at me.  I see it.  She laughs, artfully flips her hair.  Golden.  She’s Venus, my ambrosia.  I’m infatuated, nay, obsessed.

I follow her home, every night.  I know the route by heart.  It’s Tuesday, autumn.  A wind blows, whipping her clothes, making her shiver.  I want/need to hold her, warm her.  Feel her.  I shadow her, protect her.  She reaches her house, 3892 Courtland street.  She hugs her friend, who walks off down the street.  I crouch down on the red leaves beneath me, watching her for hours.  She dances in her room, sings to her hairbrush.  Beautiful, Venus.

Night falls, bringing cold air and looming darkness. I can’t leave, I’m enraptured.  The streetlights illuminate, the one above me flickers, on and off, on and off, on and off.  Snarling, I hurl a rock at it, smashing the light.  I always have been a perfect shot, I think smugly.

I watch her through the open window.  She knows I’m there, her silent protector, but she won’t look at me.  Rage fizzes in my stomach, bubbles in my throat.  My lips rise in a lopsided smirk.  I bury the fizz of rage in the pit of my stomach, I’ve figured it out.  She’s luring me in.  She wants me to come to her.  Insect to arachnid.  I curse myself for not having figured it out sooner.

She walks to the window, smiles, avoiding my eyes.  She draws her curtains, gone, with only her silhouette in sight.  That smile says it all, decides me.  Her outline turns off the light, disappears, cut off from view.  I yearn for something, anything, just a glimpse, another smile, another look.  Driven by a force inside of myself, I cross the street.

I breathe deeply as I cross, noting the absence of a car in the driveway, her parents are out of town.  All the better, I think with contempt.

I scale the tree outside her window, branches scratch me, drawing blood,  but I feel nothing but excitement.  My limbs move deftly, absent-mindedly.  I anticipate, imagine.

Her curtains sway in the wind.  Billow.  I reach over the two feet from tree to window frame, stretching my body. My breath comes irregularly, hitching in my throat.  I stifle a cough, forgetting my position and nearly fall.   Rapidly recovering with only a few more scratches to add to my tally I once again reach, over part the curtains.  Swinging my legs over I step in, as lightly as a cat.  My feet touch the carpet.  Her carpet.  I tingle with excitement, want.

I walk over to stand over her bed, I look/stare at her.  So beautiful, my mind repeats like a broken record player.  My hand develops a life of its own as I kneel to cautiously touch her hair.  So soft.  My hand drifts to her shoulder, my breath comes faster.  A small voice in my head shrieks at me to leave, I still have time, no one has to know.  You got your look, it yells, now get out!  I ignore it, push it to the distant corners of my mind.

My eyes return to her as she turns slowly.  Panicking, I lurch backwards, sprawling into her dresser, CDs showering my head.  I spring forward as she opens her eyes, I cover her mouth.  Moonlight bathes our faces.  Venus.  Her eyes widen and a muffled scream emerges, anticipation, not terror, I tell myself repeatedly.
  “Don’t say a word.”
She nods, I stand back, move my hand, she whimpers.  Anticipation, I repeat.  Then why did she scream, says the voice again.
  “Shut up, you don’t understand,” I snarl back at it.
  “Why are you here?” she whispers.
  “You already know.”
She doesn’t respond.
  “I love you,” I croon.
  “I don’t even know who you are,” she replies.

I slap her, she cries.  Regret rises instantaneously.  I rush to hug her, comfort her.  She shrugs me off violently, scratches my face with ragged nails.  Crawls to the corner, sobs racking her frame.  As though I’m nothing, garbage.  Something inside me snaps, I hit her. againAGAINAGAIN. I stand back, turn around, livid, fuming.  Shaking, I bend over to pick up her CDs, trying to find something to keep my mind off  the situation.

The door slams, I spin, looking at the now deserted bed.   She’s gone.   I race out the door, tearing after her.  My shoulder smashes into a corner but adrenalin drowns the pain.  I run down the hall, the stairs.  I reach the kitchen, she’s dialing frantically.  How very horror movie, the voice in my mind says.
“Then let us write the ending,” I whisper back.
I take a knife from the block on the counter.  I’m behind her.

I stand there, covered in blood.  I hear a car drive up.  It’s his car, the stupid oaf.  He took her.  I’m ready for him.  I take it out on him, releasing years’ worth of pent up rage.  Hack at him, splattering blood everywhere.

Arrest, trial, sentencing.  I show no remorse on the stand, stare impassively at the faces.  Death sentence, the jury announces,  the needle.

I’m famous now.

This was for a novel study on "The Chrysalids" by John Wyndham

Mrs. Strorm

--

Petra’s birth brought with it many things.

The days surrounding her arrival were hard.  I lay away, separated from the world, unable even to acknowledge my flesh and blood, referring, only when necessary, to the uncertified child as “it”.
I regretted my husband’s temper, his infamous rage that kept me from my children, my family.

I had never been an emotional person, unwilling to add another weakness to the list of female frailties men compiled.  No, the last time I’d cried had been as a child.  I shed no tears for the loss of my “children”.  Though it was forbidden to talk of the "mutants" borne, people gossiped.  They thought me cruel and heartless for my carefully cultivated impassive facade.  And so, I found it uncomfortable as with each passing day that I waited for the Inspector I was assaulted with a plethora of emotion.

And then, just as life was beginning to resume its rhythm, Harriet arrived, bearing her own new-born child.
Then, she asked to “borrow” my Petra, pleaded with me only to see her side.  Though thinking it a futile exercise, such was her desperation.  She knew her child would never be deigned fit for this society, would be destroyed, as custom dictated.
My first thoughts when revealed her plan were ones of disgust, disappointment and shame.  But then, as her words progressed, I felt other things, each as confusing as the next: compassion, regret and a horrifying compliance.  I couldn’t help it, couldn’t stifle the astounding emotions when I looked at her.  Looked at my sister.  As I read the frantic desperation in her eyes, as I took in the slightly manic appearance, so out of character from her always-perfect and impermeable calm.

Then Joseph heard.
Inevitable as it was—the walls of Waknuk heard your every secret—I had hoped in vain that somehow, some way, things would have worked according to my sister’s impossible plan.
His anger was that of a raging, all-consuming fire.

One thing I had learned in my years as Mrs. Joseph Strorm was this: Joseph Strorm had two passions that were almost always intertwined: piety and wrath, and they were both righteous and great.
True, I loved him, but that love was tainted with fear.  I could fear him . Though he had never so much as laid a finger on me, I could fear him.  I cowered quietly from the fire that ran through his veins, drew back it terror from the heat in his voice.

And then it passed.  What was done was done, regrettable as it was.  As fought against as it had been.  Harriet’s child had been condemned a Mutant and persecuted thusly.
Harriet was heart-broken.  Though she tried to hide it, tried to pretend none of it had happened, the world could see.  It took a toll on her, as it had time and time again.  I worried over her, fretted the emotional turmoil that ran through her in a constant, relentless storm.

When her body was found it was written off as an accident.  Though it affected me, it couldn’t surprise me; her mind had been addled by the cycle of life and death throughout her years.

Her death and memory were mentioned in passing. Then she was forgotten.

For a novel study on "The Hobbit", by Tolkien

Moons of day and suns of night
Use the key in evening light
Find the door to seal your fate
Be not early, be not late
Else the hole you'll never see
Then gone the treasure, done the key

If by chance you find the way
And reach the door by Durin's day
Hear the thrush and see the snail
The silver key it will prevail
To show you what you sought to find
Guarded by a dragon's mind

Mountain's glory, riches found
Yet lay sleeping on the mound
Dragon Smaug whose smoke and flame
Burned fair Dale, then he lay claim
To the treasures that you prize
And he'll keep guard 'til his demise

rosered93 @ 2008-08-12T02:57:00

2008-08-12T07:06:10Z

I intend to just use this journal as a place to display my creative efforts, i.e. paintings, drawings, the occasional piece of writing and anything else I feel proud enough to display.

I do have a deviantArt account, which contains a lot: http://rosered-snowwhite.deviantart.com

Thank you!

Rosalie Catherine Margaux Byrnes

rosered93 @ 2008-08-12T03:11:00

rosered93 @ 2008-08-12T02:57:00