A Hope and Dreams

The story has been whipping around us for so long that I cannot see the wind anymore, that I can only vaguely remember how the words felt until their sandpaper texture rubbed my skin raw. 

you awaken in a room, a bare wooden table stands in the middle of the room, and you each can see three more figures collapsed around you. the walls of the room are draped in tasteless red tapestry, and the table is heaped in backpacks. at the far end of the room you can see a fireplace, unlit, and cleared of soot. curtains cover what you presume to be windows to your right. there is a door to your left, with what appears to be a note tacked to none of you have any idea who you, or any of the other people in the room with you are. The note reads as follows, and is written in a sloping, (trying to be fancy, putting on airs of more) cursive: To A. Weaver, C. Morel, Twilight Stormshadow, and Niel West Heckens, We understand that you might find this situation to be frightening or befuddling. Trust us when we say that this lie to yourselves, to ourselves, is both hopefully temporary, and ultimately for the best. The hope, is that in losing some part of ourselves, you can be free from the fo...

Their body was like a scarecrow’s, straw seeping out of wounds instead of blood. The sight of someone picking at a scab (and blood welling forth) had always nauseated her. Even without the blood, the sight of Aiden grasping at one of the fibers sticking out of the cut and simply pulling it free was enough to force her to turn away.

A thin veil lay over the face of the person in the portrait behind their desk. The veil was neither mourning black, or wedding white, but instead a deep blue. The rest of their outfit was a suit of the same blue shade. A single hand was visible, a white-knuckled grip on the chair they stood behind. Although the features were obscured (or perhaps not painted at all), the figure still seemed to be glaring at everyone who entered the shop. “Who’s the woman in the picture?” the boy asked. The woman in the picture was a man. The man in the picture was the king’s advisor, known by the people as ‘The Bastard Queen’, not for being particularly unliked, of illegitimate birth, or any particular femininity, but because of the amount of power over the king he was rumored to have. Other portraits, scattered around the city, showed his face, but Adrian would proudly boast that hers was the only one that showed their mask. The portrait's presence was usually a point of pride for Adrian, as it was...

Her shop was filled with debris, out of the hope that it would make it seem as though she was more of an inscrutable expert. Detritus of someone she wishes she was in truth.

“This is what you do, isn’t it. You’re bleeding, injured, and the wound is trying to heal. But you’re refusing to let it, picking at the scab and the skin because you don’t want to let it scar. We’re here, we’re trying all we can to help you, but that’s part of the problem for you now. Maybe all the problem, as the damage you’ve done, trying to stop your healing, is greater than the original wound you suffered.” “You know that’s not true.” “Yeah, I do. I know you’re trying. And that’s– It’s better than you might’ve done, but we need you to do more. Or let us do more. Or let someone or something or somewhere do more.” “And if that’s too much?” “Then tell us. Because too much for you, means we’re not doing well enough. I’m not trying to say you need to become someone you’re not, to ignore everything that happened, just let the scars begin to form. Please.”

They were tipsy enough that they had forgotten that reality was a standard they were expected to adhere to when they spoke. She had seen beauty in the lights that she could see through the window, as she flew above her hometown. As she shoved the rose-tinted glasses away, she realized that those lights had always been nothing more than harsh, unforgiving, illumination. He never mastered the trick of lying to himself. He could tell anyone else whatever they needed to hear, or whatever he wanted them to think, and never feel a hint of guilt. But the instant he tried to convince himself of anything, he could feel his mind straining, a whisper from the edge of his hearing, asking ‘why’.

sorry that I missed the past few days, should be back on track to continue January from today onward, and then will do a few extra days at the beginning of February (schedule willing) to make up for it!  - gb

Branches blossomed from her back, her wings reaching toward the sun. There was no wax to melt, the wood was unvarnished, unpolished, cracked by time and weathered by storms, yet illuminated by the darkening sky.

 I try to keep a record of the first and last word I say every day. Tonight, it ended with "time".

 sorry for the late notice, but I won't be posting anything tonight. gb

She slammed her staff into the taller woman’s sword, before shifting her weight onto her back foot and pivoting. More like spinning, honestly, as all her weight fell onto her back leg and she used the momentum from swinging the staff to both tap her staff into her opponent’s side and take a quick glance at the stage around her. All the other actors had assumed their positions, and were either collapsed onto the ground or watching with bated breath. She swung the staff in a defensive flourish as the other woman took a step sharply forward– and then overbalanced slightly, the careful twirling motion turning into a jerky mess that jarred the staff from her hand as it sharply impacted with the ground. It clattered to the ground, and she sighed, picking it up again. “Alright, from the top.”

I don’t really know how to make a snowman, so my failure resulted in little more than freezing cold hands, and my boots being stuffed full of snow. I tried to knock the snow off in the doorway, but some of it was still tracked in. I quickly kicked my shoes off, and trudged towards my cat, snow stuck to my socks. I pressed my hands against either side of her sleeping face, gently scritching her ears as I did so. Of course, my fingers were frozen as I did so, absolutely stiff and unfeeling. She jumped about a foot in the air, but five minutes later she was twining around my ankles again, so I figure all was forgiven.

Sometimes, the routine washes over my head, but by the time I realize that I should be drowning I’ve adapted to something new, and breathing water is what I do now. Not literally, as the waves still crashed over my head. I gasped as the current swept my feet out from under me. I flail wildly, reaching out vaguely towards the surface, or towards where my friends had been standing. We had all been in a line, deeper than we should have been, trying to time our jumps to ride the wave a few feet back. I’m swept back more than a few feet, and end up sputtering, snorting water out of my nose and coughing into the inch-deep shallows. The beach is crowded, but nobody seems to notice the lone pre-teen.

(note from GB, this is continued from yesterday, and any future updates will be posted elsewhere, due to the fact that I'm going to start co-writing this project with a friend.) James had been planning on sneaking onto the next van out of camp for a while, and not quite being able to recognize the person driving wasn't going to hold him back from his goals. Still, once she introduced (apparently reintroduced, and wasn't that embarrassing) herself, he felt much more comfortable. He hadn't been planning on heading far away from camp, just far enough that he could get some cell signal or reach a payphone to call his dad. There was an old payphone at camp, but it dropped calls more often than not, and "I want to talk to my dad, no nothing's wrong" wasn't enough of an emergency for any of the staff or older campers to admit to having a working cell phone. After all, nothing was wrong. It was just that a few weeks ago, when he had been dropped off at camp, h...

All things considered, the day had been going much better than Cynthia had expected. She woke up to her left knee aching somewhat, but the residual soreness of her formerly—a few months formerly, not that it was nearly as healed as she would have expected by now—dislocated shoulder had faded into the periphery. Even better, this healing allowed her to shove the sling that had unfortunately become an everyday edition to her ensemble into her bag, and quickly and easily make the argument that she was, in fact, the best choice to loan the camp van to for the bimonthly non-essential shopping trip. Her driving was, frankly, adequate at best for a 16 year old, but people tended to assume that she was responsible enough to be trusted with such things. Thus, with the sling—the easiest counterargument against her taking the van—gone, she was free and clear. Making her argument at 7 am, before anyone who could tell her no was awake enough to think up a coherent argument, may have also been part ...

the cast iron wrapped delicately around the base of the lamp, twining its way up to the bulb, and gently cradling the dim light within. 

When I heard your name again— No, a step back. Every time I hear your name again, even in new contexts, in reference to new people, I have a moment where I don’t react at all. I’m not afraid, I’m not thinking of you, I’m not thinking of anything at all except whoever has introduced themselves. But then, eventually, I do remember, and I wonder if I should have flinched, if I should have doubted my newfound acquaintance as a result of some trauma linked to your name. But I didn’t, and I don’t, and I think I won’t. It’s not to remove your power, or anything so philosophical. It’s perhaps even more meaningful than that, because really, I just forget.

I saw my cat placing his paw up against the mirror, and I didn't think that he knew the "self". I didn't think that he "thought with the I", or that this experience would change him in any way. I also, however, think that he knew it was not some other strange cat. Maybe the first time—when he all but ran out of the room in fear—he did, but the subsequent times I think he knew that it was himself in that mirror. I just don’t think it mattered to him. Because, after all, seeing oneself does not mean that one is going to be fed a single second sooner, and so why on earth would it matter to him.

While I was mourning, the flowers you gifted me died as well. Honestly, the gift had been nothing when it was given. A meaningless gesture, more motivated by courtesy than any actual emotion. Although the emotion was there, it wasn’t the point. The flowers didn’t mean anything, so I left them in a vase with water, but didn’t bother to do anything beyond that. When you died, I tried to water them, to give them nutrients and a symbolic meaning, but I couldn’t manage it. Still, you were so much more than those flowers, so perhaps it’s good that the symbolism didn’t have time to take hold. As I figured out how to mourn, I forgot to water the flowers you had given me as condolences. Those few weeks of planning, of deciding the facade to put forward, were long enough that the little details (little details of the performance, or maybe just of life) slipped my mind for what felt like moments, but looking back was closer to weeks. You seemed to know the script by heart, but also to mean it gen...

(note from GB: this was originally written for a class as an addition to the canterbury tales, as told by an original pilgrim, but I think it still stands on its own as a short story) There was a young man who lived in a village that I have forgotten the name of. He cared for all the people of the village, although they did not care for him overly much. Each morning, half an hour past dawn, he would walk to each house in turn, knocking on their doors. When they answered him, he would ask how they were feeling, and if there was anything that he could do to help them that day. More often than not, the people would shake their heads scornfully, and frustratedly mourn their lost sleep. But although they did not hide their frustration, they never told the man to stop, until one morning when the owner of the local inn barked out in frustration, "Why will you not just be silent for once, and let us sleep in in peace!" The young man was confused, unsure of how he had erred. But he di...

hey there!  with full knowledge that (given that it's currently January) I have a commitment to posting something each day, I just wanted to put out some form of notice that there won't be a post tonight, because I'm working on something a fair bit longer than usual for tomorrow, and I want to be able to take the time to finish (let alone edit). GB

The curtains hide us from the world beyond your bed. Or maybe it’s just the windows themselves, acting as an opaque barrier. But I like the image of the curtains, framing us like actors on a stage, two nameless silhouettes circling closer and closer to each other, a conclusion clearly foretold by convention alone. But us, with the imagined-to-be-opaque windows, and the curtains pulled shut around your four-poster bed, we only move when others watch. But when those strings that would pull us to move are arrested, when we move of our own will, we still find ourselves intertwined. Our stained-glass shadows seep down the walls. Intertwined, incandescent, colors dripping together into a marbled display.

“This pitcher (picture?) could hold a grain or a gallon of the truth,” she said to me. I wish I knew exactly what she had been referring to, but the photo from the baseball game should do well enough for both.

You’re lucky to not be here for every second of the ending. As the adrenaline slowly ebbs from our veins, and the rivers of molten fear beneath our feet begin to coagulate. As every second suddenly seems to take a century, as our hearts resume a steady rhythm. Sure, there’s joy in that moment, in knowing that we finally made it, that our journey is over (and that we won, we actually won!) but more than that it’s just silence. And then we have to trudge our way back home, and along the way we’ll see that Aunt Ann’s and the rusted old playground by the diner and every little detail that we passed on the way here is exactly the same (probably even you, and I’m sorry, so sorry, to have to tell you this, and know that I don’t mean this as anything but the truth that I know you want to hear more than meaningless affirmations). So you’re lucky to not have to be here for the ending, and I feel as though I have to say this to you, even though there’s a large chance that you’ll not believe it (w...

My mother loves flowers that look dead. Not flowers that are dead, if someone gifts her a bouquet, or brings flowers to a dinner party, she’ll produce a vase, fill it with water, and place the flowers in place of pride. Later, when the guests are gone, she’ll trim the bottom of the stems, and add some mysterious florist-provided flower nutrient powder to the water if she has any (usually, it comes with the flowers). One day, I remember being worried that the flowers she was holding looked—to my eyes that were relatively uneducated in the nuances of flowers—sad and drooping. I asked her what kind they were, and she told me, and also answered the question that I was a little too awkward to blatantly ask, and told me that they were supposed to look like that, and that they were her favorite kind. Embarrassingly, I’ve since forgotten what they were called. When my thoughts get too loud, I pluck them, wilted and tarnished, from my mind, and place them in a vase. The struggle is in rememberi...