The Beginning...
Just a teaser for interested night-owls. Feel no obligation to read unless you want to dish-out some criticism and help the project along.
Gotta start sometime and putting-out another introspective journal entry was just not the way to do it. So, I bit the bullet:
Dani turned the ignition for the second time. The engine winced a few times, even a few times more, but buzzed to life again. The stereo coughed to life, jolting her from reverie. She had left her old CD-player running in the passenger-side seat, whirling-out an old mix. Lunging, she punched the radio out and tapped the stop-button on a CD player tethered by a wire-bare adaptor to the tape-deck. Dani exhaled into her steering wheel. The volume was still cranked-up from earlier, when she could not stand to hear only the sound of her own weeping; the cranked tunes gave the illusion that nobody could hear her, she thought, though not just an illusion. It was raining liberally, just before dawn in late October. Somewhere upstream, people were complaining about sleet and hoping the roads did not freeze-or that they did.
“Shit,” she said, with one of those sobs that wants to be a laugh. She forced a smile and tapped her head softly and repeatedly against the horn button until it made a feeble ‘beep’. “Like anyone would hear me out here anyway-I have to crank ‘The Flaming Lips’ up to fuck’n level eleven” She chuckled a little at the irony, which decayed into another muted gush of sobs. The wipers were off, and needed replaced anyway, so that the whole windshield was slowly turning from streaks like rotten milk to beads of tiny, distorted railway lights. It was too sublime to ruin with headlights, she thought, and rested her arms on the steering-wheel, looking up at the windshield, barely able to see her own outline in its dim reflection or, let alone, a pair of eyes like melting sapphires. Instead, she was thinking of a pair of eyes like...
“Dammit,” she said, “the jewel you cannot have is always most beautiful; there’s another line for my journal. ‘He had eyes like’-I don’t know. Glowing brown hoops. That’s pathetic. I want my money-back, [University]” She laughed, tapping the steering wheel with every strained guffaw. She turned the ignition back again. Rain continued to drum irregular riffs against the roof of the Escort in wobbly cadences. Scenes from the evening’s break-up played like an amateur slide-show montage on the back of her eye-lids: out of order, partially distorted and repetitive. A few clips of the last break percolated through the more recent drama. [ great/terrible clips from her break-ups: be creative, feel free to re-imagine Tristan~ don’t have to make a complete break-up scene, just highlight reel ] [tips the bottle of iced-tea for the first time]
‘The Flaming Lips’ erupted from her cup-holder, this time, in ring-tone form. “Do you realize? That you have the most beautiful face. Do you realize? That we’re all floating-“ She flicked the phone open and pressed it to her ear, whispering ‘in space...’
“Hey? Yeah, hi Spencer,” she said, gulping. “Oh nowhere... by the railroad bridge up from the dam.” A flourish of wind splattered rain against the driver’s side window. “No, you don’t have to do that, Spence,” she said, hoping he would anyway. “Well, yes, something. No, I’m only buzzed... it just comes and goes- but I guess the buzz isn’t getting any stronger,” she lied. “No, I am not telling you what it is.” She felt for a little hard spot in her pant pocket. “Well, yeah I guess it would be safer that way, if I even want to be safe,” she said, bitterly. “Okay, I guess so, whatever... but come quick or else don’t even bother,” she said, again bitterly. “Okay, see you in a bit; Aw, thanks. Seriously, thank you. I’m not trying to be a bitch I’m just... yeah. See you soon.”
The phone closed with a dull clack. To the Southeast, a weak and wine-colored glow stained the balustrades of a new-deal-era dam that slowed the small river’s progress through Appalachia. Dani’s thoughts went to her mother, as she extracted the last pill from her pocket. “I paid for it: might as well.” She tipped the bottle of iced-tea onto her lips but it was still as empty as last time. She almost called Spencer back to see if he would bring her a tea but the idea reminded her of how needy and manipulative she felt. She felt even needier and more manipulative for dragging him into her needy and manipulative
“...spiral of desperation and pills and taking off in the wee hours of the morning,” she mumbled and decided to resort to her mix again, turning the ignition for the third time, hitting the play button on the scuffed CD-player, staring motionless with her ear cocked to the skippering spin of a scarred disc. She crossed her arms over the steering wheel again and tucked her face into them.
The next she knew, there was a tap on the window.
Gotta start sometime and putting-out another introspective journal entry was just not the way to do it. So, I bit the bullet:
Dani turned the ignition for the second time. The engine winced a few times, even a few times more, but buzzed to life again. The stereo coughed to life, jolting her from reverie. She had left her old CD-player running in the passenger-side seat, whirling-out an old mix. Lunging, she punched the radio out and tapped the stop-button on a CD player tethered by a wire-bare adaptor to the tape-deck. Dani exhaled into her steering wheel. The volume was still cranked-up from earlier, when she could not stand to hear only the sound of her own weeping; the cranked tunes gave the illusion that nobody could hear her, she thought, though not just an illusion. It was raining liberally, just before dawn in late October. Somewhere upstream, people were complaining about sleet and hoping the roads did not freeze-or that they did.
“Shit,” she said, with one of those sobs that wants to be a laugh. She forced a smile and tapped her head softly and repeatedly against the horn button until it made a feeble ‘beep’. “Like anyone would hear me out here anyway-I have to crank ‘The Flaming Lips’ up to fuck’n level eleven” She chuckled a little at the irony, which decayed into another muted gush of sobs. The wipers were off, and needed replaced anyway, so that the whole windshield was slowly turning from streaks like rotten milk to beads of tiny, distorted railway lights. It was too sublime to ruin with headlights, she thought, and rested her arms on the steering-wheel, looking up at the windshield, barely able to see her own outline in its dim reflection or, let alone, a pair of eyes like melting sapphires. Instead, she was thinking of a pair of eyes like...
“Dammit,” she said, “the jewel you cannot have is always most beautiful; there’s another line for my journal. ‘He had eyes like’-I don’t know. Glowing brown hoops. That’s pathetic. I want my money-back, [University]” She laughed, tapping the steering wheel with every strained guffaw. She turned the ignition back again. Rain continued to drum irregular riffs against the roof of the Escort in wobbly cadences. Scenes from the evening’s break-up played like an amateur slide-show montage on the back of her eye-lids: out of order, partially distorted and repetitive. A few clips of the last break percolated through the more recent drama. [ great/terrible clips from her break-ups: be creative, feel free to re-imagine Tristan~ don’t have to make a complete break-up scene, just highlight reel ] [tips the bottle of iced-tea for the first time]
‘The Flaming Lips’ erupted from her cup-holder, this time, in ring-tone form. “Do you realize? That you have the most beautiful face. Do you realize? That we’re all floating-“ She flicked the phone open and pressed it to her ear, whispering ‘in space...’
“Hey? Yeah, hi Spencer,” she said, gulping. “Oh nowhere... by the railroad bridge up from the dam.” A flourish of wind splattered rain against the driver’s side window. “No, you don’t have to do that, Spence,” she said, hoping he would anyway. “Well, yes, something. No, I’m only buzzed... it just comes and goes- but I guess the buzz isn’t getting any stronger,” she lied. “No, I am not telling you what it is.” She felt for a little hard spot in her pant pocket. “Well, yeah I guess it would be safer that way, if I even want to be safe,” she said, bitterly. “Okay, I guess so, whatever... but come quick or else don’t even bother,” she said, again bitterly. “Okay, see you in a bit; Aw, thanks. Seriously, thank you. I’m not trying to be a bitch I’m just... yeah. See you soon.”
The phone closed with a dull clack. To the Southeast, a weak and wine-colored glow stained the balustrades of a new-deal-era dam that slowed the small river’s progress through Appalachia. Dani’s thoughts went to her mother, as she extracted the last pill from her pocket. “I paid for it: might as well.” She tipped the bottle of iced-tea onto her lips but it was still as empty as last time. She almost called Spencer back to see if he would bring her a tea but the idea reminded her of how needy and manipulative she felt. She felt even needier and more manipulative for dragging him into her needy and manipulative
“...spiral of desperation and pills and taking off in the wee hours of the morning,” she mumbled and decided to resort to her mix again, turning the ignition for the third time, hitting the play button on the scuffed CD-player, staring motionless with her ear cocked to the skippering spin of a scarred disc. She crossed her arms over the steering wheel again and tucked her face into them.
The next she knew, there was a tap on the window.