Not Feeling the computer today
See you guys tomorrow.
Edit/Update: This was all done yesterday, but I thought you might like to see it.
Tempest stumbled down from the mountain the barest hints of light peaking just over the horizon. Her bones felt so weary they might sag out of her body at any moment. When she entered through the back door, she remembered to grab the note and crumple it, tossing it toward the waste basket before she dragged her feet to her room. She tried not to think about Carlos as she collapsed into her bed, but the memory of the gathering, and his scent on the bed still lingered.
All Tempest wanted was sleep. She did not want to think about fairies or Carlos or anything.
But as she slept she dreamed.
Something kept her parents away from Evergreen Falls, because even when everything lined up perfectly, they still did not want to go. But simultaneously, something drew them there because they never talked about not going; only what circumstances would prevent them from getting there, and no matter what way you looked at it, few people ever got as lucky as they did.
First, her father inherited the house, six bedrooms, five and a half baths, four-and-a-half thousand square feet, fifteen acres, and walking distance from the beach and several paths, along with enough money to pay off their current mortgage, both the cars and still have some left over.
“We’d have to have jobs,” Dad pointed out when they discussed it quietly. “I mean, even if we sold the house, we couldn’t live off of it.”
“Of course,” said Mom.
They called the local power plant for Dad, then the local bank for Mom. Both had senior positions available, and happily looked over resumes and references, and declared that if they wanted jobs, they had them.
“But it’s not really a good time to move,” said Mom. “The girls are still in school.”
They asked if they could wait two weeks. The power plant and the bank asked if they could wait four; they were still transitioning out the old employees.
“It’ll still be a little risky if we don’t sell the house,” said Dad.
It went up on the market and was off within two weeks.
“Can you guys just pick on already?” Alethea, Tempest’s sister asked. “Are we moving or are we not moving?”
Mom and Dad looked at each other.
They packed up the house, and held a yard sale for anything they did not want to keep. Movers came, stacking items neatly into a truck, declaring they would meet them in Evergreen Falls in a week and a half. The drive took her family a week, most of which Tempest spent drawing landscapes or reading. Her parents though, constantly talked about new rules that would be established. Tempest jotted them down on her sketch pad, the words scrolling out of caricatures of her parents’ exceptionally large mouths.
RULES
1. Just because we’re in a new town doesn’t mean you get to sit around the house and do nothing. You get one week to unpack and decorate, then go out and make friends. Or you can find a job, you’re almost old enough for that, girls.
2. Just because we have money doesn’t mean you girls get to spend everything. Yes your allowances will go up, but not astronomically. Fifty dollars a week, and that’s it Alethea. Why do you need a car? If you get good grades this semester, and you have to help pay for it. Sure, sweetie, if you can pay for it on your own, you can get a car.
3. No moping when we ask you to do chores, like making dinner once in a while, or helping with the garden. Didn’t we mention there’s a garden? Well, there is.
4. No boys.
“Okay, that rule was made to antagonize me!” Alethea declared.
“No, it was made for both of you,” said Dad. “And if you would let us finish you would find out that you are perfectly allowed to date, but there will be no boys in the house if either of you are alone.”
Tempest drew a sketch of two people in rut below rule four and x’d through it. Alethea saw and began to snicker.
“What’s so funny?” Mom asked.
“Platypuses lay eggs,” Tempest replied.
“Of course! Didn’t you girls know that?”
Okay, so this is only about 700 words, but I did write more yesterday. I know I've been saying this for a while, but I'm finally going to make the commitment for tomorrow and spend most of the day typing after I get my daily assignments done. See you then.
EDIT: another story for you guys
The forest seeped into my ears with all of its little noises. I began to think, as in insect buzzed by my ear that this should be impossible. I had been dead, I had felt myself die. How could I hear chirping birds or leave rustling if I knew my heart had stopped. I wondered as I wakened, afraid to open my eyes. But then I could feel the sun there, see the light through my eyelids.
Slowly, I opened my eyes.
Then the world became real. I was alive, but I was also in a lot of pain.
I sat up and felt a twinge in my stomach. I tried to reach for it with my right hand but then mound my shoulder protruding at a rather odd angle. It felt like it had years ago when I dislocated it. I shuffled through my memories and self-taught medical knowledge to try and remember how to pop it back in. For one thing I really shouldn’t have done it myself, but I was left with almost no choice. So I grabbed it with my good hand and pulled.
I felt a pop and it alleviated a pain I could not even tell I had. I sucked in a deep breath and pulled up my shirt. There was a gash there, from tumbling down a hill if I remember right, I caught it on a rock. Three wound was almost closed but around the edges it looked a little green. Probably not a good sign. I thought about standing, but then realized something.
My left leg also stuck out at an odd angel, but not a joint. I pocked it a little and felt the pain shoot up. I took off my belt, and pushed it between my teeth so I would have something to bite down on, because I was going to need it.
Fingers dug into my flesh-I pretended they were not my own-and brought the bone back to the part connected to my hip. I screamed and bit, and when I finally felt like I could move I held my leg with one hand and grabbed the belt with the other, tightening it around my leg to help keep the bone in place.
Taking a large stick to lean on instead of my leg, I stood and tried to remember where I was. I ran almost a solid hour from town which meant I was a solid four miles from there at least-probably closer to five. I spotted the hill I had fallen down, recognizing it a little from trips into the woods. That hill had a lot of accidents associated with it and if I was right there was a ranger rescue facility less than a mile west of here. I really had nowhere else to go and I was desperate. Judging by the sun, I directed myself and set off.
I walked slowly-I couldn’t judge the time very well, but it felt much longer than a mile hike normally would have because I covered ground so slowly. When I caught sight of the small cabin, I was ready to collapse When I made it to the back door, though it was locked. Hoping it was not armed, I grabbed a rock and forced it through a window. I reached in, undid the dead bolt and let myself it.
I told myself I had to find water and a first aid kit before I went to sleep made a speedy worker out of me. The taps weren’t working but I found plenty of bottles of winter and there were large cases of medicine in an infirmary room. I sat down on a bed bathing my wound before I could disinfectant and began to slather it on. Wrapping bandages around my middle, my swollen shoulder and my broken leg, I tried to drink as much water as I could, because I knew I was dehydrated. But I was finally getting too tired. I grabbed a blanket from one of the cabinet and lay back against a set of pillows. I slept and I did not dream.
I was born in a small town on my parents’ bed, the fourth of five children. My dad already drank too much then, and cheated on my mom too many times. It’s why I have blue eyes, when Daddy has brown and Momma had not quite blue green eyes.
Everybody in my family has blue eyes, Hugh,” she told him. He accepted it for a while, but deep down he always knew and so never liked me. Then Momma died when I was four, Daddy found a woman who helped him sober up. Jeani brought two boys and two girls to the house with her and never married Daddy. She did not like me either. Not many people in town did.
It was like they could smell it on me-being different that is. Every knew I was a cuckoo, but that was not the point-half the town was born of adultery, no one really cared-there was just something different about me. I learned quicker than everyone my age, or ever older, somehow I was not sick a day in my life, even when all the other kids were, and I just didn’t look right I guess my hair was too dark, my eyes too blue, my skin too pale, and never burnt. I set people’s teeth on edge.
I was almost not surprised that they lynched me.
When I woke up, it was dark. I no longer felt any pain and upon a quick examination of myself, I found my shoulder was no longer swollen. My stomach cut (or infected) and my left felt like it had never been broken at all. I also realized I was filthy.
I didn’t want to bathe in water bottles and knew I shouldn’t. I didn’t know how long I would need to make them last. The last time I had been there though, we the river which should not have been that far way. There were also a few large buckets and some antiseptic soap in the little cabin, and the very pack I discovered a gas range where I could heat the water up.
I borrowed a jacket from a coat closet and set out towards the river, collecting tow buckets of water. Returning to the cabin, I heated them and then gave myself the most thorough bath I could. I filched an extra uniform shirt and a pair of jeans which were too large on me. I also found a pair of worn out tennis shoes. I began to grow hungry so I hunted around and found some preserves. While I ate, I thought about what to do.
I had to go back to town. When I had run for my life, I hadn’t thought to take my driver’s license, any of my money, or my social security card. I dreaded what might happen if they were discovered. Then I really would only have my life. I would also need a vehicle, which might not be too difficult to do, considering the nearby junk yard…
But the fact remained that I had to go back. I felt tired again and as the sun began to come up, I fell back to sleep willing myself to wake before sundown.
I had been working to get out of the town. I got my GED in secret, my driver’s license and even applied of a social security card. I had been burring cash in a secret spot for years and had been putting back together an old jeep to getter gas mileage. I fully intended to disappear one day.
Then everything went to shit.
Cain the oldest of my step brothers and considers himself god’s gift to women. A few nights ago, he stumbled into my room and said,
“Lemme make a woman outta you. Then you won’t be so proud.”
“No,” I said pushing him off of me. I ran downstairs to get away but he pursued, grabbing me.”
“Jeani! Get him off.”
“Don’t fight it honey-it only hurts the first time,” Jeani said. Cain kissed me rough and hard, but I scrambled away again, this time running out into the ward. He grabbed me and slapped me, and then punched me when I wouldn’t stop trying to get away. Then he held me still and wiped the small trickle of blood away from my mouth.
“The hell?” he whispered.
This is what I think he saw-my lip slit open and my face turned red. I bruised and bled quickly and then they faded, my face turning to normal almost immediately.
“What they hell are you?” he asked. He was confused and he loosened his grip on me, so that I could get away. I ran. I ran towards the woods intending to stop and hide before I doubled back, but then I heard Cain calling for his friends and somehow I knew to run faster.
I made it a mile in before I heard a truck. It was meandering in-not very fast at all, but I kept running-UI had no idea how I kept it up so easily, but after an hour, they were tired of playing games and corralled me toward the hill. I misstepped. I fell, Crack went my leg, my arm tangled in some roots and dislocated before it released. My stomach slid against sharp rocks.
“Justus, Can,” said someone. “You killed her.’
“Lotsa bears this time of year,” said another guy. “Other wild stuff too. No one will miss her in town.” The crunching of brush-they walked away. Then it felt like my heart stopped and I floated above myself. Then I woke up to the forest.
It was almost dusk when I woke up the second time, but I felt like I would have enough time. I stuffed my borrowed jacket with some jerky and a bottle of water and set out jogging toward the town.
It took me almost two hours, but I made it. I felt energy coarse through me as I stalked along the forest line toward my house. It was all dark, meaning most of the older people were out drinking and come to think, my little brother probably was too. Good. It left the house along for me.
My room was almost completely vacant I discovered when I climbed through my window. All that remained was the bed.
“It doesn’t matter,” I told myself, as I dug up the floor board to fish out my important information. My birth certificate, my driver’s license, my social security card and my GED certificate. I grabbed it and lef.t I went to my secret spot looking for the thousands of dollars I had stashed over the years, only to find one coffee can full of cash instead of the vie I should have. Damn. Someone had found the others. I got to the junk yard and thankfully found my jeep still hidden and waiting for me. OI did not drive right out of there. I couldn’t last on the money in the coffee can.
Edit/Update: This was all done yesterday, but I thought you might like to see it.
Tempest stumbled down from the mountain the barest hints of light peaking just over the horizon. Her bones felt so weary they might sag out of her body at any moment. When she entered through the back door, she remembered to grab the note and crumple it, tossing it toward the waste basket before she dragged her feet to her room. She tried not to think about Carlos as she collapsed into her bed, but the memory of the gathering, and his scent on the bed still lingered.
All Tempest wanted was sleep. She did not want to think about fairies or Carlos or anything.
But as she slept she dreamed.
Something kept her parents away from Evergreen Falls, because even when everything lined up perfectly, they still did not want to go. But simultaneously, something drew them there because they never talked about not going; only what circumstances would prevent them from getting there, and no matter what way you looked at it, few people ever got as lucky as they did.
First, her father inherited the house, six bedrooms, five and a half baths, four-and-a-half thousand square feet, fifteen acres, and walking distance from the beach and several paths, along with enough money to pay off their current mortgage, both the cars and still have some left over.
“We’d have to have jobs,” Dad pointed out when they discussed it quietly. “I mean, even if we sold the house, we couldn’t live off of it.”
“Of course,” said Mom.
They called the local power plant for Dad, then the local bank for Mom. Both had senior positions available, and happily looked over resumes and references, and declared that if they wanted jobs, they had them.
“But it’s not really a good time to move,” said Mom. “The girls are still in school.”
They asked if they could wait two weeks. The power plant and the bank asked if they could wait four; they were still transitioning out the old employees.
“It’ll still be a little risky if we don’t sell the house,” said Dad.
It went up on the market and was off within two weeks.
“Can you guys just pick on already?” Alethea, Tempest’s sister asked. “Are we moving or are we not moving?”
Mom and Dad looked at each other.
They packed up the house, and held a yard sale for anything they did not want to keep. Movers came, stacking items neatly into a truck, declaring they would meet them in Evergreen Falls in a week and a half. The drive took her family a week, most of which Tempest spent drawing landscapes or reading. Her parents though, constantly talked about new rules that would be established. Tempest jotted them down on her sketch pad, the words scrolling out of caricatures of her parents’ exceptionally large mouths.
RULES
1. Just because we’re in a new town doesn’t mean you get to sit around the house and do nothing. You get one week to unpack and decorate, then go out and make friends. Or you can find a job, you’re almost old enough for that, girls.
2. Just because we have money doesn’t mean you girls get to spend everything. Yes your allowances will go up, but not astronomically. Fifty dollars a week, and that’s it Alethea. Why do you need a car? If you get good grades this semester, and you have to help pay for it. Sure, sweetie, if you can pay for it on your own, you can get a car.
3. No moping when we ask you to do chores, like making dinner once in a while, or helping with the garden. Didn’t we mention there’s a garden? Well, there is.
4. No boys.
“Okay, that rule was made to antagonize me!” Alethea declared.
“No, it was made for both of you,” said Dad. “And if you would let us finish you would find out that you are perfectly allowed to date, but there will be no boys in the house if either of you are alone.”
Tempest drew a sketch of two people in rut below rule four and x’d through it. Alethea saw and began to snicker.
“What’s so funny?” Mom asked.
“Platypuses lay eggs,” Tempest replied.
“Of course! Didn’t you girls know that?”
Okay, so this is only about 700 words, but I did write more yesterday. I know I've been saying this for a while, but I'm finally going to make the commitment for tomorrow and spend most of the day typing after I get my daily assignments done. See you then.
EDIT: another story for you guys
The forest seeped into my ears with all of its little noises. I began to think, as in insect buzzed by my ear that this should be impossible. I had been dead, I had felt myself die. How could I hear chirping birds or leave rustling if I knew my heart had stopped. I wondered as I wakened, afraid to open my eyes. But then I could feel the sun there, see the light through my eyelids.
Slowly, I opened my eyes.
Then the world became real. I was alive, but I was also in a lot of pain.
I sat up and felt a twinge in my stomach. I tried to reach for it with my right hand but then mound my shoulder protruding at a rather odd angle. It felt like it had years ago when I dislocated it. I shuffled through my memories and self-taught medical knowledge to try and remember how to pop it back in. For one thing I really shouldn’t have done it myself, but I was left with almost no choice. So I grabbed it with my good hand and pulled.
I felt a pop and it alleviated a pain I could not even tell I had. I sucked in a deep breath and pulled up my shirt. There was a gash there, from tumbling down a hill if I remember right, I caught it on a rock. Three wound was almost closed but around the edges it looked a little green. Probably not a good sign. I thought about standing, but then realized something.
My left leg also stuck out at an odd angel, but not a joint. I pocked it a little and felt the pain shoot up. I took off my belt, and pushed it between my teeth so I would have something to bite down on, because I was going to need it.
Fingers dug into my flesh-I pretended they were not my own-and brought the bone back to the part connected to my hip. I screamed and bit, and when I finally felt like I could move I held my leg with one hand and grabbed the belt with the other, tightening it around my leg to help keep the bone in place.
Taking a large stick to lean on instead of my leg, I stood and tried to remember where I was. I ran almost a solid hour from town which meant I was a solid four miles from there at least-probably closer to five. I spotted the hill I had fallen down, recognizing it a little from trips into the woods. That hill had a lot of accidents associated with it and if I was right there was a ranger rescue facility less than a mile west of here. I really had nowhere else to go and I was desperate. Judging by the sun, I directed myself and set off.
I walked slowly-I couldn’t judge the time very well, but it felt much longer than a mile hike normally would have because I covered ground so slowly. When I caught sight of the small cabin, I was ready to collapse When I made it to the back door, though it was locked. Hoping it was not armed, I grabbed a rock and forced it through a window. I reached in, undid the dead bolt and let myself it.
I told myself I had to find water and a first aid kit before I went to sleep made a speedy worker out of me. The taps weren’t working but I found plenty of bottles of winter and there were large cases of medicine in an infirmary room. I sat down on a bed bathing my wound before I could disinfectant and began to slather it on. Wrapping bandages around my middle, my swollen shoulder and my broken leg, I tried to drink as much water as I could, because I knew I was dehydrated. But I was finally getting too tired. I grabbed a blanket from one of the cabinet and lay back against a set of pillows. I slept and I did not dream.
I was born in a small town on my parents’ bed, the fourth of five children. My dad already drank too much then, and cheated on my mom too many times. It’s why I have blue eyes, when Daddy has brown and Momma had not quite blue green eyes.
Everybody in my family has blue eyes, Hugh,” she told him. He accepted it for a while, but deep down he always knew and so never liked me. Then Momma died when I was four, Daddy found a woman who helped him sober up. Jeani brought two boys and two girls to the house with her and never married Daddy. She did not like me either. Not many people in town did.
It was like they could smell it on me-being different that is. Every knew I was a cuckoo, but that was not the point-half the town was born of adultery, no one really cared-there was just something different about me. I learned quicker than everyone my age, or ever older, somehow I was not sick a day in my life, even when all the other kids were, and I just didn’t look right I guess my hair was too dark, my eyes too blue, my skin too pale, and never burnt. I set people’s teeth on edge.
I was almost not surprised that they lynched me.
When I woke up, it was dark. I no longer felt any pain and upon a quick examination of myself, I found my shoulder was no longer swollen. My stomach cut (or infected) and my left felt like it had never been broken at all. I also realized I was filthy.
I didn’t want to bathe in water bottles and knew I shouldn’t. I didn’t know how long I would need to make them last. The last time I had been there though, we the river which should not have been that far way. There were also a few large buckets and some antiseptic soap in the little cabin, and the very pack I discovered a gas range where I could heat the water up.
I borrowed a jacket from a coat closet and set out towards the river, collecting tow buckets of water. Returning to the cabin, I heated them and then gave myself the most thorough bath I could. I filched an extra uniform shirt and a pair of jeans which were too large on me. I also found a pair of worn out tennis shoes. I began to grow hungry so I hunted around and found some preserves. While I ate, I thought about what to do.
I had to go back to town. When I had run for my life, I hadn’t thought to take my driver’s license, any of my money, or my social security card. I dreaded what might happen if they were discovered. Then I really would only have my life. I would also need a vehicle, which might not be too difficult to do, considering the nearby junk yard…
But the fact remained that I had to go back. I felt tired again and as the sun began to come up, I fell back to sleep willing myself to wake before sundown.
I had been working to get out of the town. I got my GED in secret, my driver’s license and even applied of a social security card. I had been burring cash in a secret spot for years and had been putting back together an old jeep to getter gas mileage. I fully intended to disappear one day.
Then everything went to shit.
Cain the oldest of my step brothers and considers himself god’s gift to women. A few nights ago, he stumbled into my room and said,
“Lemme make a woman outta you. Then you won’t be so proud.”
“No,” I said pushing him off of me. I ran downstairs to get away but he pursued, grabbing me.”
“Jeani! Get him off.”
“Don’t fight it honey-it only hurts the first time,” Jeani said. Cain kissed me rough and hard, but I scrambled away again, this time running out into the ward. He grabbed me and slapped me, and then punched me when I wouldn’t stop trying to get away. Then he held me still and wiped the small trickle of blood away from my mouth.
“The hell?” he whispered.
This is what I think he saw-my lip slit open and my face turned red. I bruised and bled quickly and then they faded, my face turning to normal almost immediately.
“What they hell are you?” he asked. He was confused and he loosened his grip on me, so that I could get away. I ran. I ran towards the woods intending to stop and hide before I doubled back, but then I heard Cain calling for his friends and somehow I knew to run faster.
I made it a mile in before I heard a truck. It was meandering in-not very fast at all, but I kept running-UI had no idea how I kept it up so easily, but after an hour, they were tired of playing games and corralled me toward the hill. I misstepped. I fell, Crack went my leg, my arm tangled in some roots and dislocated before it released. My stomach slid against sharp rocks.
“Justus, Can,” said someone. “You killed her.’
“Lotsa bears this time of year,” said another guy. “Other wild stuff too. No one will miss her in town.” The crunching of brush-they walked away. Then it felt like my heart stopped and I floated above myself. Then I woke up to the forest.
It was almost dusk when I woke up the second time, but I felt like I would have enough time. I stuffed my borrowed jacket with some jerky and a bottle of water and set out jogging toward the town.
It took me almost two hours, but I made it. I felt energy coarse through me as I stalked along the forest line toward my house. It was all dark, meaning most of the older people were out drinking and come to think, my little brother probably was too. Good. It left the house along for me.
My room was almost completely vacant I discovered when I climbed through my window. All that remained was the bed.
“It doesn’t matter,” I told myself, as I dug up the floor board to fish out my important information. My birth certificate, my driver’s license, my social security card and my GED certificate. I grabbed it and lef.t I went to my secret spot looking for the thousands of dollars I had stashed over the years, only to find one coffee can full of cash instead of the vie I should have. Damn. Someone had found the others. I got to the junk yard and thankfully found my jeep still hidden and waiting for me. OI did not drive right out of there. I couldn’t last on the money in the coffee can.