Aberdeen
720 words // PG
experimental/freewrite fic
1. The bus to Aberdeen, South Africa hits every bump like a rock skipping on water and I have to hold my camera in my lap to make sure it doesn’t bump and fly out the window. I should just put it back in my bag; I think I’ve given up on taking pictures now. It’s all rock formations and dusty cliffs and I can see how hot it’s going to be once this bus stops. I keep my head almost completely out the window to keep from swimming in my sweat.
2. There’s nothing worse than an argument that you know you’re losing. Where you’re scraping at anything to come back with to save your ego. Then, there’s a point where you just have to brace yourself for the impact and know you've lost. It's over. Then, that’s when you get away and go somewhere.
3. I hold the GPS in my hands and wish it could tell me where to go. What city to type in. I start typing in places just to see the travel time. Manhattan, Chicago, Seattle. Places where I can get lost.
4. Have you ever been walking down the sidewalk and realize you’re headed in the opposite direction of where you want to go? But instead of just turning a 180, you first have to do something like check your watch or phone or make an arm gesture to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you’re crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.
5. The drive to the airport took forty-five minutes. The wait to board was two hours. The flight was fourteen. The connecting flight, another three. The bus, an hour.
6. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least a little bit tired.
7. I wish I could rollover all those naps I never used when I was younger, like cell phone minutes.
8. The lady at the Chinese place in the airport placed two packages of plastic silverware on my tray. I couldn’t tell if she had grabbed two by mistake or if she thought I was sharing with someone else. I hoped that she didn’t watch me walk back to a table by myself.
9. Sometimes I’ll check my phone three times and still not know what time it is.
10. Aberdeen. What’s in Aberdeen? Not her, and that’s good enough for now.
11. Okay, my uncle is a missionary in Aberdeen and works with the Nederduitsche Gereformeerde, the largest Dutch Reformed church in Africa. He always calls it the NG. Really, he was the only person I knew that was the farthest away from here.
12. First thing I need is a haircut. Second is a toothbrush. I run my tongue over my front teeth and feel the grimy buildup from a full day of travel. I must have a layer of grime over my entire body.
13. I wonder if Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever bumped into each other. Their children would probably just be completely invisible. Little fuckers.
14. Aberdeen looks like a rural Southern town in the 1930s. The town is circled around this white church with a steeple that reaches higher than anything on the horizon. It can be seen from every point in the town, no matter where you are. “It’s to keep Christ in our minds,” my uncle says. Instead it makes me think of her. But everything makes me think of her.
15. I’m separated by oceans and continents and miles and miles of land and she’s still here, next to me. And all I can think of is how it ended. How I ran away. And I know now what I didn't know then. I know that this is a mistake.
experimental/freewrite fic
1. The bus to Aberdeen, South Africa hits every bump like a rock skipping on water and I have to hold my camera in my lap to make sure it doesn’t bump and fly out the window. I should just put it back in my bag; I think I’ve given up on taking pictures now. It’s all rock formations and dusty cliffs and I can see how hot it’s going to be once this bus stops. I keep my head almost completely out the window to keep from swimming in my sweat.
2. There’s nothing worse than an argument that you know you’re losing. Where you’re scraping at anything to come back with to save your ego. Then, there’s a point where you just have to brace yourself for the impact and know you've lost. It's over. Then, that’s when you get away and go somewhere.
3. I hold the GPS in my hands and wish it could tell me where to go. What city to type in. I start typing in places just to see the travel time. Manhattan, Chicago, Seattle. Places where I can get lost.
4. Have you ever been walking down the sidewalk and realize you’re headed in the opposite direction of where you want to go? But instead of just turning a 180, you first have to do something like check your watch or phone or make an arm gesture to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you’re crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.
5. The drive to the airport took forty-five minutes. The wait to board was two hours. The flight was fourteen. The connecting flight, another three. The bus, an hour.
6. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least a little bit tired.
7. I wish I could rollover all those naps I never used when I was younger, like cell phone minutes.
8. The lady at the Chinese place in the airport placed two packages of plastic silverware on my tray. I couldn’t tell if she had grabbed two by mistake or if she thought I was sharing with someone else. I hoped that she didn’t watch me walk back to a table by myself.
9. Sometimes I’ll check my phone three times and still not know what time it is.
10. Aberdeen. What’s in Aberdeen? Not her, and that’s good enough for now.
11. Okay, my uncle is a missionary in Aberdeen and works with the Nederduitsche Gereformeerde, the largest Dutch Reformed church in Africa. He always calls it the NG. Really, he was the only person I knew that was the farthest away from here.
12. First thing I need is a haircut. Second is a toothbrush. I run my tongue over my front teeth and feel the grimy buildup from a full day of travel. I must have a layer of grime over my entire body.
13. I wonder if Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever bumped into each other. Their children would probably just be completely invisible. Little fuckers.
14. Aberdeen looks like a rural Southern town in the 1930s. The town is circled around this white church with a steeple that reaches higher than anything on the horizon. It can be seen from every point in the town, no matter where you are. “It’s to keep Christ in our minds,” my uncle says. Instead it makes me think of her. But everything makes me think of her.
15. I’m separated by oceans and continents and miles and miles of land and she’s still here, next to me. And all I can think of is how it ended. How I ran away. And I know now what I didn't know then. I know that this is a mistake.