Stories for the Lovely Rida

[Angst]

@Rida Figured it out! Will be posting here in a moment!

 

[Angst]

Ok, so, this one here is possibly my most thought out story ever. I showed it to my English teacher and he only had a couple complaints. It had two more chapters, but they were a bit iffy, and I figured that this could work as a short story, soooo.... Sorry for the quality but enjoy!


Prologue


What if I told you that humans could fly?


A statement based largely on personal interpretation, I must admit. Of course, after making a claim of that sort, I would suppose that you are waiting for me to explain. In fact, I'm almost certain. Typical human response, that.


But I digress. The validation for my previous rhetorical musings is as follows:


Flying - adjective; moving or capable of moving through the air.


Falling - verb; moving downward, typically rapidly and freely without control, from a higher to a lower level.


Allow me to further elaborate, as you are no doubt still hopelessly confused.


(As an added note, do not allow my passive remarks to affect you in any manner. The true nature of my enigmatic declamations escape most individuals at the start. In time, (I hope) you will be able to better understand my pattern of thinking.)


Study the two definitions that I have presented carefully. If you do so, you will begin to note similarities. After all, does one not first need to be in the air before one can fall? And, furthermore, if flying is the ability of an object or person to move through the air, does one not need to fly before one can fall? Or is it, perhaps, the reverse? Must not a person be displaced from his or her perch on a steady, solid object or surface in order to move through the air, the characteristic which denotes flight?


So, as you can see, my argument stands that humans can indeed fly. The definition of the word "flight," as you may have noticed, does not specify the direction in which the movement must take place. Given this information, who are we to say that falling is not simply flying in a downward direction?


Now that I have answered your initial question, you, by this point, have probably been hit with another. Why am I telling you this, you may ask? What is its importance? It is no doubt a form of prologue, you may tell yourself, an opening to an even bigger, much more elaborate point.


And you would be correct. After all, what story, if the storyteller aims to tell it in the proper fashion, does not require a grand preface?


But enough of my ramblings. You must be anxious to get to the good part. The story that you have been waiting to hear. Understandable. I shall not disappoint, I promise you.


So, without further delay:


Enter Mitchell Owens, the man who did not know that he could fly.


One


In hindsight, a public bridge may not have been the ideal location for an attempt at suicide.


At first, however, taking the leap off of the Falls Bridge had seemed to Mitchell Owens the most favorable method of taking his own life. Careful reasoning had told him that it would be much faster and much less painful than a knife to his wrists, and an overdose on his mother's heart medication stood only a seventy-five-percent chance of actually succeeding in killing him. And where would that put him, if it didn't work and he somehow survived? In some useless therapy program- that was where. A program in which he would be forced to participate until he was somehow "cured" of his "mental affliction," while throughout the whole ordeal the story of his failed self-homicide would continue to spread like wildfire through the city's many gossip circles and earn his parents a whole lot of grief and even more condemning stares from the passerby on the streets and the customers to their respective businesses.


No, this way would most definitely have been the most practical; not only had it possessed almost a one hundred percent rate of success, if need be, his parents could have had it passed off as an accident, a simple misstep and an unintentional tumble into the turbulent waters below. Besides, the sunset over the bridge was a breathtaking sight. Combined with the encouraging force of the wind at his back, urging him with every breath to go ahead and complete his solemn mission, it would have made for a much better last few moments, with all its shades of reds, blues, and pinks blending together like watercolor paints on the finest canvas, than he would have been able to experience sitting on the cold ceramic floor of a dark bathroom with a bottle of pills still clutched in his stiffening fingers. In fact, it was downright stunning, so much so that Mitch was forced to forget about the storm of depressing thoughts raging through his head in favor of gazing out at its awe-inspiring brilliance.


But as beautiful as the sunset may have been, those, incidentally, were not meant to be his last moments on Earth, as it was that slight pause, that single hitch in his otherwise perfect plan, that would change the entire course of his existence.


"Um, excuse me?"


The voice from behind him pulled him back to reality, from a place where no troubles existed, and a man had all the time in the world to watch the sunset. When he did not respond right away, the sound persisted.


"E-Excuse me, sir?"


Mitch's mind finally registered at that moment that he was being spoken to, and before he had regained his wits enough to give his actions any further thought, he found himself turning to face the speaker.


"What do you want?"


The question came out sounding much harsher than he had originally intended. Then again, he was supposed to be dead.


"Um..." the speaker, whom Mitch discovered upon looking at him to be a young man most likely very close to his own age - and from somewhere out west, by the sound of his voice - faltered slightly under his harshly measured gaze. His wide, hazel eyes remained averted, as he refused to make eye contact, and he rocked back and forth nervously on his heels, pulling his threadbare jacket tighter around his thin frame against the gusting of the wind. "...Hi?"


What? What had he just said?


"Excuse me?" Mitch replied, unable the keep his feelings of incredulity from escaping into his voice. He was dumbfounded. Here he was, about to take the pickle jump off of the Falls Bridge of Philadelphia, and this guy wanted to exchange polite greetings?


Sensing that he had done something wrong, the other young man fumbled to change his tactic. He flinched back at the sound of Mitch's biting tone, stuttering out an apology.


"S-Sorry, I...I-It's just...Were you...Were you going to jump - uh - off the bridge?"


Ah. Now they were getting somewhere.


"So what if I was?" Mitch answered with his own question, raising a single eyebrow in an unspoken challenge. He knew exactly where this was headed. This man, who had happened to be passing by at just the right moment, who had seen him standing on the edge of the bridge and had come to the obvious conclusion that he was going to jump, was going to try and talk him out of it. It was all so excruciatingly cliche, something out of goddamn Hallmark film, or one of the many childish novels that he had attempted to write as a teenager.


"W-Well, I..." He swallowed hard and took a deep breath, trying to center himself. "Please don't do that."


"And why the hell not?" Mitch shot back, growing increasingly weary of the tedious conversation. "You have no idea who the hell I even am! No one else," he continued, gesturing to the dozens of others passing them by, on their way to bigger and better things, "not one of these other motherfuckers, has bothered to say anything to me. So why's your ass over here, huh? What makes you think you can change my mind?"


The young man went silent at this, at a loss on how to proceed. Mitch took this as a sign to continue.


"You were gonna try and convince me that suicide isn't the answer, am I right? That my life is worth it. That things change. You were gonna try and "save" me, be some sort of hero. But what do you know about my life? Because I guarantee you, if you knew how I felt, you sure as hell wouldn't be telling me not to jump."


"I..." his would-be savior cut his own reply short, his aura radiating waves of desperation. He was standing on thin ice. He needed to choose his words carefully; one wrong syllable, and the man would jump. But saying nothing at all would likely result in the same outcome. He was at a loss, locked in a stalemate with his own conflicting emotions.


Mitch sighed deeply. His desire to finish the job was already beginning to wane, the spontaneous drive to hurl himself into the depths of oblivion slowly fading from his mind, and that was something that he desperately did not want. To lose his fire now, when he was so close, and be forced to return to the hellish monotony that had comprised every day of his life for the past five years was something he could not do. It was now or never.


"Now, if you'll excuse me..." he trailed off, turning as he spoke, back to the quickly fading sunset and the churning waters that reflected the darkening sky overhead.


With that, Mitch closed his eyes, completely tuning out the rest of the world and all of its disturbances. He took a deep breath. Calm. He was calm. Slowly, he began to loosen his grasp on the steel railing that kept him tethered to the bridge, and as his fingers brushed over the edge of the cold metal, he could almost feel the waves reaching up to meet him. The wind whispered its approval in his ear as it brushed past his face. He was at peace. He was ready to -


"June 3rd!"


The unexpected shout from the man behind him yanked Mitch back from his tranquil state and into the world of the living, forcing his grip to tighten instinctually around the bridge railing. He whirled around, his frustration mounting. He would not allow this man to steal his escape from him.


"What the hell is it now?!" he exclaimed, fixing the other man with a harsh glare, white-hot anger his only readable emotion.


The young man cowered back slightly at his outburst; this time, however, he maintained eye contact, holding a steady gaze. This connection was crucial at this point, if he wished to keep his attention.


"June 3rd, 2...2008," he began to explain, wrapping his jacket even closer around his body. The wind had picked up, whipping the long brown strands of his hair in all directions, and the gesture, besides offering a minute increase physical protection, appeared to be a feeble attempt gain for himself an ounce of emotional stability. "The day..." he sucked in a deep, shuddering breath, as if the world could not possibly contain enough air to fill the void that was rapidly forming at the very core of his being. "The day my mother jumped. Off the, uh, Eads Bridge - in Illinois. I was fourteen."


Against his will, Mitch felt his rage begin to ebb. The expression in the other man's eyes was so open, so raw, that he could no longer bring himself to be angry.


He looked away.


"I blame myself for it every day, like- like there was something I c-could have done to... to stop her."


He was moving closer now, bolder than before, his breathing pattern shaky and sporadic.


"T-That's why I came over here. Why I looked - I always look. B-Because I can't l-let it happen...I can't let it happen again."


His voice cracked, and by the end of his last sentence, it so was thick with emotion, his features so heavily laden with pain, that at that point Mitch knew it was all over. He couldn't do it. He couldn't jump, not here, not now, not while this man was standing here, looking at him with those wide, revealing eyes. If he decided to end his life right here, at this moment in time, nothing that he could say or do would be able to convince this man that it wasn't his fault. No matter how hopeless his life was turning out to be, it wouldn't be right to let this man feel responsible for his death.


"Yeah, yeah, I hear you," Mitch replied softly, holding his hands up in surrender, his voice low, defeated. "I won't jump. I'm not gonna do it."


As he lowered himself down from his perch on the ledge, the other man stepped away to allow him some space. From ground level, Mitch noted for the first time the other's superior height, towering what looked to be nearly half a foot above his own six feet.


"Um, yeah...that's...I'm glad. Thank you."


The man had somehow managed to compose himself, reverting back to his original awkward mannerisms.


Mitch eyed him quizzically. "For what?"


"I-I mean, s-sorry," the young man corrected himself, staring uncertainly down at the concrete. "For, uh...I-I just-"


"It's all good," Mitch cut him off with a wave of his hand. "It's fine."


He wasn't going to thank him. He hadn't asked to be saved.


"You can go now," he said after a minute of silence between them, waving him off again, more firmly this time. "I'm not gonna jump, don't worry."


"O-Oh, r-right. Yeah. Um. Bye."


He turned and left without another word. As soon as he had been lost to the diminishing crowd of people taking nighttime strolls as the last rays of sunlight faded from the sky, Mitchell Owens fell to his knees and wept.





 
Disclaimer on this one: I tend to move on to new ideas too quickly to finish things, but I'm hoping to do more with this in the future. Behold, the only story of mine that my mom actually likes. xD


I'm going to start things off by saying that my life wasn't all that interesting. Now, I don't want you to get the wrong idea from that, of course. Sure, I may have been stuck in the same dead-end job, working at the same desk, in the same little cubicle, in the same office, in the same, boring city for eight hours a day, five days a week for five years straight, but I was content with it. Hell, I hadn't even once began to think that there could be anything better. I had a job, a steady income, an apartment of my own. I was satisfied. Until Cindy Louis, that is. Beautiful, charming, Cindy Louis, the stunning and totally thrilling investigative journalist from Plymouth, Massachusetts.


I met her by the side of the road.


It was a Friday evening, right after my final shift of the week at the Portsmouth Paper Company, and, as I did every Friday evening after work, I was heading home to Kittery for dinner with my parents. And as I was driving down a particularly secluded stretch of road right off of Route 95, I saw her.


Well, that's not EXACTLY how it happened. You see, it was the middle of winter, so that meant that it was getting dark pretty early around that time. And it was snowing. Did I mention that it was snowing? So, in my defense, the snow, combined with the fact that I had left my glasses sitting on top of my desk at the paper company, limited my visibility to only about a foot away from me in all directions, which is why I didn't see her until it was too late.


We locked eyes only seconds before the collision, and I swear my heart nearly stopped, but it was already too late. The look of terror in her eyes just before my car slammed into her with a sickening 'thump' is something that sometimes still keeps me awake at night.


That poor deer never stood a chance.


The impact of the collision threw me back against the seat as the vehicle came to a screeching halt on the side of the empty freeway. Thankfully the damage that I myself sustained was merely of the minute psychological variety, so, after about three minutes, when I had managed to slow my racing heartbeat and shut off the engine, I pulled my keys out of the ignition and exited the car to survey the damage. Sure enough, the deer was dead. At that moment, guilt overwhelmed me. Completely ignoring the already sizable amount of snow already piling up on the road around me that was only being added to that falling down around me at a rapid rate and, quite frankly, the fact that I was standing in the middle of the road in the first place, I knelt down beside the poor creature and began to gently stroke its fur.


"I'm sorry, old girl," I whispered, looking into her blank, lifeless eyes. "I didn't see you. I'm so sor-"


"Hey!"


My head snapped up at the sound of a shout coming from only a few feet away. Now, I'd be lying if I said that for a minute I hadn't panicked and, in my completely frazzled mind, come to the conclusion that it was the spirit of the deer, come back to claim her revenge, but you can't blame me, can you? I had just been in the first car crash of my life and, consequently, had just committed my first murder. Or case of animal cruelty, or whatever. I was in a state of shock.


Anyways, I quickly looked over at the source of the shout, and there she was, fast-walking in my direction: Cindy Louis, flakes of soft, white snow resting in her fiery red hair. Of course, I didn't know her name JUST yet, but soon, I was going to find out.


"Hey, are you alright?" she asked me as she stood by my side, her voice, quite honestly, filled more with curiosity than it was with concern. "I just saw you hit that deer and...wait, are you crying?"


As I said before, I was feeling really guilty about the whole concept of killing an innocent animal, so I HAD begun to tear up a bit.


"I killed her," I whispered, looking up into her beautiful hazel eyes as I felt the tears begin to run down my face. "I couldn't see her because of the snow, and I killed her."


She looked completely taken aback, albeit mildly intrigued.


"Dude, it's just a deer," she told me with eyebrows raised, crossing her arms over her chest and studying me for a brief moment. Finally she sighed. "Look at you. You're all wet, you're shaking, you're crying, you just crashed your car into a goddamn deer. C'mon, let's get you back into the car."


With that, she reached out, grabbed my arm, roughly hauled me to my feet, and dragged me back over to the driver's side door of my car. Funny, I hadn't even noticed the ice-cold feeling of the snow soaking through my pants until she pointed it out.


"Geeze, what kind of man are you?" she asked rather impatiently as she pulled open the door and helped me into the seat. "First you're crying over a dead deer, and now you can't even walk on your own."


I quickly dried my eyes as she made her way over to the other side of the car and let herself in, suddenly feeling embarrassed at my behavior in front of such an obviously strong woman.


"I'm sorry for the trouble, miss," I started to apologize for my rather pathetic conduct as she took her seat and shut the passenger's door behind her. "Really, you didn't need to-"


Loud music, a song by whom I thought was Marina and the Diamonds, blasted through the car at that moment, effectively cutting me off. Cindy reached for her coat pocket, retrieving her cellphone with impressive speed, looked at the screen to identify the caller and held up a hand to signal that I should be quiet before answering with one quick motion of her gloved pointer finger.


"Hey, why didn't you answer me sooner? I've tried to call you like ten times already!...Look, I don't care if she's pregnant, Ruth. You've already had like two labor scares already...Yeah, uh-huh, I know, I'm being a total asshole, but listen, I need you to send someone out to Route 95 from Portsmouth to Kittery right now. I'm out here alone with- Hello? Ruth? Dammit! My phone fucking died."


Cindy let out an aggravated sigh, dropping the useless device into her lap.


"That was my agent. Her wife's in "labor," she told me, making air quotes with her hands at the word "labor." "I needed her to send someone out here to pick me up, but unfortunately my phone's a piece of shit that can't hold charge for more than three hours."


"Oh, oh, that's, um..." I stammered, honestly really unsure about what I was supposed to say to that. "So, so like I was saying, you really didn't need to help me back to my car, or anything like that. But thank you...?"


"Cindy. And don't worry, I didn't do it for you. I was freezing my ass off out there, and I figured your car had heating."


As she said that, I noticed that the car was running, the key locked in its place in the ignition. She must have taken it out of my pocket when she was helping me to the vehicle.


"Besides, the image of a grown man crying over a deer carcass, although I admit it was pretty interesting, was starting to look kind of sad."


"I see..." I responded uncertainly, rocking back and forth slightly in my seat. It's a nervous tick that I have. This woman was was unlike anything I'd ever seen before, with her bold, straightforward attitude and the way she seemed to be lounging so comfortably in the passenger seat of a complete stranger's car. "So you said on the phone that you were headed for Kittery?"


"Yeah, why? You headed that way too?"


"As a matter-of-fact, I am. I could take you there, if you need a ride. That is, if my car still works."


"Should be fine," Cindy said with a shrug. "I didn't see any outside damage. Checked the tires. And the engine still works. And yeah, I could use a ride. After all, I'd say you owe me for hauling your ass out of the snow."


She had a fair point.


"You sure you're alright to drive?" she asked me as I turned to buckle myself in, replicating the motion with her own seatbelt. "You seemed pretty shaken up before."


If I wasn't mistaken, I could have sworn that there were undertones of concern in her voice when she spoke that time, but when I turned to face her, the smirk on her face made me question what I'd thought I heard. In any case, I laughed it off.


"I'm sure I'll be fine. So long as I don't come into contact with any more deer."


"Let's hope that doesn't happen, then," she said, a humorous gleam in her eyes. "Oh, and you should probably call in about your little mishap before we go. Someone needs to clean this mess up before the morning commute tomorrow."


Cindy Louis was a very smart woman.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I learned a lot about Cindy during the remainder of the short ride across the state border from Portsmouth to Kittery. Well, actually, it only took us about five minutes to get there (and, truth be told, it would have taken even less time if it hadn't been for all the damn snow), so I really only had time to learn one thing:


She really liked silent car rides.


She liked them so much, apparently, that she only spoke to me once, about three minutes in, to tell me where I was supposed to drop her off. Which was fine with me, of course. I'm not exactly one for conversation myself, especially with strangers, and especially ESPECIALLY while I'm driving. Need to focus on the road, you know? Watch out for deer, and pedestrians, and squirrels and such. But on the other hand, I really, REALLY hate awkward silences, and I don't know about her, but after the first minute and a half, I started to feel really awkward in there. So yeah, it would have been nice if she'd at least made an effort to talk with me about SOMETHING. But she seemed adamant. And so after her unbreakable quiet successfully thwarted five of my attempts at starting a casual conversation, I decided to stop trying.


Only when I had pulled my car into the parking lot of the Ramada hotel and taken my foot off of the gas pedal did she finally decided to speak to me again.


"Alright, this is my stop," she said without bothering to make eye contact as she promptly turned to unfasten her seatbelt. "Thanks, man. I'd like to say I owe you one, buuut I kinda don't."


"Oh," she added as an afterthought, pulling her hand back from reaching for the door handle and snapping her fingers like she'd just remembered something important. "I never got your name."


I perked up at that. I'll admit, I'd been feeling a bit gloomy over the thought that she would just hightail it out of there without so much as a proper goodbye (that combined with the lingering uneasiness from the previous awkward silence) and it made me feel better to know that she at least cares enough to ask my name before we parted ways.


"Mark Thatcher," I responded cheerfully as she turned back around in her seat to face me. I offered her my hand, which she ignored.


"Thatcher, huh?" she asked in a pretty non-enthusiastic way, her nose scrunching up as if the taste of the name as it rolled off of her tongue was the same as that of some type of foreign cuisine that her tastebuds didn't quite know how to place. "Sorta boring, if you ask me. But it suits you."


My good mood instantly disintegrated. Great. This amazing, confident woman thought that I was boring.


"Welp, I've gotta run," she said, reaching for the door handle once more. "I've got a lot of work to do before tomorrow afternoon, and I'm sure there was someplace you were going before you were unexpectedly brought to a halt by that deer."


"Good luck with that," I replied in farewell as she stepped out into the now softly-falling snow. "With the work, I mean."


The corners of her mouth quirked up into a wry smile.


"I'll see you around, Mark Thatcher."


With that, she slammed the car door, gave a brief little wave, and turned and walked up the snow-covered sidewalk into the building without looking back. I waited until I could no longer see her before I revved up the engine and pulled out of the parking lot.





 
These last two were for a contest, and we're fairly rushed, but they aren't too entirely horrible I guess. (You don't need to read all of these if you want, by the way, I'm just putting them all here in case you do.)


STORY ONE





She had done it again.


Walter Mills sighed deeply, running a pair of calloused hands first through the mop of tight, graying curls on top of his head, then over the hollows of his cheekbones and finally his stubble-covered chin before bringing them to rest over his bloodshot brown eyes. What on earth was he going to do with his daughter? Of course Lacey meant well, he knew that. She was a smart girl, always had been, and in Walter's experience, she had never done anything without a good and logical reason. But three schools in two months was just too much. They were going to have to leave town again, to try and set up a semblance of a normal life in yet another city...It made his head hurt just thinking about it. And who knew how many more times they would have to repeat the whole process by the end of the year?


Things, of course, hadn't always been this way for the Mills family. It had only been about six months ago, right after his wife first threatened to leave them, that his daughter, once sweet and mild, had started acting out, and the new mindset that Walter had needed to adopt because of it was beginning to take a toll on him, and it showed. Only forty-five, and already his hair was starting to gray. It was ridiculous.


"It's not her fault, Walter," he whispered to himself as he sat, head in his hands, on the bench outside of the principal's office at his daughter's newest middle school (What was the name again? Oakland...something? He couldn't remember.), trying to calm his raging nerves. It wasn't as if he hadn't done this several times before, but that didn't mean that it would ever get any easier, no matter how many times he had to do it.


"Lacey's a smart girl. She knows what she's doing. It's not her fault."


It seemed like another twenty minutes - when, in fact, it was only just about five - when Mrs. Evans finally emerged from her office. Walter felt a small sense of relief as he got to his feet and offered his hand. The wood of the bench was starting to become a major pain in his backside, and besides that, the anticipation had been threatening to suffocate him.


"Good evening, Mrs. Evans," he said as she took his hand, managing to push the look of utter exhaustion from his face as he flashed her one of his killer smiles. "Walter Mills. Lacey's father."


"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Mills," the petite woman responded with a friendly smile of her own, somehow managing to look like she meant business and slightly apologetic at the same time. Walter liked her, he decided, and he nearly grimaced. That was going to make things a whole lot more difficult.


"Why don't you come in and sit down, so we can talk about your daughter?"


Walter obliged, following her into her tiny office, which was barely large enough to hold a single bookcase, Mrs. Evans's desk, and three chairs: the one in which the principal sat, the one that he was instructed to occupy, and the one on which Lacey's teacher, Ms. Meyer, was perched, wringing her hands in her lap. Walter barely held back a wry smirk, almost disappointed at how easy she was making this. Meyer had suspicion written all over her face.


He was going to have to make this quick.


"With all due respect, ladies," he spoke up as he took his seat in front of the small oak desk, facing the two women. "But I'm going to have to ask you to keep this meeting brief. I left Lacey waiting out in the car, and I don't want to keep her out there alone for two long. Especially now that it gets dark out so quickly."


"I understand, Mr. Mills," she responded amicably with a nod of her head. "This should only take a few minutes. I'd assume that you've already been informed about the severity of Lacey's actions?"


"Yes, ma'am," he replied with a downcast gaze and a slow nod of his head. He reached into his coat pocket for a Kleenex. Meyer flinched.


Lacey herself, in fact, had informed him of her actions earlier that evening after he had been called in to pick her up early from her classes. He could see why Mrs. Evans would refer to it as "severe," but for him, it was nothing out of the ordinary.


At recess that afternoon, she had been playing out in the grass on the front lawn with the other children, when a boy named Joey Nichols had stolen one of her dolls. She hadn't meant for it to happen like it did, she had said, with tears in her eyes. He had stolen her doll, and she had gotten mad, so she pushed him. She hadn't noticed that the two of them had gotten so close to the street when she did it. It wasn't her fault.


At least, that was the story that she had told to her teachers, and the principal, and the sheriff, when he came. The excuse that she had presented to her father, however, was a very different one.


"He recognized me, Daddy. I could see it in his eyes. I had to do it. I know you wanted to stay here a little longer, Daddy, but I had to."


What a smart, smart girl.


"It's a real shame, what happened. I've sent my condolences to Joey's parents. But I want you to know that Lacey had no intention for things to play out like they did. Ever since her mother tried to leave, she's just-"


A pause, for effect. He was becoming theatrical, Walter noted with an almost bitter internal grin.


"She's very shaken up by the whole thing. Hasn't stopped crying since I picked her up."


"We don't doubt that, Mr. Mills," Mrs. Evans responded, although with one look at Ms. Meyer, Walter could tell that her statement was only half true. "I just need you to understand that under the strict protocol of this school district, we're going to need to suspend your daughter for a full month's time, maybe even longer, if the need arises."


"I understand."


"And please give Lacey our apologies, and let her know that I speak for everyone here at Oakland Ridge Middle School when I say that we aren't blaming her for what happened in any way. Lord knows the poor thing's probably traumatized already."


Oakland Ridge. That was it.


"I appreciate that."


Silence filled the room, which Walter noted as his invitation to leave. The conversation, the easy part, was over.


"Something wrong, Mr. Mills?" Mrs. Evans asked him when he made no attempt to rise from his seat, mild concern evident in her voice.


Walter sighed. It was showtime.


"Yes, ma'am, unfortunately, there is."


He stood, reaching into his pocket once more, only this time, he produced something a great deal more lethal than a Kleenex.


Evans looked completely stunned, frozen in shock. Meyer, on the other hand, scrambled for her cellphone, hands shaking so horribly that she could hardly keep her grip on the thing. She had been prepared for this.


Walter could still hear his daughter's voice in his head.


"My teacher, Ms. Meyer. She recognized me, too."


"I wouldn't bother, Ms. Meyer," Walter sighed as he released the safety on the revolver, aiming the barrel toward the center of the young woman's forehead. It was almost scary, how easy this was becoming for him. "There's a jammer in my other pocket. You won't get a signal."


Two skillfully executed gunshots and a quick wipe-down with the Kleenex of every surface in the school that he had laid his hands on later, and Walter Mills was back


behind the wheel of his stolen Toyota Corolla. He had definitively preferred the previous one, that lovely Ford Fiesta, but having to leave it behind was just another thing that couldn't be helped.


"I heard two gunshots," Lacey remarked as her father fastened his seatbelt, already making a beeline for the highway ("Not too fast, Walter," he had to remind himself. "Don't want to look suspicious."). "Did you get her, Daddy?"


"Yeah, sweetie, I got her," he replied, keeping his eyes on the road. "The second shot was for the principal. Shame, too. I liked her."


Suddenly, a loud thump sounded from the trunk.


"Oh, yeah," Lacey spoke up again with a small grimace. "I forgot to tell you. Mommy woke up while you were in the school."


"Dammit," her father cursed under his breath, resisting the urge to take both hands off of the steering wheel and bury his face in them. In hindsight, he should have known that kidnapping his own wife would turn out to be a pain. That's what had gotten the two of them into this entire mess in the first place.


"We're not going to let her go, are we?" Lacey whispered in a small voice, snapping Walter back to reality.


"No, of course not, honey," he sighed, reaching for her hand.


A few moments of silence, broken only by the sound of periodic thumps from the trunk of the car, followed, very different from those he had experienced in the principal's office of Oakland - dammit, he'd forgotten again. Not that it really mattered anymore.


It was Lacey who finally broke the silence.


"I'm sorry for killing him, Daddy," Lacey said, looking down at her lap with a downcast expression. "I know that you're tired of moving so much. But I had to do it."


Walter couldn't help but smile as he gently squeezed her hand.


"Hey, everything's fine. I'm glad you did what you did, my smart girl. Things will be better in the next city, I promise. How does New York City sound to you?"


Lacey's face lit up.


"Oh, thank you Daddy! I've always wanted to go to New York!" she cried out gleefully, hugging him the best that she could while they were still seated in the car. "You're the best."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


A few hours later, Walter found himself driving over a large, concrete bridge, over a city that he would never know the name of, full of people that he would never meet. Although, judging by the huge billboard sign over his head, bearing the images of three faces that held a great resemblance to those of the members of the only family of three that he knew of that was currently headed to New York City in a stolen Toyota Corolla, they all knew him very well.


Lacey had fallen asleep, and was softly snoring away, perhaps dreaming of an ideal life, where fathers didn't kidnap mothers, and daughters didn't have to kill classmates who recognized them from billboards or the evening news. The thumping had all but died away.


In a moment of weakness, Walter Mills gazed over the side of the bridge at the congregation of great steel buildings below. How easy it would be just to end it all now, to let his daughter stay in that peaceful dream for the rest of eternity. He was certain that the Lord would allow it. After all, she was only a child. He might not be so lucky, but-


He shook those absurd thoughts from his head and tried to focus on the road as the first rays of morning sun penetrated the windshield.


Maybe someday, but not today.





STORY TWO





Dr. Jared Jeats was the man of the hour at the NASA headquarters in Washington D.C. After seven years of careful planning, programming, and monitoring, his mission to be the first to send a space probe to retrieve ice from Mars had come to a successful close when said probe had safely landed in the Atlantic just off the coast of Rhode Island only hours before. The story had spread like wildfire across the continent, and after all of the visits that the doctor had received from film crews and newspaper reporters since his project's landing, it was sure to go international before nightfall.


Surely, all of the attention that he was receiving from both his coworkers and the media was enough to stroke any man's ego, and while he did enjoy being put in the spotlight for something that he had worked so hard on, Jeats wanted nothing more than to retreat to his lab with the product of his labor over the seven years and study it until his eyes were fit to fall from their sockets. But that was not to be the case. They could get a team on that, the man in charge had said, giving him a firm pat on the back that had nearly sent him tumbling to the floor. For now, everyone kept telling him, he should enjoy the night, leave the work to someone else for a few hours.


Although his mind remained on his studies, he somehow managed to make it through the night away from his lab, accepting copious amounts of congratulations and drinking even larger amounts of celebratory champagne.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The next morning at five o'clock, he received a call. His presence was required in the headquarters immediately; there was something that he needed to see.


Dr. Jeats readied himself in under fifteen minutes, practically throwing on his clothes and rushing out the door without eating; he didn't even bother to say goodbye to his wife.


When he reached the laboratory at the NASA headquarters, he was greeted by his fellow scientist, Dr. Clifford, who was beaming like a small child on Christmas.


"We've made the discovery of the century!" he was shouting as he excitedly danced Jeats over to the huge electron microscope in the corner of the room. There were several other scientists gathered around it, chatting animatedly amongst themselves. Jeats looked down at the chip under the microscope.


"Water?" he asked Clifford, studying the clear liquid substance contained within the chip. Water was the discovery of the century?


"We melted some of that ice that your probe brought back from Mars," Clifford replied, a wide grin still stretched across his face. "Look closer."


Confused, yet slightly intrigued, Jeats stepped up to the lens of the microscope as the other scientists watched on, a hush falling over the small crowd. Everything appeared to be average at first as he turned the knob to zoom in on the specimen. Water turned into molecules, molecules turned into atoms; it was just like any old regular Earth water, nothing out of the ordinary. That was, until he had focused in so far as to see the inside of one of a molecule's neutrons.


Jeats barely contained a gasp as he stepped back from the lens, looking at his scientific audience in disbelief. However, the look on their faces confirmed that each of them had already witnessed the same exact thing. Taking this into account gave him just what he needed to step back up to the microscope lens and take another look. Just as before, there, staring back at him with the tiniest set of eyes that he had ever seen, was a small, blue humanoid creature. The poor little guy looked a bit scared, no doubt due to the large shadows cast by infinitely much larger creature looming over him. The scientist briefly wondered if the thing could see him as anything other than a shadow. He decided to experiment on that at a later date.


Zooming out slightly, Dr. Jeats soon noticed that each neutron contained a little blue person of its own, and zooming out even further than that, he realized that the molecules themselves were being rearranged to form some sort of message.


They simply said, "Hello."


"They've been communicating with us since last night," Clifford informed him, his eyes dancing as his colleague once again retreated from his position with his eye up to the lens. "Apparently, they know a lot about us. They've built their own cities, and homes, and schools in there where they teach all manner of subjects, including much about life on Earth. Their technology is vastly superior to our own, so much so that they can see us quite a bit better than we are able to see them. But do you know what truly makes this the discovery of the century?" he asked.


"What?" Jeats responded in the expected manner.


"Well, it seems that they are very grateful to us for melting the ice," Clifford began what Jeats could only guess to be another long-winded explanation. "They were forced into hibernation eons ago, when the water on Mars first froze up at the poles. As thanks, not only are they willing to supply us with a source of clean energy that they have developed, which, despite its very minuscule size, contains enough power to run the entire country for centuries, but they are also willing to help us communicate with other known races! I must congratulate you once again, Jared. You've truly paved the way for great discovery!"


"The discovery of the century," one of the scientists said.


"The discovery of the century!" another echoed, a bit louder than the first.


"THE DISCOVERY OF THE CENTURY!" they all cried out together, cheering and patting one another on the back.


Jeats could only nod, completely in awe of the entire experience. This truly was the discovery of the century.

 

[kou]

Ok, so, this one here is possibly my most thought out story ever. I showed it to my English teacher and he only had a couple complaints. It had two more chapters, but they were a bit iffy, and I figured that this could work as a short story, soooo.... Sorry for the quality but enjoy!

Prologue


What if I told you that humans could fly?


A statement based largely on personal interpretation, I must admit. Of course, after making a claim of that sort, I would suppose that you are waiting for me to explain. In fact, I'm almost certain. Typical human response, that.


But I digress. The validation for my previous rhetorical musings is as follows:


Flying - adjective; moving or capable of moving through the air.


Falling - verb; moving downward, typically rapidly and freely without control, from a higher to a lower level.


Allow me to further elaborate, as you are no doubt still hopelessly confused.


(As an added note, do not allow my passive remarks to affect you in any manner. The true nature of my enigmatic declamations escape most individuals at the start. In time, (I hope) you will be able to better understand my pattern of thinking.)


Study the two definitions that I have presented carefully. If you do so, you will begin to note similarities. After all, does one not first need to be in the air before one can fall? And, furthermore, if flying is the ability of an object or person to move through the air, does one not need to fly before one can fall? Or is it, perhaps, the reverse? Must not a person be displaced from his or her perch on a steady, solid object or surface in order to move through the air, the characteristic which denotes flight?


So, as you can see, my argument stands that humans can indeed fly. The definition of the word "flight," as you may have noticed, does not specify the direction in which the movement must take place. Given this information, who are we to say that falling is not simply flying in a downward direction?


Now that I have answered your initial question, you, by this point, have probably been hit with another. Why am I telling you this, you may ask? What is its importance? It is no doubt a form of prologue, you may tell yourself, an opening to an even bigger, much more elaborate point.


And you would be correct. After all, what story, if the storyteller aims to tell it in the proper fashion, does not require a grand preface?


But enough of my ramblings. You must be anxious to get to the good part. The story that you have been waiting to hear. Understandable. I shall not disappoint, I promise you.


So, without further delay:


Enter Mitchell Owens, the man who did not know that he could fly.


One


In hindsight, a public bridge may not have been the ideal location for an attempt at suicide.


At first, however, taking the leap off of the Falls Bridge had seemed to Mitchell Owens the most favorable method of taking his own life. Careful reasoning had told him that it would be much faster and much less painful than a knife to his wrists, and an overdose on his mother's heart medication stood only a seventy-five-percent chance of actually succeeding in killing him. And where would that put him, if it didn't work and he somehow survived? In some useless therapy program- that was where. A program in which he would be forced to participate until he was somehow "cured" of his "mental affliction," while throughout the whole ordeal the story of his failed self-homicide would continue to spread like wildfire through the city's many gossip circles and earn his parents a whole lot of grief and even more condemning stares from the passerby on the streets and the customers to their respective businesses.


No, this way would most definitely have been the most practical; not only had it possessed almost a one hundred percent rate of success, if need be, his parents could have had it passed off as an accident, a simple misstep and an unintentional tumble into the turbulent waters below. Besides, the sunset over the bridge was a breathtaking sight. Combined with the encouraging force of the wind at his back, urging him with every breath to go ahead and complete his solemn mission, it would have made for a much better last few moments, with all its shades of reds, blues, and pinks blending together like watercolor paints on the finest canvas, than he would have been able to experience sitting on the cold ceramic floor of a dark bathroom with a bottle of pills still clutched in his stiffening fingers. In fact, it was downright stunning, so much so that Mitch was forced to forget about the storm of depressing thoughts raging through his head in favor of gazing out at its awe-inspiring brilliance.


But as beautiful as the sunset may have been, those, incidentally, were not meant to be his last moments on Earth, as it was that slight pause, that single hitch in his otherwise perfect plan, that would change the entire course of his existence.


"Um, excuse me?"


The voice from behind him pulled him back to reality, from a place where no troubles existed, and a man had all the time in the world to watch the sunset. When he did not respond right away, the sound persisted.


"E-Excuse me, sir?"


Mitch's mind finally registered at that moment that he was being spoken to, and before he had regained his wits enough to give his actions any further thought, he found himself turning to face the speaker.


"What do you want?"


The question came out sounding much harsher than he had originally intended. Then again, he was supposed to be dead.


"Um..." the speaker, whom Mitch discovered upon looking at him to be a young man most likely very close to his own age - and from somewhere out west, by the sound of his voice - faltered slightly under his harshly measured gaze. His wide, hazel eyes remained averted, as he refused to make eye contact, and he rocked back and forth nervously on his heels, pulling his threadbare jacket tighter around his thin frame against the gusting of the wind. "...Hi?"


What? What had he just said?


"Excuse me?" Mitch replied, unable the keep his feelings of incredulity from escaping into his voice. He was dumbfounded. Here he was, about to take the pickle jump off of the Falls Bridge of Philadelphia, and this guy wanted to exchange polite greetings?


Sensing that he had done something wrong, the other young man fumbled to change his tactic. He flinched back at the sound of Mitch's biting tone, stuttering out an apology.


"S-Sorry, I...I-It's just...Were you...Were you going to jump - uh - off the bridge?"


Ah. Now they were getting somewhere.


"So what if I was?" Mitch answered with his own question, raising a single eyebrow in an unspoken challenge. He knew exactly where this was headed. This man, who had happened to be passing by at just the right moment, who had seen him standing on the edge of the bridge and had come to the obvious conclusion that he was going to jump, was going to try and talk him out of it. It was all so excruciatingly cliche, something out of goddamn Hallmark film, or one of the many childish novels that he had attempted to write as a teenager.


"W-Well, I..." He swallowed hard and took a deep breath, trying to center himself. "Please don't do that."


"And why the hell not?" Mitch shot back, growing increasingly weary of the tedious conversation. "You have no idea who the hell I even am! No one else," he continued, gesturing to the dozens of others passing them by, on their way to bigger and better things, "not one of these other motherfuckers, has bothered to say anything to me. So why's your ass over here, huh? What makes you think you can change my mind?"


The young man went silent at this, at a loss on how to proceed. Mitch took this as a sign to continue.


"You were gonna try and convince me that suicide isn't the answer, am I right? That my life is worth it. That things change. You were gonna try and "save" me, be some sort of hero. But what do you know about my life? Because I guarantee you, if you knew how I felt, you sure as hell wouldn't be telling me not to jump."


"I..." his would-be savior cut his own reply short, his aura radiating waves of desperation. He was standing on thin ice. He needed to choose his words carefully; one wrong syllable, and the man would jump. But saying nothing at all would likely result in the same outcome. He was at a loss, locked in a stalemate with his own conflicting emotions.


Mitch sighed deeply. His desire to finish the job was already beginning to wane, the spontaneous drive to hurl himself into the depths of oblivion slowly fading from his mind, and that was something that he desperately did not want. To lose his fire now, when he was so close, and be forced to return to the hellish monotony that had comprised every day of his life for the past five years was something he could not do. It was now or never.


"Now, if you'll excuse me..." he trailed off, turning as he spoke, back to the quickly fading sunset and the churning waters that reflected the darkening sky overhead.


With that, Mitch closed his eyes, completely tuning out the rest of the world and all of its disturbances. He took a deep breath. Calm. He was calm. Slowly, he began to loosen his grasp on the steel railing that kept him tethered to the bridge, and as his fingers brushed over the edge of the cold metal, he could almost feel the waves reaching up to meet him. The wind whispered its approval in his ear as it brushed past his face. He was at peace. He was ready to -


"June 3rd!"


The unexpected shout from the man behind him yanked Mitch back from his tranquil state and into the world of the living, forcing his grip to tighten instinctually around the bridge railing. He whirled around, his frustration mounting. He would not allow this man to steal his escape from him.


"What the hell is it now?!" he exclaimed, fixing the other man with a harsh glare, white-hot anger his only readable emotion.


The young man cowered back slightly at his outburst; this time, however, he maintained eye contact, holding a steady gaze. This connection was crucial at this point, if he wished to keep his attention.


"June 3rd, 2...2008," he began to explain, wrapping his jacket even closer around his body. The wind had picked up, whipping the long brown strands of his hair in all directions, and the gesture, besides offering a minute increase physical protection, appeared to be a feeble attempt gain for himself an ounce of emotional stability. "The day..." he sucked in a deep, shuddering breath, as if the world could not possibly contain enough air to fill the void that was rapidly forming at the very core of his being. "The day my mother jumped. Off the, uh, Eads Bridge - in Illinois. I was fourteen."


Against his will, Mitch felt his rage begin to ebb. The expression in the other man's eyes was so open, so raw, that he could no longer bring himself to be angry.


He looked away.


"I blame myself for it every day, like- like there was something I c-could have done to... to stop her."


He was moving closer now, bolder than before, his breathing pattern shaky and sporadic.


"T-That's why I came over here. Why I looked - I always look. B-Because I can't l-let it happen...I can't let it happen again."


His voice cracked, and by the end of his last sentence, it so was thick with emotion, his features so heavily laden with pain, that at that point Mitch knew it was all over. He couldn't do it. He couldn't jump, not here, not now, not while this man was standing here, looking at him with those wide, revealing eyes. If he decided to end his life right here, at this moment in time, nothing that he could say or do would be able to convince this man that it wasn't his fault. No matter how hopeless his life was turning out to be, it wouldn't be right to let this man feel responsible for his death.


"Yeah, yeah, I hear you," Mitch replied softly, holding his hands up in surrender, his voice low, defeated. "I won't jump. I'm not gonna do it."


As he lowered himself down from his perch on the ledge, the other man stepped away to allow him some space. From ground level, Mitch noted for the first time the other's superior height, towering what looked to be nearly half a foot above his own six feet.


"Um, yeah...that's...I'm glad. Thank you."


The man had somehow managed to compose himself, reverting back to his original awkward mannerisms.


Mitch eyed him quizzically. "For what?"


"I-I mean, s-sorry," the young man corrected himself, staring uncertainly down at the concrete. "For, uh...I-I just-"


"It's all good," Mitch cut him off with a wave of his hand. "It's fine."


He wasn't going to thank him. He hadn't asked to be saved.


"You can go now," he said after a minute of silence between them, waving him off again, more firmly this time. "I'm not gonna jump, don't worry."


"O-Oh, r-right. Yeah. Um. Bye."


He turned and left without another word. As soon as he had been lost to the diminishing crowd of people taking nighttime strolls as the last rays of sunlight faded from the sky, Mitchell Owens fell to his knees and wept.





 
Disclaimer on this one: I tend to move on to new ideas too quickly to finish things, but I'm hoping to do more with this in the future. Behold, the only story of mine that my mom actually likes. xD


I'm going to start things off by saying that my life wasn't all that interesting. Now, I don't want you to get the wrong idea from that, of course. Sure, I may have been stuck in the same dead-end job, working at the same desk, in the same little cubicle, in the same office, in the same, boring city for eight hours a day, five days a week for five years straight, but I was content with it. Hell, I hadn't even once began to think that there could be anything better. I had a job, a steady income, an apartment of my own. I was satisfied. Until Cindy Louis, that is. Beautiful, charming, Cindy Louis, the stunning and totally thrilling investigative journalist from Plymouth, Massachusetts.


I met her by the side of the road.


It was a Friday evening, right after my final shift of the week at the Portsmouth Paper Company, and, as I did every Friday evening after work, I was heading home to Kittery for dinner with my parents. And as I was driving down a particularly secluded stretch of road right off of Route 95, I saw her.


Well, that's not EXACTLY how it happened. You see, it was the middle of winter, so that meant that it was getting dark pretty early around that time. And it was snowing. Did I mention that it was snowing? So, in my defense, the snow, combined with the fact that I had left my glasses sitting on top of my desk at the paper company, limited my visibility to only about a foot away from me in all directions, which is why I didn't see her until it was too late.


We locked eyes only seconds before the collision, and I swear my heart nearly stopped, but it was already too late. The look of terror in her eyes just before my car slammed into her with a sickening 'thump' is something that sometimes still keeps me awake at night.


That poor deer never stood a chance.


The impact of the collision threw me back against the seat as the vehicle came to a screeching halt on the side of the empty freeway. Thankfully the damage that I myself sustained was merely of the minute psychological variety, so, after about three minutes, when I had managed to slow my racing heartbeat and shut off the engine, I pulled my keys out of the ignition and exited the car to survey the damage. Sure enough, the deer was dead. At that moment, guilt overwhelmed me. Completely ignoring the already sizable amount of snow already piling up on the road around me that was only being added to that falling down around me at a rapid rate and, quite frankly, the fact that I was standing in the middle of the road in the first place, I knelt down beside the poor creature and began to gently stroke its fur.


"I'm sorry, old girl," I whispered, looking into her blank, lifeless eyes. "I didn't see you. I'm so sor-"


"Hey!"


My head snapped up at the sound of a shout coming from only a few feet away. Now, I'd be lying if I said that for a minute I hadn't panicked and, in my completely frazzled mind, come to the conclusion that it was the spirit of the deer, come back to claim her revenge, but you can't blame me, can you? I had just been in the first car crash of my life and, consequently, had just committed my first murder. Or case of animal cruelty, or whatever. I was in a state of shock.


Anyways, I quickly looked over at the source of the shout, and there she was, fast-walking in my direction: Cindy Louis, flakes of soft, white snow resting in her fiery red hair. Of course, I didn't know her name JUST yet, but soon, I was going to find out.


"Hey, are you alright?" she asked me as she stood by my side, her voice, quite honestly, filled more with curiosity than it was with concern. "I just saw you hit that deer and...wait, are you crying?"


As I said before, I was feeling really guilty about the whole concept of killing an innocent animal, so I HAD begun to tear up a bit.


"I killed her," I whispered, looking up into her beautiful hazel eyes as I felt the tears begin to run down my face. "I couldn't see her because of the snow, and I killed her."


She looked completely taken aback, albeit mildly intrigued.


"Dude, it's just a deer," she told me with eyebrows raised, crossing her arms over her chest and studying me for a brief moment. Finally she sighed. "Look at you. You're all wet, you're shaking, you're crying, you just crashed your car into a goddamn deer. C'mon, let's get you back into the car."


With that, she reached out, grabbed my arm, roughly hauled me to my feet, and dragged me back over to the driver's side door of my car. Funny, I hadn't even noticed the ice-cold feeling of the snow soaking through my pants until she pointed it out.


"Geeze, what kind of man are you?" she asked rather impatiently as she pulled open the door and helped me into the seat. "First you're crying over a dead deer, and now you can't even walk on your own."


I quickly dried my eyes as she made her way over to the other side of the car and let herself in, suddenly feeling embarrassed at my behavior in front of such an obviously strong woman.


"I'm sorry for the trouble, miss," I started to apologize for my rather pathetic conduct as she took her seat and shut the passenger's door behind her. "Really, you didn't need to-"


Loud music, a song by whom I thought was Marina and the Diamonds, blasted through the car at that moment, effectively cutting me off. Cindy reached for her coat pocket, retrieving her cellphone with impressive speed, looked at the screen to identify the caller and held up a hand to signal that I should be quiet before answering with one quick motion of her gloved pointer finger.


"Hey, why didn't you answer me sooner? I've tried to call you like ten times already!...Look, I don't care if she's pregnant, Ruth. You've already had like two labor scares already...Yeah, uh-huh, I know, I'm being a total asshole, but listen, I need you to send someone out to Route 95 from Portsmouth to Kittery right now. I'm out here alone with- Hello? Ruth? Dammit! My phone fucking died."


Cindy let out an aggravated sigh, dropping the useless device into her lap.


"That was my agent. Her wife's in "labor," she told me, making air quotes with her hands at the word "labor." "I needed her to send someone out here to pick me up, but unfortunately my phone's a piece of shit that can't hold charge for more than three hours."


"Oh, oh, that's, um..." I stammered, honestly really unsure about what I was supposed to say to that. "So, so like I was saying, you really didn't need to help me back to my car, or anything like that. But thank you...?"


"Cindy. And don't worry, I didn't do it for you. I was freezing my ass off out there, and I figured your car had heating."


As she said that, I noticed that the car was running, the key locked in its place in the ignition. She must have taken it out of my pocket when she was helping me to the vehicle.


"Besides, the image of a grown man crying over a deer carcass, although I admit it was pretty interesting, was starting to look kind of sad."


"I see..." I responded uncertainly, rocking back and forth slightly in my seat. It's a nervous tick that I have. This woman was was unlike anything I'd ever seen before, with her bold, straightforward attitude and the way she seemed to be lounging so comfortably in the passenger seat of a complete stranger's car. "So you said on the phone that you were headed for Kittery?"


"Yeah, why? You headed that way too?"


"As a matter-of-fact, I am. I could take you there, if you need a ride. That is, if my car still works."


"Should be fine," Cindy said with a shrug. "I didn't see any outside damage. Checked the tires. And the engine still works. And yeah, I could use a ride. After all, I'd say you owe me for hauling your ass out of the snow."


She had a fair point.


"You sure you're alright to drive?" she asked me as I turned to buckle myself in, replicating the motion with her own seatbelt. "You seemed pretty shaken up before."


If I wasn't mistaken, I could have sworn that there were undertones of concern in her voice when she spoke that time, but when I turned to face her, the smirk on her face made me question what I'd thought I heard. In any case, I laughed it off.


"I'm sure I'll be fine. So long as I don't come into contact with any more deer."


"Let's hope that doesn't happen, then," she said, a humorous gleam in her eyes. "Oh, and you should probably call in about your little mishap before we go. Someone needs to clean this mess up before the morning commute tomorrow."


Cindy Louis was a very smart woman.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I learned a lot about Cindy during the remainder of the short ride across the state border from Portsmouth to Kittery. Well, actually, it only took us about five minutes to get there (and, truth be told, it would have taken even less time if it hadn't been for all the damn snow), so I really only had time to learn one thing:


She really liked silent car rides.


She liked them so much, apparently, that she only spoke to me once, about three minutes in, to tell me where I was supposed to drop her off. Which was fine with me, of course. I'm not exactly one for conversation myself, especially with strangers, and especially ESPECIALLY while I'm driving. Need to focus on the road, you know? Watch out for deer, and pedestrians, and squirrels and such. But on the other hand, I really, REALLY hate awkward silences, and I don't know about her, but after the first minute and a half, I started to feel really awkward in there. So yeah, it would have been nice if she'd at least made an effort to talk with me about SOMETHING. But she seemed adamant. And so after her unbreakable quiet successfully thwarted five of my attempts at starting a casual conversation, I decided to stop trying.


Only when I had pulled my car into the parking lot of the Ramada hotel and taken my foot off of the gas pedal did she finally decided to speak to me again.


"Alright, this is my stop," she said without bothering to make eye contact as she promptly turned to unfasten her seatbelt. "Thanks, man. I'd like to say I owe you one, buuut I kinda don't."


"Oh," she added as an afterthought, pulling her hand back from reaching for the door handle and snapping her fingers like she'd just remembered something important. "I never got your name."


I perked up at that. I'll admit, I'd been feeling a bit gloomy over the thought that she would just hightail it out of there without so much as a proper goodbye (that combined with the lingering uneasiness from the previous awkward silence) and it made me feel better to know that she at least cares enough to ask my name before we parted ways.


"Mark Thatcher," I responded cheerfully as she turned back around in her seat to face me. I offered her my hand, which she ignored.


"Thatcher, huh?" she asked in a pretty non-enthusiastic way, her nose scrunching up as if the taste of the name as it rolled off of her tongue was the same as that of some type of foreign cuisine that her tastebuds didn't quite know how to place. "Sorta boring, if you ask me. But it suits you."


My good mood instantly disintegrated. Great. This amazing, confident woman thought that I was boring.


"Welp, I've gotta run," she said, reaching for the door handle once more. "I've got a lot of work to do before tomorrow afternoon, and I'm sure there was someplace you were going before you were unexpectedly brought to a halt by that deer."


"Good luck with that," I replied in farewell as she stepped out into the now softly-falling snow. "With the work, I mean."


The corners of her mouth quirked up into a wry smile.


"I'll see you around, Mark Thatcher."


With that, she slammed the car door, gave a brief little wave, and turned and walked up the snow-covered sidewalk into the building without looking back. I waited until I could no longer see her before I revved up the engine and pulled out of the parking lot.





 
These last two were for a contest, and we're fairly rushed, but they aren't too entirely horrible I guess. (You don't need to read all of these if you want, by the way, I'm just putting them all here in case you do.)


STORY ONE





She had done it again.


Walter Mills sighed deeply, running a pair of calloused hands first through the mop of tight, graying curls on top of his head, then over the hollows of his cheekbones and finally his stubble-covered chin before bringing them to rest over his bloodshot brown eyes. What on earth was he going to do with his daughter? Of course Lacey meant well, he knew that. She was a smart girl, always had been, and in Walter's experience, she had never done anything without a good and logical reason. But three schools in two months was just too much. They were going to have to leave town again, to try and set up a semblance of a normal life in yet another city...It made his head hurt just thinking about it. And who knew how many more times they would have to repeat the whole process by the end of the year?


Things, of course, hadn't always been this way for the Mills family. It had only been about six months ago, right after his wife first threatened to leave them, that his daughter, once sweet and mild, had started acting out, and the new mindset that Walter had needed to adopt because of it was beginning to take a toll on him, and it showed. Only forty-five, and already his hair was starting to gray. It was ridiculous.


"It's not her fault, Walter," he whispered to himself as he sat, head in his hands, on the bench outside of the principal's office at his daughter's newest middle school (What was the name again? Oakland...something? He couldn't remember.), trying to calm his raging nerves. It wasn't as if he hadn't done this several times before, but that didn't mean that it would ever get any easier, no matter how many times he had to do it.


"Lacey's a smart girl. She knows what she's doing. It's not her fault."


It seemed like another twenty minutes - when, in fact, it was only just about five - when Mrs. Evans finally emerged from her office. Walter felt a small sense of relief as he got to his feet and offered his hand. The wood of the bench was starting to become a major pain in his backside, and besides that, the anticipation had been threatening to suffocate him.


"Good evening, Mrs. Evans," he said as she took his hand, managing to push the look of utter exhaustion from his face as he flashed her one of his killer smiles. "Walter Mills. Lacey's father."


"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Mills," the petite woman responded with a friendly smile of her own, somehow managing to look like she meant business and slightly apologetic at the same time. Walter liked her, he decided, and he nearly grimaced. That was going to make things a whole lot more difficult.


"Why don't you come in and sit down, so we can talk about your daughter?"


Walter obliged, following her into her tiny office, which was barely large enough to hold a single bookcase, Mrs. Evans's desk, and three chairs: the one in which the principal sat, the one that he was instructed to occupy, and the one on which Lacey's teacher, Ms. Meyer, was perched, wringing her hands in her lap. Walter barely held back a wry smirk, almost disappointed at how easy she was making this. Meyer had suspicion written all over her face.


He was going to have to make this quick.


"With all due respect, ladies," he spoke up as he took his seat in front of the small oak desk, facing the two women. "But I'm going to have to ask you to keep this meeting brief. I left Lacey waiting out in the car, and I don't want to keep her out there alone for two long. Especially now that it gets dark out so quickly."


"I understand, Mr. Mills," she responded amicably with a nod of her head. "This should only take a few minutes. I'd assume that you've already been informed about the severity of Lacey's actions?"


"Yes, ma'am," he replied with a downcast gaze and a slow nod of his head. He reached into his coat pocket for a Kleenex. Meyer flinched.


Lacey herself, in fact, had informed him of her actions earlier that evening after he had been called in to pick her up early from her classes. He could see why Mrs. Evans would refer to it as "severe," but for him, it was nothing out of the ordinary.


At recess that afternoon, she had been playing out in the grass on the front lawn with the other children, when a boy named Joey Nichols had stolen one of her dolls. She hadn't meant for it to happen like it did, she had said, with tears in her eyes. He had stolen her doll, and she had gotten mad, so she pushed him. She hadn't noticed that the two of them had gotten so close to the street when she did it. It wasn't her fault.


At least, that was the story that she had told to her teachers, and the principal, and the sheriff, when he came. The excuse that she had presented to her father, however, was a very different one.


"He recognized me, Daddy. I could see it in his eyes. I had to do it. I know you wanted to stay here a little longer, Daddy, but I had to."


What a smart, smart girl.


"It's a real shame, what happened. I've sent my condolences to Joey's parents. But I want you to know that Lacey had no intention for things to play out like they did. Ever since her mother tried to leave, she's just-"


A pause, for effect. He was becoming theatrical, Walter noted with an almost bitter internal grin.


"She's very shaken up by the whole thing. Hasn't stopped crying since I picked her up."


"We don't doubt that, Mr. Mills," Mrs. Evans responded, although with one look at Ms. Meyer, Walter could tell that her statement was only half true. "I just need you to understand that under the strict protocol of this school district, we're going to need to suspend your daughter for a full month's time, maybe even longer, if the need arises."


"I understand."


"And please give Lacey our apologies, and let her know that I speak for everyone here at Oakland Ridge Middle School when I say that we aren't blaming her for what happened in any way. Lord knows the poor thing's probably traumatized already."


Oakland Ridge. That was it.


"I appreciate that."


Silence filled the room, which Walter noted as his invitation to leave. The conversation, the easy part, was over.


"Something wrong, Mr. Mills?" Mrs. Evans asked him when he made no attempt to rise from his seat, mild concern evident in her voice.


Walter sighed. It was showtime.


"Yes, ma'am, unfortunately, there is."


He stood, reaching into his pocket once more, only this time, he produced something a great deal more lethal than a Kleenex.


Evans looked completely stunned, frozen in shock. Meyer, on the other hand, scrambled for her cellphone, hands shaking so horribly that she could hardly keep her grip on the thing. She had been prepared for this.


Walter could still hear his daughter's voice in his head.


"My teacher, Ms. Meyer. She recognized me, too."


"I wouldn't bother, Ms. Meyer," Walter sighed as he released the safety on the revolver, aiming the barrel toward the center of the young woman's forehead. It was almost scary, how easy this was becoming for him. "There's a jammer in my other pocket. You won't get a signal."


Two skillfully executed gunshots and a quick wipe-down with the Kleenex of every surface in the school that he had laid his hands on later, and Walter Mills was back


behind the wheel of his stolen Toyota Corolla. He had definitively preferred the previous one, that lovely Ford Fiesta, but having to leave it behind was just another thing that couldn't be helped.


"I heard two gunshots," Lacey remarked as her father fastened his seatbelt, already making a beeline for the highway ("Not too fast, Walter," he had to remind himself. "Don't want to look suspicious."). "Did you get her, Daddy?"


"Yeah, sweetie, I got her," he replied, keeping his eyes on the road. "The second shot was for the principal. Shame, too. I liked her."


Suddenly, a loud thump sounded from the trunk.


"Oh, yeah," Lacey spoke up again with a small grimace. "I forgot to tell you. Mommy woke up while you were in the school."


"Dammit," her father cursed under his breath, resisting the urge to take both hands off of the steering wheel and bury his face in them. In hindsight, he should have known that kidnapping his own wife would turn out to be a pain. That's what had gotten the two of them into this entire mess in the first place.


"We're not going to let her go, are we?" Lacey whispered in a small voice, snapping Walter back to reality.


"No, of course not, honey," he sighed, reaching for her hand.


A few moments of silence, broken only by the sound of periodic thumps from the trunk of the car, followed, very different from those he had experienced in the principal's office of Oakland - dammit, he'd forgotten again. Not that it really mattered anymore.


It was Lacey who finally broke the silence.


"I'm sorry for killing him, Daddy," Lacey said, looking down at her lap with a downcast expression. "I know that you're tired of moving so much. But I had to do it."


Walter couldn't help but smile as he gently squeezed her hand.


"Hey, everything's fine. I'm glad you did what you did, my smart girl. Things will be better in the next city, I promise. How does New York City sound to you?"


Lacey's face lit up.


"Oh, thank you Daddy! I've always wanted to go to New York!" she cried out gleefully, hugging him the best that she could while they were still seated in the car. "You're the best."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


A few hours later, Walter found himself driving over a large, concrete bridge, over a city that he would never know the name of, full of people that he would never meet. Although, judging by the huge billboard sign over his head, bearing the images of three faces that held a great resemblance to those of the members of the only family of three that he knew of that was currently headed to New York City in a stolen Toyota Corolla, they all knew him very well.


Lacey had fallen asleep, and was softly snoring away, perhaps dreaming of an ideal life, where fathers didn't kidnap mothers, and daughters didn't have to kill classmates who recognized them from billboards or the evening news. The thumping had all but died away.


In a moment of weakness, Walter Mills gazed over the side of the bridge at the congregation of great steel buildings below. How easy it would be just to end it all now, to let his daughter stay in that peaceful dream for the rest of eternity. He was certain that the Lord would allow it. After all, she was only a child. He might not be so lucky, but-


He shook those absurd thoughts from his head and tried to focus on the road as the first rays of morning sun penetrated the windshield.


Maybe someday, but not today.





STORY TWO





Dr. Jared Jeats was the man of the hour at the NASA headquarters in Washington D.C. After seven years of careful planning, programming, and monitoring, his mission to be the first to send a space probe to retrieve ice from Mars had come to a successful close when said probe had safely landed in the Atlantic just off the coast of Rhode Island only hours before. The story had spread like wildfire across the continent, and after all of the visits that the doctor had received from film crews and newspaper reporters since his project's landing, it was sure to go international before nightfall.


Surely, all of the attention that he was receiving from both his coworkers and the media was enough to stroke any man's ego, and while he did enjoy being put in the spotlight for something that he had worked so hard on, Jeats wanted nothing more than to retreat to his lab with the product of his labor over the seven years and study it until his eyes were fit to fall from their sockets. But that was not to be the case. They could get a team on that, the man in charge had said, giving him a firm pat on the back that had nearly sent him tumbling to the floor. For now, everyone kept telling him, he should enjoy the night, leave the work to someone else for a few hours.


Although his mind remained on his studies, he somehow managed to make it through the night away from his lab, accepting copious amounts of congratulations and drinking even larger amounts of celebratory champagne.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The next morning at five o'clock, he received a call. His presence was required in the headquarters immediately; there was something that he needed to see.


Dr. Jeats readied himself in under fifteen minutes, practically throwing on his clothes and rushing out the door without eating; he didn't even bother to say goodbye to his wife.


When he reached the laboratory at the NASA headquarters, he was greeted by his fellow scientist, Dr. Clifford, who was beaming like a small child on Christmas.


"We've made the discovery of the century!" he was shouting as he excitedly danced Jeats over to the huge electron microscope in the corner of the room. There were several other scientists gathered around it, chatting animatedly amongst themselves. Jeats looked down at the chip under the microscope.


"Water?" he asked Clifford, studying the clear liquid substance contained within the chip. Water was the discovery of the century?


"We melted some of that ice that your probe brought back from Mars," Clifford replied, a wide grin still stretched across his face. "Look closer."


Confused, yet slightly intrigued, Jeats stepped up to the lens of the microscope as the other scientists watched on, a hush falling over the small crowd. Everything appeared to be average at first as he turned the knob to zoom in on the specimen. Water turned into molecules, molecules turned into atoms; it was just like any old regular Earth water, nothing out of the ordinary. That was, until he had focused in so far as to see the inside of one of a molecule's neutrons.


Jeats barely contained a gasp as he stepped back from the lens, looking at his scientific audience in disbelief. However, the look on their faces confirmed that each of them had already witnessed the same exact thing. Taking this into account gave him just what he needed to step back up to the microscope lens and take another look. Just as before, there, staring back at him with the tiniest set of eyes that he had ever seen, was a small, blue humanoid creature. The poor little guy looked a bit scared, no doubt due to the large shadows cast by infinitely much larger creature looming over him. The scientist briefly wondered if the thing could see him as anything other than a shadow. He decided to experiment on that at a later date.


Zooming out slightly, Dr. Jeats soon noticed that each neutron contained a little blue person of its own, and zooming out even further than that, he realized that the molecules themselves were being rearranged to form some sort of message.


They simply said, "Hello."


"They've been communicating with us since last night," Clifford informed him, his eyes dancing as his colleague once again retreated from his position with his eye up to the lens. "Apparently, they know a lot about us. They've built their own cities, and homes, and schools in there where they teach all manner of subjects, including much about life on Earth. Their technology is vastly superior to our own, so much so that they can see us quite a bit better than we are able to see them. But do you know what truly makes this the discovery of the century?" he asked.


"What?" Jeats responded in the expected manner.


"Well, it seems that they are very grateful to us for melting the ice," Clifford began what Jeats could only guess to be another long-winded explanation. "They were forced into hibernation eons ago, when the water on Mars first froze up at the poles. As thanks, not only are they willing to supply us with a source of clean energy that they have developed, which, despite its very minuscule size, contains enough power to run the entire country for centuries, but they are also willing to help us communicate with other known races! I must congratulate you once again, Jared. You've truly paved the way for great discovery!"


"The discovery of the century," one of the scientists said.


"The discovery of the century!" another echoed, a bit louder than the first.


"THE DISCOVERY OF THE CENTURY!" they all cried out together, cheering and patting one another on the back.


Jeats could only nod, completely in awe of the entire experience. This truly was the discovery of the century.

---


This was absolutely amazing, you are destined to be a writer!

 

[Angst]

---
This was absolutely amazing, you are destined to be a writer!

You're too kind, my friend. T-T

 

[kou]

You're too kind, my friend. T-T

--


So, what exactly is this thread for?

 

[Angst]

--
So, what exactly is this thread for?

It was really just so I could have somewhere to post the stories for Rida. xD Guess I could probably take it down now.

 

[kou]

It was really just so I could have somewhere to post the stories for Rida. xD Guess I could probably take it down now.

---


NO. Don't. I wanna..do the thing..for you two. I don't know. We could all do the thing together.

 

[Angst]

---
NO. Don't. I wanna..do the thing..for you two. I don't know. We could all do the thing together.

YES, I would love for you to do the thing! I will leave this up eternally so that you may have all the time in which to do it.

 

[kou]

Drifting. Drifting amongst the black abyss of nothingness, smothered in the tidal wave of ink, and drowning in the sudden revelations of immersion. There is something to be said about the wonders of a word, the absolute logic in which a person can create when pen is put to paper, and the wonders which unravel from the dusty pages of a leather-bound book. Bittersweet melodies of endless words which rise like the tide of an ocean over the tip of a tongue and are pushed out to form sentences, create sounds, and produce only the most scintillating of emotions. A powerhouse of prose, poetry, and product. A system of sentences, sounds, and sights. A truly ravishing kingdom of the written word in which dragons brood in the foreboding and equally dangerous caves and the specters of a war once forgotten now roam the ancient halls of a museum deep within the land of France. Ah, but what happens dear friend, when these beauties are forgotten? Shrouded in the sheer frustration of one's mind and blocked by the inability to think or do or be, it is truly agonizing to believe such a thing could happen but it could and it will continue to occur until creatures that are literate enough to write no longer inhabit the spinning globe within the expansive Universe. One could almost compare this dastardly experience to paralyzation, the inability to move or do as your body wishes to as the worrisome thoughts haunt your brain and taunt you with former memories of your phantom limbs and ligaments. Unable to perform these actions leave a certain vulnerability to those who have become accustomed to such orders and in turn, produce the vulnerability which creeps in like a ghoul stalking the vineyards at night, a curious event for even the most intelligent. Your brain is unable to revert itself back to what it used to be, your words lost in the echoes of idea and imagination, your hand pausing above parchment due to the memory still lingering and oh, how you despise it so! You fling books and treasured items across rooms, you pace and you pace and you pace once more, and only when you are done does it still linger to mock you and taunt you with its obliviousness and absurdity. How can you do anything when you've lost the ability to THINK! In the bowels of your stomach rises a sudden surge of anger you did not believe you had and it boils like the oncoming torrents of rain, like the rumbling of the earth as its very core shakes, and the ultimate eruption of a volcano. It rushes past your throat and barely grasps at your tongue before inching forward slowly, ever so slowly, and slipping through like a ghost and then you say: "Dammit, I think I might have Writer's Block."

 

[Angst]

 

[kou]

This, man, just. Everything is so vivid that the whole thing almost seems like it's alive, if that makes sense. And that ending. xD But in all seriousness, the buildup was great, everything was great, this is FUCKING AMAZING and so are you. My mind is blown. Now go publish this lovely piece of art and become famous. *drops mic and flies into the sun*

--


Aw, sweets. You inspired me, I was thinking how I would describe you so I related it to having Writer's Block..that sounds offensive, I don't mean it like that. Translation:It's vivid and descriptive and just..extremely comedic to think about. So..yeah. We should all publish books and become famous.

 

[Angst]

--
Aw, sweets. You inspired me, I was thinking how I would describe you so I related it to having Writer's Block..that sounds offensive, I don't mean it like that. Translation:It's vivid and descriptive and just..extremely comedic to think about. So..yeah. We should all publish books and become famous.

Writer's Block is literally THE most accurate description of me. Oh, honey, wow, I. I just don't know what to say. I feel so loved, you wonderful, beautiful, amazing human being. *hugs the life out of you* We should like collaborate or some shit. I showed my sister the beginnings of what we did with CtP and she said we should write a movie script. xD

 

[kou]

Writer's Block is literally THE most accurate description of me. Oh, honey, wow, I. I just don't know what to say. I feel so loved, you wonderful, beautiful, amazing human being. *hugs the life out of you* We should like collaborate or some shit. I showed my sister the beginnings of what we did with CtP and she said we should write a movie script. xD

--


We really should, it would be amazing. *Hugs you back* I may see if I have anything in comparison to Rida but I might have an idea..

 

[Angst]

--
We really should, it would be amazing. *Hugs you back* I may see if I have anything in comparison to Rida but I might have an idea..

*leans in close* Tell me more, oh great one. If you can, that is.

 

[kou]

@Rida Remember my Muslim great-grandfather? Well, he gives me this fruit that people in his country use for eating and it turns your lips cherry red and stays there so it's kind of like lipstick and you don't have to buy any makeup because of it. For some reason, it reminds me of you.


 

*leans in close* Tell me more, oh great one. If you can, that is.

--


I just did. You'll see.

 

[Angst]

@Rida Remember my Muslim great-grandfather? Well, he gives me this fruit that people in his country use for eating and it turns your lips cherry red and stays there so it's kind of like lipstick and you don't have to buy any makeup because of it. For some reason, it reminds me of you.
 



--


I just did. You'll see.

That fruit sounds fucking amazing. And I'm not sure if I exactly understand, but I suppose I will at some point. xD Also, should I be afraid?

 

[kou]

That fruit sounds fucking amazing. And I'm not sure if I exactly understand, but I suppose I will at some point. xD Also, should I be afraid?

--


You possibly shouldn't unless fruit scares you..if it does, you should be. xD It is amazing and it tastes great.


 
Know what? Fuck it. I'm gonna go make Lupita visit Mordecai.

 

[Angst]

--
You possibly shouldn't unless fruit scares you..if it does, you should be. xD It is amazing and it tastes great.


 
Know what? Fuck it. I'm gonna go make Lupita visit Mordecai.

Fruit is horrifying man. The thought of it keeps me up every night.


*vibrates in anticipation* Not sure how he's going to take it but...

 

[kou]

Fruit is horrifying man. The thought of it keeps me up every night.
*vibrates in anticipation* Not sure how he's going to take it but...

--


God, even apples scare the living bejuses out of me. They're so fucking crunchy.


Did you just say 'vibrates'? That was like saying moist..just..no.

 

[Angst]

--
God, even apples scare the living bejuses out of me. They're so fucking crunchy.


Did you just say 'vibrates'? That was like saying moist..just..no.

Don't even get me started on pineapples, man. They're like apples on steroids.


Cool band name ideas: Moist Vibrations


Imam go read that post you just made

 

[kou]

Don't even get me started on pineapples, man. They're like apples on steroids.
Cool band name ideas: Moist Vibrations


Imam go read that post you just made

--


Oh and bananas are just.. HAVE YOU SEEN THE BOTTOM?


I swear to GOD, Hannah.

 

[Angst]

--
Oh and bananas are just.. HAVE YOU SEEN THE BOTTOM?


I swear to GOD, Hannah.

EW, I know right? And like, lemons man. What kinda fucking sour ass excuse for a fucking fruit do they even think they are?...Wait. Maybe the lemons are on our side. O.o


D #NoRagrets

 

[kou]

EW, I know right? And like, lemons man. What kinda fucking sour ass excuse for a fucking fruit do they even think they are?...Wait. Maybe the lemons are on our side. O.o
D #NoRagrets

--


Maybe they're sour because they know of the evilness that their species secretly is and want to protect us. PLOT TWIST. •.•

 

[Angst]

The lemons were the true heroes all along. We were just too blind to notice it.

 

[SkyGinge]

Is anybody here looking for some critique?