Summer Blaze, as clear as day: Part 2

Here is yet another post, continuing from where I left off. This is "Summer Blaze, as clear as day: Part 2". Again, I will say that this piece involves two girls who are in love with each other. (I wanted to mention something about homosexuality in American media: I absolutely hate the stereotype that gay men are continuously used as a source of comedy [in more PG roles, but much more sexual in MA roles] and lesbian women treated as sex objects for men's delight in any rating from PG-MA. It disgusts me that I almost always find these trends, whether it be in TV shows or in music videos. Also I despise when people consider gay and lesbian couples to be "cute". They are just like any other couple on this planet. It sounds horrifically like they are being patronized. Not every single gay and lesbian couple has to be cute, otherwise you would call every single relationship "cute" and I doubt many people do that. Please consider my two characters to simply be innocent girls who naturally fell in love with each other.) This is actually my first writing on homosexuality, and I'm pretty proud of it whether it's a good story or not. For those who don't mind this subject too much, please enjoy ☺.

(Child laughter can be heard in the background. Language exchanged but isn’t comprehensible. Screams envelope a playground. The sun is shining brightly, only a few clouds in the sky. A friend’s odd smile and her missing tooth. Another child being scolded by mother. The scene goes back to your friend who is at the top of the jungle gym. The sun directly behind her, she spreads her arms out like a bird. Her beautiful red hair whipped around her shoulders. She says something inaudible. You try to make something of it by reading her lips, but nothing comes to mind. The girl jumps. And you wake up.)

Crystal’s eyes peeked open, “H-how long have I been asleep?” Crystal opened her eyes further, only to instigate an immediate headache. “Oh, great,” she groaned. “This hot, infernal day and a splitting headache!!” A wet touch graced her forehead. In too much pain to jump up in surprise, Crystal simply followed the wetness to a cloth, then to an arm, then to a body. A body all too familiar that day. “June…?” The other girl looked on in interest. Crystal scoffed, “You have got to stop reappearing like this.” She laughed, “Someone could easily mistake you for a ghost.”

In response, June simply closed her eyes and smiled.

Crystal watched June as she took the cloth from Crystal’s forehead and dipped it in a bucket full of water. Crystal eyed the bucket with fierce curiosity and couldn’t pin why it mattered. Again, Crystal didn’t want to ponder mysteries. It used too much brain power. “June…?”

June looked up and blinked at the girl before as if to reply “yes”, bringing the cloth back to Crystal’s forehead. The water was oddly cooler than the stream’s water. More relaxing and pleasant. Crystal smiled at June, taking the girl’s other hand in hers, and shook her head. “Never mind…” Crystal’s face turned a bit pink as she looked away. “It’s nothing.”

June remained silent, but her face contorted into that wretched smile again. And a laugh leaped from her lips. A baby tooth was missing somewhere near the back but close enough in the front for it to be noticeable. Crystal couldn’t help but smile and laugh back.

Over the course of seemingly several hours, Crystal engaged in much conversation with her good friend. Not once did June say a word, nor did Crystal even seem to mind. June was always a good listener, Crystal the yapper. Soon the blazing sun began to set and it was time for Crystal to head back home.

“Ah,” Crystal looked up at the evening sky. “It’s getting dark out. We should think about heading back home…”

June slightly smiled, eyes closed.

‘How about we meet again tomorrow? Same place, same time?”

June cocked her head to the side, a soft smile engraved on her pink lips, her eyes wide open and darker than ever.

Crystal smiled and kissed her friend on the cheek, “I promise, I’ll be here tomorrow. So you should promise too, ok?”

June nodded.

“All right, I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon then!” Crystal proceeded to be on her way. She looked back and waved goodbye. June waved back. She walked on. She looked back again and waved bye again. June again waved back. Crystal proceeded. One last time, Crystal turned to wave back, June was nowhere to be found and therefore did not wave back. Chuckling to herself, Crystal joked, “I swear, it’s like she was never there… That girl… She’s so strange…” Holding tight to her bag, Crystal turned and headed homeward.

(A church is ablaze. People surround it, all wearing black. They are desperately trying to put out the fire but they are failing miserably. The fire just seems to eat the water right up and it continues to get bigger and bigger. Your friend walks out of the church unharmed with a shadowy figure walking beside her. Your friend spits out a tooth and says something to you. Her words are nothing but gibberish. The shadowy figure’s pearly white teeth are showing, indicating a gaping smile. The figure starts to laugh. The laughter starts to escalate to the point that it sounds menacing. The people are now ablaze themselves and are no longer putting the fire out. They are facing you and are joining in the figure’s laughter. As the people continue to laugh, seemingly at you, the figure stops and lunges at you. You wake up.)

Crystal’s eyes shoot open, her breath heavy and tinted with fear. Crystal slowly gets up and waits. She can’t understand what exactly she’s waiting for. Something nagged at her thoughts but she couldn’t put it in words. Blinking the cold from her eyes, she looked around and listened to the birds chirping outside her window.

“Just a creepy nightmare…” she whispered to herself. But the dream was all so familiar to her, like she has had it before. But then decided to dismiss it. “I mean, dreams are nothing but dreams. They don’t mean anything.”

Crystal immediately hopped out of bed, onto the floor, and rushed into the bathroom. She took her morning shower and flew downstairs. Her mother was cooking breakfast, a good ole Southern breakfast: chicken and waffles. The pitcher of orange juice stood on the kitchen table, cool condensation dripping down onto the table. Crystal blinked, “Mom, I’m not that hungry today… So I’m gonna head out, okay?”

Her mother didn’t respond.

Crystal’s eyebrow twitched in annoyance, “Ya know, I dunno how long you’re gonna give me the silent treatment, but I hope this ends soon. You’re being a child. I mean, I’m sorry that I kissed J---“

Knock, knock, knock, someone was at the door. Crystal was cut off. She sucked her teeth, “Well, I’m leaving, so I guess I’ll answer the door.” But her mother swiftly wiped her greasy hands down on her apron and made her way to the door. Crystal snarled, “Ya know what? I just don’t care; I don’t care anymore.” She rushed past her mother out the door, frustrated beyond belief, and brushed past Miss Linley, almost knocking her over.

“What in high blazes…?” Miss Linley hushed her tone and looked in Crystal’s direction. Crystal ignored her and went about her way…

Note: Just so no one gets confused, dreams and flashbacks are all Crystal's and they are all written in second person ("you"). So "you" does not refer to the reader... *Laughing nervously ^_^* Putting "you" in there was actually an early mistake, but I had decided to leave it well enough alone. The truth is I wasn't thinking of the scenes in Crystal's perspective. I was thinking of them more like if they were first-person scenes in a movie. The first dream is actually inspired by the almost silent, childhood flashback of L Lawliet in Death Note. No words are spoken in his flashback but background sounds are heard (i.e. church bells, a child crying...) and I thought that flashback was simply gorgeous. So anyway, I thought the dream was better written in first person to allow you to see through her (Crystal's) eyes, to allow your eyes to be the camera. So after I wrote that scene, I stuck with the second person for the rest of the flashbacks and dreams, not wanting to break the trend.

Summer Blaze, as clear as day: Part 1

I have not been on my blog in a very long time. And my last post was a story that was saved to my last laptop. It's been over a year since I've last had that laptop and I have no idea how my story concluded. I apologize for not continuing it. But luckily I have another short story that I would like to present. I wasn't sure on what I should have named it and ended up settling on "Summer Blaze, as clear as day". There is, in fact, an introduction only slightly related to the story that I've written. It's about the source of my inspiration for the story, and I really want to give the man his props. Also I would like to add that if you are uncomfortable with homosexuality, I would advise you not to read. In truth, this story is much more homo-romantic than it is homosexual because they are merely innocent children (and I don't wish for anybody to consider children in such a sexual light). The protagonist is 13, the deuteragonist is 12. So please understand that this is an innocent love between two childhood friends. Anyway, I'll be separating the story into parts. I hope you'll like the story.

Two of the best characters of these last few decades have been two Japanese manga characters named Punpun Onodera and Aiko Tanaka. They are singlehandedly the best characters I could ever read about. The manga was called “Oyasumi, Punpun”, oyasumi meaning goodbye and Punpun being the alias of the protagonist. It features characters of many different types and personalities; so various that I have yet to understand exactly why this hasn’t been recreated as a movie of sorts. The intricacy of every character’s mindset, it’s almost as though there were much more than one writer creating such beauty. But alas, the title belongs to one author/mangaka and to him solely: Inio Asano. The man must surely be a genius, otherwise he has very much fooled me in his gifted art of writing. I write, but I am in no way a great writer or author of sorts. Actually I may not even be a good one, you see, as I never truly realized how to express myself through written word. It’s always been quite a difficult road for me but I try. A coming-of-age story, huh? Am I capable of such a story? Clearly, I know so little about the world but I know so much about people. I claim to know how the mind works and yet, have no idea how to express it on paper. Maybe if I just start with a story, I will eventually get somewhere...

The sun was especially bright and hot on this particular sunny day. Its beams of heat could almost scathe Crystal's very skin, bringing her blood to a complete boil. The boiling, hot blood beneath her skin starts to rise to the surface of her cheeks and she curses nature for making heat all the worst. This day could possibly be the only real day Crystal remembers to bring her mother’s sunscreen to spread over her body like butter. Not only did it keep cancer at bay but its cool, smooth texture washed over her body like an unsuspected blizzard in the middle of a desert.

“Ahhh,” Crystal smiled towards the sky, her eyes squinting past the harsh sunlight and looking for a sign of thunderstorm life. She spread the sunscreen across her breastbone and around her collarbone, breathing in and out as a sign of skin relief. Casting her eyes downward, Crystal sucked her teeth, “The more and more I get older… The more and more I really hate summer…”

Ding ding, the sound of a bike’s bell could be heard a little down the way as Crystal prepared to step off her family’s porch. Ding ding, the sound came closer and the figure assumed a familiar semblance.

“Huh,” Crystal threw the sunscreen lotion towards the door, her eyes fixated on the bicyclist. “Is that…?” Her face brightened, “Ah, June!!” Crystal was way too hot to go running to wave at her. She wondered if June was over here for her as June doesn’t necessarily like this part of town. When June approached, she didn’t even glance in Crystal’s direction. June continued on her way without giving Crystal one act of acknowledgement.

Crossing her arms, Crystal huffed, “Well, that was rude.” She sighed, “But then again, she probably didn’t see me.” Crystal snatched her bag off the porch stairs and proceeded on her way.

The path felt longer than she could remember. Maybe it’s the sun, she thought to herself. The blazing nagged her skin and burned like an inferno. “Argh, I shoulda brought the sunscreen with me. Why did it have to be so dang hot today?” Up ahead was a green meadow, a gentle stream at the end of it. Crystal edged her way toward it with all her might, “Maybe the stream isn’t hot…” Hunched over, Crystal dipped her forefinger and middle finger into the water. “Yes, it’s just right!” She fell to her knees and continued to splash water on her face before she remembered the sunscreen that was supposed to be protecting it. Her skin started to get greasy and she tried to keep it from getting in her eyes. Looking up from her position for just a second, Crystal spotted a figure on the other side of the stream in the same position as she. Crystal recognized the figure to be the same person from before, “J-June…?”

The other girl looked up from the stream and she gazed at Crystal before contorting her face into her odd, yet happy smile. That was normal for her; June was never an ugly girl, she just had a very odd way of smiling. Her mouth gaped open, exposing all of her teeth, permanent and baby. Her eyes, yet open, squeezed closed until all you could see was her dark irises piercing through. Her freckles did her pretty looks no good as they made her smile ever the more freakish. June did have a cute, childish laugh about her. It almost sounded like a laugh a Disney character like Goofy would make, but it never made her look doofy. There was always a hint of sadness in that smile and laugh of hers but you could never tell if the child herself was ever sad.

“June, is that you?” Crystal squinted through the water dripping over her forehead and into her eyes. The girl continued to laugh. Crystal rubbed her eyes to get a better look at the girl, there was no mistaking it. June’s laugh was too distinct. Crystal began to remember the incident from earlier as she continued to get the water out of her eyes, “Hey, June, did you happen to see me earlier? I mean, you just rushed by my side without sayi--.” Crystal looked up, but June was gone. Looking around, Crystal spotted no evidence that June was ever there. The only clear-cut evidence of June’s presence was the echoing sound of June’s charming laughter. After a minute or two of pondering where June could possibly have run off to, Crystal couldn’t even posit that June’s laughter was even truly heard. She could feel it ringing in her ears, but there was no exact way that she could have heard her voice.

“What in the world…?” was all Crystal could utter as her mind tried to make sense of what she saw, or didn’t see. Was she hallucinating or what? It truly did feel like June was there, it was too vivid to only be imagination. But Crystal isn’t very interested in pondering over mysteries, she thought them to be too much of a drag. She picked up her bag that she had initially dropped while kneeling at the stream and picked herself up. She walked over to the nearby tree, put her bag back down, reached for her phone and sat down, leaning against the trunk of the tree. “She’s being so unusual today… But whatever, no reason to be dwelling over it.” Crystal flipped through her phone before settling on the game “Angry Birds”. After several minutes of “fun”, the heat and boredom started to sink in. Her eyes became heavy with weariness and she began to drift off to sleep.


Note: For those who like to read manga, if you haven't already heard of it or are interested in reading, here's a link to the manga I mentioned above: http://www.mangahere.co/manga/oyasumi_punpun/. Again it's beautifully written and truly worth the read.

Snowstorm

OK, so I'm writing a new short story. It's supposed to get into the mind of a psychotic woman. And it's about murder (first time I've ever tried this topic out). So yes, what my cousin told me before I started to post this is true: it comes off as creepy. But if you find it disturbing, I encourage you not to read. I refrain from swearing so cursing/obscenity will not appear whatsoever. I personally don't see it as that creepy as, obviously, I'm the one who came up with it. I think my cousin exaggerated but to each his (really it's a her) own. Anyway, I hope you like it. Leave a comment (or check off the thumbs down or weird reaction if you like) if it does come off as creepy because my cousin is the only one I allowed to hear it. Here it is. (There is a background on the woman so there will be little confusion. It's a really short story so I didn't go into depth with her character; it's just a briefing.)

Background: Charity Ball has always had an illness, she’s inflicted with a personality disorder. A personality disorder cannot be cured. When she was little she used to kill her pets (and other animals), boil their blood over the stove, and proceed to drink it out of a cup. Her parents tried to get her help but it was all in vain. The doctors couldn’t “fix” her. Under the care of a special program, she was released in her 20s as they helped her assume a new identity. Before she was Charity Bell, she was Kylie Lawrence. For a while, she seemed perfectly healthy and was no longer under watch. She eventually met Guy Jones in which they married and produced a child, Kent Cyrus Jones aka K.C. Jones. Meanwhile her mental state slips little by little and her family soon fades to black.

It was really cold that night; I can remember the ice pellets of the brisk snowstorm clapping against the window glass. I had been in another argument with my husband and I was sitting up in bed… gazing at the reflection off the window. I saw myself, tearstained and tired. I’ve had enough, I wanted to die that night. But something rather… peculiar… kept me from offing myself apparently. I had this urge to get up from bed but I just sat there, looking through the glass. But then, as I recall, I saw the oddest of birds perch right there on the window sill: a hawk! Yes, a hawk in the middle of blizzard! I remember thinking how bizarre, but it pulled me closer to the window. Just there staring up at me as I slowly paced my fragile legs over there. I thought, such a beautiful creature it was. Especially in the middle of this weather. As I neared, I stroked its very image and it almost felt as if I could feel its own magnificent feathers. Time felt like it lasted a few hours longer in those two minutes. As I goggled the hawk’s brown, it proceeded to make this loud and unbearable squawk that seemed to make my ears bleed. I felt this unbelievable anger towards it as I brought my hands to my ears. It wouldn’t shut up, it wouldn’t shut up! I fell to the floor and banged on the window, “SHUT UP!! SHUT… UP…!”

“What’re you doing?”

I swiftly turned around and there was my husband Guy, standing above me. Our 2-year old sliding ever so helplessly over his father’s manly hip. Their eyes on me, I looked back and said in a loud voice as if the hawk was still screaming, “There…! There, the hawk was there. And it was screeching. And, and…”

“Hawk? There is no hawk… You did leave the window open, though. It’s freezing in here.” He let our son down. I smiled softly at him but he clung to his father’s pants’ leg. “Can you close it, please?” I didn’t get up and didn’t even answer, my hands still over my ears but loosely. Guy sighed and walked over to the window. Before he went to close it, he asked an awkward question, “Is… is that blood?” He turned around at me, pointing at the some thick liquid dripping down the edge of the window. “Did you hurt yourself? I don’t see any cuts. Are you ok?”

“Y-yeah, uh huh. I’m fine, Guy,” I shook my hands. “They’re okay, nothing to worry about.” I got up and closed the window. Looking back at him, I repeated sternly, “I’m fine…”

As if in defense, Guy put his hands up, “Ok, ok, just asking.” I could feel his eyes burn through me as I returned to bed. He took K.C. back on his hip, “Dinner’s almost ready, something new… Speaking of hawk earlier, do you eat it…?”

So this part isn't the end. There is another part that comes with this. That will come in my next post. I swear it will be longer than this.. So wait till then. See you next time ;-)