May have gotten bored...

So, I've kind of decided to make a new one. I don't have the motivation to update this one anymore, so, the other one's shinier. :-/

http://paintchips.blog.com/

I'll try and update the new one more often.

Love you all!

For Connor;

Don’ Wanna Close My Eyes
11.02.09

Let’s get lost
lost together.
In our minds and songs,
soaring love and melodies

Wishing stars and chocolate bars,
and dancing with you slow.
In our dreams,
and in our hearts,
let’s get lost together.

Ribbons!

Whew... It's been a while. And, I'm in class. U.S. Migrant Lit. Joy.
Posting a short little romance fluff thing I wrote this summer 'cause I was bored - It had requirements, so I'll put them at the end of the story. Thank you Roxy, for helping with that one line, too. And, the NaNoWriMo Forums... Ah, they're amazing. :)
I should post more often... Let me know what you think!
Also, I love the grumpy old man. He totally wrote himself.

Of Music, Melodies, and a Little Bit of Ribbon

A Collection of the Inspirations of Elodie Taylor

Aug. 2009

It was six months ago when he moved in.

Her fingers held the last note on the piano; the end of the melody still hanging in the air along with the dust, illuminated by the bright sunshine streaming through the window. She took her hands off the keys, still reveling in the song while looking up to find another when she heard voices drifting into the room from across the hall, “She plays wonderfully; a real musical gift. Does she ever sing?”

“No,” she heard her mother start with the all too familiar explanation, “Elodie’s mute.”

“Oh…” The dust in the room disappeared as a cloud passed over the sun. She could hear the disappointment in her mother’s voice every time, and every time, she hated it. There was the routine silence as her mother’s guest searched for something to say, usually a ‘sorry,’ or a ‘how long has she been that way?’ And her mother would answer, in the same disappointed tone as she had used before.

Elodie was used to it by now, though. Her mother always paid all of her attention to her older brother. He was unbroken – she, damaged in her eyes. Her mother never seemed to hear Elodie’s wish to be normal, no matter how loud her eyes pled. Wounded, she closed the book in her hands and left her mother’s conversation for the outdoors.

In the street, movers were emptying the contents of their massive truck into the house next door, probably belonging to whomever her mother had been chatting with. Elodie cast one backward glance at them before walking the other way, towards the park she so often visited on days like these.

She thought of her brother, like she did frequently now that he was gone. She missed him. Before he left, he had always been there for her, understanding everything she told him – whether out loud or not. He’d left for college four months earlier, but he still wrote home to her, and only her. She’d look forward to reading his letters, her eyes sweeping over his messy scrawl, and writing back. He was the only one who would ever listen to her. Well, the only one aside from the old man in the park.

She quickened her step as the wind picked up, fingering with the ribbons that were always in her hair. The air was slightly heavy as she passed the muddy sports field where she heard a small group of boys arguing over a soccer ball about something to do with the Manchester United and the Liverpool teams, smiling half-heartedly at their liveliness.

“Why, howdy there, little lady,” the old man greeted from a bench.

Elodie smiled at him, and bowed dramatically as a greeting, then proceeded to sit cross-legged in front of his bench.

“How’re you today?”

She made a face.

“That bad, eh, pigeon?”

She nodded.

“Well?”

- - -

“Hi.”

Elodie waved softly.

“You live next door, right? I’m your neighbor?”

Elodie nodded, squinting her eyes slightly at the color show behind him; the sun was setting, lighting the sky.

“I’m Liam, by the way. You?”

She didn’t answer. She wanted to, but she couldn’t.

“What’s your name?” he asked again, with a curious look on his face.

Elodie still didn’t answer, and Liam gave her a funny look.

“Aren’t you going to answer me?” His tone didn’t sound angry, merely confused.

Elodie shook her head, wishing there was something she could say. She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“Are you okay?” he asked and a look of concern passed over his face.

She nodded, but then pointed to her mouth, shaking her head again, trying to mouth the words: “I can’t talk,” she was using her hands in a kind of make-shift sign language she had developed with the old man in the park.

“You can’t talk?” Liam ventured, and when she nodded vigorously, he continued, “You sick?”

She shook her head.

“You just… can’t talk, then, right?”

And she nodded, smiling now that he had finally gotten it.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you then,” he held out his hand with a wide grin. No questions of why, or how, just a smile. It was refreshing.

She took it, and they shook.

- - -

“Oh, go away, will you!” the old man growled madly at a little boy hanging on the fringe of their conversation.

He didn’t move.

“Now!” He was brandishing his cane now, waving it threateningly. When the boy still didn’t move, he whacked the little boy in the shins, not hard, but enough to send him scurrying away.

“So, where were we? The boy? The one who moved in six months ago?”

Elodie nodded, closing her eyes to the bright, dry, sunshine.

“You like him.”

She shook her head furiously, trying to deny it, but he didn’t buy it. He looked at her sternly, and she abandoned that attempt, and nodded with a wistful look on her face.

“Well, what are you hanging around here for?”

She made a frantic gesture with her hands to explain and make her excuse, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Or see of it, if you prefer.

“Go, go, go!” he made a shooing motion. “Life passes quickly child, now go. Seize the day and live it. You only get one lifetime; best not waste your days talking to an old man like me.”

More frantic gestures.

“Go!” He whacked her shins this time. She smiled and skipped away, shaking her head at his silliness.

- - -

“Elodie!” She heard her name exclaimed behind her. She was sitting, watching the sun set, crayoning the sky in oranges and fiery pinks and purples. She didn’t turn though, she knew who it was, but a soft smile formed on her face.

“Elodie, hi,” Liam plopped himself onto the brick wall beside her.

She made a gesture at him, motioning that she didn’t have her pen and pad with her. She wasn’t expecting him.

“It’s okay. We don’t have to talk that much,” he laughed slightly at her. She couldn’t help but notice the anxiety in it though. And he looked tense; he was sitting straight-backed, with his arms awkwardly in his lap.

A low pressure front was coming in, and unbeknownst to them, clouds were broiling in behind them. It was quiet for a bit, each in their own respective reverie. Elodie wondered why he wouldn’t relax.

“Elodie, I…” she looked up at him, expectantly. He choked on his words a bit, almost as if he regretted saying anything at all. “Never mind. It’s not important.” She looked down at her lap, disappointed.

“No, wait…” he started again a moment later, meeting her confused gaze, “I know you can’t talk… I just, well, these past six months have been… well, beautiful. They’ve been beautiful. You’re beautiful. Agh. I don’t know what to say. It’s funny, seeing as you can’t talk and I’m the one who can’t come up with words. Elodie, I…” He was stuck on the same words he was before. She was looking at him with sad, disbelieving eyes. “I wouldn’t be able to ask you if you fell from heaven, because you are far too good for heaven. You’re wonderful, and dazzling, and so blindingly brilliant I can hardly see myself. You’re beautiful, and I love the way… I love the way you speak to me, even without words out loud, and how I understand you. I love the way you smile, as if there’s nothing wrong in the world, despite what it has done to you. I love the way I can feel your spirit, burning brightly, with a passion. I love the way… you know, I love the way you eat your noodles.”

She looked almost flabbergasted at this, and cocked her head slightly to one side.

“No, really! I love the way you eat your noodles. It’s just like, you don’t care what anybody else thinks. I guess, what I’m trying to say, in all of this… drivel, is that I love you, Elodie Taylor. I love you. And I can’t stand another moment of you not knowing that.”

If she could have, she would have sighed. He reached out for her hand and tried to take it in his own, but she withdrew, still looking at him with a mixture of horror and sadness and joy. She opened her mouth, as if she were going to speak, then closed it again, biting her lip, and looking away, the darkness beginning to roll in. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t deserve this.

Liam deserved someone so much better than her. Someone who would actually be able to love him. Not her. No. Never. An unexpected gust of wind muscled its way through the atmosphere, ripping not so gently through the ribbons in her hair, and bringing the cold front with it.

She looked back at him, her eyes pleading him silently to take his pretty-nothings back, and stop this cruel, inhuman joke. Nothing of the sort, of course, occurred. She felt her eyes brim with tears, and her vision blurred. She stood up and turned slowly, and Liam followed suit, rising after her, reaching for her hand again.

Overwhelmed with sadness, she shook her head vigorously, refusing him, before running to the door inside. Rain, confused with tears.

- - -

“Why, exactly, did you tell him no?”

The day was dismal. It had rained for a week, and the ground was more than saturated. The mud squelched on the soccer field, the same boys still arguing about their idol teams. The sky was crowded with clouds, and whispers of a chill wind sailed through the air.

Elodie tried to explain with her hands in agitated motions, but to no avail.

“Ah, you see, dear,” the old man began, “Your reasons, frankly, aren’t good enough. You have given me no sufficient reason not to believe that you love the boy.”

She raised her hands again in attempt to argue, shaking her head.

“There’s no use, pigeon. You love him.” He wouldn’t acknowledge her efforts. “Regardless, you need to apologize to the wounded lion, don’t you?”

She nodded, dejectedly. She hated thinking about the look she saw on his face as she ran the other way.

“I suggest you get on that, then, what do you think? I will not have you breaking hearts and not apologizing. Not while I’m around, at least.”

- - -

Elodie padded her way carefully over to her neighbors patio where Liam sat, staring dejectedly into the grey skies in the distance, the mountains obscured by mist. She sat next to him, wincing when water still on the chair seeped into her pants. He didn’t even acknowledge her, but a look of sadness passed over his face before quickly being replaced by a concentrated look of unfeeling.

She raised her hand in a greeting, but he continued staring past her. She looked down, discouraged, pulling out her notebook. She took out her pen, and began to write with a practiced speed.

Liam,

I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to tell you, but... I don’t know how to explain myself. When you spoke those beautiful words to me the other day, I froze. You deserve better than me, I know you do. I’m nothing, really, without you. And, I just think you’re better off with someone else, you know? Who can care for you, and love you, and be able to tell you so, every day of your life.

It’s not that I don’t love you, it’s just… I don’t deserve you.

I’m sorry, again, for any trouble I may have caused you, and any pain. I hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.

She tore the paper out of the notebook, and held it out, but he made no move to take it. So, instead, she set it down beside his elbow on the table, a little water soaking in to distort the paper and apologies, and got up to leave.

Slowly, and despondently, she began to cross the distance to her house, focusing on her wet-mud covered sneakers. She sank into her thoughts, her heart heavy from her encounter with Liam.

“Elodie…”

She longed for the friendship they had had a week ago, for the world seemed so lonely without it. He could really listen, she felt, to anything she tried to say, and always understood her.

“Elodie!”

She feared that she might have lost her dearest friend forever.

“Elodie!” his voice woke her from her reverie. She turned, to see his face, and golden eyes, looking regretful. “Elodie, I’m sorry.”

She shook her head, telling him not to be.

“I’ve missed you. The world just doesn’t shine the same way without you there.”

She shook her head again, trying to convey to him that he didn’t really love her.

“No. I mean, I really know what I am saying. Elodie… I’ve missed you so much that for the past seven nights I’ve stayed up thinking about what I would say to you when I finally saw you. But… now… Now that you’re here, I’ve forgotten everything, because all there really is to say is that I love you, I really do.”

Maybe, just maybe, he means it, she thought as he brought his hand to her face, slipping along her ear and into her pulled back hair.

“There’s no one else I can imagine being with, Elodie, only you. It doesn’t matter that you can’t talk, really.”

She looked into his eyes, full of hope, and she was met with hope. The sun had found a thinner patch of clouds, and fought its light through, filling their edge of the valley in liquid gold, and lighting up a rainbow in the south near mountains.

“I love you.”

Finally, believing him, she smiled. She reached for her pen again, bringing up her notebook to reply, but he addressed to that, too. “I know what you would say. I can see it in your eyes.”

He brought his other hand to her hair as well, and gently untied the knots of today’s orange ribbons, freeing her hair, and letting it fall to either side of her face, framing it in a honey gold illuminated by the sun. “Ribbons,” he smiled, letting a gentle breeze float them across the valley, “They don’t do a girl justice.”

Elodie was absolutely overwhelmed with joy, as if her prince charming had come to slip on her glass slipper and carry her away. When her eyes met his again, they met a confused expectation, neither one knowing what to do. One hand on her back, the other trailing to her chin, hesitantly, he brought his mouth to hers, and kissed her softly.

And she kissed back, saying everything she needed to say, without any words at all.

- - -

Requirements:
1) Must be a one-shot. Maximum 10,000 words.
2) Weather reflects mood of protagonist (must be subtle, but obvious enough that I can recognize it.)
3) Include this line somewhere: "Ribbons. They don't do a girl justice."
4) Insert the soccer team Manchester United somewhere. Passing references count.
5) One of the characters can't speak a word of English (being mute is allowed). Whether they are able to convey what they wish to communicate is up to you.
6) A character that is a wise, old man with a can. Likes to whack people with it.
7) Somehow incites tears from reader. Whether it be tears of laughter, sadness, or at how cute the story is.

No:
- phrases like, "soft patter of rain". Be creative.
- stupid over-cliched situations.
- using the word "said". At all.

For a Friend

Mask
9.29.08

Hide behind your mask
'Cause it's all that you've got left
'Fore you break apart

When one is bored in Alg. II...

Wrote this a long while ago, around March. Doesn't exactly apply to me right now, but I haven't posted (or written) anything for a while. I was surprised I hadn't already posted it.

Humming to the Sun

3.26.09

hum did-e-ly dum
waiting for my... oh wait... what?
I've got all I want