Sorry.

Just a random thing I felt like writing....I've been really preoccupied by the concept of growing up lately....It seems like the more I think about it, the faster time goes. So I try not to think about it, but that's like trying not to think about something when someone commands you not to. It just doesn't work.

Sorry. She was sorry. Sorry that when she looked in the mirror, she saw someone older than she expected. In her mind's eye, she saw her five-year-old self, puzzled and hurt by the neglect she was showing to the setting world of her childhood.

But it was inevitable. The days--they just slipped, she couldn't help it, they just got away from her, leaked out of her tightly cupped hands. She wanted to find the source, use one hand to stopper time, wherever it began, and use her other hand to reach out to the girl of her past, the girl being left behind, the girl being locked away--alone in a world of magic, vibrant colors, and childish secrets meant to be whispered into attentive ears, not brokenly mumbled into empty air. But she was too far gone, the time was too late.

There once was a time she was sure who she was, when some magic, and dreams, and her faith was enough. There once was a day she hoped she'd become a hero like in the cartoons she'd so devotedly watched, when she thought she'd rise up and unfold her wings. But she grew and changed, the world changed, time was moving, moving along, pushing and nudging her towards new dreams, more realistic and cold hopes, more logical and precise wishes. It nudged so far into cold and rationality that that the dreams, hopes, and wishes soon became "goals"--stony pellets and shells that encased her soft, glittering, childish heart. Goals closed her eyes with exhaustion when years ago she'd spent her nights intently staring at the ceiling sprinkled with glow-in-the-dark stars from Toys-R-Us. Back then, the ceiling had been the whole galaxy and beyond.

Sorry. She was so sorry. Sorry to her reflection, sorry for hating that awkward girl in the mirror. Sorry to the past, sorry for locking it away. And sorry to herself, because she was stuck, in between. Between the child who had to be forgotten in order to survive the new obstacles time brought, and the adult she feared becoming--the adult who embodied dullness, faithlessness, and utter cynicism.

Where are the heroes?

I just felt like writing today....I was supposed to be doing that flashback assignment, but I always have problems answering the prompt -.-
I guess I have trouble focusing stuff to a predetermined purpose. Some writing just happens instinctively, without direction.
Not sure if I liked how it ended up, but I stuck with it....and now I can't believe I'm posting this.
Ugh.

"In the name of love and justice, we shall punish you!"

Slam. Bam. Alakazam.

With a flood of colors, the magical girl-wonder waved her unicorn scepter and turned the ugly, disproportionate monster to shadow-dust. The screen blacked out quickly, and small white credits began inching up, up, up, in time with the soft music.

She kept watching, eyes staring emptily at the white parade, ear buds gently buzzing against the walls of her ears. She always watched until the credits were done. Even though girl-wonder was no longer in action, beating up the bad guys, and zapping them to another dimension, she still liked the final image that played throughout the closing song, the image of the heroine standing still (for once), peacefully alone on a hill and looking up at a sparkling sky with a bright, fuzzy full moon.

As the music faded out and the screen darkened, she let out a small, singular "Hah!" and popped out the ear buds. Once again, the show had proven to be ridiculous, childish and cheesy, and yet she couldn't stop herself from watching another episode--or another whole season of it, for that matter. She couldn't wean herself off her addiction.

With her ear buds removed, she was once again out, out in reality. She could hear the muffled sounds of her mother, yelling at her dad over the phone, through the walls of her room. Arguing, again. Maybe she needed to watch the next episode while things cooled down. Too late. She'd shut down the computer.

What made her watch these things? These juvenile, unsophisticated, melodramatic TV shows? While others watched TV dramas, or reality TV, what was it that made her turn back to her favorite TV program from when she was five? Had she really not grown during the decade since then? It was getting difficult to watch--the ridiculous plot was painful to listen to, and she kept it an embarrassing secret.

She rubbed her eyes. Perhaps it was the memories. She remembered, years back, sitting in the living room, eyes glued to the TV screen in utter absorption, cheering on girl-wonder through a mouthful of potato chips and sweet Capri Sun. Well then. She had grown up, because watching it now wasn't the same. Now, she watched the exaggerated scenes and listened to unrealistic voice-overs not because she really believed, but because it helped her remember. There was a drawing, entrapping sense of nostalgia. By letting herself be temporarily convinced by the impossibilities, even if just for a second, she became a child again.

But then....it was never complete. She really, truly wasn't five anymore, in any sense. Somewhere in the back of her mind, it was clear that her life would never be as magical or adventurous as what she saw. The Real World ran on a ticking, ticking clock, and dreamers weren't welcome. With her nostalgia came an addictive jealousy. She wished she lived in a world where heroes and villains existed, where it was easy to tell good apart from evil, where goodness always won. She, too, wanted to have magic, and wanted to be surrounded by people with "good dreams,"--by people who had stars implanted in their hearts. She wanted there to be a sovereign force, complete trust in everyone, a pegasus, and a ridiculously perfect moon kingdom ruled by love and justice!

So amateur. So unrealistic. Once the show was over, and the credits rolled, and the music faded out, she was left with just a computer screen, knowing that her heroes only existed in her head, and that really, she had trouble trusting even the people closest to her.

When she was five, she had thought adults were stupid. They were narrow-minded because they lacked faith in magic while somehow, she was sure, magic existed, even if they couldn't see it. She felt it made her open-minded to keep believing, to keep looking. She searched for the secret magic, the hiding mythical creatures, and the dream-life for years. But slowly, the hopes dried up as she grew, as she came closer to being an "adult." Adult. What an ugly, faithless, skeptic word. Being a child, with endless, unstoppable faith and imagination was so much more wonderful and beautiful. As a child, she didn't need to wonder, "Where are the heroes? Where have they gone?" Instead, at five-years-old, she'd known, she'd just known, that the heroes were hiding from forbidden, human eyes, maybe concealed just around the corner, or standing behind her, out of sight. Or, she had thought, perhaps there was a hero inside her, too, waiting to come out once it was time for her to save the world and the galaxy beyond.

Sighing, she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes in an uncomfortable attempt to fall asleep. The heroes and villains of her five-year-old reality had packed their bags and left long ago. But maybe, just maybe, somewhere they still fought, lived, and hid...somewhere, deep in her dreams.

Walls

Walls

She likes it the moment she sees it at the Home Depot store. Because it glows vibrant—the perfect mixture of perfect yellow and perfect blue. Or so her nine-year-old self believes. It’s been painted onto a small card, labeled: Pastel Sage. She doesn’t know at the time that sage is a plant. She only knows that a sage is a wise person, and on the car ride home, she wonders why wisdom is green. At home, her mother holds up the card against the wall, giving a nod of assent, and the next week, the frigid white walls of her room thaw to a piquant freshness, albeit one with lingering paint fumes.

The next year, age ten, she sits in a chair in the middle of her room and stares, frustrated, at Pastel Sage, wishing it were Cream, or Soft Orange, some other hue that would conform more to the color of her furnishings. She doesn’t like that the walls are so like her. At school, she too sticks out, unusual and mismatching—different hopes, different ideas, different jokes, different understanding. The only student who wouldn’t be fed into the local middle school when graduation day came. She gets up and hides the walls with posters and drawings, and as she does, she clumsily drives thumbtacks into both the walls and her heart, because she finds playing pretend difficult at school. Other girls want to become princesses, singers, movie stars. Secretly she likes solving word problems for math and aspires to become a scientist.

Some years pass. Over this period of time, she realizes that Pastel Sage is actually four different colors:

Black, with soft green flecks. She sees this color for the first time the night before sixth grade. It’s past midnight and she still can’t sleep. She notices that the light from the lamps outside pokes through holes in the blinds, projecting small, green stars onto the ceiling. She’ll see this color every night from now on. It gives her hope for the future and the courage to dream on.

Cool green. She sees this color the next morning. It’s 6 AM, and her half-asleep stupor dissolves as the bluish tint makes everything almost unreal. Later, she also sees it on rainy days or on cold afternoons, and she likes it for the sense of creativity it gives her. Her room becomes a personal, magical cave, and when she’s down, she turns to it to get a hold of herself again.

Fluorescent, artificial green. She learns to avoid this color. She sees it after late nights awake, typing desperately at the computer. The walls look bright but shallow, washed out, like herself at her most difficult, stressful times, and the “eggshell” finish makes the whole place dull and unreflective. She drags herself through the day afterwards.

Warm green. Once she’s picked herself back up, this is her zesty color of strength, of grabbing the Now. She’s usually the most efficient, most concentrated when it’s like that. Like her walls, she becomes bold, enthusiastic. She sees more and more of it as she grows up, and she learns that it’ll always return, even after the most fluorescent of days.

Twelfth grade. She walks into her room one day and begins filling in the holes the thumbtacks left in her walls. She paints over the scratches, dark fingerprints, and dents. Finally, she begins sticking on a few of her favorite drawings and pictures from her life with poster gum. But one wall she leaves wide and blank. More time needs to pass before she can fill it. Because she sees that the walls she has been living with for years are a canvas—a background on which she expresses herself, her overarching thoughts and emotions. As she stands back to look at her work, warm green floods the room.

Assigned Blog Post #5: Child

Prompt: Copy the style of Jamaica Kinkaid’s “Girl” and title your piece similarly (e.g. Boy, Kid, Gal, etc.) What kind of directions can you give? What are the do’s and don’t's of being a “girl” (kid, boy, man, boss, etc.)? If you’d like, write this in the voice of your Carrillon Point character. Due by next Monday, October 11th.

Child

Brush your teeth in the morning after you wake up; brush your teeth in the night before you go to bed; brush them up-and-down, left-to-right, criss-cross; don’t slurp your soup so loudly; say “please” when you want something and “thank you” when you get it; don’t doodle on all you’re your things—keep them clean; tread lightly when you walk, because your stomping disturbs the neighbors and the home below us; wash your hands for a minute before you eat; did you really push little Emily during recess?; put your feet on the ground when you sit, not resting on another chair, like a lazy bum sleeping out on the streets; wipe your mouth on a napkin after you’re done eating; don’t push Emily again; smile and try to pay attention when your teacher is talking to you—don’t be drawing on your papers; don’t tip your chair back like that, or someday you’ll fall and split your head open; but Emily pushed me first, for no good reason; don’t talk back; don’t cry; don’t snivel; don’t protest in that manner; do as you’re told—I know better; this is how to get up after you’ve fallen; this is how to rub in iodine solution to clean scrapes; this is how to put a bandage on your shameful knees so that it won’t peel off when you’re out running like a hooligan again; this is how to sit down and study; this is how to keep track of time while you test, so you finish and don’t fail and get rejected from college, like the ne’er-do-well you would be by now if it weren’t for me; this is how you erase those ridiculous drawings in the back of your book in case your teacher sees; this is how you keep your things smart and neat—plain and professional, because your doodles make you look uneducated and bored; this is how you make a reputation for yourself; this is how you do well in school; this is how you keep your 4.0; this is how you network; this is how you laugh when things get awkward; this is how you laugh when you’re happy; this is how you laugh when you really want to cry; this is how to look educated; this is how to look professional; this is how to feel professional; this is how to hide how you feel when you think you’ve been betrayed; this is how to get over it; this is how to work your internship at the laboratory so that they don’t see the lazy, doodling idiot you are inside; be sure you don’t draw on any of your important papers—and if you do be sure to start everything over; quit wasting your time on drawing these useless things—you’re not very good, honestly; quit applying for art scholarships—you’re not studying art; don’t start studying art, because it’s too late and you’re too far behind the real art students; this is how to apply to merit scholarships; this is how to write appealing essays; this is how to present yourself; this is how to present your goals; this is how to rewrite them if they don’t look quite right; this is how to deal with it if you still don’t like what your goals are; this is how to apply to college so you’ll get in for sure; this is how you apply to medical school; this is how you apply to law school if you change your mind, though medical school is better; this is how to work a regular life to pay for medical school; this is how to call out sick if you can’t work it; this is how to study your heart out once you get into medical school; but what if I don’t get into medical school?; so after all this time and work, are you really still bent on becoming one of those emotional, doodling bums sitting on the streets?

Put me in, Coach!

ehehehehe.

Mariana “Mari” Ni twirled a lock of her fading red highlights, her glinty, deep carmine nails shooting off light in all directions as the real-estate agent blah-blah-blahed on and on about the paperwork she’d need to fill out. Mari just kept smiling and nodding, smiling and nodding, as her attention drifted off to what felt like the other half of the planet. She sat leaning strongly to the right, her elbows supporting her and her sharp jaw ensconced firmly in the palm of one hand. As soon as she detected a break in the agent’s word-vomit, she got up, quick and agile, like a big cat, smiling her most charming, glossiest, and fakest lollipop smile as she wrist-flicked her phone open in one fluid motion.

“Sorry, excuse me. I think I need to make a quiiick phone call.”

She scooted out of the room, as quickly as anyone can manage when they’re wearing blazing red 4-inch pumps.

To tell you the truth, she kind of died a little inside when she saw the house. As soon as the door closed she slapped her phone shut and sighed. She was moving into a dump—a dump with dumpy neighbors and a dumpy yard growing pitiful, dumpy weeds in a heavy, dumpy atmosphere. She winced. Times weren’t good. With the economy splatting its guts all over the place, the country’s stockbrokers started freakin’ out.

She needed a break—needed to get away from the cutthroat world of unpredictable business and enjoy some nice weather in a place that was close-by and affordable. But who knew? Nice weather doesn’t mean everything else isn’t dumpy.

Another Character Sketch

I like these. I have problems crafting stories, but I think I like focusing on small things, like a particular character :)
This is an old one...really rough, I think it's the first one I did. It was during class.

She has a strong, straight nose. Dark eyes shadowed by darker lashes, and a thin face framed by straight, dark brown hair. The styling is austere, hair cut straight across on the back. Only a few, loose strands that slip across her face unnoticed indicate that really she's still a child despite the solemness in her gaze and unsmiling, chapped, cupid's-bow lips. Sometimes, the eyes look so dark, the pupils aren't distinguishable from the iris. All these aspects don't make her look stern, however. There's something about her, perhaps it's her skinniness, that makes her look more delicate than stern.

She wears a school uniform, most times, neatly and smartly, expertly starched, crease-less perfection. She's known how to iron clothes for ages now, and the skill's embedded itself into her hands; it's an art. Putting that all aside, neatness doesn't imply form--the suit isn't flattering. It's purpose is entirely academic. All uniformity.

Anyhow, beyond the ironing, she doesn't focus on her clothes very much. But her shoes are old and kind of too small, and her skirt has gotten slightly short. Not in a miniskirt way, just awkwardly, because she's grown too big for it.

When she's nervous, her eyes flicker this way and that. She keeps looping and relooping her hair back, back, back behind her ears, or if she's standing, she stiffens up like a board, looking at hole worn into the top of her left shoe. When she feels daring at times like this, standing in front of the 62 pairs of eyes that make up her 6th grade class, she'll bring up her hand by her ears again, carefully, deliberately. And reloop her hair.

So she's quiet and reserved, keeping to herself. But she's not standoffish. She's kind--disposed to being sympathetic, and merciful when others do her wrong. And her quietness--it draws other people to her, makes them curious. Who is this child with the silent manner and the silky, solemn hair? Who is this child who seems so curled up, into herself?

She trusts herself the most. Or perhaps her dad because they're the most alike in the family. She used to trust her best friend, but then she was disappointed severely, and though they're still friends, she can't bring herself to put ultimate faith in others anymore. She doesn't quite trust her mother. She doesn't distrust her mother consciously, but inside she's aware that her brother comes first in Mother's eyes.

She doesn't really argue. But when her parents fight, she always sides with her father because she truly believes he's right, and she tries to maintain objectivity. Her older brother and younger sister side with her mother. This is how the family always divides.

Her circle of influence is rather small. She has simple hobbies. When she's bored, she loves to read. She's read just about all the books that the teachers call the "classics." She often rereads Wuthering Heights because secretly, she's a romantic, and she likes emotional stories, whether they end happily or not.

Her sadness is not so simple. She doesn't get sad about things at school, or involved in tangled reality-TV show dramas between her friends. But it makes her sad that her mother needs to work to support the house, and that her father always makes the mistake of trusting his friends with his money. It makes her sad that her father majored in politics and business when he should have been a skilled doctor or lawyer. It makes her sad that her most treasured memory is of her mother, when she came all the way to school once to bring her lunch. At the time, she was embarrassed and pretended she didn't know the woman in the gray apron, running after the school bus with her hair flying everywhich-way, in a messy ponytail.

No-Name.

This next post is what I wrote for the character-yearning assignment. To be honest, I didn't really want to post this. Something about it isn't right...but I can't figure out which part to fix. I've been tinkering here and there, and the wrong-ness just gets worse and worse.

So why did I post it?

I think I feel a certain responsibility to post everything I write for this course onto my writing blog.....Cause not everyone's checking this blog right?!? 0.0....anyways, it's like, I owe it to the blog to not let the flow of posts stutter and stop...so here it is.

No-Name

Janie’s mother wants her to scrap her college essay. She says it’s too dark, uncreative, and untruthful. It is not the Janie she knows, she is sure.

But who is Janie? She is certainly not the same person as Jane Doe, who goes to school and has friends (she hopes), and laughs, and jokes, and fools around. Jane Doe lives outside and doesn’t know how to frown. She has the depth of a paper plate and the contentedness of an ignorant child.

Janie spends her time at home. Sometimes she is laughing with her mother and smiling with a wordless happiness, other times not. Other times she is fighting and saying cruel things. But Janie’s mother sees no reason for Janie to be truly unhappy. She has had unbelievable luck in life. This consists of plenty to eat, a warm home, and a robust moral education. And Jane Doe, of whom Janie’s mother is also aware, has also had unbelievable luck, this time consisting of a busy social life, abundant resources, and robust academics. Between Janie and Jane Doe, Janie’s mother asserts, nothing is amiss.

But there is also She. Janie’s mother doesn’t know who this is.

She. As in, “She who knows not what her name is,” or “She who answers to Janie and Jane Doe, but feels strange in both names, when She takes the time to think about it.” So let us refer to She as No-Name, for the time being.

No-Name is always confused and never knows what to do. She has much too many dreams, and each dream is a much-too-big dream. No-Name sits up late at night, criss-cross-apple-sauced and straight-backed in her bed, thinking. Listening, to the ticking of her clock and her own breathing. She listens steadily as Time circles her, very close, but never near enough for her to catch in her clumsy hands, so the hours always slip-slide-slip and tick-tock-tick away. No-Name dreams even when she’s awake, and she can be ridiculously foolish. She cries and laughs at the same time. She is all feeling and intuition, so there are no order to her thoughts, yet she continues to think and think, until she slips into a deep, dreamless sleep—which annoys her because she likes dreaming, regardless of whether it’s nightmare or fairytale. Perhaps No-Name doesn’t dream in her sleep because she dreams too much when she’s awake. Because she is already a shadow, insubstantial and invisible, when she is awake.

So when No-Name is asleep, she is gone. Non-existent. She returns in the morning when her body wakes up. But she doesn’t stay for long. If people saw No-Name, they would laugh, which is why she never leaves her room. Her captivity is an inevitable phenomenon, she thinks. She is a blundering, illogical, emotional mess. While her mind is quick, her heart lacks defenses. Her heart is an egg with no shell. There’s just that thin, clear membrane surrounding the core—the yolk—and when you poke it, if you dare poke it, it will surely pop, and the yellow will flood out, into the whites, utterly vulnerable and lost.

When No-Name finds herself looking at the Name blanks on her assignments and school forms, she doesn’t know how to sign them. She doesn’t know how to sign the cards and letters that she writes. Janie? Jane Doe? She feels like not signing, or signing as someone else, though she doesn’t yet know who that “someone else” is.

No-Name is rewriting her college essay. She goes through the trouble of scrapping the first because Janie’s mother is right. Her essay is too dark, uncreative, untruthful. But No-Name does not want to write as the Janie her mother knows. She wants to write an essay about herself, truly. An essay that will place her securely on the paper. But how does one truthfully write about oneself? How can one form words when one is a chaotic splatter of ink on a Rorschach test? How does one grab one’s dreams and lay them bare on so fragile a medium?—A medium that can be water-logged, ripped, shredded, burned.

In the end, the name at the top of the paper will be Jane Doe, and the person written into the essay will be Janie. As she writes, No-Name suspects she will fail to leave the confines of her room yet again. Yet again, she sits safe and unhappy in the quiet.