Tuesday, March 29, 2011

He's got a look that books take pages to tell.

FORGIVE ME, BLOGGERS. I am neglectful. I could start every single entry with that, and it would not be enough to describe the level of my neglect.

Today was actually a good day :) Unlike yesterday, which was very much a Monday. For starters, I got 100 on my math quiz! If I got grades like that all the time, then maybe I wouldn't have an 84 in math...blah.

For some reason, even though I'm terrible at sports and don't participate at all, I kind of enjoy gym. All everyone else's endorphins rubbing off on me, haha. Either way, today my team wasn't actually doing that bad (either that or we were playing a terrible team. Yanno, either or) and actually got to five points. Of course Gym Teachers had already made some stupid rule about a girl having to make the fifth point. And of course Blonde, the only other girl on my team, was absent. SO GUESS WHO WAS EXPECTED TO GET IT IN THE BASKET.
They kept throwing it to me. Well, at least one of them did: the nice one, who really seemed amused by the whole thing. Yay for nice people. I missed it every time, but, hey, at least he was cool about it. However, Up happened to be on the other time, and after about five tries he said "Stop whining and bitching and throw it in the net already." and I was like FOOL. SHADDUP.

Then, in English, I actually finished my bitchin' study guide, for one thing. I admit, I did not expect that to happen. Never mind I finished it in lunch, haha. BUT THAT'S NOT EVEN THE BEST PART. THE BEST PART IS THAT I GOT A 94 ON MY ESSAY. WOOOOO YEAH.

Neither Shari nor Leo were in art, but I talked to Best, so it was all cool :) Oh, but there's this guy in my art class who I think might have some kind of weird crush on me 0.0 He was out most of the period photocopying things with Ginger, but when he returned, told me there was some guy who liked me. And I'm thinking: pleasepleaseplease don't be him. But then he started talking about how there was some "tall guy" at the end of the hall who talked to him and had a crush on me or something...? Yeah, it was stupid.

Yesterday, I finally got around to editing this short story I wrote a couple months back. Most people thought it was already good, and some people agreed that it was good but needed some improvement. I don't remember if I posted it then, but either way, I'm posting it now:


“I loved someone, once.”—that tone in which she said it! She loved someone once—once upon a time, I wanted to add, for that was the impression her voice gave. She did not laugh or smile, but stared at the rising sun as if thoughts she could not comprehend or turn to fruition were burning just behind that high, pale forehead of hers. I remembered, somewhat guiltily, that I had once believed her incapable of love—but now, to hear her speak this negation of my previous thoughts, I could not believe otherwise. I saw it in the distance of her eyes. She had loved someone, once.
At once the look had passed from the rising sun, and turned instead to the heavens, eyes alight with strange fervor and despair. “Does the sky not mock me, Abraham?”
“The nature of your love—”
“Was obsession.” She closed her eyes, then, and that strange and small smile she so often wore showed itself on her exhausted face. “No, not obsession, but destroying, Abraham, destroying.”
“Destroying?” I glanced at her with cautious eyes. “Rele—”
“It destroyed all things.” She buried her hands in her hair, her dark and windswept hair, which was so long it nearly brushed the calloused ground beneath us. “It destroyed me, and yet, I would have destroyed everything for this man, Abraham—everything in the world. For a man! What an inconsequential word, but then, when I was near him—what an inconsequential world!”
I turned out to the sea, which was below us, far below us—and the sun, red and brighter than all things of the world, thrown against the sea so it was aflame with the reflected light. And I looked to the sky, clear and pale and translucent in nature; towards the ever-glowing sun that was burning just as bright as the sea below it; it was all shades of brilliance. She could not know what pain her words caused me. “That is not uncommon for lovers to say, Rele.” I looked behind us, to the craggy rocks and jumbling path that led its way to this spot, this fierce, lonely, wild spot, to which Rele had led me; this wild and terrible and windswept place thick with the decayed foliage of a winter past, and yet becoming brilliant in the warmth of the setting sun.
She laughed with viciousness, but viciousness towards self. “You do not comprehend my words, then, Angel. I am disappointed. Have you not been with me long, now?”
Shame tinged the edges of my voice, like feathers just brushing against—I was ashamed of the truth of her words. “I have been with you long, yes.”
“And yet you do not understand the nature of my love. In fact, I would go so far to say as you thought my incapable of such a violent thing—I have read it on your face. I can read you better than you me. Is that not sad, Abraham?”
She became as part of air and the ambience as the sea below our feet, or the sky above our heads; she shone with the orange and pink brilliance of the sun, and cast her shadow far across the weathered earth behind us. She was a shadowy, rugged thing, sad and empty.
“It is sad, Rele.”
She opened her eyes again, and did not blink away the light of the sun; she absorbed it. “I have lain here, tormented, but never willing to throw myself down this sheer cliff face, to a most certain and terrible death. And now, when I am peace, it occurs to me how effortless it would be to do so, how simple—and not permanent at all, as I have thought in younger years, but rather liberating. Almost painless. Do you not think so?”
I could not help the clenching of my muscles, and the tightness of my throat, as I imagined her body, ever graceful, flying towards the sea—embracing it—like a bird in flight, ascending to the heavens just as she was descending to the torrid earth. A torrent of grace, and yet so bearing the banality of sorrow—I said, with a quiet tone, “I do not think so, Rele.”
She peered at me, soft gray eyes—gray as the underside of a dove’s wing—revealing no alarm, and no surprise. “Would you leap after me, Abraham?”
“It would not matter,” I answered quickly, unable to meet her eye, for her eye was like a dagger to my soul, gentle in its bloody victory. “The fall would not harm me.”
“But would you, Abraham?”
I was silent. I watched the space between the edge of the cliff and the sea; a breathtaking distance, and eternal. She smiled at me with the same slight smile.
“You have been charged with protecting me, Abraham, always; you have been charged with protecting my soul, and understanding it. I was quite entirely lost when you came to me, all aglow, with such light in your eyes. And yet you brought me back to myself. Why is that, Abraham?”
“You were in need of it. My task is not one to be questioned.”
“And my place is not to be, either. Abraham, your name possesses meaning only because it is yours.” She brushed my cold cheek, smiling with sweet and unbearable sadness. “That is your charge, your sacred duty, and yet you do not understand me at all. You saved me—I will admit it—but you don’t know how. Can I tell you why I think that is, Abraham?”
I did not answer; I did not need to. She answered for me. “It is because you love me, Abraham, and we never understand that which we love.”
I stared to the setting sun, though it burned my eyes; to look upon her would be much more pain. “On the contrary; it seems to me that that which we love, we would understand perfectly.”
“It is not the case.” Her fingers found mine, but only her fingers; they were soft as wings caressing the air. We were connected, only for a moment. “It is never the case. My angel.”
I felt her slipping away from me, before I felt it, and her fingers were not with mine. There seemed a perfect moment, perfect in its infinity, in which our skin was apart by only a breath of a breath, in which I understood her, and she understood me, and the whole world could be encompassed in the space between our skin. She was my charge, and I her guardian, and yet so often we seemed to fail at our roles: she taught me too much, and I let her fall. She slid from the cliff face with perfect grace and, with brilliant eyes closed, fell to the sea. I could not watch, though I felt her every peaceful breath resounding like a thousand deaths through my soul.
I could not watch. Instead, I leapt.

WELL THAT'S ALL FOLKS. What think thee? Maybe this time I'll take LESS than four days to post again!

4 comments:

  1. I'm glad your gym experiences haven't been too bad as of late! If I was stuck being the goalie ever I'd probably cry. I can't survive having things fly at my face at high speeds... Good job on your math quiz and English essay though! Yay!

    HAVE I MENTIONED HOW MUCH I LOVE YOUR WRITING? Seriously, when you write a book one day I can't wait to get an autographed copy. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Congrats on your math quiz grade! I cried over getting an 83 on my last test because I copied one of the problems wrong. I beat myself up.

    So...keep up the awesome work! With English, too. :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. yay! the 'reflected' line sounds really good, but the first time she calls him angel, (something about a vicious laugh) i think would sound better if you just dropped that word. see, at the end it sounds like a pet name, like something sweet you say to someone you love, which i really liked. but here, it sounds like he is an actual angel. it's not really a big deal, but i didn't catch it yesterday, and i think it would sound better without it. the rest is still great, i'm glad you took my advice.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow you're writing is so beautiful. The last line of it, I could not watch. Instead, I leapt. was so great! I second what Natalie said :)

    ReplyDelete