Saturday, February 16, 2008

'Truly Soldiers'

OK, I didn't think of anything so I am going to write a story for y'all! It probabl;y won't be in a very edited state so don't expect a masterpiece! Ok, here goes...
After forever they couldn’t stand it, so they walked. He guided her as far away from the schoolyard as he could, as far away from the town and hospital bed as he could, but still they could not escape the purple and black, her weakness, or the brittle cold. The house they found stood in the middle of the wilderness. It seemed to violate the flat, trespass upon the open and lonely, it drew them in. They slept in the basement because Emily said there were ghosts in the house, big white ones with teeth. Jack didn’t believe in ghosts, but Emily was all he had, so they slept in the basement. There were yams growing in the garden outside, all laid out with their tufty leaves in nice neat rows. The rain stretched on and off into the distance but after a while Jack took a spade they found in the kitchen cupboard and went outside. He never came back. Emily was to sick to go after him, so she stayed in the house and waited. Climbing the worn staircase she found toys and teddy bears strewn around the nursery, so she had tea parties, some in a crowded New York restaurant, where she was the centre of attention, other just with her and Jack. He had always told her it was in her head, and maybe it was but she knew she felt it, something deep in her gut, growing bigger and stronger every day she talked to him. Out the window she saw the rain, sometimes a flood, sometimes just a trickle but she knew it would never stop until Jack came back.
As time wore on she thought of Jack more and more. He was always leaving when they were young, sometimes for days but he always returned. They all thought she was mad. They told her she couldn’t handle people, and would never fall in love. Jack was the only one who believed her, he was always there to tell her when she was wrong, what was real and what wasn’t, and to remind her of who she was. She was using the wall calendar to keep track of time. The date read 1961, but she knew it had been seven weeks since he left. She wasn’t leaving, she didn’t know whare she would go, so she hoped Jack came back someday and guide her home. In the mirror she started to see him, his speckled eyes and downy hair. He was telling her to go outside, to get the yams and eat, he told he she wasn’t sick anymore, he told her that she could go back and fall in love but she didn’t move, she couldn’t see the village at all, only the empty flat travelling on forever.
At her tea parties jack was a different person than he appeared in the mirror, he always ordered lobster, a delicacy from hotter places, and he told her stories of his travels to China and Portugal and if she was really lucky, America and its lights. She wanted to go there someday. In the house there were only two lights, one in the nursery and one in the basement. Jack told her that in America their were hundreds of lights, all lined up in neat rows. After that she took down the light in the basement, she was saving it for America.
Time didn’t seem to affect her in this house, though it never stopped raining. It wasn’t a dreary rain, it was an earthy one, inside the house she felt cosy and alive, and more and more she wanted to fall in love. The thing in her gut was dying, every now and then it would tense, wanting to escape. She started to remember her life, her friends, and as she did Jack faded away, at times she begged him to come back , she would run to the door and bang her fists on it desperately, look through the keyhole but still it rained. She found she knew other things as well as people. She could tell her village was north, and when she looked out the nursery window at night the star talked to her, told her how to get home. They would be proud of her now, Ma and Pa both; she would finish school at the church and become a writer, just like Pa told her she should be. It was the house that made her better, not Jack and his games, he had done nothing for her, he had left her alone here, she didn’t need him anymore. She packed her things, her toothbrush and diary and got ready to leave. She walked decisively down the hallway, now jack was gone she could go home, north. The door was heavy without Jack to help her push it open, he wasn’t through the keyhole but when she opened the door he was there with flowers and yams in his arms.
It's not much, its got potential though... Whoah, I let myself go there! It's called 'Truly Slodiers' And is about people getting into your head.
Seey'all!

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