Bells

I heard the bells ringing in the distance, long, desolate, and cold.

            I was standing at the end of an isle. It led to a black box. On either side of the blood red carpet leading up to it, rows and rows of people stood, their heads bowed.

            I took a step forward, wondering why everyone seemed so solemn. As if in slow motion, I was moving down the isle.

            A funeral, I thought as I saw the tears that flowed down one woman’s cheeks, a woman I recognized. My neighbor.

            I called her name, but she didn’t seem to hear me. I kept walking down the isle, each step carrying the weight of a thousand years.

            The box, I realized, was a coffin.

            As I approached it, I continued to wonder whose funeral this was. The bells still rang in the distance.

            I was at the end of the isle, but not close enough to see inside the coffin in front of me.

            I saw motion in my peripheral vision and looked to my left.

            Surprise rocked through me like lightning. There, wiping her eyes with a tissue, was my wife.

            Whose funeral is this?

            I went to her, trying to reach out a hand to comfort her for her loss, but when I touched her arm it was as if she didn’t feel it, and she looked right through me, as if I wasn’t even visible. She just kept crying and crying and crying, dabbing her face over and over again from the sadness.

            Then my gaze slid toward the coffin, holding this mysterious dead person that everyone I knew was grieving over. I moved forward, making my way to the black box that held everyone’s attention.

            First it was a foot. Then a leg, then two, then a torso, then a hand, then an arm, then, finally, a face.

            I recognized the face. It was one I saw every day. The stubs of a beard, the rooked nose, the brown hair, the bushy eyebrows. The closed eyes.

            It was me.

            Confusion started to crowd my mind as it tried to make sense of what was happening. How could this be? I was perfectly fine, and now I was watching myself, my unmoving self, as I was laid down in this black coffin at my own funeral.

            I turned around, my back to my dead body, staring at all the people I recognized. My mother. My wife. My neighbors. My friends. The tears. The pain. The anguish.

            The bells rang.

            Tears fell.

            The bells rang.

            The clouds gathered.

            The bells rang.

            A bird flew from its perch on a tree.

            The bells rang.

            A last ray of sun peeked through the trees.

            The bells rang.

            A single raindrop fell from the sky.

            The bells rang.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: This is based off the song  Prelude C Sharp Minor, op.3 No.2 by Rachmaninoff on piano. It's really awesome, actually, that piece, if you really listen to it. This story is what my sister thinks about when she plays it. It's all timed, actually, like when it goes soft I have a soft part and when it's loud it goes with more angry emotion and such. That's also why there are so many bells ringing at the end - because that's just how the song goes. So this is dedicated to all those piano players out there (and Rachmaninoff fans)!

~N

Just Come Back

The heavy door slammed shut, and I knew I was too late.

            I didn’t care. Even though I knew she was already gone, I couldn’t stop myself from rushing out into the cold rain. “Katie!” I shouted. Luckily, I had made it in time.

            She turned to face me, her green eyes flaring while her hair whipped violently in the harsh wind. “You don’t have to do this,” I pleaded.

            “It’s already been done.” Her voice was as hard as steel and as cold as the freezing rain piercing my skin.

            My hair blew around my head, not able to remain stationary for a second.

            “Just come back.”

            “Who’s going to make me?” She grimaced unpleasantly. “You or our two parents inside? Mom, who threw that glass on the ground, shattering it into a million pieces when Dad backed into a telephone pole last month, or Dad, who is all ready to pack his things and bolt out through that door?” She jut an angry finger behind the spot where I stood. “You’re a fool for thinking you’d be better off here when your own parents can’t stop bickering in there!”

            I was too frozen to speak. My fingers were numbing from the chilly air and my hair was damp from the rain. “What’re you going to do about it?” I made myself question.

            “I’m leaving.” She held up a bag I hadn’t noticed before. It was torn and beaten, its seams coming undone. “I’m running away, running away from here.”

            She turned on her heel and headed away from me, her sneakered feet slapping the wet ground as she moved toward the street. Her bag was snagged on a branch, tearing the seams apart, the contents spilling out onto the wet pavement.

            Flustered but still defiant, my sister reached down to grab her things from the puddles on the ground, but not before I caught a glance at what lay beneath her fingers.

            I easily recognized our parents’ stationery – it was the kind Mom would use to send us letters when we were away at camp. Seeing this weakness in her, I took my chance.

            “They’re going to miss you, you know,” my quiet voice told the damp air. She looked up at me, surprised at my words. “And I don’t think it’ll be easy for you without them, either.”

            “How would you know whose those are?” she questioned, shoving the dripping envelopes back into her ripped bag.

            “Those are their letters, aren’t they?” I pressed, ignoring her. “You know you’ll miss them if you leave.”

            “Shut up!” Her voice split through the icy air as the rain continued to pour. “You don’t know what I’m feeling.”

            Even if we were twins, everyone knows we couldn’t read each other’s minds. But, altogether, I could at least relate to what she was feeling. She just didn’t like the bickering, and she thought extracting herself from the equation would help.

            “Just come back.”

            My sister looked down, thinking. She shook her head, frustrated. “I… I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.” But her voice wasn’t as hard as steel anymore. It was more like the last words of a man being strangled. They were choked, desperate. When she looked up at me again, I couldn’t mistake the tears running marathons down her cheeks for rain.

            “It’s okay,” I assured her gently. “It’s okay. You belong here. You belong in our family.”

            My sister never really had a great abundance of friends. I was the closest friend she’d ever known.

            She took a cautious step toward me, the way someone would approach something large and out of control. She hugged her bag to her chest, trying to hold it together.

            Then, my real sister broke free. She ran up to me, shoving her head into my shoulder and letting the tears overflow. I could tell she wanted to say something, but if she didn’t think she could, I wouldn’t press her too hard anymore. I wrapped my arms around her skinny frame, letting her know that if she was sorry, she was now forgiven. “Shh, shh,” I tried to calm her, but it had no effect. It didn’t matter, as long as our family could be all together as one, untied by nothing but raw love. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------

This story was a project I had to do last year called the "homophone take-home test" which is exactly what it sounds like. In this story are 20 homophones like two, too, to, there, their, they're, through, threw, already, all ready, etc... Anyway, I tried to sneak them in smoothly, and it worked better for some and not for others. I got a good grade on it, though, which is good! :)) I hope you liked it - as my first blog post I tried to pick something I liked. This is seven months old, so it isn't my best, but I'll put up some more stuff soon. :) Have a wonderful day! 

~N 

The Game Plan

My goal here is to post some stories of mine so I can get people reading them. I've been considering making a blog for a few days, maybe a little inspired by John H. Watson's blog on BBC Sherlock. :))

Anyway, feel free to look around and click on things, it would make me so happy if you read my work. So go ahead, read some words, and tell your friends about Words for Birds!!!

~N