NaNoWriMo 2013 Ends.

NaNoWriMo ended 3 minutes ago, and I proudly present my final word count for NaNoWriMo 2013:
32,168

Yeah, I have to say I'm proud. I'm glad I exceeded last year's 17,445 and I'm glad I count my story as a not-failure, especially considering the quality of its predecessor. Congratulations to everyone as NaNo '13 comes to a close! : ) I achieved my goal of 30K and even got the 32K I was praying for! I think it was worth the hour I spent every night writing and I'm proud of myself for accomplishing the student goal, at least.

Hope everyone has enjoyable holidays, birthdays, and summers and all that--might not write on here again until October 31 2014!

~N

NaNo Update--11.27

So NaNoWriMo 2013 is coming to an end and last year I epically failed with only 17,445 words and now I've got 28,461! So that's nice. I think by the way things are going, I'm aiming for 30,000, maybe 32K. But I'm only on chapter 8 out of 18, which makes me sad because I've really grown to love my story so much and I doubt I'd be motivated to write much after this whole thing is over, which is unfortunate! How grand it would be to complete my novel, perhaps with 60, 70K words in it, even if it takes a year! I wish I could see the day it could be complete! I can only hope I remain motivated to see the end of that thing.

Hope all is well with anyone else's novels as November comes to a close.
P.S. Happy Thanksgiving!

~N

NaNoWriMo 2013 update--11.20

It's already the 20th day of NaNo Time, but I remembered my blog and wanted to update.
Interestingly enough, (or not interestingly enough, since procrastination is unfortunately my strong suit,) I was in the middle of my nightly writing session until I came here to update the good old blog. At present, my new story has 20,860 words and it's 36 pages. I'm going for 30,000 this year, and I don't think I'll ever get to the Grand Total before high school ends, considering it's only going to get rockier and rockier along the way. Anyway, I plan to write buckets of words over Thanksgiving, although those four last days can either make or break you. Considering last year I spent my Thanksgiving vacation sleeping and, uh, not writing a single word, I'm starting to grow concerned. But I really like my story a lot and I can't wait to write the end. Whether I finish it or not before December, I hope I don't lose immediate interest in it once NaNo's over. Although it'll be an odd, odd feeling to write it without constantly checking my word count of course!!

Good luck to anyone else participating this year : )

~N

"The Pen Is Mightier Than the Sword"

Holding a pen is holding a weapon.

            I can slash through sentences without mercy. I can silence whole paragraphs in seconds. I can defeat an army of punctuation marks with a swift movement of my hand, forces of commas and periods and question marks transforming into exclamation points before they’re obliterated, flattened into inky scribbles on a white page.

            I can chew on verbs and devour my nouns. I can squash a period until it’s a comma and I can stretch a colon into an exclamation point. I can mold question marks into apostrophes.

            A pen is a hand.

            It can strangle a paragraph until it’s choking up sentences. It can rip letters from a word and then throw them across a page. It can tear two quotation marks apart and flip one into a comma and convert the other into an apostrophe.

            I can build a home for thousands of verbs and can set free a million adjectives. It can release hundreds of adverbs into the wild and it can pull them back when it needs just the right word. It can make a kingdom of similes and a country of metaphors. It can record the course of history and it can write and rewrite the future. It can free a million thoughts and catch a hundred possibilities.

            Holding a pen is holding the world in your fingertips.

Author's Note: "The pen is mightier than the sword." William Shakespeare. This is my favorite prose-y type thing I've written. (7.1.13)
~N 

The Semicolon

A sentence with a semicolon is a sentence an author could have finished but chose not to. A thought that could have ended but was left unfinished. Like a black-and-white painting that needed color but never got any. Like the artist couldn’t decide what colors to use from his grand pallet but if he knows one thing it’s that his painting isn’t complete. It can’t end there.

            A sentence with a semicolon is a giant bowl of soup. It’s Mom’s homemade chicken noodle with all its carrots and bits of celery, all its chicken chunks and noodles. Yet still, after every spoonful, the practiced chef knows for certain that something is missing—a pinch of salt, perhaps, a sprinkle of pepper forgotten from the recipe.

            A sentence with a semicolon is a girl wondering why her sentence isn’t over yet. It’s a girl wondering why the author would decide to continue a paragraph that doesn’t make any sense. Why would someone go through choosing such a complicated punctuation mark to continue a thought that is already finished? Why even bother? It’s a girl who thinks her sentence is better off a short, simple one, because even though a sentence with a thousand words and five hundred semicolons can be a beautiful one, a short one with a simple period at the end causes much less trouble. She doesn’t understand that the semicolon itself is an outcast—not a comma, not a period, but an awkward in between not yet acquainted with the common pen. She doesn’t understand that even though it’s not one or the other—a period or a comma—it can still be used. It can still find a place among the words; it can still weave itself onto a page and be accepted as a part of a beautiful sentence. 

Author's Note: I wrote this because of what a girl said to me once on semicolon day, 4.16.13, which is a day where all those who are depressed, hurting themselves, lost a loved one, etc... draw a semicolon on their wrist. A semicolon represents a sentence the author could have finished but chose not to. You are the author and the sentence is your life. 
~N 

New Eyes

Sometimes I like to take my glasses off just so I can see something no one else can.

            On the bus, strangers are not the people I’ve never met before—they’re aliens. Their dark winter hats morph into alien armor as they shove their way through the aisle to get a seat in the back. Their backpacks become shields strapped to their backs, their heavy coats become layers and layers of solid armor, and an old man’s cane becomes a sword for battle.

            My room is a child’s wonderland. My lamp blurs into a glowing candy cane, pictures of my family’s smiling faces turn into photos of hulking dinosaurs.

            At work, the heaps of papers piled in my office become the snowy mountains of something like a movie—the mountains nouns and commas and quotation marks trek the terrain fearlessly, unafraid of leaving behind clear footprints making up sentences making up paragraphs making up stories. My basic chair transforms into the throne of a queen and the precarious stack of the cafeteria’s Styrofoam coffee cups is a marble statue, painstakingly crafted by the hands of an old sculptor in the oldest parts of France.

            Outside my window, the patches of sun speckling trees are fairies coming out to say hello to me, migrating along the leaves as the sun makes its daily journey across the sky and dips into a sunset, a drop of paint spilling into a crystal clear puddle and streaking stains across a dying day.

            Sometimes, I like to keep my glasses on to know what other people are seeing. But other times, I like to take them to see what other people are not.

Author's Note: Something I wrote with an actual pen and actual paper because I haven't written a single thing in literally forever. So here we go! I like writing with paper and pen because you get a lot of chances to change and switch and edit things. So I made like 4 copies of this thing and it's only like 5 paragraphs or something. I don't know. It took a while but it's better now. Hope you like it! : )

~N

Clockwork Princess (3.19.13!!!!!)

For all those who don't know, an amazing book came out yesterday.

It's called Clockwork Princess, and it's the third and final book in the "Infernal Devices" series by the lovely and brilliant Cassandra Clare, whom I both respect and admire very much.

The second book was so good and full of heartbreak, it makes me cry like every time I read it. Even now, thinking about it... D''''''''''''''''':

What a weird face that was. ;)

Anyway, I just figured I'd post something, and since only yesterday I was skipping through Barnes & Noble, happily searching for my next true love (if that isn't an oxymoron anyway), I realized that if I wasn't writing anything recently, I'd at least talk about what I've been reading.

But yeah I'm on like page 150 or 160 and it's good!! I'm still waiting for what I want to happen to finally HAPPEN ALREADY, but... it's good! *anxiety *

For all those Cassandra Clare lovers out there, you get a high-five. :)

-N

King of Ashes--Seventeen Magazine contest entry

-->

When the quaking stopped, she was sure the world must have ended.

                  She didn’t know what to expect when she stepped outside. She imagined what might be on the other side of the door to the abandoned house she now hid in. Frozen, she saw a world of ice, or maybe of fire. Maybe there was simply nothing at all. Or, the allowed herself to think, maybe a new world had been born in the chaos. Maybe it will be Heaven, she thought.

                  She stepped over the wooden planks, snapped, that had fallen from the ceiling above her; she could see a grey sky through the spaces where the roofing had caved in, pushing aside wrecked household appliances—destroyed cushions, dismembered chairs.

                  She took a deep breath, standing by the door, her hand gripping the handle tightly. Was she ready for this? What if she saw something too terrible?

                  Nevertheless, she forced herself to swing the door open. Rubble was holding it closed, and she had to pull with all her might to squeeze herself through the doorway and out onto the streets of LA.

                  The first thing she saw was the sky.

                  It was layered with clouds of ash, smoke billowing up in the distance from an incredible fire in the northern side of the city. The endless skies held no light—and neither did the Earth’s surface underneath it.

                  Cars without doors littered the streets, careened off cracked roads torn in to pieces. As she stepped further out into the street, she saw so, so much more.

                  Only one, single building remained of the great city, looming over the city on its own, left to rule the city of ashes. The rest had fallen to crumpled piles of concrete and metal on the ground. Shattered glass layered the broken ground.

                  It was beautiful disaster.

                  She couldn’t believe her eyes as she made her way toward the city and that one, looming tower, now suddenly unbelievable huge next to the leveled grounds of the destroyed city.

                  She passed cars beyond totaled—tipped sideways and upside-down—their glass windows all shattered from impact.

                  She traced the yellow line running up the street. She found difficulty when the street plummeted into ditches created in the chaos. Cracks ran along the entire ground, and she wondered if they stretched on for miles.

                  She saw no people.

                  She stopped when she finally reached it, the single tower poking the serrated sky. The grand door was held open with a large chunk of debris. Inching herself through the space, she found herself gravitating to the stairs. Mindlessly, she climbed and climbed until she was at the top. By that time, she felt as if she’d been reaching for the tip of the world for an eternity, but she finally found the one window, a whole wall’s length, that stretched over the city. And as she stood there, looking at the whole city all at once, she knew she was the only one left.

Wish me luck!! :)
~N
P.S. THIS ENTIRE STORY IS BASED OFF THE PICTURE BY *ANDREEWALLIN ON DEVIANTART.COM!!!! (ANDREEWALLIN.DEVIANTART.COM) I'LL TRY TO LINK THE PICTURE BUT... it probably won't work. D': link Oh yay. : ) Have a lovely day everybody!! 
P.P.S. Oh and hey I just noticed the indenting is really weird? I'm sorry about that. D:

Like Forever

Wow it's been like forever since I've written  A SINGLE THING. :(

Fortunately, <<<CONTESTS RULE!!!!>>> http://figment.com/contests/seventeen/?utm_source=Contest+Blast+1%2F24%2F2013&utm_campaign=1%2F24%2F2013+Contest+Blast&utm_medium=email#details-tab  I'm in the Seventeen Magazine contest!! I'll post my entry in like a minute. :)
You know today I was reading ("Possession" by Elana Johnson) and I just had this weird... feeling in me, like I needed something but didn't know what it was. So I tried sitting down and writing my entry for the contest and I was like I BELONG HERE.

There's a funny thing about belonging. Over the summer at camp, they have a theater program, and my friend was going to make me do a musical. So it was my turn and I stepped forward, said my name, and, in the heat of the moment, with that spotlight on me--the owner of that stage for those fleeting seconds, the only thing I could think was I do not belong here and the director said, "Do you want to be in a musical?" And proudly, without regret, I said, "No." "What are you doing to do instead?" he asked, and I said, "I'm going to write all day."

I will never BELONG anywhere else but at my computer, writing.
All day, too.

~N

NaNoWriMo 2012 Aftermath: 12.5.12

So NaNoWriMo is over, and I have a grand total of...

17,445 words!

...Which is no where near 50,000! :D I failed miserably!!
Yeah, on those last few days when I realized there was no way I could ever get all 50,000, I just kind of slowed down. Well, technically, I just stopped. :)
In other news, I heard The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green, is like #1 on a really important list!! :) And also, the sixth Maximum Ride manga comes out in 6 days! Yes! However, the next Heroes of Olympus comes out... next October. D: 

By the way, playing Portal too much.

~N

NaNoWriMo--update 11.15

Nooooooooooo.

We're halfway through the month and I only have 5,782 words! It's eleven pages, but I'll have to multiply my output by TEN to get all 50,000. I know I won't be able to do it, though. Although yesterday, I wrote, like 2,000 words, so I'm pretty proud of myself. I'm recording my progress as I go, and I'm pushing for 1,000 words a day, and maybe 3,000 if I can on weekends. But yeah, as I said, I can't do this. D: Oh well, at least I'm trying. And I think it's fun! It's interesting to try to write a novel. Lots of twists and turns.

I won't be posting it on here, because it'll be too long (I hope), but maybe I'll put it up on Figment when I'm done. I still have to do a lot of editing with the earlier chapters, so I won't be able to post even Chapter One until December or at least, like, February, if I end up wanting to finish this thing.

I don't know what it'll be called yet, but I think it's an okay story! Strangely, it seems a little rushed and a little drag-on at the same time. D:

Good luck to anyone else participating!
~N

NaNoWriMo 2012

Hey, is anyone participating in NaNoWriMo this year? November is National Novel Writing Month! Go to http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/dashboard for more information!

This is my first time trying it, and I doubt I'll be able to get 50,000 words. D: It's a lot if you put it into perspective. :( But I will still try, and next year will be better! :) So far, I have 0 words because I'm stuck on the end of my outline.

Good luck if you're participating!
~N

Quiet

The park was quiet, deathly quiet.

                  Even as I walked down the path, watching children playing games and running around, chasing each other, I heard no noise.

                  A man was walking toward me with a dog’s leash tightly clutched in one hand. The dog was lunging ravenously at a squirrel climbing a nearby tree. The man struggled to contain the dog without being pulled away at the same time. But the dog made no noise. And the man made no noise, and the children made no noise.

                  A small girl with her mother walked in front of me from behind before the small child stumbled on a tree root and fell onto the pavement, face first. Her mother ran to her while the girl screamed noiselessly, her mother coaxing her with words I couldn’t hear, her hand fussing over her child, not knowing what to do.

                  “Are you alright?” I said as I walked past. But my words made no sound. And still, the mother turned to me, panic in her eyes, and tried to say something back, but I heard nothing. Then she was calling to someone, yelling something I couldn’t hear.

                  But immediately, other people flocked toward the woman, reaching forward and trying to help the little girl. I backed away, surrounded by the silence that others weren’t living with.

                  I moved on, shoving my hands in my pockets and shuffling along and alone, with no company but the silence.

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A/N: This is about a girl who is deaf. Thanks for reading and please comment!

-N

Hard

The soldiers flooded the streets, weapons in their hands and camouflage covering their bodies as they invaded the town.

                  They began breaking into people’s houses, banging down doors and rushing inside, pulling out people I knew, kicking and screaming. Let me go! my neighbor had demanded as she was pulled out of her home fiercely. What do you think you’re doing?

                  My mother came close to me, pulling me in, and closed the curtains to the windows. “Don’t look outside, baby,” she said to me, “don’t look out there.”

                  But she was too late. Because then soldiers were pounding on the door, demanding we open up. My mother’s arms stiffened around me, her embrace tightening. Maybe she would have gotten up; maybe she would have answered the door for them. But she didn’t get the chance, because then they were shooting our front door off its hinges. It flew inward, just like that, and slammed into the mirror, shattering it.

                  My mother opened a closet close by and shoved me inside, closing the door quickly. Surrounded by darkness, I was confused. What is happening? Why are there strange men in our house?

                  I would never forget the next thing I heard. Screaming, horrible shrieks, coming from my mother.

                  I threw open the closet, searching for her, not bearing the terrible noise.

                  But they were already gone. The soldiers, my mother, everyone.

                  I rushed outside the open door, looking for her. But all I saw was a sea, a mob, of foreign soldiers taking people from their houses and moving on to the next, always the next.

                  “Mom!” I called into the sea, but no one heard me.

                  I rushed into the crowd, desperate for my mother and her smile. But the soldiers overwhelmed me, and I was immediately caught up in their feet, tripping them and listening to their cusses from up above as they looked down at the little girl messing up their job.

                  Then, all of a sudden, there was a disturbance in the crowd and different feet rushed onto the streets. Tan boots, instead of this dirty black. They came in with a sense of purpose, a sense of justice, a stride that meant, you will not take my people.

                  A pair of tan boots approached me, racing forward to get to me. And then I was scooped into a pair of arms.

                  The person carrying me grunted as they were mowed into by the other soldiers. But soon we were able to clear a path, and then I was placed on my feet back on my doorstep.

                  A woman in a camouflage uniform was looking at me with stern eyes that had seen so much.

                  I didn’t think before I told her, “I can’t find my mommy.” I burst into tears.

                  The woman put a hand on my shoulder. Her gentleness surprised me when her eyes looked so hard. “Little girl,” she said, looking me in the eye, “are you okay?”

                  I sniffled, telling myself I couldn’t cry in front of someone so official. I nodded.

                  She gave me an abrupt nod as well. “Let’s get you somewhere safe,” she said. Then she scooped me up in her arms again and we were weaving through the crowds, shoving our way through against the opposing force, paving a path through the enemy.

                  I wrapped my arms around the woman’s neck, my face still streaked with tears. And when I looked up to her face, she still wore that same cold, hard, fearless expression, just this time something shone in her eye before sliding down her cheek and onto the pavement where it was crushed by a soldier’s black boot.

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A/N: sorry about the spacing issues and the indenting and stuff. So it's late and it's a school night, but I just had to finish this and post it. :) So I hope you liked it. I loved this, a lot, and it almost made me cry. But I hope you liked it as much as I did! :)))) I thought of this because of an add I saw on some website - a soldier holding a crying girl. Ahh, inspiration is everywhere. But the song inspiration was "One Day" by Hans Zimmer.

~N 

She Dances

She dances, letting the wild twists and turns spin her across the floor, swooping like an angel before twisting up again, stretching her arms and legs, before collapsing to the floor.

                  She breathes hard, struggling, choking to get more air, her heart beating in her chest like a frantic encased butterfly in a jar. Help me! it screams, Help me!

                  She lays on her back, staring at the ceiling, only concentrating on breathing, knowing it could be over in the second she loses focus and doesn’t tell her chest to rise and fall.

                  She knows, inside her, that what she is doing is horrible. Mother was right, she thinks, grimacing as she struggles to breathe, I can’t dance anymore.

                  She had been beautiful, before, years before, when she could fly through the air like a leaf floating down from a tree when the air gets too crisp.

                  She coughs, sitting up, her stomach clenching as she struggles for air. She gasps, trying to get air to flow through her exhausted lungs, wishing, only wishing, that she could dance forever, and no one would stop her, and her mother wouldn’t find her, and that her lungs wouldn’t ever give up and she wouldn’t die.

                  Tears start sliding down her face as she coughs again, dropping back onto the floor. The tears dampen her face, but still she struggles to breathe. Someone help me, she’s thinking, please.

                  But no one comes. So she rises again to dance.

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A/N: SONG INSPIRATION: "BREATHING" BY ALISA TURNER:   http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Breathing/47bHET?src=5   Same thing as last time--just something to write. I've been trying to write a short story--or a brainspill as I like to call them--every day, but sometimes they're not good enough to post. :( Thanks for reading, though!!! :)))) Have a nice day! 

~N 

The light in her was dying.

The light in her was dying.

            She could feel it seeping through her pores, draining out of her. The black loomed over her, pressing in at all sides, finding its way into her body as she resisted, struggling to get away, thrashing when she knew she couldn’t do anything to stop it. It overwhelmed her, pouring into her the instant she hesitated to keep her guard together. All she could do was stare, stare into the blackness and stay still, knowing wasting her energy would be pointless.

            The black overtook her, clouding her mind and hugging her soul, the light in her eyes escaping with each second. She could almost feel it leave in a light breath, like the sigh in the wind that carries a bird’s last song at the end of summer.

            She collapsed, sinking to a ground she couldn’t see. She was limp, not even having the strength to close her eyes for the last time. Instead, she stared as the darkness crept into the last corners of her being, waiting until every glimpse of light vanished from sight and dreading the moment when she realized she was alone.

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A/N: This is just a brainspill I did when I needed to write something. I haven’t written all day and I felt on edge. Just something to satisfy me. :) Song inspiration: “Safe & Sound” by Taylor Swift cover by Julia Sheer ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhuVO3JGZ8E ).

Apples -- Chapter 1

I pluck the apple off the tree, making it shake and its leaves rustle in response. The first apple of the day. It’s large, round, and red.

            I move along the branch to pluck off the next one, another the same perfect color.

            Two trees down I see a tree with yellow apples. Maybe I’ll make my way over there. I’m sure the kids would like a treat – usually I can only bring home red.

            In between trees the sun sneaks its way across the sky. The rays light up the leaves, making them seem luminescent. The air is crisp, and I am reminded that the fall is coming in strong. When the leaves die and fall from their branches, I will be sad to hear them crunching under my feet.

            But now the whole scene just seems so surreal. The only thing that takes away from the beauty is the building to my right – the big, square, white one with its name on the side facing me in big block letters: The Weltin Saunders Corporation.

            I sigh, but I don’t feel regret. I know I’m stealing – one of the most dangerous crimes – but I know what I have to do. When you have a starving family at home, you learn that the rules aren’t the most important thing anymore.

            The yellow apples on those trees are also quite large, so I grab two when I make my way over there. I’ve grown to love the sound an apple makes when it’s pulled off its branches. Pluck. Pluck.

            I remember the first time I heard that sound. It was the first time I ever stepped out of line. The first time I ever had to step out of line. But even then I was stealthy and I knew how to steal. And now, it takes no effort.

            And that first time I brought home apples, my mother didn’t even care. We were all so desperate for food that it didn’t matter where we got it or who we stole it from, even if it was off the land of one of the highest government buildings in the area.

            I slide down the tree, grateful for my black, long sleeved shirt and skinny dark jeans, but not for my blonde hair. It stands out too much, falling to my waist, a foot and over of thin, straight brightness.

            In my hands are eight apples. Six red ones, and two yellows.

            From there I run as fast as I can back home without dropping the apples. We don’t live far – but we were on the other side of the building than the city was. We wouldn’t have the money to live there, anyway. So instead we live in our rundown shack standing on rotten wood and under the rusting shingles of our rooftop.

            But the apples are ripe and juicy and the trees are green and growing. What more can we ask for?

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A/N: This is the beginning of my story, Apples. I hope you like it and I might post the second chapter?

The Monster Came

The monster came for her at night.

                  She knew it was there even though she couldn’t see it through the heavy darkness. She knew it was watching her with black eyes, studying her still form. And she knew it wasn’t going to leave until it got what it wanted.

                  Finally she sat up, her nerves getting the better of her. She wanted to run away, but she knew it would be pointless.

                  She could hear its breathing – heavy, labored pants that rumbled through its chest – right next to her ear. She resisted a shiver, swallowing hard. It was here.

                  She opened her mouth, gathering the courage to whisper, “What do you want?” through trembling lips.

                  The breathing continued, constant and steady. “You,” its deep voice stated simply.

                  She already knew that, but still a lump seemed to form in her throat and her heart beat wildly.

                  “Why?” she whispered, almost choking on the words with fright for her life.

                  “Because you were the one that slayed my mother.”

                  No. Instantly she knew it was all wrong. A mistake, a mistake that would cost her. Her sister, she knew, was the one this beast wanted.

                  She didn’t say anything in response, just swallowed hard. The monster seemed to take this as a yes, as a confession that yes, she was the one that had killed the giant beast that this one called its mother.

                  The monster took her, not being able to see the difference – that he wasn’t taking the slayer but the slayers twin – and whisked her through the window and into more darkness. The moon was shining, but couldn’t make its way through the thick layer of ominous clouds blanketing the sky. With no light, the monster remained unseen.

                  “Where are you taking me?” she asked, wondering if it would be better if she didn’t know.

                  “Somewhere far away,” the beast’s voice proclaimed from all around her, like an omnipresent being speaking to her instead of a beast craving revenge.

                  But she accepted that. Maybe her sister was to blame, and maybe she being taken unfairly, but she had gotten the chance to do something not many people ever do.

                  To save a life.
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A/N: I started writing this in social studies class. It was really boring, so, you know. Just a little thing about sacrifice.
~N 

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.

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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. 

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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