Contrast

Here's another short that I wrote quite a while ago, thought some of you might enjoy it.  Please feel free to comment!  You all have been so quiet, it would be wonderful to hear from some of you!

Amalia walked down the dark winter streets and shivered. It was a cold night for anyone to be wandering the streets, but she did it every night, and the cold was refreshing. As she glanced around she recognized the squat little building with glass windows that seemed to be its only walls. It looked so empty now that the day was over, and had only a few dim lights on to fill the space. She paused and really looked into its cold grey halls and wondered if she was really seeing inside, or if it was just an illusion. She walked up to the glass windows and pressed her face against a pane. It was indeed real, but it seemed so empty and cold that it was surreal. As she pulled her face back she noticed her own reflection in the glistening glass, and caught the contrast between the empty gray halls and the chilled blush of her cheeks. They were polar opposites. But she recalled a time previous to this when she had paused on her walk to peer into the windows. Except, the first time it had been during the day, when people brought their rich array of color into the blank building as they bustled about. She had caught her reflection that time also, and then her face had seemed but a pale corpse compared to the bright interior. 

Had it been just a trick of her mind? Or could it be true that she shone her brightest when she was not compared to the hues of other people?

Short story: Ghosts

As the rain started to fall, a sea of black slowly expanded beneath the droplets until the ground could no longer be seen. Beneath it, a whisper of words could be heard, and a few other hushed sounds.  Slowly the sea of black broke apart into many separate pieces as if the rain drops had shattered glass. People could be seen scattering to remain sheltered by the shards.  Most of them wore a matching black to their umbrellas.  As each umbrella dispersed from the original location, a scar in the ground came into view.  Like a cavity filling, not dirt, but wood rested above the hole.  The wood was ornately carved with flowering vines and leaves in a Victorian style.  At each corner stood a man, all four of them slowly lowering the heavy wooden filling into the tooth of the earth.  As they did so, one solitary umbrella remained, under which a business man silently watched.  As soon as the coffin hit the earthen bottom of its tomb, he turned away from the sad affair and walked slowly toward his car.

He drove through the pouring rain, first onto one of the barren city streets, then onto an even less frequented road, and finally onto a mile long driveway which led to an estate.  The wet gravel road grabbed at his tires as if the earth itself protested his approach.  Finally in the distance he saw the manor rise out of the hillside like a dark slender woman stretching her spindly arms to the sky.  She was elegantly clad in the most delicate gown, white wisps of clouds curling around her every curve.  Despite the strange beauty of it, the fog also seemed to be a veil for death itself, hiding the black, empty manor behind fragile snow-white tendrils.

 The closer he got, the more the manor loomed over him, daring him to enter.  He accepted the challenge as he stepped out of his car and into the dark manor.  The door squeaked, reminding him of the first time he had come to this place.

That day, the door had squeaked as it always did, but the manor had not been so lifeless and barren as it was now.  It had been full of life and light, as if the hulking building itself had a beating heart.
"You must be the lawyer I requested." a woman's voice had chimed as she hurried down the stairs to the door.
"Yes, Ms...?"
"Please, call me Lily.  And you are?"
"My name is George Selman," he took her hand politely and kissed it.
"Come," she had said with a full smile, "we have much to do."

He remembered the door squeaking yet again as he closed it, but he didn't mind.  The house was alive and beautiful, and the squeak almost added to its loveliness.
The second time he had visited the manor, things within it had certainly changed.  The door still squeaked, but by then it was a eerie squeak, a cry for help.  The life of the manor seemed to ebb away.  Lily had once again come to the door, this time much older and weaker.  She was wrapped in a robe and blankets, and she seemed relieved that he was there.
"I'm glad you're here, George.  I called on you because I need to make a will."
He was slightly taken aback by her sudden change of health, but he agreed to help her.

Not long after his second visit, Lily passed away leaving the once beautiful manor without owner, life, or love.  Now it seemed, that squeak as he opened the door was more of a cold, bitter scream.  He shut the door slowly, but it did nothing to quiet its cries.  He gazed around the entry hall, searching for even a small remnant of the light that had once shone throughout it.  Even with the lights on it was not quite the same as when Lily had been there.  He walked up the stairs slowly, savoring for the last time the feel of the oaken steps beneath his feet.  Even though this was just a part of his business, and he should have be here for nothing more, he realized that he would miss this client more than the others.  There had been no special bond between them, no love, not really a friendship, and yet he somehow felt attached to this place.  The joy and warmth he felt the first time he walked through the front door had left a mark on his cold, business hardened heart.  He opened the door to Lily's study, the place where he knew he would find a well organized list of assets to be distributed to the names in the will.  Of course, he would have to check, and double check to make sure she had not left anything out, but that was part of his job.

Inside the study, the furniture was all covered in large white sheets.  It was a haunting image, and it reminded him of ghosts.  He shivered slightly as a cold draft ran through his body.  He began to wonder if anyone who lived here after her would ever be able to give it the life it once possessed.  He pulled the sheet off of the desk and tossed it to the floor.  Underneath it was a large oaken writing desk, carved with Victorian images of flowers and vines.  Just like her coffin.  She had always loved that style.  Despite the fact that he had just thrown off the ghost like covering, the desk remained hallow and meaningless.  The entire estate resounded with the same emptiness.  Without her glowing presence and life to warm such meaningless things, all of it was a ghost.

Spring Time!

Hey everyone!

With all this warm weather we're getting, I guess it means its officially spring time!  With spring time, of course, comes spring cleaning.  Not my favorite thing to do, but I suppose it must be done, and I have to admit that its always nice to have a fresh new start.  So, what's on your list to clean this spring?

Over 400 reads!

Thank you all so much for taking the time to check out my blog and bear my rambling stories!  We've hit the 401 mark, thanks to you guys! :)

Illinois-Missouri Trip

Alright, funny and slightly embarrassing story time!

Several years ago in... (flips through millions of old processed pictures... the film kind...) circa... 2006, my family went on a trip to Illinois and Missouri. Well, my mom had to do some sort of fancy business trip thing in Chicago a few days after we got to Chicago, so at first we were all in one big group.  When we first got to our hotel, I, of course, had to take the couch/bed/thing.  Once it was all set up, I was paranoid that there were bed bugs.  I didn't even want to sleep in the bed.  But I was tired, and so I did, and there were no bed bugs.  (Insert lack of drama here).  So we traveled around Chicago for a while, and saw some of the super cool stuff about Chicago.  We went to Navy Pier and rode some of the rides there, we went on the Sky Deck tour of the Sears Tower, (which was really cool, you could see Lake Michigan from the top of that thing.  It was also kinda freaky being up so high.  I'm not so much a heights person.).

I remember the pair of shoes I wore *the whole time* we were travelling around Chicago.  It was a pair of sketchers that had these big blocky rubber heels (about an inch and a half tall).  I loved those shoes so much.  That was my first 'pair of heels' if you could even call it that.  I remember my mom saying "You brought other shoes, you need to wear those other shoes and stop wearing the same pair, you're going to get blisters!"  I never did get blisters.  But I felt soooo grown up in those hot little sketchers.  Of course, I outgrew them and now I just use them for a doorstop.  One night when we were walking down the street for dinner, we saw an old homeless black man sitting on the sidewalk.  I believe he was playing a bucket drum or something and singing.  His blue eyes were hazy with blindness, and I remember feeling so sad for him.  He wasn't the only one out there, but I felt so bad for him.  After we came back out of the restaurant there was this couple that had bought an extra banana split dessert, and as we walked by we saw them giving it to him, and kindly helping him eat it.  That kind of restored my faith in humanity a little bit.  It was a nice gesture.

  We spent about the next two days doing these fun things. Then my mom had to go to her conference thing, so my dad and I traveled down to St. Charles, Illinois to visit my cousins.  We spent a day with them, and my uncle lent us his car to travel around in.  We set off from their house for about a 300 mile journey into St. Louis, Missouri.  I specifically remember the number 300 because I asked my dad how long it would take us to get there and he said, "well, its about 300 miles, and we're going about 75 miles per hour down the highway, so you do the math."  I never liked 'doing the math,' I just wanted an answer!

Anyway, we stopped at a hotel along the way and spent the night.  The next morning we got up early, went to the continental breakfast (where, of course, being like 9 I only ate donuts and other delicious junk.  And orange juice.  I remember the orange juice in a styrofoam cup.) and then we hit the road again.  On this day, it was usual North East weather, semi cloudy, semi windy, semi chance of rain.  I remember being in the back seat when I heard the car ding at us telling us to get gas.  I asked my dad, "Are we going to run out of gas?" and he replied, "No, we still have some left.  There's a gas station up ahead, anyway."  About twenty minutes later the GAS STATION: NEXT EXIT sign came into view.  About thirty seconds after that the car spluttered, and suddenly started slowing down.  My dad groaned and pulled off onto the side of the road.  We were less than a mile from the station and we ran out of gas.  My dad almost told us we were going to walk to the gas station to get gas, and he told me to change my shoes.  Change my shoes?! There was no way I wanted to change my shoes to walk a mile to the station.  "I can wear these, I've been walking in them for like three days." I protested, "No, you should probably change shoes."  I sighed and reluctantly climbed back into the car to change my shoes.  My dad soon got on the phone with my uncle and told him what happened.  Thankfully his brother lived close by and he told my dad he could come give us a gallon to get us to the station.  Now realizing that we wouldn't be walking to the station, I announced I was going to change back into my favorite shoes, and quickly proceeded to do so.  My uncle's brother came soon and helped us get to the station.  My dad filled the car with more gas, and we proceeded on our journey.

We then drove all the way to the Gateway Arch in Missouri, and had a blast there.  I took some pictures with my film camera.  Most of them have my finger in the way, but hey.  I was 9.

I remember sitting in the tiny little pod elevator where you had to sit down to fit.  I had never been up a curved elevator shaft before.  It was a unique and squeaky experience.  The arch from the ground is truly a magnificent work of art, but the top of the arch was even more magnificent.

Once at the top, there was a tiny little room with two sides of windows.  The maximum capacity for that room was probably no more than like, 10 people at a time.  It was small.  And yet, for being so cramped, it was actually cold up there.  The view was amazing.  You could see so far and you could see so many different buildings! In one picture I took, you could see the whole baseball stadium in the distance.

After we were done at the Gateway Arch, we started back to Illinois and Chicago.

Alright.  I promised you funny, so here's funny.  On our way back, we stopped at some middle-of-nowhere parking lot with a restroom.  I can't currently remember what those are called, so we'll just call it a pit stop.  We parked outside, and my dad asked me if I had to use the bathroom before we went back on the road for a while longer.  I said no, but he decided to use the bathroom anyway.  So I sat there and waited as he rolled the windows up and locked the doors.  Then he walked into the building and disappeared from sight.  My thinking was that we probably wouldn't be stopped for very long.  I was wrong.  My dad took quite a long time to come back.  But it got worse.  I moved my head to reach something in the seat next to me and instantly felt pain.  The window was pulling my hair out!  Apparently when he rolled up the windows a bunch of my hair had been sucked outside.  So now I couldn't move without ripping my hair out.  I sat there with my head leaning against the window in the most uncomfortable position for quite a while.  And of course, I would have rolled the window down, or opened the door or something, but the door was locked and the car was off.  I was stuck there until he got back and started the car.  And he took forever.  Finally he walked out of the building and saw me following him with annoyed eyes, and he gave me a confused look.  He unlocked the car and got in.  "What's wrong?" he asked, "I've been sitting here with my hair trapped in the window since you left, and I can't move.  Can you please just start the car so I can get my hair out??" He laughed and then rolled the window down.  While at the time I thought it was really annoying how funny he thought it was, apparently I've come to my comical senses and realized that this makes a funny story.

Other than picking my mom up from the hotel and flying home, the rest of the trip was uneventful.  I hope you all enjoyed this very long and dramatic story of our trip to Illinois and Missouri! Don't be afraid to comment, I like comments! ;)

Problem Solvers

 I've been thinking lately.  Amazing, right?

But has anyone else noticed that people easily notice things that are not like them?  For instance, if you were sitting in a restaurant and someone with some strange skin disease walked by, you would notice them.  Our first instinct, unfortunately, is to stare.  Why do we stare?  Is it because we are innately judgemental? Or perhaps because we don't want to 'catch' the same thing.  I know, it sounds horrible.  That person with the skin problem can't control it.  They very likely don't enjoy being stared at or given looks.  I understand that, but that is not what I'm getting at.

 The thought crossed my mind that if said skin problem is contagious, we don't want it.  So our attention being drawn to something out of place is a survival instinct.  Other animals notice when things are out of place.  If they didn't they would be unaware and likely prey for whatever other animal wanted to eat them. Wild birds know to be afraid of cats and people, but they recognize a bird of the same species to be 'safe.'

 So are we nothing more than a slightly smarter animal?  What sets us apart from them?  Other animals can solve problems in order to survive.  They can recognize 'who' and 'what' and 'where,'...

 Some people would argue that our ability to use logic sets us apart from other animals.  I would go further.  We are able to ask the questions 'how,' 'why,' and 'when.'  

 Must we be problem solvers in order to survive?

 What would we be without asking questions? 

Favorite Food

My new favorite food is officially Blood Orange sorbet.  ITS SO DELICIOUS!  I mean, maybe it just goes to show (again) that I'm a vampire.  Not that that wasn't already a fact of my life, but yeah.

BEST STUFF EVER!!!