I'm a GENIUS! Feel the extent of my GENIUS baby! ...okay...I'm not that much of a genius, but I am good with words, and that counts for something doesn't it? Here's a story I wrote, I did. This is what is making me bask in my own ego. ;) (I'm quite pleased with it. Can you tell? It does neeed a little bit of editting, I know, but it's getting there.) A Final Story She waits for the elders to bloom. One can tell by the way she speaks to someone, the way she looks through them, always over their head, beside their ear, over their shoulder, to the trees above, beyond. She is waiting for them to break out their tiny greenish-white sprays of scent. She wants them. She's always looking, waiting, patiently as if she has all the time in the world. She probably does. The thick scent hung like a curtain over the doorway, thick and near suffocatingly sweet. Early summer gripped the land, decorating everything in an explosion of leafy green, stinking of honey. The unnaturally white plastic siding on her house greets her as she treks up the remaining stairs to her door. Break resistant glass reminds her it needs to be washed, and she adds another handprint to the smudges, pushing the door open and sliding into the artificially cooled interior. The cottage was a haven, a little bit of order in the chaos, dimly lit and smelling of familiar smoke and earth. A woman was inside, her husband out in the fields, both as they should be. She sat at the table, a small book and feather open and before her. She carefully scribed out a few jerky, lopsidedly curling words. Several bowls decorated the tables, batter spilling out and hardening in the summer heat She stopped writing, capping her ink and looked up, the sunlight illuminating the aging lines in her face. The computer hums with the plastic comfort of new technology, the blue glow from the screen washing over her face. Like water spiders her hands skitter across the keys, clicking like too many birds trapped under the off-white plastic. The screen is displaying the translated text of a writing, a book from 1553. She wonders how they know the date so exactly, but dismisses the thought. There is a little bit of text she's most interested in, a little recipe, one involving elderflowers. There are no amounts, just obscure instructions. She wonders, guesses, but scrolls by. No one else is around. At least, she doesn't think so. She can't be sure, but she doesn't care much. The computer is there, the little tiles of open windows at the bottom of the screen her only link to the outside world from her little windowless basement room. Chickens scattered like marbles as she ducked into the coop. She had no basket on her arm, but she didn't really need one. She only needed a few�a few�just a few�The mother shrieked in protest as the woman slid her hand under the warm feathers to steal the hen's unhatched treasures. The shells were smooth and coloured like cream, still warm in her hands. Ducking out of the coop, precious eggs stored safely in her apron pockets, she squinted against the noonday sun. The sun is at its zenith, blazing down with full heat, nothing to stop it anymore. The concrete garden spreads out in all directions under the orange haze of human pollution. Ants scurry along the paths and byways, ignorant of each other but unknowingly dependent. Each has their destination, their duties, which adds to the collective. Things to do, people to see, places to go. She sits alone bathed in blue, scratching, scratching, like so many fowl looking for some subsidence amidst the dust. She is waiting for the elders to bloom. The elderflowers sit, simmering in a mess of milk and spices in a copper pot on the fire. She, with white dusted clothes, stands at the table, sleeves rolled to her elbows, kneading a simple dough of eggs and flour. The air hangs heavy with the sweet scent of escaped pollen. She is lost. She doesn't know how she got here, but she is lost. This is not her time, this time of chrome and stink. She is lost. The man approaches her on the street. "Are you?" he asks, looking into her face. "No," she says. He looks at her. There is something familiar in his face that she can't place. "You," he says. "You." "I don't know," she says. "I have to go." "Stay a little." He grabs her arm. Thoughts of mugging, dark alleys and rape flash across her mind although his callused hand is gentle. "No, can't. Improper." "Stay a little." "Things to do, people to see, places to go." He lets her go and she leaves. There is something familiar about his face. Her husband came when she was putting the strips of dough into the boiling milk. He kissed her carefully, leaving a callused handprint in the white dust at the small of her back. She kissed him back, carefully, leaving her snowy white mark on the earth engraved mapwork of his cheek. He left shortly after with only a few words. The plants were growing well, he said. I'll be back later. Wait for me. "Stay a little." She looks up and sees herself in the bathroom mirror. The fluorescent lights makes her look paler than she usually is, a sickly pallor. The tissue paper skin of her temples, eyes, neck is almost blue, unhealthy. The chrome frame laughs at her and she sighs. "Stay a little." She sees his face in the mirror, drawn and tired. He is lost. So is she. This is not her time. It is his, neither, she thinks. He came home after the sun had sunk low below the horizon. The sky was a dull grey-blue still and the bugs were not quite out. He ate the food she prepared him silently. The elderflower pudding sat on the stove, untouched, forgotten. He went to bed shortly after, kissing her absentmindedly on the cheek. She stayed up, drinking the intoxicating night air. She pulled out her book and dipped the tip of her feather in the ink. Tomorrow, tomorrow. This had to be done. Tomorrow. At work she sits in her grey cubicle, spinning absently around on her work chair. She never tired of the simple joy the chair provided. A eleven by seven inch blaringly red plastic box shouted at her from the corner of her desk, a sliver of paper she'd never seen before stirring on the top. The paper is yellow, a post-it, and barely sticky where it should be. In jerky, lopsidedly curling letters is scrawled an address, a webpage. Two extra words. "Come home," it says. Come home. So she does. The night was cool, a soft breeze spinning through the open door to playfully tug at her skirts. She waited a little, waited just a bit after she closed her book. The fire was burning low, a comforting orange glow pushing back the false light of the moon. She sat at the table, elbow on the edge, chin in her hand, gazing into the distance. The leather bound book of recipes glowed eerily in the dark, humming with the new addition. The website is a plain one, primitively made. "Click here," it says in generic black font, "for the answer." The arrow hovers over the button, uncertain, images of viruses dancing in her head. "Go a little." So she does. She had a dream that night, after she climbed into bed. She dreamt of too much, too often, too hard. She dreamt of a great anthill, swarming, confused, independent yet ever dependent, spilling expanding beyond its boundaries. She saw flashes of chrome and neon lights, blazing, colourful signs to attract, to lure, bring death in the most attractive way their could. People smiled as they killed themselves, people smiled as other people killed themselves, people smiled as they killed each other. There was a woman, a man, a window, a chair, a complex life of plastic and wires, short circuiting those who couldn't quite handle it, who weren't perfect enough. She saw a compass, an arrow pointing, pointing towards where they were supposed to be, should be, ought to be, aren't. No one was paying attention, no one cared, no one thought, they just were. Eventually all she could remember from the dream was the intoxicating scent from the elder, not quite blossomed. Her work calls, but the phone just rings and rings. Eventually the answering machine clicks on, speaking with the mechanical voice it came with. "Leave a message - click - after the - whirr - beep�" Her chair spun by itself, enjoying the weight free experience. He wakes first, sitting on the edge of the bed with his head between his hands. She wakes when he moves, laying half uncovered, exposed in the warming morning air. "Stay a little," she says, eyes shining with a new light. "Stay a little." He turns and looks at her, his eyes brighter, more conscious, more at home. He looks at her carefully, but she doesn't smile. "Are you?" he asks. She smiles. "Yes." He smiles and stays. The elder tree in the front yard burst into bloom that day, quivering with anticipation before letting loose a chaos of off-white blossoms, thick with honey-sweet scent, overpowering the stink of car fumes and concrete dust. The trunk, coiled and knotted like a rope, stretched skywards, timeless and sturdy. Each long, pointed leaf sighed and rippled, glowing green, pleased with the simple pleasure. The sun is past its zenith when they finally rise, damp and tired. He goes to the fields to work the remaining hours of the day, and she, to the kitchen. The pudding is still there, spoiled, but it didn't matter. It was an experiment. Today she'll get it right. She knows she will. She is by the table now, opening the book she had written in the night before, or so she thought. At the top of first blank page are scrawled two words. Maybe she wrote them, maybe she didn't; she can't remember now, only the sweet heavy honey-smell. Welcome home. Outside the climbing elder laughs and hugs the little cottage with floral fingers.
Before&After
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