Snow

The world outside lays suspended in a yawning anticipation. The broken snow has regained some of its tranquility in the orange glow of the streetlamps, as if it knows its raped surface will soon be cloaked by a new blanket; with my face pressed to the cold window, I imagine I see a single flake already falling. It is just the glow of the lights.

I remember, as a child, cutting paper snowflakes to adorn the windows at home in hopes that it might snow. No matter with how much care I cut, I could never create a snowflake close enough to my ideal—pure, consistent, crystalline perfection. But every year I would try, and every year I would gaze in wonder when the real thing came, framed through by glass by my feeble copies. I loved everything about the snow, then. I would jump into my snow pants and boots, wriggle my way into a coat, throw on a hat and mittens, and into the snow I’d dive. It was pristine, and I loved it all: fluffy, flakey snow that scattered around my diving body; sticky, snowball-making snow; snow that crunched and creaked when you walked; and even iced-over, crusty snow that could bear my weight and made me feel like I was on top of the world. I loved sliding downhill on the ice with no sled, or breaking off little ice chunks to send rocketing down the mountainside. And then, of course, there were the snow forts. When Dad plowed the driveway, he left two huge, glorious snow banks ideal for an enterprising 9-year-old (and her pest younger brother). We took out shovels and made stairs and tunnels; we built up walls and created snowball (or, occasionally, forbidden ice ball) stockpiles. We smoothed out slides and poured water down them to create icy, slippery joyrides.

Outside the night seems to have gotten darker, as though the promising clouds have obstructed an inexplicable light source. I realize how much, and yet how little, I’ve seen from this window. The library bell tower rises up over the darkened campus, its huge clock a constant reminder that I should be studying, or sleeping, or in some other way battling the destructive passage of time. This late, at least, its bells don’t call out their hourly reproach. Perhaps the coming storm will muffle their shrillness.

The first time I ever disliked snow was on a car ride home from church with my mom, late one night. For reasons I can’t remember, I was anxious to get home. Our Ford Explorer crawled bravely along the road, and the snow seemed to come straight towards like tiny white bullets.
“But can’t you go a little faster, Mom?” I asked for the umpteenth time.
“Unless you wanna go off the road, no,” she’d shot back, irritated by my bickering and preoccupied with navigating us safely through the blizzard. It wasn’t a conscious thing. I didn’t even know at the time that this would change my perception of snow, but it did. From that point on, snow was an enemy.

They moved the snow banks last week. A fleet of trucks plowed and maneuvered and caused a huge racket, and when they were done the banks were flat: ready for a new snowfall. There were rumors of a snow day . . . but they don’t have those in college. Snow days were a singular pleasure of high school. It’s quiet out there now. The old snow looks like a dusty, barren desert. But it doesn’t yearn for rain—rain is heaven’s teardrops, weeping in the luscious summertime upon a hot, lustful earth. This desert longs for snowflakes, ice cold and yet gentle as a lover’s touch. I’ve stared out this window long enough that I begin to yearn for it, too.

Why did I spend so many winters fighting the snow? I saw fluffy white snow and complained that the roads would be impassable, that I was stuck at home for one more day that I didn’t want to be. I saw sticky, snowball-worthy snow and groaned at how heavy it was to shovel. I grew annoyed at the creaky, crunchy snow that made boots a necessity, and I raged endlessly against the layers of ice that would keep the fields, and more importantly the track, covered for one more week come April. After all, how was I supposed to practice, and improve, and get myself to a college-worthy athletic level with the damned ice holding me back? Since I grew out of my middle-school snow pants, I haven’t owned another pair. I spent my winters indoors, poring over textbooks or wasting away the hours on a computer, anxious for summer. It was always about the future, and never about the present.

I can feel the cold window against my skin like a kiss. I am absorbed by the frozen anticipation that awaits the pregnant clouds. Though I can’t see through the night, I can feel them: they loom in a dark mass at the edge of my consciousness, not threatening, but enthralling, beckoning me with an electric magnetism. Just wait, they seem to say. All will be well. I put away my textbooks and prepare to go to sleep. Tomorrow, I will wake up to a reborn world.

But before I got to sleep, I am compelled to do one thing: I take out scissors and a sheet of paper and, with unpracticed fingers, cut out a little snowflake. It’s nowhere near perfect—but it’ll do.

A Positive Spin on Things

The stifling noontime heat crushes in around me as I'm sitting on freshly mowed grass, head resting on my knees, literally reduced to sweat and tears. "I can't do this!" I sob for about the twentieth time. "It just won't work!" I'm dizzy. The loose grass is causing some kind of allergies, making it hard for me to breathe - or is that just because I'm upset?

On the grass around me are about six discuses, thrown down in frustration after yet another unsuccessful series of throws. Just last week, my track practices felt incredible - my technique felt right, my timing felt right, and those discs were flying farther than they ever had before. Now, I feel more like the armless Venus de Milo than Byron's Discobolus.

Slowly, I begin to regulate my breathing. Okay, I think, what's going wrong? What can I try? Problems like this really aren't all that unusual. Discus is a technique-specific event. If something isn't right, the implement simply won't go as far. The idea of practicing is, really, to iron out these kinks. Which is why I'm here - even if it's not exactly working right now.

I stand up, picking up a discus as I do so. Automatically, it settles into my hand the right way, a habit trained through lots of practice. I'm trying to accomplish this kind of muscle memory for the entire technique of the throw. Slowly, I step into the ring, feet settling into the exact same place as always - my shoes have left darkened marks from so much repetition. I drop the discus - slowly, I just run through the footwork, checking my foot placement, checking the position of my torso, stopping, correcting, analyzing for the xth time. This process is familiar to me, even if the results aren't always the same.

I've been going through this all week - some kink developed that threw off my timing, and with a meet looming this weekend, I need to work it out. Finally, after a few throws have looked at least decent, I pack up and head home. My legs are tired from a week of hard training, I tell myself. The next two days I will focus only in mental visualzation, and let the muscles take care of themselves. And if it doesn't work at the meet - well, then it doesn't work. And I'll keep correcting after that.

Discus throwing is my not-so-secret love affair, complete with all the joy and heartbreak. When other things irritate me, it's my outlet. When life acts as life generally does and throws those stormy curveballs of adolescence, the familiarity and rhythm help keep me grounded. Unfortunately, discus throwing is also full of ups and downs - and being emotionally invested in my "outlet" has caused some bad short-circuiting.

My best friend can't quite understand how throwing can be an outlet. "It seems so anger inducing," he says. We're sitting on the picnic tables at the icecream parlor - I'd randomly observed that I hadn't had icecream for nearly four months, and since I'd planned to dedicate this afternoon to not thinking about track, I wanted be be a little bit "rebellious." (I even ordered a medium cone instead of a small.) But now, as my conversations with Brendan tended to do, we'd started discussing more psychological matters, and my current frustration had come to the forefront.
"It's really not," I explain. "It's so technique oriented that you have to focus - it's relaxing.... Usually."
"I guess that makes sense," he replies. Brendan is a distance runner - his idea of blowing off steam is to go on a long, hard run. He once tried to get me into running - I even managed to run five whole miles once - but my fitness training is so focused on fast-twitch muscle fibers that my running usually consists of a 400 meter warm-up lap these days. Part of the reason we're friends, however, is that while we're polar opposites in many ways, we're both good at understanding things even if we can't really relate. "I guess it's your passion."
"Recently I've wondered if it's a passion or an addiction."
"What's the difference?"
I laugh sarcastically. "One is usually bad for you." I'm feeling really pessimistic now. Brendan just gives me a look. He knows I get like this sometimes. I doubt myself, and I doubt I'll ever be able to reach as far as I want to. But he also knows I'm no longer the little girl who quit piano lessons because she didn't sound good immediately.

Sooner or later, I'll give myself a little kick and realize, once again, that the biggest reason I throw is for love of the sport. In the meantime, I'll go to the meet, do the best I can, and then come home and start right back working on it. I've learned - this sport has taught me - to persevere. My fear of failure is overcome by my desire to succeed. At times in life, it's inevitable that one feels hopeless and out of control, gasping, "I can't do this." I sincerely hope that everyone can find an outlet that will teach him/her what throwing has taught me - it's okay to put your head down once in a while, but you should always, always get up and try again.

Never Free, Never Me

“Deprived of all his thoughts, the young man struggles on and on – he’s known a vow onto his own, that never from this day his will they’ll take away.” ~ Metallica

My car crawled along the road like an overgrown turtle, rain pounding on the windshield in torrents that made visibility completely impossible. The liquid percussion all but drowned out the mournful tune of some country song that laboriously crawled out of my sound system. My windshield wipers, working in a near frenzy, were about as effective as a squeegee on a swimming pool floor. I couldn’t see a thing, and what was worse, I was paranoid that at any moment, my car would decide to float right off the road.

“Damnitt,” I swore, pulling over to the side of the road and cutting the engine. The now-silent speakers only made the rain seem louder than ever. I pulled my knees up to my chest and covered myself with my jacket to stay warm. Serves me right for not changing after practice, I thought glumly. Shorts were not the most pleasant thing to wear, especially with the heat now off.

Suddenly a car blew past, going at least sixty and spraying water ten feet into the air. I could barely make out its shape, but I followed the sound until it disappeared behind the next hill, wondering how the hell it was managing not to hydroplane in what was quickly becoming a new Nile River. Idiotic as it was, however, I couldn’t help but feel a spark of admiration for the driver.

My current situation seemed sadly ironic. The past year had been very much like a rainstorm I was not quite brave enough to confront – a rainstorm whose clouds had been accumulating since I was old enough to become aware of them. This year, all the metaphorical shit had finally hit the metaphorical fan – needless to say, the result was messy.

First, of course, was the ongoing problem with my dad. He and I never saw eye-to-eye… unfortunately for me, that didn’t agree with him too much, as he was a chronic control freak. Equally unfortunate was the fact that I was only 16, jobless, and completely at his mercy for the privileges others defined as “having a life.”

Second – and trivial in retrospect, but unfortunately a big deal at the time – was the fact that my boyfriend of six months had broken up with me in November. Young, clueless, and in love, I’d teetered between depression, denial, and conviction that I could somehow “win him back” (he, of course, had not shared this conviction at all.)

On top of that, I had a heavy workload from school, was having continuous problems with my left ankle, was on shaky terms at best with my friends, got very little sleep (in fact, I was battling a near-chronic caffeine addiction), and yet still expected myself to be, for my self-imposed standards, “perfect.” The cumulative effect of everything caused me to regress back to a habit I’d thought I was over for good – and this time, instead of hiding it, I told my parents. Who flipped out.

After that, I suppose you could say things got better. Now, in early May, I was focused mainly on Track – and even though I wasn’t doing as well as I had hoped, at least it was somewhat of an outlet. But internally, I still hadn’t truly recovered. Instead of struggling through the blinding downpour, I’d simply stopped moving. And now, cold and gloomy on the side of the road, the storm showed no sign of letting up.

I don’t know why, but suddenly, staring at the sheet of water on the windshield, I got angry. Not just mildly irritated, but really furiously angry. There were better things to do, after all, than sit of the side of the fucking road and wait for the indefinite end of a rainstorm! Like everything else recently, I was letting the weather control me in a way I’d once sworn nothing would. God, life was more than just passive participation, wasn’t it? And if that wasn’t the rule, then, well… fuck normality. I’d had enough.

Kicking down the clutch hard enough to make my ankle give a protesting stab of pain, I started the engine. The windshield wipers whirred to life just as the closing chords of the country song played. Irritated, I changed the radio station. The explosion of sound that met me was a mix of driving guitar and a harsh, powerful voice I would later identify as Metallica. The music totally drowned out the rain.

I grinned as I put the car in gear and gunned the gas, shifting quickly and forcefully as the speedometer spiraled upward and water splashed in all directions. And that’s when I realized, to my great surprise, that it wasn’t what I expected. Instead of shooting off the road to certain death, I stayed right on track. And that’s when I realized, to my great surprise, that I could see.

Treasures Lost

“When I grow up, I wanna be…” is the mantra of children everywhere. It’s amazing how eager we are as young children to grow up and face the world: how in our innocent naïveté we believe life is filled with fun and adventure, and the only thing standing in our way is the silly problem of being “too little.” I find that throughout my childhood, I imagined certain milestones where I believed I would have “more freedom:” when I started school; when I went to live with my grandparents in Germany for six months; when I became a teenager, when I entered high school, when I got my driver’s license…. Along the way, I didn’t realize that with every little bit of freedom gained, I was loosing another precious gem of innocence.

I have a photograph in a frame on my bureau. It was taken when I was four years old. I’m sitting with my dad in Fenway Park, proudly wearing a Red Sox cap, and both of us are smiling at the camera. My hair is still the childish pale blonde, and I’m wearing a Barney t-shirt that proclaims “I Love You!” in purple bubble letters. My dad has a mustache. I can almost picture my mom, short-haired and with no sign of age lines, holding the camera – an old Cannon contraption that was the size of my head – and saying cheerfully, “Und… lächeln!” …German for “and… smile!” I keep the photo where I can see it every day, as a reminder not to dwell on the past.

Twelve years later, I wonder if the setting of that photo ever truly happened. My memories and the current truth simply don’t coincide. I can remember that the couple sitting behind us had a huge bag of peanuts, and I stared at them until they offered me some. Today, the very smell of peanuts gives me a splitting headache. The Cannon camera has long since been replaced by a digital version, my mom’s hair reaches down to her elbows, and mine has gone from pale blonde to reddish-brown. But it’s deeper than that. The scene I see in my mind’s eye seems more like a barely remembered film – I have a cursory knowledge of the characters, but I don’t truly know any of them… including myself.

About a year after that game – my first and only Red Sox game – my brother was born. Two more years later, my dad visited the doctor for a swollen arm and was diagnosed with cancer. Events seem to blur together, clearing up only long enough to examine them as an archaeologist might examine slides. With every step along the way, I lost more and more of the little girl with the Barney shirt, and became more and more of who I am today.

The week before school started, I was babysitting three children, ages one, six, and nine. At around five PM, there was a knock on the door. I went to answer it, holding the baby on my hip, and was met by a well-dressed man carrying a stack of campaign flyers – some politician or another. He looked at the baby, then at the six and nine year olds standing behind me, smiled and asked, “are you Mom?” as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. My only thought was, good god, do I really look old enough to have a nine year old? Needless to say he left fairly quickly when it turned out I was only the sixteen-year-old babysitter; unfortunately, he got the wheels turning in my mind. Later, when the kids were whining about having to go to bed, I couldn’t help myself.

“You don’t know how lucky you have it,” I told them. “You have someone who will actually tell you when you have to go to bed. I’m happy if I can go to bed by ten with all the homework I get.”

I saw their eyes widen at the suggestion of such an unearthly hour. “When we have too much homework, Mom lets us do it in the morning!” Sierra, the oldest, exclaimed.
I nodded. “You’re lucky your parents still help you make those decisions. The older you get, the more you’ll have to do on your own. You’ll make mistakes, and you’ll learn – but there’s so much more responsibility. Growing up isn’t fun and games at all.”

I think the idea was too hard for them to grasp at their age – but I’d finally put into words how I felt, and it all made sense. In that photograph from twelve years ago, life was one big adventure. I didn’t even understand baseball, but that didn’t matter – Daddy liked the Red Sox, so I did, too! At sixteen, the world is no longer filled with sunshine and roses. My dad – now an avid Yankees fan – is not exactly a positive parental figure in my life. He hasn’t had a mustache since he lost all his hair to chemo therapy, and he hasn’t had much interest in his daughter, either. Back then, all I wanted was to be sixteen, drive a cool car, and have all the fun I could possibly have. Instead, I’m sixteen, drive an Oldsmobile, and have about six hours of homework on any given day. I could care less about Barney-related merchandise, though I care very much about having good grades. Back then, I wanted to be an Olympic softball player – today I love track and field to the point of obsession.

How could so much change so fast? I think about how I still live and die with the Sox, while my dad loves the Yankees, and I wonder who really changed more. I wanted to be just like my dad – now, I think of him as an example of how I don’t want to be. The greatest irony is that back then all I wanted was to be where I am now, and now I would give almost anything to win back lost time. Many adults joke that teenagers think they know everything, but it’s really not true – I think we’re just trying to come to terms with what we know and believe. At this point in life, our treasure trove of innocence is declining fast, and we’re looking everywhere for ways to compensate.

Yet where would I be if I had remained so naïve forever? The learning experience may be worth the loss. I’ve learned what it means to apply determination and skill to a seemingly impossible task and successfully complete it. I’ve learned that the little things in life are the things that define a good day or a bad one. I’ve learned you should never eat Skittles and Nerds at the same time, and that you really can develop a peanut allergy; I’ve learned that it’s not a good idea to dive head first into the water if you don’t know what’s on the bottom - literally or figuratively. I know that sometimes, it’s not how hard you try, but how well you can relax and “just do it” that really makes a difference. I’ve been in love, been unlucky, and discovered that you really can find someone new. I can’t name a single person crazier than I am, and am infinitely proud of it. But through it all, I still wish that every now and then, I could take the weight of maturity off my shoulders for a while. When we’re younger, we think everything is black and white, and there are only right and wrong decisions - but we learn that every decision has a little bit of good and a little bit of pain.
Life was so much easier when Mommy and Daddy had all the answers, boys still had cooties, and the biggest decision we had to make was who to sit with at the lunch table. If only we had realized back then how lucky we truly were… if we had known how precious our innocence was, we could have made the best of it while it lasted instead of constantly, feverishly wanting to grow up.

The Thinker

The trees passed slowly by outside her window, blurring into shapes of green and grey. She let her eyes drift slowly out of focus as her thoughts began to run wild, and she felt the tears well up gradually. Not that she had a specific reason to cry – they were just the tears that always seemed to want to spill whenever she let herself think deeply about anything.

“So, what are we thinking about?” asked a voice to her left, pulling her out of her ponderings. She blinked hastily and answered without turning her head.

“I’m thinking about how much I’d like to run sometimes.” He voice was quieter and shakier than she’d intended, and her words surprised her more than him. “When the world just kind of opens up and invites you to explore it, but there’s always so much holding you back.”

Beside her, Pat laughed quietly. “Apparently I let you think for a little too long.”
She gave a little smile and finally turned around. “I’ve been thinking a little too much lately anyway, so maybe I should be thanking you.”

He shrugged. “However you wanna put it.” He lowered his voice. “Are things difficult at home again?”

She grimaced and shrugged. “Not as bad as they could be. I just feel a little caged up this time of year.”

Pat looked past her out of the window. “So you wanna run away?”

She shook her head, not sure how to explain it. She didn’t usually share her thoughts like this, and it was an odd feeling. “No…. It’s just always been a dream of mine to hit the road and travel – to be completely free, dependent on nothing but yourself and what you wanna do with your life.”

“Where do you wanna go?”

She smiled. “Anywhere and everywhere, until I run out of destinations.” She grinned at his face. “I guess I’ve got gypsy blood in my veins.”

He still looked surprised. “Do you normally talk like this on the bus ride home, or am I just experiencing one of your ‘moods’?”

“I didn’t have my daily dose of chocolate.” She laughed dryly. “This is why people try to never deprive me of sugar.”

“I can see that.” Pat handed her a CD player. “Might I suggest music as a replacement?”

“Sure.” She put on the headphones and turned up the volume, only to smile as the familiar and soothing voice of Eric Clapton filler her ears. She leaned her head back and relaxed, letting the sound wash over her, and the next thing she knew Pat was shaking her awake as the bus arrived back at school.

Perils of a Leaf

Possibly the prologue for a little hisorical fiction story, if I have the motivation to keep it going, but it can stand on its own.

~*~

A weak breeze was the only thing that moved in the serenity of the cold fall afternoon. Slowly, tentatively, it took flight, reaching out with gentle fingers. An oak leaf, haphazardly thrown to the ground, gradually fell prey to the gentle prodding, lifting itself slowly and waving once, twice, three times in response.

Emboldened, the shapeless wanderer tugged and prodded more, and the leaf reluctantly took flight, describing a swirling pattern above the untouched roadway. Overhead, the trees rustled indignantly, and the wind blew back in teasing response. This extra exertion was a bit too much, and the breeze tumbled in upon itself, dropping the leaf back unto the packed earth for new hands to excite.

But now, suddenly, the subtle stillness was shattered by an altogether new noise. Like a fierce gale, a loud, screaming wail erupted overhead, growing louder, the fainter, then louder again, and always punctuated by shots and explosions. The trees shook furiously, indignant at this latest disturbance. Moved by an unexplainable force of terror, the abandoned leaf turned itself over as if to hide its face from the danger.

And then, in an avalanche of noise and fire and metal, an object crashed through the tops of the trees, tearing down branches and leaves as it went. The shape grew larger and larger, bearing down, until with an earsplitting crash it collided forcefully with the ground. Dirt flew in all directions, and the tree trunks shook madly. For an instant, chaos reigned – and then all, again, was still. Flames sputtered and died. Somewhere nearby, the little leaf fell, once again, to the ground.

Clash

I hate mornings. They’re always the same. I wake up to one of my parents yelling that I have ten minutes to get my butt in the car. I get up, brush my teeth, get dressed, put on the minimal amount of makeup I wear, and eat breakfast on my way out the door. Somewhere near the end of that process, my brain starts to kick in and I begin to resemble a conscious human being. However, there are times when that happens a bit too late, leaving me with minor – or sometimes even major – fiascos. The funniest stunt I ever pulled, however, was near the beginning of seventh grade. My family moved to Maine the summer before, and my dad got a job as the gym teacher for a tiny, out-of-the-way school in Palermo. Aside from the fact that I’d always thought Palermo was in Sicily, I absolutely didn’t fit in at a place where most people knew each other since they were in diapers. I was… eccentric, for lack of a better word, but mostly, I didn’t care. The way I saw it, I was from Europe – that alone gave me leeway to be different. I also wasn’t very used to public school – having been homeschooled for the better part of my school career – so I just wasn’t used to concepts such as always looking your best. My common method was to simply grab whatever clothes were within reach, make sure they matched somewhat, and throw them on. Sadly, in my state of semi-somnic unawareness, that wasn’t always the best plan.

I opened my closet, kicking a pile of clothes out of the way. Reaching in tiredly, I grabbed the first pair of pants I found: my plaid slacks. Something in the back of my mind protested, but I wasn’t awake enough to notice. The pants were clean, they were comfy, and I just happened to like plaid (another fact that slipped my mind was that this did NOT apply to clothing). From the upper shelf, I selected a long sleeved black shirt to match. Finally, I stared at my pile of sweaters. Let’s see… brown, black, or white, maybe even red… aha! Right on top of the pile, in perfectly corresponding colors, was my brown and black striped turtleneck sweater. Ideal. Now for a cup of coffee….

Someone must have really hated me that day. I put on my jacket before getting in the car, and conveniently, no one saw me before I did. It was only when I was out on the playground before school started, sitting lazily on the tire swing, and discarded my jacket that consciousness hit me forcefully, by way of April’s voice.

“Um… Anna? Why are you wearing plaid and stripes?”

Oh….



I wish I could say that I learned my lesson and fit in a little better after that incident. However, being me – that dangerously deranged German girl – there really wasn’t much hope for that. I did avoid any further wardrobe fiascos - I discovered it was better to choose an outfit the night before – besides the intentional one, when I cheerfully re-played the event on Mismatch Day. But I suppose I’m doomed to always appear more or less eccentric. It’s just how I am. I striped heart and a plaid mind. Just your average oxymoron.

Stargazing

The darkness is so heavy that I can’t see anything as I stumble outside. After the bustle inside, it is so quiet that my ears pound in surprise. Lights float in front of my eyes from the brightness I just left, and I close them, letting the sound of the trees guide me. I walk slowly, the dew on the grass soaking my bare feet, shivering as the cool night breeze hits my arms. I finally open my eyes, and immediately my gaze drifts upward. Millions upon millions of stars are visible in the moonless sky. I draw a deep breath and lie down slowly, mesmerized.

I don’t know how much time passes before I hear soft footsteps, and a gentle voice. “There’s so many of them.” I break into a small smile. I should have known he would find me.

“I know,” I whisper. “They’re so beautiful.” I turn to look at him, my eyes – now accustomed to the dark – finding his silhouette against the sky. He is standing several feet away, and he catches my gaze with a smile I just barely see in the darkness. I tilt my head to one side, and his look becomes questioning. I laugh quietly and pat the grass beside me, and he lies down almost shyly. I rest my head on his shoulder. He takes my hand. Both of our glances turn back to the stars.

“Look, there’s Orion,” he says, pointing above the trees to the north.

I nod before pointing more towards the west. “There’s the Centaur,” I whisper. “And there,” I point northeast, “is the Cassiopeia Crown.” I can sense his smile without looking. “I’ve always loved the stars.” For some reason, my voice breaks at this.

He nods, not noticing. “Me too,” he says quietly.

“I used to always dream I could fly into space and find a paradise where I could stay forever,” I say, just barely audible. “I know it’s silly. I wanted to spread my wings and fly for the biggest, brightest star out there, just to see where it would take me. I wanted to see for myself that there were other galaxies besides our own, to know if there was an end to the universe or not. And if there was, I wanted to find somewhere, as close to there as possible, where I could just be myself and be free.” My voice breaks again, and my eyes feel strangely hot and moist. He squeezes my hand wordlessly – a gesture that says more than words ever could. I squeeze back, then reach over and give him an awkward one-armed hug. He laughs quietly. “I love you,” I whisper.

He puts his arm around my shoulders and pulls me closer to him. “I love you, too.”

~*~

This little story is inspired by two different songs and a bit of real-life experience mixed in. Hope you like it... please leave a comment!

About

Hey there!

So, having made a poetry blog, I decided it was time for a prose blog. So here it is: the companion to Lieder Des Herzens, Seelen Symphonien.

Lieder des Herzens - Songs of the Heart
Seelen Symphonien - Soul Symphonies

Here, I will post little short stories as they pop into my head - sometimes frequently, sometimes not for six months. As with poetry, I tend to embellish any story that's based on real life - but unlike my poetry, most of them aren't, so we're all set.

If you're looking for frequent updates, this is not the blog for you.

~Nen~