ClumsyMonkey.net

"A Lifetime" Short Story-- dig it, yo!

Show off your art.
A pop-up book of flowers from grade 4 are driving her insane...

"A Lifetime" Short Story-- dig it, yo!

Postby trentm32 » 7/15/2005, 8:31 pm

wrote this today...w00t!


"A Lifetime"

The rain was coming down in torrents. Chance shivered with the cold. She always shivered. Even in this sweltering summer, she seemed to find herself chilled to the bone. Her dark black hair was matted to her face, sticking tightly to her thin nightgown. The water slid down off the soaked cloth with such motion that it seemed as if she were glistening. Her bare feet made tiny splashes as she swayed slowly; back and forth, back and forth, to the melody in her head. She had been singing that same song, along with Jake, just the day before.

“…and you were standing on the hood of the car, singing out loud when the sun came up, and I know it wasn’t right, but it felt so good…”

Soon she was humming under her breath. Her frail, pale arms swayed slightly with her thin hips. If you didn’t know, you would almost think she were happy. Just a girl; a girl dancing in the rain.

After so many hours, her feet were getting sore. The cold, hard brick was finally starting to cut through her tender soles. She had lost the sense of vertigo from standing up so high. Even twenty stories didn’t seem so far after staring down to the passing cars for so long. She had counted a hundred and seventy-nine cars in the time she’d been standing there.

Every single car seemed to bring that moment back to her mind. She could still hear the sounds—so strong, so strong. The deafening roar, the sound of the world just shattering apart. She could still smell the smells—so strong, so strong. Everything still echoed so clearly through her head. She could see the hundred and eightieth car slowly coming in the distance on the street below.

It had taken hours, but her tears were finally beginning to fade into the water pouring from the heavens. It had been raining since yesterday. She could still barely feel the salt burning on her cheeks. Her eyes were red; they’d been bloodshot for days. She hadn’t slept since… then. Chance desperately spread her arms out to her sides. They hung in the air like tiny feathers; held together by nothing more than string. Her white gown lifted to below her knees. The bottom fell almost to her ankles. It tickled her calves.

Chance raised her eyes up toward the sky. She’d been looking for stars all night—she still hadn’t found any. She could just barely make out the full moon through the clouds. The rain drops lay heavy on her eyelids. She finally shut them and let out a sigh.

It was in this moment, just like every time she had blinked since then, that it all began playing again. Like a black and white film, crackling through her mind. When she remembered it, she saw everything from the outside. It all happened in slow motion.

The story never seemed to just play that moment—it would never just start there, and be over. It would begin that morning. That happy, happy morning. With the sun slicing though the old window blinds; illuminating the light layer of stale dust that always seemed to drift through Chance’s room. The last sincere smile that would ever cross her lips escaped that morning. It came as Jake stepped into the room. Coffee and donuts in hand. She could see the content ness in his eyes—the world was perfect, just being with her. She knew he found the same look in her face.

Chance yawned, and stealthily shifted her blanket over her mouth, to hide the morning breath she feared she would have.

“I thought you would forget,” she couldn’t hide the giddiness in her voice. At this Jake leaned down, gently pulled the blanket away from Chance’s face, and kissed her good morning. She blushed, and yanked the blanket back up to under her nose.

“How could I forget the anniversary of our first date?” he asked, handing her a cup of coffee and a chocolate covered donut.

“My favorite!” she cheerily yawned, taking an overly small, girlish bite before sipping on her coffee.

‘It’s amazing how that moment can feel like a lifetime ago’, she thought—standing high above the world, still counting cars as they drifted slowly along below her. The people at the hospital thought she had gone home. She had wanted to, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t make herself. She had been at home yesterday. She had been there a lifetime ago.

“So—what is your grand plan to impress me, today; might I ask?” Chance jokingly questioned Jake, as they drove down the same roads they had driven down a million times before.

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Jake coyly replied, slowly slipping his hand into his pant pocket, to make sure he still had the ring he had spent the last three months working to pay the first payment on. After a few more miles, Chance began to catch on to their destination.

“Ohh! Are we going to the park?!” Jake finally cracked a smile too wide to even try to hide.

“Well, it is where we had our first date—if you’ll remember,” he jokingly shot back. Chance rolled her eyes.

“You’re so sweet!” At this she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek as he made the way to the park across town. He could still remember that night, a year ago today; he felt like the luckiest guy in the world just to be with her. He still did.

Tears began to flow down Chance’s cheeks again. She thought she would have run out by now, but sorrow seemed to be an untamable fuel. The salt began to burn on her pale face yet again. Smeared mascara surrounded her eyes, turning what were once beautiful pools of blue into hollow bloodshot craters.

They had been walking for close to an hour, and Chance didn’t have a clue as to where Jake was taking her.

“Are we there yet?” she jokingly wined, sliding her hand into his; letting his motions guide her along.

“Almost, Chance—I swear,” at this he stopped, turned around, and kissed her on the lips. She couldn’t help but beam a smile. After a few more moments, Jake turned the last corner to where he was going.

“Ohh my God! It’s so beautiful!” Chance almost squealed, taken aback by the sheer awesomeness of what she was seeing. A large rock jutted from the mountain, and looking off you could see, in every direction, all the way to the horizon. It felt like the top of the world.

“I found this place a couple of months ago when I came up here for a walk. It’s something isn’t it?” Chance barely heard him talking, her jaw was still hanging open, taking in the scene. Jake took this time to clumsily slide his hand into his pocket, and pull out the ring. When he took her hand, Jules finally turned around. He had never seen her eyes so wide as when he lowered down onto one knee, his hand weakly shaking in hers.

“Chance… will you marry me?” he finally said. Hanging so strong to every breath she took, waiting for something, anything to happen. It only took seconds for her to join him on his knees, an excited “Yes!” slipping out of her mouth, as she kissed him. As she kissed her fiancée. As she kissed the love of her life.

By now, Chance was screaming at the heavens. It didn’t make sense, nothing made sense. Tragedy, comedy, God, the fates—nothing. She was beginning to shake again from the cool of the rain.

They spent the rest of the afternoon on that rock, together. There was no telling how long they were there.

“We probably need to start back before it gets dark,” Jake finally said, taking every ounce of his strength he had to end the moment. To take the first step at turning this day from present to past. On the drive back, they rolled down all the windows in the car, and turned the radio up as loud as it would go. They sang along, together, to every song.

“…and your mother didn’t mind, like I thought she would, and that R.E.M. song was playing in my mind, and three and a half minutes…”

She loved driving his car; it went so fast, it moved so smoothly. She slowly lifted her hands from the steering wheel and let one drift in the wind outside, and with the other she pulled Jake to her to kiss him. The shriek of squealing brakes, the shattering of broken glass, and the scent of burning fuel and rubber were the last things she could remember, until she woke up on the ground, having been thrown by the force. She looked everywhere, but she knew she was lying there alone.

By now the humming under her breath had evolved into singing, as she finally took that final step into the air.

“…felt like a lifetime.”
"When looking up there, I just felt whole, like I belonged. Like one day I too would shine my most brilliant. Sitting there also made me think about sitting through services at my little country church back home. About that never-changing congregation of the same sixty-seven people and everyone has known you since before you were born. Now, out here in the real world, everything just seemed more vivid than when I used to sit in that little pew. That pew that was now so, so far away from where I was. I feared I had somehow left God behind there, too. I feared he was somehow just sitting there, saving my seat on the fifth pew from the front row, just waiting on me to come back. I left so quickly, I worried that he may not have noticed I was gone. And, now, I’m just too far away to find. So he’s just sitting there, patiently waiting on me to come back. I closed my eyes and prayed a moment. I hoped more than anything that he could still hear me." -an excerpt from my novella, A Sea of Fallen Leaves.

<a href="http://www.soundthesirens.com">SoundTheSirens.com</a>
User avatar
trentm32
Oskar Winner: 2005
Oskar Winner: 2005
 
Posts: 2272
Joined: 3/17/2002, 2:51 pm
Location: my heart is in New York.

Re: "A Lifetime" Short Story-- dig it, yo!

Postby christa lynn » 7/18/2005, 10:59 pm

Very very good!

trentm32 wrote:When he took her hand, Jules finally turned around.

The Jules/Chance mix is a typo I suppose?
this message brought to you by: astronerds inc. - come to us for all your astro/physics/math curiosities
User avatar
christa lynn
Oskar Winner: 2006
Oskar Winner: 2006
 
Posts: 672
Joined: 3/19/2002, 2:40 pm
Location: UBC

Postby trentm32 » 7/21/2005, 12:22 pm

*blushes*

yeah, my bad; had Jules on my mind! :P
"When looking up there, I just felt whole, like I belonged. Like one day I too would shine my most brilliant. Sitting there also made me think about sitting through services at my little country church back home. About that never-changing congregation of the same sixty-seven people and everyone has known you since before you were born. Now, out here in the real world, everything just seemed more vivid than when I used to sit in that little pew. That pew that was now so, so far away from where I was. I feared I had somehow left God behind there, too. I feared he was somehow just sitting there, saving my seat on the fifth pew from the front row, just waiting on me to come back. I left so quickly, I worried that he may not have noticed I was gone. And, now, I’m just too far away to find. So he’s just sitting there, patiently waiting on me to come back. I closed my eyes and prayed a moment. I hoped more than anything that he could still hear me." -an excerpt from my novella, A Sea of Fallen Leaves.

<a href="http://www.soundthesirens.com">SoundTheSirens.com</a>
User avatar
trentm32
Oskar Winner: 2005
Oskar Winner: 2005
 
Posts: 2272
Joined: 3/17/2002, 2:51 pm
Location: my heart is in New York.


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 9 guests

Delete all board cookies • All times are UTC - 6 hours • PHPBB Powered

Serving Our Lady Peace fans since 2002. Oskar Twitch thanks you for tasting the monkey brains.