I rather like this one. New characters make me happy. And give me words. :)
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Piper saw the sunlight on the horizon and thought it was fire. Before last night, she’d always thought her worst fear was drowning. Wrong. It was fire. The crackling noise still writhed and sizzled in her ears, mixed with her mother’s sobs and Baylor’s terrified screams…
She’d been walking for just over four hours, and was frankly surprised she hadn’t yet fallen over dead. Her legs felt like water… water… Water would be nice. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth like she’d just downed a particularly syrupy mug of drinking chocolate. What she wouldn’t give for some drinking chocolate right now…
The true stupidity of Piper’s plight hit her that moment. Where was she going? What did she plan to do? For all she knew she could be waltzing into enemy territory, just begging to get herself killed. The wisest plan would be to make for the next closest city to Iretum—if she only knew what that city was, or how to find it. She cursed her own ignorance of the world around her. Why hadn’t they mentioned this in Current Events class? What to do when a war breaks out in your hometown and you end up stranded in the wilderness. She couldn’t remember any lesson like that.
Distracted, Piper began to notice the ground grow softer and softer beneath her feet. She could scarcely bear to get her hopes up… could it be that the soil was growing darker, richer? Could it be Nitro dirt? Could she be lucky enough to come across a city so quickly ? She looked up, and the sight tore her hope to shreds. It was a pool of water surrounded by tall grass. She thought it was called a lake—there was an artificial one for swimming in the middle of town. Her shoes squelched in the now nearly liquid ground, trying to stick behind in the mud.
As she came to the edge, she cringed at her reflection in the water. Her once perfectly straight black hair hung in wild mats around her face, and dark circles lounged lazily under her tired green eyes. There was a cut on her cheek that she hadn’t even felt before; she was sure from the looks of it that it would leave a nasty scar. The shoulder of her navy blue blouse had been ripped clean away, leaving her entire right arm exposed to the elements.
Scooping some water from the lake, she brushed it over her face in an attempt to get clean. It felt so good that she considered slipping completely into the water and giving herself a full bath, but she was only a few hours into her journey. She wouldn’t yet sink so low as to bathe like a Backwinder. She cupped more of the water into her hands and took a sip, and her parched tongue thanked her profusely. It wasn’t water from the city, not even close. Flecks of dirt tinted it a light brown, but it tasted decent enough, and it would keep her going at least a little longer. Recharged, she stood up and stretched, feeling the tension in her limbs. She couldn’t remember ever being this tired before.
Yawning widely, she turned around to find herself at the end of a gun. She gasped.
“Where do you think you’re going, Green Eyes?” the boy asked.
He looked older than her, but not by much. His eyes hid beneath his cap, masking any emotion she could have deciphered. All she could make out was a clenched jaw and reddish hair, about the color of Branson’s, peaking out from under the hat. His uniform, however, said everything she needed to know. It was brown with brass buttons, and on the breast was a book encircled with laurel leaves.
He was a Backwinder. She cursed herself for letting him sneak up on her like that. If it weren’t for her stupid ear…
“Just let me go,” she said, trying to brush past. “Just let me go and I’ll pretend I never saw you.”
“And what good would that do me?” He held the gun steady. “What side are you on?”
“My own side,” she said bitterly. The point lowered from her heart to around her belly area.
“Care to elaborate?”
“Not really,” she replied in defiance. This boy didn’t plan to hurt her. She could feel it in the tone of his voice; in the way he carried himself. Somehow, someway, he was just as lost as she was, and nobody willingly gives up a kindred spirit.
He lifted the bill of his cap, so she could see his eyes. They were chocolate brown, and they looked sad. A large scar on his left cheek marred most of his face. “Fair enough,” he said. “Ask you no questions, you’ll tell me no lies.”
“That’s about right.” She shifted her feet. “Will you put that thing down? It’d be a lot easier to have a pleasant conversation without death staring me in the face every waking minute.”
He lowered the gun and strapped it back into the carrier on his back. “What’s your name, Green Eyes?”
“Does it really matter?”
“It’d make it a lot easier to have a pleasant conversation.”
She raised her eyebrows in amusement. “Piper. Piper Conrad.”
“Patrick Blue.” He extended a hand. She eyed it for a moment, not sure whether she trusted him or not.
“Where are the rest of your people?” she asked.
“My regiment?” She nodded soundlessly, never taking her eyes from his face. His eyes shifted, refusing to meet hers. “Not here. That’s all I can say.”
So he was a deserter. She glanced at the pack on his back. It probably contained food and water, and maybe even some kind of portable shelter or a compass. She couldn’t make it around her on her own, that much she knew. She needed an ally. His hand was still extended.
“I don’t bite,” he said.
She took his hand, and he shook it firmly. “Nice to meet you.”
“What’re you doing way out here?” She could feel his eyes staring into her, noticing her civilian clothes. “Whichever side you’re on, you’re old enough to be in the army, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I’m sixteen and I’m half deaf, okay?” She thought of the boy back at the station. Maybe this boy wanted to believe she was a deserter too. She refused to be thought of as a coward.
He could tell he had touched a nerve. “Alright, alright, I didn’t mean anything by it. Just trying to figure you out.”
“I thought you had decided not to kill me.”
“Yeah, but while I’m here I might as well decide whether or not it’s worth it to stick around.”
“Oh, thanks,” she said sarcastically.
“It would be pretty pointless for me, you have to admit,” he said. “You have no resources, not much stealth, and a very poor sense of your surroundings.”
How dare he come along and tell her all the things she was doing wrong? He must have seen the offended look on her face. “Come on, don’t take it personally. You have to admit you weren’t exactly being careful. I could have shot you before you even knew I was there.”
“Yeah, well, why didn’t you? Take pity on the poor little lost girl, put her out of her misery.”
“Are you determined to hate me or something?”
“Look, you don’t even know what I’ve been through in the last twenty-four hours. I hate the world right now. I don’t expect you to understand.” And your uniform doesn’t help your cause, she thought.
He paused for a minute and looked at her thoughtfully.
“I watched my father die when I was twelve years old. Shot by National officials. Try me.”
He was lying. The Nation didn’t kill people unless they deserved it.
“Just go away,” she said.
“Look, Green Eyes—“
“Quit calling me that,” she said tersely.
“Whatever. Piper. Bottom line is you can’t make it on your own. We both know it. Even if you stayed here, with plenty of water, in three weeks you need food if you want to live.” He pulled a brown package out of his pack and opened it. The scent wafted over into Piper’s nostrils: beef jerky. The peppery scent made her mouth water. “Plus, I dare say you want to go somewhere, even if you don’t know where somewhere is. Come with me. I can help you. I’ll get you wherever you need to go and then I’ll leave you alone. You never have to see me again.”
Every cell of Piper’s brain told her not to trust the boy. Alliance with a Backwinder, even for the very best reasons, meant treason. In the end, though, it depended which she valued more: the Nation and the Diviner, or her own life.
And in the end, her life won out.
Maybe I can become a spy, she thought. Win the war for the Nation. Any justification she could find helped.
“Fine,” she said. The boy smiled, looking very unsoldier-like. He needed to be careful if he was going to keep up his image. He wasn’t nearly as frightening when he smiled. He began walking away from the lake.
“Wait!” she called, running after him. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know,” he replied with a wry smile on his face.
“What!?”
“I. Don’t. Know.” The twinkle in his eyes made him look like he was playing a very amusing joke on her. She hated him. With every fiber of her being she loathed this smug, arrogant, manipulative liar of a Backwinder who had lured her into this trap. She planted her feet in the cool mud.
“I’m not moving until you tell me where we’re going.” He turned around to look at her, his eyes boring into hers like bullets. They weren’t angry or unfriendly, by any means, but she had the strangest sensation that he was staring straight into the depths of her soul.
“You really don’t know how the world works, do you?” he asked with a slight edge to his tone. “I’m helping you out of the kindness of my heart. It’s no skin off my nose if you decide not to come. In fact, it would make things a lot easier for me. You’re not going to be any help and you’re just another mouth to feed. Stay here if you want. I really don’t care.”
“Then why did you offer to help me in the first place?” she retorted, more frustrated than ever. “You obviously don’t want to. Are you just going to take me straight to your Backwinder general? String me up as a spy or something? I can tell you, I don’t know anything. You’re not going to get anything out of me, so you might as well just save yourself the trouble. You could get demoted for going to all this trouble for no information.”
He paused for a moment. “So that’s what side you’re on.” Almost as a reflex, Piper clapped her hand over her mouth. She had probably just ruined any chance she’d had for survival. To her own surprise, tears welled up in her eyes. “My mother died last night. And my little brother. He was only five years old.”
His cold eyes softened. “I’m sorry.”
“YOU SHOULD BE!” she screamed at him, lashing out with every emotion left inside her fragile body. “Your people, it’s all their fault! You! This cause you’re fighting for is murdering five-year-old boys over a stupid BOOK!” She wanted to hit him, do something to retaliate, to avenge Baylor and her mother, to play the hero for just a moment, but she didn’t have the strength. Against her will, she fell to the ground, as if the full weight of the last few days had finally landed on her shoulders, and she didn’t have the strength to bear it.
He didn’t touch her. He simply spoke.
“War isn’t a pretty thing, is it? People seem to think it’s a romantic cause, ‘fighting for the Diviner, bringing honor to your country.’ Maybe those causes are legitimate, I don’t know. Maybe war is an essential part of life, maybe sometimes it has to happen. But any war that crosses that civilian line has gone too far. That’s when it stops being noble.”
She gritted her teeth and looked up at him, trying to regain a little dignity. She hated appearing this weak. “What are you, a politician?”
“Hey, it’s a free country. I have the right to express my opinions. Although being a National you wouldn’t exactly understand the whole free country thing.” He turned around and started walking away.
She let him go for a few minutes, sobbing into her knees and simply hearing the squelching of his feet in the mud. Soon it disappeared as his feet trod on drier and drier ground. She looked up. He was already several yards away. She hated herself for being upset, hated herself for wanting to trust him…
“Wait,” she said almost in a whisper, so low she knew he couldn’t hear her. “Hey, wait!” she called, much louder than before. She got to her feet and dashed after him, and found him standing still.
“You coming, or not? You better make up your mind right here. You can’t keep slowing me down like this.”
“I’m coming,” she said. “I don’t really have another choice, do I?”
“No, I don’t suppose you do.” He gave her another pointed look and turned around again, walking out toward the horizon.
And this time, she followed him.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
An interlude, or, my lousy attempt at a subplot
If I figure out how to make this subplot make sense, it'll be pretty sweet. Right now... it stinks. Honestly, it's only here for word count, not that it's very many words. But that's ok. The next chapter is pretty good. Wait for it.
*Note: the italics indicate that it's separate and apart from the main action of the story. Just so you're not confused. :)
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Holding her breath, Abigail peered up through the brambles at the blue-clad Union soldier. How could she have known they’d be patrolling this area? They never had in the past. She’d traveled this route many times, delivered the letters with no fear of capture. Someone had betrayed her. That was the only answer. She cursed the unknown traitor under her breath.
“Who’s there?” The soldier’s voice, though stern, gave away his age; he couldn’t be more than twenty-two. Abigail bit her lip. Did she dare take the risk? If it worked, she could get to the rendezvous point easily… but if it didn’t, it would cost her life.
She’d never been one to shy away from danger.
“Please, don’t hurt me. I just want to get back home, and—“
She rose slowly from the bushes, and found herself at the end of a musket. The boy was handsome, with cocoa brown eyes and a chiseled jaw. Perfect. She extracted herself from the thorns, well aware of the gunpoint that followed her every move. “Please, sir. I didn’t know you were, and…” She cupped her hand over her mouth, as if confiding a secret, “I had snuck out to meet my beau. I thought you were my mother.” She laughed a girlish giggle, and tried her best to blush. The musket slowly began to lower.
“Although, truth be told, you’re much more handsome than him.” She drew out the words and placed a dainty hand on his shoulder. “Please, won’t you let me go home? I don’t need any more trouble.”
His stern eyes twinkled at her. “You’re a minx, you are. Run along home, morning glory. Your secret’s safe with me.”
She beamed her best smile at him and kissed his cheek. Freedom at last. She picked up the hem of her skirt and dashed into the darkness. Once she was far enough away she spat on the ground and wiped her mouth, determined to get the dirty Yankee off her lips. How idiotic they were, what backwards views they had of women! How easily they believed in the naivety of a young girl! She patted the hidden pocket of her gown, feeling the parchment of the plans between the folds of fabric. She had three hours to make it to her rendezvous point in New York. If she had anything to say about it, the Confederacy would win this war.
*Note: the italics indicate that it's separate and apart from the main action of the story. Just so you're not confused. :)
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Holding her breath, Abigail peered up through the brambles at the blue-clad Union soldier. How could she have known they’d be patrolling this area? They never had in the past. She’d traveled this route many times, delivered the letters with no fear of capture. Someone had betrayed her. That was the only answer. She cursed the unknown traitor under her breath.
“Who’s there?” The soldier’s voice, though stern, gave away his age; he couldn’t be more than twenty-two. Abigail bit her lip. Did she dare take the risk? If it worked, she could get to the rendezvous point easily… but if it didn’t, it would cost her life.
She’d never been one to shy away from danger.
“Please, don’t hurt me. I just want to get back home, and—“
She rose slowly from the bushes, and found herself at the end of a musket. The boy was handsome, with cocoa brown eyes and a chiseled jaw. Perfect. She extracted herself from the thorns, well aware of the gunpoint that followed her every move. “Please, sir. I didn’t know you were, and…” She cupped her hand over her mouth, as if confiding a secret, “I had snuck out to meet my beau. I thought you were my mother.” She laughed a girlish giggle, and tried her best to blush. The musket slowly began to lower.
“Although, truth be told, you’re much more handsome than him.” She drew out the words and placed a dainty hand on his shoulder. “Please, won’t you let me go home? I don’t need any more trouble.”
His stern eyes twinkled at her. “You’re a minx, you are. Run along home, morning glory. Your secret’s safe with me.”
She beamed her best smile at him and kissed his cheek. Freedom at last. She picked up the hem of her skirt and dashed into the darkness. Once she was far enough away she spat on the ground and wiped her mouth, determined to get the dirty Yankee off her lips. How idiotic they were, what backwards views they had of women! How easily they believed in the naivety of a young girl! She patted the hidden pocket of her gown, feeling the parchment of the plans between the folds of fabric. She had three hours to make it to her rendezvous point in New York. If she had anything to say about it, the Confederacy would win this war.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Chapter 2
Oh, fine. More NaNo. I kind of don't really want to post it anymore, but I suppose I will. The beginning of this chapter is garbage. The middle of this chapter is garbage. The end of this chapter is redeemable garbage. There are already several plot discrepancies. I know. Editing is later. Don't judge me. On the upside, I at least have a plot now and kinda know where I'm going with it. If it makes no sense to you... quit reading. Save yourself from this torture. :)
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Piper never thought she’d see the day when she missed sharing a room with her brother.
The spiraling oak tree, the one responsible for her loneliness, for her deaf ear, scratched at her windowpane with its branches, as if trying to torment her. She was used to Branson’s heavy breathing in the next bed over, and the shrill shriek of wood on glass proved to be much more unsettling. She sat up to let the lateral sensors know she was awake and they should turn on the light. The rays made her eyes ache within seconds, but she knew her chances of sleeping tonight were slim.
Yawning widely, she turned to her bedside table and picked up Nana’s book. She ran her finger over the black letters on the first page again. “1776… Revolution or Evolution?” Her finger left a pile of dust in its wake. She fanned the book through the air and blew on the pages. Finally, she turned the page.
As the first shots of the Revolutionary War flew through the night at Lexington and Concord, no one could have known the impact they would have on the world as a whole. No one could have known that a new nation would be born out of bloody rebellion, and in fact, no one expected it to survive. Such a revolution was unprecedented. Revolutionaries had everything to lose, but everything to gain.
Mother England had oppressed the Patriot colonists enough. They would gain their freedom, or they would die trying.
Piper was vaguely reminded of the current war, the Rebels, the Backwinders… but these Revolutionaries were different. The Backwinders deserved what they were getting, they were dangerous… but the Revolutionaries had been wronged.
The next part was a blur of names she had never heard before… George Washington, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams… she assumed they were the main characters. One of the names very nearly gave her a heart attack—Branson Conrad.
“What?” she said aloud in confusion.
“Of course I was there, sis. You were too.”
She looked up to see Branson standing in front of her. Her brother looked good in his uniform: green for prosperity and change with white buttons for hope. The national symbol, a light bulb surrounded by a wreath made of wires, was stitched on the breast of his jacket.
Jumping up from her bed, Piper ran to her twin and threw her arms around his neck. “You’re back! You’re back, the war’s over! It has to be, right? Oh, you didn’t even have to fight and I was so scared—“
“What are you talking about, twaze?” She laughed at her old nickname, but cocked her head in confusion. “Neither one of us is home. We left this morning, remember?”
She narrowed her eyes in wonderment. “But I couldn’t… my ear… I was just at Nana’s…”
“Nana’s here too,” he said, pointing to the corner of Piper’s room. It was Nana, alright, but over a hundred years younger. Her short white hair had returned to its original reddish brown, every wrinkled had disappeared, and her eyes were more blue than gray. She was more beautiful than Piper had ever seen her, even in the old memographs. She, too, was dressed in uniform.
“Nana would never be in the military… she hates it…”
CRASH.
The house quaked.
“The Backwinders are coming, Piper. With bombs.”
“This isn’t a battlefield, they wouldn’t bomb here.”
CRASH. She gripped Branson’s arm in terror. “Tell me they wouldn’t come here, Branson. Promise me.”
He gave her a sad, knowing look
“TELL ME!” she screamed in panic. “THEY WOULDN’T COME HERE, IT’S A CIVILIAN AREA!” She tried to shake his shoulders, but she wasn’t strong enough. She ran to the window. The neighborhood glowed with firelight as flames consumed the house across the street. CRASH. Dirt clods and wood flew through the air as a third bomb went off. Sirens began to blare.
“NO!” she screamed. “YOU LIAR!” She pointed at Nana. “YOU SAID IT WOULD BE OKAY, YOU SAID IT WOULD BE OVER!”
But before Nana could answer, a piece of the neighbor’s wall flew through the window and hit Piper in the head. The smell of smoke filling her nostrils, she slipped into the darkness…
And awoke in her bed. Thank goodness it was only a dream. She sat up, telling the lateral sensors she was awake… turn off the alarm…
But there was no alarm. It was the sirens.
It was a dream, it was a dream, it had to be another dream!
“SISSY!”
Baylor.
The five year old came running into her room in a panic. He leaped onto her bed and into her arms.
“What are the scary noises?” he shouted, more an exclamation than a question. “They won’t stop!! Make them stop, Sissy!!” He buried his head in her shoulder.
“I don’t know, bud, but it’s going to be okay, okay? We’re going to go get Mom and she’ll know what to do.”
No sooner had she stood up than another CRASH shook the house so violently that the floor shook. She fell with a thud on her back, holding the boy on her chest. He sobbed uncontrollably, screaming through his tears.
“Hush, buddy, it’s ok,” she said, stroking his hair and standing up. She opened the door to her room and entered the hallway toward her mother’s room.
CRASH. Crackle.
She’d never heard the sound before, but she’d been taught about it in Current Events class. Fire. It was orange and red, and sizzled and popped like bacon cooking on an electric stove. And it was dangerous. Very dangerous. Fire.
She steadied Baylor’s head deeper into her shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t see. She couldn’t bear to see the boy anymore frightened. She dashed into her mother’s room to find an empty bed and nothing more.
“PIPER!”
She heard the voice from her room. “PIPER! BAYLOR!” How had they missed each other? She ran back down the hallway to meet a wall of fire.
“MOM! MOM, CAN YOU HEAR ME?” she shouted over the sirens and flames.
“GO! GO TO THE STATION!”
“No,” Piper whispered under her breath. “NO! I’M NOT LEAVING YOU HERE!”
“TAKE BAYLOR!”
Piper looked from the flames to the little boy in her arms. The time for crying was gone, but a lump in her throat kept her from speaking. The flames crackled in a steady rhythm, like the ticking of Nana’s clock... Time’s running out, dear heart…
“I LOVE YOU!” Piper shouted into the flames. She could only hear tears. Fighting her own, she flew down the yet un-scorched stairs and into the darkness.
“It’s okay, Baylor, we’re going to be okay,” she said to the little boy as they stepped into the night air. Though riddled with smoke, it still felt like salvation to her lungs.
Baylor wriggled out of her arms. “MOMMY!” He began to run back toward the house.
It was like watching a clip in Current Events class. She knew exactly what was coming, but felt herself powerless to stop it or react in any way. Her brain tried to force her vocal chords to wake up, to scream. It tried to force her legs to run toward her brother, to scoop him into her arms and save him from what was coming. Maybe fate stopped her. Maybe it was fear.
CRASH.
Piper lost her brother behind a cherry red wall of flame and ash.
Reality kicked in. This wasn’t a film clip. This was her life. A life that had become hell.
“BAYLOR!” She screamed into the inferno, but she heard no answer. She dashed toward the flame, hoping to snatch the boy out of its grasp. She recoiled as her arm grew so hot it was almost cold, and turned red and raw. Frozen to the spot, she watched as her childhood house went up in flames, along with her mother and brother.
There was nothing she could do.
At last she could bear it no longer. So she ran. She ran and ran and ran. She ran to the station. Because if anyone was left, if anyone else had survived this nightmare, that’s where they would be.
The station was the most ominous beacon of hope Piper had ever seen. Sitting in the dead center of the city square, it was formally the station for the Lex cars, but on occasions such as these it had the capacity to hold the entire town. Its reddish copper plated walls glistened in the firelight, as though laughing at the pain and turmoil that could not harm it.
There were at least five hundred people inside, and all of them were silent. The only sound reflecting off the metallic walls was the collective breath of hundreds who were only just learning how to use their lungs again. Piper searched the room for Nana. She couldn’t find her.
I need peace. I’ll be ready whenever my time comes, if sooner or later.
Had Nana known somehow? Had she known this would happen when they talked this afternoon? That seemed so far in the past… and it didn’t matter. She would never know. Nana wouldn’t have left her house, she wouldn’t have run to the station. She wanted to go.
Piper ran to the station door. There was nothing worth staying here for.
“Miss,” one of the Guard said quietly, “miss, I can’t let you go back out there.”
“Then you better turn around,” she said, not even bothering to look at him.
“Let the deserter go,” a boy a little younger than her said with venom in his voice. “She’s not worth anything to us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Thought you were too good for the war, huh? Thought you were too good to fight for the country that’s let you live within its borders for years, you miserable scum? How’d you fool the draft, huh? Lie about your age?”
Piper threw a hand to her ear.
“Shut up.”
“Go, then!” the boy shouted. “Go out there and die! Maybe dying a civilian death can make up for your lack of honor.”
She wanted to throttle him. She wanted to grip his throat in her fist and squeeze the air right out of his lying lungs. But she couldn’t. She hardly had the strength to pull open the door and run into the night.
She didn’t know where she was running. She didn’t really care. All she knew is that the war was over for her, and a new war had begun: Piper versus the world.
How she managed to survive, she wasn’t quite sure. Debris was flying through the air, miraculously missing her. Adrenaline coursed through her veins like a river. All she knew was that she had to keep running. She just had to. After all, what else was left for her?
The copper roads of the city didn’t give her feet as much traction as she would have liked. She looked back on the flames and saw the towering city that had once been her home. The place that had once glowed with hope and love, with her family, with her friends, with life, now glowed with flames and chaos. Once. As in not anymore. She banished the word from her mind.
Finally shadows and moonlight replaced the brightness of the flames, and the crashes of the bombs disappeared. The road beneath her feet stopped abruptly to meet dirt and grass. An owl sang its eerie song somewhere in the distance, as if it could feel the turmoil rising from the bowels of the land. Wind kissed her cheek in a semblance of comfort, but it only brought her pain and loneliness. She, Piper Conrad, was desperately, utterly alone in the world, standing at the edge of the city she had never left.
She struggled with the idea of stepping across the crack between copper and dirt. Copper said strength, conductivity, progress. Dirt said hard work and little result. Only the Backwinders still paid any attention to dirt. And if there was one thing Piper Conrad wasn’t, it was a Backwinder.
The city had always been big enough for her. It had never bothered her that leaving wasn’t allowed. It was for her own good, after all. Society had become so far removed from the surrounding wilderness that it was no longer safe. The stories that circulated amongst schoolchildren had been enough to keep Piper within the city limits. Some of the milder tales contended that only the brave of heart could face the edge of the wilderness, and it was for this reason that the soldiers could leave for their posts. The more gruesome, and probably more truthful, said that the Guard had set a forcefield around the borders to keep unwanted visitors out. Forcefields themselves were the stuff of legend. Nobody was sure exactly what they did to a person, as they had been developed by the Diviner as a top secret military project. Coltrane Thornton’s older brother had once put his hand through a forcefield, and it just disappeared, disintegrated into ash before his very eyes. Or at least that’s what Coltrane Thornton had said.
She had never given much thought to the matter until now, when her very life might be depending on her crossing of this line. She looked back in the direction of the main square. Armies didn’t bomb a city for no reason. At this very moment the Backwinders were probably taking over the city, destroying the control systems, killing whoever was left…
Her stomach turned. She couldn’t go back. Her only option was to move forward.
Shaking in anxiety, she slowly lifted a hand, looking down at the black crack below her. Slowly but surely she moved, placing the tip of her finger at the edge of the line… then a little further… then a little further…
Nothing happened. Perhaps the forcefield had been taken offline by the bombings. Maybe it had never existed at all. Either way, it was safe to cross.
Piper had felt dirt under her feet before, but never like this. The dirt on this side of the line was as hard as the copper, maybe harder, nothing like the soft, rich Nitro dirt found in Nana’s garden or city park. No, this was firm and rocky, and unhealthy, with its milk chocolate hue. Nitro dirt was so enhanced by its various fertilizers and nitrogen pearls that it was almost navy blue in color. The grass outside of town was yellow and brown, not green like Piper’s eyes. She sighed. How did the Backwinders love this degenerate wilderness? They were even more backwards than the people of the city realized.
She tentatively took a few steps on the dry earth, half afraid it would crack open beneath her feet and send her into some dark abyss. Finally she decided it was safe. But what to do now? Her old life was gone, swallowed up in a ball of fire… her new life was yet to be revealed. The Diviner always said in his addresses that they were to “move forward, at all costs…”
So she took a step. And another. And another.
The Diviner, of course, couldn’t really see the future. However, he was said to be the very soul of the nation, the core of patriotism and honor. His primary duty was to lead the country into his vision, to constantly move toward progress and encourage all others to do the same. In a way, Piper supposed, he could see the future: not the specifics, but merely the ideal. The Diviner saw in his mind’s eye the future that he wished to come to pass, and instilled that vision into every mind in the nation. The Backwinders, the rebels, had no Diviner. No Diviner, no vision, no progress, no victory. The Diviner himself often expressed his surprise that the insolent rebels had managed to keep up the war for so long.
Step. Step. Step. Step.
She wondered if the Diviner knew anything about the bombings, if he had foreseen it in his planning. Maybe she herself had been naïve to believe she was safe, to settle into her complacency. Iretum City, her city, was one of the most prominent and progressive in the entire nation. Of course they would want to capture it, destroy it, take out its power lines. Without cities, without progress, without unification, the entire Nation would fall to pieces.
Maybe those Backwinders were smarter than she gave them credit for.
Step. Step. Step. Step.
The war had all started over a book. She was standing here in the wilderness, alone, because of a stupid book.
She’d heard the story told many times. The Diviner himself had come across the journal in the vault of the capitol city. Legend had it the book itself was a record from thousands of years ago, predicting the end of the world. It told of a threat bigger than anything the Nation had ever seen, a black monster coming to consume and destroy the Nation as it had destroyed its predecessors. The journal, of course, was a lie. The Nation had no predecessors. The Nation was as old as time itself.
The Diviner saw the book for what it really was: a hoax. But his assistant begged to differ. The document deserved further consideration, he said. Perhaps it was right. He insisted it held several details that revealed a fascinating world, without electricity. He wished to study it. If it were true, it could proved to be useful.
The Diviner, of course, saw no point in troubling himself with the fictitious tales of a backward society. Such pursuits wasted time that could be spent moving forward, making new innovations, leaving the past behind. Lyman Windross should have known that the Nation could not be destroyed. After all, that was not a part of the Diviner’s vision for his people. It never had been in the past. It never would be in the future.
Lyman Windross should not have challenged the authority of the Diviner. Lyman Windross should not have started a revolution.
One day Windross disappeared, along with the book. The Diviner didn’t boter to pursue him, the rebel scum. He had wiped the man clean from the slate of his mind, until the others started disappearing too. Throngs of people began flocking to the city limits to start new lives in the wilderness, clinging to supposed traditions drug up from their imaginations. The Diviner continued to insist no danger would come to the Nation, but they refused to listen. They hid inside their makeshift camps, hoping that cloth and wood could protect them better than copper and steel. Even as millions of people fled to the outskirts, the Diviner let them be. A few maniacs in a country of five billion people were to be expected.
But they grew. They convinced people of their insanities. They had children and named them bizarre names, some of them names mentioned in the rebel book of lies itself.
Revolution was unprecedented. Never in 2400 years on Earth had any one man dared to rebel against the government, against the Diviner himself. But there they were, two billion Backwinders, stuck in the ways of a world that had never existed. That’s what a Backwinder was, anyway: a miserable, spineless, cowardly worm with not enough courage to face the coming future. Backwinders lived in the past. Backwinders never moved forward. Backwinders only looked back at a fabricated past that gave them comfort, and never planned for what was to come. And the Backwinders, named for Lyman Windross himself, would never win this war. Victory was always part of the Diviner’s vision, and victory had always come to pass.
She stopped to breathe in the night air. Victory would come to the Nation, there was no doubt of that. But that war was over for her. In the war between Piper Conrad and the world, the outcome was yet to be decided.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Piper never thought she’d see the day when she missed sharing a room with her brother.
The spiraling oak tree, the one responsible for her loneliness, for her deaf ear, scratched at her windowpane with its branches, as if trying to torment her. She was used to Branson’s heavy breathing in the next bed over, and the shrill shriek of wood on glass proved to be much more unsettling. She sat up to let the lateral sensors know she was awake and they should turn on the light. The rays made her eyes ache within seconds, but she knew her chances of sleeping tonight were slim.
Yawning widely, she turned to her bedside table and picked up Nana’s book. She ran her finger over the black letters on the first page again. “1776… Revolution or Evolution?” Her finger left a pile of dust in its wake. She fanned the book through the air and blew on the pages. Finally, she turned the page.
As the first shots of the Revolutionary War flew through the night at Lexington and Concord, no one could have known the impact they would have on the world as a whole. No one could have known that a new nation would be born out of bloody rebellion, and in fact, no one expected it to survive. Such a revolution was unprecedented. Revolutionaries had everything to lose, but everything to gain.
Mother England had oppressed the Patriot colonists enough. They would gain their freedom, or they would die trying.
Piper was vaguely reminded of the current war, the Rebels, the Backwinders… but these Revolutionaries were different. The Backwinders deserved what they were getting, they were dangerous… but the Revolutionaries had been wronged.
The next part was a blur of names she had never heard before… George Washington, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams… she assumed they were the main characters. One of the names very nearly gave her a heart attack—Branson Conrad.
“What?” she said aloud in confusion.
“Of course I was there, sis. You were too.”
She looked up to see Branson standing in front of her. Her brother looked good in his uniform: green for prosperity and change with white buttons for hope. The national symbol, a light bulb surrounded by a wreath made of wires, was stitched on the breast of his jacket.
Jumping up from her bed, Piper ran to her twin and threw her arms around his neck. “You’re back! You’re back, the war’s over! It has to be, right? Oh, you didn’t even have to fight and I was so scared—“
“What are you talking about, twaze?” She laughed at her old nickname, but cocked her head in confusion. “Neither one of us is home. We left this morning, remember?”
She narrowed her eyes in wonderment. “But I couldn’t… my ear… I was just at Nana’s…”
“Nana’s here too,” he said, pointing to the corner of Piper’s room. It was Nana, alright, but over a hundred years younger. Her short white hair had returned to its original reddish brown, every wrinkled had disappeared, and her eyes were more blue than gray. She was more beautiful than Piper had ever seen her, even in the old memographs. She, too, was dressed in uniform.
“Nana would never be in the military… she hates it…”
CRASH.
The house quaked.
“The Backwinders are coming, Piper. With bombs.”
“This isn’t a battlefield, they wouldn’t bomb here.”
CRASH. She gripped Branson’s arm in terror. “Tell me they wouldn’t come here, Branson. Promise me.”
He gave her a sad, knowing look
“TELL ME!” she screamed in panic. “THEY WOULDN’T COME HERE, IT’S A CIVILIAN AREA!” She tried to shake his shoulders, but she wasn’t strong enough. She ran to the window. The neighborhood glowed with firelight as flames consumed the house across the street. CRASH. Dirt clods and wood flew through the air as a third bomb went off. Sirens began to blare.
“NO!” she screamed. “YOU LIAR!” She pointed at Nana. “YOU SAID IT WOULD BE OKAY, YOU SAID IT WOULD BE OVER!”
But before Nana could answer, a piece of the neighbor’s wall flew through the window and hit Piper in the head. The smell of smoke filling her nostrils, she slipped into the darkness…
And awoke in her bed. Thank goodness it was only a dream. She sat up, telling the lateral sensors she was awake… turn off the alarm…
But there was no alarm. It was the sirens.
It was a dream, it was a dream, it had to be another dream!
“SISSY!”
Baylor.
The five year old came running into her room in a panic. He leaped onto her bed and into her arms.
“What are the scary noises?” he shouted, more an exclamation than a question. “They won’t stop!! Make them stop, Sissy!!” He buried his head in her shoulder.
“I don’t know, bud, but it’s going to be okay, okay? We’re going to go get Mom and she’ll know what to do.”
No sooner had she stood up than another CRASH shook the house so violently that the floor shook. She fell with a thud on her back, holding the boy on her chest. He sobbed uncontrollably, screaming through his tears.
“Hush, buddy, it’s ok,” she said, stroking his hair and standing up. She opened the door to her room and entered the hallway toward her mother’s room.
CRASH. Crackle.
She’d never heard the sound before, but she’d been taught about it in Current Events class. Fire. It was orange and red, and sizzled and popped like bacon cooking on an electric stove. And it was dangerous. Very dangerous. Fire.
She steadied Baylor’s head deeper into her shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t see. She couldn’t bear to see the boy anymore frightened. She dashed into her mother’s room to find an empty bed and nothing more.
“PIPER!”
She heard the voice from her room. “PIPER! BAYLOR!” How had they missed each other? She ran back down the hallway to meet a wall of fire.
“MOM! MOM, CAN YOU HEAR ME?” she shouted over the sirens and flames.
“GO! GO TO THE STATION!”
“No,” Piper whispered under her breath. “NO! I’M NOT LEAVING YOU HERE!”
“TAKE BAYLOR!”
Piper looked from the flames to the little boy in her arms. The time for crying was gone, but a lump in her throat kept her from speaking. The flames crackled in a steady rhythm, like the ticking of Nana’s clock... Time’s running out, dear heart…
“I LOVE YOU!” Piper shouted into the flames. She could only hear tears. Fighting her own, she flew down the yet un-scorched stairs and into the darkness.
“It’s okay, Baylor, we’re going to be okay,” she said to the little boy as they stepped into the night air. Though riddled with smoke, it still felt like salvation to her lungs.
Baylor wriggled out of her arms. “MOMMY!” He began to run back toward the house.
It was like watching a clip in Current Events class. She knew exactly what was coming, but felt herself powerless to stop it or react in any way. Her brain tried to force her vocal chords to wake up, to scream. It tried to force her legs to run toward her brother, to scoop him into her arms and save him from what was coming. Maybe fate stopped her. Maybe it was fear.
CRASH.
Piper lost her brother behind a cherry red wall of flame and ash.
Reality kicked in. This wasn’t a film clip. This was her life. A life that had become hell.
“BAYLOR!” She screamed into the inferno, but she heard no answer. She dashed toward the flame, hoping to snatch the boy out of its grasp. She recoiled as her arm grew so hot it was almost cold, and turned red and raw. Frozen to the spot, she watched as her childhood house went up in flames, along with her mother and brother.
There was nothing she could do.
At last she could bear it no longer. So she ran. She ran and ran and ran. She ran to the station. Because if anyone was left, if anyone else had survived this nightmare, that’s where they would be.
The station was the most ominous beacon of hope Piper had ever seen. Sitting in the dead center of the city square, it was formally the station for the Lex cars, but on occasions such as these it had the capacity to hold the entire town. Its reddish copper plated walls glistened in the firelight, as though laughing at the pain and turmoil that could not harm it.
There were at least five hundred people inside, and all of them were silent. The only sound reflecting off the metallic walls was the collective breath of hundreds who were only just learning how to use their lungs again. Piper searched the room for Nana. She couldn’t find her.
I need peace. I’ll be ready whenever my time comes, if sooner or later.
Had Nana known somehow? Had she known this would happen when they talked this afternoon? That seemed so far in the past… and it didn’t matter. She would never know. Nana wouldn’t have left her house, she wouldn’t have run to the station. She wanted to go.
Piper ran to the station door. There was nothing worth staying here for.
“Miss,” one of the Guard said quietly, “miss, I can’t let you go back out there.”
“Then you better turn around,” she said, not even bothering to look at him.
“Let the deserter go,” a boy a little younger than her said with venom in his voice. “She’s not worth anything to us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Thought you were too good for the war, huh? Thought you were too good to fight for the country that’s let you live within its borders for years, you miserable scum? How’d you fool the draft, huh? Lie about your age?”
Piper threw a hand to her ear.
“Shut up.”
“Go, then!” the boy shouted. “Go out there and die! Maybe dying a civilian death can make up for your lack of honor.”
She wanted to throttle him. She wanted to grip his throat in her fist and squeeze the air right out of his lying lungs. But she couldn’t. She hardly had the strength to pull open the door and run into the night.
She didn’t know where she was running. She didn’t really care. All she knew is that the war was over for her, and a new war had begun: Piper versus the world.
How she managed to survive, she wasn’t quite sure. Debris was flying through the air, miraculously missing her. Adrenaline coursed through her veins like a river. All she knew was that she had to keep running. She just had to. After all, what else was left for her?
The copper roads of the city didn’t give her feet as much traction as she would have liked. She looked back on the flames and saw the towering city that had once been her home. The place that had once glowed with hope and love, with her family, with her friends, with life, now glowed with flames and chaos. Once. As in not anymore. She banished the word from her mind.
Finally shadows and moonlight replaced the brightness of the flames, and the crashes of the bombs disappeared. The road beneath her feet stopped abruptly to meet dirt and grass. An owl sang its eerie song somewhere in the distance, as if it could feel the turmoil rising from the bowels of the land. Wind kissed her cheek in a semblance of comfort, but it only brought her pain and loneliness. She, Piper Conrad, was desperately, utterly alone in the world, standing at the edge of the city she had never left.
She struggled with the idea of stepping across the crack between copper and dirt. Copper said strength, conductivity, progress. Dirt said hard work and little result. Only the Backwinders still paid any attention to dirt. And if there was one thing Piper Conrad wasn’t, it was a Backwinder.
The city had always been big enough for her. It had never bothered her that leaving wasn’t allowed. It was for her own good, after all. Society had become so far removed from the surrounding wilderness that it was no longer safe. The stories that circulated amongst schoolchildren had been enough to keep Piper within the city limits. Some of the milder tales contended that only the brave of heart could face the edge of the wilderness, and it was for this reason that the soldiers could leave for their posts. The more gruesome, and probably more truthful, said that the Guard had set a forcefield around the borders to keep unwanted visitors out. Forcefields themselves were the stuff of legend. Nobody was sure exactly what they did to a person, as they had been developed by the Diviner as a top secret military project. Coltrane Thornton’s older brother had once put his hand through a forcefield, and it just disappeared, disintegrated into ash before his very eyes. Or at least that’s what Coltrane Thornton had said.
She had never given much thought to the matter until now, when her very life might be depending on her crossing of this line. She looked back in the direction of the main square. Armies didn’t bomb a city for no reason. At this very moment the Backwinders were probably taking over the city, destroying the control systems, killing whoever was left…
Her stomach turned. She couldn’t go back. Her only option was to move forward.
Shaking in anxiety, she slowly lifted a hand, looking down at the black crack below her. Slowly but surely she moved, placing the tip of her finger at the edge of the line… then a little further… then a little further…
Nothing happened. Perhaps the forcefield had been taken offline by the bombings. Maybe it had never existed at all. Either way, it was safe to cross.
Piper had felt dirt under her feet before, but never like this. The dirt on this side of the line was as hard as the copper, maybe harder, nothing like the soft, rich Nitro dirt found in Nana’s garden or city park. No, this was firm and rocky, and unhealthy, with its milk chocolate hue. Nitro dirt was so enhanced by its various fertilizers and nitrogen pearls that it was almost navy blue in color. The grass outside of town was yellow and brown, not green like Piper’s eyes. She sighed. How did the Backwinders love this degenerate wilderness? They were even more backwards than the people of the city realized.
She tentatively took a few steps on the dry earth, half afraid it would crack open beneath her feet and send her into some dark abyss. Finally she decided it was safe. But what to do now? Her old life was gone, swallowed up in a ball of fire… her new life was yet to be revealed. The Diviner always said in his addresses that they were to “move forward, at all costs…”
So she took a step. And another. And another.
The Diviner, of course, couldn’t really see the future. However, he was said to be the very soul of the nation, the core of patriotism and honor. His primary duty was to lead the country into his vision, to constantly move toward progress and encourage all others to do the same. In a way, Piper supposed, he could see the future: not the specifics, but merely the ideal. The Diviner saw in his mind’s eye the future that he wished to come to pass, and instilled that vision into every mind in the nation. The Backwinders, the rebels, had no Diviner. No Diviner, no vision, no progress, no victory. The Diviner himself often expressed his surprise that the insolent rebels had managed to keep up the war for so long.
Step. Step. Step. Step.
She wondered if the Diviner knew anything about the bombings, if he had foreseen it in his planning. Maybe she herself had been naïve to believe she was safe, to settle into her complacency. Iretum City, her city, was one of the most prominent and progressive in the entire nation. Of course they would want to capture it, destroy it, take out its power lines. Without cities, without progress, without unification, the entire Nation would fall to pieces.
Maybe those Backwinders were smarter than she gave them credit for.
Step. Step. Step. Step.
The war had all started over a book. She was standing here in the wilderness, alone, because of a stupid book.
She’d heard the story told many times. The Diviner himself had come across the journal in the vault of the capitol city. Legend had it the book itself was a record from thousands of years ago, predicting the end of the world. It told of a threat bigger than anything the Nation had ever seen, a black monster coming to consume and destroy the Nation as it had destroyed its predecessors. The journal, of course, was a lie. The Nation had no predecessors. The Nation was as old as time itself.
The Diviner saw the book for what it really was: a hoax. But his assistant begged to differ. The document deserved further consideration, he said. Perhaps it was right. He insisted it held several details that revealed a fascinating world, without electricity. He wished to study it. If it were true, it could proved to be useful.
The Diviner, of course, saw no point in troubling himself with the fictitious tales of a backward society. Such pursuits wasted time that could be spent moving forward, making new innovations, leaving the past behind. Lyman Windross should have known that the Nation could not be destroyed. After all, that was not a part of the Diviner’s vision for his people. It never had been in the past. It never would be in the future.
Lyman Windross should not have challenged the authority of the Diviner. Lyman Windross should not have started a revolution.
One day Windross disappeared, along with the book. The Diviner didn’t boter to pursue him, the rebel scum. He had wiped the man clean from the slate of his mind, until the others started disappearing too. Throngs of people began flocking to the city limits to start new lives in the wilderness, clinging to supposed traditions drug up from their imaginations. The Diviner continued to insist no danger would come to the Nation, but they refused to listen. They hid inside their makeshift camps, hoping that cloth and wood could protect them better than copper and steel. Even as millions of people fled to the outskirts, the Diviner let them be. A few maniacs in a country of five billion people were to be expected.
But they grew. They convinced people of their insanities. They had children and named them bizarre names, some of them names mentioned in the rebel book of lies itself.
Revolution was unprecedented. Never in 2400 years on Earth had any one man dared to rebel against the government, against the Diviner himself. But there they were, two billion Backwinders, stuck in the ways of a world that had never existed. That’s what a Backwinder was, anyway: a miserable, spineless, cowardly worm with not enough courage to face the coming future. Backwinders lived in the past. Backwinders never moved forward. Backwinders only looked back at a fabricated past that gave them comfort, and never planned for what was to come. And the Backwinders, named for Lyman Windross himself, would never win this war. Victory was always part of the Diviner’s vision, and victory had always come to pass.
She stopped to breathe in the night air. Victory would come to the Nation, there was no doubt of that. But that war was over for her. In the war between Piper Conrad and the world, the outcome was yet to be decided.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Chapter 1... the madness continues.
I LOVE THIS. I love being able to write absolute garbage and be unashamed. Ok, I'm a little ashamed of parts of it, but it's a journey! Editing happens in December. :) Soo.... Chapter 1. Enjoy. (Also, if you have any plot ideas you'd like to share with me... I'd love to take them off your hands. 'Cause I have, like, two. :] )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Piper watched from her bedroom window as the fleet of helicopters took off from the launch field. Daddy was gone, just like always, but Branson was sixteen now. Branson was gone too.
And she’d be with them, if it weren’t for her stupid ear.
She remembered the day all too well, even though she had only been six years old. It was the old tree’s fault, in the end. It had been too inviting, too enticing, too easy to climb. Its limbs were strong and sturdy and low to the ground, spiraling upwards as effortlessly as a fancy staircase.
Branson refused to climb, but he’d always been the more reserved of the two. They were just about as different as twins could be: fraternal and completely opposite in temperament. Often neighbors refused to believe they were related. Branson was the image of their father, with blue eyes and red hair that desperately wanted to be brown. Piper, however, received the look of her mother: pale and somewhat thin, with stick-straight dark hair and “eyes like emeralds.” That’s what she’d always been told, anyway. She didn’t know if she believed them, as nobody around here had seen an emerald since before the war, which was a very long time ago.
“Don’t, Piper,” her brother said as she placed a foot on the first limb. “You can’t climb that high.”
Piper merely bit her lip and glared at her brother. Anything Piper supposedly “couldn’t do” became an immediate goal. Branson may have inherited Daddy’s looks, but she had unmistakably inherited his personality.
The first limb, as thick as her torso, came easily. Then the next. Then the next.
And then she slipped.
Air whipped through her hair, beating against her eardrums like a flood. Her head hit the ground first. She woke up in a hospital bed, miraculously alive. Apparently she’d landed on her left side, breaking her left arm and damaging the left side of her brain. The only lasting mark of the accident, however, was the loss of hearing in her left ear. Piper hadn’t climbed a tree since.
She’d been drafted along with Branson, but she hadn’t passed the admissions test. All because of her stupid, useless ear.
She touched the windowpane and felt a slight twinge of guilt at her ungratefulness. She was alive against all odds, and considering the army’s mortality rate… No. She wasn’t going to think about that. Branson was going to be just fine, and so was Dad. And she and Mother would be right here waiting when they got back.
“Sissy!”
And so would Baylor.
Baylor had been an unexpected surprise, born only five years ago in the middle of the war. Like Branson, he looked like their father, but his green eyes proved he was his mother’s child.
“Sissy!” He dashed into his sister’s room and pulled back her alcove curtain, uncovering her hiding spot by the window. “Sissy! Where’s Branson?”
“He went with Daddy, hon, you knew that. They went to the capitol with the rest of the army.”
“Will he be back tomorrow?”
“No, sweetheart.”
“Will he be back next week?”
“Baylor, they’re going to be gone for a long time. Maybe two years, if the war isn’t over sooner.”
“But he’s gonna come back, right?”
“Yes, honey,” Piper said hesitantly. If she wanted Baylor to believe it, she had to believe it herself, right down to her bones.
“And Daddy too?”
“And Daddy too.”
“Will Daddy ‘member me?”
Piper almost laughed at the question. “Of course he’ll remember you. Why would you even ask a thing like that?”
Baylor gave a little shrug. “I don’t ‘member Daddy when he’s gone. Just pictures and stuff.”
A piece of Piper’s heart broke for the little boy. She and Branson, for however short a time, had known their father before the war, before he was constantly gone. Baylor didn’t have her memories of having water gun fights in their yard, or of camping out in the basement, or of being thrown into the air and falling into strong arms. Baylor remembered a man with a chiseled face and tired eyes who had seen much more of the world than any man should. She pulled her little brother into her lap.
“Daddy loves you. More than I can even tell you,” Piper reassured. “And he knows you love him too. And Branson loves you, and Mommy loves you, and I love you.”
“You love me the most, huh?” He giggled a gurgling little laugh that fit his age much better than the previous conversation had.
“Yeah, you’re my favorite. But don’t tell Rudy. He’ll be upset.”
As if he had heard his name, the family dog came bounding into the room, jumping onto Piper’s lap with Baylor and licking them both vigorously.
“Get down, Rudy!” Baylor fought through giggles. He jumped from Piper’s lap and chased the dog out of the room. She watched him leave, her heart pricked just a little by his innocence. She didn’t have the heart to follow them. Instead she climbed off the window seat and moved to her bed.
“Sissy,” a voice called. It was full and feminine—Mom. Piper turned around and nearly had a heart attack. The ghost of her mom was standing in the room next to her.
No, it wasn’t a ghost, she finally realized. The stupid holograms gave her the creeps. She would have much preferred the things her great grandmother had called “cell phones”; they couldn’t have been quite so startling.
“You scared me!”
“Sorry, honey. I’m at the store, you need anything?”
Piper looked around her room slowly, scanning for things she was running low on. “Um… pencils.”
“Pencils?” The holographic mom laughed. “Where did you hear about pencils, Piper? Nobody’s used them in years. I won’t be able to find them at the store.”
“I wanted to write a letter to Dad and Branson.”
“Why on earth would you take the time to handwrite anything when you just got that brand new dictator for your birthday? You’ve been talking to your grandmother far too much. She’s putting all these crazy ideas into your head. It’s ridiculous.”
“But she’s so interesting, Mom, and—“
“There’s no sense living in the past, Piper. It’s not healthy and it’s not right. The past can do us no good. The only way to live is to move forward. If you paid attention to the Presidential address you would know that.”
“Just because the President says it—“
“Stop, Piper. Stop right there. We’ll talk about this when I get home.”
Her mom disappeared.
Well, Piper thought, when the going gets tough… the tough go to Nana’s.
Nana, thanks to modern medicine, was one hundred fifty-three years old and counting. Many of the neighbors insisted she was crazy, and Piper didn’t entirely disagree. Nana certainly had her eccentricities. She lined the walls of her house in analog clocks that tick-tick-ticked all day long. With the exception of medicine, she for the most part rejected modern technology entirely. As far as Piper knew, she owned the only automobile in town, even though the Lev cars had become the major mode of transportation long before Piper was born. The Guard had often spoken to her about the car, warned her to stop driving it, but they never took any real course of action. Nana had the advantage of getting off easy for being out of her mind. Despite everything people said about her, Nana had always been Piper’s favorite relative. She loved the rest of her family, but Branson and Nana were really the only ones with whom she felt a kindred spirit.
Piper pushed open the olive-green gate into Nana’s garden and walked up the cobblestone path to the door. Flowers lined the pathway like a jungle. She wasn’t sure how her grandmother managed to keep such a well-kept garden, what with the rations and the war taxes. Knowing Nana, she had probably had the seeds for years.
She rapped the pretty pastel green door in their usual pattern, and as always, it opened within seconds.
“Hello, dear heart,” Nana said, sweeping her granddaughter into her arms. She smelled like coffee. “Come on in.” Piper followed her into the house, hearing the comfortably familiar tick-tick-ticks of the clocks. “Want a cup of coffee? Just made some.”
Piper nodded happily. Nobody had coffee anymore except for Nana. Drinking chocolate had come into style ages ago. Nana doused her cup in sugar and cream and handed it over. She took a sip, relishing the slightly bitter taste and the heat tickling her tongue.
“What’s eatin’ you, honey?” Nana asked after a few minutes.
“Branson,” she replied.
“Miss him already, huh? Isn’t he your brother?” Nana laughed and patted her knee. “I know it’s hard. He’s a smart boy, though. He’ll be all right.”
“Coltrane Thornton was smart too, and he wasn’t all right.” Nana looked a little taken aback at her mention of their neighbor, who had left for the battlefield a year and a half ago and never returned. After a moment of silence, Nana finally spoke again.
“Fine, I can’t promise he’ll be okay. Nobody’s promised anything nowadays. War is an ugly thing, dear heart. It takes away all your certainty, takes away your family…”
“I know, Nana.” Anybody who talked to Nana for more than five minutes knew her stance on the war: that it shouldn’t be happening at all. She might have disowned Daddy after he received his commission, had it not been for Piper, Branson, and Baylor.
“I know you know. It hits you harder than me. My life is almost over—“
Piper laughed. “You’re over a hundred and still living at home, Nana. I don’t think you’re going anywhere.”
A sad look overcame her grandmother’s blue-gray eyes. “Yes, I’m over a hundred and I feel older. If it weren’t for you and your brothers I’d have gone off the medicine a long time ago. I need peace. I’ll be ready whenever my time comes, if sooner or later.” She leaned over the coffee table to place a hand on Piper’s knee. “But you, Piper, you’ve only just begun to live. If this keeps going it’ll suck the life right out of your generation. It’s not your war. It’s ours. And it should die with us.”
“Nana, the war is necessary. That’s what they told us in current events—“
“Current events? Is that a class at that school you go to? Current events?”
“Yes, Nana, it was part of that education amendment, the government felt we didn’t know enough about our time—“
“Your time? All you know is your time! That’s all they let you know, that’s all they let anybody know.”
“Nana, I really didn’t come for a rant about the government. I’m sorry. I just wanted to ask for a pencil.”
The furrow between Nana’s eyebrows disappeared, and was replaced with a smile. “A pencil? Whatever for, dear?”
“To write a letter.”
“Don’t you want to use one of those dictator things? Your mother gave me one for Christmas. I hate to admit it but they’re dead useful.”
“I wanted to write Branson an actual letter. In my own handwriting. He’s weird like me, he’d like that kind of thing.”
Nana chuckled. “Well, I’m sure I can find you one in the attic, if nowhere else. I’ll go check. You want to come look? I dare say you’ll something up there to interest you, knowing you.”
Nana pulled down the door in the ceiling and began to climb up the descending wooden ladder. Piper followed suit, and found herself in a wonderland.
“I’m a little bit of a packrat,” said Nana, as if she could read her granddaughter’s thoughts. She must have kept everything she’d ever known; Piper didn’t see how the attic could hold so many treasures. In a corner on a table was a small, black, rectangular box with a glass circle protruding from its front: Nana called it a camera. The thing sitting next to it intrigued her most of all. It was a stack of paper bound together in a cover. She picked it up and flipped through it. Inside were words.
“Don’t you know what a book is?” Nana said. “Surely you still have books in school.”
“We download all our texts to our dictators,” Piper said, still mesmerized at the book. The first page said “1776: Revolution or Evolution?”
“You can take it home if you want, honey.” Nana took the book from her hands and looked at the cover. “Oh, this was MY grandfather’s. Copyright 1978… this is ancient, isn’t it? Seventeen seventy six… It sounds familiar. I feel like something important happened, but I couldn’t tell you.” She chuckled. “Guess you’ll just have to read it yourself.” Smiling, she handed the book back to Piper, who tucked the book under her arm.
“Do you have something I could put it in? I don’t know if Mom would be too happy.”
They went downstairs and Nana handed her a shopping bag, along with a piece of paper and a pencil.
“Write your brother a letter,” she said, wrapping Piper in her arms. She just stood there and held her for a long time. “Love you, dear heart,” she whispered after a few moments. “See you soon.”
Piper nodded and walked out the door, leaving the cobblestone path and the gate behind her.
For the last time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Piper watched from her bedroom window as the fleet of helicopters took off from the launch field. Daddy was gone, just like always, but Branson was sixteen now. Branson was gone too.
And she’d be with them, if it weren’t for her stupid ear.
She remembered the day all too well, even though she had only been six years old. It was the old tree’s fault, in the end. It had been too inviting, too enticing, too easy to climb. Its limbs were strong and sturdy and low to the ground, spiraling upwards as effortlessly as a fancy staircase.
Branson refused to climb, but he’d always been the more reserved of the two. They were just about as different as twins could be: fraternal and completely opposite in temperament. Often neighbors refused to believe they were related. Branson was the image of their father, with blue eyes and red hair that desperately wanted to be brown. Piper, however, received the look of her mother: pale and somewhat thin, with stick-straight dark hair and “eyes like emeralds.” That’s what she’d always been told, anyway. She didn’t know if she believed them, as nobody around here had seen an emerald since before the war, which was a very long time ago.
“Don’t, Piper,” her brother said as she placed a foot on the first limb. “You can’t climb that high.”
Piper merely bit her lip and glared at her brother. Anything Piper supposedly “couldn’t do” became an immediate goal. Branson may have inherited Daddy’s looks, but she had unmistakably inherited his personality.
The first limb, as thick as her torso, came easily. Then the next. Then the next.
And then she slipped.
Air whipped through her hair, beating against her eardrums like a flood. Her head hit the ground first. She woke up in a hospital bed, miraculously alive. Apparently she’d landed on her left side, breaking her left arm and damaging the left side of her brain. The only lasting mark of the accident, however, was the loss of hearing in her left ear. Piper hadn’t climbed a tree since.
She’d been drafted along with Branson, but she hadn’t passed the admissions test. All because of her stupid, useless ear.
She touched the windowpane and felt a slight twinge of guilt at her ungratefulness. She was alive against all odds, and considering the army’s mortality rate… No. She wasn’t going to think about that. Branson was going to be just fine, and so was Dad. And she and Mother would be right here waiting when they got back.
“Sissy!”
And so would Baylor.
Baylor had been an unexpected surprise, born only five years ago in the middle of the war. Like Branson, he looked like their father, but his green eyes proved he was his mother’s child.
“Sissy!” He dashed into his sister’s room and pulled back her alcove curtain, uncovering her hiding spot by the window. “Sissy! Where’s Branson?”
“He went with Daddy, hon, you knew that. They went to the capitol with the rest of the army.”
“Will he be back tomorrow?”
“No, sweetheart.”
“Will he be back next week?”
“Baylor, they’re going to be gone for a long time. Maybe two years, if the war isn’t over sooner.”
“But he’s gonna come back, right?”
“Yes, honey,” Piper said hesitantly. If she wanted Baylor to believe it, she had to believe it herself, right down to her bones.
“And Daddy too?”
“And Daddy too.”
“Will Daddy ‘member me?”
Piper almost laughed at the question. “Of course he’ll remember you. Why would you even ask a thing like that?”
Baylor gave a little shrug. “I don’t ‘member Daddy when he’s gone. Just pictures and stuff.”
A piece of Piper’s heart broke for the little boy. She and Branson, for however short a time, had known their father before the war, before he was constantly gone. Baylor didn’t have her memories of having water gun fights in their yard, or of camping out in the basement, or of being thrown into the air and falling into strong arms. Baylor remembered a man with a chiseled face and tired eyes who had seen much more of the world than any man should. She pulled her little brother into her lap.
“Daddy loves you. More than I can even tell you,” Piper reassured. “And he knows you love him too. And Branson loves you, and Mommy loves you, and I love you.”
“You love me the most, huh?” He giggled a gurgling little laugh that fit his age much better than the previous conversation had.
“Yeah, you’re my favorite. But don’t tell Rudy. He’ll be upset.”
As if he had heard his name, the family dog came bounding into the room, jumping onto Piper’s lap with Baylor and licking them both vigorously.
“Get down, Rudy!” Baylor fought through giggles. He jumped from Piper’s lap and chased the dog out of the room. She watched him leave, her heart pricked just a little by his innocence. She didn’t have the heart to follow them. Instead she climbed off the window seat and moved to her bed.
“Sissy,” a voice called. It was full and feminine—Mom. Piper turned around and nearly had a heart attack. The ghost of her mom was standing in the room next to her.
No, it wasn’t a ghost, she finally realized. The stupid holograms gave her the creeps. She would have much preferred the things her great grandmother had called “cell phones”; they couldn’t have been quite so startling.
“You scared me!”
“Sorry, honey. I’m at the store, you need anything?”
Piper looked around her room slowly, scanning for things she was running low on. “Um… pencils.”
“Pencils?” The holographic mom laughed. “Where did you hear about pencils, Piper? Nobody’s used them in years. I won’t be able to find them at the store.”
“I wanted to write a letter to Dad and Branson.”
“Why on earth would you take the time to handwrite anything when you just got that brand new dictator for your birthday? You’ve been talking to your grandmother far too much. She’s putting all these crazy ideas into your head. It’s ridiculous.”
“But she’s so interesting, Mom, and—“
“There’s no sense living in the past, Piper. It’s not healthy and it’s not right. The past can do us no good. The only way to live is to move forward. If you paid attention to the Presidential address you would know that.”
“Just because the President says it—“
“Stop, Piper. Stop right there. We’ll talk about this when I get home.”
Her mom disappeared.
Well, Piper thought, when the going gets tough… the tough go to Nana’s.
Nana, thanks to modern medicine, was one hundred fifty-three years old and counting. Many of the neighbors insisted she was crazy, and Piper didn’t entirely disagree. Nana certainly had her eccentricities. She lined the walls of her house in analog clocks that tick-tick-ticked all day long. With the exception of medicine, she for the most part rejected modern technology entirely. As far as Piper knew, she owned the only automobile in town, even though the Lev cars had become the major mode of transportation long before Piper was born. The Guard had often spoken to her about the car, warned her to stop driving it, but they never took any real course of action. Nana had the advantage of getting off easy for being out of her mind. Despite everything people said about her, Nana had always been Piper’s favorite relative. She loved the rest of her family, but Branson and Nana were really the only ones with whom she felt a kindred spirit.
Piper pushed open the olive-green gate into Nana’s garden and walked up the cobblestone path to the door. Flowers lined the pathway like a jungle. She wasn’t sure how her grandmother managed to keep such a well-kept garden, what with the rations and the war taxes. Knowing Nana, she had probably had the seeds for years.
She rapped the pretty pastel green door in their usual pattern, and as always, it opened within seconds.
“Hello, dear heart,” Nana said, sweeping her granddaughter into her arms. She smelled like coffee. “Come on in.” Piper followed her into the house, hearing the comfortably familiar tick-tick-ticks of the clocks. “Want a cup of coffee? Just made some.”
Piper nodded happily. Nobody had coffee anymore except for Nana. Drinking chocolate had come into style ages ago. Nana doused her cup in sugar and cream and handed it over. She took a sip, relishing the slightly bitter taste and the heat tickling her tongue.
“What’s eatin’ you, honey?” Nana asked after a few minutes.
“Branson,” she replied.
“Miss him already, huh? Isn’t he your brother?” Nana laughed and patted her knee. “I know it’s hard. He’s a smart boy, though. He’ll be all right.”
“Coltrane Thornton was smart too, and he wasn’t all right.” Nana looked a little taken aback at her mention of their neighbor, who had left for the battlefield a year and a half ago and never returned. After a moment of silence, Nana finally spoke again.
“Fine, I can’t promise he’ll be okay. Nobody’s promised anything nowadays. War is an ugly thing, dear heart. It takes away all your certainty, takes away your family…”
“I know, Nana.” Anybody who talked to Nana for more than five minutes knew her stance on the war: that it shouldn’t be happening at all. She might have disowned Daddy after he received his commission, had it not been for Piper, Branson, and Baylor.
“I know you know. It hits you harder than me. My life is almost over—“
Piper laughed. “You’re over a hundred and still living at home, Nana. I don’t think you’re going anywhere.”
A sad look overcame her grandmother’s blue-gray eyes. “Yes, I’m over a hundred and I feel older. If it weren’t for you and your brothers I’d have gone off the medicine a long time ago. I need peace. I’ll be ready whenever my time comes, if sooner or later.” She leaned over the coffee table to place a hand on Piper’s knee. “But you, Piper, you’ve only just begun to live. If this keeps going it’ll suck the life right out of your generation. It’s not your war. It’s ours. And it should die with us.”
“Nana, the war is necessary. That’s what they told us in current events—“
“Current events? Is that a class at that school you go to? Current events?”
“Yes, Nana, it was part of that education amendment, the government felt we didn’t know enough about our time—“
“Your time? All you know is your time! That’s all they let you know, that’s all they let anybody know.”
“Nana, I really didn’t come for a rant about the government. I’m sorry. I just wanted to ask for a pencil.”
The furrow between Nana’s eyebrows disappeared, and was replaced with a smile. “A pencil? Whatever for, dear?”
“To write a letter.”
“Don’t you want to use one of those dictator things? Your mother gave me one for Christmas. I hate to admit it but they’re dead useful.”
“I wanted to write Branson an actual letter. In my own handwriting. He’s weird like me, he’d like that kind of thing.”
Nana chuckled. “Well, I’m sure I can find you one in the attic, if nowhere else. I’ll go check. You want to come look? I dare say you’ll something up there to interest you, knowing you.”
Nana pulled down the door in the ceiling and began to climb up the descending wooden ladder. Piper followed suit, and found herself in a wonderland.
“I’m a little bit of a packrat,” said Nana, as if she could read her granddaughter’s thoughts. She must have kept everything she’d ever known; Piper didn’t see how the attic could hold so many treasures. In a corner on a table was a small, black, rectangular box with a glass circle protruding from its front: Nana called it a camera. The thing sitting next to it intrigued her most of all. It was a stack of paper bound together in a cover. She picked it up and flipped through it. Inside were words.
“Don’t you know what a book is?” Nana said. “Surely you still have books in school.”
“We download all our texts to our dictators,” Piper said, still mesmerized at the book. The first page said “1776: Revolution or Evolution?”
“You can take it home if you want, honey.” Nana took the book from her hands and looked at the cover. “Oh, this was MY grandfather’s. Copyright 1978… this is ancient, isn’t it? Seventeen seventy six… It sounds familiar. I feel like something important happened, but I couldn’t tell you.” She chuckled. “Guess you’ll just have to read it yourself.” Smiling, she handed the book back to Piper, who tucked the book under her arm.
“Do you have something I could put it in? I don’t know if Mom would be too happy.”
They went downstairs and Nana handed her a shopping bag, along with a piece of paper and a pencil.
“Write your brother a letter,” she said, wrapping Piper in her arms. She just stood there and held her for a long time. “Love you, dear heart,” she whispered after a few moments. “See you soon.”
Piper nodded and walked out the door, leaving the cobblestone path and the gate behind her.
For the last time.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
NaNoWriMo: Prologue
Since I'm a certifiable nutcase, I've opted to do National Novel Writing Month. Because two AP classes, three articles, a term paper, and musical just weren't enough for me. I'm not entirely sure what my novel's about, but that's okay. I just have to crank out 50,000 words by the end of the month. No editing, no nothing. Just words. And since I started late, that's 2,000 words a day. No sweat, right?
Ha. Wrong!
Oh well. As my father would say, "It's an adventure."
Here's my first chapter/prologue. I rather like it. :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She walked through the smoky graveyard. She couldn’t tell if it was night or if the ash was simply obscuring the sun.
Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation…
The tomcat wouldn’t leave her ankles. She’d shooed him several times, but all he did was pounce back at forth at her feet. She couldn’t bring herself to kick him. They’d both been through too much for that.
…conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
The cat couldn’t be more than two years old. He was gray with a black spot on the back of his right leg. Though he looked a little thin, he obviously hadn’t been starving, and had probably eaten more recently then she had.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war…
The corner was missing from his left ear.
… testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure.
She bent over and tried to pick him up. No sooner than she had touched his belly, his claws swept across her forearm.
“Fine!” she shouted, massaging the scratch. “Get out of here!” The cat skittered off into the fog, lost to the darkness. A cold breeze blew through the graveyard, as though she’d disturbed the slumber of the dead with her shouting.
We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
“Oh, shut up,” she told the ghosts. If they had slept through the last few days, they deserved to be awakened now. To know what had happened. To share in her pain.
But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract.
The gravestone nearest her was so weathered that only God would henceforth know its owner’s name. She ran her finger down the rugged stone of the cross at the top. It crumbled into pieces before her eyes.
The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it cannot forget what they did here.
Her eyes flicked to a monument in the middle of the cemetery. A lady standing on a pedestal, surrounded by other statues. Inexplicably captivated, she began to walk through the rows of headstones.
It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on.
The statues were odd. The first was a bearded man dressed in some sort of uniform and a sad look in his eyes. There was a single word engraved in the stone beneath his pedestal: WAR. She knew that word all too well. He didn’t look like any soldier she’d ever seen. His outstretched hand and his glance pointed to the next statue, a woman with a wreath upon her head and dressed in a long gown. She held a book and seemed to be writing in it. Her title read HISTORY.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion…
What was history?
… that we here highly resolve that those dead shall not have died in vain…
Puzzled, she continued to gaze at the title. She saw “story”… his story? Whose story? Who was he? Puzzled, she moved to the next statue: a fat woman holding some sort of plant. It looked like grain. Her name was PLENTY. She scowled at the woman. While she knew what the word meant, “plenty” had never been part of her regular vocabulary, even in the good days.
… that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom…
The final statue looked down at her sternly, as if to say, “You don’t belong here.” He held a hammer in his hand and was surrounded by machinery, a mechanical man, born of metal and cogs. She looked at his name… PEACE.
“Peace.” She said it out loud. The word left a bittersweet taste in her mouth, like the dark chocolate bars she used to get on Christmas. She remembered peace. Out of the four words, that was the only one she really understood, felt to the core of her existence. She knew war, but she would never understand it.
On a nearby plaque was engraved a rather long quote by somebody called “Abraham Lincoln.” What a weird name.
…that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
She laughed bitterly at the poor dead man whose words, though immortalized in stone here in the graveyard, had died to the rest of the world.
“Nobody knows your name, Mr. Lincoln,” she mused to the chill night air. “Nobody has a clue what you’re talking about.”
A gentle “mew” broke her reverie. The cat was back. Its glowing orange eyes stared widely at her from behind a tombstone, frightened and hopeful at the same time. She wasn’t in the mood to care, but his little eyes pleaded with her, and she couldn’t leave him alone in this haunted place as the world had chosen to leave her. Massaging her forearm tentatively, she reached for the cat’s underbelly. When she sensed no hesitation, she quickly scooped the cat up into her arms.
“Okay,” she said. “I guess we’re friends.” More like allies, she thought, as they stepped out of the circle of graves and into the world.
Ha. Wrong!
Oh well. As my father would say, "It's an adventure."
Here's my first chapter/prologue. I rather like it. :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She walked through the smoky graveyard. She couldn’t tell if it was night or if the ash was simply obscuring the sun.
Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation…
The tomcat wouldn’t leave her ankles. She’d shooed him several times, but all he did was pounce back at forth at her feet. She couldn’t bring herself to kick him. They’d both been through too much for that.
…conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
The cat couldn’t be more than two years old. He was gray with a black spot on the back of his right leg. Though he looked a little thin, he obviously hadn’t been starving, and had probably eaten more recently then she had.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war…
The corner was missing from his left ear.
… testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure.
She bent over and tried to pick him up. No sooner than she had touched his belly, his claws swept across her forearm.
“Fine!” she shouted, massaging the scratch. “Get out of here!” The cat skittered off into the fog, lost to the darkness. A cold breeze blew through the graveyard, as though she’d disturbed the slumber of the dead with her shouting.
We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
“Oh, shut up,” she told the ghosts. If they had slept through the last few days, they deserved to be awakened now. To know what had happened. To share in her pain.
But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract.
The gravestone nearest her was so weathered that only God would henceforth know its owner’s name. She ran her finger down the rugged stone of the cross at the top. It crumbled into pieces before her eyes.
The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it cannot forget what they did here.
Her eyes flicked to a monument in the middle of the cemetery. A lady standing on a pedestal, surrounded by other statues. Inexplicably captivated, she began to walk through the rows of headstones.
It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on.
The statues were odd. The first was a bearded man dressed in some sort of uniform and a sad look in his eyes. There was a single word engraved in the stone beneath his pedestal: WAR. She knew that word all too well. He didn’t look like any soldier she’d ever seen. His outstretched hand and his glance pointed to the next statue, a woman with a wreath upon her head and dressed in a long gown. She held a book and seemed to be writing in it. Her title read HISTORY.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion…
What was history?
… that we here highly resolve that those dead shall not have died in vain…
Puzzled, she continued to gaze at the title. She saw “story”… his story? Whose story? Who was he? Puzzled, she moved to the next statue: a fat woman holding some sort of plant. It looked like grain. Her name was PLENTY. She scowled at the woman. While she knew what the word meant, “plenty” had never been part of her regular vocabulary, even in the good days.
… that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom…
The final statue looked down at her sternly, as if to say, “You don’t belong here.” He held a hammer in his hand and was surrounded by machinery, a mechanical man, born of metal and cogs. She looked at his name… PEACE.
“Peace.” She said it out loud. The word left a bittersweet taste in her mouth, like the dark chocolate bars she used to get on Christmas. She remembered peace. Out of the four words, that was the only one she really understood, felt to the core of her existence. She knew war, but she would never understand it.
On a nearby plaque was engraved a rather long quote by somebody called “Abraham Lincoln.” What a weird name.
…that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
She laughed bitterly at the poor dead man whose words, though immortalized in stone here in the graveyard, had died to the rest of the world.
“Nobody knows your name, Mr. Lincoln,” she mused to the chill night air. “Nobody has a clue what you’re talking about.”
A gentle “mew” broke her reverie. The cat was back. Its glowing orange eyes stared widely at her from behind a tombstone, frightened and hopeful at the same time. She wasn’t in the mood to care, but his little eyes pleaded with her, and she couldn’t leave him alone in this haunted place as the world had chosen to leave her. Massaging her forearm tentatively, she reached for the cat’s underbelly. When she sensed no hesitation, she quickly scooped the cat up into her arms.
“Okay,” she said. “I guess we’re friends.” More like allies, she thought, as they stepped out of the circle of graves and into the world.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Yet another long, obnoxious, relatively pointless post...
Another week (Monday to Monday) in lists. Because I enjoy lists. And I've done a few interesting things this week.
Some interesting God thoughts:
1. Okay, so God made the stars on Day 4, right? But stars are billions of lightyears away, meaning it takes millions of years for the light to get where we can see it. So God made the light from the stars retrospective so Adam and Eve would be able to see them right when He made them. Whoa!
2. Leviticus 24:16-- "Moreover, the one who blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall surely stone him. The alien as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death." Wow. How seriously do we take God's name today? Certainly not THAT seriously, and not as seriously as we should. Interesting thought.
3. New addition to my favorite verses: "Because he has loved Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him securely on high, because he has known My name. He will call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue and honor him. With a long life I will satisfy him, and let him see My salvation." -Psalm 91:14-16. I just love that. God gives us so much reassurance when we're His.
Fun stuff:
1. On Tuesday we had the first meeting of the NEHS (National English Honors Society) book club, which I happen to be in charge of. There's only about six of us, but I'm excited none the less. I think it'll be a lot better if we have a few people who are actually gonna read the book rather than a bunch who aren't. We're reading The Kite Runner. Maybe more later if I see fit to review it when we're done.
2. Monday night I began my study of James... my Bible looks like a rainbow threw up in it. A wonderful rainbow of knowledge. :) I'm loving the Greek word for "do" and all the different ways its used. It literally means "to make happen" and is translated a bunch of different ways in the NASB. It's really cool.
3. Bear Valley cowboy party-- yummy food and good fellowship. Does it get any better?
4. After much panic and indecision, I finally found a halloween costume. I was a red electric guitar. Yes. Yes indeed. I would post pictures, but I only got two and they're both on my phone. When I finally get them to my computer I'll update this. Maybe. If I think of it.
5. In my lovely Halloween costume, I went to a party at my friend Jenna's house. We went on a scavenger hunt in the neighborhood (the knocking on doors and asking people for stuff kind of scavenger stuff... people were surprisingly nice about it considering we were running around in our costumes a night early). Then, in true nerd fashion, we had a Poe reading at about 10 at night in the park behind her house. Our punky, shaggy-haired, death-metal loving friend Cameron knew "Annabel Lee" by heart and kept correcting Alex while she read it. Hahaha.... I love my school!
6. Recent obsession-- The Twilight Zone. Yes. (If you think I'm talking about sparkly vampires, get off my blog. Now. Goodbye. You are not worthy.) I love the just slightly creepiness of it. It's not scary, but it kinda runs shivers down your spine just a little bit. I love the twists. The twists are the best part. Anyways, I've Tivo season passed it on two different channels. My favorite episode of the week (maybe of all time?) is "The Obsolete Man"... look it up! It's a social commentary (very 1984-esque) and it's incredibly powerful. Seriously. Go find it and watch it.
7. Wrote a poem for Come Fill Your Cup... it oughta be up in a few days. I'll post a link on facebook.
8. New edition of Katharos NOW (a Christian girls' e-zine I write for) went up... go check it out! The theme this month is "Costumes" and I've got an article up. :)
9. I discovered the Owl City blog... Oh Adam Young. How I love you. The boy can WRITE. And he posts poems and song lyrics like me. I'm feelin' a kindred spirit. Except for that... he's famous... and I'm not... oh well. I'll go buy his t-shirt instead. :)
10. Watched maybe my favorite holiday special OF ALL TIME.... "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" It's either that or "A Charlie Brown Christmas". I just love Linus... "Never jump into a pile of leaves with a wet sucker!" Every year I'm devastated that (1) Lucy still won't let poor little Charlie Brown kick the football and (2) The Great Pumpkin doesn't come!! What? I'm always convinced some year he'll actually show up... he never does. Sigh.
10. I had a bunch of fun trick-or-treating (after evening church service, of course... God's more important!) with my bestest friends. (And yes, I still trick-or-treat. You are NEVER too old for free candy. NEVER.)
11. Today was the first meeting of the NEHS writing group... how I love writing. Jenna taught us how to write love poems that don't make people want to puke. I cranked out a couple good ones. I will not, however, be posting them here. I don't think. Maybe. Less personal things might show up here in the future as a result of these workshops though! I'm lovin' it.
12. I received a late birthday present from my aunt, uncle, and cousins... $30 in iTunes money. As music is slowly becoming a synonym for sanity, this made me QUITE happy. Which leads me to....
CDs bought (in order of preference):
1. Churchill- EP
2. Meese- Broadcast
3. Taylor Swift- Speak Now
I may write reviews if I get around to it. Yay for music.
My political rant for the week (since you're already here):
In the United States of America, any one who harms a bald eagle EGG can be sentenced to jail for up to a year and be forced to pay a $100,000 dollar fine (see this article). An EGG. An unborn baby eagle. However, a girl my age can go to an abortion clinic and be assured that it is absolutely fine to kill her child. Without even notifying her parents. Girls under 18 need parental consent to get their ears pierced, but not to MURDER an unborn baby. What kind of sick society do we live in? There's a commercial against Ken Buck going around of a woman saying, "We need a Senator who will stand with us whether we're in high heels or cowboy boots." Yeah, lady? Who's standing with the babies, huh? It honestly makes me nauseous.
Amendment 62 will give every single person in the state of Colorado the right to life, from the moment of conception. If you can vote, vote Yes on 62. Let's give those babies a chance at living.
Well... that's all I got for now. Thanks for wasting your time on random tidbits of my life. :)
<3
Some interesting God thoughts:
1. Okay, so God made the stars on Day 4, right? But stars are billions of lightyears away, meaning it takes millions of years for the light to get where we can see it. So God made the light from the stars retrospective so Adam and Eve would be able to see them right when He made them. Whoa!
2. Leviticus 24:16-- "Moreover, the one who blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall surely stone him. The alien as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death." Wow. How seriously do we take God's name today? Certainly not THAT seriously, and not as seriously as we should. Interesting thought.
3. New addition to my favorite verses: "Because he has loved Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him securely on high, because he has known My name. He will call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue and honor him. With a long life I will satisfy him, and let him see My salvation." -Psalm 91:14-16. I just love that. God gives us so much reassurance when we're His.
Fun stuff:
1. On Tuesday we had the first meeting of the NEHS (National English Honors Society) book club, which I happen to be in charge of. There's only about six of us, but I'm excited none the less. I think it'll be a lot better if we have a few people who are actually gonna read the book rather than a bunch who aren't. We're reading The Kite Runner. Maybe more later if I see fit to review it when we're done.
2. Monday night I began my study of James... my Bible looks like a rainbow threw up in it. A wonderful rainbow of knowledge. :) I'm loving the Greek word for "do" and all the different ways its used. It literally means "to make happen" and is translated a bunch of different ways in the NASB. It's really cool.
3. Bear Valley cowboy party-- yummy food and good fellowship. Does it get any better?
4. After much panic and indecision, I finally found a halloween costume. I was a red electric guitar. Yes. Yes indeed. I would post pictures, but I only got two and they're both on my phone. When I finally get them to my computer I'll update this. Maybe. If I think of it.
5. In my lovely Halloween costume, I went to a party at my friend Jenna's house. We went on a scavenger hunt in the neighborhood (the knocking on doors and asking people for stuff kind of scavenger stuff... people were surprisingly nice about it considering we were running around in our costumes a night early). Then, in true nerd fashion, we had a Poe reading at about 10 at night in the park behind her house. Our punky, shaggy-haired, death-metal loving friend Cameron knew "Annabel Lee" by heart and kept correcting Alex while she read it. Hahaha.... I love my school!
6. Recent obsession-- The Twilight Zone. Yes. (If you think I'm talking about sparkly vampires, get off my blog. Now. Goodbye. You are not worthy.) I love the just slightly creepiness of it. It's not scary, but it kinda runs shivers down your spine just a little bit. I love the twists. The twists are the best part. Anyways, I've Tivo season passed it on two different channels. My favorite episode of the week (maybe of all time?) is "The Obsolete Man"... look it up! It's a social commentary (very 1984-esque) and it's incredibly powerful. Seriously. Go find it and watch it.
7. Wrote a poem for Come Fill Your Cup... it oughta be up in a few days. I'll post a link on facebook.
8. New edition of Katharos NOW (a Christian girls' e-zine I write for) went up... go check it out! The theme this month is "Costumes" and I've got an article up. :)
9. I discovered the Owl City blog... Oh Adam Young. How I love you. The boy can WRITE. And he posts poems and song lyrics like me. I'm feelin' a kindred spirit. Except for that... he's famous... and I'm not... oh well. I'll go buy his t-shirt instead. :)
10. Watched maybe my favorite holiday special OF ALL TIME.... "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" It's either that or "A Charlie Brown Christmas". I just love Linus... "Never jump into a pile of leaves with a wet sucker!" Every year I'm devastated that (1) Lucy still won't let poor little Charlie Brown kick the football and (2) The Great Pumpkin doesn't come!! What? I'm always convinced some year he'll actually show up... he never does. Sigh.
10. I had a bunch of fun trick-or-treating (after evening church service, of course... God's more important!) with my bestest friends. (And yes, I still trick-or-treat. You are NEVER too old for free candy. NEVER.)
11. Today was the first meeting of the NEHS writing group... how I love writing. Jenna taught us how to write love poems that don't make people want to puke. I cranked out a couple good ones. I will not, however, be posting them here. I don't think. Maybe. Less personal things might show up here in the future as a result of these workshops though! I'm lovin' it.
12. I received a late birthday present from my aunt, uncle, and cousins... $30 in iTunes money. As music is slowly becoming a synonym for sanity, this made me QUITE happy. Which leads me to....
CDs bought (in order of preference):
1. Churchill- EP
2. Meese- Broadcast
3. Taylor Swift- Speak Now
I may write reviews if I get around to it. Yay for music.
My political rant for the week (since you're already here):
In the United States of America, any one who harms a bald eagle EGG can be sentenced to jail for up to a year and be forced to pay a $100,000 dollar fine (see this article). An EGG. An unborn baby eagle. However, a girl my age can go to an abortion clinic and be assured that it is absolutely fine to kill her child. Without even notifying her parents. Girls under 18 need parental consent to get their ears pierced, but not to MURDER an unborn baby. What kind of sick society do we live in? There's a commercial against Ken Buck going around of a woman saying, "We need a Senator who will stand with us whether we're in high heels or cowboy boots." Yeah, lady? Who's standing with the babies, huh? It honestly makes me nauseous.
Amendment 62 will give every single person in the state of Colorado the right to life, from the moment of conception. If you can vote, vote Yes on 62. Let's give those babies a chance at living.
Well... that's all I got for now. Thanks for wasting your time on random tidbits of my life. :)
<3
Friday, October 29, 2010
CD Review-- "Speak Now" by Taylor Swift
Well, on Monday the new Taylor Swift CD came out. And I bought it. Obviously.
I've always loved Taylor's stuff in the past, but this time around, for the most part, I just wasn't feelin' it. Of course, between my recent punk/newgrass/classic rock addictions, my music tastes have evolved quite a bit since Fearless came out, but I still like that CD a lot better than this one. It strikes me overall as a little forgettable-- nothing special. However, there are a few songs I really like, and since I only paid four dollars for it (thank you Amazon!), it was worth what I paid for it. Here's my iTunes review style play by play:
1. "Mine" -- This might have been a really cute song right now if she hadn't released it five months ago as the first single. The fact that the CD just came out the other day and this song is already overplayed kinda ruins it for me. Basic premise: careful girl with a tough family history with love gets reassured that her boy won't ever hurt her. *shrug* It's kinda catchy, I guess, but it just doesn't do much for me.
2. "Sparks Fly" -- Sooooooooo cliche. Completely forgettable. You're twenty. Get out of middle school Taylor. This was probably my least favorite because it was just so boring. That's pretty much all I have to say about it.
3. "Back to December" -- I really like the lyrics to this one, but the melody line just doesn't keep me interested. There's about two notes. The lyrics are talking about regret over losing a relationship, and they're pretty good. Sad, but good.
4. "Speak Now" -- Oh goodness. This is an adorable little song. This is one of the songs that makes me happy I bought this CD. The opening line is, "I am not the type of girl who should be rudely barging in on a white veil occasion/ But you are not the kind of boy who should be marrying the wrong girl." When the preacher says "Speak now or forever hold your peace," she... well... speaks. Haha. There is no depth to this song. It provides no profound insight into life. My guess is the events she's singing about are purely fictional. However, there's some funny sarcasm when she's talking about the bride-to-be, the melody line is cute, and it just makes me happy. Sometimes you just need songs that make you happy for no good reason. :)
5. "Dear John" -- Another favorite. This almost made me cry the first time I heard it just 'cause I REALLY relate to a few of the lines. The melody line is pretty and stirring (I love the little guitar twang in between verses and the beat in her voice in the words she draws out) and the lyrics are good. Good job Taylor.
6. "Mean" -- This is probably the most country-sounding song on the album. I feel like this was definitely written to someone... and I'm laughing at the poor guy 'cause he probably feels really stupid right now. The lyrics are "Someday I'll be livin' in a big ol' city and all you're ever gonna be is mean"... and she's making millions of dollars. I love the line about him being "drunk and going on about how I can't sing." It just makes me laugh. And the way she says "You're mean... and a liar... and pathetic..." makes me laugh to. You can hear the sharpness in her voice. Not anything riveting, but it was entertaining.
7. "The Story of Us" -- Well, when I started this line I didn't remember this song, but having gone back to listen to it I actually really enjoy it. It's quite relatable. It's about not talking to somebody you used to love... "I've never heard silence quite this loud." Yeah. That about sums it up, don't it? Huh. This might be a new favorite.
8. "Never Grow Up"-- Booorrring. Sweet sentiment, but I get sick of it really quick. It's telling a little kid not to be in a hurry to grow up because she won't have this time for long. I do like the line about her turning on her nightlight to scare away the monsters in her apartment, but that's about it.
9. "Enchanted"-- Oh wow. My favorite song on the whole CD. Just write down my life, why don't you, Taylor? Ok, maybe not the WHOLE song is my life, but a few of the lines really got to me. "The playful conversation starts, countering your quick remarks, like passing notes in secrecy..." Thank you for this song, Taylor dear. She sings it very well too. And the melody line is beautiful.
10. "Better than Revenge" -- This is the least Taylor-y song on the album, I think. Me and my friend Aimee considered playing it for our non-Taylor Swift liking Holly to see if she'd realize who it was. My thought was that if Taylor Swift had written Paramore's "Misery Business", it would be this same song. The premise is exactly the same. I kinda like the play on words with the title... you assume it means she's above revenge, but the lyric is actually "There's nothing I do better than revenge." Not that I endorse revenge, but it was clever.
11. "Innocent" -- Very forgettable. Melody is boring, lyrics are boring. Moving on.
12. "Haunted" -- Well, I like the opening melody (the DUM-dum-DUM-dum-DUM-dum-DUM-dum's). It's about the foreboding feeling before a breakup and then the missing after it's over. The lyrics are nothing earth shattering (they're actually rather cliche... and I think Evanescence had better ones first... go listen to "My Immortal"), but she sings it well and the melody line is pretty. I'm pretty neutral.
13. "Last Kiss" -- This is the part of the CD where it starts to hit me that almost all Taylor's songs pretty much say the same thing. She broke up with the guy she never thought she'd break up with and now she misses him. The end. But it's a pretty song, I'll give her that.
14. "Long Live" -- A nice happy little closing song. I feel like it's the sequel to "Change" from the last CD. It would make a good graduation song. I like all the fairy tale imagery, 'cause, well, I like fairy tales. Not really much else to say.
Overall:
Taylor, dear, a few tips.
-There are more chords than D, A, E minor, and G. I know you broke out and used C on a few songs. And I'm proud of that. But you could try a little harder.
-Repeat after me: Originality is my friend.
Haha. For real though, overall this isn't my favorite CD: not awful, but not my favorite. I'm glad I didn't spend the full iTunes fourteen bucks on it, but for four bucks it was pretty good. If you're going to pick and choose, buy "Speak Now", "Dear John", and "Enchanted". Those are easily the best songs on the album.
And if you're not interested in Taylor Swift at all, you just wasted a good ten minutes of your life on my blog post. Ha. Ha. Ha.
<3
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