Postby JustAName » 11 Nov 2012, 17:06
I asked for writing prompts, and empath's the only one who gave me a serious one, so I wrote this in one go without edits. It's kind of crap, but whatever.
The stars twinkled as they shone through the bare tree branches and cast a faint light upon the ground.
“Are you sure it’s out here?” I called to Carmen as we trudged up the hill.
“Definitely,” she replied, a grim look on her face that I’d only seen twice before. Both were times I’d fucked up.
Let me explain. I’m not, I suppose, what you would call ordinary. My genes saw to that far before I ever could, but as I’m not one to buck destiny, I sort of ran with what nature provided me. Heh, ran. You see, I’m a mutant. And not one of those cool X-men types with their super powers and their sexual tension. Me? My legs are backwards. Yeah, mull that one over for a minute. So what did I do? Did I try to hide my nature, and learn to conform? No, I said, “Fuck that shit.” I wore shorts every damn day I could. I hung upside-down and backwards from the monkey bars. When we had a talent show in school, I decided to show them that my tendency for winding up with my foot in my mouth was due to more than just my poor choice of words. Surprisingly enough, that act went over really well.
So where does Carmen come in? Well, ready your barf bags, but she was the first person who didn’t treat me as different. I was busy getting beaten up by the local bully, you know, like you do, and without any preamble she walked up and socked him across the jaw. Well, he ran off crying, and I turned to thank her. “What?” she said, with a shrug. “Just because you’re a freak doesn’t mean it’s worth beating you up over.”
Well, we’ve been friends ever since, and yadda yadda. Suffice it to say, I trust her more than probably anyone else, and sometimes I think she might care about me, too. I’d tell you about the times I fucked up but, to be honest, this is my story, and I don’t want to. They’re not really relevant, and they still hurt when I think about them. Learn your own life lessons, kids. I’m not here to be an example.
So what were we doing way out past the edge of town, struggling up a hill in the middle of the night? To be honest, I’m still not entirely sure. Carmen had called me at midnight, waking me from a dead sleep. There was a rough edge to her voice, something that still scares me when I think about it now. “Meet me at the 7/11 in ten,” she’d said. “They’re back. The fuckers are back.”
Driving through the quiet streets, past all the snug little houses with their cozy windows and neat gardens, she’d told me something I’d never known. She told me of a brother who vanished, and a family who’d never noticed. Knuckles white against the black of the steering wheel, she’d glared into the night. It took every ounce of courage I had to ask her where we were going, and when she responded, it felt more like she was talking to herself than to me.
“Eighteen years, and I finally found it,” she’d muttered. “I found their front door.”
When we got to the top of the hill, there was nothing there. The trees had thinned out a ways back, and all that broke the flatness of the empty ground was a haphazard circle of rocks. “Maybe you got the wrong hill…” I started, but stopped when I saw her eying the circle with a kind of grim triumph.
“Billy, I want you to promise me that you’ll remember me,” she said, and I felt myself grow cold all over. She reached into her bag, pulled out a nail gun, and let the bag drop.
“Carmen, I don’t think-” my voice was weak, but I knew I had to say something. But it wasn’t enough.
“You promise.” She rounded on me in a cold fury, and it was all I could do to nod my head dumbly. “Oh, and one more thing,” she said, with a queer smile. “You may be a freak, but you were always my freak.” She strode into the circle, turned around, and gave me an ironic salute with the nail gun. “See you around, Billy Durham.”
You’d think, weird as I am, that the story would be about me. But no. Carmen always had a way of finding the plot lines, and pulling them. I suppose I’ll see her in twenty years, looking like no time has passed for her. That’s what fairy circles do, right? I don’t even think she’d come back, if I didn’t have her cell phone.
And let me tell you, trying to drive her car home was a bitch.
Alja-Markir wrote:Andy is the LRR Heart-throb.
Morgan is the LRR Crotch-throb.
And all I can do is read a book to stay awake. And it rips my life away, but it's a great escape.
Rhythem ought to be consistent however.
