The Beginning of a Long Short Story

I have been doing a TON of reading lately... and it finally helped inspire me today while I was on my plane from Boston to Kansas City.
I actually have a plot line figured out and characters and their development and personal growth blah blah... I'm betting this will be like a 5 or 6 part blog series!
Wow! I know my 0 readers are super excited! Anyway... Here goes...
This is really rough. Not even I have looked through it to edit any typos or run-on/awkward sentences... whateverrrrrr

Chapter 1

“So what about you?” He said, smiling mischievously, leaning in a little closer to her over the small café table that separated them. “You keep turning the conversation away from yourself.” She tried not to smile, tried not to act surprised. “Oh, I didn’t realize I was doing that…I was just so very curious about you.” She lied. She knew exactly what she was doing. She was so sick of revealing too much to anyone, especially a handsome young European with piercing dark eyes. All too many a time in the past she had learned the hard way that men like this — no, men in general — used this same language, these same gestures, all the same tactics to chase after one thing. And when they didn’t get what they wanted, they abandoned ship. Although she had surrendered to them all of her precious love, time, pride, dignity, money and anything else they may have demanded, it was never enough to make them stay. She’d rather stay elusive, never giving away enough to let them past the wall she had slowly begun to build around her repeatedly damaged heart. Maybe knowing nothing about her could make her more alluring, not that she really wanted that either. She had finally prepared herself for eternal solitude.

“I really want to know. If you are trying to play the elusive card, you’ve played it so well to the point where it's no longer too alluring.” Her plush lips parted flashing a slight, flirtatious smile. How did he know her strategy? Was he honestly interested in what she had to say? She tucked a piece of her soft blond hair behind her horribly tiny ears, and in these small few movements she revealed more of herself than she had in so long.

Oh, God! Oh, God! What am I doing? Don’t let him fool you, Chloe. God, get me out of here. Why did I agree to this?
“I’m not very interesting. No stories of the effects of communism on my family, no rich history, no royalty in my blood, nothing to capture your interest for long I’m sure, Daniel.”

What she was trying to say is, “You’re wasting your time on me, Daniel.” As much as she was determined to cover up all of her pain and act as if she were some impenetrable threshold, he could see straight through that. He wondered if she were starting to realize that. Good. He wanted to frighten her a little, break the stereotypes she had placed on every man based on the few poor examples of them she had known.
“I’m not leaving until you give me something.” He looked deep into her eyes with great intent. He could see his own dark irises reflected in hers — oh, they were so blue and so full of unimaginable sadness. Did she know that her elusiveness added to her heartache?

She was beginning to grow irritated. What does he want from me? She wasn’t used to being pursued in such a manner. He was a frequent visitor to gardens where she loved to sit and read. She needed this quiet time in nature with God after seven hours of teaching crazed pre-pubescent 12 and 13-year-olds. She was typically the only one there, and that’s what made the spot so appealing. Daniel changed all of that.
It was rare that anything moved Chloe to tears, but one particularly gloomy afternoon, when the world seemed hopeless and her female cycle was at just the right spot, a particular novel did manage to provoke some precipitation. Little drops of liquid embarrassment she thought. Her face turned red as Daniel walked up behind her and asked if she was prone to crying in public. If that was a pickup line, she was far from impressed. His presence at the gardens enraged her, but there was also something about him that was almost believable, something real and trustworthy. She knew how unlikely that was though from past experience, but he somehow convinced her to come with him for just one meal. He had asked her out for Vietnamese food, secretly her favorite, but she would never admit to him that they shared something in common. She reluctantly agreed. Men had used her enough in the past, she might as well get a free meal every now and then; cooking dinner for one every night over the past year had gotten old anyway.
So here they were, tucked away in this exotic ocean side café with rotting floorboards, but a beautiful aroma of ocean breeze and exotic spices filled the air.

“What do you want to know?” she asked, trying not to let her irritation show too much. “Anything! Well, nothing boring. I want to know who you are really. How did a beautiful American girl end up here in Málaga? What are you afraid of? What was the cause of your last real cry? What is the last thing you think of before you go to sleep? Where are you going? Tell me your hopes and dreams. What are your nightmares?”

Was this guy for real? What happened to, “Are you in school? What are you studying? How old are you? From where in the US do you come?” Those were questions she could handle, questions with only one answer, questions on which she could elaborate long enough to last over one meal if she had to, and questions she could answer without having to reveal who she really was, where and what she had really come from, and who or what she was now.

She didn’t laugh this time. She pursed her lips. Her mind ran wild trying to make a hasty decision. He saw the invisible walls she had built, and wasn’t going to let her hide behind them. Of course…she didn’t want to be alone forever, but she had herself and God, and her two close friends — and that had been good enough for now. God was easy. He loved unconditionally, and around him barriers were impossible. He knew it all no matter how hard she tried to hide. But MEN — tangible men — were a different story. Unconditional, monogamous loving relationships were something she thought even women nowadays didn’t believe in. Plus, there were few people who could handle Chloé’s truth.

“Daniel, I can’t do this. I don’t need you to pretend to care about my emotions to get something else from me. And even if you were genuinely interested in how I feel and what I have been through in life, I highly doubt what I have to say would add to whatever you found appealing enough about me to ask me to dinner.”

Her cheeks grew red hot as her heart throbbed within her chest. It was so incredibly hard for her to be so blunt, especially when a part of her just wanted to let everything out to someone, but no man was trustworthy enough.

Daniel had known Chloe would be a challenge, and that was part of the great appeal, but he had no idea just how much of a challenge this was going to be. And he continued to tell her this.

“So you just want a challenge? Someone whom it takes longer to crawl into their head and heart until they finally think you love them and then throw them off to the side like a dirty dishcloth a few weeks later simply for bragging rights?” She was absolutely frustrated and offended, and as she clumsily stood up to leave the restaurant post haste, she knocked over the entire rickety table sending rice and curry all over. She didn’t care. She’d already made a fool of herself; she might as well leave in typical Chloe style. She would have to find a new garden for reading, but that wouldn’t be so hard.

In a fraction of a second, your entire life can change — or terminate. Yet, so many of us often take our routine lifestyles for granted and even show feelings of hostility towards this!

I sat in bed contemplating some rather pathetic decisions I need to make in the near future. My eyes closed, the light flickered off, yet my mind continued to race. So, I turned on the TV hoping to watch something light like the Colbert Report. Instead, I see BREAKING NEWS and a burning plane crashed into someone's home. I sat dumbfounded, not wanting to believe it, praying that some how there were survivors. Anderson Cooper had no idea — he continued to say that there was only one confirmed death on the ground from the home crashed into. He announced the hot line for family members with inquiries to call. As soon as that sentence came out of his mouth, he continued to say he just received an update from the police saying there were absolutely no survivors on the flight.

I can't imagine that feeling. Both of the feelings involved in that. There is the feeling of finding out your parent, child, best friend, lover, whoever died in a chaotic fiery mess.

But what I really cannot imagine is being in that plane. How many times have I sat in a plane? Multiple times every year since I was a young child. So many times I have experienced such scary turbulence, but had so much faith in my God, the pilot and was just so naïve to believe nothing could ever happen — believing that I am invincible.

The truth is, that could have been me, and it still could be me. We are NOT promised tomorrow. And while many of us think "live today like it is your last" or "live for the moment" are idealistic and wish to apply it to our lives — how many of us actually do? We don't! We get too caught up in the mindless day to day chores.

But tonight, someone was one that plane to see a lover they hadn't seen in a while. Yet one of them is left alone. Never to touch those lips or that hair or speak to the one tangible person who understands them ever again.

Someone lost a mother. Someone lost a father. Most of these people probably feel like they lost EVERYTHING in a split second, while we sit here in our beautiful worlds, often only able to focus on the negative. What are our problems really? Especially in comparison to the majority of the world living below the poverty line, unable to experience the things even many of the poorest Americans take for granted.

What would my thoughts have been on that plane? What were their thoughts? I know all of this is morbid, but my head is spinning right now, and this is what is going through it. I was hoping some writing would help me to sleep, but it has had quite the opposite effect.

What would I have said to the person next to me? How quickly would it have all happened? Would I have had time to think at all? Would I have been frozen? Would I have been so scared that my heart simply burst within my chest? If I did have thoughts racing through my head, would I have had regrets? Would I have wished I would have taken more risks? Put myself on the line more often? Always said what I felt, even if it was completely scary and irrational? Because more often than not, beautiful outcomes come from those risks, yet we let previous wounds keep us from doing anything. We would rather be stuck with something bland than to run the risk of pain for something beautiful. And that is stupid, yet I find myself acting in such a pathetic, too-guarding-of-the-heart fashion.

So, terrible, depressing, awful plane crash, you have inspired me. I'm going to do it. I'll put myself out there one more time, while still being cautious with my fragile heart, but not so cautious that I do not let anyone else in.
But now I ask you to do the same, and to not take it for granted, because this is one of the hardest things I have ever done.

Haikus en Español

En el semestre pasado yo tuve que escribir unos haikus en mi clase de español.
Claro que he escrito los haikus más bonitos.
Los encontré hoy cuando estaba limpiando mi cuarto...
Espero que puedan disfrutarlos también... a menos que no sepas este idioma magnificoooo. :)


Mi Ex Novio
------------
Eres tan feo
Tu corazón es hielo
Por favor, vete


Mi Nuevo Novio
--------------
Él es mágico
Su boca en mi boca
Dulces cerezas


Abuela
--------------
Antipática
huele a perra muerta
Mi abuela, ¡puaj!

Blood Drenched Towel to Victory

It's a fragile circle, some things in life. Or at least I occasionally feel like I get myself trapped in this circle — going round and round, trying to break free and create some abstract figure, but my mind and heart just take me back around the same old path. Of course, I do not think my entire life has just been a giant circle, just certain aspects, decisions, feeling and actions.

I am a rather different person in comparison to who I was even just a year ago, yet I find myself struggling not to make some of the same mistakes I made before. Most rational people might see these situations and say it’s possible this time it won’t come out like a circle — that it might not ultimately end in my bleeding wounded heart.

But take a heart that has been stabbed over and over, and it begins to remember what caused those wounds and to avoid getting itself into that situation again. A woman with the heart of a little girl can only be wounded a certain number of times before she throws in the blood-drenched towel and calls it quits. She stops trying to find something that doesn’t need cleaning up. In fact, she stops searching at all. She’s been fooled into thinking she found perfection one too many a time, only to love and not be loved in return, or to have that love abused. And I don't know what is worse.

I don’t want to give up, but I don’t want to be hurt again either. Can I handle it again, so soon? What happened to the optimism I still withhold about all other aspects of my life? Why can’t I shine that light of optimism into this sector of my world? Because this is the part of my world where I have always had the highest expectations, and those expectations have been more than just unfulfilled, they have been lowered and lowered until I basically feel like maybe I do not deserve anything. I know that’s not true, but put your heart through the works like I’ve done to mine — throw your heart at anyone pretending to be interested and watch them laugh, and that’s what you begin to feel like.

I have prayed about these things and changed some things in my life, and I do know my heart has healed from these old wounds. It is a full-functioning heart capable of loving without holding back, but it cannot help but remember the old wounds when entering a new situation where the possibility of pain is inevitable.

I want it. But I don't at all. I don’t because I do not know the outcome, and I have somewhat lost hope in positive outcomes in matters of the heart — at least for me. But perhaps it’s not what I think. Not everything and everyone are here to hurt me. And not everyone or everything has hurt me in the past.

I want to learn to love again without holding back. I want to be fearless. I want to once again believe that the trial is worth the pain, because where there is possibility for failure, there is also possibility for success and beauty. And out of failure always comes a lesson learned and an opportunity to grow — so was it even really failure? Then what am I waiting for? Someone else to do all the work, I suppose.

I cannot be invested in any outcomes in anything in my life. I just have to live one day to the next and know that I am not in control and never will be. And if I do not get invested in an outcome, then that still leaves hope for a happy ending, but helps to guard my fragile and sensitive heart. I’m not as tough as I sometimes like to pretend, and I'm finally ok with that.

If you want to be inspired or read something deep and philosophical... skip this entry and move down a little

This was a stupid math assignment we had to do. Write a creative story about a number.
I learned a lot about math doing this assignment, and now think I am more prepared for my major in International Studies and Spanish. What a worthwhile thing with which to occupy my time. :)

Erika Hepburn
Math 203
10 February 2009
Journal #2


Our story begins on the other side of the world under a hazy moonlit sky. Tucked into an unknown corner of an enchanted forest, beneath a willow so weepy its limbs slowly sweep the ground, lay two hooded figures leaning over a cradle. Peacefully sleeping in this cradle is no ordinary child, but behold! A newborn numerical figure, whose parents christened him Nine.
Many moons previous to this sacred night, Nine’s parents, Four and Five, met par chance in a smoky bar in southern Andalusia. It was January and the moon was in its first quarter. A few evenings later, in a clover-covered field, Nine was conceived beneath an eerie full moon. Perhaps this is what led to his luckiness. For those who already know the old tale of number Nine know that he is the first composite lucky number.
Four, Nine’s mother, knew from the moment her little Nine became an embryo that he would be unique. She believed that he perhaps he was an enchanted number as her belly glowed and glittered. Four and Five spent many a night admiring their little Nine’s silhouette performing from within her womb — pirouetting and swimming, dancing and singing in a way only a precious, innocent fetus could.
Nearly nine months had soon passed. Four and Five made their way to the enchanted forest where they wished to give birth to their son in a tranquil environment — an environment just as enchanted as their pirouetting little fetus. The trees and forest creatures whispered amongst themselves, while the elusive wood nymphs made their ways to the tops of the trees throwing glitter and sequins into the air. They created a sparkling rain in the forest as a welcome to the soon-to-be-born number.
After nine hours of labor, on the ninth hour of the ninth day of the ninth month of the year, Four gave a final push and scream, and henceforth came noble number Nine. He was a radiant and vibrant shade of green and possessed eyes as rich and red as rubies. His parents draped him in a king’s cape. The forest’s cacophony suddenly dimmed to complete mystical silence. They waited for Nine to cry laugh or scream, but he must have already realized his importance because he composed himself with such a great magnitude of dignity.
Four, Five and Nine spent the entire day together. From 9 a.m. until dusk. They ran, laughed and played — what a happy family they were, indeed! But because numbers mature much more quickly than humans, Four and Five gave Nine an inline skate, put it on his little foot and gave him a fishing pole.
“Skate away, little Nine, skate away. Live off the land like we have taught you, and know that your purpose in life is to multiply — to create larger numbers than your we ever could,” they exclaimed. “And don’t lose Eight’s phone number!” Five cried as a final piece of advice to his departing son.
Five always tried to be a man and keep his emotions nestled deep within him, but as part of him, his precious little Nine, skated off into the sunset, a single tear could be seen glistening across his cheek. He took Four’s hand and helped her into their kayak as they drifted down the river back to Andalusia.
As for Nine, he experienced a lot of adventure in his time. He learned Portuguese and once killed a tiger with his bare hands. He caused quite a lot of controversy during his visit to Russia in the early 80s when he tried to quietly settle down with Seven (a sleek and slender beauty, already married to Six). He did finally give Eight a call though, and they still live a happy life together in a cottage in the hills of Kentucky. They make a decent living running a coalmine, and can often be seen saddling up their giant turkey and taking a ride into town for fancy dinners and ballets.