Intuition

- An Exercise In Expression From Once Upon A Time -

I sit here and try to write a poem, and I wonder, as I am forced to begin - with only five minutes left to class - if I shouldn't have used "compose" instead of "write" because "compose" sounds stronger, more poetic, more like music, and yet more serious, and so less in the business of trampoline-ing me off to nonsensical heights. So I leave it as "write" because that feels right, though don't know where to go from there, and I stare at each word as it blurs and runs into the next, as the rules muddle to a puddle of rainbow while over it I splash towards that fantastical composition played on the Olympic-sized bandstand growing in the blue-green grass, the musicians like a rolling sea of sunflowers. Their magic-wand instruments spray glitters of red and green and yellow and blue, sparking the heavens into morning as I run through the air, my legs cartwheeling on the wind. I don't even have to touch the ground to move - how freeing that is! It no longer matters whether I use "write" or "compose" or "construct" or "create" or any word at all because I fly through a place called Intuition, where everyone sees me as my entire self, that unique paradox that is me, that kind of knowing that one knows except when one is asked what they know - and where it doesn't matter that "they" is the wrong kind of grammar there - because such knowing transcends words. In this place that is truly mine, I pass by The Phantom Tollbooth's orchestra which plays the sun's journey - its rising, its setting, its middle-of-the-sky sojourn - only now it's still morning and the twitters of the flute make me want to spin and twirl and dance. I give a schoolgirl's skip to a cowboy seated on the concrete steps of a paint-peeled house with a worn wooden porch. He wears a wide white hat that - if you squint - could be made out of hardened snow - and chews on a toothpick that - if you tilt your head - could perhaps be a broken piece of hay. He strums his dirt-stained banjo and calls me Suzannah - with a Z, not an S, and that's part of Intuition too, knowing these things - and then I am Suzannah, with my hair in two braids tied with red ribbon and my dress earthy-green, my shoes too dusty to be black anymore. I step softly aground and give him a curtsy. He gives me a candied apple. It looks like a sticky balloon on a stick and I trot away licking it, the finale of noontime's march lifting me back in the air. And now it is after noon - when the band from the field plays the sun's intermission, a soft hum of nap time for the toddlers and the old. I slow to a walk as I come to the village square patched with yellow-green grass worn thin with wear. An aging woman is crying there. I instinctively know (don’t forget where I am) that she lives in a show, and by lives I mean lives. Every day she must act as a weather-worn granny or provocative maid or a cold-hearted nanny – or drunken schoolteacher (that is today’s) – the poor woman’s life is polluted with plays. She knows her parts better than she knows herself, for she’d never been asked to perform as herself. But the Love Interest – that’s who she’d love to be cast – but her prime, as all primes end up – past. A curious thing – she can’t think of my name. And, come to think of it, I feel the same. My name – what’s my name? Alice, she decides, and it’s true. No more braids, my dark hair hangs neatly-brushed down my back and I’m holding a tea-cup and blue-flowered saucer. How confusing! I place it upon the stage and take my leave of the old woman who lives in a show, for she makes me tremble. When – tiptoeing in is the orchestra again! Have you ever seen an orchestra tiptoe? All in blue and silver uniforms and their march slightly stooped in a hushed sort of way, the warm gwee gwee of their violins yawning violet rays as the sun circles westward and the cello hums a father’s slow lullaby, stretching orange ‘cross the sky. The clouds blush at the nighttime wooing of the French Horn and I wear purple pajamas, illuminated in the waking moon. In struts the cowboy, plucking his banjo to the plunks of pink hiding behind the reddening sun. There are dancers waving sashes and dinner-time picnickers with blankets and baskets. The conductor, brandishing his silver baton, waves it and makes everything freeze – the people, the music, the sunset, and me. Then he points that baton at my purple nightclothes and declares, “Maggie, compose.” Compose. Compose? Does he mean write? Write what? Music? A poem? Who knows? Intuition? What is my name again? I blink and I’m back and – have I written prose?

Do I know anything anymore?

Behind The Door

They say you should answer when opportunity knocks. They say locked doors lead to adventure. The girl stood in front of the locked door, raised her fist, and knocked. It was a white door with a gold lock. There was a square sticker on the front of the door with the number 07 on it. Behind the door, she could hear movement. Scuffling. Zippering. She knocked again - louder. The scuffling did not stop. Someone was zippering - or maybe unzippering - ferociously.

She glanced around the hallway. It was a long hallway with an old tiled floor and white walls. Embedded within the walls were rows of locked doors, most of them unlabeled - not even with a number for an address.

A bit stumped, the girl turned away from door number 07 and leaned against the wall around the corner so she might think what to do. A minute or two passed. Still, no one opened the door. Each time the noises behind it got louder, the girl would hold her breath, bracing herself for the door being flung open - but it never happened. The noises merely returned to the zippering sounds.

Suddenly, she heard the tinkling of music begin to emanate from around the corner. Curious, she stepped lightly in the direction it was coming from, cautious not to make any noise. Then she saw it, more than heard. A slow fog of music, so tangible that if someone had asked what color it was, the girl would have answered that of course it was green, floated ethereally through the thin cracks between door number 07 and its door frame. She listened.

I will come to you...I will come to you...

Voices filled the music like a church choir.

The girl stood there for a moment. Then something - that thing that always knows when there is someone following you, even if you haven't turned around to look - that something inside her jumped, and she turned abruptly and near ran down the hall to the elevator. She jammed her finger into the elevator button and waited anxiously for eons before the elevator reached the tenth floor from the lobby. As soon as the doors opened, she jumped inside and pressed "door close," as though someone else was about to jump into the elevator with her.

Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. Lobby.

Quick, nervous steps to the open doors of freedom. A hurried "thank you!" thrown back over her shoulder to the man behind the front desk. And then she was through the doors and outside once more.

Once she could breathe again, the girl set off towards other adventures. Ones that didn't include long white hallways, zippering noises, or unidentifiable church music.

The Misadventures Of A Rainy Friday

There are some days when the rain is so fierce that it is not rain at all, but rather like the all the lakes and rivers of the world are falling from the sky right on top of you. This past Friday was such a day.

SJ, D2, and I set off on our trek from Stern to Penn Station in a gray world with a damp breeze. On occasion, a few droplets of water would sprinkle onto our faces, but as we walked, these droplets became more like fully-grown drops and their descents occurred more frequently than "on occasion." By the time we were halfway there, the sky had begun to dump its entire watery contents onto New York City.

For those unfamiliar with summers in New York, they go something like this: Nice Day. Hot day. Humid day. Very humid day. Very, very humid day. So-humid-it's-like-walking-through-sticky-swaths-of-hot-cotton-candy day. Stormy day filled with drenching, torrential rains, blinding flashes of lightening, and thunder so deafening it sounds like the sky's going to crash to earth any minute. The next day is a beautiful one, and the cycle begins again.

Although we have yet to reach summer, the rain which drowned our feet that day might as well have been an early summer visitor. SJ and I each had umbrellas, but the wind had decided to whip mine backwards into a position that was utterly useless. My hair, my shirt, my skirt, and my feet became completely drenched. I only hoped the contents of the suitcase I was dragging were still dry.

By the time we three got to Penn Station, our clothes were sticking to us in that uncomfortable way that wet clothes do and our hair hung limp and bedraggled. I could feel water squishing around in my shoes.

In such circumstances, a person may tend to feel bogged down by her wetness. I certainly felt that way. We had only four minutes until our train and we still had to buy tickets, but for some reason I could only shuffle my feet slowly around the train station. Everything around me, in fact, was operating on a slower, wetter system.

There were long lines by each ticket machine, but somehow both SJ and I managed to get a turn. I got tickets for D2 and myself, but SJ's machine was broken. We had no time for her to try on my machine, however, so we ran to our platform with one minute to go, stumbled clumsily (and wetly) down the stairs, and threw ourselves onto the first car of the train just before the doors closed behind us.

The train was a Double Decker, and for a moment we stood there in wet confusion, wondering where the seats were.

"Shall we go up or down?" I finally managed through chattering teeth. The others must have been too wet or bewildered or both, for they each mumbled something that didn't sound very much like a suggestion.

"Up, then," I decided for them and we all traipsed up the steps, shivering in our sopping clothes. Unluckily, there was nowhere for us to sit, so we had to stand until we reached Jamaica. That was where we had to switch.

I called my dad at that point to ask if he was also on the train. Then we could get a ride home from the train station. He wasn't, but he said he was on another train that was also switching at Jamaica, so we decided to meet up.

At Jamaica, we met my father and made the switch easily. Our next train had seats for us, but not together, so D2 went to sit in one area while SJ sat in another. "We're getting off at ---" I told them just in case we got separated, for it was a different stop than the one we were originally going to on our first train. Then I stood for a bit near D2 because I felt too wet to sit, but SJ finally convinced me to sit with her. I suppose that was when things went a bit awry.

Looking back on it, I don't think D2 noticed that I was no longer standing near her. When the train pulled into our stop, SJ and I got off the train, along with my father. As I got off, I looked around for D2 but couldn't find her anywhere.

"Is someone supposed to get off the train with you?" asked a man from my community. I nodded.

"What's her name?"

"D2," I said.

He poked his head back in the train and called out, "D2!"

But no one answered and the doors were closing.

As the train pulled away, SJ and I both took out our phones to call her. And we both noticed we had text messages from her asking if we were going to the stop our initial train, before we met up with my father, was going to. We looked at each other.

"Oh no," we said.

"What happened to D2?" asked my father. "Was she sleeping?"

I shrugged. "What's the next stop?" I asked. "Because that's where she's going."

SJ called D2, who told her what the next stop was. Then, still wet (though it was no longer raining), we trudged to my father's car and drove off to pick up D2.

Ten minutes later, D2 was found and in the car with us.

"When we get home, we should all have hot chocolate," I said.

"Ooh, yes!" exclaimed D2.

When I was taking a writing class at Stern, my stories frequently ended in everyone going home to have hot chocolate. SJ called these "hot chocolate endings." I figured we all deserved our own hot chocolate ending.

As soon as we got home, SJ, D2, and I ran up to my room to change our clothes. SJ, already wearing a light blue shirt that was mostly dry, borrowed a pastel pink skirt from me. Looking in the mirror, she exclaimed, "I look like ice cream!"

D2, meanwhile, had discovered that an air mattress was piled on top of my bed so that the whole thing looked like the set of The Princess and the Pea. She climbed on top and curled up. SJ and I, thinking this was a fun activity, climbed up with her. But after a little while, I remembered about the hot chocolate.

"Oh yeah, let's go have hot chocolate!" said D2, when I reminded her.

We all slid off the piled mattresses and bounded down the stairs.

"Do we have any hot chocolate?" I asked Mavis, who, like most teenage boys, was lurking around in the kitchen. We usually did have hot chocolate, but I wasn't sure if we had gotten any since Pesach.

"I don't think so," said Mavis. "But you can always use Ovaltine!"

So we tried the Ovaltine. The issue with that was we couldn't use the instant hot water on our sink. We had to actually heat up milk.

"Maybe we shouldn't," I said, glancing around the kitchen that had various Shabbos cooking activities going on in it.

"Aw, why not?" asked D2. I hesitated.

"We can just warm it up in the microwave," suggested SJ.

"Okay," I said. "But...in what?"

"Mugs?"

"Can you microwave mugs?"

"Sure! We do it all the time in my house."

"Um...okay..."

So I got down three mugs.

"Wait, girls, why don't you try these?" suggested my father, taking down some Styrofoam cups. I felt more comfortable using those and took them readily. SJ and D2 each poured themselves a cup of milk and put the cups in the microwave.

I waited for them to be finished but D2 kept putting hers back in.

Finally, it was my turn. I decided that instead of putting it in and out a million times, I'd just put my cup in for a full four minutes.

I suppose no one really paid much attention to what I was doing, because no one stopped me. SJ and D2 were busy with their cups of hot chocolate. I waited around for my cup of milk to finish microwaving.

As I waited, I did other things. I went upstairs to get something. I talked to SJ and D2. Mavis and I spent some quality time bothering each other. And then I decided to check out how my cup of milk was doing.

The first thing I saw when I looked over at the microwave was a steamy door and lots of white behind it.

You know that feeling where you suddenly feel the blood rushing around in your head? Shabbos was in less than an hour and I thought for a moment that I had broken the microwave.

After my feet unstuck from the floor, I shakily pressed the "stop" button and pulled open the door. A large circle of white liquid lapped up against an empty Styrofoam cup in greeting.

When I panic, I am generally overcome with a slow-moving, intense calm. I suddenly know exactly what to do, and what I knew most of all in that situation was that there was no reason my mother had to come into the kitchen until the milk was all cleaned up.

I became almost devilish about it.

"Should I take a picture?" I asked SJ.

"Yes!" she grinned. "It's like illustrated milk!"

I giggled and ran to get my camera.

Before long, I had both taken a picture of the milky masterpiece and had cleaned it all up. It was quite easy to clean, too.

"Here, let's try again," said D2, grabbing hold of the Styrofoam cup.

I looked at her incredulously, nearly started laughing again, and shook my head.

"I think I've had enough experimenting with milk for now," I said.

So I did not get my hot chocolate ending.

But I did get some illustrated milk. Oh, and a great story.

Spring

This story is written l'zecher nishmos all who have passed away recently, for there have been way too many. Specifically, if I am not completely out of place to say so, David Rottenstreich, Aliza Shull - a close friend of Serach, Ezzie, and Moshe, and also for my aunt's mother - whose funeral we are going to today. May all their family and friends be comforted. Baruch dayan emes.

(Feel free to ignore this post if you would rather. I am not talking to anyone in it. I am just sharing the way my mind wanders.)

***

It’s been a hard winter. The cold lasted for longer than usual. Only just this week the weather started getting warmer. Not quite warm yet, but warmer. I’m supposed to be asleep but I can’t seem to settle into that relaxed, unthinking state. Too much is happening around me.

For a young bird, the beginning of spring is a puzzling time. Everything seems so dead from the winter – like the icy wind has killed every piece of greenery (except for those resilient pine trees, of course, though they, too, seem dead in a way). The animals leave, like us birds, or burrow into a warmer place to wait for the sun to bring heat once again. The world feels empty.

Our return when the winter takes this long to melt away makes me feel concerned for the world. Will the earth sprout again? Will the trees bear leaves? Will the flowers bud and blossom? Will the stream burble joyously over smooth stones and gush with its own tinkling music? Or have we returned to a world stuck forever in winter, never to bloom again?

I perch on a low branch and shiver with the cold, mourning over the heat that determinedly keeps away. While I tremble in despair, a strange series of sounds pricks my ears. I perk up and look around for the source of the rich, musical voice. It fluctuates between deep trumpeting—

Chaw! Chaw! Chaw!

To a more twittery—

Wurgle wurgle wurgle…

And then—

Tttttttt….

With finally, a whistle—

Shwee! Shwee!

“How marvelous!” I exclaim, hopping to the edge of my branch and craning my neck to see in all directions.

There, in a nearby tree, sits a beautiful bird of a misty green color. He is clearly trying to get attention. Sometimes his chest booms out that great “Chaw!” call. Other times a velvety calm overtakes him and he sweetly twitters away. When this goes on for a short while, he seems to lose patience and tweets in a frenzy, rather like a frustrated honking goose.

“Can’t anybody get some sleep around here?” grumbles my father from a branch above my own. I fly up to him.

“But I think it’s wonderful!” I chirp. “I can’t believe all that noise is coming from just one bird!”

“It’s because he’s mating,” my father yawns, ruffling his feathers and trying to drop back asleep. “Go to sleep.”

“Oh, but I can’t!”

I fly to a branch even higher still and watch the green bird. I wonder who he expects to answer his mating call. Is not every other bird asleep?

Strangely, the sounds that so irritate my father begin slowly to help me relax. If the green bird is searching for a mate, he must see a spring that I am still not aware of. The thought comforts me, for it means that this unnaturally long winter does have an end, after all. I try to see spring, too.

As I fall asleep, I dream of a tiny white bud at the end of everyone's unnaturally bare branches. One day, they will grow into beautiful flowers.

Crowded Dream

~A Story~

Dedicated to those who were there.

The girl sat back in her chair, trying to look comfortable - but how can a person be comfortable if her feet won't quite reach the floor? She resisted the urge to tuck them under her and instead entwined her sweaty hands within the slightly-too-long sleeves of her sweater. She twisted and untwisted this mess of brown sleeves and pale hands as an activity to occupy her and somehow keep her grounded. Exceeding the dimensions of the room around her were multitudes of people she didn't know all talking and eating, eating and talking, sitting and standing and going back and forth from kitchen to living room to kitchen to living room. Their loud unfamiliarity only made them seem double, triple, quadruple in amount. It was like living in a dream where people came and went without warning, never seeming to penetrate your own consciousness long enough to leave anything more than fleeting, insubstantial impressions.

She had come with friends, of course, but somehow ended up alone anyway. On occasion, someone she knew would walk by, but when the girl tried desperately to grasp onto that familiarity, it quickly slipped away again, like a hallucination.

And perhaps she was hallucinating. How had she gotten here, anyway? This strange, new place filled with strange, new people. Perhaps it would all melt away with a blink and she'd find herself on the train home.

Home. Where was home? Why wasn't she home now?

And now more people came in. People she was supposed to know.

"Don't you know them?" asked a voice - someone's voice. Someone who knew her, she assumed, but it was so enmeshed in the surround-sound crowd that she might have dreamt it up altogether.

She tried hard to know them.

Blinding colors, neon noises, and then -

"Eat."

Someone shoved a paper plate into her hands, breaking up the twisting and twining of her sweater sleeves.

She couldn't even remember afterward if she ate or not. Eating was part of a world outside her realm of dreamy awareness.

Somehow she ended up in the kitchen. She thought she might have said something, but she couldn't remember what. And there might have been a big bug that someone squashed with a shoe, but she wasn't quite sure if that actually happened or if someone had just talked about it happening sometime before.

Faces, people, chatter, shoes, yelling, laughing, whispers, low voices, loud voices, eating, playing, sitting, standing, walking, spinning, spinning, spinning fun house of color and sound.

And then, like all dreams, it was somehow over without ever having ended.

The concrete reality of the crisp autumn night air splashed her in the face, tugging slightly on her hair and pinching her awake. With relief, she closed the door on the unfamiliar, crowded dream.

The irony of it all is how familiar the unfamiliar thereafter became.
(Thank you HUGELY to Serach and Ezzie for opening up their home to me this past year to the point where it feels like going home , to SJ and Fudge for first bringing me there, and to the Raggedies for just being the Raggedies)

Fire

(I wrote this in honor of Tisha b'Av. I sort of had this flash of emotion as I was putting my shoes on before going to shul to hear Eicha. I wanted to write this down afterwards before I lost it. The sad thing is, intense feeling like this will probably have all melted away by the time I wake up tomorrow, and then it will be just like any other Tisha b'Av - a lot more empty than it should be. I don't know why I suddenly felt so strongly tonight, but I'm glad I did, in a weird way. Seeing everyone in shul sitting on the floor helped, too. Also, I hope this isn't too intense for anyone. It was sort of intense for me, but I needed to write it and I felt it was powerful enough to post. At least, it was powerful for me. I can't say it will be for anyone else. But if it helps anyone at all, even in the tiniest way, relate to what today is all about, then I guess that's a good thing.)

Fire
~ a stream-of-consciousness story~

I am a tiny, insignificant speck. All around me is darkness. Swirling, swirling. Echoing screams of the past rush by, but they're not really there. But I feel the heat. I feel the fire. I feel it.

The fire.

It quivers. It sparks. It erupts in brutal flames. The flames - intensity in its purest form. Red. Orange. Yellow. Orange. Red. They all dance together - a rambunctious dance, a provocative dance, a dance of profanity as they desecrate everything holy. I feel anger - indignant anger - well up as the flames roll and laugh, cackle and crackle and lick at the very foundation of life and light and good things. This is the fire of Darkness. This is the smog and fog and smoke that we choke on. Choke and cough and sputter until our eyes run with sooty tears. These are the unconstrained flames that wriggle and twist - they twist at my soul. And I cry. I cry and cry and cry. Because it hurts! It hurts to be yanked away from the warmth and light and closeness of God! It hurts to be thrown down, to be cast aside, to be pushed away! It stings to be exiled, to yearn for that love which you know you'll have to try so much harder to feel. And I want to be comforted, I need to be comforted - but there is no comfort. Is it possible to be comforted for this plight? Is it possible?

And I know that this - this which I feel - is only an echo of what was once felt. Only a tiny, infinitesimal echo - because how can I really know? How can I really understand? Me, who has never known such holiness, who has never been so close to God, who has never heard the singing of the Levi'im and who has never understood what it was like to see someone bring a korban? Me, of the Diaspora. Me, who has lived my entire life in exile, never knowing what it was like not to be in exile.

So I bury my face and shiver at the thought that the pain I feel now is happiness compared to the pain felt then. This scares me. An eerie coldness grips my soul and envelops my entire being, because here I am, a 21st century American Jewish girl, and I think I understand pain and sadness and anguish. And it terrifies me - that my feeble shadow of pain is only that. A shadow. That there was a time when people suffered so intensely. And that time was real. And I can't fathom such a thing. And that's why it scares me. That such a thing could have existed at all.

The Tale of the Lever

Once upon a time, three girls named SJ, D2, and Erachet ventured into a candy shop. There was candy everywhere - on the counters, on the shelves, along the walls...
SJ and D2 were excited by all the candy.
Erachet was too, but she was something else. She was curious. She walked over to the plastic containers lining the walls filled with m&ms. Each container had a different color of m&ms in it and, more importantly, each container had a big, red lever attached to it.
"Hmmm," wondered the ever-curious Erachet. "I wonder what would happen if I just...pulled...?"
She reached out and pulled on the lever attached to the container filled with red m&ms.

TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP!

Out fell scores and scores of m&ms onto the floor!

Uh oh!

Those gross m&ms from the floor cost Erachet $1.25.

And that, boys and girls, is why you should never pull levers if you don't know what they do, especially in candy shops.

The End.

HO NO!

It is that time of year again. The time when I sleep with my desk light on and don't like to close my eyes at night (which consequently means I'm not sleeping) and don't look in mirrors for too long.

What time of year is this, you may ask?

DRACULA TIME.

The same thing happened last spring! You might recall I had to read Dracula for my film and fiction class (OMG CREEPY. IT'S EXACTLY THE SAME TIME OF YEAR).

Now, the book itself is not too frightening, but when you've got images in your head of the Coppola movie (with Gary Oldman as Dracula - that's right, go ahead and ruin my image of Sirius Black!), well, it's pretty scary (except for when he's wearing those sunglasses. Those just make him look ridiculous). There's one scene in particular which freaked me out when I read it, freaked me out even more when I saw it in the movie, and is freaking me out again - the scene with the mirror. Here's what happens:

Jonathan Harker is looking in a mirror, shaving. Dracula comes up behind him. Jonathan Harker does not see anything in his mirror. Suddenly, Dracula reaches out and touches his shoulder.

THIS IS SCARY.

I love my gothic novel class very much (it's probably one of my favorites this semester) and I AM glad we're reading Dracula because, gosh darn it, I HAVE to overcome these ridiculous fears. But but but--!

It's this weird thing. I can't explain it. On the one hand, I'm afraid. On the other hand, I enjoy being so afraid. It makes me feel stronger, in a way, because I'm forcing myself to face things I'm scared of facing (I do have limits about this, though. There's scary, and then there's gross. I don't go for gross. Just scary). Plus, if you live your life never in fear of anything, well, that's got to be pretty boring, you know? It keeps you on your toes! And it makes you a stronger person and allows you to grow.

As scared as I am of vampires, you should also know that when I was a little kid in sleep away camp, a friend and I used to pretend to be vampire slayers and we would creep around the outside of our bunk at night slaying imaginary vampires (and no, I never watched Buffy).

In any case. I just needed to get all this out. Scariness.

To make Dracula far less frightening, I'm going to retell it...the PT style:

Nuthing lik a vampir

by erasha

(grat buk!)

In the morning, I luk in a mirror.

Drakyula dusn't lik to not vare.

AAAAA where my clothing is? (where is my clothing?)

Over thar, that is war it is. [image of count scaling down castle in harker's suit]

(what's going on in the cage?)

(that's the vampire cage)

(you have a cage for vampires?)

(yeah! the vampires like to be up there!)

AAAAA! Don't wure, we don't needa suc all the blud today.

Hmmm.

Wuat cind of vampir is this!?

Grad F!

Wuat!

You didn't get a gud grad on this.

Ho boy. Are you gonna leave the cassle? Do you wanna have wafers wen we get home?

Uh, no, I'm gonna stay at the cassle.

OkI'mleevingwithoutyoug'bye.

Dreeeeaaaaming.... (doo doo doo doo)

(what are you dreaming of?)

F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F

The ledder F is so good. It stand for your last name...Frangin.

Ugh, why do I cep getting F's?

Because your last name is Frangin.

Hmmm, maybe your grads are good. F for frendly vampir. A for attack.

Vaaaampirs are mor importint evre uther day!

The end.

(other versions can be found here and here)

Are there any books you guys find particularly frightening? Or am I the only weirdo out there?

Also, I thought this was apropos:

My Blogiversary party! (part two)

For entertainment, I bring you (major thanks to SJ for sharing this story with me)...
(from this website)

The Green Door
by O'Henry

Suppose you should be walking down Broadway after dinner, with ten
minutes allotted to the consummation of your cigar while you are
choosing between a diverting tragedy and something serious in the way
of vaudeville. Suddenly a hand is laid upon your arm. You turn to
look into the thrilling eyes of a beautiful woman, wonderful in
diamonds and Russian sables. She thrusts hurriedly into your hand
an extremely hot buttered roll, flashes out a tiny pair of scissors,
snips off the second button of your overcoat, meaningly ejaculates
the one word, "parallelogram!" and swiftly flies down a cross street,
looking back fearfully over her shoulder.

That would be pure adventure. Would you accept it? Not you. You
would flush with embarrassment; you would sheepishly drop the roll
and continue down Broadway, fumbling feebly for the missing button.
This you would do unless you are one of the blessed few in whom the
pure spirit of adventure is not dead.

True adventurers have never been plentiful. They who are set down in
print as such have been mostly business men with newly invented
methods. They have been out after the things they wanted--golden
fleeces, holy grails, lady loves, treasure, crowns and fame. The
true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and
greet unknown fate. A fine example was the Prodigal Son--when he
started back home.

Half-adventurers--brave and splendid figures--have been numerous.
>From the Crusades to the Palisades they have enriched the arts of
history and fiction and the trade of historical fiction. But each
of them had a prize to win, a goal to kick, an axe to grind, a race
to run, a new thrust in tierce to deliver, a name to carve, a crow to
pick--so they were not followers of true adventure.

In the big city the twin spirits Romance and Adventure are always
abroad seeking worthy wooers. As we roam the streets they slyly peep
at us and challenge us in twenty different guises. Without knowing
why, we look up suddenly to see in a window a face that seems to
belong to our gallery of intimate portraits; in a sleeping
thoroughfare we hear a cry of agony and fear coming from an empty and
shuttered house; instead of at our familiar curb, a cab-driver
deposits us before a strange door, which one, with a smile, opens for
us and bids us enter; a slip of paper, written upon, flutters down to
our feet from the high lattices of Chance; we exchange glances of
instantaneous hate, affection and fear with hurrying strangers in the
passing crowds; a sudden douse of rain--and our umbrella may be
sheltering the daughter of the Full Moon and first cousin of the
Sidereal System; at every corner handkerchiefs drop, fingers beckon,
eyes besiege, and the lost, the lonely, the rapturous, the
mysterious, the perilous, changing clues of adventure are slipped
into our fingers. But few of us are willing to hold and follow them.
We are grown stiff with the ramrod of convention down our backs. We
pass on; and some day we come, at the end of a very dull life, to
reflect that our romance has been a pallid thing of a marriage or
two, a satin rosette kept in a safe-deposit drawer, and a lifelong
feud with a steam radiator.

Rudolf Steiner was a true adventurer. Few were the evenings on which
he did not go forth from his hall bedchamber in search of the
unexpected and the egregious. The most interesting thing in life
seemed to him to be what might lie just around the next corner.
Sometimes his willingness to tempt fate led him into strange paths.
Twice he had spent the night in a station-house; again and again he
had found himself the dupe of ingenious and mercenary tricksters; his
watch and money had been the price of one flattering allurement. But
with undiminished ardour he picked up every glove cast before him
into the merry lists of adventure.

One evening Rudolf was strolling along a crosstown street in the
older central part of the city. Two streams of people filled the
sidewalks--the home-hurrying, and that restless contingent that
abandons home for the specious welcome of the thousand-candle-power
~table d'hote~.

The young adventurer was of pleasing presence, and moved serenely and
watchfully. By daylight he was a salesman in a piano store. He wore
his tie drawn through a topaz ring instead of fastened with a stick
pin; and once he had written to the editor of a magazine that
"Junie's Love Test" by Miss Libbey, had been the book that had most
influenced his life.

During his walk a violent chattering of teeth in a glass case on the
sidewalk seemed at first to draw his attention (with a qualm), to a
restaurant before which it was set; but a second glance revealed the
electric letters of a dentist's sign high above the next door. A
giant negro, fantastically dressed in a red embroidered coat, yellow
trousers and a military cap, discreetly distributed cards to those of
the passing crowd who consented to take them.

This mode of dentistic advertising was a common sight to Rudolf.
Usually he passed the dispenser of the dentist's cards without
reducing his store; but tonight the African slipped one into his hand
so deftly that he retained it there smiling a little at the
successful feat.

When he had travelled a few yards further he glanced at the card
indifferently. Surprised, he turned it over and looked again with
interest. One side of the card was blank; on the other was written
in ink three words, "The Green Door." And then Rudolf saw, three
steps in front of him, a man throw down the card the negro had given
him as he passed. Rudolf picked it up. It was printed with the
dentist's name and address and the usual schedule of "plate work" and
"bridge work" and specious promises of "painless" operations.

The adventurous piano salesman halted at the corner and considered.
Then he crossed the street, walked down a block, recrossed and joined
the upward current of people again. Without seeming to notice the
negro as he passed the second time, he carelessly took the card that
was handed him. Ten steps away he inspected it. In the same
handwriting that appeared on the first card "The Green Door" was
inscribed upon it. Three or four cards were tossed to the pavement
by pedestrians both following and leading him. These fell blank side
up. Rudolf turned them over. Every one bore the printed legend of
the dental "parlours."

Rarely did the arch sprite Adventure need to beckon twice to Rudolf
Steiner, his true follower. But twice it had been done, and the
quest was on.

Rudolf walked slowly back to where the giant negro stood by the case
of rattling teeth. This time as he passed he received no card. In
spite of his gaudy and ridiculous garb, the Ethiopian displayed a
natural barbaric dignity as he stood, offering the cards suavely to
some, allowing others to pass unmolested. Every half minute he
chanted a harsh, unintelligible phrase akin to the jabber of car
conductors and grand opera. And not only did he withhold a card this
time, but it seemed to Rudolf that he received from the shining and
massive black countenance a look of cold, almost contemptuous
disdain.

The look stung the adventurer. He read in it a silent accusation
that he had been found wanting. Whatever the mysterious written
words on the cards might mean, the black had selected him twice from
the throng for their recipient; and now seemed to have condemned him
as deficient in the wit and spirit to engage the enigma.

Standing aside from the rush, the young man made a rapid estimate of
the building in which he conceived that his adventure must lie. Five
stories high it rose. A small restaurant occupied the basement.

The first floor, now closed, seemed to house millinery or furs. The
second floor, by the winking electric letters, was the dentist's.
Above this a polyglot babel of signs struggled to indicate the abodes
of palmists, dressmakers, musicians and doctors. Still higher up
draped curtains and milk bottles white on the window sills proclaimed
the regions of domesticity.

After concluding his survey Rudolf walked briskly up the high flight
of stone steps into the house. Up two flights of the carpeted
stairway he continued; and at its top paused. The hallway there was
dimly lighted by two pale jets of gas one--far to his right, the
other nearer, to his left. He looked toward the nearer light and saw,
within its wan halo, a green door. For one moment he hesitated; then
he seemed to see the contumelious sneer of the African juggler of
cards; and then he walked straight to the green door and knocked
against it.

Moments like those that passed before his knock was answered measure
the quick breath of true adventure. What might not be behind those
green panels! Gamesters at play; cunning rogues baiting their traps
with subtle skill; beauty in love with courage, and thus planning to
be sought by it; danger, death, love, disappointment, ridicule--any
of these might respond to that temerarious rap.

A faint rustle was heard inside, and the door slowly opened. A girl
not yet twenty stood there, white-faced and tottering. She loosed
the knob and swayed weakly, groping with one hand. Rudolf caught her
and laid her on a faded couch that stood against the wall. He closed
the door and took a swift glance around the room by the light of a
flickering gas jet. Neat, but extreme poverty was the story that he
read.

The girl lay still, as if in a faint. Rudolf looked around the room
excitedly for a barrel. People must be rolled upon a barrel who--no,
no; that was for drowned persons. He began to fan her with his hat.
That was successful, for he struck her nose with the brim of his
derby and she opened her eyes. And then the young man saw that hers,
indeed, was the one missing face from his heart's gallery of intimate
portraits. The frank, grey eyes, the little nose, turning pertly
outward; the chestnut hair, curling like the tendrils of a pea vine,
seemed the right end and reward of all his wonderful adventures. But
the face was wofully thin and pale.

The girl looked at him calmly, and then smiled.

"Fainted, didn't I?" she asked, weakly. "Well, who wouldn't? You
try going without anything to eat for three days and see!"

"Himmel!" exclaimed Rudolf, jumping up. "Wait till I come back."

He dashed out the green door and down the stairs. In twenty minutes
he was back again, kicking at the door with his toe for her to open
it. With both arms he hugged an array of wares from the grocery and
the restaurant. On the table he laid them--bread and butter, cold
meats, cakes, pies, pickles, oysters, a roasted chicken, a bottle of
milk and one of redhot tea.

"This is ridiculous," said Rudolf, blusteringly, "to go without
eating. You must quit making election bets of this kind. Supper is
ready." He helped her to a chair at the table and asked: "Is there
a cup for the tea?" "On the shelf by the window," she answered.
When he turned again with the cup he saw her, with eyes shining
rapturously, beginning upon a huge Dill pickle that she had rooted
out from the paper bags with a woman's unerring instinct. He took it
from her, laughingly, and poured the cup full of milk. "Drink that
first" he ordered, "and then you shall have some tea, and then a
chicken wing. If you are very good you shall have a pickle
to-morrow. And now, if you'll allow me to be your guest we'll have
supper."

He drew up the other chair. The tea brightened the girl's eyes and
brought back some of her colour. She began to eat with a sort of
dainty ferocity like some starved wild animal. She seemcd to regard
the young man's presence and the aid he had rendered her as a natural
thing--not as though she undervalued the conventions; but as one
whose great stress gave her the right to put aside the artificial for
the human. But gradually, with the return of strength and comfort,
came also a sense of the little conventions that belong; and she
began to tell him her little story. It was one of a thousand such as
the city yawns at every day--the shop girl's story of insufficient
wages, further reduced by "fines" that go to swell the store's
profits; of time lost through illness; and then of lost positions,
lost hope, and--the knock of the adventurer upon the green door.

But to Rudolf the history sounded as big as the Iliad or the crisis
in "Junie's Love Test."

"To think of you going through all that," he exclaimed.

"It was something fierce," said the girl, solemnly.

"And you have no relatives or friends in the city?"

"None whatever."

"I am all alone in the world, too," said Rudolf, after a pause.

"I am glad of that," said the girl, promptly; and somehow it pleased
the young man to hear that she approved of his bereft condition.

Very suddenly her eyelids dropped and she sighed deeply.

"I'm awfully sleepy," she said, "and I feel so good."

Then Rudolf rose and took his hat. "I'll say good-night. A long
night's sleep will be fine for you."

He held out his hand, and she took it and said "good-night." But
her eyes asked a question so eloquently, so frankly and pathetically
that he answered it with words.

"Oh, I'm coming back to-morrow to see how you are getting along. You
can't get rid of me so easily."

Then, at the door, as though the way of his coming had been so much
less important than the fact that he had come, she asked: "How did
you come to knock at my door?"

He looked at her for a moment, remembering the cards, and felt a
sudden jealous pain. What if they had fallen into other hands as
adventurous as his? Quickly he decided that she must never know the
truth. He would never let her know that he was aware of the strange
expedient to which she had been driven by her great distress.

"One of our piano tuners lives in this house," he said. "I knocked
at your door by mistake."

The last thing he saw in the room before the green door closed was
her smile.

At the head of the stairway he paused and looked curiously about him.
And then he went along the hallway to its other end; and, coming
back, ascended to the floor above and continued his puzzled
explorations. Every door that he found in the house was painted
green.

Wondering, he descended to the sidewalk. The fantastic African was
still there. Rudolf confronted him with his two cards in his hand.

"Will you tell me why you gave me these cards and what they mean?"
he asked.

In a broad, good-natured grin the negro exhibited a splendid
advertisement of his master's profession.

"Dar it is, boss," he said, pointing down the street. "But I 'spect
you is a little late for de fust act."

Looking the way he pointed Rudolf saw above the entrance to a theatre
the blazing electric sign of its new play, "The Green Door."

"I'm informed dat it's a fust-rate show, sah," said the negro. "De
agent what represents it pussented me with a dollar, sah, to
distribute a few of his cards along with de doctah's. May I offer
you one of de doctah's cards, sah?"

At the corner of the block in which he lived Rudolf stopped for a
glass of beer and a cigar. When he had come out with his lighted
weed he buttoned his coat, pushed back his hat and said, stoutly, to
the lamp post on the corner:

"All the same, I believe it was the hand of Fate that doped out the
way for me to find her."

Which conclusion, under the circumstances, certainly admits Rudolf
Steiner to the ranks of the true followers of Romance and Adventure.

This story really sums up my experience at Stern, I have to say. It holds the keys to adventurising. Many people ask me how SJ and I manage to have so many adventures. Well, here's how, the rules taken straight from this story:

1. Be spontaneous. You can't plan an adventure. You just have to go out and aimlessly walk around. Or you could be walking home from somewhere. But don't have any rigid plans in your head. Rigidity ruins adventure.

2. Open your eyes. But, you might insist, of course my eyes are open! How else would I be able to see where I was going? Ah, but the trick here is not to see where you are going but to notice where everyone else is going. Be open minded. Notice things around you. Adventures are everywhere, but most of the time, we walk right past them.

3. Walk leisurely. Don't rush anywhere. Rushing leads to passing by things. You don't want to pass anything by if you really want an adventure.

4. See things for their possibilities. This is also known as having an imagination. If you see everything at its face value, you'll miss crucial adventure opportunities. See things for what they could be and then make them those things. A book store is not just a book store. It's a treasure box of interesting, wacky, adventurous things. Crowds are not just annoying. They hold tons of quirky, wonky people. Keep your ears open. Listen to their conversations (that's right - eavesdrop). You'll be surprised what you come away with.

5. Be gutsy. Take chances. You only live once.

Adventures are everywhere. You just have to be willing to see them.

Now this blogiversary party is coming to an end. I highly encourage you all to try the transmogrifier in part one of the party! I'm the only one who did, so far!

And for your door prize, I bring you a gift from both myself and Fudge:

Nothing Like A Dat

Enjoy!

power outages, blind pigs, and bats - oh my!

So, on the subject of Gothic Novels, I had my own Catherine Morland experience on the Labor Day Weekend of 2006. I wrote about it in a journal at the time, but I would like to relay it here because it is fun and is on topic. And it's fun.

Okay.

It is titled: Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice! (And it is only very, very, very, very, very slightly edited)

This past thursday (meaning, a week from today) I finished class, packed my things, and took a two hour train ride on the NJ Transit to a place called Wassaic. I'm not sure if it was in Massachusettes or NY. Either way, it was far. Oh, and let's not forget the fact that I walked from my dorm to Grand Central Station because the subway was being annoying and not coming. Right. So I walked.

My mom and my aunt picked me up and we went to the farm where the rest of my family and cousins had been staying all week - Sweet Pea Farms. My brother and one of my cousins were going to arrive later than night because they'd been at hockey camp all week. It was a 45 minute drive from the Wassaic train station. Basically, with every minute we went further and further from civilization.

It was evening when we got to the house. There was this long drive up to the actual house itself, during which we passed a fenced in area for the horses. I couldn't see much of the animals then because it was dark. Anyway, we reached the house which, from the outside, definitely looked like a haunted house. I went inside and everyone was in the living room watching Batman Begins. But, since my cousin and sister (Trademark, if you remember) had requested it, I brought She's The Man. So Trademark, my cousin, and I all went to my parents' room to watch it. Some of my other cousins came, too, I think. In any case, a few of us were in there when we went to put the DVD into the DVD player by the TV. Upon approaching the TV, we noticed a certain home video on top of it belonging to the people from whom we were renting the house. The title of the video - Death I, Death II, Death III. I'm not joking.

We all shared looks of, 'who the HECK lives in this house???'

That night, I was on this sketchy computer in the house talking to someone. Then I went to bed, but first I decided I was thirsty. I went down to the kitchen to get a drink of water, but it was all dark down there except for the Christmas lights that the owners of the house left up in random places all over. Out the windows, it was all trees and wilderness. And I was suddenly quite scared. I mean, it was like just out of a horror movie. You know, innocent family goes to remote farm. Owners of the farm are secretly nearby and murder everyone in their sleep. Sheesh! I need to stop watching TV, I know, but still. I ran back upstairs, back to the sketchy computer, and talked to my friend some more until I finally gathered up enough courage to actually get my drink of water.

Friday morning, we had a whole debate with everyone about whether or not we should go alpine sliding or canoeing. Come on. Alpine sliding! In the end, we didn't do either but went on a hike instead. But it was a pretty heated debate, which was amusing. Every single kid wanted alpine sliding, though. I'm sad we didn't do it. Anyway, so first my dad took my brother and me to take out the garbage. Taking out the garbage was a big deal because you had to walk all the way down that long path from the house to the road where the garbages were. On the way, my dad showed us the grounds which we could now see properly, since it was daytime. We saw the horses - all three of them, and the pig (which we learned later was a pot-belly pig named Rollo who was blind because he got so fat the rolls of fat over his eyes wouldn't let him open them. I think that's really depressing), and the rooster and some chickens. And there was this little creek/brook thing with a bridge over it that kinda creaked worryingly when we walked across it. And as we walked, my brother was like, "you know the movie Chainsaw Massacre? Yeah, that happened right here." But anyway. On the road right in front of the house, there are three signs. One sign says "Sweet Pea Farm." The sign immediately next to it says "Welcome to Massachusettes." The sign immediately behind that one says "Welcome to New York." Yep, we were right on the border of two states. Literally. There was also this monument saying that there was the place General Henry Knox passed to bring artillery to George Washington in order to kick the British out of Boston. We weren't even anywhere near Boston, but that's cool anyway.

The rest of the day was sort of uneventful until we came to half an hour before Shabbat. Us kids were just sitting in the living room doing whatever when, suddenly, a big, winged, flying thing appeared out of nowhere. We all shouted, "Hey look! A bird!" My dad and my uncle went chasing it with a broom and a mop, which was quite amusing, but, alas, they lost it. My mom told us it probably disappeared as mysteriously as it came and that was that. BUT. My brother (Straight Man) made an observation I had been considering but hadn't mentioned. The way the flying thing was flapping its wings was, er, quite un-birdlike. And it was, er, very much BAT-like. Yes. So. Of course, once my brother suggested that out loud, my sister freaked. But it was okay, because the bat-bird-flying thing did not reappear that night.

The next morning was quite like any morning in a haunted house in The Middle of Nowhere, Berkshires, USA, The World. The weather forecast was for rain, but it was quite a nice day in the end. Sort of. It was windy, but there was no rain. And it wasn't even VERY windy. Just windy. Well, right around noontime - before we started eating lunch - there was a sort of medium-sized gust of wind, and then, the power went out. All the power. In the house and in the barn (which was converted into a full court basketball court with a volleyball net in the middle. The only non-sketchy thing about the place). And, as my mom and my aunt put it, we couldn't go see if the neighbors lost power too, because THERE WERE NO NEIGHBORS. WE WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE.

However, my dad and I did go to the barn, I forget why, and we noticed that the circuits in the barn were all on. Meaning that wasn't the problem. But while we were walking along the grounds, I pointed out to my dad quite an interesting thing the people who normally live there built. They took a very large tree branch and tied it to another large tree branch and put both of those in between two big tree trunks so that it looked just like a huge cross. I was like, "they definitely crucify the people who come to stay here." It was an odd thing to have on their grounds, to say the least.

Anyway, back to the power-outage, we were all a bit nervous for what would happen later, when it got dark out and it would be PITCH BLACK. And it was Shabbat, so we couldn't even use flashlights! And there was talk about leaving the next day if the power didn't come back. But anyway, we ate lunch. About two hours later, we were still sitting around the table in the dining room and there was another medium-sized gust of wind. My dad was like, "heh, I bet, if we count to ten, the power will come back. Ready?" And he counted to ten, as a joke of course. About two minutes later, literally, the power came back. We all went, *blink* and then we started laughing. It was just odd. Creepy.

Not long later, guess who decided to show up! Our good friend, BAT-BIRD-FLYING THING! My dad and my uncle went after it again and, somehow, it got caught in my brother and my cousin's room in between the window and the window screen. So, it was sorta trapped in there and we all got a real good look at it. It was most definitely a bat. It was actually kind of cool. I've never been that close to a bat before. We could see all the details. It was awesome. My littlest cousin was crying for a bit, though, because she was scared.

A bit later, this girl named Lily who comes to take care of the animals came to the house and took the bat out by carrying it in a towel. As she released it into a bush, she mentioned the nice teeth the bat had. "My, Batman, what big teeth you have!" "The better to make you a vampire with!"

On Sunday, we went to the Columbia County Fair. It was kinda fun. My sister and I got to shoot a bow and arrow and I actually hit a balloon! Granted, it was a total accident because I had not been aiming for that particular balloon, but still! I got a ribbon!

And there was a ride called "Haunted Pirate Ride." It looked pretty frightening from the outside, but I thought, come on, how scary could it be? I wasn't scared at all. I was all, "bring on the scary pirates! Arrr!"

My dad and I got on the ride (no one else was brave enough to join us). We went through the curtain into not-quite-pitch blackness. And, er, that was about it. It was about thirty seconds in the dark, no scary images or anything anywhere, and every few seconds there was a loud buzzer sound.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SCARY GHOST PIRATES?

Anyway, needless to say, that was a sad, sad disappointment. I still can't believe that was even a ride. Sheesh. THERE WAS NOTHING IN THERE. Like, go into your room, turn off the light for thirty seconds, and every ten seconds or so make a loud buzzer sound. THAT WAS IT. Gosh. How did that even have anything at all to do with pirates? Or ghosts? Or anything besides buzzers??? The ride should have been called "Thirty Seconds in the Dark with Loud Buzzers"

Ahem. Anyway. The rest of the fair was okay. I refused to play any of those games where you pay to not win that stuffed animal that you could buy from a toy store for cheaper than you spent trying to play the game over and over and over. But, finally, I did play one game - and won! So I got this really cute stuffed moon with a cow jumping over it. Yay for winning! And I went on the Swings ride, which I LOVE. So yay for that, too.

Monday was the day we left. FINALLY. Goodbye to the haunted house! It was also the day we finally noticed the name on the mailbox in front of the farm. The family's name was Adams. So, of course, everyone was like, "omg! So THAT'S why the house was haunted! It belongs to the Adams family!" Ha ha, quite funny. And we took a picture with the pig.

Before we left, we went to the Norman Rockwell Museum. I love his artwork. It's amazing. So yeah, that was awesome.

And that is all. The moral y'all can take home with you is, uh...don't stay on Sweet Pea Farms?

Oh, and the house is for sale, if any of you want it. Really! It is! Goodness knows why.

THE END.

Rejection

Rejection

~ an unfinished story ~

[Disclaimer: this story may sound scarily depressing, but it's actually just a way for me to vent. Also, I've never been able to not apologize for my work, even though I know you're not supposed to. Oops! Hehe.]

It was a piece of paper. A piece of paper. And yet it held such power, such weight, such a determining factor in Lily’s life. She wilted under its verdict. Rejection. Her sunny smile dropped. Her day was flipped idly like a coin, tossed carelessly in the air only to land on the wrong side. Tails. It was always tails. For once, could she not get ahead? Could she never come out on top? These thoughts swam around in her swampy confusion. The world around her buzzed, became blurred, the only clear thing this single piece of paper. It stood out bright against the fuzzy. It grabbed onto Lily’s vision and held it there, superglued it there so she could notice nothing else. There was nothing else in the world aside from Lily and her rejection. Her deep, dark, glaring rejection. It pierced her inner core, wrenched it from her and twisted, wringing out all her dreams.

Somewhere, a cell phone rang. A door opened. A textbook closed. Lily’s feet turned her away from her terrible sentence and made her walk robotically through the halls. People. People everywhere. People talking, laughing, shouting. Too loud! Everything was too loud! The noise threatened Lily, penetrated deep into her personal bubble. She felt shunned, left out, though of what, she did not know. People looked at her sometimes. Did they know? Was it written on her forehead? Was it plastered all over her clothes?

Rejection. Rejection. Rejection.

The sound of it reverberated inside Lily, forcing her to recognize it, to acknowledge it, to pay it her utmost attention. And because she was so aware of her own rejection, others must be, too. Strangers, her teachers, her friends. They all knew. All of them. They all talked and laughed and joked with each other, flashing her friendly smiles, no, mocking smiles, because they knew. ‘There goes a rejected girl,’ they were probably saying. ‘We are not rejected, only she is. Oh, I do feel so sorry, don’t you feel sorry? Oh quickly, smile at her lest she should feel badly.’

Lily tried not to look at them, gave feeble smiles in return. Sometimes, she didn’t even smile at all. She wanted to run, she wanted to hide, she wanted them all to stop looking, to stop talking.

Somewhere, in the deep recesses of her rational mind, she acknowledged her paranoia, her self-centeredness. They of course did not know. Their conversations were really about math, science, the betterment of the world. Manicures. The West Wing. But Lily felt excluded from all that. She felt somehow…outside. She was in her own world, her own separate dimension that rubbed closely enough to reality to irritate but not closely enough to be a true part of it.

And so the world went on without Lily and Lily glided through without caring much about the world. After all, she was in a class of her own now, a class made up of The Rejected. She was spit out from the mouth of all things good and wonderful, exiled to grope her way through a new maze, a new jungle. She was shown a magnificent thing and then flung aside like the tiny green strawberry in an otherwise plump, ripe, red bunch, never to have it.

Lily wallowed. She wallowed in self-pity. She wallowed in her own sense of loss. She wallowed in her own confusion and fear of what was to come next. But most of all, she wallowed because no matter how hard she tried, no matter how good she was, she was Never. Good. Enough.

Eye To Eye

The young man stood before the mirror, gazing at his own reflection. He was tall and broad-shouldered, his eyes a clear blue, his dark hair slicked back with globs of hair gel. His blue jeans were faded and ripped at the knee - his own doing from years of wear. He seemed confident, self-aware, the type of guy who had a lot going for him. And yet, that was not the person he saw in the mirror.

No. Reflected back at the young man was a small boy, his face pale, his blue eyes big and round. His dark hair was not gelled back but hung limply around his face, like a stage curtain he could pull closed at any small warning.

Some say that mirrors show us our true souls - who we really are inside. Ghosts, vampires - they do not have reflections because they have no souls. And the young man, he was only a young man in body. His soul, well, it was still growing up.

As he stared down at his reflection, the young man sighed and tried not to despair, hoping with all his might that one day - one day he would truly be able to look in the mirror and see himself as the man he yearned to be, standing tall, eye to eye.

The Delivery Boy

He is a delivery boy. At least, that's how everyone sees him. No one thinks of him as a delivery man because that just doesn't have the same ring to it. No, delivery boy it is. And as a delivery boy, one of his duties is to take packages from the store and bring them to the houses of those who ordered them. This he does by mounting his bicycle and pedaling off down the busy Manhattan streets, the wind blowing in his face. He is young, for a man, and carefree. These rides down Lexington avenue remind him of his dreams, his aspirations, the life that awaits him when he can scrape together enough money to go to back to college and finish his business degree.

Better than the ride to make the deliveries, though, is the ride back. The package is gone from his bike. He is light, he can do anything, he could fly. He really could, if he wanted, like in E.T. when the boys and the alien fly on their own bicycles across the moon. The delivery boy casts a glance up at the sky, his mind already there, when there is a sharp screech and then BAM.

Something has hit his bicycle. He vaguely notices that it is a dirty yellow car - a taxi? It doesn't seem to matter as he flips and tumbles on the street, tangled in his bike, and comes to a stop just before hitting the sidewalk. There he lies, dazed, as the pedestrians on the sidewalk freeze in their tracks and stare at him. Won't one of them come to help? Finally a woman does, hesitantly at first, clutching her pocket book tightly, and then more sure of herself, going swiftly to him and bending down, lifting the bicycle from atop the delivery boy. He sits up, leaning on an arm, the other one seeming a bit useless - is it broken? He can't tell. He just stares, in shock, in a daze, his mind slowly returning to him from the skies.

This is what I saw walking back from the school building just half an hour ago. It was possibly one of the more frightening things I've seen in my life, though I can't say I've seen very many frightening things, especially if you don't count the week I was in Poland two years ago. I, of course, made up the history of the delivery boy, but the scenario was the same. One moment, there was a man on a bicycle, the next he was hit by a taxi and lying next to the curb with his bicycle on top of him. The woman went to help him (there were a bunch of other people there, too) and I finally got hold of myself and ran back to my dorm, all shaken up. I actually saw him get hit, I saw him tumbling on the street with his bike, I saw his dazed, vacant expression as he sat up. There was no blood and he was conscious, that's all I know.

Needless to say, I am now quite freaked out.