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 Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 2:51 pm
Opinionated
a short story collection by xx__Tickle me IMO My SuWriMo this year? I'm writing a good amount {at least 8} of stories of varying topics and genres and lengths. Why? Because I have no such thing as an attention span for an actual novel, unfortunately. Also, I really like writing short stories. A few will not be posted in this thread, for personal reasons. The ones that will be posted here are welcome to any comments and criticism. Thank you in advanced. <3
Current Project :: If You Forget Me
On Deck :: Falling from Grace
In the Hole :: ???
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Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 2:53 pm
Stories
And whatnot
✥Out Here, All the Good Girls Die :: Retold Fairytale :: A retold version of Little Red Cap; written for a contest where the main protagonist must act as the villain. People desire power. Using animals is just one of the many ways to achieve it.
✥Shall I Paint the Sky? :: Surreal :: I've been erased. I wasn't good enough. So they took me away.
✥Oh Sweet Spontaneous :: And with a mighty heave, I felt the city gasp from under my feet. It was coughing up a cloud of smoke, finally able to breathe. It tried to sing, even after we stole away every note from its throat.
✥Falling from Grace :: fan-fiction...kind of :: Will not be posted on thread :: This is a by-request story written for a friend featuring her character as a cannibalistic gypsy and mine as a crazed pseudo-zealot serial killer. Chaos ensues.
---COMPLETE
✥Barefoot in the Streets :: Supernatural/Horror-ish :: The invasion has started. The people I once knew are flooding the grounds like sleepless soldiers. I have no more use for practicalities.
_________•Link
✥Tilting At Windmills :: Fantasy :: Written for a contest; A story about a war-torn fantasy kingdom, and a young man who tries to avoid being drafted into his city's army. He does this through not only running and hiding, but also trying to obtain magical powers, the only thing that will truly take him off the recruitment list.
_________•Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six
✥Dreaming With Dolphins :: Urban Fantasy :: Lindsay knows about Home. She knows about who she is and where she's from. And she wants to go back. Anthony doesn't.
_________•Link
✥The Lies Roxanne Told :: Sci-Fi :: Written for a contest; Ryan MacNeil is a reporter for a newspaper. He then slowly weasels his way into writing the article of a lifetime. Meanwhile, his old partner is off writing hers...
_________•Link
✥Next July:: General/Romance :: Written for a contest; I don't know her name. I've only seen her twice. And yet here I am waiting, once again. All because she said "until next July".
_________•Link
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Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 2:55 pm
Progress
or lack thereof
5 // 9 stories
25,852 // 3o,ooo words
Updates:
5/31: Decided to try this wonderful nonsense. Also, this thread was created. I also considered how much nicer this thread would look if it was typed in size 11.
6/1: Kick-off date! I'm starting with Tilting at Windmills.
6/1 again: changed font size, because it was killing me. Also, I renamed Atlantis Colored Skies to Dreaming with Dolphins
6/6: Pirate festival today! I hope to find some inspiration. In any case, I've got a crapload of words but no completed stories. I hope to change that soon.
6/7: Entering a contest and therefore adding the entry piece to my list, replacing the last one.
6/9: More contests. Another story replaced with the story of a zombie apocalypse. Fun.
6/9: Inspiration hit like a wave of zombies. "Barefoot in the Streets" is complete.
6/15: The host of the contest I was writing "Tilting At Windmills" and "The Lies Roxanne Told" was hacked. So both stories are put on hold while I focus on others.
6/16: Ninth story added to the mix
7/4: After a long hiatus, I'm back and churning out the rest of "Tilting at Windmills" like the wind. Which isn't all that fast, considering how the wind can't write. I also added and deleted some projects.
7/24: It wasn't so much a hiatus as a lack of updates. I've been writing, seeing as I have four completed stories rather than one. IAlmost to my word count too. But that's because my stories were much longer than anticipated. I may add/delete some projects, I'm not sure.
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Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 2:57 pm
Soundtracks
Because nothing says preparation like music Tilting At Windmills ::
+ "Carry On" Mark Selby
+ "Fidelity" Regina Spektor
+ "The Promise" New Found Glory
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Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 2:58 pm
Characters
occasionally, stories have them
Tilting at Windmills
✥Ben "Benny" Benson :: A twenty-seven year old man who lives in a far away kingdom trying to run from a military draft that has swept up all of the young men in his land. He decides to fake having magical powers to avoid being drafted.
✥January "Jan" Featherstone :: A young and strong-willed woman who tends to an old windmill that her mom willed to her years ago. She dreams of becoming a famous stage magician.
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Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 7:33 pm
Tilting at Windmills
Part One The day was hot and sticky, causing everyone in the market that day to grip at his or her collars and fan their hands around, desperately searching for more air. There was a silence in the air that resonated through the area, even though it was a crowded day. No one could find the will to waste his or her breath on a day like this. They only wanted to rush home and try to cool down in any way possible.
On this day, young Benny Benson was not trying to stay cool. He was not fanning for air or pulling at his shirt collar. Rather, he was intently watching the steam rise from the cobblestone road, his knees bend and his eyes wide. Days like this would make him recall stories told to him by his late grandfather. They were stories like climbing hills barefoot through snow to go somewhere or using a wagon wheel to create a way to harness the power of a human sneeze.
However, there was also a story about being able to cook an egg on the cobblestones on an exceptionally hot day. Benny put his hands on the stones for only a second before snatching them back; judging by the heat of the ground, today seemed to be one of those days, “I need an egg,” Benny mumbled to himself, standing up straight.
He made his way to the marketplace before coming across the lady who usually held a basket full of eggs. Today her basket was empty. Benny held out a shiny copper coin, but she only shook her head sadly, “Sorry lad,” she said in a thick and foreign accent that Benny had always liked, “It’s the damned landlords of the north,” she then said, as though trying to explain to the boy. The boy listened, though really only could think about how much he would like to eat a cooked egg right now, “They took all of the lands I used to use for raising my chickens.”
“Can’t you use other lands?” Benny asked, standing on his toes, just to make sure the basket was really empty.
The old woman shook her head, “There are woods filled with foxes in the other lands,” she said. She smiled a sad and hopeless smile that even a young boy of below average intelligence could understand, “Perhaps another day, my lad,” she added.
Benny looked up at the woman with his big eyes and felt a bitter pang in his heart. He wasn’t sure if it was from disappointment or of sympathy, or perhaps some convoluted mixture of the two. He hung his head and continued on, without saying another word to the woman. Although he will always distinctly remember how unfair it was that not everyone could have eggs when they wanted them. And he would always wonder why the unfairness took place.
Just then, a man carrying a large amount of groceries toppled into a crowd, his goods falling out. A small egg tumbled to the ground, breaking open and sitting on the stones. Benny stared for a long time, but nothing happened. No simmer, no heat, no signs of the yolk ever becoming breakfast food.
At first he figured the ground was not hot enough. Later he decided that eggs from the landlords up north were different from his grandfather’s eggs. Finally, although much later on in life, he would discover that a lot of what you are told to expect isn’t what happens. Sometimes you have to make room for the fits of the seasons and the tricks time will play on the human mind.
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Posted: Sat Jun 06, 2009 12:21 am
Is there any more to "Tilting at Windmills," or is that the whole story?
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Posted: Sat Jun 06, 2009 8:08 am
Zyx Is there any more to "Tilting at Windmills," or is that the whole story?
There is more. <3 I will make it very clear when a story is completed. xD
It's just taking me a long time to do part two.
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Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 11:16 am
Barefoot in the Streets
When it starts, no one will notice. I won’t be any different. It will start like a virus like the H1-N1. People will be afraid of catching it, sure. But no one will know enough for it to save them. There will be no valiant scientist who knows the truth and tries to warn the public. If there were, he would be the first to succumb to the hunger. His story would never even make the news. I will be at home, eating chips and salsa and unknowingly waiting for it all to begin.
It will start with a headache throbbing through your head. It will go on and off for weeks and no amount of Tylenol will seem to suppress it. However, you will try to suppress it anyway. I will be at home, complaining to my mom as she fusses at me, because she’s feeling the same. I will grow angry at the world. A throbbing in my mind gives me less time to think, less time to write. I need thoughts to keep me in any kind of good spirit. I need writing to keep me sane. I will be in my room from then on, just trying to let myself recover. I will only be trying to regain the ability to do what I loved. My hands will itch until the headache dies down. Then I will rush to my laptop and spill my thoughts onto the nearest Word document. I will collapse on my bed as soon as the pounding starts up again. This will be my saving grace.
Everyone else, those who go outside, will feel the pain begin to dull in their head. They will become numb, blinded to a single desire. They will feverish, with a cold all of the time. Their throats will be dry, desiring something more. Thirsting for something no water can quench. The throbbing will come back, this time in their stomach. Making them hungry, driving them slowly mad. The itch will move to their skin, causing it slowly rot away. They will feel a warm tugging sensation, and then nothing at all. The only thing left to feel is the hunger. Until one day…
I will never hear the screaming in my neighbor’s house. I will never hear the news casts because my mind is too loud to hear the television. However, as soon as they come marching around my neighborhood like sleepless soldiers, I will peer out of my window to see them. They will be people I once knew and people I never knew, reaping the souls of people who were too recluse to fall victim right away.
My heart will pound to see their rotting flesh. My soul will ache when I watch them rip at the life of someone else. However, nothing will hurt as much as my mind when I hear their screams. I will tremble, unable to take it. I will cover my mouth and try to vomit, but nothing will come out. My stomach feels hollow. Every inch of me feels hollow, as though my organs were already being replaced with the singular need to feed. Then I will cry. I will hide behind my curtains and cry.
They will not see me, not at first, not for weeks as they plunder. The screams will chorus as I hide, letting me know that there are still people out there. Or there were, at least. I will eat whatever I can find; whatever I don’t think is infected. I may starve, and my hunger will begin to consume me. My mind will beat slowly, the headaches creating a drum that will keep me going on.
With any luck, my tears will turn into rain to chase them to greener pastures. They leave slowly in their packs, still looking for bodies of the breathing. I will not wait a minute to climb from the ruin that was once my home to see what has become of my Earth in just a matter of weeks. I will be starved and wide eyed, searching for survivors. I will be writing plots in my mind of how I could have done things differently. My sleepless eyes will wildly see a beautiful world. A world where the rain beats down on a lovely and empty street. I won’t think that they see me.
I will climb from my hiding place and run to the opening, barefoot in the streets. There, I will dance, the waters extinguishing fires around me. The smoke will paint my footsteps as I bound around my stage. For the first time in a long time, I will feel free. I will be without parents and friends. I will be without obligations, yet I will still be able to roam the streets. My laughs will chorus out and the rain hits against my face. It will be so cold, yet so pure. My hair will cling to my face. The asphalt will begin to vibrate as they return to sound of the rain song I will be singing. I won’t really care; I will soon be truly free.
I will feel tugging at my skin, but I will ignore it. I will begin to rip off my clothes, slowly, freeing myself of my past afflictions. I will feel my body sink, but my mind will still be dancing. I will feel my heart beating, too strongly to say that I’ve given up. I will hear noises, but nothing as loud as my own mind throbbing from headaches. I will steal hear that throbbing. And only the removal of my mind itself could slow it down.
---
I save this document now as the doctor asks me if my headaches have worsened since I last saw him. I tell him yes. He gives me more medicine. I only stare at him and tell him it won’t be enough to save me.
“Always imaginative,” he says with a smile as he leaves with his clipboard. He’s off to get another prescription sheet. I must have made him run out through the months. I laugh softly. He doesn’t notice at all.
When it starts, no one will notice.
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Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 6:17 am
Tilting at Windmills
Part Two Approximately twenty-one years later, Benny Benson woke up to the sound of crows in his small front yard. The town he lived in had not changed a terrible much from the world it was when he was young; it was a desolate old town with not much more than a marketplace and a long set of apartments set up for the people who lived there. Farther, there were small farms and patches of woods painted along the landscape. Along that were more desolate old towns with small farms lining them. It was a never-ending cycle of land. It was dizzying and depressing to think about.
However, Ben knew that there was other land out there. It was land that was blessed with sunlight and swaying grass and yawning meadows. Yet it was burdened with bodies from the battles, bleeding onto the grass and corrupting it with violence. He also knew that this land would soon look familiar to him if he did not leave.
“They’re calling in men for the draft,” Ben said quickly to his mother as he poured oatmeal from a large vat into her bowl. He handed it to the old woman sitting in her rocking chair. She took it, her hands trembling so quickly. This made her look old and fragile, as though she would simply shatter if she tried to stand up from her chair. However, she was just incredibly anxious to eat some oatmeal.
The woman smiled and grabbed her spoon, “You don’t need to worry about that, my boy,” she dismissed playfully, “You’re not truly a man. Why, you still live with your mother!” she laughed. This was another one of her old lady tricks. She sounded sweet, as though teasing her son. Yet as Ben stood up, his mother cast a glare on him that was anything but lighthearted.
“I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to kick me out and I have to say that it’s working like a charm,” the young man warned with a good-natured smile that rivaled his mother’s. Of course, behind that layer of gloss was a paint job of frustration, “I was thinking about beginning my move out tomorrow. How does that sound?”
How it sounded to Mother Benson was very, very good. However, Mother Benson was a polite mother, so she simply pursed her lips and said, “Honey, that is a very hard decision to make. Are you sure?”
Ben Benson was not sure. However, what he was sure about was that within a week, recruiters would be knocking on his door to take him away to join the army. He was also sure that this could not happen if they had no idea where he was. He had to follow in the rushed and poorly covered footsteps of the young men before. He had to run.
So run he did. A few nights after that morning, he ran towards the mountains along the borders of two cities, where the fertile land became forests. It was where the desperate men hid, hoping that the army men would never look there. Yet young men blessed without magic were not a never-ending resource. Eventually, you run out of them. Then you have to start looking for the ones you have overlooked. Naturally, it means one has to be thorough.
The night he ran the fastest and the hardest was also a night of incomparable cold. It was a winter’s night in the valley, where the wind had settled from the mountains, but forgot to warm itself on its journey over. Benny Benson could not only see his breath, but he could also see every movement around him, radiating through the air, just like breathing normally does. All he had to keep himself from the insufferable cold was one jacket and a pair of gloves. It was enough. For he could feel the radiation of the guards hot on his trail. He was a fugitive running from a fate he considered to be far worse than jail.
He stopped in his tracks the moment he left the dark of the woods and faced a seemingly endless field of plowed land. He found particularly peculiar that the footsteps from behind seemed to have been swallowed up by the woods behind him. However, he found it even more curious that the land was plowed and cared for, “All the way out here?” he asked himself, the winter wind whipping at his coat, causing him to huddle closer within himself, seeking shelter in any place possible.
This shelter came sooner than he expected, however, when the clouds cleared from the moon to shed light onto a windmill that was previously hidden from him. He was not sure if the footsteps behind him had been finished for good, but he knew that he was not safe unless he found a hiding place. And as we all know, a windmill is as good a hiding place as any. It was certainly better than lurking in the strange woods or hoping to blend in with the grass.
Within the windmill was a small couch and paintings on the wall. There was a kitchen around the corner and a set of stairs spiraling to the working room, and perhaps a bedroom or two, “What a bizarre windmill,” Benny muttered to himself as he looked around the building that seemed to function as a small home.
Suddenly, the wind hit violently against the windmill, causing the sails to grind. There was a loud but steady noise as they worked. Benny caught his breath, somehow finding beauty in the mechanics of this strange place. He heard a small knocking noise on the top of the staircase. His head turned to face a lovely creature standing on the top, her hair pulled up and her body dressed in a blue linen nightdress. He stared upon her in terror. Her name was January Featherstone, and she owned this windmill.
“My name is January Featherstone. I own this windmill,” she said, holding a candle to her face that cast a dark and eerie glow across her face.
“And a lovely windmill it is,” Ben stiffened, forcing a smile. He bit his lip in order to keep himself from saying anything else that could get him in any more trouble than he was already in. He had the unfortunate habit of causing more problems than solutions, “So nice, in fact, that I wonder if you’re taking up residences. How about ten lene a month?”
“That ain’t that bad,” the woman said, sounding surprisingly practical for an hour so late in the night. She rested her hands on her hips, slowly making her way down the stairs. Her eyes carefully examined the strange man that had intruded into her home, “But men don’t come waltzing into windmills asking for residence if they ain’t got something to hide. Especially at this hour,” she said in her voice, lightly coated in an accent that made her sound brasher than she already was.
She pulled the chain on a lamp to illuminate the part of the room the two were standing in. Benny Benson would remember January’s surprisingly large eyes and curly red hair, although he would always picture her dress as slightly longer and her skin slightly tanner. January would remember Ben’s hair to be messy and brown and his eyes a piercing blue, although they were in fact a shallow green. His smile, however, she would always get just right.
“We all have something to hide,” Benny said as smoothly and as quickly as possible, “Secrets, treasure, small animals smuggled in because your mother doesn’t want to keep pets, things of the like. I’m just looking for a place to stay,” he said, pulling out a small bag of coins that he took with him. “Ten a month, we agreed on?”
“I don’t trust you,” the young woman deadpanned as she looked at the bag in his hand, “But I’m broke and it’s lonely out here.” She took the bag clean out of his palm and tucked it into her bosom, where she was certain no one would care to try to retrieve the money. “Now, what’d you say your name was? And you’re going to tell what you’re doing out here or I’m going to take that bag of coins and shove it into a place where the sun don’t…”
Benny Benson stumbled backwards as he looked around the now better-lit house. January lit a few more lamps to better his view. “There’s no reason to take out the bag. Especially to shove it there. I’m simply trying to run from the Alliet army. I don’t want to be drafted into this war. Benjamin Benson, Benny, is my name.”
The redhead wiped the final drops of sleep from her eyes and plopped down a rather uncomfortable looking couch. She looked at him as though she had not been asleep only a few minutes ago. Benny was astounded. “Well Benny, if we’re doing nicknames already, you can call me Jan. Also, take a seat. Watching you stand there is making my feet hurt.”
Benny Benson uncomfortably obliged the woman by sitting down on a particularly large chair near the couch, around a round coffee table. “It’s nice to meet you.” He then added as an afterthought, “Jan.”
“So you’re a hiding from this draft, are you?” she asked, placing her feet on the coffee table in front of her. Her toes were painted a bright green, a sure sign of having nothing to do. Benny, born with a rather keen eye, was sure to make a mental note of this. She began to drum her fingers against her legs, expectantly looking him. He swallowed and looked at her, waiting patiently for her to speak, so that he wouldn’t have to repeat that he was hiding from the army. Those are the sorts of things Benny believed should only be said once.
"I hardly believe you," she said sternly. He only stared at her with a blank expression. He didn't seem to care if she believed him or not. As long as she let him stay in her windmill for a while, "I mean, why do people try to hide anyway? It isn't as though people are going to stop looking for you unless you leave the kingdom. Why don't you just leave the kingdom?"
Benny tried to add something. But he could not seem to get a word in. She continued to drum her fingers, clearly lost within her own thoughts. It was as though she had completely forgotten that it was the middle of the night. She was just inspired to speak. So she had to speak or else the words would simply explode from her mouth, "Right. No leaving the kingdom or else you'll be captured, right? Those just seem like rumors to me. I mean, have you ever heard of some innocent immigrant being taken captive and killed?"
"Not exactly," Benny said quickly, trying to squeeze his thoughts in, "Although it doesn’t make sense for them to tell us when they’ve killed someone innocent. That will only make us hate them more. Seems counterproductive, right?" Jan chose to ignore him. Without Jan speaking, Benjamin could find no more reason to stay speaking. So he simply looked around the room, his eyes resting upon the stairs, “Pardon for intruding, but I did just technically move in. Shouldn’t you give me a grand tour of the facility or something?”
She removed her feet from the chair and looked at him with her wide eyes, “Or we could just go to sleep and do that in the morning. You’re going to stay downstairs Mister Draft Runner,” she said, standing up and rushing towards a door, which she opened to reveal a tightly packed linen closet. She tossed him the blanket and patted the couch. It was clear that this would be his new bed. However, beggars could not be choosers. The windmill was so small that she could practically stand in one spot and get everything done.
“We could do that,” Benny then smiled softly and looked at his suitcase, the blanket it in his arm. He looked up at the young woman, who was looking right back at him. He was trying to tell her something with his eyes. However, judging by her stares it was clear that she was not getting the message. So he simply stated, “I need to change into my nightclothes. You oughta give me privacy.”
Embarrassed, the young woman nodded at first, though not moving. Her shoulders sank for a second as though a thought had suddenly occurred to her, "Did you just say oughta'? 'Cause if you're making fun of my accent, you can take your ten lousy coins and I'll strangle you like a-"
However, thanks to Benny's tendency to avoid any sort of confrontation, she was not able to finish her sentence, "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking." He smiled weakly, in an attempt of asking for forgiveness, "Look, can I...?" he began to say out loud, pondering the many ways he could possibly try to make his blunders up to her before finally saying, "Have a good night, Miss Featherstone."
Surprised by his sincerity, Jan could not help but crack a small smile in return. She nodded towards him as she head towards the stairwell, "And a good night to you, Mister Benson," she said, trying to sound as elegant as possible, like a real landlady should. Ben was surprised to discover that he much preferred the loud farm girl voice to how she sounded as she bid him good night. However, before he could say so, she was gone into the night.
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Psychotic Maniacal Sanity Captain
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Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 6:39 am
Ooooh, part two. I shall have to read this. ninja
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Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2009 7:24 am
Yes you have to. The Great Lord Imo commands it.
Then you can rip it to shreds and then I can fix it so it's PMS worthy.
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Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 3:02 pm
Tilting at Windmills
Part Three
When Benny Benson had been young, he awoke every morning to smell of bacon and, if the lords of the northern cities were so kind, eggs cooking on the stove. This particular morning, he awoke to a similar smell, much to the young man’s surprise. He jarred his eyes open to face a small and dainty cottage flooded in sunshine. It seemed to be the same place he went to sleep in. Yet the day had transformed the windmill completely.
He spun his body around on the couch and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. He sat up to face a small kitchen area, “Are you cooking, Jan?” he asked with a large yawn, preparing to stand up and groggily make his way to the table that seemed to pass as a dining area.
“You didn’t expect me to live all the way out here and not be able to cook, now did you?” she asked, not even looking up at the young man as she cracked an egg and let it fall into the pan. Ben watched in amazement, wondering how she was able to afford so many eggs.
“Do you act this defensive to everyone or am I just special?” he asked with a smarmy grin as he leaned on the table. She looked at him and shot him a glare that only furthered his point. His grin turned into a smile as he watched her. She pulled out the bacon from the chilling box, meaning that she did not buy her meat fresh. Benny grimaced; he hated eating meat if he didn’t know the farm it came from. However, that was not the only concerning thing:
The bacon floated right into the pan. January merely looked at it and it went right where it needed to go. She didn’t even blink, but the windmill’s guest stared in amazement, “You have magic? I mean, you were gifted with magic and you can control it that well?” he asked, his mouth so wide that you could easily fit a rooster in it. I am not sure why would want to, but you could. The more Ben thought about it, the more it made sense: the brash behavior, the isolated area, the nervousness around another human. All of these acts were clear signs that she was in possession of magical powers.
“I have no magical powers,” she finally said, causing Ben’s jaw to drop even lower, “This? It’s an illusion my father taught me,” she dismissed, continuing to cause the old bits of pig to fly into the pan. Benny simply seemed to look on in awe, a million questions racing in his eyes.
“Figures,” he finally said, “I was hoping you would know how to pass them on if you had them. Magic abilities, I mean,” he said, sitting in the chair and resting his head on the table, “Could have come in handy.”
“Ain’t it that most people with magic are considered cursed?” Jan asked while finishing up cooking breakfast. He watched her carefully, hoping that she would perform more tricks. Sure, illusionists were heard of. But with the threat of having real magic abounding, they were rare. Magic was too dangerous, too unpredictable.
“Exactly. Drafters stay away from magical men,” Benny sighed, leaning back in his chair, wondering exactly how long it would take to dish food and bring it to the table. It seemed to be taking this young woman entirely too long. Next time, he decided, he would cook.
January didn’t say anything for a long time. She only put the food on the plates and brought them to the table. She sat down and began to eat, looking at Benny all the while. Benny, not used to be stared at during breakfast, or any meal for that matter, had to say something about it, “You’re looking at me and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.”
January finished her eyes and patted her mouth clean with a napkin, still remaining silent. For anyone with any sort of ethic knows that talking with your mouth full of egg was less than desirable, “You ain’t really all that bright, are you Mister Benson?”
These words quite imaginably took Benny by surprise. He had never been called smart, but he had never been called stupid either. So he swallowed the food was eating and said as politely as he could muster, “What do you mean, exactly?”
“I don’t have magical powers,” Jan said slowly, picking her dirty dishes up and moving the towards the sink, “But you thought I did, didn’t you?” she asked, using the trick she had used earlier to clean the dishes.
The gears began to turn in Benny’s mind. “Oh. So you were joking. You really do have magical powers?” he then said, the gears clearly not moving in the right direction.
“No you dimwit! I use wires,” she finally said loudly, clearly frustrated with the young man, “I can teach you though. You can pretend to have as much magic as you want. And them army recruiters won’t be able to touch you. And then you can move the hell out of my house,” she said angrily, glaring at the dishes as she scrubbed them clean.
“You’d do that for me?” Benny asked, staring at his plate with a small smile in his eyes. He took a bite of bacon and considered her proposition. It almost seemed too good to be true. However, taking one look at her, he had a feeling that it wasn’t. She wanted him out as much as he wanted to move out. He didn’t want to hide in a windmill in the middle of nowhere. He wanted to be free. He wanted to travel wherever he wanted without fear. He wanted to go home to his mother and tell her that he was on his way to doing great things. He wanted-
“Are you just gong to sit there and gape at your breakfast or are you going to accept?”
Benny looked up at her, the smile in his eyes creeping onto his mouth, “Thank you. I’d love that. There’s nothing you’d want in return?”
In fact, there was something January wanted in return. There was something she wanted so badly she could barely bear to speak it out loud. So she did not speak it out loud. Instead, all she said was, “How does twelve lene a month for rent sound to you?”
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Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 3:04 pm
Tilting at Windmills
Part Four Days passed and turned into weeks. The winter slowly melted away and turned into early spring, where the once bare trees from the nearby woods were filling up with blossoms and leaves. And where the village squares that were previously only visited from necessity were filling up with people. They were filling up with potential audiences.
“Watch closely,” the Great Benny Benson said to a crowd of small faces sitting on the ground as their parents shopped. He pulled out a coin and snapped his fingers. Before the children could even blink, the coin was gone. Now, by no doubt you have seen this trick commonly done. So I will not go through the motions of explaining it to you. But within a few seconds, the Great Benny Benson had retrieved the coin from behind a small girl’s ear. The audience was thoroughly amused, filled with a few skeptics and even more fans.
His tricks continued. From tricks with wires and tricks with slight of hand. His assistant, the Lovely January Featherstone, stood nearby. She would watch the crowd, making sure everything went smoothly and that no man, woman or child saw the magic for what it really was: cheap imitations of real magic. She helped him with his tricks. She modeled his illusions and devices. She was the woman behind the man. The one no one looked at.
Whether Benny knew it at the time or not, she was his everything.
He took his final bows as people began to applaud. He grabbed her hand and held it high in the air, letting her bow with him. The applause did not increase, for the crowd could not see behind the scenes. They could not see the sweat on her brow. The just applauded for the only magician in the country who could control his powers: The Great Benny Benson.
She felt a bitter taste in her mouth as she raised her head. She wanted to pull her hand away and storm off stage. She wanted to shot and call him a fraud. Yet when she looked at him, she knew that wasn’t an option the army recruiters hadn’t touched him, not even if they knew where he lived. She had to keep it that way. That was a part of the deal. She couldn’t let his smile wash away. That wasn’t a part of the deal. Right?
----
It was after the show and the two were back in the windmill, tired from the traveling and the showmanship. Benny was collapsed upon the couch, not bothering to change out of his stage costume before hitting the sack for the night. And he fully expected Jan to do the same. However, she was next to his bed, sitting on the chair. She cleared her throat and looked at him, as she did when she wasn’t sure how to phrase what she wanted to say. Benny, not being a fan of starting conversation, waited for her think of said phrasing.
“I lied,” she finally said softly. Benny looked up at her with his green eyes as he laid on the couch, “I said I didn’t want anything when I first volunteered to teach you. Even when I got you the things for the stage show and the stagecoach so we could travel. I acted like I was doing it all unselfishly.”
“No you didn’t,” Benjamin yawned loudly through his words, “You upped my rent every single time you did something more me,” h reminded her plainly, too tired to be bitter about his lodging costs.
“Yeah, well that ain’t what I wanted,” Jan said stiffly, straightening her shoulders and clearing her throat again. This made it very clear to Benny that she was trying to look more confident than she really was. He had grown used to this gesture in the time they had been living together. She was having difficulty talking, which meant that whatever was to come was important to her, “I want my own show. I want to be a magician.”
Benny froze. January froze in anticipation. He didn’t know what to say to her other than, “So you are trying to make me well known so you can’t your own show?” he asked, seeing the response in her eyes, “You’re right. That was selfish of you. Good night.” He turned over, shutting his eyes and trying to get some sleep.
But before he could, Jan made sure he would listen by rapping her knuckles onto his skull, as though knocking on a door, “My daddy was a great magician. After he died, I always wanted to do his tricks for an audience. Problem was, no one was interested in watching a girl like me. I’m a ho-hum farm girl from the country. But with your recommendation…”
“I need an assistant. Without someone who can help me with my tricks, I won’t be able to do anything.” Benny finally blurted out as a last ditch effort to make the girl be quiet so he could sleep. But she wouldn’t have any of it.
“I can still be your assistant, for a while. You can give me my own act, at the beginning of each show. And then I can go back to being your assistant. I can get you real shows in return, instead of just this marketplace gig.”
“The marketplace is public, people can see me there. People know that I have magic that way. The recruiters won’t bother me. People will get suspicious if I move to large audiences. They will think that I’m exploiting my ‘gift’ too much. What if people given real magic get angry?”
January rolled her eyes and stood up. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe we’re both selfish,” she said in a single breath. She knew that Benny needed this. Yet she also had her own dreams. She couldn’t just let go to save someone else. She had already put them aside for years to watch over the windmill. Benny had helped her realize them again. And now they hers to keep. “Selfish people are best when apart from each other. You have enough clout to protect you from the army. Why don’t you just go home?”
Then January took one look at him through the early moonlight. If she had known he was truly listening, she might have taken a longer look. She may have looked twice. However, she thought he would wake in the morning with a clearer mind and an open heart. So she simply went up stairs and went to her bed. She tossed and she turned until she grew tired from her own restlessness. And she fell asleep.
Downstairs, Benny Benson, now wide-eyed and energetic from the two’s conversation, pulled himself out of bed and picked up what belongings he had. He pulled together the bag of tricks he used during his show. All he needed was a new carriage and a new assistant. He could go back home to his mother. He could show the world what he had to offer, not just what Jan Featherstone had to offer him.
He felt a bittersweet taste in his mouth as he pulled his bags together. The air was warmer than the night he first arrived; yet the moonlight shone right in the same spot as when he first ran into the windmill. This was a parting of ways. This was an ending that would lead to a new era. And as the most bittersweet endings go, it began right where it started off.
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Psychotic Maniacal Sanity Captain
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Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2009 7:53 am
I still need to read this. XP I've been incredibly busy. I'll do it over the next few days. Now that things have calmed down I have more time to do stuff. :3
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