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 Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 3:55 pm
Although Laura’s dreams tended toward the unextraordinary, this one was beginning to become interesting. She went into work, and sat in her office, and upon checking her planner found that not only did she have no work scheduled for that day, but her hand had also turned to chocolate. She was just examining her fingers and deciding what to do about it when she heard a voice.
“Mommy.”
She ignored it. Even in her dreams, she knew it was coming from a place where her hand was not made of chocolate. Maybe also a world where she would be required to make pancakes
“Mommy, wake up.”
Her sleeve was tugged, and she groaned unhappily, her dream world fading around her. She squinted one eye open, light flooding in. “Hey, Naida,” she mumbled, her voice lost somewhere in the cloth and feathers of her pillow.
“There’s a boy at the door,” the little girl told her, as if this were perfectly ordinary. “I think he’s a present.”
“…What?” Laura opened her eyes and propped herself up on her elbow. “What do you mean?” Naida shrugged and settled back down on her tail, her job done. Laura sighed and rubbed her eyes, muttering a couple of the made-up obscenities she had adopted since obtaining a child. Maybe two, now.
After considering ignoring the situation and waiting to see if the boy would vanish on his own, she dragged herself out of bed and stumbled down the stairs. She shuffled across the nubby orange upholstery of the downstairs, blinking sleep from her eyes, and rested her forehead against the door with another sigh. Whyyyyy, she whined mentally, reflecting on the unfairness of having a child sprung on her in the morning. Her hair was a nest, she was still dressed in old sweats, and she felt completely mentally unready to handle toast, much less some kid on her doorstep. A little boy who was a present – ordinarily she would have taken it as a child’s game, but Naida rarely reported her fantasies as truth, and on Gaia it wasn’t much of a stretch.
Reluctantly, she straightened up and opened the door, looking down with a sense of resignment. Lo and behold, a little golden boy rested on her step, wrapped in blankets, packaged in a basket, and with a note folded neatly on top.
“Noodles!” she swore, but there was nothing for it. Laura Emerson, licensed psychologist and mother of two.
Word count: 410
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 5:12 pm
Bal was not entirely sure how he felt about the situation, but he was pretty sure it was at least mostly unhappy.
He had a big plastic cup of orange juice, so that was all right. His favorite blanket was sitting on his lap, which, although he was loath to admit it, was also all right. But he was in a strange house, being spoken to by a strange woman, with most of the things he liked gone, and that was not all right at all.
“Where’s Mama?” he asked again, more emphatically. He eyed the woman suspiciously, trying to decide whether he had been kidnapped. He thought so, but she had told him that she wouldn’t have taken him with his blanket if he had been kidnapped when he had said so, and he had to admit she had a point.
“Hey, do you want some cookies?” she replied evasively. “This is a conversation that should be had over cookies.”
He didn’t want cookies, he wanted a good answer and to be given back to his mom, and said as much. The lady ignored him and ran off to find cookies. Bal frowned and crossed his arms over his chest, looking around the room sulkily. He supposed there were worse places to be held captive. It was nice and messy, with odds and ends of toys stacked in the corners and a recently-used ream of paper and box of crayons left on the floor. His fingers itched to go use them, but he felt as if this would be somehow giving in to his captor.
“Okay, so I have cookies,” the lady declared, bearing a plate of various cookies. They were stiff and perfect like store cookies. “I didn’t make them myself,” she admitted, placing them in front of him. “But you don’t want me to. C’mon, try one. There’s all kinds.”
He wanted the cookies, too, but that would be wrong like the crayons. “Where’s my mom?” he repeated, his fingers tightening on the sippy cup. That was probably wrong, too, but he was thirsty.
The lady sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, and he decided that the answer would not be a good one. “I’m sorry, I don’t know. You just showed up with a note. I don’t know where your family is or why you came here,” she said. She sounded sad, and for a second he almost trusted her.
“No,” he said fiercely, bristling at the idea. “Mommy loves me. She wouldn’ leave me.”
“I didn’t say that,” the lady replied quickly. “I know she loves you. I can tell from the note. Sometimes, though, things happen. Maybe you’re here because she loves you.”
Bal was silent for a moment, looking down at the lid of his cup and thinking. That made sense, a little. His blanket, his basket, and a note bearing his mother’s handwriting had come with him, so he figured he hadn’t been kidnapped. He didn’t like it, though, didn’t like being left here, maybe forever, away from his mother and father and Suzumi and Altar. The more real the idea became, the more he could wrap his head around it, the sadder he became. His eyes stung and filled with tears, and he put aside the cup and hugged his blanket to his chest, stubbornly refusing to cry.
“Hey,” the lady said quietly, her face softening. “C’mere, sweetheart. Don’t worry, you’ll be all right.” She took him in his arms, and he stiffened up, but she didn’t let go and so eventually he let her hold him.
He didn’t cry, but his face felt tight and sore with the effort. “My mom’ll come,” he said hotly, and saying it gave him some confidence. “She will.”
“Maybe she will,” she said, resting her cheek against his hair. He didn’t like it: it was too much like something a mother would do. “Will you stay with me for now, though?”
Bal thought about it for a while, staring off into space. He thought about his family and his home, and he thought about the plate of cookies on the table and the way he was being held, and even the brief, practical thought of where else he would go flitted across his mind for an instant. He shut his eyes, suddenly feeling as if he were being crushed under something very heavy.
“…Okay,” he said hesitantly, and the heaviness eased a little.
“Thank you,” the lady said, and he felt her smile against the top of his head. “I’m Laura, pleasure to meet you.”
“Laura,” he repeated, and he felt himself go a little bit to sleep.
Word count: 771
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 3:10 pm
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 3:11 pm
Bal shut his eyes and sprawled on the floor of his bedroom, thinking as hard as he possibly could. He missed his mom. He missed her, he missed her, he missed her. He missed her, and he wanted her back, he really, truly did. He wasn't faking. He was a good son, and he missed her so much it hurt.
So why couldn't he remember what her face looked like?
He opened his eyes and suddenly wanted to cry. Big boys didn't cry. He was a big boy. He had to think. He had to remember. Somehow, he knew that if he didn't remember, that meant that he would stay here forever, that his old home would become unreal to him and he would belong here now.
He couldn't do that. He missed his mom.
With a sudden urgency, he rolled over onto his stomach and got up. There was paper somewhere. He was going to draw his mother, then he would remember, and if he ever forgot he would just look at the picture and remember. Where was the paper? There, on that night stand. He walked over to it on unsteady child's legs and got a box of crayons and a stack of paper, and then settled down on the floor with renewed determination.
He began with her hair, because he remembered that best. It was long, and brown, and usually up. Then there were her horns, which were...long? Short. They were short, like his horn, and there were two of them. And her ears were...they were like his too, weren't they? Maybe a little different. Were they on top of her head, or on the sides? He scrawled them in on top with the horns, hoping desperately that he was right. Ordinarily it didn't matter if he got his pictures completely right, but this did, this was important.
Then he got to her face. He hesitated, his crayon hovering over the paper, and tried to visualize it. He couldn't. He tried, he honestly did, but it wasn't there.
His faceless picture stared at him accusingly, and he felt the weight of his failure on him. He was supposed to remember, but the memories and the importance attached to them were gone, like water swirling down the drain.
"Who'zat?" asked a voice, and he looked up to find Naida sitting next to him, the girl who shared his room. He frowned, and wasn't sure for a moment if he ought to tell her; she was, after all, not his sister, and he was under no obligation to share his mother with her. But he liked her a little, and he wanted someone else to think about his mother.
"My mommy," he told her, and she nodded and said, "Oh." He expected her to ask why her face was blank, but she didn't. He was oddly grateful.
They sat together quietly for a few minutes, and he colored in his mother's hair more thoroughly. She took a piece of paper and suddenly began to draw, scribbling a picture in quickly and surely. He put his crayon down and watched her, sensing that there was some meaning in this and baffled as to what it was.
"What'sa picture?" he asked finally, tilting his head to try and see it properly.
With a flourish, she completed her drawing and showed it to him. It was a little boy, with yellow hair and a pointy horn. "My brother," she said, smiling shyly at him.
He felt a funny warm feeling in his stomach, that should have been guilt but wasn't. "I'm not-" he began, but then stopped. He hesitated, and then returned the same careful smile. "...blon' alla way like that, see? S'brown a li'l."
She laughed and fixed it, and he suddenly realized that he could see her face clear as day.
Word count: 643
(This actually happens around the twelfth or so, but I got it up a little late.)
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Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 9:57 pm
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Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 11:02 pm
The Sun Also Rises [PRP]
Bal and Naida go looking for the sunrise, and meet an older girl who is allergic to the sun. [Finished]
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Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 7:37 pm
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Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 12:09 am
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