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 Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 1:49 pm
"Aw, ******** dashes across her cramped apartment living room to shut the window she absentmindedly left open. The morning had been peaceful and bright, and the air then was light and still. But as the hour now reaches noon, a wind rips unexpectedly through the metropolis.
Alaina's apartment, being on one of the lower floors, reaps the benefits - and now, obvious faults - of being level with the abundance of leafy trees just outside. Leaves are shovelled inside and scatter over the clutter before Alaina can slam her weight down on the old window frame to shut out the offending gusts of wind.
The leaves settle at their own pace, undergrown and various fresh shades of green. Alaina angrily narrows her silver eyes and chews the backing of her labret piercing. Snatching up her kitten shaped trash can - hey, a girl's on a budget! - the young adult scuffles along tossing out the unwanted leafy visitors.
"I'm all for Mother Nature, so long as she keeps her trash outta my flat," she mutters, along with a few choice curses at the extra cleaning efforts. Nevermind Alaina's the type of person who just searches for a reason to let curses roll off her tongue.
She'd trashed most of the leaves in sight before the constant crouching sent a pang of pain up her back. Wincing, she sets the garbage can on the seat of her lounging chair and extends her long arms above her head. Despite the spacious headroom the low-cost apartment provides, the choice in thrift store lighting fixtures isn't exactly heavenly. The palm of her left hand knocks into the ugly, bulky fixture serving as the primary light source for the room.
Alaina yelps out of reflex, stumbling back. It had been unusually warm. Old pieces like that prolly heat up easy, she silently assures herself. She narrows her eyes at the rustic, low-hanging monstrocity before she spots the flash of green on one of its corners.
"The hell?" she murmurs, nudging aside the trash can as she steps up on the chair. A leaf! A leaf had gotten itself stuck up there. "No way I'm paying for burn damages when that thing catches fire," she decides with a scowl, pushing up on her toes with an arm outstretched. The other is used to keep her balance up on the unsteady armchair.
There was a reason Alaina never chose to pursue her gymnastics training. But so far, her balancing act isn't doing too badly, even if her footing isn't exactly stable. She swipes her long, ring-decorated fingers along the ridge closest to the leaf.. and could swear it moved out of her way.
Moved.
She falls back on the hells of her feet, flapping her arms wildly. Her heart pounds and stops before it can leap out her throat; she managed to find the high backing of the chair with her hands. Crisis averted.
Brushing her currently cinnamon hair out of her face grumpily, Alaina presses her mouth in a disdained line. "Oh no, you don't, you.. -" she snaps, already up and scrambling her hand along the heated fixture for the leaf. "- are.. mine!"
Her fingers coil around something cool and smooth - the leaf, she guesses with a smirk. But before she can enjoy her triumph, the dreadful noise of wood scraping wood reaches her ears, the same that is created when a heavy chair slides across the flooring.
Alaina's eyes widen and a short scream is exhaled as she comes crashing down on her coffee table.
Her elbow made impact first, but thankfully the furnature was made out of thin and fragmented wood chips, for all it does is send a numbing pang out to all her arm's nerves. The rest of her weight crushes the remainder of the table into shards.
"Aughh!" she cries out, curling up beside the rubble. The leaf is still, miraculously, between two of her slender fingers as she rubs her elbow in annoyance. "Funny bone, my a**. There is nothing-" she grits her teeth as she forces herself to stand, "- funny about this!"
She shakes her hand violently, and the little leaf flutters mercilessly back and forth in return. Alaina's socked foot crunches down on a weak piece of wood, and again she winces.
"I know exactly what to do with you.." she growls, storming off and leaving the mess for her to deal with later.
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Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 4:18 pm
Alaina grins mischeviously, taking a step back to admire her work. Moments earlier, she ransacked her bedroom for any sort of container, and found to her delight an old Beanie Baby display case.
"Sorry, Tank!" she murmurs, patting the armadillo bean bag toy. What she deemed as The Evil Leaf sits in the clear container as a sort of trophy. It will serve as a reminder and a triumph, she reasons silently.
It would be weeks before she noticed it hadn't changed one bit. She was constantly pulling out dried up leaves from her living space, but the Evil Leaf found a way to remain perfectly green. It hadn't even curled at the edges!
Alaina crouches so she's eye level with the leaf. Her silver eyes narrow at it. She struggles to remain composed; some dumb leaf wouldn't get the best of her! She always has the last laugh, whether that means tossing it through the shredder or perhaps lighting it on fire. <******** possessed, you are!" she hisses through her teeth. Shuffling through the assorted piles - Alaina is very much a packrat of a person, and hasn't seen the floor since she moved into her cosy apartment - she stretches out on her bed, flipping open her laptop. After a few simple but coordinated keystrokes, she's on the internet and hitting up Google for any insight on possessed leaves.
"Possessed plants: If a plant is acting crazy because it is possessed by daemons or ghosts, I don't consider it a normal carnivorous ********?" she exhales in a frustrated sigh. Nothing but a load of crap about exorcisms and random household objects coming to life. With a few more keystrokes, she clicks Search! in hope for better results.
Running her tongue over her labret piercing, she shoots the leaf a glance out of the corner of her silver eyes. The page changes and recaptures her attention in a flicker of light in the drab room. Unlike the living space, it has no windows.
"The Eden Project," the result says, though it has no preview text. Skeptically, Alaina taps the touchpad and follows the link to a rather bland website. Yadda yadda, something about a tree and souls.. blah blah. About to click the back button, Alaina's eye catches on something - the mention of leaves.
The site has no links and hardly a layout, as if made quickly and hastily, and has the appearance of a blog with only one entry. It had been the only result on the Google page. Alaina gives an involuntary shudder at the notion that someone put it there just for her.
"Creepy mofos on the internet these days," she mumbles. Hearing her own voice helps to soothe her fears. Scrolling down, she finds nothing about who might have created the website. Biting into her lower lip, she ignores the taste of metallic blood.
She quickly snaps the laptop shut, and sits there, her eyes fixated on the sealed leaf.
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Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 11:18 am
Alaina laughs dryly with a look over her "masterpiece."
"That's it," she murmurs softly, resting a hand on her hip. "I've jumped off the deep end. I'm ********' insane."
Before her sits an ordinary orange flower pot she picked up from a gardening store, the price sticker still on the underside. She'd dug into her apartment's garden - they had it primped days earlier - and filled it with soil as well as the tiny, pathetic seeds given free with purchase of the flower pot.
She turns to the Evil Leaf, still fresh and green inside its airtight plastic container. She swore that for a second it had shuddered. A grin passes over her face. "What do you think, oh evil trophy of mine?" she croons, leaning across the desk and lifting the clear container in the air.
Turning it over in her hands, she, out of habit, runs her tongue along the inside of her labret piercing while examining every corner of the leaf. Absolutely no signs of yellowing or decay or even a parasite of a caterpillar. Indeed, it looks as lively and healthy as it probably looked on the tree itself.
Alaina holds the case upsidedown without noticing as she idly strokes the rim of her plant pot. "Spring messes with my head," she explains to the leaf. "One minute, I'm sane and have no demon-possessed plants in my house, and the next? I have you, for one, and as if that wasn't bad enough, I felt the need to go out and buy myself a pot. A pot! I've never grown a thing in my life!"
She had been gesturing wildly with her hands, and the poor leaf tumbles and hits every corner of the plastic container. Alaina jerks her arm hard on the last word and her heart leaps into her throat. The cap clatters on the ground, and the sound itself causes her to jump up in the air and release the rest of the container.
The leaf flutters sideways, as if evading his companion's flails. And, by some such coincidence or perhaps, undoubtably, fate, it seeks out the fresh soil on the desk below, cutting through the air impossibly and with purpose. Alaina stumbles back and yelps as her bare foot slams down on the edge of broken plastic.
And in the chaotic scene, the leaf reaches the soil in the flower pot. It wiggles in with such relief, dousing itself with dirt, covering itself as much as possible. Safety. Away from the exposure of being a trophy, hidden from unforseen horrors. Now, nothing can sneak up on it; the tables have turned, prey becomes predator.
All the while, Alaina shouts a stream of curses, hobbling away to tend to her sliced foot, screaming bloody murder about a demon of a leaf who just won't leave her to peace. To anyone who chances to hear, she sounds like nothing more than a raving lunatic.
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Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 3:59 pm
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Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 4:26 pm
"D'you like music, little man?"
Alaina lazily stretches out on her bed, her laptop open and her iTunes playlist loaded. Tapping a finger on the decorated pot, she watches for any sort of reaction, expecting nothing. She'd hear or read somewhere that music helps plants grow, so why not give that theory a try? After all, she did intend having the pot to grow stuff, not to house a demon possessed leaf thing.
She sifts through a few wires on her bedroom floor and fishes one out, trying it in a hole on the side of her laptop. Wrong one. She tosses it aside and picks out another, and this time it pops in perfectly. Flashing a toothy grin at the leaf, she scrolls down her list for something to rock out to.
"Thursday?" she asks, glancing at the pot out of the corner of her eye. "Weezer? How about some Billy Talent? Or I can put on some Panic! at the Disco.."
The leaf twitches. Alaina turns her head sharply, her now-brown hair brushing her shoulders. It doesn't seem to be moving.. but she knows what she saw. Narrowing her eyes suspiciously, she slowly turns back to her playlist, all the while watching for any further signs of movement. She SAW it move, she's sure of that.
Running her tongue over the stud in her lip, she muses to herself over the playlist. "Gatsby's American Dream? Halifax? How about Lovedru- AHA!"
She double-clicks quickly on a random track and snatches up the pot with Garrett's leaf in it. "You sneaky thing, you! I caught you! You ARE possessed! I'm not crazy! Ahahaha!!" Well, the last part is certainly up for debate, especially with her talking to a leaf she deems possessed. Still, said leaf twitches its green self here and there, to and fro, to its own certain beat.
Music rumbles out of the ancient speakers:
"and all these stupid silly songs
keep trying to catch your ear
i'm trying desperately
it's just so hard to persevere
and even if you listened
i never had much to say
cause it's the same old song
i've written for the day
shelter me oh genius words
just give me strength
just to pen these things
and give me peace to well her wings
and oh carry on all you minstrels of the world
we will catch our ladies ear
we will win for us the girl
all these minstrels through the ages
that is really all we are
simply singing for the girl
that makes us try so very hard
to craft the perfect limerick
to wield unending woe
to write such silly songs
and the different never know.."
The sound crackles and pops much like an old record player would, which is completely strange, at least to Alaina. The speakers never sound like this when she's used them before, and the sound effects weren't built into the song. Her face scrunches in confusion as she looks from the speaker to the laptop, typing a few things here and there without avail, and finally stares down at the little leaf in the pot.
It twitches uncontrollably now, but not even in a spastic manner; no, it seems much more elegant, controlled, and precise, suggesting that its movements are not at random. She swallows at the lump in her throat.
"Okay, this is just scary," she murmurs, scrambling backwards on her sheets, hugging her knees to her chin. "Oh gawd, I am going crazy, aren't I?" She lets out a whine and closes her silver eyes, trying to force the image of the "dancing" leaf out of her head. But when she sneaks another look, her dread is only reconfirmed, as the leaf is still moving along .. to the music?
"shelter me oh genius words
just give me strength
just to pen these things
and give me peace to well her wings
and oh carry on all you minstrels of the world
we will catch our ladies ear
we will win for us the girl
and i'll hold on to the dream
of this beggar's plea and optimistic fantasy
just hold the hand and drop the knee
you're facing love
you're embracing melody
shelter me oh genius words
just give me strength
just to pen these things
and give me peace to well her wings
and oh carry on all you minstrels of the world
we will catch our ladies ear
we will win for us the girl
and oh carry on, oh carry on all you minstrels of the world
we will catch our ladies ear
we will win for us the girl.."
Finally, the song ends. Alaina's hand shoots out rapidly and slams the laptop closed, next plucking out the cord and tossing it back on the ground.
"Okay, demon leaf," she says, her voice scared and faltering. She presses her brow together, creating a creased line across her forehead. "Okay, you had your exercise for today. Y- you can stop now. Seriously."
The leaf wiggles in the soil, disregarding what Alaina says, if it even hears her say it. The dark soil sinks into the spaces that it creates when it moves, and the leaf is still dug in as far as it was before it started its twitchy escapade. Keeping the pot far away from her body, Alaina sets it down on her messy dresser. As soon as it clanks down, she jerks away with another whine, and tosses the nearest article of clothing over top the pot. There. Now she doesn't have to look at it anymore.
But she can see the material move, oh so slightly.. and knows better than to think she can just hide this under an old tank top. Rubbing circles into her temples, Alaina stalks off to her kitchen with the sudden desire for some black coffee.
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Posted: Thu Jul 27, 2006 3:02 pm
Alaina twirls a pencil between her fingers, lazing back in one of her odd, mismatched living room chairs. Smacking her lips, she turns her head to the side, having finished the last addition to the potted leaf.
"Perfect," she muses with a song on her voice, smiling slyly as she touches the leaf gingerly with her fingertip. It quivers beneath her touch, and in spite of herself, her smile extends.
Expertly pushing the pencil down into her hand, she scribbles down a few more notes and observations on the pad of stationary atop her thigh. She draws back her hand, and the leaf's tip weakens in her direction, as if obediently following.
"Silly," she hisses through her teeth happily, dropping her pencil and pulling the pot into her lap. It stretches up towards her, as if greedily lapping up her voice like a plant would sunlight. She has grown accustomed to the strange quirks and queries of her newly adopted pet leaf, unaware of the soul that lies inside its green veins, that which will soon enough be revealed to her in another form.
Bringing the pot to her ear, she closes her grey-blue eyes and concentrates on the soft hum that trills from the very soil. In an ordinary situation she would think herself completely insane for believing in such things as magic or possessed leaves, but the insight provided to her by this one has opened her mind to the many possibilities she hadn't seen and touched. Her life before this leaf had been sheltered and blindsided; and for this new understanding, she is grateful.
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Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 11:21 am
One day you look at Garrett and notice a difference. The leaf isn't shaking as usual, but instead seems to start splitting up in two pieces who are flapping without a pause. Sometimes a screeching sound can be heard. What is going on ?
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Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 3:01 pm
Alaina slips off her DJ-style headphones and slides her legs out of their pretzel-like cross. Something had interrupted the song she is listening to - something quite annoying! Squinting from the dim lighting, she raises an ear to better determine the source of the sound, moving onto her knees first to examine the open window.
"Damn birds!" she curses at the empty tree, causing a passing jogger to shoot her a confused glance. She doesn't pay him the courtesy of one of her rare smiles, but instead frowns in bewilderment on finding the tree empty of avian life. Pushing off her knees and halfway out the window, clutching the frame tightly, she glances right and left, up and down, finding nothing out of the ordinary.
Falling backward in a huff on her bed, Alaina crosses her arms, perplexed. "Huh," she sighs, and begins to pass it off as some sort of glitch in her CD. A scratch, perhaps, as disheartening as it is for a music buff to swallow. She settles back against her hoard of pillows and just slides the headphones over her ears again when, once more, that sound makes a second appearance.
"What the ********?!" she exclaims with a scowl, throwing off her headphones forcefully and kicking her legs over the edge of her bed. A gust of late summer wind tickles her arms and sends goosebumps across her skin. Alaina rubs her arms just as the leaf's pieces lightly graze one another in their flapping movements.
Stopping immediately, Alaina creeps up to her dresser from below and slowly- and comically, had anyone been watching - rises up to stare at the leaf directly, catching its antics with her own widening eyes.
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Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:12 am
Gaining attention out of sudden the leaf stands still just like nothing had happened. For a few seconds it seems like everything turned normal again, but suddenly something brown starts to cover the small one. Is it wilting ? No, actually a fluffy brown material seems to crouch over it's surface. The screeching continues.
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Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 4:25 am
Alaina raises a thin eyebrow as the leaf changes in front of her eyes. ".. Are you making up for lost rotting time, or did I not notice someone slipping hallucinogens in my coffee this morning?" she mutters darkly, but with a twist of curiosity.
When the leaf screeches again, she winces visibly and draws back, but just as suddenly steps forward again, watching the change closer than ever.
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Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 4:43 am
A cough of dust seems to escape from the leaf's stem and for a moment you're not able to see clearly. The thick cloud of dust seems to cover the whole room for a moment and the screeching echoes through the corners of the building. The fur seems to be moving in a strange rythm on the leaf.
As quickly as it had come it vanishes again and in front of you sits a small toddler.... Garrett !
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Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:25 pm
Got Elly checked out, seems her condition's real serious, more than I'd thought. Doc says its called hemophilia and it's typically found in boys and usually of royal decent, so called royal disease that it is..... yeah, real "princess" like for her to potentially bleed to death from a paper cut......
Garrett's getting better at the whole adjusting to people thing. I mean he ain't no social susy but at least he'll give a polite nod to the driver and speak his own order for the waitress... and Dad wasn't all too bad with him, I'd expected more questions, or at least that look he gives me. Guess he thought it was just as well not to bother now that there's two and well, I think it's pretty ******** obvious they dinnit come outta me, that's for certain..
Gotta go, Chuck, write you soon as we I can. ********, I'm taking too easy to this mothering s**t, it scares me.....
-L
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Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 11:55 am
Chuck,
Thought I'd mail you this. I'm dropping off the kids' letter to Santa so it wasn't out of my way or nothing. Garrett is surprisingly quick at picking up on printing and writing. Smart kid. Heh. Elly's super excited about the fat man coming and bringing her stuff. Kid's a real angel, everything's so refreshingly new for her that it makes me think twice about the little things. I just hope I can scrounge enough to satisfy'm. I can't help but feel over my head in this stuff, y'know? Too young, too much, too fast.....?
Couldn't do it without your support, though, Chuck. We'll be back in town soon enough.
See you in the new year. - L
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