Nathaniel Parrish did not keep a diary, per say, or even really a journal. It was more of a conglomeration of thoughts and ideas and wishful concepts and possibilities that would never be achieved, all crammed together in a leather-bound notebook that he'd bought half price at the university bookstore. It was tied together with a looping strand of twine and kept in the top drawer of Nathaniel's desk most of the time.
At the moment, it was sitting open in front of him, the pages stiff with glue and tape and a myriad of other things. It was a mixture of lined paper, sketchbook sheets, construction paper and whatever else kind of paper Nathaniel could find, all crammed and taped together and arranged with a sort of organized chaos that made sense to him and probably no one else.
The page it was currently open to was one that of Nathaniel's more extreme possibilities. He'd labeled these ones as "far off" dreams of his own: magazine cutouts and printed pictures of places he wanted to go, things he wanted to do, people he wanted to be. A glossy photo of Waitomo Cave in New Zealand, the Alnwick Garden of Poisonous Plants in England, the Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Underneath these was a photo Nathaniel had printed out a picture of a roller coaster, though he didn't know from which theme park it actually was. Scribbled notes lined the sides, reminders of where everything was, how much they cost, what it would take to go there.
There were receipts too, crammed within the pages, most of these from things that had held some sort of meaning for Nathaniel: like the day he'd gotten his bike from Goodwill or the first piece of clothing he'd managed to buy for himself, without using the money his parents had conned out of someone. A list of books he one day wanted to buy kept growing longer and longer, until Nathaniel had run out of room on one page and had had to use the back of another, writing around pictures and notes and snapshots.
Mixed among all of these possibilities were actual journal pages. Not exactly hidden, but not the prominent feature of his book, either. Some were from his younger years, and some were from now; thoughts and feelings and concerns that he hoped no one would see or notice.
He found an empty page now, and painstakingly recorded all of the notes he'd scribbled down on his napkin from the ball. Some were smeared so badly he couldn't read them well, and there were a few question marks and underlines where he wasn't certain of the information. He knew most of it was likely useless by now, but it wouldn't hurt all the same.
After he'd gotten all of that down, Nathaniel moved onto listing his actual experiences, which went something like:
- went to a ball with Lily (she's some sort of shapeshifter??)
- spilled drinks all over the Main Baddie
- met a man on fire and had to resist singing "Great Balls of Fire" to him
- there was a creature??? His name was "Gloom"
- Algernon and Jeremiah are all up in this magic business
- Peeing Dog guy was there too, minus the peeing dog (we danced, don't know why)
- almost got strangled by a double of someone
- Gloom was really cute (look up pets for future reference)
- they tried to make Algernon kill someone but he refused
- (I knew he was my favorite author for a reason)
- someone died???
- Lily and I ran out and wound up back at Rider-Waite and then I passed out
- found: one box of chocolates that seems to replenish itself??? need to investigate
And so on and so forth.
He sat back after a while, mulling over everything. Outside the sole window of his tiny, one-room apartment, the sky was an inky dark black. The only light on was that of his desk lamp, and Nathaniel tapped his pen against the desk, thinking hard.
It hadn't been a dream, but it hadn't exactly been reality either, had it?
With a sigh, stretching his long, stiff limbs, Nathaniel reached out and tugged on the lamp light. The room was extinguished into blackness a second later, quiet and dark, the only sounds that of the wind ghosting across the window.
Nathaniel turned on the light again, opened his journal, and added one more note at the bottom:
- also I glow in the dark
[ WORD COUNT: 756 ]
