(no subject)
School assignment (well, writing assignment. Not really written in a school way, since it was written in a certain style as opposed to about the war of 1812 or whatever.) written in elegant variation/cervantino style.
For those of you who have no idea what that means (aka everyone, blame the sucky school systems) it's basically when you repeat things. Like, elegant variation is when you never use the same word twice at all costs (oh, thesauros key, how I love you) and cervantino is when you repeat everything. ("He told me and informed me of this fact in a manner that was courteous and polite.")
So, yeah, all that repetition that kinda ruin is? Is supposed to be there. I felt bad for not posting in a while, and I don't want to post bits and pieces of Alice, so...here.
He steps out onto the lawn, leaving the shelter of the dimly-lit house and walking onto the dark grass. Softly, and being careful to make no noise, he creeps towards the fence that marks the end of his property, separating his family's land from that of their neighbors. Reaching the wooden slats of the enclosure, he stops, and, opening the gate, he breaks open the barrier between the areas of the two families. The latch of the door is icy and brittle-feeling against his hand and fingers as he pushes the portal shut behind him.
It's not that the barricade has never been unlocked before, or that the fence had never been crossed prior to this night. He, the boy, had traveled this way many times before, over and over almost every single night. Even so, each time it was strange, each time it made the hair on the back of his neck prickle and his head spin a little, to cross that forbidden line of security and venture into unfamiliar lands. He was, after all, always told by his mother and told by his father, that he had no right to be on any land except his own, and that he should stay on their property.
It was, he would admit to himself, mostly those strict decrees that made him want and desire to creep over; he was at that age, between thirteen and eighteen, when anything illicit and that his parents disapproved of was instantly far more appealing and tempting to the boy. It wasn't as if there was anything particularly fascinating or of special interest in the space next to his home, it was more that the neighbors were considered to be secretive and therefore resentful of anyone intruding upon or interfering with their land. It was a typical suburban yard, as could be found in any small town or city; a cracked concrete patio, weeds pushing up between the gaps in the stone, a few trees and some bushes scattered near the back of the house, and a shed full of gardening equipment with a rusty lawn mower in back. He had broken into the small building last year, more out of a sense that he should and that it would be appropriate to under the circumstances than an actual desire to.
It wasn't so much the being in his neighbor's yard that was interesting as the fact that he could and was able to be somewhere he had been expressly and specifically told not to travel to. He was a good son, who got good grades in school, and he was pure on terms of alcohol and drugs, never having gotten drunk or high with his friends after school, and he didn't feel that he had much drive or wish for any of the normal teenage rebellion beyond this small one.
Stealing across and over the damp grass, striped with the light of an almost-full moon through the trees, the boy sits down and perches himself on the edge of a rock, out of the view of the windows of the house and where the inhabitants will not be able to see him from indoors. The stone is cold and chilled from the damp of the evening, and the dew on the grass is soaking into his sneakers and through his socks.
After he is there for a while, residing on the grass for a short time, the boy stands up again and begins to stealthily return to the fence dividing the two properties. He is only halfway cross the lawn, and not yet at the gave, when he hears a noise from within the house and home of the people who own the land he is on. He freezes and ceases all movement, looking towards the back door. It opens and a woman steps out, moving from the doorway onto the small back porch that is in front of the door. The screen swings shut behind her as she lets it go and turns slightly to face him.
"Excuse me, dear." She calls to him across the feet of grass that separate them, communicating with him over the distance. "I just wanted to let you know that the rock you sit on won't be there tomorrow-we're rearranging the garden, you know, and it really is so inconvenient to have it there, especially since you keep trampling the peonies when you walk to it."
The boy stares at her, saying nothing and remaining silent with shock and surprise that this was his strange mysterious neighbor, whom he had been warned to many times to avoid and stay away from.
Fortunately, the woman did not seem to expect and answer, for after smiling at him in a cheerful and pleasant manner, she turned and reentered her home, leaving the boy standing on the turn of her yard, his tooting on the soil slightly shaken by confusion and disappointment. As the last light in the house before him winked out, and became dark, he too turned and returned home-no longer creeping, but walking with a slow plod that lack in any stealth or secrecy. After all, what purpose would it serve no, why should he bother to hide what he was doing? He had been out here in the heat of summer when his hair clung to his scalp in the damp warmth, and in the bitter cold of winter, where the lock almost stuck to his hand with the cold and he could hardly see from past the frozen water in his eyes. Finally, he at last reached his own yard and was back in the place he knew. The gate made a loud click as it swung shut behind him, and there was a noise in the air for a few moments after he shut entrance.
For those of you who have no idea what that means (aka everyone, blame the sucky school systems) it's basically when you repeat things. Like, elegant variation is when you never use the same word twice at all costs (oh, thesauros key, how I love you) and cervantino is when you repeat everything. ("He told me and informed me of this fact in a manner that was courteous and polite.")
So, yeah, all that repetition that kinda ruin is? Is supposed to be there. I felt bad for not posting in a while, and I don't want to post bits and pieces of Alice, so...here.
He steps out onto the lawn, leaving the shelter of the dimly-lit house and walking onto the dark grass. Softly, and being careful to make no noise, he creeps towards the fence that marks the end of his property, separating his family's land from that of their neighbors. Reaching the wooden slats of the enclosure, he stops, and, opening the gate, he breaks open the barrier between the areas of the two families. The latch of the door is icy and brittle-feeling against his hand and fingers as he pushes the portal shut behind him.
It's not that the barricade has never been unlocked before, or that the fence had never been crossed prior to this night. He, the boy, had traveled this way many times before, over and over almost every single night. Even so, each time it was strange, each time it made the hair on the back of his neck prickle and his head spin a little, to cross that forbidden line of security and venture into unfamiliar lands. He was, after all, always told by his mother and told by his father, that he had no right to be on any land except his own, and that he should stay on their property.
It was, he would admit to himself, mostly those strict decrees that made him want and desire to creep over; he was at that age, between thirteen and eighteen, when anything illicit and that his parents disapproved of was instantly far more appealing and tempting to the boy. It wasn't as if there was anything particularly fascinating or of special interest in the space next to his home, it was more that the neighbors were considered to be secretive and therefore resentful of anyone intruding upon or interfering with their land. It was a typical suburban yard, as could be found in any small town or city; a cracked concrete patio, weeds pushing up between the gaps in the stone, a few trees and some bushes scattered near the back of the house, and a shed full of gardening equipment with a rusty lawn mower in back. He had broken into the small building last year, more out of a sense that he should and that it would be appropriate to under the circumstances than an actual desire to.
It wasn't so much the being in his neighbor's yard that was interesting as the fact that he could and was able to be somewhere he had been expressly and specifically told not to travel to. He was a good son, who got good grades in school, and he was pure on terms of alcohol and drugs, never having gotten drunk or high with his friends after school, and he didn't feel that he had much drive or wish for any of the normal teenage rebellion beyond this small one.
Stealing across and over the damp grass, striped with the light of an almost-full moon through the trees, the boy sits down and perches himself on the edge of a rock, out of the view of the windows of the house and where the inhabitants will not be able to see him from indoors. The stone is cold and chilled from the damp of the evening, and the dew on the grass is soaking into his sneakers and through his socks.
After he is there for a while, residing on the grass for a short time, the boy stands up again and begins to stealthily return to the fence dividing the two properties. He is only halfway cross the lawn, and not yet at the gave, when he hears a noise from within the house and home of the people who own the land he is on. He freezes and ceases all movement, looking towards the back door. It opens and a woman steps out, moving from the doorway onto the small back porch that is in front of the door. The screen swings shut behind her as she lets it go and turns slightly to face him.
"Excuse me, dear." She calls to him across the feet of grass that separate them, communicating with him over the distance. "I just wanted to let you know that the rock you sit on won't be there tomorrow-we're rearranging the garden, you know, and it really is so inconvenient to have it there, especially since you keep trampling the peonies when you walk to it."
The boy stares at her, saying nothing and remaining silent with shock and surprise that this was his strange mysterious neighbor, whom he had been warned to many times to avoid and stay away from.
Fortunately, the woman did not seem to expect and answer, for after smiling at him in a cheerful and pleasant manner, she turned and reentered her home, leaving the boy standing on the turn of her yard, his tooting on the soil slightly shaken by confusion and disappointment. As the last light in the house before him winked out, and became dark, he too turned and returned home-no longer creeping, but walking with a slow plod that lack in any stealth or secrecy. After all, what purpose would it serve no, why should he bother to hide what he was doing? He had been out here in the heat of summer when his hair clung to his scalp in the damp warmth, and in the bitter cold of winter, where the lock almost stuck to his hand with the cold and he could hardly see from past the frozen water in his eyes. Finally, he at last reached his own yard and was back in the place he knew. The gate made a loud click as it swung shut behind him, and there was a noise in the air for a few moments after he shut entrance.