Lost and found.
"You can't write like that, it's too humid." The ink slowly dries as a young man holds his pen just above his paper, the pen hovering like a emotional funnel, a dark black droplet falling slowly onto the last letter. Standing over him, Ms. Simone Williamson, a first-year English teacher forced to run the Literature Club for the students at John F. Kennedy High, looks down at the last sentence, broken by her interruption. "People just can't absorb that kind of feeling, but, however, with a little refinement, it would be absolutely wonderful!" The teacher smiles at the young man longingly, her dimples slowly pulling back to her ears. A black overcoat hangs limp on the shoulders of her narrow frame, contrasting sharply with her vibrant red hair shining from the fluorescent light overhead. Being 24 years old and single in a rapidly growing city, she is very tempted to flirt with the high-school seniors in her after-school club.
"Simone, I don't understand. Writing bares the soul, words without meaning are just irrelevant residue from an inanimate object," Hugh White looks at Simone, his brown eyes pierce her own, causing her to be drawn in yet scared at the same time. His spiky dark brown hair resembles bed-head, but the hair gel he uses is so stiff that his ex-girlfriend actually drew blood by trying to run her fingers through his hair. Hugh is mature for his age, and, stimulated by older women, throws hints at a possible relationship with Simone, who is all too willing to allow him to talk to her on a first name basis, even though she makes others refer to her as Ms. Williamson. The corners of his mouth fold into a smile. "Reading a good writer is more thrilling than the wildest sexual encounter you will ever have."
Simone blushes, her head gently creeping to her shoulder as her eyes begin to squint, "you are just too much, Mr. White." She looks down at his paper and reads what he has written again.
A sunrise sits upon my dresser in the morning,
yet never sets at night,
the beauty in a photo shines brightly upon me,
as I grip my pillow tight,
remembering the day the sun was taken away,
and nothing is alri
Simone remembers her last boyfriend as she reads the poem. She remembers him being a writer with no talent whatsoever. The breakup was terrible. She had accidentally killed his dog by sharing a giant Hershey's Kiss with the puppy. He wrote a sonnet for the dog that caused Simone to laugh hysterically, actually peeing her pants because the soppy lines were so pathetic that she pinched his cheek and said, "does daddy miss his little bowzie wowzie puppy dog, yes...you do...I sowwy," which prompted an urgent call to his mother to come pick him up. She wonders if the umbilical cord has been cut yet. A slight chuckle takes over her body. She looks at Hugh once again, smelling his cologne, and thinking about his words. "Who is this female you write so much about?"
Hugh looks out the window dreamily, "well, it's this person that I made up. I can't love, I'm insatiable, so why try to think of a tangible object to write about when I can never be turned down from my own mind?" Hugh has never really confided in people. Every person he has ever trusted has failed him, so he views writing as his only true friend. He only puts up with the emotional self-torture because it gives him an edge to his writing, something he discovered once he stopped pretending to be happy. Seldom at a loss for words, Hugh's poetry just flows from his mind, phrases and rhymes constantly banging around in his head. The stale smell of the pizza the Lit Club had ordered drifts faintly past his nostrils, although it is long gone, as are the rest of the members. Simone and Hugh stay at the school until late, usually until the janitors are locking up, Simone finding joy in Hugh's passion, Hugh sometimes just wishing she would go away.
"Why don't you ever try writing for somebody...I bet you could write something for me..." Simone a playful smile, her eyes dancing at the thought of being his muse.
"Well, I don't even need to write it down...here's a limerick for you:
You're a beautiful lady Simone,
I hate to picture you so alone,
I desire a simple kiss,
don't see why you're still a miss,
so hand over the number to your phone!"
Hugh finishes with a wink as he watches Simone's heart slowly melt, Bambi eyes beaming while an "awww" slowly passes though her jaw which has just dropped. Hugh, surprised that his flirtatious joke affects Simone so much, tries to recover, but his words come out chopped. "I...was...j-ju-just...j-jo-joke-joking."
Simone snaps out of it with a laugh, "sure you were you little turd, thank you! It was absolutely maaaarvolus. It's getting late though, we should get going." Simone closes her eyes and silently wishes to herself that he honestly felt that way. Hugh clips his pen onto his notebook as he sticks it in his back pocket. "Goodbye, Hugh."
"Farewell, Simone."
The cool springtime night sky blends into the skyline, the cantaloupe colored glow of the parking lot lights perfectly matching the horizon of the setting sun. The delicate smell of pine brings to mind a mix of cleaning products, while the aroma of warm spring rain fills the lungs, which tie into the look of the parking lot, as the downpour which occurs every day at 3:32 in the afternoon has washed everything away, from the cigarette butts to the crumbled papers with all the red marks, to leave behind a large parking lot, pure and unaltered from the day it was created, except for a small white sedan, alone. Hugh pauses to take it all in, he loves the rain. An earthworm lays bloated and white in a puddle next to the sidewalk, slowly floating the length of the puddle like a man with no limbs drifting down an easy-flowing river. A bird flies towards the puddle, but seeing the sorry state of the worm, continues on to the tree right behind Hugh.
Hugh pulls out a cigarette, "I hate this place." He flips open his Zippo and lights it with one swift move, the kind of move you see in those old black and white movies, Casablanca and so forth. Cigarettes are something Hugh has determined to never give up. The one thing in life he can always count on, the one thing in life that will never leave him, the one thing in life that will probably kill him, but the one thing in life that always eases his mind. If the first cigarette doesn't help, the second one will, perhaps even the one after that. Hugh began smoking as a high school freshman, smoking the first time when he was drunk during a party, but continuing when he found a pack in his car that was a remnant from the party. Every day after that, his nicotine habit increased until he began to smoke a pack a day.
A wisp of smoke curls into the air as Hugh watches it transform into differing shapes against the dark background of trees at the end of the parking lot. The smoke off a cigarette has always mystified Hugh, the thick bluish cloud drifting perilously towards the heavens, and sometimes, feeling as though the smoke he exhales, which is more whitish, is part of his soul drifting upward, leaving behind his damned flesh.
His cell phone rings.
"Yeah Mom, we had a pizza party tonight at Lit Club, I'm going to go hang out with some people for a while. I won't be home late." Lies. All he can tell his parents are lies lately. Uprooted from everything he knows three times in his life, Hugh has changed friends three times, changed school settings three times, and adjusted to new houses three times. Each place he has gone, he has lost contact with his previous life. After finally getting to know people and feeling comfortable, being suddenly yanked out of contentment to try again somewhere else. His parents move with him each time, but each time, he loses them more and more.
Finally arriving at his car, he unlocks the door and gets in. Starting the ignition, he puts the car into first and leaves the parking lot. The in-dash CD player isn't working, so Hugh slams his fist against the side of the console until it slowly sputters to life.
****************************************************************************
I wrote that like 6 years ago. It was the beginning ideas of a novel. I think it may be possible to save...perhaps. I don't know. I've been wanting to try again. I had a bunch of stuff I had written on MS Works that got all F'd up when Works stopped being compatible with Word. I'm going to see what else I can save.
"Simone, I don't understand. Writing bares the soul, words without meaning are just irrelevant residue from an inanimate object," Hugh White looks at Simone, his brown eyes pierce her own, causing her to be drawn in yet scared at the same time. His spiky dark brown hair resembles bed-head, but the hair gel he uses is so stiff that his ex-girlfriend actually drew blood by trying to run her fingers through his hair. Hugh is mature for his age, and, stimulated by older women, throws hints at a possible relationship with Simone, who is all too willing to allow him to talk to her on a first name basis, even though she makes others refer to her as Ms. Williamson. The corners of his mouth fold into a smile. "Reading a good writer is more thrilling than the wildest sexual encounter you will ever have."
Simone blushes, her head gently creeping to her shoulder as her eyes begin to squint, "you are just too much, Mr. White." She looks down at his paper and reads what he has written again.
A sunrise sits upon my dresser in the morning,
yet never sets at night,
the beauty in a photo shines brightly upon me,
as I grip my pillow tight,
remembering the day the sun was taken away,
and nothing is alri
Simone remembers her last boyfriend as she reads the poem. She remembers him being a writer with no talent whatsoever. The breakup was terrible. She had accidentally killed his dog by sharing a giant Hershey's Kiss with the puppy. He wrote a sonnet for the dog that caused Simone to laugh hysterically, actually peeing her pants because the soppy lines were so pathetic that she pinched his cheek and said, "does daddy miss his little bowzie wowzie puppy dog, yes...you do...I sowwy," which prompted an urgent call to his mother to come pick him up. She wonders if the umbilical cord has been cut yet. A slight chuckle takes over her body. She looks at Hugh once again, smelling his cologne, and thinking about his words. "Who is this female you write so much about?"
Hugh looks out the window dreamily, "well, it's this person that I made up. I can't love, I'm insatiable, so why try to think of a tangible object to write about when I can never be turned down from my own mind?" Hugh has never really confided in people. Every person he has ever trusted has failed him, so he views writing as his only true friend. He only puts up with the emotional self-torture because it gives him an edge to his writing, something he discovered once he stopped pretending to be happy. Seldom at a loss for words, Hugh's poetry just flows from his mind, phrases and rhymes constantly banging around in his head. The stale smell of the pizza the Lit Club had ordered drifts faintly past his nostrils, although it is long gone, as are the rest of the members. Simone and Hugh stay at the school until late, usually until the janitors are locking up, Simone finding joy in Hugh's passion, Hugh sometimes just wishing she would go away.
"Why don't you ever try writing for somebody...I bet you could write something for me..." Simone a playful smile, her eyes dancing at the thought of being his muse.
"Well, I don't even need to write it down...here's a limerick for you:
You're a beautiful lady Simone,
I hate to picture you so alone,
I desire a simple kiss,
don't see why you're still a miss,
so hand over the number to your phone!"
Hugh finishes with a wink as he watches Simone's heart slowly melt, Bambi eyes beaming while an "awww" slowly passes though her jaw which has just dropped. Hugh, surprised that his flirtatious joke affects Simone so much, tries to recover, but his words come out chopped. "I...was...j-ju-just...j-jo-joke-joking."
Simone snaps out of it with a laugh, "sure you were you little turd, thank you! It was absolutely maaaarvolus. It's getting late though, we should get going." Simone closes her eyes and silently wishes to herself that he honestly felt that way. Hugh clips his pen onto his notebook as he sticks it in his back pocket. "Goodbye, Hugh."
"Farewell, Simone."
The cool springtime night sky blends into the skyline, the cantaloupe colored glow of the parking lot lights perfectly matching the horizon of the setting sun. The delicate smell of pine brings to mind a mix of cleaning products, while the aroma of warm spring rain fills the lungs, which tie into the look of the parking lot, as the downpour which occurs every day at 3:32 in the afternoon has washed everything away, from the cigarette butts to the crumbled papers with all the red marks, to leave behind a large parking lot, pure and unaltered from the day it was created, except for a small white sedan, alone. Hugh pauses to take it all in, he loves the rain. An earthworm lays bloated and white in a puddle next to the sidewalk, slowly floating the length of the puddle like a man with no limbs drifting down an easy-flowing river. A bird flies towards the puddle, but seeing the sorry state of the worm, continues on to the tree right behind Hugh.
Hugh pulls out a cigarette, "I hate this place." He flips open his Zippo and lights it with one swift move, the kind of move you see in those old black and white movies, Casablanca and so forth. Cigarettes are something Hugh has determined to never give up. The one thing in life he can always count on, the one thing in life that will never leave him, the one thing in life that will probably kill him, but the one thing in life that always eases his mind. If the first cigarette doesn't help, the second one will, perhaps even the one after that. Hugh began smoking as a high school freshman, smoking the first time when he was drunk during a party, but continuing when he found a pack in his car that was a remnant from the party. Every day after that, his nicotine habit increased until he began to smoke a pack a day.
A wisp of smoke curls into the air as Hugh watches it transform into differing shapes against the dark background of trees at the end of the parking lot. The smoke off a cigarette has always mystified Hugh, the thick bluish cloud drifting perilously towards the heavens, and sometimes, feeling as though the smoke he exhales, which is more whitish, is part of his soul drifting upward, leaving behind his damned flesh.
His cell phone rings.
"Yeah Mom, we had a pizza party tonight at Lit Club, I'm going to go hang out with some people for a while. I won't be home late." Lies. All he can tell his parents are lies lately. Uprooted from everything he knows three times in his life, Hugh has changed friends three times, changed school settings three times, and adjusted to new houses three times. Each place he has gone, he has lost contact with his previous life. After finally getting to know people and feeling comfortable, being suddenly yanked out of contentment to try again somewhere else. His parents move with him each time, but each time, he loses them more and more.
Finally arriving at his car, he unlocks the door and gets in. Starting the ignition, he puts the car into first and leaves the parking lot. The in-dash CD player isn't working, so Hugh slams his fist against the side of the console until it slowly sputters to life.
****************************************************************************
I wrote that like 6 years ago. It was the beginning ideas of a novel. I think it may be possible to save...perhaps. I don't know. I've been wanting to try again. I had a bunch of stuff I had written on MS Works that got all F'd up when Works stopped being compatible with Word. I'm going to see what else I can save.