Talyn's adventures in SugarHigh!!!Land and retail therapy. Plus: WRITING! Oh my God!
Writing ahoy!
I wrote this a while ago, after the characters from another story were bouncing around my head, and only typed it up and revised it - heavily - for submission to Valley Visions, which is the Boise School District's "literary and arts publication," as they put it. Mr. McHenry wants me to edit the magazine, along with Chelsea as representatives of Borah, and he basically strongarmed me into putting at least one piece into the running. Not that he really has to force me to do anything; all he would have to do is ask nicely. Anywhore, I put in two short stories, just in case, but this is the one that I hope they choose. The version in the magazine is gonna be shorter, since I had to chop it down to nine hundred words exactly.
The characters appeared previously in another little ficlet I posted here, as part of the answer to a prompt about a man tripping off a bus to see a woman smiling at him, belatedly titled "Deify Him." As I said before, I admit that the characters I wrote into that were modeled on Hinata and Kiba from Naruto, but I think I gave them more distinct personalities in this; I certainly can't see Kiba behaving as sentimentally as Kevin does in this happy little piece of writing. I have to say that because of that alone, I am proud of this. I also tried to pile on the descriptions of Lena without giving much insight to Kevin, as he got all the attention last time when she was sighing and mooning over how wonderful she thought he was. As such, the point of view is reversed, and we get to see him struggling to deal with his feelings. Yes, oh, yes, I know: you're frightened at the prospect of me writing another teenage love story. Well, this one, I think, is semi-realistic in that the participants aren't overly sappy, nor are they sexually obsessed with each other. It's puppy love, fairly pure and good-natured and hopeful, and I loved writing something that wasn't even mildly suggestive. I worried and hemmed and hawed over the bit about Kevin's baths - you'll see what I mean - but now that I've revised a bit, I think it's clearer that he's not taking them to have a fap session over his innocent best friend. In fact, for once, my writing is totally G-rated. Nobody even cusses in this one, probably because Kevin is trying to spare Lena her naïvétè as much as possible.
Enough from me; let's have the little story, for your entertainment. I like to hear what people think, so if you're inclined, please comment and give me even a brief opinion. Every little comment helps!
Shelter
by Talyn, a.k.a. Silent Bystander
Summary: Kevin has to tell Lena. Lena wants to hide from everything, including Kevin. Amazingly, it's an essay that breaks the barriers and gives Kevin what he wants.
Fandom: original fiction
Rating: G
The plot and characters within this story are ©2007 Talyn, the "artist" otherwise known as Silent Bystander, and are not to be used or reproduced without my permission.
Warnings: sequel to a little ficlet I wrote called "Deify Him," if anybody remembers that one from this entry responding to a prompt Mr. McHenry gave (it's not named in that post, but that is the original). All you need to know is explained in the first paragraph, so you don't have to read "Deify Him," as much as I suggest you do.
She's so shy that when her cheeks flush, when she draws her fingers up across her mouth, when she tries to hunch down to make her hair fall into her eyes, Kevin feels an overwhelming rush of guilt. She is forever doing that; he is forever wondering if he should apologize to her for that day he sculpted her into his friend. She'd been watching, pale gray eyes and frightened, when he tripped off the bus. Quietly, she accompanied him to school for his first day in a strange place, guiding him through the school. Soon, they did everything together - rather, he did while she watched.
Now, Lena was watching all the time, at his elbow in the halls, on the bus with him when they rode home. He talked and joked, got noisier than anyone else wanted to tolerate, but she would only blush at his naughtier jokes and keep quiet. She was sheltered. He knew that, and it bothered him like a flea behind his ear would: itching away until he felt it everywhere and wanted to go have a scalding hot bath to burn the sensation away.
He wanted to be the only shelter that she needed.
But he couldn't say a word; the thoughts stuck in his throat and tried to choke him every time he tried to tell her. So the words took their own shelter in his mind, clinging to every other idea that whizzed by. It made for an awful traffic jam and an awful lot of extra baths, as much as Kevin despised the smell of soap and despised even more deeply the smell of wet dog that roiled off his skin in clouds. His mom told him that it was only steam, and would he please slow down on his hot water consumption. He knew better. The steam was that wet-dog smell, which would devour and rule him soon.
He had to find a way to talk to Lena before he burned himself away.
"Hey," he said, loping up alongside her that Monday.
"Hi," Lena said.
Kevin had to pause there, disconcerted, unsure, worried that she couldn't stand him and was his friend because he was new here. He wanted to laugh at himself, and he would've, if she wouldn't think he was laughing at her or about to make a joke. So he opened his mouth and said the exact opposite of what he wanted to.
"Did you do that essay for Mrs. Phelps?" he asked, instead of, "I like you - do you like me?" Even in his head, both questions raised alarms of juvenile stupidity. At least, he told himself, he knew the answer to one.
She nodded, giving him the expected answer, and added, "Yeah, did you?" But Kevin was sure she knew his answer, too.
"Nope!" he said. "When do I ever?"
Considering this, Lena tilted her head back slightly, eyes facing heaven and sparkling under the fluorescent lights that colored her skin paler than usual against her long, white coat. For a moment, her hair abandoned its guard of her face, and she looked like Peace. Kevin wanted her to stay like that until he could run for a camera and capture wisps of her soul in a picture.
He often felt that way with her.
She didn't hold the pose much longer, and turned her eyes to meet his, a soft smile playing over her soft-looking lips. "No," she replied, "you never do." Anyone else saying that, and he would've shrugged it away like an unwanted, cold hand on his shoulder, or like a coat in the heat of summer. Her, however - she made him feel guilty all over.
He would do the next essay, and tell her that he didn't write it for any grade or teacher's surprise-induced heart attack; he wrote it for her. He could tell her, maybe, that he wanted to be the only one to protect her.
The next Monday, sidling up to her outside their locker, Kevin said, "So did you do the essay?"
She didn't look at him, stacking her books neatly on the top shelf, filling the space until the tiniest of cracks remained in empty shadow. Her pale eyes blinked once before she said, "Yeah." She blinked again and a stray eyelash flicked down from its pack and settled, black and faint, on her flushed cheek. "Did you?"
Kevin produced it from behind his back and said, "For you."
Taking the stapled pages as if they were an extravagant, bright bouquet, Lena's lips broke into a grin as she said, "Thank you!"
"Do you like it?" he asked, shuffling his feet and shrugging his coat off to hang it in the locker; he had to reach past her to do this, putting a barrier between them, albeit briefly. She was still wearing hers, but he was positive he felt her radiating warmth; her bright light was that of the sun, smiling on him, and he knew that no matter her answer, he would be content to have seen her beam a genuine ray-of-light smile.
"I love it," she said.
Last night, I went to get a chicken sandwich with Zelly; we ate at Hillside Junior High, where the picnic table we occupied was frosted over and we kept saying things like, "We're stupid!" and, "Fuck, we're dumbasses." Which we are, for always running out in public with our fast food and sitting in conspicuous, freezing cold places to eat. Last night wasn't as pretty as I had hoped it would be, thanks to the inversion that has glued haze to the city. From out by Jessica's house, where we were driving randomly, the mountains were completely obscured. The sky and mountains blended, and the only sign that the latter were there were the faintly twinkling lights of Bogus Basin (the ski resort, for everybody who doesn't live in Idaho). After that, we got together with Marjorie and went to see "Casino Royale," you know, the newest James Bond movie that certain people - that is, Margie - are absolutely obsessed with. She thinks it's the best thing since bread, much less sliced bread, but that's because she thinks Daniel Craig or whatever his name is happens to be a hot piece of ass. What's he gonna do with what he packs, what he packs inside them trunks? Well, I don't know because I'm not attracted to him; his scary-looking face ruins him, in my opinion.
Oh, that suddenly reminds me! I had another little thing - a song, actually - to share with y'all, but I was supposed to be dolling up and readying myself to go hang out with Marjorie and Tracy. We're going to go get coffee and/or pie, maybe both. I'm voting for both, but you probably already knew that. We drove downtown to the Flying M, and we were driving up Idaho Street when Tracy and I decided it would be fun to go to the mall. Which we did. We went to the Macy's shoe department and looked at the clearance shoes there, and to another clothes store in which I didn't find anything particularly appealing, before we wound up at Wet Seal. I love that store. Tracy loved it, too, because she wound up walking away with three clearance items, two shirts and one dress, each of which was $4.99. She and I got identical black jazz hats with black-and-white gingham bows that are so completely adorable that I want to take pictures. I look good in a hat! Who knew?! Certainly I didn't! ^_^ I also got a black ribbed t-shirt with black lace trim, Hello Kitty undies that are cute and rainbow and starry and will match so well with everything, and a headband that's black satin printed with pink hearts. It's really cute and it'll match with everything. ^____^ We're bargain shoppers; both of us paid about thirty-five dollars, total, for everything we got (she also got undies, but cute as they were, mine were cuter because they're Hello Kitty). Wet Seal has great sales and clearance. It was a joyous enough occasion thanks to that, but as an added bonus, we went to Denny's by Marjorie's house to get some pie, and we ended up ordering hot wings - okay, I lied, they were chicken strips, seasoned fries, and water. The waiter there recognized us from last time we came in, which was when Tracy, Marjorie, Jessica, Squally, and I all had a Disney movie marathon to show Marjorie the movies she hadn't seen before. Well, that time, he gave us colored water packets, which we used only in Tracy's water, and this time, he cheerfully supplied us with half a million more, in green, red, and the blue we had the first time. When we started getting really into it, coloring one of our dishes of ranch green and dipping celery in it, and coloring all our water, he brought out a pitcher of water and joined us in dumping things into it. Then he got Hi-C and Fanta and dumped coloring packets into those, and poured them into the water pitcher, and we all tried drinking it; it wasn't half bad, if you got past the centimeter-plus beach of sugar on the bottom that crunched when I poked the straw into it. (The packets are basically sugar, by the way; they aren't very strong till you have three or more in your water, and then it begins to taste like Kool-Aid.) He rejoined us periodically and was a really nice guy; they even comped our desserts, and I wound up tipping him half the bill, which was the cost of what the desserts would've been. I think he deserved it. Although I worried that he was gonna get in trouble for joining us and joking around, wasting all those coloring packets, his manager was good-natured about it and laughed when we told the cashier that our dinner was wonderful, fabulous, great, you name it. We really did have a frapdabulous - Lee's word, not mine - time, and I wanna do it again! Our waiter invited us to come in again and see him, and gave us enough packets that we each left with one to dump in a toilet. I have red; I'm going to put it in the toilet and come yell at Todd as if he did it and didn't flush. Aren't I a horrible person?
I'll give you the song tomorrow (later today?), if I can remember. ♥ It's about my cat, and it's to the tune of a song that most people probably hate (and no, it's not The Ding Dong Song).
"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt."
I wrote this a while ago, after the characters from another story were bouncing around my head, and only typed it up and revised it - heavily - for submission to Valley Visions, which is the Boise School District's "literary and arts publication," as they put it. Mr. McHenry wants me to edit the magazine, along with Chelsea as representatives of Borah, and he basically strongarmed me into putting at least one piece into the running. Not that he really has to force me to do anything; all he would have to do is ask nicely. Anywhore, I put in two short stories, just in case, but this is the one that I hope they choose. The version in the magazine is gonna be shorter, since I had to chop it down to nine hundred words exactly.
The characters appeared previously in another little ficlet I posted here, as part of the answer to a prompt about a man tripping off a bus to see a woman smiling at him, belatedly titled "Deify Him." As I said before, I admit that the characters I wrote into that were modeled on Hinata and Kiba from Naruto, but I think I gave them more distinct personalities in this; I certainly can't see Kiba behaving as sentimentally as Kevin does in this happy little piece of writing. I have to say that because of that alone, I am proud of this. I also tried to pile on the descriptions of Lena without giving much insight to Kevin, as he got all the attention last time when she was sighing and mooning over how wonderful she thought he was. As such, the point of view is reversed, and we get to see him struggling to deal with his feelings. Yes, oh, yes, I know: you're frightened at the prospect of me writing another teenage love story. Well, this one, I think, is semi-realistic in that the participants aren't overly sappy, nor are they sexually obsessed with each other. It's puppy love, fairly pure and good-natured and hopeful, and I loved writing something that wasn't even mildly suggestive. I worried and hemmed and hawed over the bit about Kevin's baths - you'll see what I mean - but now that I've revised a bit, I think it's clearer that he's not taking them to have a fap session over his innocent best friend. In fact, for once, my writing is totally G-rated. Nobody even cusses in this one, probably because Kevin is trying to spare Lena her naïvétè as much as possible.
Enough from me; let's have the little story, for your entertainment. I like to hear what people think, so if you're inclined, please comment and give me even a brief opinion. Every little comment helps!
Shelter
by Talyn, a.k.a. Silent Bystander
Summary: Kevin has to tell Lena. Lena wants to hide from everything, including Kevin. Amazingly, it's an essay that breaks the barriers and gives Kevin what he wants.
Fandom: original fiction
Rating: G
The plot and characters within this story are ©2007 Talyn, the "artist" otherwise known as Silent Bystander, and are not to be used or reproduced without my permission.
Warnings: sequel to a little ficlet I wrote called "Deify Him," if anybody remembers that one from this entry responding to a prompt Mr. McHenry gave (it's not named in that post, but that is the original). All you need to know is explained in the first paragraph, so you don't have to read "Deify Him," as much as I suggest you do.
She's so shy that when her cheeks flush, when she draws her fingers up across her mouth, when she tries to hunch down to make her hair fall into her eyes, Kevin feels an overwhelming rush of guilt. She is forever doing that; he is forever wondering if he should apologize to her for that day he sculpted her into his friend. She'd been watching, pale gray eyes and frightened, when he tripped off the bus. Quietly, she accompanied him to school for his first day in a strange place, guiding him through the school. Soon, they did everything together - rather, he did while she watched.
Now, Lena was watching all the time, at his elbow in the halls, on the bus with him when they rode home. He talked and joked, got noisier than anyone else wanted to tolerate, but she would only blush at his naughtier jokes and keep quiet. She was sheltered. He knew that, and it bothered him like a flea behind his ear would: itching away until he felt it everywhere and wanted to go have a scalding hot bath to burn the sensation away.
He wanted to be the only shelter that she needed.
But he couldn't say a word; the thoughts stuck in his throat and tried to choke him every time he tried to tell her. So the words took their own shelter in his mind, clinging to every other idea that whizzed by. It made for an awful traffic jam and an awful lot of extra baths, as much as Kevin despised the smell of soap and despised even more deeply the smell of wet dog that roiled off his skin in clouds. His mom told him that it was only steam, and would he please slow down on his hot water consumption. He knew better. The steam was that wet-dog smell, which would devour and rule him soon.
He had to find a way to talk to Lena before he burned himself away.
"Hey," he said, loping up alongside her that Monday.
"Hi," Lena said.
Kevin had to pause there, disconcerted, unsure, worried that she couldn't stand him and was his friend because he was new here. He wanted to laugh at himself, and he would've, if she wouldn't think he was laughing at her or about to make a joke. So he opened his mouth and said the exact opposite of what he wanted to.
"Did you do that essay for Mrs. Phelps?" he asked, instead of, "I like you - do you like me?" Even in his head, both questions raised alarms of juvenile stupidity. At least, he told himself, he knew the answer to one.
She nodded, giving him the expected answer, and added, "Yeah, did you?" But Kevin was sure she knew his answer, too.
"Nope!" he said. "When do I ever?"
Considering this, Lena tilted her head back slightly, eyes facing heaven and sparkling under the fluorescent lights that colored her skin paler than usual against her long, white coat. For a moment, her hair abandoned its guard of her face, and she looked like Peace. Kevin wanted her to stay like that until he could run for a camera and capture wisps of her soul in a picture.
He often felt that way with her.
She didn't hold the pose much longer, and turned her eyes to meet his, a soft smile playing over her soft-looking lips. "No," she replied, "you never do." Anyone else saying that, and he would've shrugged it away like an unwanted, cold hand on his shoulder, or like a coat in the heat of summer. Her, however - she made him feel guilty all over.
He would do the next essay, and tell her that he didn't write it for any grade or teacher's surprise-induced heart attack; he wrote it for her. He could tell her, maybe, that he wanted to be the only one to protect her.
The next Monday, sidling up to her outside their locker, Kevin said, "So did you do the essay?"
She didn't look at him, stacking her books neatly on the top shelf, filling the space until the tiniest of cracks remained in empty shadow. Her pale eyes blinked once before she said, "Yeah." She blinked again and a stray eyelash flicked down from its pack and settled, black and faint, on her flushed cheek. "Did you?"
Kevin produced it from behind his back and said, "For you."
Taking the stapled pages as if they were an extravagant, bright bouquet, Lena's lips broke into a grin as she said, "Thank you!"
"Do you like it?" he asked, shuffling his feet and shrugging his coat off to hang it in the locker; he had to reach past her to do this, putting a barrier between them, albeit briefly. She was still wearing hers, but he was positive he felt her radiating warmth; her bright light was that of the sun, smiling on him, and he knew that no matter her answer, he would be content to have seen her beam a genuine ray-of-light smile.
"I love it," she said.
Last night, I went to get a chicken sandwich with Zelly; we ate at Hillside Junior High, where the picnic table we occupied was frosted over and we kept saying things like, "We're stupid!" and, "Fuck, we're dumbasses." Which we are, for always running out in public with our fast food and sitting in conspicuous, freezing cold places to eat. Last night wasn't as pretty as I had hoped it would be, thanks to the inversion that has glued haze to the city. From out by Jessica's house, where we were driving randomly, the mountains were completely obscured. The sky and mountains blended, and the only sign that the latter were there were the faintly twinkling lights of Bogus Basin (the ski resort, for everybody who doesn't live in Idaho). After that, we got together with Marjorie and went to see "Casino Royale," you know, the newest James Bond movie that certain people - that is, Margie - are absolutely obsessed with. She thinks it's the best thing since bread, much less sliced bread, but that's because she thinks Daniel Craig or whatever his name is happens to be a hot piece of ass. What's he gonna do with what he packs, what he packs inside them trunks? Well, I don't know because I'm not attracted to him; his scary-looking face ruins him, in my opinion.
Oh, that suddenly reminds me! I had another little thing - a song, actually - to share with y'all, but I was supposed to be dolling up and readying myself to go hang out with Marjorie and Tracy. We're going to go get coffee and/or pie, maybe both. I'm voting for both, but you probably already knew that. We drove downtown to the Flying M, and we were driving up Idaho Street when Tracy and I decided it would be fun to go to the mall. Which we did. We went to the Macy's shoe department and looked at the clearance shoes there, and to another clothes store in which I didn't find anything particularly appealing, before we wound up at Wet Seal. I love that store. Tracy loved it, too, because she wound up walking away with three clearance items, two shirts and one dress, each of which was $4.99. She and I got identical black jazz hats with black-and-white gingham bows that are so completely adorable that I want to take pictures. I look good in a hat! Who knew?! Certainly I didn't! ^_^ I also got a black ribbed t-shirt with black lace trim, Hello Kitty undies that are cute and rainbow and starry and will match so well with everything, and a headband that's black satin printed with pink hearts. It's really cute and it'll match with everything. ^____^ We're bargain shoppers; both of us paid about thirty-five dollars, total, for everything we got (she also got undies, but cute as they were, mine were cuter because they're Hello Kitty). Wet Seal has great sales and clearance. It was a joyous enough occasion thanks to that, but as an added bonus, we went to Denny's by Marjorie's house to get some pie, and we ended up ordering hot wings - okay, I lied, they were chicken strips, seasoned fries, and water. The waiter there recognized us from last time we came in, which was when Tracy, Marjorie, Jessica, Squally, and I all had a Disney movie marathon to show Marjorie the movies she hadn't seen before. Well, that time, he gave us colored water packets, which we used only in Tracy's water, and this time, he cheerfully supplied us with half a million more, in green, red, and the blue we had the first time. When we started getting really into it, coloring one of our dishes of ranch green and dipping celery in it, and coloring all our water, he brought out a pitcher of water and joined us in dumping things into it. Then he got Hi-C and Fanta and dumped coloring packets into those, and poured them into the water pitcher, and we all tried drinking it; it wasn't half bad, if you got past the centimeter-plus beach of sugar on the bottom that crunched when I poked the straw into it. (The packets are basically sugar, by the way; they aren't very strong till you have three or more in your water, and then it begins to taste like Kool-Aid.) He rejoined us periodically and was a really nice guy; they even comped our desserts, and I wound up tipping him half the bill, which was the cost of what the desserts would've been. I think he deserved it. Although I worried that he was gonna get in trouble for joining us and joking around, wasting all those coloring packets, his manager was good-natured about it and laughed when we told the cashier that our dinner was wonderful, fabulous, great, you name it. We really did have a frapdabulous - Lee's word, not mine - time, and I wanna do it again! Our waiter invited us to come in again and see him, and gave us enough packets that we each left with one to dump in a toilet. I have red; I'm going to put it in the toilet and come yell at Todd as if he did it and didn't flush. Aren't I a horrible person?
I'll give you the song tomorrow (later today?), if I can remember. ♥ It's about my cat, and it's to the tune of a song that most people probably hate (and no, it's not The Ding Dong Song).
"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt."