I burned my eyes out in the fire.
They burned, and blurred, and even closing them stung.
Out all day without sunscreen or protective eyewear, not that I has really meant to, but it happened. I got going and kept going, and didn't stop until the sun went down. I still didn't want to go inside, and stayed out feeding the chiminea until after midnight, with the half-moon near setting, and all the wood I had gathered was gone.
There was a haunted mansion. That is what the big tour draw was, but whether there were ghosts or not, it didn't matter. It was also a sort of school, arts & crafts, manners, finishing. I went in the private entrance and snuck down to the cafeteria, where it was plate glazing day. I painted and chatted with my friends, most from high school, but also people from other schools, and some random faces I don't know, and then we headed out. I went home with NinjaGirl's rommate, who had a nice apartment in Los Angeles, very modern. Her parents stopped by, but the weather was getting wierd. We were going to leave, but I saw a tornado. I took them all down to the lowest level, but there were windows in every room and no good place. There was a desk in the northeast corner, and I curled up under it, and told them to, too, but they were taking pictures through the windows, talking about the money they would get from the news channels. There wasn't a lot of wind, for it being a tornado right there. Then there were more, dozens! The sky was filled with them. The little ones were only over the water, big for waterspouts, but the big one was still dancing up and down the beachside hills. When nothing happened for a while, I came out from under the desk to watch the clouds. There would be a whispy coil, then the cloud would get a circular indent, which swirled into a tight spiral almost instantaneously, and then the grey tornado would grow up from the bottom. It was so peaceful. It shouldn't have been, but I had an amazing sense that it was okay to die, if I did, but that I wouldn't, and I could be confident of that. This went on for a little while, and I was wanting to go, so I watched the clouds and waited. The sky far over the ocean was hazy gold, pink, and orange, even after the tornadoes stopped. I said a quick good-bye and went back to school, where my plat was done firing. It turned out better than I expected, with turbulent skies and valkyries and heroes acting out some heroic and tracic moment on the battlefield, all blue and blank eyes staring like ancient statuary. Some guy kept damanding that we tell him all we knew about some random and obscure thing, which none of us had more than heard of in passing, maybe. No one answered, no one said anything. We were in the library, with a computer at the end of every table- I finally snapped at him to Google it. Then he asked how to spell "Google", and that was the end of the polite silence all around. I wanted to show off my plate, I was happy and proud, but SeaGoddess snapped at me, because it is not polite to show off work you're proud of, or something. Really, a typical scene from all our years growing up. I made something amazing and beautiful, and on top of that had been rude to a boy she thought was cute, so it was her job to completely tear me down for it.
Out all day without sunscreen or protective eyewear, not that I has really meant to, but it happened. I got going and kept going, and didn't stop until the sun went down. I still didn't want to go inside, and stayed out feeding the chiminea until after midnight, with the half-moon near setting, and all the wood I had gathered was gone.
There was a haunted mansion. That is what the big tour draw was, but whether there were ghosts or not, it didn't matter. It was also a sort of school, arts & crafts, manners, finishing. I went in the private entrance and snuck down to the cafeteria, where it was plate glazing day. I painted and chatted with my friends, most from high school, but also people from other schools, and some random faces I don't know, and then we headed out. I went home with NinjaGirl's rommate, who had a nice apartment in Los Angeles, very modern. Her parents stopped by, but the weather was getting wierd. We were going to leave, but I saw a tornado. I took them all down to the lowest level, but there were windows in every room and no good place. There was a desk in the northeast corner, and I curled up under it, and told them to, too, but they were taking pictures through the windows, talking about the money they would get from the news channels. There wasn't a lot of wind, for it being a tornado right there. Then there were more, dozens! The sky was filled with them. The little ones were only over the water, big for waterspouts, but the big one was still dancing up and down the beachside hills. When nothing happened for a while, I came out from under the desk to watch the clouds. There would be a whispy coil, then the cloud would get a circular indent, which swirled into a tight spiral almost instantaneously, and then the grey tornado would grow up from the bottom. It was so peaceful. It shouldn't have been, but I had an amazing sense that it was okay to die, if I did, but that I wouldn't, and I could be confident of that. This went on for a little while, and I was wanting to go, so I watched the clouds and waited. The sky far over the ocean was hazy gold, pink, and orange, even after the tornadoes stopped. I said a quick good-bye and went back to school, where my plat was done firing. It turned out better than I expected, with turbulent skies and valkyries and heroes acting out some heroic and tracic moment on the battlefield, all blue and blank eyes staring like ancient statuary. Some guy kept damanding that we tell him all we knew about some random and obscure thing, which none of us had more than heard of in passing, maybe. No one answered, no one said anything. We were in the library, with a computer at the end of every table- I finally snapped at him to Google it. Then he asked how to spell "Google", and that was the end of the polite silence all around. I wanted to show off my plate, I was happy and proud, but SeaGoddess snapped at me, because it is not polite to show off work you're proud of, or something. Really, a typical scene from all our years growing up. I made something amazing and beautiful, and on top of that had been rude to a boy she thought was cute, so it was her job to completely tear me down for it.