hrm
Something that's probably not going to go anywhere, but it was therapeutic for me today. Could be the beginning to a modern fantasy of some sort; I just don't know yet. It's just a little sketch of a moment.
Title: It's not Superman...
Genre: Modern fantasy?
Rating: PG (one swear word)
“You have got to be shitting me.” She stared down at the open envelope in her hands and the paper it had contained, unable to form any more words than the ones she had just uttered.
“What is it?” her roommate asked from the other room.
“Somehow, somewhere, someone messed up paperwork, and now they want to kick me out of school,” she replied as she resisted the urge to crumple the paper in her hand. She might need this, and she’d rather not have to explain why it was a mess.
“That sucks.”
“You’re telling me.” She lifted her eyes toward the ceiling in utter exasperation. It seemed like everything that could go wrong, was. She had to count her blessings that nobody had died. Yet. She wouldn’t rule it out as a possibility at this point, not with her friend’s dad in the hospital with heart failure. “I think I’m going to go for a walk.”
She didn’t wait for her roommate’s answer, and disappeared into her own room to grab her jacket. It wasn’t cold out, not yet, but it was autumn without a doubt. She exited the apartment and looked around for a moment as the wind curled into the hood of her jacket and blew the light brown strands of her hair into her eyes. She ignored it; it was just Wyoming. She couldn’t figure out which way to go, so she simply threw herself down on the lawn of the courtyard between the apartment buildings.
The grass hadn’t been watered in a couple of weeks, or at least she couldn’t remember seeing any sprinklers on in the month she had been living here. Unlike the lush lawn of the more expensive university apartments just across the street, the courtyard in her complex was brown, and crunched under her weight as she settled down into it. She sighed. She had been hoping for a soft, spongy bed of grass that smelled like summer still, not the uncomfortable and scratchy plants of a neglected lawn. It was just another irritant in a long string of things that could not seem to go right these past two weeks.
She did her best to ignore it anyway. The sky above was that deep Wyoming blue that she had fallen in love with all those years ago, and there were a few wispy white clouds painted here and there across the vast expanse. It calmed her, slightly, as she put her hands behind her head and just lay there. The sun was still bright enough that she couldn’t keep her eyes open for long, but she was content to let them close and feel the wind as it blew across exposed skin. There was a hint of a chill, and she smiled wryly. Summer was definitely over.
A flash of movement in the evening sun caught her eye, and she tilted her head a little to get a better look. It was way up high, almost up in the range of commercial airlines, but it didn’t move like an airplane. The motion seemed more organic, which was only confirmed when she realized the flash of motion had been the flapping of wings. Either she had a bad angle and the bird wasn’t as high up as she thought, or that was one damn big bird. Bigger than any bird that existed in her realm of knowledge, at least, and she considered herself pretty well-educated.
She blinked, and then looked around the courtyard. It was empty; there was no one with whom she could either confirm or refute what she saw. She stood and turned her gaze upward again with her hand over her eyes to shield them from the low sun in the west. The bird, or whatever it was, was gone, and she frowned deeply.
“I think the stress is starting to get to me,” she muttered to herself. She hadn’t been sleeping well with everything that was going on, and it didn’t surprise her that she might have started to hallucinate. Maybe an early bedtime was in order tonight.
She dusted herself off, cast one last glance up at the sky, and then turned back to her apartment. Dinner and rest seemed like an apt prescription for seeing things, and she still had too much homework to do to laze around more than she already had….
Title: It's not Superman...
Genre: Modern fantasy?
Rating: PG (one swear word)
“You have got to be shitting me.” She stared down at the open envelope in her hands and the paper it had contained, unable to form any more words than the ones she had just uttered.
“What is it?” her roommate asked from the other room.
“Somehow, somewhere, someone messed up paperwork, and now they want to kick me out of school,” she replied as she resisted the urge to crumple the paper in her hand. She might need this, and she’d rather not have to explain why it was a mess.
“That sucks.”
“You’re telling me.” She lifted her eyes toward the ceiling in utter exasperation. It seemed like everything that could go wrong, was. She had to count her blessings that nobody had died. Yet. She wouldn’t rule it out as a possibility at this point, not with her friend’s dad in the hospital with heart failure. “I think I’m going to go for a walk.”
She didn’t wait for her roommate’s answer, and disappeared into her own room to grab her jacket. It wasn’t cold out, not yet, but it was autumn without a doubt. She exited the apartment and looked around for a moment as the wind curled into the hood of her jacket and blew the light brown strands of her hair into her eyes. She ignored it; it was just Wyoming. She couldn’t figure out which way to go, so she simply threw herself down on the lawn of the courtyard between the apartment buildings.
The grass hadn’t been watered in a couple of weeks, or at least she couldn’t remember seeing any sprinklers on in the month she had been living here. Unlike the lush lawn of the more expensive university apartments just across the street, the courtyard in her complex was brown, and crunched under her weight as she settled down into it. She sighed. She had been hoping for a soft, spongy bed of grass that smelled like summer still, not the uncomfortable and scratchy plants of a neglected lawn. It was just another irritant in a long string of things that could not seem to go right these past two weeks.
She did her best to ignore it anyway. The sky above was that deep Wyoming blue that she had fallen in love with all those years ago, and there were a few wispy white clouds painted here and there across the vast expanse. It calmed her, slightly, as she put her hands behind her head and just lay there. The sun was still bright enough that she couldn’t keep her eyes open for long, but she was content to let them close and feel the wind as it blew across exposed skin. There was a hint of a chill, and she smiled wryly. Summer was definitely over.
A flash of movement in the evening sun caught her eye, and she tilted her head a little to get a better look. It was way up high, almost up in the range of commercial airlines, but it didn’t move like an airplane. The motion seemed more organic, which was only confirmed when she realized the flash of motion had been the flapping of wings. Either she had a bad angle and the bird wasn’t as high up as she thought, or that was one damn big bird. Bigger than any bird that existed in her realm of knowledge, at least, and she considered herself pretty well-educated.
She blinked, and then looked around the courtyard. It was empty; there was no one with whom she could either confirm or refute what she saw. She stood and turned her gaze upward again with her hand over her eyes to shield them from the low sun in the west. The bird, or whatever it was, was gone, and she frowned deeply.
“I think the stress is starting to get to me,” she muttered to herself. She hadn’t been sleeping well with everything that was going on, and it didn’t surprise her that she might have started to hallucinate. Maybe an early bedtime was in order tonight.
She dusted herself off, cast one last glance up at the sky, and then turned back to her apartment. Dinner and rest seemed like an apt prescription for seeing things, and she still had too much homework to do to laze around more than she already had….