fic: PB field 1
Title: PB Field (part one)
Word Count: 815
Spoilers: Only for the pilot
Rating: PG
Summary: Life is made up of a series of moments, and each moment affects the ones that come after it.
A/N: This is the first part of a story that's going to be pretty long; probably about 50 chapters. At least. But most of them will be as short as this one is. I'm writing this in a new style, and it's in the present tense - I hope it works!
PB Field (part one)
It's a notion that everyone is familiar with, in some way or other; that every moment in our lives affects the succeeding moments somehow. That everything that happens to us happens for a reason - now, I'm not talking about Fate, or saying that there's a Grand Plan, what I'm saying is that every single action is the product of an action before that, and before that, and before that, and on and on. A person may get hit by a car sliding on some black ice - a senseless accident, with no Grand Plan necessarily behind it; but the fact that that person happens to be standing in that exact spot at that exact time is a result of a series of moments and decisions leading up to it, and can be traced back.
You could call it the Butterfly Effect, I suppose - that lovely visual of a butterfly flapping its wings and starting a chain of events that would result in a hurricane. Myself, I quite like the way Jennifer Lopez puts it, when she sings 'Ain't it funny how a moment can just change your life'... but maybe that's just me. Because it can - a moment really can change your life. You might not realise it at the time; it might seem completely innocuous, run-of-the-mill, utterly boring, but in years to come you could trace back and see how that boring moment set off a chain of events.
I'm waxing completely poetical here, and perhaps being a bit too philosophical - especially since the story I want to tell isn't particularly special; as the wise Mrs Pots says in Beauty and the Beast, it's a 'tale as old as time'.
Namely, boy meets girl.
Here it is:
It's a warm Autumn day in Pasadena, California, and two young men are climbing the stairs in their apartment building. They live on the fourth floor, and as they make their way up past landing after landing, the taller of the two reminisces about an experiment he conducted when he was twelve, and the shorter one pretends not to be interested.
When they reach their landing, the taller one, whose name is Sheldon Cooper, immediately reaches for his keys to open their apartment door, but the other, Leonard Hofstadter, is distracted by the open door across the hall. Music is playing and inside the apartment, sorting through a pile of books, is a young woman, all blonde hair and tanned skin and wearing denim shorts and a baby tee.
Sheldon finds himself distracted as well.
"New neighbour?"
"Evidently."
"Significant improvement over the old neighbour."
"Two-hundred pound transvestite with a skin condition? Yes, she is."
The woman notices them.
"Oh, hi!"
"Hi."
"Hi."
"Hi."
"Hi."
"...Hi?"
And just like that, boy meets girl. Onto the next moment; this one is set a significant amount of time after the first moment - sixty-three years, in fact. Our boy and girl are, unfortunately, no longer with us.
But we have another boy and girl - well, another two boys and girl, in fact - and they really do deserve those adolescent terms, the oldest one being only eight years old. His name is Sheldon Cooper as well. The girl with him is his sister, Tessa - she's six, and the boy is his best friend Kenny, who is also eight and doesn't like having Tessa tag after them the whole time - she's been doing it all Summer and it's getting really annoying. Sheldon doesn't mind her though, so he stays quiet.
They're visiting Sheldon and Tessa's uncle's house - they've been there lots of times before, but Kenny never has, so they're showing him the gardens. They're big and full of flowers; one part in particular is literally covered with flowers in full bloom, of all different colours.
"That's PB field," Sheldon tells Kenny proudly, pointing to the flowers.
Kenny goes to walk out among the flowers, but Sheldon and Tessa both pull him back, telling him he's not allowed because he might hurt the flowers. They take him to the look-out spot, up some stone steps to the top lawn, and they all sit down on the wooden bench there - from there they can see the entire field of flowers, and the scent of the blooms is carried on the air. The bench is the kind that swings, and the three of them push it back forth with their legs, gaining momentum, until the old swing is groaning in protest. At dinner time, Sheldon and Tessa's mother finds them all asleep on the swing, the top of heads barely reaching the inscription that reads 'Sheldon and Penny, sitting on a [bench made out of a] tree...'
I suppose it's quite difficult to see how that first moment led directly to that second moment, but it did... we just need to trace it back.
Word Count: 815
Spoilers: Only for the pilot
Rating: PG
Summary: Life is made up of a series of moments, and each moment affects the ones that come after it.
A/N: This is the first part of a story that's going to be pretty long; probably about 50 chapters. At least. But most of them will be as short as this one is. I'm writing this in a new style, and it's in the present tense - I hope it works!
PB Field (part one)
It's a notion that everyone is familiar with, in some way or other; that every moment in our lives affects the succeeding moments somehow. That everything that happens to us happens for a reason - now, I'm not talking about Fate, or saying that there's a Grand Plan, what I'm saying is that every single action is the product of an action before that, and before that, and before that, and on and on. A person may get hit by a car sliding on some black ice - a senseless accident, with no Grand Plan necessarily behind it; but the fact that that person happens to be standing in that exact spot at that exact time is a result of a series of moments and decisions leading up to it, and can be traced back.
You could call it the Butterfly Effect, I suppose - that lovely visual of a butterfly flapping its wings and starting a chain of events that would result in a hurricane. Myself, I quite like the way Jennifer Lopez puts it, when she sings 'Ain't it funny how a moment can just change your life'... but maybe that's just me. Because it can - a moment really can change your life. You might not realise it at the time; it might seem completely innocuous, run-of-the-mill, utterly boring, but in years to come you could trace back and see how that boring moment set off a chain of events.
I'm waxing completely poetical here, and perhaps being a bit too philosophical - especially since the story I want to tell isn't particularly special; as the wise Mrs Pots says in Beauty and the Beast, it's a 'tale as old as time'.
Namely, boy meets girl.
Here it is:
It's a warm Autumn day in Pasadena, California, and two young men are climbing the stairs in their apartment building. They live on the fourth floor, and as they make their way up past landing after landing, the taller of the two reminisces about an experiment he conducted when he was twelve, and the shorter one pretends not to be interested.
When they reach their landing, the taller one, whose name is Sheldon Cooper, immediately reaches for his keys to open their apartment door, but the other, Leonard Hofstadter, is distracted by the open door across the hall. Music is playing and inside the apartment, sorting through a pile of books, is a young woman, all blonde hair and tanned skin and wearing denim shorts and a baby tee.
Sheldon finds himself distracted as well.
"New neighbour?"
"Evidently."
"Significant improvement over the old neighbour."
"Two-hundred pound transvestite with a skin condition? Yes, she is."
The woman notices them.
"Oh, hi!"
"Hi."
"Hi."
"Hi."
"Hi."
"...Hi?"
And just like that, boy meets girl. Onto the next moment; this one is set a significant amount of time after the first moment - sixty-three years, in fact. Our boy and girl are, unfortunately, no longer with us.
But we have another boy and girl - well, another two boys and girl, in fact - and they really do deserve those adolescent terms, the oldest one being only eight years old. His name is Sheldon Cooper as well. The girl with him is his sister, Tessa - she's six, and the boy is his best friend Kenny, who is also eight and doesn't like having Tessa tag after them the whole time - she's been doing it all Summer and it's getting really annoying. Sheldon doesn't mind her though, so he stays quiet.
They're visiting Sheldon and Tessa's uncle's house - they've been there lots of times before, but Kenny never has, so they're showing him the gardens. They're big and full of flowers; one part in particular is literally covered with flowers in full bloom, of all different colours.
"That's PB field," Sheldon tells Kenny proudly, pointing to the flowers.
Kenny goes to walk out among the flowers, but Sheldon and Tessa both pull him back, telling him he's not allowed because he might hurt the flowers. They take him to the look-out spot, up some stone steps to the top lawn, and they all sit down on the wooden bench there - from there they can see the entire field of flowers, and the scent of the blooms is carried on the air. The bench is the kind that swings, and the three of them push it back forth with their legs, gaining momentum, until the old swing is groaning in protest. At dinner time, Sheldon and Tessa's mother finds them all asleep on the swing, the top of heads barely reaching the inscription that reads 'Sheldon and Penny, sitting on a [bench made out of a] tree...'
I suppose it's quite difficult to see how that first moment led directly to that second moment, but it did... we just need to trace it back.