The Cheerio Crime

Since Hope insisted that I post something, here is that something. It's old, but it's still something.

4 Year Old Girl's Point of View:
Eagerly, I raced to the dining room table and scrambled into my chair. I heard Mom's voice ask which kind of cereal I would like, but I was too busy desperately scanning the cardboard boxes spread out before me to answer. Where was it? I examined the boxes more carefully this time. Raisin Bran in a purple box sat next to Cheerios in white. Shredded Wheat in orange leaned up against the Cheerios, and finally Dragon Puffs dressed in gold toppled over as my brother reached across the table for the toast. I let out a high pitched wail. Where were my Cheerios in yellow? Mom asked me again what I wanted. “I want the Cheerios in the yellow box!” I sobbed. Mom tried to convince me that the Cheerios in the white were just the same, but I would not be convinced. The Dragon on the Dragon Puffs glared at me with no mercy.

Mom's Point of View:
“It's time for breakfast!” I called to the household. I fastened Cory into the high chair and lifted Alex into his booster seat. “Come on, hurry up everyone! I need to get on with the day,” I thought. Ryan and Kaytlin came scrambling just as Les settled into his place at the head of the table. Kaytlin beamed her adorable four year-old smile, but her expression changed serious as she scanned the breakfast table. “What would you like for breakfast this morning, Kaytlin?” She gave no response. A dismayed look spread across her face. “Oh no! Not again! I don't have time to deal with this.” I recognized that look. Ryan impatiently reached for the toast, knocking over a couple of cereal boxes in the process. Kaytlin let out a loud sob. “What type of cereal would you like?” I repeated more sternly this time. She wailed out something incomprehensible about yellow, and pointed at the Cheerios. Frustrated, I ripped open the box to show her that the Cheerios in the white were no different than the ones that we usually had in the yellow, but she would not be convinced.

Gone--Part 2

    Because someone (aka Hope) was telling me I needed to post the next part of Gone I have sat down and typed it out real quick.  Just to let you know, the people presented in this part are not the main characters in my story.  Also, this story is going to be allegorical.  So, if anything out of the ordinary happens in future parts (if I post more) that is why.

     “Eliza!  Grab me another Mountain Dew!” an overweight man lying sprawled out on a couch yelled, his hand poised to replace the words with a handful of chips.

    “You can get your own Mountain Dew!” a woman walked out of the rundown kitchen, a cigarette dangling limply between her fingers.  Unlike her husband her form was thin and at one time could have even been called graceful.  However, her face was now haggard and large dark circles swooped down below her eyes.  She plopped down on an overstuffed chair and sent a scornful look at her husband.  “You need to get off that couch and start running some laps.”

    He glared at her, the light from the TV flickering on his face, “Shut up woman.  I don’t need your advice.” 

    Cackling she leaned back and stared up at the dirty ceiling.  A few moments passed with only the noise from the TV sounding in their ears.  “Hey, did you hear something,” the woman straightened up slowly and glanced about her. 

    “No!  Quit gabbing!”

    She shrugged and glanced out the shabby blinds into the darkness beyond.  “Will you quite messing around?” the man sat up and pegged her with a glare.

    The blinds closed with a snap and she returned her gaze to the TV screen while reaching out for a handful of popcorn.

    A loud knock on the door reverberated through the house.  Throwing a kernel into her mouth she made her way through the clutter.  While running one hand through her hair, trying to put it in some sense of order, she twisted the doorknob and opened the door.  Empty space met her eyes.  “Hello?  Anybody out there?” she squinted out into the night.  “Huh.  I guess it was someone playing a jok-”  Her voice cut off as her mouth opened in a silent scream. 

The Light's Last Touch--Part 2

I felt it coming up, tried to force it back down but found myself losing it and was sick.

My arms were shaking but I forced them to push me up off the hard boards and into a half sitting position. I was in my room but it felt unreal to me. The boards I had long ago memorized all the knots in seemed as if they were leaning in, closing up, trapping me. The light from the one window I hadn’t covered dared to penetrate the gloom and lit up my soiled black dress and the spot on the floor where I had been sick.

“I must not think--it hurts too much.” I muttered the words over and over to myself. “Must not let anything remind me of what has been, what could have been, what will never be—Stop it Cassy!” I screamed in frustration.

The harder I tried to not think about it, the more my mind focused on that one forbidden thing.

I had to stop thinking and since sleep insisted on evading me only one choice was left. My hand felt for the bottle and I brought it to my lips. It was empty.

I heard a tinkling of glass and found me head lying where I had been sick. What was this that controlled me, caused me to throw things in anger, with out even realizing what I was doing? Who had I become since the news came to me? Who would recognize the great blood in me as I lay on the floor in my own vomit, a broken bottle laying near, my black dress disheveled my hair stringing over my face, to week to even roll over.

I heard a squeak as the door opened and a dark girlish face peered in on me. Two large eyes peeped cautiously at me from under a spotless white cap.

“Get out of here!” a voice that was not my own screamed at my once petted slave. “Get out of here! Out with your spotless white cap! Out with your face that reminds me what he died fighting against! Out! Out!” The uncontrollable anger raised me up to my feet. I tottered towards the door waving my hand threateningly and the dark little face I had once loved disappeared, its tears silently reproaching me.

The bedroom tilted and I grabbed for a bed post. Leaning my confused head on the ornately carved wood I struggled to stay upright.

“Cassy do you trust me? Will you trust me?”

The quite voice haunted me.

Had that been a dream--a nightmare? Or had it been reality?

“Who are you?” I forced the words out of my dry lips.

The light slowly moved further and further across the room as the sun sank lower. It was like a groping hand, groping for me, trying to find me, to tell me that all was not darkness if only I---It crept closer, its rays lighting up the glass fragments. Closer even now, lighting up his picture where it lay crushed and torn on the floor where my anger had thrown it. Now it was lighting up my black dress expending its last moments searching for my face.

With the its last, and most beautiful touch the light finally found what it was looking for. It blinded me, for a while and then dropping my head so I wasn’t looking directly at it, I could see my black dress, wrinkled and covered with my vomit. Then it was gone and darkness wrapped me in its stifling arms.

In the light’s last touch I had seen what I allowed, even made myself into and it wasn’t pretty.

That was why I covered the windows, and this ugliness from even myself. Only this one window, I could not cover, the light that came from it somehow seemed to be trying to pull me back from what I had become and somehow, I wanted that.

Just for the record, I'll not post the final part of this story until someone besides Angela or I posts something.

The Light's Last Touch

Angela told me that she didn't think my last post was very exciting...is this better?  

The Light's Last Touch

Down, down, down. My hand was reaching up towards the light, my whole soul screaming to not let it get smaller but I couldn’t stop myself. It was my own fault. I had played near this pit, walked close to the edge with my eyes wide open, knowing what was there, what would happen. And yet, I had come, willingly come, and willingly stepped over the side. Now and only now, did I regret my choice. And what chance, what chance was there for me? I could hear the screams from below me of the others in their agony, of the beasts in their murderous joy, oh why, why had I ever made this foolish choice? There was no going back now, nothing to catch hold of and pull myself up on, no one to grab me and pull me back to the light. I wished to scream, every muscle in my body strained towards that one purpose but I couldn’t make a noise.  The bottom was coming closer, I could see the other people, reaching up eagerly to pull me down to them, to share in the agony they had caused for themselves. The beasts too looked up, their sharp teeth glinting in anticipation.

“No! No! No!” I was finally able to scream. “I’m not ready for this! This isn’t what I wanted! This can’t be happening to me! Help! Someone help!”

A hand from up near the light caught my arm and jerked me to a painful stop. My legs dangled inches away from the miserable out stretched arms below me.

“Cassy do you trust me? Will you trust me?” The voice was gentle and quiet but I could hear it above the screams below me.

“Who are you?”

~

I jerked awake the words dying on my lips.

What had happened, where was I, why was I here? My head felt like a hatchet was being thrust into it, my stomach churned, my vision swam.

The Beginning

   Louise gasped and lifted a shaking hand to part the chiffon curtains.  A chestnut horse covered with mud wearily made its way up the drive towards the house.  The rider on its back sat slumped, staring down at the ground.  Fear made its way up her throat.  Something was wrong.  She ran as fast as her hoops would allow and threw open the front door.  The man looked up as he reached the front of the house and tried to smile.  Yet the sadness and tinge of fear on his face made it look more like a contortion of pain.  “Ben..?” her voice trailed off and she walked out onto the large porch.  With a sigh he slung himself out of the saddle and landed heavily on the ground.  His large boots clumped up the steps leaving globs of mud on the once clean wood.  He folded Louise into his arms.

    “It’s started honey.  The south fired on Fort Sumter.”

    She pressed closer to his chest and took in a shaky breath and closed her eyes tightly trying to press back the tears.  They poured down her cheeks, refusing to stay checked, and dropped onto her husband’s jacket where they disappeared into the already wet folds.  “Come on, honey,” he gently guided her into the house.  The wind moaned softly as it whipped around the house; seeming too also mourn what had happened.

The Proposal

    Silence.  That was the first thing that struck Florence about this place.  She took a deep breath, trying to keep her nerves in check.  “Nathan, are you sure about this?”

    The fuzzy shape in front of her turned around and a beam of light struck her in the face.  Even though she could not see it, she could hear a smile in his voice.  “You act as if I had never been here before.”

    Florence drew closer squinting, “You don’t have to point that at me.”  She hesitated.  “It’s just so dark.  And eerie,” she added as an afterthought. 

    “Of course it’s dark,” Nathan wrapped a warm arm around her shoulder.  “That is how caves usually are.” 

    “Oh, really,” she glared at him, her voice tinged with sarcasm. 

    “Just follow me,” he grabbed her hand and pulled her along behind him.  Every step took them deeper into the darkness.  Florence gulped.  She hated dark places and this cave certainly fit the bill.  “Don’t worry, we’re almost there.”  Nathan gently squeezed her hand. 

    She tripped on a rock and yelped when she ran into a rock wall.  It was slimy and she shoved herself away from it in disgust and continued to follow Nathan.  “Please tell me we are there, I can’t take much more of this.”

    “Better duck,” he shined his light on a rocky overhang.  A few steps later, she heard the words she had been longing to hear.  “Alrighty, Ms. Impatient, we are there.”

    As he moved his light around, Florence gasped.  “It’s like a forest of stalagmites!”  She turned towards Nathan.  “It’s beautiful!”

    “Yes, it is,” Nathan’s voice was strangely emotionally. 

    “Nathan, are you okay?” she peered at him through the darkness.

    “Hold this,” he handed the flashlight to her, then reached into his pocket and sank to one knee.  “Will you, um-”  He sighed and tenderly opened a small box.  Florence pointed the light at the contents.  Her hand trembled.  A diamond ring glittered brightly.      

The Story of Princess Aidle

This is my most recent story. I wrote it today, (Saturday), when I should have been critiquing one Angela sent me... :z

The Story of Princess Aidle

“Down you foul brute!”

 I whisked my long white train away from the dirty paws of Sir Edward’s mastiff and gritted my teeth as he snarled.

The dog was snarling dangerously and I new from past experience I had better find a tree, and fast. I shot a hurried look at my surroundings desperately trying to remember what they looked like. I had been over every foot of this large estate and knew it by heart but that was during the day. It was night time now and I was almost completely lost. A ghostly set of branches held out there talons to me not twenty feet away. It was their claws or this foaming beast’s. I through my train over my arm, hiked my dress up, and ran for it.  The dog snarled at my heals but he was old and fat while I was young and strong and I felt the branches dig into my hands before his teeth had a chance. One of my tiny heals got stuck in an elbow as I tried to climb further away from the gaping jaws and I felt a sharp pain go through my ankle.

The dog lay down directly beneath me and appeared to go to sleep. My legs dangled off either side of a thick branch above him and when I shifted one he quickly raised his head. No hope then of getting past him while he was asleep. I waited and waited. Who would have guessed that a person like I was would ever be in a position such as I was?

           

The hours dragged by, with the only change being in my position and spirits. The dawn was coming and what would happen then…I didn’t know but likely it wouldn’t be fun.

Just as the sun was casting it’s pink and red streamers across the sky a whistle sounded shrilly and startled me so badly I nearly fell out of the tree.  The massive creature below me sat up and listened.

Wonderful! His master would call him away and I would get my chance for escape.

The whistle came again, louder this time and I could hear a frightening voice calling “Here boy! Here Ratzic! Here boy!”

The dog began barking but to my annoyance stayed at the bottom of the tree.  A set of powerful shoulders appeared above the hill behind me and a glowering continence soon presented itself below my branch.

“Aha! I have caught you at last!” The brown eyes danced in triumph. “You know, I was just thinking the other day how I needed a girl to scrub my floors and cook my food.”

“No!” I struggled as he grabbed my foot and began pulling me down. “You can’t make someone with noble blood in them do such menial work! Take your hands off me!”

~

           

“What are you up there writing Aidle?” my brother, Eddy, called to me from below the leaves, his Pekinese, Rat, bounced happily around his feet barking.  “Are you trying to hide or something? I’ve been looking for you all over and if it hadn’t been for Rat here I still would have been.”

“Um…” I looked sheepishly over the top of my writing notebook at him.

           

“Come on down. You know it is time for us to do the mopping and sitting up there moping like a princess whose asked to scrub a floor,”  I glanced at him sharply,  “won’t get it done and over with any time soon.”