The tree has stood in the same place for as long as anyone in town could remember. The residents, their parents, their parents’ parents, and long before that - everyone knows about the tree. Its bark, cracked and aging, bears the scars of teenage whimsy long over, initials of couples long broken up. The tree used to be the tallest part of town, and children would hide from their parents in those firm, supportive branches high above the little village. Now, buildings have inched higher and higher around the tree, their shiny windows reflecting the oranges and greens of the leaves throughout the year. Its branches weave their way through telephone wires, twirling intricate dances with the sky as the stage, the leaves as the costumes. The village is a village no longer, its population sprawling into a city over the years. The tree has watched the city grow and prosper, through wind and rain and snow and sun. It’s a marvel the tree hasn’t fallen yet, it’s a marvel it still stands tall. The tree is by no means the tallest or mightiest structure in town, but it most certainly is the most interesting.
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go for it, feel free. not a care in the world. wrench my heart out while i remain innocent and in your eyes. tear it out with your bare, filthy hands and act as though my heart is not the single organism which continues to bring life throughout my lifeless body. act as though it is nothing at all; a mere speck of dust on the face of the earth as a whole. rip it out and drag it across the ground negligently, leaving behind a trail of not only deep red blood, but every hope and dream i bring about as well. do not for one moment worry about my emotions toward the matter, for i am simply a puppet in your distasteful show. take advantage of my isolophobia and remove me from society. i will not be bothered, not for one moment will i be saddened in the least. why would i? because you took time out of your pathetic life in order to scrutinize mine? you are the cause of the scars then ensconce themselves upon my arms and legs, haunting me with every move i make. i cannot blind my eyes, somehow enabling myself to suspend my ability to look down and see all of my hurts, pains, and failures; nor can i undo the cuts which bled from my open wounds for hours and hours, causing me to pass out multiple times and finally leading up to my ultimate diagnosis.
At my old house, everything was warm and cozy. We were all comfortable, my husband, my 2 kids, Priscilla and Dean, and myself. The love when we all sat near the television set and radio was a blanket that draped around our shoulders. I was the most heartbroken one when we received the news that my husband was being drafted into the military. We had to move, since my job of being a waitress at a small diner didn’t really support our family. Dang nabbit, this World War is killing me.
The children and I stood in the front lawn of the new house. We stared. The entire house was falling apart! I gulped, slowly walking towards the door. As I opened it, it creaked REALLY loudly. I’ll put that on my list of things to fix up. We walked in, carefully. Creaky floorboards...yup, gotta fix this house. We all looked around. Priscilla found the kitchen…thank goodness! A Wedgewood oven! A nice, good one, too, that works perfectly! Meanwhile, Dean was the one who found all of the beef with the house. He found a lot of open crevices and holes, sags in the roof, mold and water stains, and much, much more. This house is going to be a lot of work. I walked around a little bit more, I had the feeling of a needy child tugging on the bottom of my dress, while I looked down and watched my dress rip on the bottom from a broken piece of the floorboards. My dress! My brand new tea dress! Ruined! I bent over and picked up the little piece of red and white polka-dotted fabric. I really, really, REALLY can’t wait to fix up this battered old house! No more creaky ANYTHING, no more holes, no more mold, everything fixed up...and ESPECIALLY no more ruined dresses! As the radio played, Dean and Priscilla sang along as the Andrews Sisters were singing their newest tune, “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” While I was cooking our dinner, Dean ran over and grabbed my hand. He pulled me into the brand new, renovated living room, as Priscilla started to play the Andrews Sisters’ song “Give Me Some Skin, My Friend” on the record player. Since we were all such big Andrews Sisters fans, we memorized the moves and lyrics to the song, and the kids tried to make me dance with them like they did in the movie the Sisters sang it in. As we sang and danced, high-fives flying around to the catchy tune, I heard a knock on the door. I walked over, laughing, while the children still sang and danced. I opened the door, and a familiar face appeared. I shrieked with joy, jumping up to hug him, with tears flowing. My husband spins me around while we hug, and gives me a great, big kiss. When he puts me down, we hear the running of Dean and Priscilla’s feet along the brand new, smooth floorboards, coming to greet their father. They jumped up and gave him a bear hug, showing their huge smiles. Now, since my husband has returned from his service in the war, we can enjoy the new, renovated, bright house together as a complete family. I went to school in Jenkintown all twelve years, and the thing that stuck with me most was the garden. Blooming in yellows and pinks every spring, and in the summer it grew bulbous ruby colored tomatoes and sweet, emerald colored sugar snap peas. When I went to the garden it would always inhabit an enormity of bugs busily buzzing around and aunts and babysitters would be on their knees with browned shoes and imprints on their hands looking for ripe vegetables and fruit for the little ones they were watching. In the fall, people would be looking for the few flowers that were still alive. At little league baseball games, mothers would be chasing their miniscule children around the garden, while trying to see their player in the field. It was a popular “hangout” place for the 5th graders at recess, often to be chased out by the busy as the bugs they working with 6th graders. The garden in my memory was a community, a mini-Jenkintown for people to grow up in. At least that was how I remembered it.
When I came back to Jenkintown to visit my parents, 10 years after my senior year, I wanted to see the garden. I went to the schoolyard and walked down the hill to the garden, or where I thought the garden was. My hopes were high, and I was smiling. I thought the garden was going to be in great shape. When I actually reached the bottom of the hill, my heart was like the Titanic, split in two and sunken to the bottom of an ocean of tears. In place of the garden was a tall building, taller that the school itself. I pulled aside a kid who was walking up to the building and asked, “What is that? Where is the garden?” The child looked at me like I just sprouted another head. “Ummmmmm I’m not really supposed to talk to strangers,” he said warily, “I went to school here, I am practically a sister, and a garden used to be in place of this,” I said gesturing to the huge building. “Well then, what garden?” he asked with much confusion, “The computer lab has been there since I was in kindergarten,” “You mean you never have seen the beautiful, welcoming garden, that was here for the later part of my school career here?” I was devastated that they turned the garden, a natural beauty that everyone could take care of, love, and nourish, into a computer lab. I was so completely crushed that I started to inflate. I saw a group of seniors walk into the building, these people should remember what great fun they had in this garden. For they had been second graders my senior year, and presumably the last of the garden generation here. I felt tears streaming down my face as I watched the ones who could have saved this, go into the thing that destroyed the garden that they studied in and played in as children. They even worked in it when they were in sixth grade, growing their own food and working it. They could have stopped this, but they decided a computer lab was superior. When I went home, I started to write a letter to the superintendent: ‘Dear Superintendent, I noticed that 5 years after my senior graduation that the garden was demolished. In place what I saw was a computer lab. I am greatly annoyed about this occurrence and decided to write to you about it. I believe that all of the children should get a chance to have nice organic food that they knew where it came from. Also, now that you have demolished a common gathering place, I do not know what people who want to sit in a place and surround themselves in beauty will have to do just so. Another issue is that now you will have more health issues with people running into the wall of that building at full speed. I just wanted to bring that up with you. Sincerely, Marge Willson Marge Willson Graduate of Jenkintown School District I slapped a stamp on the letter and sped to the post office to deliver this, I figured this would be a more formal way to send it to the Superintendent. I stayed at my parents for the next week and received a reply, ‘Dear Ms. Wilson, Thank you for your concern about the past garden and current computer lab. I assure you that the subject has been on my and the school board’s mind for quite a while. We decided to make the spot a computer lab for clearly educational purposes. We all figured together it would be better for everybody if we made that space a computer lab. I know you highly disagree, but you must understand this decision was for the better of the community. Sincerely, Mit Carlson Dr. Mit Carlson Superintendent of the Jenkintown School District’ I was angered that first, he thought that the computer lab was a better decision than a garden, secondly that he spelled my name wrong, and third that he thought that the lab was on the minds of the school boards mind for the past five years. I have saved that letter as a constant reminder that the beautiful world is constantly being replaced by screens. I will never forget the day that I found out. I still loathe the fact that the garden has turned into a place for all the children in their free time to stare a a glowing box while saying it was for educational purposes. It was in my bowl. Staring at me, this happens every year I thought, this year was hopefully the final year of my thanksgiving torture. The bright orange soup looked like radioactive waste that my grandmother put in my bowl. My parents were telling me I would like it, and how wrong could they be? I put some on my spoon and bravely lowered the slime into my throat, the taste flooded my tongue destroying the homes of my taste buds. Or so I thought, it tasted...FANTASTIC! I couldn’t believe that I had mistrusted this wonderful allie for more than a second. My grandmothers squash soup was the best form of squash I had ever had.
My mother was afraid of heights. Said that having your feet too high in the air was like trying to see who was taller; you or God? She preached that it was blasphemous to try to build buildings that would scrap the heavens and airplanes that could easily slice the thin clouds. She instructed that no son of hers could ever dream to be an astronaut. Even dreams seemed to ascend too high into the clouds, so she told us not to do that. She built a barbed wire fence around wishing and hoping, and then yelled at us for getting cut. My mother is dead now.
I wish that she were still alive so she could see me in my grand rebellion. It would eat at her so much that I spend my days suspended in the sky and suds. She would yell about the building faces I scale and would resent me for making it by doing the opposite of what she demanded. A man has to have a reason for being a window washer. You don’t climb that high in the air every day without being an adrenaline junkie or someone who has a problem on the ground to run from. It is as if we think we can wash away the broken parts of ourselves by cleaning windows. The crew and I know our roles; many of them do work on the inside, but I prefer to be a window cleaner on the outside. There is something liberating about the wind and being able to look down and remember how small we are, yet, at the same time, being able to look up and see how big our impact is. Humans can shape the skyline and from here they look like ants. Isn’t that amazing? The city sounds like a symphony of car horns and foreign languages, or engines and vendors. I feel lucky when I am in the sky. I feel hopeful. No barbed fence can float in the clouds but some days I feel like I can. It is dirty work but some has got to do it and I am honored that I can be that someone instead of an office drone, bible thumping no one. Apples may fall close to the tree, but if my mother was an apple, then I am an orange. And that is one of the reasons that I wash the grime off of people’s windows; because if I fall here it will not be because she pushed me and will not be compared to fruit trees. If I fall here it is because I was not paying attention. I will die at my own hand, not hers. And my fall from grace will certainly not be the fault of some higher power. I am washing this window at dawn. In the glass I can see my reflection and the sunrise, while still seeing the blinds on the other side. Windows are funny that way; you can look forward and back. I gently stroke the glass, careful not to bang too loudly and awake a sleeping resident. I hum as I work and find that once again I feel meditated and completely tranquil, just washing windows in a kind of trance. They say that every man has a happy place; mine just happens to be a little higher than others. A man pulls back a golden curtain so quickly that I startle and nearly slip off the edge. Can’t romanticize the job too much; it is dangerous. He look embarrassed at me, mouths the word sorry and watched with concern as I rebalance myself, careful to not drop anything. Sorry he mouths again and with my hand, I gesture that it’s no problem. With the adrenaline of a near death experience making me feel giddy and sick, that small hand movement takes most of my concentration, the rest of me just begs my legs to stand still. I keep cleaning the window. There isn’t really much else to do in this situation; giving up now would mean re climbing the building and losing pay, plus scaling down unscheduled on this shaky legs would result in a battle with gravity I would lose. The man too continues about his day. He rests at the desk pushed against the window. He appears to be jotting down a few notes. I focus on the shine of the window, trying to give him as much privacy as I can, while climbing the side of house. His room is a well furnished one, every chair exactly where it should be. No shoes litter the floor. Homes that do not look lived in smell of a particular set of sadness and cleaning ammonia. I finish the window so that it matches the clean interior. My head bends down, glancing at me feet, when I notice the man is crying. He is looking right at me and crying. People have played ‘missed a spot’ with me before. I have had people open their blinds undressed and fail to close them, but I have never seen someone so naked, anything so personal as a man crying at dawn. I place my hand out, undoing all of my work in a single touch. I hope he recognizes my hand flattened on cold glass as one that is trying to lift him up. He smiles, tears streaming down his face. He mouths sorry again and I do not know how to ask him why or explain that everything will be okay. Glass has never been thicker, stronger. Sorry he mouths and I watch as the tears drip off the bottom of his chin and collect in a salty puddle, which is not all that different from the sea. We stand like this for a while until he remembers to be embarrassed and shuts his blind. I grew up in a small town that was wedged into a valley. All around us rocks blocked off the sky and it seemed that all the light we got was achieved through fluorescent bulbs. It was a bible town where the church stood directly in the center, so no matter where you went you passed that big red door and were reminded that God could see you now and that God could see you always. I never climbed up the rock walls that surrounded us because they went straight up and the only ropes you could possibly grab onto were rattle snake tails. And I thought that I would never be able to touch the sky, that I would stay in that dreaded town and spend my Sundays in those dreaded pews with my mother who refused to listen to me. I thought I would grow up encased in layers of hate, rock, and shadow, as if where you are from determines how you become, which it does and it did, for I would not have moved into this city if I had not first lived in the opposite. My rural town that I despise so much is who I thank everyday for getting me here. My mother who told me not to go high is why I climb everyday and those stone walls that blocked my sun are why I bask in it. But I also have my town to thank for this confusion and deeply rooted self loathing. I wash the rest of my windows, trying to scrub away this boiling feeling about the man who I will probably never see again. At the end of the day it is just the end of another day. Another tower that I have climbed. Another paycheck that I have collected. But at night when I try to sleep memories keep waking me and suddenly thoughts that I have suppressed are pouring out. I cannot stop thinking, crying and it feel like sick. I had buried this, taken care of it. Like an emotional boomerang, my fears, my past have flung back at me. I see my mother, her face. I can taste her perfume and feel the fake flowers on her church hat. It is the day of my fourteenth birthday. My face is painted a deadly shade of pink and the corners of my mouth quiver as I try desperately not to cry. She is yelling. Telling me that I must pray for my sins, that what I am lusting after is disgusting. I am disgusting she says. And I know I am and that I will always be and the only thing I want is to die. She slapped me and I felt that I deserved it, knew that it was my fault. I did not know that holding a boy’s hand would mean my eternal damnation but from then on I have known it was wrong. It seems that no matter how high I climb, the amount of years and miles that I put between the past and I, I still cannot admit... I do not sleep that night but instead find that the monsters do not live in the closet, but under my bed. Leaving my closet for, well, you guessed it . The next morning I get a call. My supervisor says that one of the people whose windows I cleaned asked me to take a second look at the window. He yells at me that time is money and that this is coming out of my pay. I head back to the tower to reclimb. I know already which window it is. The city is working its magic again and I remember that I got myself here. Pulled myself up a cliff drove for miles and landed here. The man is waiting for me, and I take out my sponge. When I lean against the hard glass of the window however, he puts his hand up. Stop. He opens his window and I slide in. “Honey, I’m home.” She was there. I saw her. Only for a little bit at first, but then a glimpse of her sleeve, and the stone washed blue of her jeans. I ran after her what I would have thought to be the perfect one, until another flash of long blond hair, Designer shoes, and pink crop top. That one in my head is the only one worthy of a fairy tale ending the girl who I just saw a glimpse of. I followed the second girl for what seemed like eternity until I came upon her castle a three floor six bedroom house. Looming over the side if the house the flag made of the shiniest silk you have ever seen patterned with pearly colored swans and a nighttime sky between the esher like flag. She was the one who would be my choice, the one who would excel above the others. The one for me. She was going to be my fairy tale queen to rule beside me, forever. She will be my happily ever after. The one who I have been searching for as long as I can remember. I know she is the one for me, until she turns around and reveals a mangled homely face with acne and she has big nerd glasses I was foolish for thinking for a second she would be the only one worthy of me. I quickly run away in search of another girl. One who is beautiful and perfect. That's when I run right into the girl. Wearing her "My Chemical Romance" black band shirt, ripped jeans, jet black hair with bright green tips, and her black eyeliner I know she will be my princess, my forever, as my fairy tale queen. "Oh I'm sorry I didn't mean to run into you," I nonchalantly said, "the name is Arthur, prince Arthur," trying to pull off "being cool"
"And the significance of this is?" She asked slightly annoyed, " I'm Gem Dale, could you now move I am going to be late and my mom needs me at home," she said very obviously ticked off. "Oh yea I'll move-" I was beginning to say, "That's all I have to hear, move it bub," she commanded and shoved me out of the way and ran off. " THAT'S NO WAY TO TREAT A PRINCE!" I yelled to her back as she was going. Just before she turned the corner I saw her stop, turn around and look at me almost to say "I'm sorry and really love you but am to tough to admit it" and ran off. Gems POV: I really loath guys like Arthur. Te ones who think they are princes or kings. Sends shivers down my spine. I got home all ticked off and all at Arthur and my mom to make things worse was arguing with dad, "WHY DID YOU LET HER DO THAT?!" Mom screamed, "SHE COULD HAVE GOTTEN LOST!" "SHE IS A USELESS GIRL!" My father replies, "DON'T CALL MY DAUGHTER USELESS AND GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!" My mom yells, I know immediately they are talking about me and my father letting me take a walk in a thunderstorm the other day. "YOUR HOUSE?!?! THIS IS MY HOUSE PRACTICALLY! WHO PAYED THE TRUST?!? WHO PAYS THE BILLS?!?" I guess my father forgets that all he does is sit on his butt and watch tv all day while mom works her butt off working triple shifts at the diner to make minimum wage. "I DO CLARK!" Mom screeches at my father. I don't know why they don't get divorced, I mean they hate each other and practically stare daggers at each other all day everyday. SLAP! I hear my father's hand come down across mom's face, hard. I run in the kitchen and scream, "WHY DID YOU HIT HER? WHY DO YOU HATE ME? WHY DO OU HATE US?" I feel his hand hit my face harder than he hit mom and said, "SHADDUP YA STUPID GIRL!" I raced over to the phone and called 911 on my father. The conversation with the police was easier than you woulda thought, "Hello 911 what's your emergency?" "See my father just slapped me and my mother very hard, my face is bruising and her nose is bleeding," "Okay has this happened before?" "Yes twice, now please come," "Dearie we need your address," "6702 spring drive," "Okay we are headed right over," "Thank you g'bye," and with that I hung up the phone to see a raging bull (aka my father) right in front of me, "What have you DONE?!" My father asks raising his hand as soon as there is a knock on the door. Mom jumps and goes and gets it, finally the cops are here and not a second late. They arrest my father for abusing his spouse and child and take him away. My mother starts crying, "I can't believe that I loved him," she sniffled, "It's okay he doesn't deserve you anyway," I tried to calm her down with that. It just made it worse. I called the diner and told them that my father had just been arrested and mom won't be coming to work for the next week. I knew tomorrow the phone calls would start coming in from relatives to mom saying that they should have never gotten married and such. Arthur's POV: I found her the perfect one Gem. But she seemed to hate me...I wonder why. I came home after playing baseball with my friends to my mom baking nice chocolate chip cookies, "Hey mama," I said taking a cookie on the cooling rack, "Oh! Hi darling how was your day? Do you want some milk with your cookie? How about a nice smoothie?" She asked, "I'm okay mom really I just want to do some homework and then clean my room," I replied lazily, "Oh how responsible is my little baby doing his homework first thing after school," mom cooed scruffiling my dirty blond hair. I went upstairs to my pristine room and took out my work that I understood completely and breezed through. I decided to draw Gem when I was done that, my mom did sometimes call me "art". "ARTHUR DARLING COME DOWN AND WATCH THE NEWS!" My mother yelled up the steps to get me, "OKAY MA," I yelled back. Oh how I loved the news. I rush downstairs and to my horror see Gem on the screen with tears running down her face "were is her mother?" I think. I see a huge man (possible a father) lumber into a police car muttering something. I gasp and try to call her on my iPhone 17 (eleven generations ahead of everybody else) and I hear a familiar icy voice on the other end, "What do you want Arthur?" Gem grumbles, "I just wanted to make sure you were okay, I saw the news. Sorry about your dad, he saved you from harm and that is why you are crying, then he got framed, and THAT'S why your crying, right?" "Wrong I called the cops on him he slapped me and mom so I called them," she replies, "It's mom and me-"I try to correct her "I COULD CARE LESS!" She screams and then the line goes dead. Gem's POV: I now hate this Arthur dude more than ever after he called and thought my dad was a hero, first off I don't need a knight in shining armor... I can rescue myself. I hate the world and all of its stereotypes! I go crazy watching Disney princess movies and their mass sexism ( besides brave and maybe Mulan) creating the image that girls have to wait for their Prince Charming to come along and make them live happily ever after. NO THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS! Arthur the jerk thinks it does and I am apparently his princess who he has to save. Well guess what Arthur I AM FINE. After the phone call I went upstairs to see what mom was doing. She was answering all the angry calls that came and writing them down and crying harder and harder every time she picked up the phone. I ran to mom and hugged her. She was shocked, I was shocked and I think everyone in the world for that moment was shocked. Apparently people don't expect me to go around hugging people. "Let's hang up all the phones and not come out of the house for a while okay?" I suggested to mom, "okay," she replied We both squealed and said "fault in our stars quote" then started giggling like mad women. So that's what we did. We stayed inside with the door locked and curtains closes, to watch tv all week. I swear we never once moved unless we were getting food. Then the one person who couldn't make my life any better but tried his hardest to. Arthur came over to see if I needed help, "Gem it's me Arthur I was wondering if I could come in and talk to you," I heard the voice that I loathed, "Go away I don't want a sympathy brigade," I grumbled, "I'm sorry I can't hear you, are you in there?" Arthur says in a sing-song voice, "BUZZ OFF I DON'T WANT TO TALK TO YOU!" I scream back, "Oh okay, umm bye then, I guess," he says crushed. I actually felt kinda bad about what I did, for once. But he shouldn't be sticking his nose in other people's business. Arthur's POV: Seeing, well NOT seeing Gem in school worried me. So I payed her a visit. Just to be rudely dismissed as nosy. Can you believe it? NOSY?! I am never nosy. I was just trying to be helpful. I guess. Anyway I even brought food for them. Gem didn't want it and said she was "fine" and "didn't want anything". I guess she was just feeling really ungrateful, gosh if she is going to be my queen I hope she is feeling peppier when she is older. Anyway when I came home defeated mom asked, "What's wrong dearest?" "Oh, Gem didn't want to talk...about anything," "Dear love is an art, and art cannot be rushed," "Alright mom I am going upstairs," I sighed, "Love you," she said, "Me too," I responded half heartedly. Gem's POV: "I AM NOT AFRAID TO KEEP ON LIVING!" Sings my lovely iPod spurting out Gerard Way's voice. I crank down my headphones and look at the clock, 11:36 pm it reads, I suddenly have a wave of fatigue crash over me as I roll over and go to sleep. I sleep so well that I forgot to dream. I wake up to this, "GEM! GEM! WAKE UP!" It's mom, screaming, "Whaaat?" I groan, "YOUR FATHER IS BEING ALLOWED TO VIST US AND HE IS COMING OVER THE WEEKEND!" I bolt upright, this can't be happening, I think, "Mom what is today?" I ask suddenly panicked, "FRIDAY!" Mom screams and starts running around frantically, "Mom calm down okay? We have to show him that our life has gotten better and that we don't need him, not like we have been avoiding the human race all week," Mom looks really confused, "We have to clean up and restock the fridge and actually look like people," I say to clarify for her. It looks like a lightbulb has gone off over her head, "Oh! So let's get started!" She exclaims. I grumble and mumble then get up and actually get dressed. I start heading downstairs for breakfast when I hear a knock on the door, it can't be Arthur cause he's at school, I think so I make a quick detour to the door. It is not in fact Arthur, I don't know who it is but they want to see mom and I refused to let them see her, "Ummm...she's at the...store, yea at the store," I lie, "Then why is a car in the driveway?" He interrogates, "That's my father's car," which isn't totally a lie my father did go out and buy it (although it was mom's money) he wasn't buying it, "Your father got arrested remember? You called the cops on him," this man was obviously annoyed at my stalling, "She...walked?" I say but it sounds like I am asking them, "Your stories aren't matching up," he says playing "detective" "Honey who is it?" Mom calls down from the top of the steps. Crap, mom heard me, "You were lying!" He says pushing me aside to the ground and going into the house, "NO!" I cry getting up, "No?" He asks whipping around, "Don't go in there, don't talk to my mother, don't even dare to take a step closer," I growl walking up to him as he stands in front of the door and then, "Oh!" Mom says surprised, I half expect her to let this man into our house then her voice turns cold, "what are you doing near my house?" She has started to fume and the man quickly backs away and says, "I just wanted to say hi, Valerie," he says, "just wanted to check in on ya, I saw the news, I'm really sorry," he finishes looking ashamed, "We'll you have now SHOO!" Mom dismisses him, "come on Gem we are going inside," she says as she shoots one last icy look at him and slams the door in his face. When inside I look for answers, "Mom who was that? It looked like you knew him," I asked, "Oh I knew him," Mom says shaking her head as if she was trying to get a bad memory out if her head. Then she started breathing heavily, "Who was he?" I ask her, not quite finished with our little session, "That my darling girl was the man that might have been your father if I had said yes. That was my old fiancé, I stopped it from happening because he was cheating I found out, the day before our wedding. Apparently she was mad at him for lying and it didn't work out," she told me. And my eyes grew as wide as dinner plates as I let this all sink in, "Who was his other?" I asked hoping this wasn't a step to far, "Kirsten," she answered, "But aren't you and Kirsten best friends?" I ask becoming as confused as I will possibly ever be in my life, "why would she do that?" "Oh hon, we weren't always best friends, we both hated him so much that we got together to talk about it, and became best friends," she says as if it was a simple thing. In my mind it was to much so I went upstairs to start cleaning for my father's visit in a day, I could hear mom laughing softly downstairs at my somewhat confused reaction to her news. Arthur's POV: Having Gem always reject me is tiring and unexpected, since you know I am one of the most popular kids in school. And am mighty good looking if I do say so myself (which I do). Any way I was taking a stroll after school and I decided to go to her house to you know say hi. I realize I have been a little harsh on my future queen and I should form a friendship with her first. I reach spring drive in all of its melancholy glory. It gives me the chills walking down the dead end. All the buildings are dark and small, the yards are tiny, and there is trash scattered around. It looks like a dump, in my opinion. I reach 6702 and just as I was going to knock the door swings open and there is Gem with a bag, "Oh it's YOU" she says in a harsh tone, "Yes it is me, I see that you have decided to come out of your house," I say in a equally pleasant tone, "Yea my dad's coming over for a visit tomorrow an' I was sent to restock the fridge and get some detergent for the dishwasher," she grunts, "Do you want me to come with you?" I ask because it is a longish walk, "Fine, if you honestly need to. I'm not forcing you to. I will actually discourage it for you," "Great! I'm coming," I respond. Gem walks off and immediately shoves on her headphones and I see her scroll through her music on her iPod. Way to be social I think and jog to catch up to her. Gem's POV: Great now I have to deal with Arthur while I go to the store. The walk was actually quite nice because I wasn't talking at all to him. Until the very end where he muttered something to himself about how the economy is in a horrid state and I laughed, "What's so funny?" He asked confused at my sudden outburst of the sound of joy. I of course responded with a quick nothing and went back to walking. All that Benedict Cain could hear was the hum of fluorescent lights. Hum, hum, humming. It was a tiresome sound, and he was very, very tired. He liked to tell himself that he helped put people to sleep. He liked to tell himself a lot of things. Benedict Cain liked to tell himself that he was the strongest, the smartest, the only one whose judgment was not jaded by emotions or selfishness. He especially liked to tell himself that his judgment was final. Oh, how he loved finality. The sound of throat crushed under knife, protest against darkness, the corrupt dropping, the gasp gone for good – all sounds that he just adored, sounds that were irreversible. Benedict Cain did not like the hum of fluorescent lights because it just kept going and going. He liked it when things ended. He liked endings. Benedict Cain turned off the lights. He could still hear the humming coming from the city around him. It was the sound of people just going on and on. Hum, hum, humming. Benedict Cain sat in the darkness, dreaming of the last fight, a sudden crunch, and then silence. He dreamed of the final ending.
He had not awoken because he did not sleep. Not really. Benedict Cain liked the city in the early morning. He would leave his apartment and, in the silence, pretend that he was the last man left on Earth. Everyone else had gotten what they deserved, and he, the only right one, was left to his thoughts. Benedict Cain loved the subway most of all. All the tunnels under the ground were dark. This particular morning, he walked through the tunnels looking for rats. Sometimes the last man on Earth got bored, and Benedict Cain did allow himself to have fun. He would catch two rats and take them home with him. Then he would put them in a sound proof cage he had built as a prototype. He would peak in occasionally through the little window, and wait to see which rat would try to eat the other one first. That rat would be allowed its freedom because it had betrayed its dark and gross kind. He would take the winning rat, hold it up to his face, and stare into the mirror with it. Benedict Cain knew that he was a very unassuming man. He was ugly because his face was not perfectly symmetrical. That did not bother him. He did not need anyone to look at his face anyway. He was short and thin, which worked well. He could follow people for long periods of time, but because he was small he went almost undetected or registered. Still, when people did look at him, Cain noted, they looked away very quickly. There was something about him that people, according to the few people he had ever spoken to, found off putting. He knew what it was: his eyes. They were the lightest shade of blue, almost white. They were very striking. When he looked in the mirror with his rat, he smiled at his eyes. The only part of his appearance that matched his interior, they looked like the eyes of a powerful man, and they were. Benedict Cain liked the idea that some people’s last sight would be his ocean blue eyes. Benedict Cain liked to imagine that as he walked through the subway, the rats could only see his blue eyes, and that they were so grand that they shone like headlights, which would make him a train. More machine than man, this idea quite appealed to him. His head snapped forward intently when the sound began. It was so familiar. It was a scream. There was someone else in the subway. They were screaming “Help. Help me. Oh god, someone help me.” The scream was loud and shrill. It was agitating, and more god than machine, Benedict Cain decided to silence whatever was producing it. He walked towards the sound, his hands covering his ears, but it stabbed through his flesh. He just wanted silence. Why do they scream? Cain had often wondered this. The first time he pulled his knife, the girl had screamed. This had surprised him so that he almost dissected the girl as if he could find the answer inside. Benedict Cain hypothesized that it was just another example of the foolish things that humans had not come to turns with. Cain had concluded that there were some unpleasantries that people simply denied. It seemed evident to Cain that: firstly, everyone must die. Also, if he was able to abduct or trick his victim into the darkness, and they screamed, no one would come. People, or normal people, were afraid of the dark. Besides, it seemed like people were screaming so much that everyone had lost interest in investigating the cause. Simply put, people may hear a victim scream, but they will never stop it. The scream is, as are most human things, pointless. Benedict Cain did realize that he was now going through the darkness to get to the cause of the scream, but that was different. He was different. Up ahead, Benedict Cain could see figures. One was on the ground, covering its face. The other was standing up and kicking the other hard. Benedict Cain wondered what kind of shoes that one had. Would they be washable? Would some of the blood soak through? At this thought of blood, his hand instinctively went into his jacket pocket and felt the cold metal. He kept it hidden so that it would not shine in the darkness. He did not want to reveal himself, not yet. The figures were arguing. “She was mine. God damn it, and you slept with her.” The figure yelled, landing a kick right in the stomach of the other. “Help! Help! I am sorry. I am so, so sorry.” “I’ll kill you.” Benedict Cain recognized urgency in that phrase. Whenever he said that, it was flat. It was a statement, one that an apathetic judge would give. This figure however, spat it out red hot. In his voice was the passion that the masses so greedily entertained themselves with. In that voice was the disgusting sound of caring. Cain decided that it would not be enough to just take out the screamer, but also the one who made him scream. The world, his world, did not need any more passion. The man on the ground seemed to have passed out or something, the screaming had stopped, but he did not look like a corpse. Yet. “Did you hear me?” The angry one yelled. “I said that I’ll kill ya.” “Pity.” Said Benedict Cain. He watched the man stiffen, go all rigid. Benedict Cain observed, not for the first time, that both rats and humans look the same when they are afraid. “Who said that?” The man asked the darkness, and to Cain this seemed as pointless as a scream. Why would the name of his murderer matter to the body? “What I mean is, now that he is unconscious and all, we will not get to see the look on his face right before. I bet you his eyes would have bulged out and his lips would have started to move and then stopped, like he has no words left. I bet you that he would have been so pale, so afraid.” “I wouldn’t have killed him” The man said in a strange way that was like a mixture of someone trying to convince a jury and someone trying to confess to a priest. “Not really.” “Oh, I know,” said Benedict Cain. “Ok, so that you have no need to tell on me, sir. There is no need to go to the police.” “Why would I ever go to the police?” Cain asked, beginning to have some fun. “I wouldn’t want to give them any help in finding the corpse.” “Wait, what corpse?” Benedict Cain drank up the silence after that question. He could see the man’s legs begin to tremor, as if he was going to run somewhere. Cain knew that he would not run. The man was glued to the sport because of the blood and the darkness. Besides. Cain found that with most humans, as long as you told them to stay, they would. Cain now walked up behind the man, his knife drawn. He wanted to see the man’s face, and have the man look into the eyes. So he got close. He was not at all surprised how easily the man let Cain walk up towards him and press the blade against his throat. Cain could almost feel his pulse. It was disgusting and enthralling at the same time. Benedict Cain was about to do it, the motion that felt more natural to him than any other thing in this world. Then he saw it. There, sticking out of this man’s pocket was a gun. Cain swiftly reached for it. Cain took the man’s last hope in his hand and laughed. At first, Benedict Cain laughed that the man had not be clever enough to use the weapon. Then he laughed about how he, Benedict Cain, had so easily beaten death again just by his sheer charisma. Then his face contorted into a sinister smile. This man could have actually killed the other one. Benedict Cain had an idea. “Do you want to live?” Cain asked. He knew that the man would say yes, although he was not sure exactly why this would be the strangers response. It was not like the man was going to do something with his life anyway. “Yes.” “Then I have a proposition. If you kill your friend over there, I may just let you go.” A rat scurried by, and Cain wanted to catch it and force it to watch this perfection. “Why?” “You brought the gun.” Cain said. “Is it loaded?” and he held it to the man’s chest, looked at his face, and he knew it was. “You brought the gun, and you were going to do it anyway. So do it now.” “No.” The man said, but even while doing this he held out his hand. Cain reached into his other pocket and pulled out a smaller knife. This way, the man would have to feel the warm blood coming out. The man bent down, so that his face was right next to his victim’s. He began to pray, but Cain pressed the gun to his head. Prayer was a more ridiculous form of screaming, and Cain would not have false idols mentioned in his presence. The man nicked himself on the knife, and for a second stared at his own hand as if he had never seen blood before. Then, on his knees, he looked up at Cain. His eyes were wide, and his lips started to move but had nothing to say. Then, very quickly he turned around. He forced the knife down with his entire body as if gravity was not on his side. He hit the man’s shoulder. “You need to do it again.” Cain said. The man fought to get the knife out of the shoulder, and when he finally did, it was not with any King Arthur grandness. The man looked around in the darkness, as if searching for knights and not just night. And then, again, he turned to what, presumably, used to be his friend. And he stabbed him. And he stabbed him. He did it twice, and was going back for a third when, Cain noticed, the victims eyes burst open, as if pain had awaken him. The victim looked up at his murderer and said nothing. There was a finality in the note of his last breath that Benedict Cain wanted to savor it forever. Then the deed was done. “You did well.” With this Cain collected his knife back. He then grabbed the man by the shoulder. Benedict Cain remembered his rats and the new cage. “Come on pet. You’ve earned this. You can stay in the box, and if you promise to be very quiet, I might let you live to the end.” I suppose that the sun did rise that day, but in those tunnels, with those rats, one would never have been able to tell. Joseph Remington. This must be him, because everything about him is perfect. From head to toe. He’s absolutely perfect. His hair, a dirty blonde color, just barely brushes his ears, and shines, even in the ugly fluorescent lighting of the guidance office. He’s tall, but not too freakishly tall. He’s wearing a plain, navy blue tee shirt. It’s not too tight on him, but it’s tight enough for me to be able to see the tone of his muscles underneath. He must be an athlete. A pair of stone-washed jeans cover up his green sneakers, clashing with the dark green color of the carpet in the guidance office. I’m speechless. His green eyes pierce mine, in a curious way. He’s perfect. He starts to say something, but I don’t hear him. His pink lips move, and I’m mesmerized. He smiles, and his teeth are a sparkling white. From head to toe, he’s perfect. I know this. I know this. I don’t quite understand the feeling welling up inside of me. I’ve never felt this before, and I don’t understand it now. But I do know this: he’s the one. The first one I’ll ever kill.
“Here, in town, the average person speaks at a speed of 437 words per minute. For those of you doing the math at home, that is a little over 7 words a second. Outside of town, people tell us we speak faster than people at an auction. We say"yesweknow," in slightly under half a second. We also tend to speak louder than people, and have be known to put jack hammers to shame. Of course, this is because of the interrupting.
No one knows the first time that it happened, though many say that a hundred years ago there was a very important girl. She had much to say and whenever someone else began talking, she felt a tickle on her lips, a pulling on her tongue. She just had to interrupt them. Back in the olden days, people found this distasteful, and she was swiftly punished, but our little hero would not stop. She got faster. She got louder. And then it spread. It seemed like every day children were coming home and interrupting. The school shut down to try and stop the plague, but it was too late. She had won. Soon every house was being instructed in the art form of interruption by their children. As interrupting grew more common, so to grew the volume of our voices. Soon our new voices were part of our town, like a dialect. To interrupt someone, you have to be faster, louder, things that our town strives for. Every year, our mayor must prove himself by interrupting at least thirteen people. Our heroes are the mute middle aged people who sit in coffee shops, their lips unable to move from their extensive use and muscle tearing, their throats permanently dry because they used all their words. Our children learn how to talk quickly in school, but only with the proper dedication can you achieve supreme interrupter status.” The school teacher said in three fourths of a minute. She said it twice a week, seeing how far she could get without being cut off. It was a test, and all of the children were younger than her, and could not talk as fast or as loud, but she was working on it. In fact, the teacher was very disturbed that no one had tried to interrupt her during that story. There was one child, the only child, who had failed to interrupt her at all. His name was Martin. He was slow. She did mean to imply that he was stupid. He just moved slowly. He did not try to interrupt any of the little children, and when he talked, if he talked he did so at a sluggish pace. 119.5 wpm. Of course she knew exactly what his words were. Children were given not report cards but Word Per Minute reports, which followed them throughout their lives, normally determining who could run for mayor and who would be a trash collector. The teacher guessed where Martin would be. Martin knew that he was slow. He knew that everyone thought he was slow. Even his family did. His younger sister already had a 320 wpm, and she was only in third grade. He was nine years older than her, and was painfully aware of it. But, instead of inspiring him to talk more and talk louder, he slunk into silence. His parents had transferred all of the money that was in Martin’s college account to his sisters. He did not blame them. To go to college, one must be able to interrupt even the fastest of lectures. Martin only wanted to listen to them. What a disappointment. “How was your day at school?” His mother asked his sister. His mom was an exceptionally fast speaker, one of the top twelve in town. She asked that question in .0125th of a second. “It was pretty good. We heard the story again, and then I interrupted Jason and the teacher sent me to the principal’s office to get a gold star and then-” His sister respond, not taking a second to breathe. “Wow. Good job, honey reminds me of when--” his dad started. “When you were in school you were in the principal's office all the-” his mom spitted. “time.” His sister finished, knowing this story. It seemed that they all knew each other stories. This made sense to Martin because they were always talking all the time. The did not have enough time to make stories to tell. Martin listened to them banter like that for a while. Why couldn’t he be like them? He would have asked, but they would have just laughed at him, or he would not have been heard, considering how slowly he talked. He excused himself from the table early, as he did every night and walked to his room. He put on music. Classical. It was the only type of music where the songs lasted more than thirty seconds. He stared into the mirror and looked at himself, looked really really hard. Then, in his head, he told himself the same story that he always had. “Be still,” he thought, “be quiet. Wait. Be so still and quiet that they forget all about you and leave you alone. Then, once they leave you alone, you can think. Think harder than anyone else has ever thought. Think so hard. Be still. Think hard enough that you begin to understand all that you can. Be quiet. Wait. Wait until you swim in your thoughts, but it is all in your head so others think that you are perfectly still and empty. Let them take your quiet for granted. Be quiet. And then speak. Speak not because you want to but because you have something to say, and they will listen. They will have to listen because they will be so surprised that you are no longer quiet and still. And talk slow. Let every vowel dance out of your mouth, taste your words because you have waited to say them so long. Taste your words because you mean to say them and you have chosen them for their taste and they taste good. Do not talk slow just to be contrary to them, talk slow because it is who you are. You are contrary to them. But when you talk that day, they will listen and you will share with them all you have observed in your quiet, and it will change them forever. So be still. Be quiet. Wait.” And with that, Martin drifted back to sleep. |