The destination

Hello, once again from me being shitty and not writing for practically a fort night. I was busy with family, moving, a new job there was a lot going on. Which brings me to my new post this is obviously inspired by the events I have had to struggle through. Just not that extreme. This is a another excerpt of a character I have already introduced if you want to check out other stuff like it check it out here. Anyways enjoy I tried to make this one of my better quality papers.

“You have to stay awake god damn it!” you scream from inside the truck cabin. The dark circles burned themselves into your eyes. Exhaustion was setting in and you wanted a place to crash. In your mind the miles slowly ticked down only 34 miles left. With any slight movement put stress on your stiff body. You groan as the radio starts playing another sick love song from the station it happened to pick up. Gnawing on a finger to Stave Off sleep, your eyes glaze over reading the lit up signs that slowly passed overhead. The monotony of it all could drive a man crazy. 29.

            You check your mind. Nothing, is this truly oblivion?  Close to 40 hours now you have been awake. 26.Your mind is exhausted; there is only so much you can take. Moving is a hell of its own. You had to do it in one go or else you wouldn’t be able to go at all.  You were caught up by that wind that called you westward like there was something there for you. 22. Was it the need for a new town with something to spice up your lonely existence. 21.

            “This is the one for me.” You say trying to reassure yourself you would never do this again. You new better though. 19. You do not argue with the wind, now that would be insane. Rolling down the window you could smell the salty air. It was strange and exhilarating to be so close to a beach. The climate was a drastic change from a much colder town. You could see the faint outlines of the palm trees that stretched overhead. 15. All of the sensational experiences picked your spirits back up getting you excited for the destination that was nearing with each minute that went by. 13.

            You only regret the pain that moving puts you though. In the end it is all worth it. 12.You consult the printed directions as the light from street lights swept past you. The exit was coming soon and you didn’t want to miss it. Your favorite fanciful recreation of the house you were soon nearing came to mind. It was perfect with clean beige carpets a red painted door with blue useless window shutters. 8. A small covered deck with rosy stained wood that dropped off into a large lush back yard. A sort of giddiness bubbled up as your though of ways to decorate it. The thought of almost entirely new furnishings excited you to no end. 6. The reality was you still haven’t even seen a picture of the outside of the house yet. You know nothing. You bought it on the cheap as the economy crashed around you. You were not worried. You still had a thing or two up your sleeve for just such an event. 2. You see your exit and take it. The house was only a couple of turns away.

            It was dark as you pull up and you couldn’t see much but what you could see was wonderful. The grass wasn’t overgrown and the hedges looked healthy. The lot wasn’t terribly large and the house was quaint. Just your size and hoped you were close enough to the beach. Could you pick up surfing? Who knows? One time you picked up a creative writing class. You never know what could be useful. Meeting people is hard but it never hurts to have a pretty face. It was difficult shattering your stiff body back to life but you managed to walk. You paused and stared at the now much larger truck than you thought you were driving that whole way. Deciding finally to just leave it for now you hurry up the little path to the door and opened it with the key that showed up several days ago in a brown slip as part of your arrangements. You barely get past the living room before passing out on the floor. That is okay you can sleep. The truck will unload itself. You are just so are exhausted. Why not take a break. You earned it.

Stave Off

Mana Cost: W
Types: Instant
Card Text: Target creature gains protection from the color of your choice until end of turn.

Modern: Legal
Legacy: Legal
Vintage: Legal
Freeform: Legal
Prismatic: Legal
Tribal Wars Legacy: Legal
Singleton 100: Legal
Commander: Legal

Magic 2012 (Common)
Magic: The Gathering—Conspiracy (Common)
Duel Decks: Speed vs. Cunning (Common)

Low
$0.03

Median
$0.14

High
$0.75

Her Name was Sophie

Ever see those anime fangirls or fanboys (I don't discriminate, so shall we call them fanhumans or fanpeople now?) who are just obsessed with Japanese culture and would do anything to move to Japan without even going past the stereotypical behavior or culture? They always tend to be American too (of course this is just coming from my own personal experience in which most the people I know are American) well I wanted to write a story about someone with those fanhuman characteristics and turn it up to eleven! Sophie is a woman from France who can't afford to move to America, but she will do anything to make it seem like she's from there.


Her name was Sophie, her belt said Steve. It was her favorite buckle. She made sure
everyone knew of her American boyfriend Steve, how much he loved her, and that the Atlantic
between them could never separate their eternal souls. He made it especially for her between his
shifts in the oil fields, going behind his boss’ back to use the tool shop. She was forever his.
She said she was American, and she sure as hell made sure her appearance vouched for
her. The belt snuggly held her Wrangler jeans to her tall frame. Half tucked into beltline was an
orange-and-red plaid shirt. Brown boots clacked after every step she took as she anxiously
strutted down the Paris streets towards her apartment.

She had recently moved to Paris into a small apartment overlooking an equally small
park. After moving in she made sure to tell anything with a pulse that she was from America,
Chicago specifically. When they questioned her about her perfect French, she would respond
saying that she was pressured to learn French at a young age by her parents. If they interrogated
further about her authentic accent she said she was a theater prodigy who was training for a
leading role of Les Miserables, never saying which one.

A cardboard package greeted her in front of her apartment door. “To Sophie, from
America with Love,” the package read, surrounded in a giant heart. She never received packages,
save the belt buckle, only letters. Typically upon receiving postage from her American lover she
would launch a crusade across her floor, reading aloud in an odd mixture of English and French
to each and every tenant whether they opened their doors or not. But today she didn’t bother
sharing the precious package. Instead she dashed into her apartment, slamming the door behind
her.

She chunked Steve’s belt buckle aside as if it were an old toy she didn’t care for anymore,
she didn’t care if her pants fell to the floor. Within the contents of the small brown box was her
long awaited gift. Like a child on Christmas morning too eager to wait for her parents, her hands
clawed their way into the heart of the box, producing brown confetti within their wake. When the
content had revealed itself to her, her heart stopped: it was love at first sight, again.
Within the heart laid belt buckle with a different name, a name she found quite charming,
the perfect American name. Each letter was cut from brass, their precision impeccable, perhaps
too precise. An easy fix. She took a hammer to its face in an act to prove the buckle was
handmade. Afterwards she inspected the back. On the backend was the serial number 839, she
doubted anyone would notice it, but to be on the safe side shaved away the number with her
fingernail file. Her work was complete. She held the buckle up into the ceiling light above,
grinning at her masterpiece.

Steve no longer existed anymore, she hadn’t worked out the details. Perhaps she would
tell her friends that Steve cheated on her; or that the distance drove them apart; or that he died in
a tornado of fire as oil erupted beneath his feet blowing him sky high as he took a casually
smoked a cigarette a tad close to the drill, she liked that one. She had a new American man now,
who sweetly took her into his arms, and gave her his own special buckle to comfort her after
Steve had betrayed her/ emotionally abandoned her/ died/ whatever. Anxiously she fiddled with
the new buckle until it finally gave a satisfying snap. Taking a heel-face turn to the mirror behind
her, she dazed at her reflection. Her grin lifted like a stage curtain revealing an ensemble of teeth.
She couldn’t wait to show everyone her new handmade buckle. Within the frame of the mirror,
was a white strip of paper laying onto of the mutilated box, was a receipt with her name on it.
Her name was Sophie, her belt said John.

You - The cure

Sorry for not doing much lately and having a really late post. However I wanted to do this one as well as possible because it is the start of an idea for a much larger story. The challenge was to write  only in the present tense, not quite sure if it worked out well with my 2nd person point of view but I decided to try it. Anyways please enjoy.

This is a story of you. You wake up one morning and the voices start again. Each one does it’s own thing: one berates you, another narrates your life, and one is your dearest friend.  They never leave your side, always watching. You ponder their existence for a brief moment; they slowly came to life one by one. At first the narrator as if in a book, next the insulting one critiquing everything you do and lastly your only friend. You must take the good with the bad. You tolerate the narration; it has its moments. All of it is like having a posse of disembodied voices.

By this time you are down stairs making your morning coffee, black with a speck of chitchat. You haven’t heard from Olivia, your friend, for some time. She is interested in your newest escapades. Which usually means the same old same old; working long hours for a major bank during the week and struggling to fixing up old houses on the weekend. No time for much of anything else and it is getting tiring. It is hard enough to hide your schizophrenic tendencies to the world but essentially working two jobs. Especially one that is more of a hobby than an actual job but with the amount of sweat and tears I put into it might as well be.

This house will be your last. It is time to move on, maybe a new state with a new town, and one with a little more beauty than here. Someplace with green grass and trees with flowering blooms. Scenery is everything when selling, that and being newly renovated to look marvelous. Each house you make is a masterpiece, unique in every way down to the last detail. Your favorite part is the garden secret. It is the cure to your schizophrenia.

First you find an interesting house that could use a facelift. Pretty easy when there are plenty of foreclosed homes because of the recession. You never do the same neighborhood and you use an alias to cover your tracks. You have plenty of money due to your other escapades in less scrupulous manners. Second you draft some plans for the house: new paint, carpet, flooring, and appliances. Third is to hire help, no problem there, you know Spanish and not like they will talk to anyone about strange happenings. Just in case you never hire the same people twice for one house. You practically destroy the house during the week making way for everything that is to come. Friday everything has to be ready, you need the house empty. That night you go out, and find yourself someone lonely and in need of some company. Male, female it doesn’t really matter to you, they never make it to the absent bed. Chloroform makes it easy to restrain them and drag them to the bathroom and then the real fun begins.

The cure to the voices is to spill Innocent Blood. It gets rid of the good and the bad alike, an antidote of sorts for your mental ailment. The treatment only lasts for a while but it is all you need to survive. Lastly you clean up the bathroom and dig a large hole in the backyard and dump the body. Saturday the hired help plants flowers and finishes the bathroom. They do all the grunt work for you. With that you get off free as a bird and are off to the land of the sun, and beaches, California.

Joe's Doughnuts

            Another day, another test, it’s amazing what the universe will do to make myself a better man. It was during my typical morning routine, you know the one where I leave my house at exactly 6:45 am, drive eight-point-nineteen miles down the road to Joe’s Doughnuts, pick up my usual coffee with two packs of sugar but no cream and two doughnuts (one glazed and one chocolate), then continue another thirty-seven-point-forty miles to work. Well it was at Joe’s doughnuts where it happened.

            As you know, I always take the drive-thru at Joe’s, and I would like to thank the man himself for putting it there for me, making my commute so much more efficient, especially since nobody ever uses it that early in the morning. You don’t see that many drive-thrus at small time coffee shops, so I cannot thank him enough; but I digress. Yet the universe works in mysterious ways and I stumbled upon a line, a small line maybe three or four cars, but still a line. I figured that Joe, being the clever genius he is, arranged this to get me to come in and finally meet the man. So I did.

            I was greeted with a warm smell of surgery air, and the soothing roasted of a cocktail of many coffee blends. The shop was small, almost uncomfortably so, it held only two two-seater tables and nothing more. Behind the counter stood a woman of middle age, she wore a blight orange shirt, but the expression of her face was as dull as a winter’s night. I’ve never seen her before, but I knew she liked me; I was their most valued customer after all.

            “I would like the usual please,” I said with a warm smile on my face.

            “Sorry sir,” she said her face still stern, “I don’t know what that is.”

            “Joe didn’t tell you about this?”

            “About what exactly?”

            “That he wanted to meet me in person, that’s why the drive-thru –. “

            “The drive-thru is what?” She cut me off.

            “Let me finish please,” I said. Maybe she was new here, that would explain her expression, and she wasn’t a morning person for sure. “The drive-thru is busy. It’s never busy this early in the morning, but it is now so I knew it was because Joe wanted to meet me.”

            The door bell rang, I turned around, maybe this was all a trick before Joe came in to shake my hand (and maybe offer me a free meal). But it wasn’t, two women dressed in button shirts, one a baby-blue the other a plain and white, and khakis paraded in instead. I have to admit, I felt a tad disappointed.

            “I wouldn’t know because I never liked dealing with the drive-thru,” she said, “now if you would excuse me I have actual customers to get to.”

            “Hey Mel,” the woman in white said.

            “Moring,” the woman behind the counter said, “the usual for you two?”

            “Yes please.”

            “Hey,” I chimed in, “what about my usual?”

            “What usual?” Mel said.

            “Oh I see,” I said walking to the door and smiling as I realized what was going on, “I see. This is a test of my patience, not some sort of reward for being a valued customer. I wasn’t even supposed to come into the store this morning. You just wanted to see if I could wait in the drive-thru, and if I could I would be the best customer. Tell Joe that I passed, I’ll pull my car around.”

            I walked triumphantly out of the shop with a bounce in my step and a smile on my face, this was a good day. I felt so stupid for not getting it before hand but it was better than standing in line like some sort of idiot.