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JUST WRITE SR. 8-18-2007 PROMPT: EXTERNAL REFLECTION Niki The rain fell, the drops falling in heavy sheets to cover tall trees with green leaves. They were taller than she had ever seen, maybe thirty or forty feet tall. Less of the heavy rainfall made it down to the moss covered ground, but it was enough that she was soaked. Her plain green t-shirt and her baggy tan cargo pants were even darker in color, clinging to her closely from the weight of the wetness. She ran through the widely spaced trees, jumping over exposed roots and blasting through dripping bushes without thought, a bright smile on her face. She never stopped to push strands of her red hair from her face. She chose instead to leave the strands plastered to her forehead. Ahead, a small lake came into view. The surface of the usually clear lake was a labyrinth of ripples, the raindrops conspiring to disturb the water as much as possible. Few trees grew on the shore, the only visible one being on the opposite side of the lake from where she was. She paused next to the lake and stood in the rain, no longer sheltered by the trees. She knew it would be impossible to see it from here, but she tried anyways. Once more she began to run, around the lake, her wet brown Nikes churning up the mud. When she finally reached the tree, her hands found handholds on the rough, wet bark and she began to climb. She hardly noticed the bark, however, as above she caught sight of glass gleaming wetly. She pulled herself through the hole in the corner of the treehouse, crossing the smooth wooden floor to the cardboard box in the opposite corner. She pulled out a plain white t-shirt and a pair of jeans and changed, then pulled out a blanket, a lamp, and a bag of jellybeans. She turned on the camping lamp, curling up comfortably with the thick fleece blanket, eating the candy and looking out of the lone glass window at the green leaves, twitching and writing from the rain. The rain eventually stopped, but she did not see. She was sleeping Averie Flashing grey-blue eyes reflect from mine as I laugh, giggling at a joke I heard earlier. My eyes fall and I pull my brows together, one wrinkle crossing my forehead as I try to look pained. Good enough, I guess. I don’t realize it, but for a second I stare off into space thinking, considering the merit of “good enough.” Good enough means self acceptance to me – something I’ve spent the last few years without. Once, a guy I know asked me, “Can someone fall in love without being in love with them selves? Fall into real, true, actual love?” It took me almost ten minutes to answer, “No.” Dis-focused grey blue eyes reflect mine as I reflect me. Good enough, I say. Good enough might mean no motivation and inspiration to change, no will to become something else, but I look in the mirror, and think. Good enough might just be the first step, and self acceptance the next, and maybe . . . maybe after those steps, down the road – who knows how far really, it’s different for everyone isn’t it? – Maybe that little streamside path will lead, twinkling grey blue and burbling reassurance, right past “Good enough” and fine, and when you realize, I realize, when you realize that you have to leave the little path and jump in the creek itself. . . Maybe then, Explodeahippi Stories. Lost and alone on some forgotten highway . . .traveled by many, remembered by few . . .looking for something that I can believe in. All stories start unobtrusively. The needle drops, and static fills the room like distant thunder. The air hits you like a wet sheet as you step out of the plane, or you sprain you ankle on a fallen tree and miss your bus. The key to a story is not what happens next, but how you look at the way life happens to you. Do you see windmills or giants? An orangutan, or your mother? Does it matter? The heat of the day was upon them, scorching their backs as they bent over in the blazing sun. You stand up, and wipe sweat off your brow, feeling as you do, how shallow and fast your heart beat is a vibration rather than a pulse. The strain is in all of you, pulling your back, rippling through your legs, and if you stop now, then all could be lost, and you won’t be able to start again. The sweat is rising off you in steam, and your breath comes in blazing gasps. The earth itself is bright and burning hot, seeming to radiate a strange warmth that makes the shade underneath the trees dance and ripple. The world seems to go silent as all of you continue to strain toward an ending, stretching to a completion. And at that moment, the sky opens up, with a resounding crash and rain fell, so much rain that it was hard to tell if there was air anymore or just water, maybe, drenching you, pooling around your feet, steaming up off of the pavement in hallucinatory shapes, standing out on your skin, and you feel as if you could melt away, as if everything is falling away from you. Thunder resounds and lightning illuminates the clouds, black as obsidian. The storm rages and whips wildly around you, the wind uprooting trees, screeching like a harpy in the lee of hills, running through your fingers like electric water. You shout in delirium, and the sound is lost, and you spin in the wind and lose all sense of direction and fall on the ground and let the rain run over you. You come to in a house with bedding heaped on you, warm and dry, with a smiling stranger beaming down on you. She offers you a steaming cup of tea, and says in a warm tone, “You look a little lose there. Thought you’d catch your death of a cold.” You nod and shiver. The room is cozy, warm, and comfortable. You shiver again. The curtains were closed. The door is locked, but the wind is still shaking the house, and moaning plaintively around the eaves. You shiver. “Are you OK?” the lady’s face suddenly furrows in concern. And suddenly everything is not OK, and you start to cry, brokenly into your hands, sobbing and gazing at the locked door and trying not to hear the wind. The room is warm and dry. You run outside, unlocking the door, into the wind and rain, but everything is gone. You look around, shouting, but you can hear your voice above the wind, and everything is terribly wrong and the tears are hot and you kneel into the wind and try to lose yourself again. FIRST ANNUAL ALA TEEN TECH WEEK A WORLD WITHOUT TECHNOLOGY : 03/10/07 SENIOR SESSION DENISE'S DAY "#*! #$*%!+* #*+! it!" burst through the silence. Stupid bloody morning. This happy thought ran through my head as I tried to black out the sunlight streaming through my mind. Oh #!*% I'm late for school. Oh wait, there is no more school. After last Monday, there isn't any school anymore. After all, how can school or jobs function without clocks, computers, or money? I stumble out of my room to go to the bathroom-outside. The park across the street, which had once been a place of fun and laughter, was now a field or Porta Potties. All the parks were like this now, since there was no more indoor plumbing. After crossing the once busy street, I entered my house to find my Mom on the couch, cursing the lack of edible food. Since the economy crashed due to the loss of banks, my parents were both laid off. Everyone's parents were, actually. And I thought my Mom was crazy when she said the technology would be our downfall. Ironic, huh? A dark chuckle escapes my lips as I looked around. I never thought I'd miss school, but it's a lot worse than you'd think to have absolutely nothing to do. After all, most of my friends could no longer hang out, since they were just trying to survive. And they lived across town. Oh well, life sucks. "Mom, I'm going out, love you, bye." I said this wearily, knowing probably she wouldn't hear or care. She'd been depressed since the bomb. Walking out, I realized how strange it was that a sunny spring day could be so depressing. The now dead cars were grim reminders of what we had lost. I walked down Canyon, ignoring the many bums trying to get some help. Everyone was hard up now. The streets were filled with the homeless, the ones who'd been thrown out. The squatters. Of course, that's what we were, but whatever. It's funny the government was still trying to impose order, even though they were just as powerless as the rest of us . . . KATE GOES BACK IN TIME by EstherThe putrid smell of rotting meat reached my nose. I wanted to go outside and puke my guts out. I rolled off my stomach and on to my back. The smell was even stronger in this position. The cover over me was itchy. I pulled it off, but it was too cold. Stupid furnace must be broken. I thought. By the smell of it, the fridge was broken too. I rolled over to check my clock, but fell off a heap of fur onto a cave floor. It was freezing. This is not my bedroom. I thought as I hugged my teddy bear closer.
I heard a noise from where I had been sleeping. I went to the corner and something hit me. I was in a cave with someone, I didn't know, in my pajamas.
A sound came from the mound of fur, "Smaguu wake, wake." When I first woke up, I went to the bathroom. I went outside where it was freezing. I found the nearest tree. Without brushing my teeth or taking a shower, I dress into my animal skin rugs and get ready to hunt some deer of rabbit. After a few shots with my bow and arrow, breakfast is being cooked over the fire. After a hardy meal, I walk to my education facility which is a mile away. It is difficult to learn there because all the info is worthless and cannot be applied to real life anway. After school, my friends and I play Who Can Catch the Biggest Animal for Dinner. After lots of physical play, I go to sleep. MO(U)RNING by Kelly I lurched out of bed. Ug, I'm late again. Stupid alarm didn't go off. I glanced at the glowing red numbers of my alarm clock. Power must have gone out. I mused.
JUNIOR SESSION PATRICK'S DAY I woke up. My back was sore because I slept on a rock bed. I wore a polar bear coat and squirrel fur pants.
I woke up and went to the bathroom underground. I went outside for breakfast and had bugs and bug's milk.
Just Write Fall 2006 SENIOR SESSIONI believe in the Earth. I believe in the sky, The rain, And the fire. I believe in the galaxy that is our shield our Protection from the rest of the universe. I believe that everything will tell us what we need to know, from goddess to Carpet piles. and I hope to hell that we'll listen. The wind will blow in our ears whispering to us, the heat will tell us by its wrath, and the rain will tell us by its quantity. But will we listen? Will we hear? Or will we just Sit? quietly in our cars producing tons of carbon by the h/// Will we hear the cries of dying animals and the pleas of the wilting Plants? Will we c/// to be stubbornly deaf until all we love and care about has gone and our lives are on the line? Or can we pull ourselves Out, and learn from this experience? It all comes down to this in the end are we going to live or are we going to die? -Anonymous I believe I view the world through plexiglass; that there is a barrier between me and the rest of the world, which keeps me from fully understanding or relating to humanity as a whole, or even just a little. I believe it will never show when I am near, but only in some distant land, and by the time I get there it will be gone. Such is my lot in life. I believe that my life is like a book, which probably explains why I narrate everything I do inside my head and why I keep coming up with random ideas for stories which invade my mind until I try to write them down, and that's when they slip away. I believe I have no idea how to incorporate the word waterfall into this credo. -Anonymous Rain, sea, lightning, heart, beige clocks. I believe in rain falling, falling a never-ending euphony And I believe in lightning striking, striking a crashing there-and-gone silence And I believe in the seas rising, falling A slow and steady always-life The elements open hearts souls Tear them open, wound them And leave it to us to heal them And I believe in dreams coming,coming dreams of rain and lightning and seas dreams of the hurt and the healed inside me. But they believe in clocks Ticking ticking Drilling into me (but I still dream) -Averie In the beginning, there was only stardust, floating in the blackness of the universe. But the calm and peaceful void only served as a veil for what was truly happening in the cold and infinite space. For there was more than just stardust in reality. The two gods here at war with each other. They were J˙sh, the god of air and Fire and all that was light and good, with the body of the tiger, and Seimei, the god of earth and water and all that was dark and evil, with the head of a llama. And as their swords of elements clashed together, the heavens ran out with the sound of thunder. For thousands of years this war had lived and it would so for thousands more. And as J˙sh and Seimei's swords crashed together, the elements that make up the weapons come together and parts break off. They rain down and form planets full of life and death. And that is how this world came into being. And while the children sit at their school desks and the adults rush through their lives, J˙sh and Seimei continue to fight. But one day, one sword will be no more and that god shall loose the war they have created. But shall that ill-fated god be Seimei. or J˙sh? -Renee B. I believe in fantasy, which I know I will find for real someday. I believe in love and the sweet feeling it brings like the soft pelting of rain. I believe in courage and that weakness has no place in a person's soul. I believe in anger, the veil that hides everything you don't want to be seen. I believe in strength, and the hardness it lends a person when they need something to protect them, like a school desk a child crawls under during an earthquake. I believe that everything has a soul, even wolves, llamas, trees, flowers, saints, murderers. I believe we all come from the same place and will all return there, to the star dust that creates us all. I believe in revenge, for nothing should go unpunished. And, most importantly, I believe in myself. Because nothing is more important. -Renee B. A grotesque wind twists around the temple a buddha rests inside, a horrible mockery of peace a lemon filled mouth snarls at passerbys feet caught in blocks of cold ice a pointed crown catches rusty maple leaves from darkly leaden sky --Nick JUNIOR SESSIONSo Many Questions! Poems Inspired by Pablo Neruda's Book of Questions Who started time? |
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