Life

Well here is another one. So now were at one a day... over two days, not bad. I guess.

----------------------------


They were sitting in a circle. Some on the floor, some on the couch. Ethan sat on the couch a guitar in hand, slowly strumming, nothing specific, just random chords. Emily sat beside him, her knees to her chin hodling herself tight, wrapped in his random strumming, writing random lyrics in her mind to go with his random strumming. Heather lay on her back on the floor, her head resting in Timothy's lap. He was going on about the issues in her life, how everything was becoming complicated, and how she hated growing up. Timothy simply listened, acting as a good friend. Charlie sat cross-legged in front of the coffee table, completly engrossed in what he was doing. He had a mission. A mission to craft something perfect. So he sat in front of the coffee table seperated from everyone else, rolling a joint. The perfect joint, because he believed if it was going to be their last it might as well be their best.He surrounded by papers he had discarded in his quest for the perfect roll. Usually they all would have been upset by such waste, but not tonight. Tonight they were all searching for perfection, and they were determine to get it no matter what the cost.
Ethan stopped strumming, and leaned to grab his glass of wine from the coffee table. He smelt the wine, and to him it didn't smell all too different than any other wine he had ever smelt. He sipped it slowly, savouring it. Nothing special, he thought, at least in taste, but it was special. It was the bottle of wine his parents had left him. The only bottle they had ever left them. They had left him much more; money, a house, toys, but only one bottle of wine had survived the fire that ad killed them. It was this bottle they drank from. A bottle bottled the year he had been born, a bottle which had survived the same fire he had. This bottle, to him, symbolized his life and he had decided long ago that he would drink it the night when the part of his life they shared was over. He had decided long ago that that would be the night he got engaged. He sipped the wine again, enjoying it. Goodbye my brother, he whispered.
Emily moved the guitar off of Ethan's lap, she placed it with love against the armrest of the couch. She moved up to Ethan, crawled under his arm and squeezed it with all the love and strength she could muster. She let go of his arm and drew her knees up to herself, placing her feet under her bottom. She held her hand up and stared at it. She kept catching the light in her new diamond ring, forcing her to squint. She was happy. She moved her head back, kiss Ethan's neck, and whispered into his ear, I love you.
Heather, looked up at Timothy, who was still listening to every word she said. She had just realized that she was simply talking for the sake of talking and that she didn't need to anymore. But more importantly, she realized, Timothy still listened to everything she said, not caring if it was gibberrish or random complaining. He listened, he always did. He was the best friend she could ever have. At least that what she had always thought. Since high school thay had always hung out, sharing every detail of their lives together. He knew everything about her, and vice versa. Every time her heartbroke he was there, and she had only realized something just now. Today. Something that had taken nearly ten years for her to realize. She loved him, more than she could ever love anyone else. She looked into his eyes, deep blue, big, loving. I love you, she said. Echoing her favorite line from their favorite movie he simply said, I know.
Timothy was happy, obviously. A girl he had loved for years had finally admitted her love to him. He realized that this was significant in his life. But this night he had his own goal in mind, that goal involved him not thinking about anything. He always wasted his time thinking about the future, worrying about what to do next or what his life would bring. Over-thinking had always led to issues in his life, they would not anymore. Tonight he would shut off his brain. Let his emotions control him, let his heart do the thinking, that was the plan. He leaned down and kissed Heather on the head. He moved her head off his lap and lay down next to her, he held her close.
Charlie had finished rolling his perfect joint. He lit it took three drags and let them fill his lungs, he exhaled, and for the first time ever he didn't cough. Perfect, he thought. He passed the joint and looked at all his friends. Yes, this was perfect, at least to him. He had fulfilled his goal, to give his friends a perfect end.
Outside a falling star appeared in the sky. It was no regular shooting star. It was massive. Twice the size of Texas they had said. This was the end, but in that appartment Ethan, Emily, Heather, Timothy and Charlie had done it right.

Sliver

Well it has been for ever since I wrote here, but I am back and I have a brand new story that I wrote today. That's right straight from the page to you. Enjoy.
P.S. I just checked and saw that the last time I added anything is was almost exactly a year ago. Egads!

----------------------------

He hadn't been expecting this. He never thought he would come home to find his place half empty.He didn't realize what was going on at first. He had opened the door and saw that stuff was missing and he freaked out. He ran around his appartment, his heart beating a mile a minute, his thoughts flying through his brain. He didn't know what to do, he was barely registering what was missing. Then he noticed something on the floor. A simple picture frame, fallen from a sidetable. The frame was cracked and the glass fell to the floor as he picked it up. It was a picture of him and Amanda, his girlfriend, the love of his life. He kissed the photo and put it back in its place on the side table. Calmer now he looked around and slowly started to realize something. He hadn't been robbed. There was no way. No one would come to his place and not take his computer, his television, his guitars. Safe for the frame nothing was broken, there was no sign of being robbed. But still stuff was missing. And then it dawned on him. It was her stuff. All of her stuff, gone. Nothing had been stolen, she had simply taken all of her stuff and left. She had said nothing about it to him. There was no note anywhere in the appartment. All he knew was that none of her stuff remained. He thought back to the photoframe on the floor and he realized that that had been the note. That was her goodbye, her way of ending three years of what he always had thought of as undying love. He picked up the glass shards, sat on the floor and cried. A small sliver of glass slipped into his toe, her parting gift.

He sat at a booth towards the back of the bar. Alone. Though he didn't think he was alone. He sat surrounded by empty bottles and happy memories. Memories were all he had left. He had blown hundreds of dollars sitting in that booth. His emotions fluctuating, hitting brutal lows and dizzying highs. He sat there now, a bottle of rum in his hand and tears streaming down his face. He thought of their first date, the first time they met, the first concert they did together. He took a heavy swig from the bottle. Straight, he wanted it to burn on the way down, he wanted to punish himself. He knew he must have done something wrong, so he punished himself, thinking that if he went through enough pain she'd forgive him, come back, move her stuff back in and be happy with him. So he sat there, punishing himself with rough cheap alcohol, the kind that taste like nail polisher remover and burns twice as bad, apologizing to an empty seat. It wasn't empty to him, he saw her there, smiling back at him. He apologized and apologized, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. Nervously he reached out and placed the box in front of her, with his right hand he held her hand and with his left hand he opened the box and asked her to marry him. Asked an empty seat to marry him. Asked a memory to marry him. Held the air's hand. She looked at the box, closed her eyes, looked at him, and sighed. She seemed to be about to speak, but nothing came out, she sighed again, got up and walked away, towards the door, towards oblivion. He stood to follow her, but the sliver in his toe stabbed further in and he sat back down, appreciating the pain of her last gift.

Two hours later he had decided what to do. He would leave, disappear, start a new life. There was nothing here for him, no family, all of his friends were her friends. Without her his career was over, just another musician in a big city, utterly pedestrian. So he got up walked over to the bar and settled his bill. He stepped out the door into the blistering sunlight and walked. He knew what he would do, he would go to the spaceport, he would get on the first shuttle and become a colonist, it was so simple, a brand new life, as far away as possible. The spaceport was a beautiful building, five-stories of beautiful curved steel and glass. The walk through the city had been nice, comforting like a warm sweater. He had seen the spaceport in the distance and he was filled with excitement and wonder as he approached it. He was filled with uncontrollable joy, knowing that his loss was not for nothing, that it had given him a noble goal. The pain of the sliver of glass in his toe was nothing more than a reminder of his new direction, his soon to be new life. The spaceport was as beautiful inside as out, a beautiful piece of art made of glass and steel, curved into shapes far from Euclidean. The woman at the counter was very kind and asked few questions, simply directing him to a colonist preparation officer, who ran his papers and explained what his new life would be like. He was informed that the preparations would take several days, and that they would start whenever he wanted. They gave him time to go home gather things he wished to bring with him and say goodbye to those he loved. He told them there was no need to wait, and followed the officer to the medical wing of the spaceport to have be subjected to medical evaluation. He walked towards his new life knowing that the last act of his old life would be removing that splinter of glass from his toe, removing that final painful memory of her.

Two lovers out walking their dogs found him. Face down in a snow-drift, unconscious, shaking, barely breathing. By the time the ambulance got there there was no chance. He died on the way to the hospital. There was no spaceport, no colonies, no other life. His life had hit a road block and he decided to give up on that life, and start a new one. He never learnt that there is no way out, that your life is your life. He imagined a way out and ended up wandering into a cold February day with no coat, or hat, or even long sleeves. He died thinking he had escaped, but he never did. His parents identified his body. The friends he didn't think he had showed up at his funeral, weeping, missing him. At his autopsy the coroner removed a tiny sliver of glass from his toe. He was buried without it. His new life had come, but only now, in death.