Third Short Story: Time Keeper

“Tony, play the voicemail for me, yeah?”

“Hi, darling. I’m coming home late so I’ll call for a pizza delivery. There’s a twenty in the fridge underneath the yogurt cups. You and Danny like pepperoni, right? Should I get that or cheese? You see, darling, this is what happens when you don’t pick up your phone: your poor mother, aka me, has to make all these decisions on her own. But guess what, darling? There’s this nice lady from the office. I think you've met her before when you and Danny visited me at the office a couple of years ago. She was demoted to the fourth floor today. Isn't that crazy? You would think the manager would promote her, but he says there’s too many people on our floor, at least that’s what I think he said. There’s only about eight or ten of us left on our floor including me, but I think he’s thinking of sending someone down to work as the replacement reception center person, whatever you call that. The reception lady broke her leg. I think it was when she was walking down the stairs last night and she’s still at the hospital right now too, but not the one I’m at because I think she broke her leg at the office or at her house. I’m not quite sure, but I do know that her husband’s friend’s cousin’s godmother’s grandson’s girlfriend’s aunt is expecting soon. I heard that they want to have a baby shower in December, but I really don’t know what to bring when I get the invitation. I mean, I shouldn't get something normal or extraordinary. What do you think I should get, Tony? Oh, and while I'm on the topic, where is your brother? He won't answer the phone either and I need--”

Beep.

“Hey, Danny. Get the keys for me, yeah?”

“Get it yourself.”

Second Short Story: For Whom the War Ends

She sat there, unmoving, as rolls of thunder sounded, as sheets of rain poured, as streaks of lightning flashed, and as the ancient house crumbled. It wasn't in her place to shed tears, but she did so along with the young ones who were lucky enough to be saved before the raid. Wet, charred grass fluttered weakly in the bellows of the wind, and a little girl, the last of the four there were before this, lost in confusion and sorrow, stood to run back to the house. A boy rushed to stop the girl from leaving their place behind the fallen trees and he pulled her down to escape the patrolling soldiers' sharp eyes.

She realized the alarming conclusion that she would have to lead the children to safety and protect them. Despite her experience in the war, she could not possibly take care of six boys and a girl with a traitor of the Crown's military to help. She felt a firm hand clasp her shoulder and looked back. The man she had grown to care deeply for despite his rugged appearance and his awkward demeanor crouched low next to her and gave her a smile she knew to meant to encourage her. She couldn't help but let her guard down and she leaned in to give a swift kiss on his cheek.

"Victoria, we'll pull through this together."

Yes, even though she was still only a teenager, and he much younger than she was, they would, in some way, end the suffering for the children, and if not for the children, then for each other.

Fourth Short Story: Stones and Wishes

"Sir? Kevin invited me over to his family's vacation house. May I go?" I shift in my beat up sneakers. Max continues to read the evening newspaper and guzzling his beer as if I didn't just speak. "Sir?"

"Max?" Mom pats his shoulder hesitantly. "The Woos invited Erin to their vacation house. Can she go?" She repeats my words, now warped in her too-sweet honeyed voice.

He puts the newspaper and bottle down on the dining table and glares at me, then at Mom. "Why should I let you hang around with such riffraff?" he sneers. "Haven't you seen enough of their shabby old apartment to know that they're conning you?"

I grit my teeth and bite down the sharp retort. "Sir—"

Mom cuts in. "Honey, you're confusing them with the Lee's," she tries to sooth him and sets a new bottle in front of him. "The Woos own that law firm downtown."

He hums mockingly as if in deep thought. "No."

I deflate dejectedly and walk back to the kitchen for some juice.

"Max, it's only for the summer. She'll be perfectly fine," Mom says. I hear her clear as day on the last step. "Think of—"

"For God's sake, Jessica, I said no!" He slams his hands on the table. "You've already sent Henry off with his friends to God-knows-where! She goes nowhere!"

Panic grips my neck, intent on putting me into a headlock.

"Max, they're fine—" Mom doesn't finish as a loud smack—hand on cheek—resounds from the dining room to where I stand frozen. I squeeze my glass hard.

"I said no," he hisses, "and you'll do well to obey me."

Crash! The glass bursts in my hands and showers the white tiles. I ignore that and the worried exclamations from my mother. I pass a sinister-looking Max on the way to the bathroom for a first aid kit.

"Punk," he jeers as I go by.

---

Mom releases me with a final "careful, baby girl" and I curl up in my bed as she shuts the door. I turn over on my side and stare wistfully at the empty, pristine bed on the other side. Henry.

Every day in the house goes about the same way in the summer. Wake up call at six; breakfast at seven; Max leaves at eight; Mom leaves at eight fifteen; lunch at noon; everyone home at four; dinner at five; room at nine; and lights out at ten. Nothing much changes here.

After Max and Mom leave for the day, I return to my room and stare at the ceiling, turning the wish stone in my hand. I dismiss the pebbles pelting my window as local mischief-makers, the insistent doorbell chimes as door-to-door sales representatives, and the continuous cell phone vibrations as desperate company adverts.

I know they aren't, but it makes it easier to cope with.

I don't leave my bed for the rest of the day ("You're just as bad as the rest of them!") and when the clock reads 10:30, I slip my shoes on and tiptoe to my window. I yank it open, stopping for a moment to let the cool Chicago night breeze drift into my room full of pent up frustration. I sling my legs over and leap onto the trampoline lying in the lawn.

I climb off and walk as calmly as I can down the familiar road to the house that feels more like home to me than Max's house. I reach the tall tree in the yard where a rope hangs from a low, sturdy branch. I take it in my hands and heave myself up the twelve feet worth of tree trunk and seat myself on the branch.

I move closer to the wooden planks and lift myself into the tree house. A sleepy figure catches my eye and I grin, knowing full well that he has anticipated this. I scoot over next to him and lay my head on his shoulder in exhaustion.

"Night, Kevin."

"Night, Rin."

My smile doesn't leave my face, and I drift off into a dreamless sleep.

---

I open my eyes at the youthful age of thirteen to a welcoming sun at high noon in the city of Miami. I gaze at the beautiful wish stone in my palm and sigh.

"Erin, darling! How're you doing?" The social worker, Miss Suzy, waves at me with a bright beaming face as she runs by to my mom's new office.

I answer with a "fine" and stand up from the bench. Tired from sitting all day, I take a short stroll in the park. I chance a look behind me and all too suddenly, my heart skips several beats. One. Two. Five. What happened to three and four?

A tall man in seemingly in his twenties brushes my shoulder as I stop. The books in my hands tumble out and I scramble for them. As I near the last few books, someone from behind me picks them up and hands them to me.

"Here, you'll need these, I presume."

I squint my eyes at him. "Thanks, I guess."

---

"How was your day, darling?" Mom asks as she sets the plates on the table. "I heard you went to the library, took out some books."

I shrug. "I had homework."

"Over the summer?" She looks at me questioningly.

I nod. "Mrs. Hwang gave us a research paper to finish. I'm almost done with it, though." This earns me a wide beam from Mom. "I'll have weeks to help you out at the firm and extra time to finish my art projects at the studio."

"Don't overwork yourself, baby girl."

---

I don't think I'll ever find him. The phone directories don't have him listed after the year I had left and even the neighbors don't know where he's gone.

"Erin, baby girl, let's go. It's cold and you're getting leaves in your hair," Mom calls from the car.

I nod and leave the pay phone.

"Did you find him?"

I shake my head.

Mom sighs and closes her eyes in exhaustion. "Where in the blue blazes could that kid have gone?"

---

"Where is he? Where is he, Max?"

Max makes a zipping motion across his lips and smirks. "I don't have to tell you anything."

I cower against the pillar as Mom tries to weasel the answer from Max. The security officer looks like he wants to drag Max and Mom to their rightful places but for the fear of scaring me any further he doesn't.

"I won't stop until I find out, Max. I hope you know that."

"Oh, I do, Jessica. I do know, and I know it well, but you're no closer to knowing than before you came strutting in like you own the place."

"I don't strut, Max."

"Sure you don't," he says sarcastically.

The security officer finally steps in and drags Max away without so much as a warning.

I take Mom's arm and gently tug her to the door. "Come on. We can figure it out, Mom, and we'll bring him home with us before Christmas."

First Short Story: Ever is a Long Time

He doesn't know anything: where they're taking him, who is taking him, or why him of all people on earth. All he knows is that it'll be a long time before he can see his family ever again. And he knows that ever is a long time.

Thunder wakes up in a damp cave, how much later of which he isn't sure. There’s a fire at one wall and shabby furniture looking as if piled at the other wall. He turns his head to an odd crinkling sound. A girl, hunched over and wearing dirty rags, kneels next to a chair and crumples up a small wrapper. Food.

He’s suddenly aware of his hunger; it sneaks up on him like a serpent and strikes him when he should be expecting it but isn't; it frustrates him to see a small pile of granola bar pieces stacked on a piece of cloth, which looks as if it came from the girl’s clothes, sitting next to his hand. He tries to sit up and clutches his head when he flops back down involuntarily, shutting his eyes. Something pokes his lips.

“Here.” He parts them and opens his eyes to see that the girl is holding a straw and a can of some sort of soup in her outstretched hands. “Drink,” she encourages him in a hoarse rasp. “Not poisoned. Try. Had some crackers.” She shrugs. “Gone now.”

He doesn't know what to make of her broken English, but heeds her order anyways. Although the soup tastes watered down, he sips it slowly and blatantly watches the girl. When he finishes, she doesn't go away. Instead, she sets the can and straw on the strip of cloth and picks up a chunk of granola bar. She feeds him with her own hands, completely disregarding his normal need for personal space.

“Where am I?” he asks when he swallows the last piece.

She doesn’t make a noise as she stands up to put the can and straw on a rickety table. He begins to think that she doesn't know what to say until she speaks once again. “Don't know.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Don’t know.”

He holds her steady gaze and feels a sense dread creep into his chest. “Do you have a name?”

She tilts her head at the sturdy metal door. “Kid. They call me ‘kid’.”

“What do I call you?”

She shrugs hopelessly. “Anything you want.”

Time passes and passes and passes. Thunder, not used to not having anything at all to do other than survive, resorts to categorizing bits of dirt, gravel, and sand. In the corner he sits in, he reaches the conclusion that there is less dirt than gravel and less gravel than sand. He brushes off the particles to the best of his ability and twists his upper body around to see what the girl is doing.

She remains by the fire, tending to it with a long metal rod as if her life depends on it, and never fails to blink twice on every count of six as she does so. Even with the light cast from the fire, parts of the cave are still submerged in semi-darkness.

The metal door swings open noisily and the girl stands quickly, motioning to him to do the same. A man strides in and smiles smugly with a dirty mouth, showing stained yellow teeth and blackish spots near his bleeding red gums. His stiff wool shirt pulls tight over his protruding stomach and his starched pants drag along the dusty ground of the passageway.

Thunder shudders from his stance and copies the girl’s position with his hands behind his head and knees shoulder-width apart.

The man begins to yell in a mix of languages Thunder’s never heard of before. He watches in unmasked horror as the man jerks the girl up to her feet and drags her away while she screams at Thunder not to move. He stays there paralyzed in fear until the door closes behind them. Too late to do anything, he lowers his head in shame.

Much later, the door opens again and someone tosses the girl into the room. Thunder rises from his spot and cries out indignantly as he wrestles her hands from her face. Bruises larger than the size of his own fists discolor her pale arms and a series of five cuts each about the length of his index finger mars each side of her face.

“No worry. Not cri-ti-cal,” she stumbles over the pronunciation as Thunder retrieves a first aid kit from underneath the table. “Careful. Very little dis-in-fec-tant.” He tears off the cuff of his sleeve and folds it so that he can use the clean side of it. Slowly, he dabs at the cuts with a few drops of disinfectant.

“Does this happen often?”

A nod.

“By that guy?”

A shrug.

“Multiple people?”

A nod.

She sits up, supported by Thunder’s arms. “They won't get you, promise.”

“Promise.”

Thunder protests when the girl offers him three-quarters of a can of beans, their second meal since Thunder had woken. They compromise finally on the girl eating half but it does nothing to atone Thunder's guilt. She teaches him how to tell when it is day or night with the dampness of the cracks in the walls. He teaches her English by emptying an old sandbag and using a broken chair leg to write in the sand.

They start keeping track of how long Thunder has been in the cave. Every night adds another strike made by a sharp piece of glass on the floor. It takes him seven tries to sharpen the glass enough to make a noticeable strike, but the girl tells him it's worth it, and just like that, he stops to smile at the ice-cold stone floor as warmth flushes across his face.

"How long has it been?" he croaks as he pushes himself up on weakening arms and makes a grab for the water canteen. He hears some shuffling at the other end of the cave.

"Rain." The girl's voice holds so much despair in the single syllable that it makes Thunder choke mid-swallow.

"What rain? You can tell the weather from the inside of a cave?"

She shakes her head frantically, hands clamped over her mouth and despair reflected in her clear blue eyes, and as Thunder stands she looks down at the spot near the cave wall where the strikes are carved.

"Gone. All gone."

Thunder doesn't know when the last time he's truly cried but he does know it's been a long time since then. He doesn't mind though, soothing the girl through his own tears and hiccups as she blames herself for never doing a good enough job for anything.

He hushes her and strokes her hair with a steady hand. "I shouldn't have chosen somewhere that is so vulnerable to being washed away. I should have done better."

"My fault," she repeats.

"No, it's not your fault. Nothing is your fault. I promise," he continues as she finally stops crying. "It's okay."

She tilts her head up and looks at him with a broken expression. "Promise?"

"Promise."

That night, he stays by her side singing and whispering as she sleeps with her head resting on his lap.

"I'll keep my promises. I promise. I really do, Jin-sok*. I really do."

Principle to Keep

I think that an important principle to keep is the principle to act on sympathy or that of humanity. Reading The Road, I found that the man does not act on his sympathy for others. He puts his son's safety above all else and, in doing so, he creates this sort of distortion in his judgement where no matter what happens, he will consider his son first and only his son. Later in the book, we read that they do give aid to an old man, and that the man only did so because his son begged for them to help the old man.

This also brings up the concept of humanity. I saw in Keduse's post (reason why I'm posting this late) that he considers "lending a hand when needed" to be part of being humane. I respectfully disagree. Not to be critical of Keduse's statement, I just want to say that some people may not group the two in the same broad idea. Humanity, to many people including me, means giving back to the community and giving to the people who deserve it. "Lending a hand when needed" may have led to the man giving aid to the old man struck by lightning or the people who were half-eaten. The son held onto the humanity that his father did not have, but nearing the end we see that he starts to become more like his father through isolation. How the son views the world is based on his fears and his father's influence.

Also, we discussed this in class several times (and is also mentioned in Keduse's post, just an FYI) but I don't consider murder/killing/the taking of a life to be the loss of one's humanity. If we take Adolf Hitler as an example, we can say he was a hero to Nazi Germany. I'm not saying that I approve of his course of action or his way of thinking. I'm making the point that everyone has their own opinions and most of Germany held Hitler in a high position because he was able to make the country a world power once again and he was able to boost the citizens' morale (albeit with horrifying costs). It's all part of perceptiveness, seeing things as one wants to see things or as what one knows how to see things.

Thankful for ___________

Well, I had some problems when thinking about this blog. First, who should I write about? Second, what should I write about that person? Third, why am I even writing this all out here to begin with? Such a fail...

Anyway, I decided to thank everybody for a great year so far. However, I'd like to thank Jonathon Marek especially. 

Thanks for supporting my goal to become a better writer. You've made my year much more enjoyable knowing that I have a friend to have fun with.

You always seem to know what to say to brighten up my mood after a horrible start to the day.

You never fail to make me laugh when we're just hanging out.

We may not agree on everything, but we never fight (seriously) and if we have a disagreement, we always find a solution and never stay angry at each other for long.

You always respond to my jokes even when they're really, really, really, really bad (like, really).

You're a great help with math team and even when things get a bit rowdy, you never try to drag me into sticky situations that would get me kicked off by association.

Thanks for being a great friend, Jonathon! :) And sorry for not doing you justice with this.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone :D