life in slow motion + a story i wrote!

Posted Sunday 20 June, 2010 @ 3:33 AM.
Filed under life, stories. 1 comment.

I have the feeling where the days are just going to drag on and on, and all of a sudden, I will have a crazy busy day and stuff I should have remembered to do, and everything will be happening so fast. Like I need to look into colleges and driving, and for some reason I remember this at the last minute, after surfing youtube for hours.

Update on June 26: Hihi, since I don’t have much to report except that I almost went to a bonfire on Friday, but we ended up getting lost on our way and just drove back home (the car ride was kind of an adventure XD) I shall post this short story that I just wrote. I can explain it later if you don’t fully understand it and wish to

Her bulletin board looked almost as it had when her mother had taken it out of the plastic packaging: bare, the corkboard still fresh without any new holes made by differently colored pins. It had a thick black frame to attach it to the wall and hold the corkboard in place. It even came with pins, little round colored balls stuck to the end of the sharp objects, to stick notes and other memorabilia to the wall. They clustered in the bottom left corner, unnecessary for the lack of anything worth bulletining. The board just waited on her wall, waited to be filled and turned into something worthwhile, instead of taking up space so the walls wouldn’t look so bare. Sometimes her mother would come in, baring clean laundry to be put away, and then look up at the board and sigh. She thought she had been doing something nice when she bought it, but ah well, at least it had been on sale. So there it hung, unattended and unnoticed, gathering dust on the top of the frame.

Then one day, there was something there: a strip of photos, four in total, from one of those photo booths at malls or amusement parks. It was her, smiling, then looking serious, then making a face, and then in mid-laugh. It was also someone else with her, almost an exact replica of herself, but older by a couple years, a bit more tired around the edges. It was stuck on the bulletin board almost exactly dead center, noteworthy and immediate, something that could draw a person’s eye to it by just scanning the room. When the room was cluttered up with junk and school work and an unmade bed fitted against a wall, the board looked clean and important, those small photos surveying the room in a giddy manner.

Then one day, the room was cleaned, the bed was made, the trashcan was full, and the strip of photos had been torn from its mantle. All that remained, hanging on a pin like a hook, was a key. Underneath it was a sticky note, with messy handwriting scrawled precariously. It may have been your decision, but now it’s mine. I won’t need this anymore. Her school backpack was gone from the floor. Her toothbrush and toothpaste left their spot on the sink in the bathroom. She hadn’t been able to lock the door of the house behind her.

When her mother came home from work and only had to turn the doorknob, she raced upstairs to her daughter’s room. The first thing she took in was the absence of the photograph strip on the bulletin board. The second thing she took in was what took its place. And the third thing she did was cry, a helpless cry that couldn’t bear to be trapped inside her frame any longer. She cursed confiscating her daughter’s phone only days earlier. She wept to her younger, stupid self.

Then silently, she grasped the key from the board, walked with heavy footsteps downstairs, stepped out the door, and locked it. She stood hunched over for an eternity. Her watch screen blinked, a minute passed. The sticky note on the bulletin board fluttered down to the bedroom floor, and the corkboard wasteland stood empty once again.

Another Update on June 26 (a couple hours later): I sat myself down and finally finished my online course to get a driving permit! Yes! Only 4 errors in the final test too, haha. So now I can finally start learning to drive behind the wheel. This is gonna be a good summer