Two of Us, p. 2

July 1967

“Cellophane flowers of yellow and green towering over your head. Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes, and she’s gone”.

He and I were sprawled on my bedroom floor, laughing until we cried and stuffing ourselves with Gummi bears – the red ones for him, the green ones for me. We had different shiny black records scattered across the floor, and on the turntable was “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, The Beatles’ latest album. We had pooled our money to buy it on the release date exactly one week ago, and we’d listened to it almost nonstop since.

Despite our age difference, my brother and I were best friends. I was fourteen in the summer of ’67, and he was 18, and heading off to college in two months. Paul was going to study creative writing and journalism to be a writer. I was planning on studying music when I was of age. We would always be best friends.

We joked about teachers and neighbors and had deep discussions about music. I declared a Gummi bear war. I began pelting the tiny green bears at him, some sticking to his shirt and hair. He laughed a laugh so hearty and worthy of a hug that I climbed over and tackled him, and ate a bear off his shoulder.

---

I’d never had much luck making friends at school. I was always alone every lunch hour except on Tuesdays, when Paul and I had the same lunch. When the buzz of the lunch bell rang on the other four days, though, I made my way down the crowded halls to the music room, which was always unoccupied. I would fill the empty place where friends were supposed to be with sonatas and concertos. There had been amity between my fingers and the ivory keys since I was six years old, a little prodigy.

Claire de Lune p.3

Just outside the apartment building, there was a cobblestone courtyard. A timeless wrought-iron fence stretched all around, making the building look like Cinderella’s house more than an apartment complex. The sun warmed the small puddles from the rain that had been sent to earth the night before. Two small feel stood in the puddle directly outside the old wooden door with misted-glass windows. The feet overlapped a little, and Anna rubbed one on top of the other in the puddle. From the far side of the yard, old Mrs. Lavalle stood in her garden of Eden, tall and stately. The woman was widowed eight years prior. She herself had no grandchildren; she fussed and worried over Anna like only a grandmother would. On the days when Anna didn’t show up in the courtyard at precisely 11 A.M., Mrs. Lavalle marched upstairs with a pot of steaming hot chicken soup to Anna’s top floor apartment. At eighty-two years old, the old woman was still running strong.

This day, Mrs. Lavalle stood up from pruning her forsythias to find Anna lingering just outside the door. As she watched, she took note of Anna’s fidgetiness - how she rubbed her feet together, how she twirled her wrists around and around, and how she slightly swayed back and forth in place. Anna’s eyes were thoughtful, frightened-looking, haunted, as if to walk out the gate, Anna would lose herself all together.

Claire de Lune p. 2

She owned only two pairs of shoes for dire occasions, but most days she walked around the city barefoot. She lived alone, but was well acquainted with the neighbors in the other apartments and the shop owners of her favorite bakeries and shops. She walked the streets of Paris and the stopped to gaze at her. She was beautiful, graceful, and said hello to nearly everyone she passed. She spoke fluent French, English, and Russian. She spent her days in the streets of Paris, in the shops and galleries. Yet this girl had no close friends; she was seen walking out to the mail truck to deliver three letters to the man personally once a week, but no one knew to whom they were addressed. She was friendly and kind-hearted and happy. Everyone who met eighteen year old Anna fell in love with her.

Anna laid her brush down and walked out of the room, leaving the door open so she could hear the music while she readied to go out. It was 11 A.M. and time for her to go out to do her daily rounds around the city. She distractedly ran a brush through her hair, combing back the wavy, semisweet chocolate locks. Her feet danced as she went into the kitchen and grabbed herself a danish, handmade from her favorite bakery down the street. Danish in hand, she walked out of the apartment and down the stairs into the warm sun.

Preghiere p.1

[I don't have a photo for this one since by the time I'd had the idea, I'd left the library at Biola University, where the real prayer wall is]

There were hundreds of notes in hundreds of colors in hundreds of different hands.

Pray for Andrew. Written in blue crayon, loopy cursive.

Pray for Africa. Written in teal marker, chicken-scratch.

Pray for my best friend, that she’d come to know God. Written in blue nail polish, bubbly print.

Pray for Claire, whose father left her. Written in black colored pencil, the obvious handwriting of a boy.

Dear God, please help me stop hurting myself.

Dear God, please help me turn away.

Dozens of people visited the wall everyday to write down their prayers on the large sheet of grey canvas that stretched across the wall at the University. The wall provided a place of undivided and anonymous union for all the students at the University. Once a week, a group of students gathered in the morning and spend the day praying by the wall. They prayed for the notes written there. All of them.

Currently Untitled, part I

It was the kind of day she’d loved most. God had etched across the sky with charcoal, and the air smelled of dirt and wet tar and grass. Rain fell from the clouds in inconsistent showers all day. It was a day in early May; as the rain fell it gave new life to the flowers and the trees. And the people.

The house was old and beautiful. It stood on a hill on the eastern side of town, overlooking the small little town that was stuck in the past - old buildings and old cars and old people, people who’d lived their whole lives there and raised their children there and would never dream of leaving. They called this place home. They fished in its lake and shopped in its stores; life there was as peaceful as it’d get in America.

He walked the upstairs hallway of the house. He listened to the rain, paid attention to its smell, its sound. Some of the windows were open, letting in the fresh Spring air. The hallway was filled with too many memories. He’d already felt ardent walking into the house, now he looked at her door, open slightly ajar, and felt an ache in his heart. It was as if her spirit filled the house, like she never left. He knew she was watching him, so he talked to her every day. His life revolved around her, even though she was gone.

“Hi, Sophie,” he murmured. “I miss you.”

He opened the door.

It was exactly as it had been since he’d last been there, a little over a year ago. Except neater. Her parents weren’t the type to leave a room exactly as it had been for sentimental purposes. Her bed had been made - the light green quilt pulled neatly into place over the twin bed. Any books that had been astray had been placed ordered alphabetically on the tall bookshelf in the corner; all except one - Anna Karenina, which had been placed on the bedside table, its corner lined up perfectly with the corner of the table.

Claire de Lune, part I

She was wearing a pale yellow sundress that came to precisely one inch above her knee. It had a silky slip underneath and a sheer layer over it, covered in tiny olive green flowers that danced when she moved. The dress hugged her torso ever so slightly and came out in a flowing A-line that made her look double as graceful when she walked. The neckline dipped in slightly; the sheer straps of it made her bird-like collarbone look elegant. She sat on the aging wood floor with her legs tucked to the side under her. The room caught the light in the most brilliant way, shining onto her brown hair, making it look the color of melted semisweet chocolate. Her locks were pinned up in a messy bun. The room was bare of all furniture; only a wise-looking record player sat in the corner, on top of a few white sheets laid out messily over the floor. The air was embellished with the sweet sounds of Debussy and Vivaldi, playing from shiny black records stacked next to the player. She bit on the end of a wooden paint brush, staring at the white wall in front of her, a black gaze in her eyes, something haunting. The tip of the brush was dipped in a deep red, but she wasn’t painting. The end of the brush had minuscule dents in the wood from her teeth. All that was heard was the sweet lurking sounds of Debussy’s Claire de Lune.

Two of Us, part I

[This short story is written in segments, each segment switching back and forth between two times. I will be posting each segment separately, so this one is pretty short.]

July 1969

I used to organize. I used to organize time. I used to organize space. I used to organize people. I used to be happy. I used to believe there were no wrongs. I used to believe I wasn’t dirty with sin. Sin does not exist exclusively in religions. There is always sin. There always will be. People murder. People rape. People run.