Thursday, August 2, 2007
[Life Imitating Art] Hanging By A Moment

Hanging By A Moment

It’s good to have you back, Hawkeye. The nickname, gleaned from an anime, seemed familiar to her ears, her brown eyes widened slightly as a response to it.

My feelings exactly. She nodded and her ponytail bounced a little.

I, we…we’ve really missed you back at the office. The stutter she obviously brushed off as clumsiness, knowing that once upon a time she had been the one to watch after that, that clumsiness. She never did comment on it.

Did you like it…over there? The question hung, unanswered. She shook her head slightly.

I missed this place, the people. The atmosphere. The speed and dreams of that faction could only interest me for awhile. I do have some habits though, from back there. I hope you don’t mind them. She said calmly, fluffing her hair. She was different now, more grown-up yet maybe less frigid. It was as if the relief of returning to where she felt she belonged had given her some temporary state of warmth.

Hey, if it lets me get away with slacking once in awhile, why not? She rolled her eyes and shook her head again. Her smile, however, was friendly.

Not a chance.

So how’s it been then? Posed with genuine concern, masked with a layer of cool. She smiled, shrugging, a gesture she never used to toy with before.

Fine. The atmosphere was too cold. I was altogether ignored and my efforts to make contact were brushed aside. It was insulting, to a point. She said, not concerned that what she was saying could be considered libel.

Well…you’ll never get that here, Hawkeye, I can assure you of that. She laughed, hearing the old nickname repeated again.

Must you still call me that? She asked. A shrug was her response.

It used to suit you…I think it still will.

Oh? How so? She raised an eyebrow, an inquisitive gesture.

Well…it just did. The moment of almost-swallowed pride still stands there. This entire conversation is hanging by a moment, the moment it would take for all the things left unsaid when she left. Now she was back, there was another chance to say them.

Only not now, not now.

“I suppose you should get resettled…” I trailed off, unable to think of how to continue. She nodded.

“Yes, I will. Thank you, Chase.” Her smile will be something to get used to. It won’t make anything any easier, but it’s a welcome change.

“Welcome back, Nicole.” Now’s the time to say it! Now’s the time. But I shut my mouth and walked away. I turned around and waved, she waved back…with a bit of hesitation. It was as if she was waiting for me to say something.

Perhaps she was. If so, I really did blow it. Everything I wanted to say was hanging by a moment and I never cut it loose. She left before I found the courage…and I gathered it because I never expected her to return. But now she’s back.

Thank you for standing behind me, even when I seemed impossible. Thank you for believing in me, even when it all seemed improbable. Thank you for everything…I love you. Please don’t leave me again.

I shrugged my shoulders and entered my office, slamming the door behind me. In a second she came to my door, with sugared coffee and smoldering eyes, her customary scolding. It was then I realized how badly I had missed her, how disappointed I was in myself.

But I couldn’t say anything. Everything was still hanging by a moment…but I couldn’t let it go.

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posted by Takazawa Nekomi at 7:16 PM - 0 comments  
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
[Fiction-AU] Indistinct

Indistinct

A Short Story on Alternate Realities

You and your friend, you tell me, met at your tutor’s place several years ago…about four years. You were seated next to each other. She seemed happy-go-lucky before, though strangely cool. You were all fire, overbearing and hyperactive, easily angered. You hit it off, you tell me, as you continue on talking about how great your friendship has been.

You tell me that nowadays you both have come into your own. You have tempered down your fire, she has dispensed with some of her ice. She is still apathetic, you are still feisty. Still you get along well, leaning on each other for support. You say she is you accountability partner, meaning you tell her when you foul up, and she reserves the right to scold you.

All in all you have a healthy friendship. I say this, and you nod. You comment on how you are sometimes a toxic friend, but how your best friend (who you laud praises on frequently) has ignored that, and how you are thankful of this. Inwardly I scoff. I prepare my story.

In the faces of Asian girls, like you, the lines and creases are almost the same. You can tell them apart but the blurs between them keep them from being known fully. Such is the case with best friends or enemies, those who try hard to either act alike or be completely different from one another. Show me who your friends are and I can show you who you are, you say. I respond with a statement that sends you into shock.

Show me who your friends are, and I could reveal to you that you could have ended up enemies. You would not believe me, but the line between friend and enemy is similarly indistinct. It is all a matter of chance, a serendipity. If the way she had been when you first met was the way she is now, or if you had both been in a bad mood, immature and petty as only children can be, you would not have hit it off. You scoff at that, tell me it is impossible. I shrug my shoulders.

I prepare my story. After all, you paid me to tell you one. I clear my throat and decide to prove to you how…fallible, how fragile the bonds of friendship can be. So easily tied, so quickly severed as well…

~*~

I begin with asking you the prerequisite questions. What is the color of your best friend’s hair? Her eyes? The shade of her skin? You respond with a flattering description, skimming, merely skimming on the fact that she does not possess coke-bottle figure. You are hasty to cover that up with her better attributes, with her talents. I smile and nod but am inwardly sickened from your seemingly blind devotion. I comment such, subtly, saying friendship is as blind as love.

You retort that it would be decidedly unfair to insult anyone who has pulled through for you. You tell me that you insult each other to each other’s faces. You tell me that you still look out for yourself, that you value God above her. I do not question that. But I would like to burst that little bubble of happiness you possess.

I hitch the hood higher around my face, casting it in the shadow I have intended. You have not seen my face. You will, soon. Then you will know how much I truly know. In truth, I don’t even need to ask you what your best friend looks like. But that is reserved for later.

Quietly I pull myself up to full height as you hunch down. I tell you to close your eyes, and I begin.

Imagine, I tell you, that you are of that age again. The age when you met. You nod, and I sigh. This will be too easy. I put on my best storyteller voice and instruct you to imagine everything I say. I stare at your face. It looks like the moon amidst a sea of dark-brown, unruly locks. I sigh, it almost pains me to burst your bubble but you have too much charm for my taste.

So I begin. The brunette girl stares at her seatmate, seated next to her, quietly perusing her books without much change in expression. Her seatmate has dark brown hair and tan skin, but that is all she manages to deduce as the black hair falls like a curtain across the older girl’s face. The younger girl does not like apathy, never did. She’s is all fire and hubris, a tragic heroine in the making, so many would like to witness her tragic fall. Boisterously she chats up her seatmates, not caring if they get into trouble with the head teacher…

You stop me there. You try to retort that you weren’t so cold-hearted. I reply that you have not heard the whole story. Your face, so pale, is several shades paler now.

The young girl tries, time and again, to engage a conversation with her apathetic seatmate. Still, the black-haired girl does not budge. The brunette is annoyed by this, stares daggers and pouts her pale lips. Her eyes are drawn into slits, narrowed and dagger-like. The black-haired girl does not care. Finally, though, she speaks.

“I’m trying to study.” She utters. You stop me again. You tell me that your best friend has been studying hard recently, and how you hope to find the same motivation. I listen patiently, yet as usual I am inwardly disgusted by your dense behavior.

I sigh and begin anew. You apologize, eyes still closed. I nod, and somehow you sense it. I make my voice lower, into a purr. I know this sends shivers (the unwanted, scary kind) down your spine and possibly amplifies your subconscious. I know this is alternately hypnosis and enchantment, yet I do not care. I will prove you wrong.

The young girl sighs and turns back to her work, the fire in her eyes blazing. She scribbles angrily, taking care to punctuate every radical with a sharp tap on the table that sends it vibrating. The others at the table already glare at her, annoyed. The black-haired girl does not budge. The brunette almost throws a hissy fit.

She accosts the tutor in charge of them at that point. She angrily demands that she be given top priority, so in a hurry to leave. When she is denied this wish, she angrily hisses in her seat. The older girl, face still expressionless but eyes twinkling with malice, speaks up once again.

“You know, there are other students besides you.” She says. The brunette fires her a look and tries to add spiteful humor. Arrogantly she folds her arms behind her head and puts a foot up.

“Yeah, I know. Bratty little bitch, aren’t I?” the older girl ignores her. The young brunette is enraged by this, resisting the urge to slam the oval-shaped tan face into the table. Instead, the young girl turns back to her work, cursing audibly. The black-haired girl pointedly moves tables, flashing a face of disgust. The brunette scowls deeply.

“Brats are detrimental to the creative process.” The older girl comments. The younger one scowls. You wince when I say that. I know why. She’s really said that to you, once. You detest being looked upon as the younger, more immature one. You are stronger than that, bigger than that. Secretly the friendship, the dependence, it grates on your pride.

I continue. The brunette sits close to the black-haired girl. The older girl doesn’t flinch, doesn’t seem to notice. The brunette kicks her feet up and reviews, making a point to curse once in awhile, to the chagrin of the black-haired girl. She twitches, flinches, before blocking out the noise with a small electronic discman, so far superior to the younger girl’s ancient one.

The brunette growls in irritation, blinking her dark-brown eyes with their sparse lashes. She tries as hard as she can to distract the apathetic black-haired girl but there is no success. She growls, and the older girl speaks.

“Could you please…I should be studying.”

“Then that’s your own damn problem.” The young brunette speaks with the crass of an older, more jaded woman. The black-haired girl squints at her, riled.

“It isn’t. You were the one who decided to follow me.” She says in retaliation. The brown-haired girl’s eyes turn to cat-like slits and she represses the urge to hiss in that familiar feline manner.

“What’s eating you?” the younger girl asks. The older one rolls her eyes.

“What’s eating me? What’s eating you? Just because you’re not getting the attention you crave doesn’t mean I’m doing anything wrong by trying to focus. The world doesn’t revolve around you, for your information.”

“Why you…I was just trying to be friendly.”

“Well apparently your concept of friendly is being annoying. If you really wanted to be polite with me then you would have started from the beginning, am I right? Now if you excuse me, I’ll study now.”

The black-haired girl gets up and walks out of the main room to find a quieter area. The brunette pauses and ponders getting up to annoy her again. In anger she slams her fist on the table and is reproached by the head tutor. Gathering what little pride she has left, she finishes her work and angrily snaps at her driver on her cellphone, demanding she get picked up.

I’ll get back at you for this. Believe me, I always do

You shake your head, naïve one, and I nod mine. I ask if you ever think you’ve made your best friend your god. You pause, finger the necklace around your neck. You take it off and stare at it. All the comparisons, the hurt, the shame. They’re all there and they’re only coming to surface now.

I’ve made you see, haven’t I? You nod, holding back the tears in the image of bravery you’ve taken so long to uphold. Devil-may-care, brash, carefree…it’s all a lie and both of us know it. I feel it is time to reveal myself.

I lower the hood of the coat I’ve been wearing, and you gasp. Now you know how I know, your pain and all the things that wrack you. The bitterness and envy, the shame and idolization. For you see, I am you, and the girl in the story. I know how it could be.

You back away, break into a run. I shake my head, not moving to stop you. If I have made you reconsider how heaven-sent your friendship may be, I have done my job. I notice something you have dropped, and I smile.

On the floor, in the sand and dust, is the purple necklace. The letters F, R, I, and S are cracked by your trembling steps. I pick it up. I have made you reconsider how fragile everything truly is. In the hopes you will break out of your self-imposed mold and become yourself, separate from the people who have left handprints and cracks in the glass of your life.

The remaining letters on the necklace spell my time is up. They spell…

End

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posted by Takazawa Nekomi at 4:04 AM - 0 comments  
Thursday, June 21, 2007
[Humor-Poem] Ode To My Pimple
Author's Note: This is what happens when I talk to my best friend Kamyuz too much. Dedicated to the large, engorged growth on my nose. Being called pimple is an understatement. It's a bloody parasite!!

Oh my pimple, purple and round
On my nose it can be found
I think it weighs more than a pound
Oh woe is me, oh woe is me

Oh my pimple red and fat
I've scratched at it like a cat
Still it refuses to become flat
Oh woe is me, oh woe is me.

Oh my pimple swollen and large
It looks like a giant fleshy barge
To see it people I could charge
Oh woe is me, oh woe is me

Oh my pimple greasy and ill
Time and again it's you I've tried to kill
Poke and prod to no avail
Oh woe is me, oh woe is me.

At my pimple people stare
More than at the flakes in my hair
Forget the sneers, forget the glares
Oh woe is me, oh woe is me

At my pimple, people run
I cannot go out in the sun
Because of it I cannot have fun
Oh woe is me, oh woe is me

At my pimple people scream
I wish this was just a bad dream
It is not caused by chips and ice cream
Oh woe is me, oh woe is me

At my pimple people hiss
"What's that freakshow, what is this!?"
No boy with me would want to have kids
Oh woe is me, oh woe is me

Ponds doesn't work, nor Clean and Clear
Clearasil, it runs in fear
My Eskinol, it disappears
Oh woe is me, oh woe is me

DAMN MY OILY FACE!!

Fin

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posted by Takazawa Nekomi at 5:01 AM - 1 comments  
Accept This Unreality

This entire blog is a work of fiction, and a work in progress, managed by a not-so-gothic teenager with a semi-optimistic yet skewed outlook on life. This teenager is known simply as Solan, and has way too much to talk about yet too few words to express those thoughts with.

This entire blog is fiction. Suicide letters, murder plots, and bodice-ripping scenes...all those are fiction. The author has never murdered a person, killed herself, or had sex. Understand those characteristics and nothing will shock you here.

Genres are from Fantasy to Realism. There's nothing left untainted by my fictional opinions. Accept that nothing is as it seems or should be here, and your senses will be left unscathed.

Good luck. Godspeed. Hope you have a good laugh at what you read.

About Me
Name: Solan Camara
Home: Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines
About Me: Ambitious semi-petite brunette with lots of moxie. Talks often, speaks her mind more than necessary. Is jaded, semi-optimistic, cynical, and slightly idealistic. Outlook on life? Mildly Twisted.
See my profile...

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