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charade
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Thinking

\Spaztastic/ ((Open)) Nov 21, 2012 3:22:52 GMT -5

Post by charade on Nov 21, 2012 3:22:52 GMT -5

Kelly Quinn

Dry leaves made a pleasant sound when run over and crushed into papery debris by the rubber wheels of a decent bicycle during a brisk early wintry day. It was a sort of a snap crackle crunch that tickled Kelly's ears as she worried that perhaps the only reason the leaves were in the gutter was because there had been some kind of terrible war between trees and they had not the manpower( or should that be leaf power?)to properly take care of all of the deceased leaves, leaving them in the streets in piles being the only monument to their existence. How sad. She'd have shed a tear for all the little leaf orphans in the cold wind in her face wasn't keeping her tear ducts chilled. She was headed home after yet another tiresome day of school that had culminated in several more tardy warnings and a picture of a bird painted on the side of a power plant. She was already going to late for dinner, something that her mother highly disproved of.

It wasn't her fault that the lack of upkeep on the streets made it hard to navigate. All the cracks and rips in the street just made the whole road look like a mountain range that needed traversing. A daring adventurer such as herself needed to stop from time to time to admire such things. It was human nature. And Fie to anyone who couldn't appreciate that. Of course, there was such a thing as appreciating something too much, which is what Kelly was starting to thing as her front tire hit a rather large crack and sent her flying off of her bicycle. For a brief moment, she felt like she was weightless, like a puff of dandelion seeds being borne away by the wind to take root of some distant shore, or perhaps to get stuck under the eave of a house, or even to get toasted by one of the many power lines that ran along the district criss-cross applesauce. And then she was striking the cold hard ground with her elbows and lying motionless in the road.

"Owiee owiee owiee." she muttered "Mister gravel, I'd appreciate it a hole lot if you'd stop poking my arms. Oh, look at that,"she said as she rolled herself into a sitting position."Three bruises and a scrape, not to mention a sullying of this perfectly good T-shirt. How rude."Dusting herself off, shepulled herself to her feet and retrieved her bicycle."Whoa there Nancy, there's a good girl. What's this? Oh drat! You've torn your frontal rolling mechanism!" Blowing out a puff of air dejectedly, she got over onto the sidewalk and sat down hard, glaring at the street as she did so."Who's going to fix this? Certainly not the vile perpetrator that ruined it in the first place. I huff at thee. Now its going to take me twice as long to get home..." Still pouting, she folded her arms and proceeded to glare at the street as if willing it to apologize. Which she was. Inanimate object or no, she demanded a form of sorry. It was likely that someone might happen along and wonder what she was doing, but until such came to pass, she had much better things to do.

Like glare at the road
.

16 Jul 12, 23:43
GB: I bet you just sit at your computer with a tea cup and a monocle

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\Spaztastic/ ((Open)) Nov 23, 2012 18:47:48 GMT -5

Post by Deleted on Nov 23, 2012 18:47:48 GMT -5

Itzal Usoa

I count down the seconds until I’m out the door of the schoolhouse. Watching the clock as it ticks, the red hand that marks the moments swinging ever more slowly until at last I can bask in glorious freedom. I don’t mind those that idle around, blurs in my vision as I pack away my things into the knapsack. I don’t pay attention to the voices of those that might try saying hello or asking what I’m doing when I get home from school—not that there would be many to ask—because I’m already out the door, pressing hard onto the street and my waiting bike. The laughter that hangs in the air, cut off by the swinging doors behind me fades into oblivion. My legs thrust against the pedals and I start to pump away and off into the horizon.

When my brother got me this old thing I thought it was a joke. The bicycle had a rusted chain and the wheels were flat. Not very much of mobile device if I had ever seen one. But when he explained to me about how it could get me from place to place—that it could be my own escape, off on the sideroads and through the district. We approached it like the skeleton of a building. It wasn’t much then, just a few scraps of metal, but the potential was there. And he and I, well we set about working on that potential, so that I could ride it. It was a hassle at first, one that involved the mix of black oil and lots of cursing. Searching, too. It wasn’t like parts were the easiest to find in the district, took a lot of combing through the market for the whats-its and thingamabobs that were supposed to make it run.

It was the first time that the two of us had really put anything together, my brother and I. Iker was the handy one in our family anyway. The callouses on his knuckles were enough to show anyone the work that he’d been doing with the refineries—building great big things, working on natural gas pipes, the whole shebang—to prove the toughness he had. I guess it came naturally, figuring out how things went together. Just as much as living in district five had been easy and clear for him. Wanting to know that he should be working the oil rigs, with his broad shoulders and thick arms, ready for the sweat to drip down his back and to contend with the heat of the furnaces. We were different in that way.

Sixteen and still eyes in the stars, head in the clouds.

Itzal, he would grunt with a grin, get your head on straight.[/color] Easier said than done. Because I was smaller, I wasn’t big like my brother or swift like my sister. I liked to watch the world, I liked to run down the street with the wind in my hair and the horizon spreading out before me. I wanted to be up in the air, flying high, watching the world below me and see the people of panem like ants. And they would roll their eyes because we had no such things here in district five. No hovercrafts to speak of and no planes to fly. Just the staunch smell of rotten eggs and the great red spires of the rigs, drilling up black tar. But the dreams never had gone away, not even after my friends laughed them off or my father scolded me. A heaviness may have held over me, but it didn’t dissipate what I was feeling.

I pushed harder along the cracks in the road. There were uneven stretches here or there where the pavement had been worn and not repaired. I wonder how long it’s been since the capitol ever thought about fixing them. It’s not like most of us have ways of getting around besides walking. The trucks that the peace keepers will drive don’t have to worry too much about it, I suppose. I’d rather be able to fly anyway, but this is good enough for me. Even as my tire grinds against the gravel of the road, it’s better than just walking along, idling along the stretch of road that leads nowhere. The sand scattered upward in a cloud and I grin, glancing toward where the sun is striking downward. There familiar blend of red and orange burn signifying the death of another day. It’ll be cold soon, and the night will be lit only by the oil fields in the distance.

But today isn’t a time for me to get acquainted with the scenery. Instead there’s another young girl at the foot of a bike, splayed out on the road. I pumped hard on the breaks and screech to a stop. Another cloud of dust spiraled upward and I gave a grin looking her over. The whole front part looked amess and she was probably a little bit worse for wear. I cleared my throat and placed my legs down onto the ground, standing at attention with my bike.

“You all right there?” I gripped my hands around the handle bars and chewed my bottom lip. “You look like you might have gotten turned around my one of these bumps in the road. Bet it was a nasty one to set you off like that…” I took a few steps. I was at ease at girls as I was with putting together a bike. “My name’s Itzal…” I offered, wondering if she even wanted to be bothered.
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charade
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Thinking

\Spaztastic/ ((Open)) Nov 24, 2012 22:47:44 GMT -5

Post by charade on Nov 24, 2012 22:47:44 GMT -5

Kelly Quinn

Shooting annoyed stares at the road from where she sat did little to appease the burgeoning foulness of her mood. Dinner was going to be beef stew with the potatoes and the carrots and the cabbage and the onions and all the other various foodstuffs that made up a veritable smorgasbord of delicious veggies. But now all the parts of that wonderful meal were going to be icky and cold by the time she returned home. And now she would have to re-do her hair as well. The thought struck her that she should check on the contents of her backpack; if she was a little worse for the wear, could they too in a dire situation? Slinging it to her front to rummage through it, she was pleased to discover her paint can was completely safe. The same could not be said for the remains of her lunch from earlier that day, which she began to chuck haphazardly from the bag. A browning banana peel, half a massacred tuna sandwich and a melted bar of chocolate. All were disposed of in the surrounding area as she rearranged the contents of her pack.

A small pattering noise alerted her to the approach of another person; one that was riding a bike, much as she had been. A boy of the brown-haired variety that must have been on his way home from school as well. He looked familiar in the sense of "Oh hey there you must go to the same school as me because I'm pretty sure that you look familiar and that is the place I go that has the most people so If I do in fact wind up knowing you its's probably from there" kind of sense. If that makes any sense.But now the boy was dismounting from the bike of his own. Come to gloat about another's misfortune had he? What an odd sort of fellow. Why was he chewing his bottom lip? Did it taste good? Were the remains of his dinner stuck in the little grooves that had to have been worn there by years of incessant lip biting? And what did he mean by "turned around?" Kelly was fairly certain she was still facing the same direction as she had been when her bike hit the crack in the first place.

He introduced himself as Itzel, and before she knew it, she was spewing a rather bubbly tirade in his general direction. "Itzel? Sounds like Pretzel! Do you like pretzels? I like them when are still fresh out of the oven and soft and you can dip them in mustard and chew away to your hearts content. Or do you like the crunchy ones that are covered in just a little too much salt and get stuck in your teeth until you brush them? They are almost as crunchy as the gravel wedged into my tires."She ended with a pout before offering a hand to shake."My name is Kelly, which sounds a little like berry but not really. The road is being mean to me right now if that's what you were asking. Brutalizing my tires without a second thought. Did you want something?"

16 Jul 12, 23:43
GB: I bet you just sit at your computer with a tea cup and a monocle

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\Spaztastic/ ((Open)) Nov 25, 2012 22:05:37 GMT -5

Post by Deleted on Nov 25, 2012 22:05:37 GMT -5

Was it just that I found girls to be impossible creatures, or was she absolutely bonkers? I stared for a moment as she talked, rambling on about the strangeness of my name in comparison to hers. I liked the color of her hair, yellow like the waning stalks of wheat I imagined in district eleven. Here there were a few weeds of the same mark—sickly things that clawed up toward the sky, fighting against the clouds that hung overhead. They blocked out the sun and choked life from their feeble little roots. And still they reached upwards, a mark of hope even in this desolation. We could exist in this place, even with rotten roads and no wide life to speak of. But just breathing wasn’t living. Not for me, anyway.

“Itzal,” I mutter with a grin after waiting a few moments, enjoying the silence. She seemed like the type that could suck up all the oxygen in the room. My name was old, far older than anything around here. My mother said it had come to her, passed down, preserved even by her family from antiquity. All their names were old, and a quiet nod that they weren’t entirely owned by the capitol. It was one of the few things that I knew about from the before time. Not that anyone had ever really explained what life before this had been—it was all left up to me to dream and puzzle out. Turning back to the matter at hand, I cleared my throat. “It means shadow.”

I leaned my bike onto its side and slide my legs over the riding bar. I ambled down to where she was and started looking over the bike. “Yeah, that’s more or less the problem with these roads. If you aren’t careful you’re gonna land on your neck or crack open your head. Looks like your bike got the worst of it.” I moved to touch a wheel spoke and stared over at Kelly. “You could probably find a new chain at the junkyard. Might have to get some new tires though, I don’t think that these’ll be clean up too good.” I hoped the truth didn’t upset her. She already seemed prone to ramble, even if she was nice enough. I didn’t spend too much time getting to know the other girls in my year, so coming face to face with one in a pickle was hard enough to figure out.

“I could probably help you fix it up if you needed,” I offered. Not that I was an expert of anything. My brother would have laughed at me for even suggesting such an act. I could barely focus on the horizon in front of me, let alone a project that involved precision and persistence. But maybe with a slow and steady hand I could put it back together. I didn’t imagine she was the type of girl that could afford a whole new one. The none of us were that well off in district five. “Or at the very least offer you a ride back on mine if you needed.”
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Last Edit: Nov 25, 2012 22:08:16 GMT -5 by Deleted

charade
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Thinking

\Spaztastic/ ((Open)) Dec 2, 2012 6:17:12 GMT -5

Post by charade on Dec 2, 2012 6:17:12 GMT -5

Kelly Quinn

One thing that Kelly liked about conversing with people was the tendency for that person to reveal more about themselves the more that she talked. But now she was a little bit uncomfortable with the amount of time it had taken pretzel to formulate a reply. Maybe she had annoyed him. And so, when he explained that his name meant shadow, she tried to keep her thoughts her thoughts instead of letting them turn into speech.

Shadow? I wonder if that's meant to be friendly like a shadow puppet or scary like those shadows that seem to follow you on a dark night but disappear right when you look at them as if they weren't even there to begin with. I hope he means like shadow puppets. Bunnies are the easiest but I've seen some cool ones. Oh well, I guess I could ask him about it. Oh no, was he saying something about the bike? I wasn't listening. Shoot.

Kelly only caught the tail end of what he was saying and it was something along the lines or either fixing her bike or giving her a ride home, both options being something she wasn't entirely sure about. What he said? Something about her bicycle being torn up. If she had been listening more closely she wouldn't feel as bad. Now if she asked him about she was either going to seem dumb or rude, and as those did not accurately describe her, she wasn't really wanting to paint herself as such.

"Oh well, that's nice of you to offer, I'm just not sure, because if you can't fix it here then I'm going to have to leave it here while we ride your bike and someone might come and sell it for parts or melt it down into a sculpture and display it on their lawn or something, but if you really don't mind then I guess I could tie it to a post and hope for the best but I've already made up my mind about it so..."

Having said so, she pulled her bike chain out her backpack and secure her vehicle to a nearby fence with a sigh."It's nice of you to be a gentleman Itzel, I wouldn't have expected someone to just drop by and offer to help me, well, at least not without making fun of my misfortune first, so that's cool. Hey! If you get me home fast enough, maybe you can stay for dinner!"Shimmying up onto his handlebars she gripped them to steady herself before pointing a hand to the horizon.

"Well! Onward! It's about another three fourths of a mile down this road! You don't mind me sitting on the handlebars do you? It didn't seem like there was all that much room behind you. Is my backpack in the way? I can swing it around to the front if you need me to but that might make me all off balance and then I'll teeter forward and fall off and then get run over, just like that poor little squirrel I saw the other day and...I'm still talking aren't I. Sorry... thanks again for wanting to help me out, I guess I can be quiet now."

Clamping her lips shut, Kelly made a supreme effort not to make pretzel anymore uncomfortable than he probably was.

16 Jul 12, 23:43
GB: I bet you just sit at your computer with a tea cup and a monocle

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\Spaztastic/ ((Open)) Dec 9, 2012 13:02:56 GMT -5

Post by Deleted on Dec 9, 2012 13:02:56 GMT -5

There used to be a phrase, one that I have taken to heart: it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt. I’d always been the child that puzzled over things and tried to figure out how they fit. I wasn’t the type that revealed my intentions so readily, as to me it was more frightening to come to a concrete position, especially one that I wasn’t a hundred percent certain of, and then have no opportunity to take it back. Words fly, but there’s nothing to take back once they’re said. And they hurt more than we know—I’ve seen and felt all this truth. We’re too hard on each other that way—ready to take what someone says as a long and lasting truth, rather than just a passing glance. I see it among people my age, that all of us are so ready to make bold claims and be something that perhaps we’re really not.

But then again, with the threat of death hanging over our heads every year, this could be for the best. What’s the use of a life that’s not lived? As for someone that doesn’t believe in an after—that this is all we’ve got, I guess I could take a few more risks. As the young woman doddles on an then decides to abandon her bike, I give a grin. She’s already on my handlebars before I can say a word, and give a laugh. At the very least her energy is a little electrifying. She’s mysterious in a way, almost as though she’s unafraid to say the first few words that pop into her mouth. I guess I could learn a thing or two from her, if I wanted. I could do with the ability to be more spontaneous—if only I would let myself do so. I grasp firmly onto both handle bars and get ready to push off into a start. The chains groan but the bike holds, and soon the air and blowing back in the both of our faces.

“I’ll get you home, safe and sound,” I offer with a grin and lean forward. It would be nice to do a good deed for someone else, too. I grunted again as I pressed harder on the pedals, struggling with our weights on the bike. I’m not as big or as strong as my brother, but I can still get by all right. We amble along slowly at first, the cracks in the road evident enough for me to avoid. I press my feet harder to the pedals, and begin to feel the wind pick up in my face. I try not to get too close to her—I don’t want her thinking anything of me, not that I would be doing anything to make her think such things—but all the same I glance over her blond hair and body atop my bike. We’re free now, escaping the heap of junk on the highway, moving along toward freedom. Or, perhaps whatever that meant to her, inside of her own home.

“Just let me know when you want me to stop,” I mutter under my breath, starting to feel a little bit of a burn from the exercise. For as in shape as I’ve been kept helping out my brother and living so far from school, it hasn’t prepared me to become a pack mule. Of course all the exercise could help me if I ever got picked for the games one day—a scary thought indeed. I keep pressing against the pedals, and let out a cough. “And you don’t have to be quiet. I don’t mind. I’m sorry if I don’t talk a lot… guess I just… haven’t got as much to say as you do.”

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