Boardwalk Dreams [Cici]

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Boardwalk Dreams [Cici] Aug 11, 2013 10:15:11 GMT -5

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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2013 10:15:11 GMT -5

I think you're the same as me
We see things they'll never see
You and I are gonna live forever
We're gonna live forever

[/i]

As Rum Tum is seemingly preoccupied with this little jar sort of thing he’s found, I move towards the other side of the room, exploring the remnants of this old place. [/i]I blink a couple of times, trying to adjust to the black that surrounds me, interrupted periodically by a giant flash of yellow from the sky. The wooden floor beneath me screeches with each step I take. Screech. Screech. Scr—[/i]my feet stumble, but I quickly catch myself before falling. One of the floorboards is actually sticking out the ground. I bend down curiously and lift it, reaching my hand down into a dark world I can’t see. Just like in the movies. [/i]My hand lands on something hard and big , so I grab it with both hands, pulling it out. My eyes narrow, trying to figure out what this piece of machinery is. It seems to have a lens…a video camera? I reach down and pull out what seems to be batteries and a several little blocks. Some of the blocks have labels on them like, “Summer ‘95” or “Winter ’93.”[/i] I look at the video camera; there seems to be a little compartment that could probably fit one of the blocks. I put the first one in, but suddenly light enters the floor and I glance over at Rum Tum, who has found a way to illuminate the room with the little jar, quickly stuffing the camera, batteries, and all of the little blocks into my satchel.

Here, Rum Tum probably thinks I’m an blatantly honest person, but I guess everyone has the things they just want to keep for themselves. Most of the time, there’s no filter between my thoughts and my words. Most of the time.[/i] But right now, that honesty is being overclouded by an imminent selfishness and the growing fear of sharing.[/i] I button my satchel closed and walk over to Rum Tum, who has been completely oblivious to my little detour in the last minute or two. There’s this selfish piece of me that doesn’t want to share what’s in my satchel with him. I feel like I’m in preschool again, being scolded by my teacher for not sharing the toy kitchen with Celeste Hawkins. "Sharing is caring..."[/i]

I shared everything with Kormiko, from the little goldfish that had miraculously endured through years and years of waiting to the special place full of files that were now mere ashes.[/i] And the more I shared, the more it hurt. However, I’m at the point now where it hurts to not hurt, where time has managed to numb the past enough that I feel guilty every moment that I’m not waiting for him, or rather, waiting for something that may not exist. Are you supposed to wait?[/i] Somewhere out there, in some library on some region of the earth, there must be a book about how to love correctly. Would it tell me? I wish I had someone to ask. It feels so wrong to sit here and recreate my life, but it feels so wrong not to. [/i]

My first instinct was always to share everything with Rum Tum: every thought in my head, every word out of my mouth; but I know I can’t. Even after everything he said, even after his pinky swear that he wouldn’t leave, I don’t feel like I can share anything so fully with anyone, not like I did before.[/i] How does Rum Tum do it? After losing the one person he shared his whole life with, how does he do it again? I wish I could be like those girls who spread their love so thinly across baking sheets, so that when it comes out of the oven, everyone can take a piece. Those people who can just be friends with everyone: the kind of people that have so much that one loss isn’t going to pull them down.[/i] Then again, I guess it’s pretty hard to be a people pleaser out here…

I’m a hypocrite and I know it, because here I am, too afraid to share with Rum Tum, even the mere video camera I’d found. And he’s shared so much with me: the special place that had belonged to he and his mom, his past, his food, his pinky swear.[/i] I told him to trust me; I told him he was my brother, and yet now that idea is starting to scare me – the fact that I have actual family to be responsible for. [/i]

Rum Tum says that he doesn’t know what this place is, holding the little light between us. I push my thoughts away. “We’re probably safe here though. I don’t think anyone’s been through that door in ages.” It’s funny how I haven’t thought about safety in so long. The world is so quiet out here that it’s hard to imagine anything disturbing it. And yet Rum Tum’s statement brings a wave of horrific images to my head, peacekeepers running up the stairs and prying us apart, just like that night so long ago.[/i] Rum Tum and I sit down and he puts the light between us. He keeps folding his arms and rubbing his hands together, and I can’t help but do the same, sopping wet and freezing. [/i]Then, he takes the two plates from his backpack, scoops out some beans, and sets out some spinach and berries. I can only think of how lucky I am that Rum Tum was smart enough to collect actual plates and spoons.

“Hey,” he says, “How’d you like it if I read a little bit more of the future, and some of your past!” He’s holding a deck of cards in his hands. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a thing; not such a popular pastime in the Capitol. “I may not have the same gift as my mother, but I bet I can tell you things about you with just these cards,” He says with a joking grin. Some sort of magic trick? “And maybe about your future, too!”

I move my beans around with my spoon uneasily. The word “past” turns me off right from the start. “Well that’s cheap,” I joke in between spoonfuls. “Seeing as you already know everything there is to know about me.” It’s a lie, but maybe he’ll take it. I lie down on my stomach and continue eating, silently reminding myself that sharing isn't caring: sharing is losing too much. It's just a card trick,[/i] I note. Rum Tum flicks the cards between his hands and I smile, giving in. "Alright then, show me what you've got." [/color][/justify][/blockquote][/size]

Last Edit: Aug 11, 2013 12:53:53 GMT -5 by Deleted

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Boardwalk Dreams [Cici] Aug 14, 2013 23:41:40 GMT -5

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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2013 23:41:40 GMT -5

RUM TUM TUGGER

----
'Cause I want to live like animals
Careless and free like animals
I want to live
I want to run through the jungle
The wind in my hair and the sand at my feet
----

Hey mister, I can tell you a secret?

[/color] She would do it in a soft voice, her head down and chin against her chest. I would sit behind her, wrapped in a blanket. She wore a red bonnet that tamed the curl of her hair, and silver earrings that shined in the sun. We would pray on the lower districts, in the nooks and crannies that weren’t so heavily patrolled by peacekeepers. It wasn’t often when she would delve into her tricks, but when we were low on food and my stomach rumbled, my mother would stop at nothing to see to it that I had something to eat. Her favorite trick was telling people about their futures by reading their cards. I would watch from behind, quiet and hungry, knowing that I couldn’t say a thing until she’d finished. You look like a man that needs to hear about his luck. Why don’t you spare a coin and let me tell you.[/color]

The type of people that would stop weren’t looking for the truth at all. It’s the first thing that I learned from my mother. She read people like books. Every memory was another line on the page and every trauma marked by the end of a chapter. I remember her saying that with just a few looks she could tell whether or not someone had lost a child, a sibling, or was about to lose their farm. People will tell you who they really are. You watch their eyes, and they won’t hide it from you.[/color] I remember first thinking that she must have been magic, that my mother was a great and powerful wandering witch that told everyone’s secrets back to them. That was when I was little and still pronounced my name with a ‘w’. She’d take a coin or two, or a piece of fruit or some silk scarf, and she would rub her temples to prepare for the show. Her hands would move to the deck of cards and she’d sit, staring.

I stare at Freya with a grin. She’s right, there’s not a lot that I don’t know about her already. If anything Freya will ramble on like a river flowing over a dam. I’m the one that gets drenched, though I’m not one to mind. The long walks through the endless forest have a lot more life now that she’s here. I used to just sing to myself when she wasn’t around, so at least I could hear a voice echoing back at me. When you’re lonely, you’ll do anything to hear another voice.[/color] Now though she tells me of her life, of things they do back in the capitol, and of all the things that I’ll never see. It’s a wonder that anyone enjoys themselves at all with the distractions in their lives. From the tele-visions to the wi-fi to tele-phones (I have found there are an awful lot of tele-things) their whole lives seem sucked up in technology. I find the warm earth between my toes a lot better, even if it means I have to find my own food.

I pull out three cards and place them down in front of her. One is the Jack of hearts, which I turn to the side. The next is a King of spades, upside down. The last is a Joker card. I stare at them again, thinking, thinking, thinking. My mother would have clicked her tongue and sat back, to give off the air of knowing just exactly what the cards were supposed to mean. I have often thought that she started to believe in her knowledge of the cards, even more so than what she had figured out about her marks (what she called the men and women she gave a piece of mind[/color]). I look up at Freya again and point to the Jack first, clearing my throat. In truth she is not the first fortune that I’ve read, but she’s the only one I’ve ever felt a twinge of sadness for cheating.

“I’ll start with your past. This,” I tap on the first card, “Is the Jack of spades,” I repeat with a blink. There had to have been a boy in her past, though is she too young? She didn’t have a brother, that much was sure. A girl like Freya would have found someone handsome. “Was there a boy in your past that you knew? Maybe the two of you were together…” I wiggle my eyebrows. “And maybe you grew apart?” I imagined that boys and girls in the district separated and came together like moths to flames. They couldn’t help flying into the light, no matter how much it would burn. “I’m seeing here that he’s in the reverse from you.” I sit back and watch her for a moment. The rest would reveal itself, unless—perhaps I wasn’t as good of a people reader as I championed myself to be. After all, how much did a boy that spent most of his life in the woods know about reading people?[/justify][/blockquote][/size]

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Boardwalk Dreams [Cici] Aug 16, 2013 14:30:31 GMT -5

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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2013 14:30:31 GMT -5

I think you're the same as me
We see things they'll never see
You and I are gonna live forever
We're gonna live forever

[/i]

He studies the cards carefully, and I narrow my eyes, studying his expressions. “I’ll start with your past. This,” He taps the first card, “Is the Jack of spades.” He seems to be thinking. “Was there a boy in your past that you knew? Maybe the two of you were together…” He wiggles his eyebrows playfully and suddenly all I want to do is run home and hide beneath the soft pillows of my bed and never wake up.

My stomach drops and a sickening feeling settles in. This is just a guessing game: use everything you already know about Freya, collect all your judgments, guess the rest, and hope that you can use the cards as an explanation. It annoys me even more that Rum Tum is actually onto something, as if he thinks my life is so simple he can read it off a card. And yet, I thought he was different. I thought that he, of all people, would see something beneath the clothes, the hair, and the reputation that is plastered to my face, but obviously he’s just throwing it into the mixer and hoping that the end result will have a decent answer. But he’s not supposed to guess right. He’s not supposed to know that much. I’m not supposed to be that easy to read; I don’t want to be!

Am I merely a rash teenager that accidentally fell in love because she was lonely? Is my life simply another stupid young adult fiction novel with love triangles and cliché endings? And am I really that one awfully developed main character that thinks she’s all that even though she has absolutely no dynamic traits? Am I that easy a read? That’s when the thoughts of Kormiko start weighing me down. It doesn’t seem right to share my memories of him with Rum Tum. It sounds so ridiculous when you try to explain it. In my head it goes something like, Well, I fell in love with a nineteen-year old stylist after we tried to wage our own rebellion, but then they locked us up and then miraculously let us out without a scratch and then we found each other again and tried to hack into the Capitol’s computer systems, but failed, and now he’s gone and I don’t know what happened and I’m trying not to be totally miserable about it even though anything involving the Capitol normally makes me miserable anyways! And it doesn’t sound right. It sounds like some naïve fifteen-year old is a little too confused for her own good.

“And maybe you grew apart? I’m seeing here that he’s in the reverse from you.”

I laugh, but even I can hear the traces of melancholy imbedded within the sarcasm of my fake Capitol accent. “Yeah, there was a boy. There were a lot of boys, haaawt boys. I mean, obviously that’s all I do, sit around talking about boys and getting my hair done so I can impress them because I’m a total flirt and my life is just so boring and dull and I need some nice drama to fill it, right? Isn’t that all we do in the Capitol? We’re all just the same, aren’t we?!” Sarcasm, sarcasm, sarcasm. I look down at the ground, as if it might disguise my fragile Capitol face.

“Maybe we grew apart?! Or maybe we were pulled apart, screaming and thrashing and hoping we’d wake up after they knocked us out!” I still remember everything about that night: the blazing fire in Kormiko’s eyes, the coarse hands that pulled us apart, the way my fearful hand had clicked the lock ever so slightly, trapping him inside my closet, the moment I’d tried to run away without him: the moment that eventually happened months and months later when I’d wandered miserably into the woods and found Rum Tum. There’s a choked feeling in my throat for all of the apologies I owe Kormiko still lingering at the tip of my tongue.

“And maybe we were stupid when we set fire to their library of files and maybe it didn’t make any difference and maybe I’ll always be stupid for thinking that any fifteen-year old like me can be anything but stupid! And maybe I’m even more stupid for thinking that I’ll ever be more than just a Capitol face! But stop pretending like you know the first thing about me, okay? Because you don’t.” Then again, I am the one who just told him he knows everything about me. “I’m not some library book you just decided to check out. You want to read me? Then stop staring at the cover because you’re all wrong!” What scares me is what if he’s not? What if he’s right? What if all I am is some girl who liked some boy and it’s all so stupid and ridiculous and my mother was right, I should’ve never risked my feelings over such a little thing! No, we must’ve meant something. We were two people at the edge of the world – the other edge of the world, the edge of the world where nothing is silent. We were the innovators of hope.

I don’t want to be here anymore. I hate Rum Tum. I hate him. (Wait a second, why do I hate him)? I hate everything, everyone. I never want to talk to anyone again, and at the same time, all I want to do is talk to someone. I just want to hide beneath the safety of my memories for the rest of my life, because people can change all they want, but memories never will. “This is stupid. I’m done.” I push the cards away and stand up, but realizing I have nowhere to go but the rain, sit back down, bring my knees up to my chest, and force the feelings to go away.
[/color][/justify][/blockquote][/size]

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Boardwalk Dreams [Cici] Aug 28, 2013 23:12:32 GMT -5

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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2013 23:12:32 GMT -5

RUM TUM TUGGER

----
'Cause I want to live like animals
Careless and free like animals
I want to live
I want to run through the jungle
The wind in my hair and the sand at my feet
----

“No, I didn’t—you’re not,” I raise my hands to fight back, but here she has me. This is an awful trick of a game that we use to play because we thought, my mother and I, that we could tell just exactly who someone was by just reading the surface. At first glance it shouldn’t have been so bad, but now my face is redder than a fresh tomato, and I can see the ire I’ve brought. Worse I think I’ve hurt her, obviously picked at a secret that wasn’t yet mine to have. I open and close my mouth, once again the fish I was the first time the two of us met. I probably look and sound just as stupid as I always have. She probably thinks of me as the same old idiot she met back in the forest.

[/color] I never knew anything then, and I won’t ever know anything important ever. I’m just the free rambling, fun having, adventure seeking Rum Tum Tugger: the boy that never grows up and out of a fantasy.

My mother told me a story about lost boys long ago, when I was little. It was about one that stayed on an island. Everyone thought he was wonderful, and he even helped get rid of a terrible pirate. But his friends came and went while he stayed the same age. When I was younger I thought this was wonderful, that I could stay young and free forever. I wanted to live on that island, and part of me thinks that maybe I always have. But there’s a darker side to that old story in that the rest of his friends grew up without him. Even the ones that he cared about came and went out of his life while he was just a little boy. It’s a little foolish of me to think I could so carelessly pry into Freya’s life without her having some kind of reaction. I guess I’ve just been away from people for so long, I’ve forgotten that you don’t just share everything for the sake of sharing. Out here it’s supposed to be that way. Didn’t ever seem to be different with my mother, why should it have been that way with Freya?[/color]

She keeps going though, telling a story that I can hardly follow. It was something about a boy. Someone that got her into trouble. I twiddle my thumbs and try not to make eye contact with her. I don’t like it when Freya gets angry, much less so when she’s mad at me. It’s hard for me to argue with anyone. In fact I’d much rather walk away when someone starts yelling at me than say anything at all. It’s what I used to do with my mother when she would scold me. I figured it would be better hiding in the trees or down by the river to hear her fuming about something that I’d done. Here and now though there’s only the pale light of the lantern and the strange hulking machinery of the tower we’re trapped in for company. I won’t go outside, not after nightfall. We were safer locked away, even if Freya had exploded at me. But stop pretending like you know the first thing about me, okay? Because you don’t.[/color]

The rain falls hard against the windows. Freya’s still standing there. I want to stand up and put my hand in hers, but instead I keep the both of them in between my legs. She’s got every right to be mad.[/color] I tell myself. She’s got every right to think I’m a mean jerk.[/color] It hurts, too, knowing that there’s something eating her up that I can’t help her with. Or maybe it’s that she’s had this hurt the whole time, one that she hasn’t said a word about to me because she didn’t think I’d understand. I think this might hurt worse than Freya’s yelling. I had started to think we were two threads getting sewn together to make the same quilt. Now I wonder if we’ve ever been on the same thimble at all. I let out a sigh and listen to the rain. I hope that it might provide some sort of answer, but all I can feel is the same dirty feeling I have hanging over me.I’m not some library book you just decided to check out. You want to read me? Then stop staring at the cover because you’re all wrong.[/color]

“You know…” I pull my knees up to my chest and put my chin on them. “I think you like to live in your heart. And that’s an awful big place to live, all by yourself. I know it—I’ve been living in mine for a long time.” I think about how lonely it’s been without my mother. She was the one person I could share everything with, even if it was by default. Two long years I’ve waited for someone—anyone—to fill the empty nights. Was I that desperate, that I hadn’t seen half this journey was about me and not about keeping Freya safe?[/color] I let out a sigh and tug on my knees. “I’m not so good understanding how to talk to people. I should’ve known better than to try and play a trick on you. You got things that are yours, and I got things that are mine. I’m just used to sharing everything, but I haven’t had anyone to share it with. I just thought I could know a little bit more about you.”

I put my chin on my knees again. “I’m sorry.” I let out a sigh. “I do want to know you. Because you’re what I’ve got now too. We’re…” I sputter out. “I’m sorry.”[/justify][/blockquote][/size]

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Boardwalk Dreams [Cici] Sept 1, 2013 10:12:53 GMT -5

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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2013 10:12:53 GMT -5

I wanna be somewhere so far away
To lie under the night at the end of another good day
I can't tell you how long we'll be gone
But as long as we're together then forever is never too long

[/i]

"You know…I think you like to live in your heart. And that’s an awful big place to live, all by yourself. I know it—I’ve been living in mine for a long time.” I look up from my knees, my face knotted into a look of pure distress. We’re in an identical position now, knees to our chests, sitting in our own little worlds. Rum Tum is only feet away, but those few feet seem more like miles than anything.[/i] I think about what he just said, but it can’t be true, not about my heart. Words have always seeped from my lips, expressing every piece of my inner being. I don’t hide between the heart beats and the heart burns;[/i] I say what I feel, do I not? However, I start to ponder the thoughts that lie between me and the ground I sleep upon every night: memories scattered through the dirt, commemorations in bottles along the shelves lining my raucous mind, and tears climbing down my face when the loneliness has found company in too many of my vulnerabilities. There are many things I’ve never told a soul, from my fear of the dark and all its solitude – (although I think everyone’s a little spooked by that) – to my even greater fear of the stars. [/i]

So maybe it’s true; maybe it’s true that my words are only an easy defense, unknowingly meant to conceal the truths that are too difficult to speak.[/i] I feel like I’m trying too hard to build a person – an eloquent, resolute, (and sometimes superficial) human being – from the broken bones and the tired beauties of something long passed and short-lived.[/i] Only moments ago, I was chiding Rum Tum for his shallow judgments, but I suppose if I gave him more to work with than just my artificial face and my more or less meaningless words,[/i] that wouldn’t be an issue. I have nothing to blame him for. He has every reason to think I’m a typical Capitolite, for I haven’t gone to any means to prove otherwise. “I think you like to live in your heart.” He's already halfway there.

“I’m not so good understanding how to talk to people. I should’ve known better than to try and play a trick on you. You got things that are yours, and I got things that are mine. I’m just used to sharing everything, but I haven’t had anyone to share it with. I just thought I could know a little bit more about you.”

“It’s okay, I’m not so socially acceptable myself,” I shrug nonchalantly before even processing what he’s said.

“I’m sorry…I do want to know you. Because you’re what I’ve got now too. We’re…I’m sorry.”

I look at him seriously and think for a second: really think about his words. The silence that surrounds us is deafeningly lonely, but my mind is a riot of ideas. I’ve always felt a thread of bitter loneliness wrapped around the frame of my heart.[/i] Even despite the many people I’ve surrounded myself with, I’ve never truly been able to tear it away. But then there’s Rum Tum – Rum Tum who makes friends with stars and listens to rain as if it’s making conversation;[/i] who loves memories with a fondness I never knew existed – even the ones that hurt and the ones that aren’t his to keep; and who collects the remains of these memories and finds something beautiful in each one, carefully crafting them into the cornerstone of an enormously beautiful life, and an even more beautiful reality. [/i]

While I complain about the blisters on my feet, shiver against the cold nights, collapse during the scorching noon, and shriek every time a spider roams into my line of sight, Rum Tum endures each lasting moment with dignity embedded in his never weary feet.[/i] How many days of his life were spent waking up to say good morning to the sun and only the sun, who could never really say the words back? How many days has he spent wordlessly navigating pieces of the world that have been framed in his memory, but nowhere else, for no other eyes to see? And how much leftover love is left absently waiting in that heart[/i], love he had long reserved to give to his mother until she wasn’t there to hold it anymore? It takes me a few moments to notice that these hushed thoughts have brought tears down my cheeks. It’s no surprise, seeing as how often I get emotional over the slightest of things, but this is different[/i] because these tears are not for me and my petty problems. They are for Rum Tum and the many times I’ve neglected to think about how truly alone he is.

“No, it’s okay…really…I should be sorry, I…,” I say, wiping the tears from my eyes. However, I don’t look the other way, shamefully trying to hide the expressions upon my face. “…I don’t know how you do it: how you apologize so easily and forgive so fully. I…I don’t know how you pick yourself up every morning and look at the sky and the trees and find some sort of meaning in it all – or even find meaning in dragging me along, for that matter – when you have every reason not to, when you have every reason to hate the world and every reason to hate your father and…” My speech is interrupted by the need to clear my throat of the tears. I cough weakly before continuing.

“But one thing…one thing I do know is that normal people aren’t like that. Normal people like me, we break and fall and sometimes we can’t get up unless there’s somebody pulling us to our feet.” Somebody like Rum Tum who's already learned how to stand. “And if you saw, if you knew, you’d see that normal people don’t have that kind of strength. You’d see that you’re not normal, Rum Tum. You’re special,” I say, taking in a deep breath of air and trying to rid myself of the choked feeling in my throat. “And I want you to remember that, in case I’m not always here to tell you.” A few minutes ago, I was more than ready to go home, but I can’t even contemplate that possibility anymore. How could I ever? I don’t have anything to go back to. [/i]

“But goddamnit, I sure hope I am,” I finish, and that’s when the rest of the tears plummet down my cheeks. I must look ridiculous. I can’t help it though; a fourteen year-old boy navigating the woods alone? I can’t process that image. I know that I have more blessings than there are blessings to count, and yet I’ve thrown at least half of them away when I could have been donating them to the unfortunate hearts. [/i]

I clutch the floor with my hands, shifting a few feet over until I’m right next to Rum Tum. He no longer has his knees to his chest, his legs instead folded in front of him. I shouldn’t be afraid to share my honest to god self with Rum Tum; he’s already shared so much with me, but I’m tired of being tired. I’m tired of trying not to feel sorry for myself while trying to recreate history in my head. [/i]So I lie down and put my head in Rum Tum’s lap, using his right leg as my pillow while curling up on my side as I always do when I prepare for sleep. A warm feeling blankets my cold, shivering, wet self, because right now I have the strongest, most sincere human being at my side and no fire could ever compete with that. I know he won’t let the nightmares hurt me, and I won’t let them touch him. The warmth will melt them away.[/i] There is nothing to worry about. We are safe.[/i]

“Tomorrow, you can know me. Tomorrow, I’ll share,” I say as I wipe the last of the tears from my face, yawning all the while. “Tomorrow, when I’m less fragile…” Wearily, I trace a little star on Rum Tum’s leg with my index finger, just like the star I was aimlessly tracing across my own leg at the top of the rollercoaster. They’re growing nearer with every moment,[/i] the stars. They’re growing nearer, and I don’t have to be afraid of them dropping my wishes anymore, not if we’re the ones grasping them with our bare hands. [/i]Soon, a final yawn pulls my mind into sleep and my hand falls limp, but the stars transform into faces, brilliant, vivid faces scattered across a backdrop of ocean blue, a long boardwalk full of lively music, big machines, and tiny tents.

And the whole world is alive.[/i]

// End of Boardwalk Dreams //

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