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ZeraStarloft
Junior Member
since 2003-01-07
Posts 11
in a marigold

0 posted 2003-01-21 07:06 PM


Yellow chipped paint, decorated with dangling shutters that would smack against the side of the house when the wind blew and never kept out the snow.  The windows were broken; a story of age, of fights, of just plain bad luck.  Bad luck was the only kind of luck they had, she used to say, as she would sit on the front steps and wait for him to come home from work, sometimes lingering there for three or four hours, until it was dark, when she would climb into bed and wait for the sound of his car to pull up.  

There was a window next to her bed, one of the twelve cracked windows in the front of the house, she had never bothered to count the numbers in the back.  The only light in the room came from that window, she refused to turn on a lamp.  If it was dark enough in the room for light from a lamp, she figured he should be there, asleep and in bed with her.

She stared out the window, waiting for his junky, rust covered car to pull up and park in the street, for him to emerge and run up the walk to the house.

And it was there that she rested, that day, in her bed, when there was a knock at her bedroom door.  It wasn't him.  He never knocked.  She would never want him to knock.

"Yeah?" She kept her gaze fixed on the window, waiting for the patterns of light to change.  There was no response, and a moment later she heard a hand lightly grasping the doorknob.  

"What?" She rolled over, surrendering her post at the window, looking at the door, the paint chipping off, the wood splintering in places from the times it had been kicked in during the middle of the night.

Slowly, it opened and Derrick stepped into the shadows of the room, the only light provided by the moon shining through the window.  From the look on his face, she could see in his eyes that there was something he had to do.  Something he didn't want to do.  

He approached her bed and sat down, tucking a strand of her coffee colored hair behind her ear.  In the doorway, Neo stood, tears streaming down her face.

Derrick opened his mouth but no sound escaped it.  She looked on past Derrick, to Neo, who simply shook her head, making no sound as her tears continued to pour down.  

“What is it?  Where’s Matt?  Is it another girl or something?” She questioned them not only with her voice, but with her eyes. Derrick couldn’t stand the pleading looks she was shooting at both him and Neo, slowly he began to open his mouth again.

*~*

It was snowing golf balls outside when Matt left work, the only thing on his mind was hurrying home to see her.  He climbed into his car, stuck the key into the ignition and turned it, but nothing happened.  

“**** ,” He mumbled under his breath, the stream of words floating out of his mouth like a light smoke and swirling towards the ceiling of the car.  Matt climbed out of the rusty old car, the snow still pelting down like never-ending doom.  He shoved his hands into his pockets and quickly emerged from the employee parking lot behind his building.  It wasn’t long before he reached the sidewalk and made it to the front of the building.  He reached for the door, but it was locked.  It was then that he noticed the lights were out.  Matt knocked on the door, but no one answered.  It was clear that the building was closed for the night.  

“Rai is going to be pissed,” Matt mumbled as he rubbed his hands together in an attempt to warm them.  He continued to walk down the sidewalk, looking for a payphone, for any way to call a mechanic and to communicate with Raiven.  The street was empty, save the wind and the snow, and the man on the corner.  Matt approached him, hoping to ask for directions to a phone, and maybe the possibility of bumming a quarter.  

“Hey,” He said when the stranger was within five feet of him.  The man nodded at him, smiling.

“What are you doing out here, in the cold?” The man questioned.

*~*

Raiven listened intently as Derrick began to speak.  The words formed sentences inside her head, but they didn’t make sense.  Something was wrong.  Something was wrong with Matt.

“Is he screwing around again?” She hated asking that question, she braced herself for the answer that she longed not to hear.  It had only happened once before, only that one time, and he was really very drunk; he had said so himself.  But if it happens once, it can happen again.

Derrick stuttered, attempting to speak, but the words wouldn’t come out.  Listening to him was getting Raiven nowhere.  She emerged from the blankets, from that dark little room, and ran down the stairs.  Grabbing her coat as she headed out the door, she slammed it shut behind her and climbed into Neo’s car.  Retrieving the keys from the glove compartment, she shoved them in the ignition as a hand grasped at the door handle on the passenger side.  It was Neo.  

*~*

“My car is broken down, just down the road.  Do you know where I could find a payphone?” Matt shivered as the wind blew through his paper thin coat.

“What, do you need a mechanic or something?  They’re all closed by now.  But I could help you with your car, if you need help.”

“Sure.  Thanks.”  The stranger followed Matt down the road to his car.  Matt opened the unlocked door and popped the hood of the car open.  Matt retrieved a battered toolset from the trunk of the car.  The two hunched over the car together, trying to discover the problem.

“So, um, your name?” Matt asked, wanting to know more about this stranger who was helping him.

“Jimmy.  You?”

“Matt.”  The two silently worked on Matt’s car for an hour while the snow continued to fall.

“Try to start it,” Jimmy instructed and Matt placed the key in the ignition and turned it.  The car exploded with life and Matt smiled.  He climbed out of the car and walked over to Jimmy.  

“Thanks a lot, man.  Do you need a ride anywhere or anything?” Matt asked.

“Actually, yeah, I could use a ride.”  Matt nodded and motioned for Jimmy to climb into the passenger’s seat.  He then climbed into the driver’s seat and the two pulled out of the snow covered parking lot.  With his windshield wipers working at full speed, Matt sped down the road.

“So, where to?”

*~*

Raiven glanced over at her friend as she placed her foot firmly on the gas peddle.  Neo lacked a proper coat and was shivering as the car sped away from the house with the chipped yellow paint and broken shutters.

“We going to the bar?” Neo asked, but the tone her voice took made it sound more like a statement than a question.  Her teeth chattered and she sat on her hands to warm them up.  Raiven made no attempt to acknowledge Neo or her question, but simply cranked the heat in the car.  

“Rai?” Neo ran her fingers through the long, coffee colored strands of Raiven’s hair.  

© Copyright 2003 Zera Starloft - All Rights Reserved
SPIRIT
Senior Member
since 2002-12-29
Posts 1745
California Desert
1 posted 2003-01-22 02:16 PM


I'm still reading!
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