Daddy's Long-lost Little Girl., chapter 1
"Prototypical non-conformist, You are a vacuous soldier of the thrift store Gestapo. You adhere to a set of standards and tastes that appear to be determined by an unseen panel of hipster judges!"
As I walked to my bus stop, shivering, I listened to the newest song I had discovered and fallen in love with. I let loose with a wide smile, laugh and a screaming-along with the lyrics, because in this early morning chill no one dared to come out until absolutely necessary.
I was just the opposite, totally in love with the coldness and snow and burning breath that entered and exited my lungs. I spun around in the hidden alley, my heavy messenger bag and purse sending me in a wobbling gyroscope spin, and I stumbled, still laughing as I peeled my blonde hair off of my slick, lipglossed lips. I straightened my high-collared trench coat and re-adjusted my glasses, stepping quickly. I always took the bus to school at six in the morning, mostly because I finally, FINALLY had a few hours to myself.
I needed those few hours of silence and cold and my own thoughts. It was a basic human essential for me. My family is small, with my mother and my father and youngest brother, but it was frustating to me for them to be so loud and so IN MY FACE ALL THE TIME. So I woke up early, had a showers, ate breakfast, dressed and left, usually before anyone else even had a thought of waking up. And I took the bus to school, the city bus.
Usually, in a largeish city like Calgary, Alberta, where I lived it's a bad idea to take such a bus at night, but the way I figure it, all the creeps and jerks: A) can't wake up that early and B) seriously wouldn't even try to do anything to me. So as I walked in my bright yellow converses in the misty morning, snow falling slowly to the frozen ground and onto my shoulders, head and eyelashes, I listened to my unbelievably loud CD, grinning in my happy loneliness.
As I wait at the small side-street stop, the song ends and continues to an older song, I shake my head and body occaisionally to be rid of the tiny flakes and tap my numb feet on the unfeeling concrete, bumping my head to the thumping bass of a slightly obsure indie band. The bus finally roars to an impatient stop in front of me, and I shove the $1.40 student fee bus fare into the box, I fall into the farthest possible seat from the front. Unusually, the huge bus isn't empty this morning.
Two seats ahead and one to the left of the aisle from me, sits a an absolutely immaculate young woman, about sixteen, with thick brown hair, glossy red lips and caramel coloured eyes. It took me a second, but upon her knee bounces her tiny two year old daughter, with a black mass of curls, coffee coloured skin and blue eyes. She'll grow to be a lovely girl, just like her mother.
I turn up my music, pull the rope for the school stop and exit, shocked by the sudden icyness of the wind on my skin again, but soon it's gone. Just me and my music again. The way it's supposed to be.
I stretch, and enter the barely-unlocked school, heading down the hallways that echo my own breathing, let alone my footsteps, find my locker and put away all my stuff but the things I'll need for my first class and my CD player. I sigh, and go into the room. It smells vaugely of sawdust and that industrial strength turpentine cleaner that this cheapskate school uses, and I place my things onto the desk beside mine, looking out the window, yearning for the coldness again. I'm funny like that.
When I'm outside, I'll want nothing more than to be inside. Though once I finally have walls surrounding me, my greatest desire will to be outside. I usually feel like that, like something's missing from my life and I'm constantly wanting something. But I never know what it is, so I just shrug, walk, want and listen to my music too loud.
Mister Cuff, my English teacher, finally comes into the classroom, and just as always gives me a look of pure disgust. But it's not me he loathes. I'm one of his pet students, but only because my marks are so high in the class, and it comes so easily. It's my music he hates. That and the volume.
"Roxanne Thalmer! Turn that noise down at once."
I roll my eyes, but turn off the CD. Fun's over. "And take your feet off that chair." I remove my snow-soaked converses from the seat ahead of me, and for once Mr. Cuff smiles to himself, shaking his head. He's actually quite handsome, Mr. Cuff. He has curly blonde hair, grey-blue eyes, tall and thin. I stand and stretch again, Catching sight of my form in the mirror that Mr. Cuff keeps on the south wall. My long, wavy blonde hair, my long, lean body with a black turtleneck and blue jeans, and of course, my tawny eyes.
They're the colour of cat's eyes, yellow-green and quite becoming to me, I think. After a while of silence, the rest of the class pours in, and Mr. Cuff starts lecturing on Shakespeare.
As I walked to my bus stop, shivering, I listened to the newest song I had discovered and fallen in love with. I let loose with a wide smile, laugh and a screaming-along with the lyrics, because in this early morning chill no one dared to come out until absolutely necessary.
I was just the opposite, totally in love with the coldness and snow and burning breath that entered and exited my lungs. I spun around in the hidden alley, my heavy messenger bag and purse sending me in a wobbling gyroscope spin, and I stumbled, still laughing as I peeled my blonde hair off of my slick, lipglossed lips. I straightened my high-collared trench coat and re-adjusted my glasses, stepping quickly. I always took the bus to school at six in the morning, mostly because I finally, FINALLY had a few hours to myself.
I needed those few hours of silence and cold and my own thoughts. It was a basic human essential for me. My family is small, with my mother and my father and youngest brother, but it was frustating to me for them to be so loud and so IN MY FACE ALL THE TIME. So I woke up early, had a showers, ate breakfast, dressed and left, usually before anyone else even had a thought of waking up. And I took the bus to school, the city bus.
Usually, in a largeish city like Calgary, Alberta, where I lived it's a bad idea to take such a bus at night, but the way I figure it, all the creeps and jerks: A) can't wake up that early and B) seriously wouldn't even try to do anything to me. So as I walked in my bright yellow converses in the misty morning, snow falling slowly to the frozen ground and onto my shoulders, head and eyelashes, I listened to my unbelievably loud CD, grinning in my happy loneliness.
As I wait at the small side-street stop, the song ends and continues to an older song, I shake my head and body occaisionally to be rid of the tiny flakes and tap my numb feet on the unfeeling concrete, bumping my head to the thumping bass of a slightly obsure indie band. The bus finally roars to an impatient stop in front of me, and I shove the $1.40 student fee bus fare into the box, I fall into the farthest possible seat from the front. Unusually, the huge bus isn't empty this morning.
Two seats ahead and one to the left of the aisle from me, sits a an absolutely immaculate young woman, about sixteen, with thick brown hair, glossy red lips and caramel coloured eyes. It took me a second, but upon her knee bounces her tiny two year old daughter, with a black mass of curls, coffee coloured skin and blue eyes. She'll grow to be a lovely girl, just like her mother.
I turn up my music, pull the rope for the school stop and exit, shocked by the sudden icyness of the wind on my skin again, but soon it's gone. Just me and my music again. The way it's supposed to be.
I stretch, and enter the barely-unlocked school, heading down the hallways that echo my own breathing, let alone my footsteps, find my locker and put away all my stuff but the things I'll need for my first class and my CD player. I sigh, and go into the room. It smells vaugely of sawdust and that industrial strength turpentine cleaner that this cheapskate school uses, and I place my things onto the desk beside mine, looking out the window, yearning for the coldness again. I'm funny like that.
When I'm outside, I'll want nothing more than to be inside. Though once I finally have walls surrounding me, my greatest desire will to be outside. I usually feel like that, like something's missing from my life and I'm constantly wanting something. But I never know what it is, so I just shrug, walk, want and listen to my music too loud.
Mister Cuff, my English teacher, finally comes into the classroom, and just as always gives me a look of pure disgust. But it's not me he loathes. I'm one of his pet students, but only because my marks are so high in the class, and it comes so easily. It's my music he hates. That and the volume.
"Roxanne Thalmer! Turn that noise down at once."
I roll my eyes, but turn off the CD. Fun's over. "And take your feet off that chair." I remove my snow-soaked converses from the seat ahead of me, and for once Mr. Cuff smiles to himself, shaking his head. He's actually quite handsome, Mr. Cuff. He has curly blonde hair, grey-blue eyes, tall and thin. I stand and stretch again, Catching sight of my form in the mirror that Mr. Cuff keeps on the south wall. My long, wavy blonde hair, my long, lean body with a black turtleneck and blue jeans, and of course, my tawny eyes.
They're the colour of cat's eyes, yellow-green and quite becoming to me, I think. After a while of silence, the rest of the class pours in, and Mr. Cuff starts lecturing on Shakespeare.
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