Ocean Eyes, chapter 1
A caged bird sings, but what it longs for is flight. - Author Unknown.
It was an icy, bracing winter day in Aurora. The snowflakes coated the sky - a murky, undefined abyss above the sleepy town. The town was undergoing the most gloomy weather yet, a curtain descending. The neighborhood was still softly snoring from its peaceful night on the safe bed of Wisconsin, like a child in infancy. Aurora is not the town you read about in newpapers. Nothing much ever happens here, and nothing much ever will. Only in the most horrendous, tragic moments that seldom occur do the townspeople talk in subtle whispers.
Like doughnuts, the streetcars were blanketed in a soft array of white powder, the biting effect of January. I felt snowflakes land in my eye lashes as I crossed the intersection of Elm and Rolling Brook. Perhaps if I walked faster, I would make it to school on time.
I go Robin High School, after the state bird. It's a small, public school - the center of the town's attention. There aren't many students, just a few hundred pleasant faces.
My brow gained a furrow as the coldness swept within my fourteen-year-old body. My book stumbled out of my hand as I tripped on the curb and caught myself before I landed square on the slick concrete. My hands froze like supercooled droplets at surface temperatures as they came in contact with the road. I forgot my gloves at home, while rushing to get out the door.
"I'm hurrying!" I had said, while wincing in pain after hitting my foot on my dresser and trippinng. I had scurried through my room, rummaging through my closet for a decent attire, appropriate for the first day of school following the December holidays.
"Charlotte, come on! You're going to be late!" My stepfather's voice rang out from the kitchen downstairs. I crept across the floorboards and looked at the mirror - horrified, pretified, mortified. As I applied my subtle make-up I could hear my parents arguing over the same damned thing; life - and the hardships that come with it. The arguments usually started with something like 'I want my wife back' or 'You haven't been paying enough attention to me' or some other form of marriage-related conflict.
I suppose it was when an eery, consuming silence fell over our home that I snapped out of my fascination with my facial features, in which I felt acutely comfortable with. I carried out my familiar morning routine; brushing my teeth, grooming my mousey hair, applying make-up, and falling into my jeans and sweater that defined my public attributes.
Advancing down the stairs quietly, I expected my stepfather's imminent, angry roar for me to quicken my pace, but nothing. I sat at the bottom of the stairs in my wool winter coat, jeans and sweater, and my backpack wilting over my shoulders like a dying flower in the fall. My fingers grazed over my chapped lips as I heard heavy footsteps trail through the house.
I perched silently on the bottom step, nursing my lips with a stick of Lip Balm. Another eery, consuming silence shadowed the house again. It wasn't just any silence, it was one that subtley swallowed you hole, almost unintentionally. Step by step, little by little, darkness crept over me like vines on an old abandoned building. I felt a murderous chill crawl up my spine, almost losing myself in thoughts of yesterday.
When the minutes slipped past carelessly, I realized I would be walking to school. I pulled my cap over my head of auburn hair, and stepped out the door. The wind wrapped around me, and blew me off my feet.
And now, here I am; the blissful fourteen-year-old Charlotte Reese, crossing the intersection of Elm and Rolling Brook. My eyes peeked under the rim of my cap, which was lined with strand of my mousey hair, into a store window as I passed. It was a tobacco store. If the gaseous smoke wafting over me was not from the little store on the corner, than it was air itself.
I always wondered what need there was to nurse a ciggarette. A plastic romance, I thought it was. What reasons where there to inhale something we call pollution? If the green earth couldn't inhale it, perhaps its foolish inhabitants felt they could.
* * *
The browning edges of each canvas on the wall furled tenderly into a tamale shaped curl. The papers blew away onto the floor as the door opened and closed each time. The abandoned paintbrushes clustered together in a cup like a pasta jar and the cold tile floor was a canvas for unintentional splashes of paint that had been there since perhaps years prior - even before my birth.
I'd made it to school just as the bell rang and headed towards my new class. Last semester I had Computer Science, this semester I have Art. I sat at my table, smelling the oils and paints and fresh paper, quiet. I watched the clock as it slowly ticked around and around. It was neverending. It never ends.
The tardy bell rang just as the last kid came into the doorway. Everyone sat, shouting, throwing paper airplanes, and sticking wads of gum under the large black tables while Mrs. Dewitt, the teacher, smiled softly and carried out her salutations.
I had always enjoyed art. In fact, I loved it. I frequently drew pictures in my notebooks, any other loose paper, and even my walls. I never enjoyed school though. I wasn't smart, nor popular. Just a loser.
As she spoke to us about class rules, curriculum, etc., I didn't pay much attention. My eyes were drawn to the window. I watched the clouds roll by, wishing I could be them, just carelessly floating around, not exactly destined for anything. Behind these clouds came the sun. I turned away before it blinded me and suddenly felt nervous.
"What's your name?"
"Char...Charlotte," my voice shook. I wasn't so used to polite conversations.
"Cool. I'm Andie," he says back. I don't look at him. I can't look directly at someone when I'm nervous.
I try to speak, but the words don't come out. They're stuck in my throat. Words often lodge inside me when I want to say them the most, when it's an urgent message, a caged bird, even, longing for flight.
I snapped out of my gaze upon the floor, while trying to figure out how to speak again. Maybe walk again. I look back out the window, prying into the sky for some sort of insignificant distraction.
"So where do you find your inspiration? Anywhere? All sorts of different things?"
I zoned out, entertaining the fantasies that hatched inside my head during the long school hours, speculating which was most possible and impossible. I often replayed these envisions, longing for them to occur and re-occur. I always remind my self to keep my head above the water, to keep from drowning into thought and never resurfacing.
Hypnotic dreams inside my head would never protect me, I knew this. I knew when I became older, when I mature, I will not have time for these foolish ventures into my own mind. But sometimes I ponder whether knowing this makes me what I thought I wasn't. Worn.
The silence was broken when, "what are you thinking?" rang into my ears. My eyes darted immediately to the table as I lied my head down on it, not looking at this intruder of my thoughts, my precious moments.
"Nothing."
"You sure?"
I didn't look back at him. I just kept my head on the table, sinking into my world of precious, yet unrealistic notions and moments. The rest of the day was nothing meant for the newpapers. I simply writhed throughout the day with as much sanity as capable, and when it came time to leave for home, I bolted into the snow. It wasn't like I was eager to get home, just eager to leave school. My home was not a place in which you could feel most acutely comfortable in, if not that, secure.
On this walk home my ears froze as I stepped through the same weather as I did this morning; looking above to a deep blue sea, graffitied with grey splotches and combed by high winds as I speculated on life and death and anything that came with it.
It was an icy, bracing winter day in Aurora. The snowflakes coated the sky - a murky, undefined abyss above the sleepy town. The town was undergoing the most gloomy weather yet, a curtain descending. The neighborhood was still softly snoring from its peaceful night on the safe bed of Wisconsin, like a child in infancy. Aurora is not the town you read about in newpapers. Nothing much ever happens here, and nothing much ever will. Only in the most horrendous, tragic moments that seldom occur do the townspeople talk in subtle whispers.
Like doughnuts, the streetcars were blanketed in a soft array of white powder, the biting effect of January. I felt snowflakes land in my eye lashes as I crossed the intersection of Elm and Rolling Brook. Perhaps if I walked faster, I would make it to school on time.
I go Robin High School, after the state bird. It's a small, public school - the center of the town's attention. There aren't many students, just a few hundred pleasant faces.
My brow gained a furrow as the coldness swept within my fourteen-year-old body. My book stumbled out of my hand as I tripped on the curb and caught myself before I landed square on the slick concrete. My hands froze like supercooled droplets at surface temperatures as they came in contact with the road. I forgot my gloves at home, while rushing to get out the door.
"I'm hurrying!" I had said, while wincing in pain after hitting my foot on my dresser and trippinng. I had scurried through my room, rummaging through my closet for a decent attire, appropriate for the first day of school following the December holidays.
"Charlotte, come on! You're going to be late!" My stepfather's voice rang out from the kitchen downstairs. I crept across the floorboards and looked at the mirror - horrified, pretified, mortified. As I applied my subtle make-up I could hear my parents arguing over the same damned thing; life - and the hardships that come with it. The arguments usually started with something like 'I want my wife back' or 'You haven't been paying enough attention to me' or some other form of marriage-related conflict.
I suppose it was when an eery, consuming silence fell over our home that I snapped out of my fascination with my facial features, in which I felt acutely comfortable with. I carried out my familiar morning routine; brushing my teeth, grooming my mousey hair, applying make-up, and falling into my jeans and sweater that defined my public attributes.
Advancing down the stairs quietly, I expected my stepfather's imminent, angry roar for me to quicken my pace, but nothing. I sat at the bottom of the stairs in my wool winter coat, jeans and sweater, and my backpack wilting over my shoulders like a dying flower in the fall. My fingers grazed over my chapped lips as I heard heavy footsteps trail through the house.
I perched silently on the bottom step, nursing my lips with a stick of Lip Balm. Another eery, consuming silence shadowed the house again. It wasn't just any silence, it was one that subtley swallowed you hole, almost unintentionally. Step by step, little by little, darkness crept over me like vines on an old abandoned building. I felt a murderous chill crawl up my spine, almost losing myself in thoughts of yesterday.
When the minutes slipped past carelessly, I realized I would be walking to school. I pulled my cap over my head of auburn hair, and stepped out the door. The wind wrapped around me, and blew me off my feet.
And now, here I am; the blissful fourteen-year-old Charlotte Reese, crossing the intersection of Elm and Rolling Brook. My eyes peeked under the rim of my cap, which was lined with strand of my mousey hair, into a store window as I passed. It was a tobacco store. If the gaseous smoke wafting over me was not from the little store on the corner, than it was air itself.
I always wondered what need there was to nurse a ciggarette. A plastic romance, I thought it was. What reasons where there to inhale something we call pollution? If the green earth couldn't inhale it, perhaps its foolish inhabitants felt they could.
* * *
The browning edges of each canvas on the wall furled tenderly into a tamale shaped curl. The papers blew away onto the floor as the door opened and closed each time. The abandoned paintbrushes clustered together in a cup like a pasta jar and the cold tile floor was a canvas for unintentional splashes of paint that had been there since perhaps years prior - even before my birth.
I'd made it to school just as the bell rang and headed towards my new class. Last semester I had Computer Science, this semester I have Art. I sat at my table, smelling the oils and paints and fresh paper, quiet. I watched the clock as it slowly ticked around and around. It was neverending. It never ends.
The tardy bell rang just as the last kid came into the doorway. Everyone sat, shouting, throwing paper airplanes, and sticking wads of gum under the large black tables while Mrs. Dewitt, the teacher, smiled softly and carried out her salutations.
I had always enjoyed art. In fact, I loved it. I frequently drew pictures in my notebooks, any other loose paper, and even my walls. I never enjoyed school though. I wasn't smart, nor popular. Just a loser.
As she spoke to us about class rules, curriculum, etc., I didn't pay much attention. My eyes were drawn to the window. I watched the clouds roll by, wishing I could be them, just carelessly floating around, not exactly destined for anything. Behind these clouds came the sun. I turned away before it blinded me and suddenly felt nervous.
"What's your name?"
"Char...Charlotte," my voice shook. I wasn't so used to polite conversations.
"Cool. I'm Andie," he says back. I don't look at him. I can't look directly at someone when I'm nervous.
I try to speak, but the words don't come out. They're stuck in my throat. Words often lodge inside me when I want to say them the most, when it's an urgent message, a caged bird, even, longing for flight.
I snapped out of my gaze upon the floor, while trying to figure out how to speak again. Maybe walk again. I look back out the window, prying into the sky for some sort of insignificant distraction.
"So where do you find your inspiration? Anywhere? All sorts of different things?"
I zoned out, entertaining the fantasies that hatched inside my head during the long school hours, speculating which was most possible and impossible. I often replayed these envisions, longing for them to occur and re-occur. I always remind my self to keep my head above the water, to keep from drowning into thought and never resurfacing.
Hypnotic dreams inside my head would never protect me, I knew this. I knew when I became older, when I mature, I will not have time for these foolish ventures into my own mind. But sometimes I ponder whether knowing this makes me what I thought I wasn't. Worn.
The silence was broken when, "what are you thinking?" rang into my ears. My eyes darted immediately to the table as I lied my head down on it, not looking at this intruder of my thoughts, my precious moments.
"Nothing."
"You sure?"
I didn't look back at him. I just kept my head on the table, sinking into my world of precious, yet unrealistic notions and moments. The rest of the day was nothing meant for the newpapers. I simply writhed throughout the day with as much sanity as capable, and when it came time to leave for home, I bolted into the snow. It wasn't like I was eager to get home, just eager to leave school. My home was not a place in which you could feel most acutely comfortable in, if not that, secure.
On this walk home my ears froze as I stepped through the same weather as I did this morning; looking above to a deep blue sea, graffitied with grey splotches and combed by high winds as I speculated on life and death and anything that came with it.
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