Story

Made a little attempt at some original fiction. It turned out rather pathetic & bittersweet, but nevertheless, I'd like your input.


"Forgetting the key was stupid, even though it's me talking."
New Year's Eve, 11.30 PM. A group of teenagers are clambering over a park's fence. The one who just scowled those words was small, hunched over and nervous. A girl. But you could tell that easily: she wore baggy clothes, had a deep androgynous voice and she wore a hat hiding all the hair she possibly could have had.
"Stop stressing out. No police is going to come check my uncle private garden on New Year's Eve."
"I'm not stressing out. Did you ask your uncle, Tom?" The boy, was already climbing, gave an eyeroll. "Like he'd notice. Relax, it's just the best place to watch the city fireworks."
He helped another girl over the fence and jumped to the other side. Only two persons where still stuck before the gate: the grumpy girl and a giant of a guy, who hadn't said a word since the start of the expedition. He stood there looking at her while smoking a cigarette. And smirked: "I guess you need a hand?" She sighed. "Yes, please, Eric."
He grabbed her and practically threw her over. He then got over himself, surprisingly nimbly for a man that size.
"I always wondered how it was possible to have so much grace and grease about you at the same time." She was sent a dead glare while he went after the others.

"Hey guys. They're gonna begin in about three minutes, we're gonna go to the hill," Tom said.
"I'm staying here."
"I'll keep her company," Eric said. He did look a bit out of breath.
"All right. You know where to find us." And they left the two behind.

"They didn't do much to keep us, did they."
"As if it's that much fun. All they're gonna do it drink themselves into a stupor."
"I bet it's because we're sad drunks."
"Perhaps."
They both sat down on bench next to the path. The fireworks had started, and they watched the glittering colours for a while. But two tree were in the way.
"We should have joined them. You see nothing from here, it's crap."
The guy barked a laugh. "Cigarette?"
"You know I don't like it. It stinks and tastes like shit."
"I know you do, but it would have suited the moment, don't you think?"
The bangs intensified, and they could hear their friends cheer from afar. Then, everything went silent.
"Guess that was the finale." Eric blew two smoke rings out, a trick he loved to perform, but in the ugly electric streetlights, the act lost a lot of its decorum.
"Give me that cig." She breathed in once, and ended up in a coughing fit.
"Ugh. My kingdom for a glass of water."
"I take it you still hate the stuff."
"Damn right I do. Good for me, too. You should power down."
"Yeah, I should. Happy New Year."
"Heartily returned. Any good resolutions?" She teased.
"You first."
"Tell the truth. It's not that I lie, it's that I keep it to myself."
"Very noble."
"And you?"
"Stop smoking."
"Liar."
"As if you've ever kept your New Year resolutions."
"I'll start with you, if you don't believe me."
"Are you keeping something from me, miss?" He said it in a mock-outraged tone.
"Yeah. Promise you'll hear me out without running or laughing?" Suddenly, she seemed nervous.
"You're scaring me. You're not gonna say 'Luke, I am your father", are you?"
"Sadly, it's not that good."
"Good. Come on, you'll tell me while we join the others, they're gonna miss us.
"Hardly. They'll all be sharing their New Year snogs."
"Probably. But I'm cold, and you, me, out there, alone? People gonna talk!" he said, mock-hysteric. She didn't laugh. She was biting her underlip.
"Oh-oh... You little... You want them to talk!"

It was all in good fun. To him, it was always all in good fun. But when he stopped trying to tickle her, he saw her face. It was far past good fun. He turned serious.

"Eric?"
"Present." There was an edge to his voice.
"I think I..."
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't say it. Don't do this."
"Eric, I think I love you."
The twig he'd been clutching snapped. She winced at the sound.
"I'm sorry."
"For what? Loving me? It's not like it'll change something. You were my friend, and now I'm not going to be able to do anything with you without having that giant pink elephant standing in the room."
"You don't love me."
"I think I was... clear. You're a friend, and I don't see you under another angle. Sorry." The bitterness was definitely there now, and he lighted another cigarette.
"I'd take it back, if I could. You know I would."
"Life doesn't work that way."
"You do shit, you repair shit, you don't take it back. Tell me about it."
"Do you love someone."
"I love plenty of someones."
"Does that particular someone have a name?"
"Valerie."
She stopped and looked him in the eye.
"Kidding, right? The one who has her tongue down Tom's throat right now?"
"The very same."
"You're screwed."
"So are you. It's a lousy, cruel joke but it's true."

They both went silent and stared for a while. Everywhere but at each other.

"Eric?"
"Alive and kicking."
"You don't think that we could, like, try..."
"No."
"Thought so. I'm pretty sure, now, that I love you." She gave him a sad, bitter smile. It was either that or burst out crying.
"Why?"
"It hurts like hell."

She bent down and kissed him, not on the lips, but not exactly on the cheek, either. Then she turned and walked away.
Eric watched her disappear and sighed. Fuck-fuck-fucked up world. He crushed out his cigarette under his boot.

And started. It was a howl. It was a laugh. It might even have been a sob, and it rang through the night.
Her voice, only slightly wobbly. You had to admire the girl's control.
"Eric? I... I need help for the gate."

He almost broke right there. But all he did was take a deep breath: "Coming."



 Please, please, pretty please, leave some criticism.

Not joking, past caring.

I am a fucked up joke.
I am a genetically fucked up joke.
I am a predetermined pathetic excuse for a girl. If we weren't struggling against evolution like we do, it'd have wiped me out ages ago. Glasses-wearing fat slow intellectuals aren't made for survival.

Why the fuck was I born here, now, in this family with these fucked-up genes? Why am I just genetically programmed to be a whiny self-piteous bitch?

I wish I could tell you I wasn't the girl who looked like a boy for half of her life and still a bit does look like one. I wish I could tell you I wasn't the one who spent half an hour lying spread out on her rug, crying and wallowing in self-pity. I wish I could tell you I had friends that can pull me through anything. I wish I could tell you I have determination and talent and courage.
I wish I could tell you I wasn't the one who, after the tears had run out, turned on her radio full blast and tried to dance herself to exhaustion,  to shake all the shit out of her. I wish I could tell you  wasn't the one who had to choke back a new shitload of tears when her brother knocked and walked in, asking to turn the volume down. I wish I wasn't the one who gave him a twisted crooked smile and said sure while something broke inside. I wish I wasn't the one who falls in love with a boy who doesn't and will never see her as girlfriend material, let alone return her affections. I wish I wasn't the one who is crying all over her keyboard now.

But I can't.

I can't cause it'd be lying, and I don't lie about things that matter. I just don't tell them.

I am that girl, that ridiculous fucking pathetic excuse of a teenager who had a breakdown at 6 pm. I had the terrible urge to destroy something, and instead I just threw a pack of Kleenex at Einstein's head.
I am the girl who says she loves writing, and every time she tries to write that story that's running around her head, she ends up ripping up paper in frustration and throwing all the parts around her room while she sobs. I am the girl who, when she's sure the house is empty and she feels bad, will scream like a madman, so loud her throat hurts, just cause otherwise she'd burst.

I am the girl who's so messed up inside her family doesn't even notice.

Fuck me, what is this? Depression? Identity crisis? Cry for attention? Pretty sure it isn't your average teenage behaviour.

Goddammit, sometimes in bed I'm crying, trying not to make a sound, and because I'm holding in in everything hurts.

Sometimes I wake up and I ask myself what I did that for. Sometimes I wish I'd never existed, sometimes I wish I'd die in my sleep. Sometimes I imagine writing suicide notes. Yes, it's creepy, so what? As long as it keeps me from killing myself, I'll take it.

I now realise what I wrote and that I should probably not post it. But you know what? I'm past caring.

Bis repetitam non placent

Exams have started. Again. I'm so not in the groove. Again. I'm pesky and pestering. Yet again.

Truly, this blog is starting to be terribly boring.

Damn. Just saw the light: I am terribly boring.

Probably why I am not girlfriend material.

I'm also lacking in all sorts of experience: never been so extremely drunk that you forget everything, never been kissed, don't know what love is, never really went out, never learned to dance.

Dance.

I can't dance. I love music and I can't dance. I've got the rhythm and the groove, but I've got zero moves. I can't dance, but I love to dance. Or swing my limbs around to the music and stomping y feet on the floor, call it what you like.

To learn to dance, you need somebody to teach you. Or at least show you. Or you need to watch people dancing, and not in those pathetic dance movies like Dirty Dancing or Flashdance or Fame or Footloose or more recently Step Up.

However, watching the people I've seen 'dance' at the few modern parties I've been to, I'm not so sure I'm willing to call it dancing. They just form some pack and jump around with their hands in the air.

Not that what I'm doing every morning to old rock & pop music on my rug is much better. It's like I don't know who (I'll google it and put it in a comment) said, "Dance like nobody's watching", I only do it when there really is nobody watching. Doomed be my shame and my shyness, but I'm very unwilling to show those improvised moves (I could really hurt someone if they were standing too close) to anyone apart from my family.

I wasn't born with many assets. I haven't got the style, or the nice figure and looks, or the outgoingness most people have. I'm clumsy, I speak too fast, I'm genetically burdened with the fact I get red real easy cause blood rushes to my face. I'm not quick witted or particularly intelligent, I map possible conversation out in my head not to seem like an idiot. I analyse conversation afterwards to find out where I should have said what. Too little, too late. I am not very nice to converse with. I'm abnormally plain in my looks and plainly abnormal mentally.

I can't dance.

What do I have in my favour? I write. Like I can.

Something's gotta grieve

It happens on a cold, very cold winter morning. The alarms wakes you up. The radio joins in. You don't look in the window because you know the only thing you're going to see is yourself looking like the walking dead, the black stains round your eyes not quite wiped away yet.

Taking a shower, pick and put on clothes, before you realise it you're halfway through brushing your teeth and finished with you're morning routine, so you pick up your bag and go through the hallway, heading downstairs. Everything's silent. It's 7.20 though, things should be moving. You bounce on your brother's door to wake him. Something's not right.

And then it hits you, like a brick in your face. It's one of those mornings.
Immediately you want to go back to bed. But you don't, 'cause you're such a reasonable kid. You go put on an extra sweater and hiking shoes. As if it would change anything. You sigh and pick up two tangerines for lunch. You eat another one for breakfast. You eat dark chocolate, 'cause you read somewhere that it's full of stuff that makes you happy. Serotonin? Endorphins? Whatever. Bullshit.

Your throat constricts, and you want to cry. You swallow it, though. It makes your chest contract and it hurts like hell, but 7.30 am is not a time to cry. "Just as it's not a time to drink," you think ironically while you look at the fridge where the beers are kept. You snort. As if you would, you're not so crazy about the stuff anyway.

You shout at the rest of the house to 'come down or you gonna be late'. Not that you care, but this is all about keeping up appearances while you live on autopilot, trying hard to keep the bile down.

You load your bicycle in the car. It's freezing and you didn't put your coat on. This time, you have to choke back the waterworks, but you stand your ground. It isn't your first that kind of a morning.

You decide to become a hollow shell, to be sure nothing comes out. You get in again, making a beeline for the radiator. You get your hat, gloves and coat, greet your father and send your brother to put his bike in the car. You marvel at your acting talent, everybody believes you're just not a morning person, and not that you're falling apart on the inside.

You do not say a word during the car ride. You're relieved it's not your mother driving. You borrowed your father silk and wool scarf. It doesn't sit well. Doomed be those mornings.

You're there. You're late. You couldn't care less. Your father unloads the bikes, you brother's first. As he hands you yours, you rasp out a 'Thanks, see you tonight'.

You don't know how he picked up on it. Perhaps your eyes weren't glinting, or your voice was too hollow. Maybe it was the way your gaze averted his or the way your underlip trembled slightly when his hand brushed yours. Maybe your answer was too slow.

Anyway, he cocks his head to the side and asks, worried: "Magali, are you okay?"

And you want so much to say: "No, dad, I'm not okay."

But instead, you give him a wry smile, you grab your bike and ride away.

"I'm late, dad. Have a nice day."

00.00

Is the time where I started this article. I'm having one of my too much thinking nights. Mainly, about what I'm going to study. Later. When I'm back from South-America. I thought I'd go with languages at university, but then I got knocked back to journalism again, passing a film & television writing course along the way. And I don't know. I really don't.

I guess I could simply revert to my old habit of being a downright fair-squared pessimist, declaring that I have to pass first. I could also turn to my 'je-m'en-foutistic' philosophy, providing me with a 'I will see once I get there', which is in more than a year, as I'm going to South Americaaaa! Whatever.

On a very not sunny and icy note, it is freeze-my-ass-off cold in lil' ol' Belgium.

Seriously, after a ride on my bicycle back from school I had to count my toes and fingers to check if they where all sticking with me. And I was wearing my extra-special ski gloves for really cold circumstances, two pair of socks and a leather and wool jacket that's older than me. Plus the hat that makes my hair stick up in the weirdest places.

I might have looked like the Michelin Man a little, but I suppose I am a nightmare of the fashion police all the time, so if I'm a little worse than usual, but then again, who cares? Certainly not me. Perhaps the people I walk around with, but then again, who cares? Certainly not me. I'm quite happy they're still walking beside me though.

I'm gonna take this point to make a little parenthesis: I wanna thank all the people who walked or kept walking beside me when I was a joke, at one point or another in life. I could never get a greater proof of friendship than that, so I thank my brothers and family members and other jokes (It is well known we stick together. The ridiculous & aware of it find little comfort, except in the more ridiculous.) and true friends. Thank you all, you helped me swallow my tears of shame when they were welling up.

 Enough drama for today! With this, I let the curtain fall on babeluda's whine&wonder show. See you tomorrow!
Location : Rue de Mollendael 18-24, 1320 Bevekom,