empty

my fortune cookie tells me that the value of a cup lies in its emptiness.

the bluebirds sang and wrappers crunched.

Homer’s brain told him it was gone fishin’ and he hadn’t any right to think;

my brain is childish and runs around in circles. we are following

a tinfoil path of snags and rumples.

life is that way, you tell me, of course; because this nest

of dictionaries and reassurances is not-to-be-disturbed fragile.

give it a stir and it disperses.

my fortune cookie says that there is a moral to this story if only i try hard enough.

but the cookie was crushed beneath someone's shoe.

~juniper

Estella (Part VI)

Okay. The first thing I have to say before you read this is that I didn't write it because I have a love for the novel Great Expectations. Far from it. Honestly, I found the book to be boring as crap; I just really loved Estella’s character. Then I had this project assigned to me in English class. We read The House On Mango Street, and we were talking about a protagonist’s journey to self-discovery, and we had to choose a protagonist from a novel we’d read earlier in the year and write a bunch of vignettes about them. So, I picked Estella. And I wrote these vignettes from her point of view, and I used literary devices and crap (using literary devices was part of the project) and I just really like them, okay?! So, if you’re like me and you were forced to read Great Expectations, I hope you read and enjoy the only Great Expectations fanfiction in existence. Oh, also: SPOILER ALERT. I follow Estella through the entire plot of the book, so if you don’t know how it ends and you don’t want to know, DON’T READ IT. Okay. Cool. Enjoy. This is the final section, part six...

Part VI. How To Change (See Your Lies)

So much time has passed, and so much has happened to me. Change is hard; change is never absolute. I decided to change, but I consistently relapsed into was before. I made mistakes.

Bentley Drummle was the biggest of those mistakes. After my confrontation with my mother, I promised myself that I would be different. Then I went back to Drummle, back to my misconceived perception of love. I told myself pretty lies and I pretended that I was happy.

Everybody gets angry sometimes. He never means it when he says awful things. I couldn’t think of an excuse for the other things he did, so I ignored them.

I also lied to myself when he died. You aren’t relieved, I comforted myself. You’re grieving.

Lie.

After him, I was alone for a long time. I was positive at first that that was a second mistake. I was sure that I could never be alone, that I needed to find a husband, that I wouldn’t blossom fully unless I could fall in love.

Lie.

Maybe my blossoming would come when I found love, but my prolonged isolation was what made me capable of falling in love. In all that time by myself, I was forced to keep myself company. In doing that, I became better acquainted with myself. I was able to understand exactly how I needed to change. And I made those changes. 

Today, I live in a small, elegant house, simplistic and poised - no longer condescending or spiteful. There is a small closet in the back of my house that contains an ugly old jewelry box, overflowing with gaudy jewels. Sometimes, I look at those jewels and remember when I used to wear them. A voice, one bred of the mother that wanted me more than I wanted her, sometimes says to me, You were better then. More beautiful. More strong.

But I recognize the all-too-familiar lie before it can deceive me, and I never put them back on. I know better now.

Today, I am happy that I made mistakes, because ‘mistake’ is just another way to say ‘a lesson learned’.

Today, a single flower in blooms in a vase on my windowsill. I put it there, with help from a boy I have known for forever.

He forgave me. And I forgave myself. And everything was alright.

- CinnamonGinger

The Legend Of Freshman Pond' and Other Fables From The Kingdom Of ConVal

-inkwriter

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away-- oh, to heck with all that. So there is this school called ConVal. It’s in a small town that no one has ever heard of so it doesn't matter. The reason I'm writing this story is because we all needed an explanation for why freshman are often thrown into a pond behind the school. That’s why I was summoned from the depths of hell with dark magic: to tell the story of Freshman Pond. I am actually an exchange student. So far I am enjoying your little uplandish providence of this dimension.

*clears throat*

It was a dark time in the kingdom of ConVal. The pond of drainage, which offered peace and acted as a wellspring of magical powers, was plagued by a large, magical fish. This fish’s name was Toby, or -- no it wasn't! It was… ummm… well, I actually don’t know. Just because I’m a demon from hell doesn't mean I know everything!!! Oh, sure, have great expectations for the demon just because hell has really good public schools. Okay. Anyways, so this fish just shows up one day and is all like, “FEED ME SERFS!!!”

The Pope of ConVal is like, “No way, man. We’re using those serfs. We kind of need them.” And then the fish is like,

“IF YOU DON’T FEED ME A SERF EVERY YEAR FROM NOW ON UNTIL THE END OF TIME THEN I WILL DESTROY YOUR KINGDOM!!!” And then the Pope wa-- Hey! Don’t just walk away while I’m talking!! What, you don’t believe me!? You think I’m crazy?! I was there, for Satan’s sake!!! I saw the whole -- NO! NOW YOU LISTEN TO ME!! DON’T MAKE ME SUMMON THE BATSNAKES!!! YOU SIT DOWN RIGHT NOW AND LISTEN TO MY STORY, DANG IT!!!

So. Like I was saying before I was so RUDELY interrupted, the Pope was all like, “HA, HA, HA!!!! You’re just a giant fish!! You don’t even have legs!!! How are you going to get to the kingdom?”

And then the fish was all like, “B**ch, I got legs!” and he jumped out of the water and began to run towards the school. Now, the Pope was pretty shocked, seeing as Darwinism had not yet been invented at this time. So he started running after the fis-- what was that? Oh, ha ha. Very clever. Yes, the fish’s name was Darwin. That was cute. Good job.

SO ANYWAYS, the Pope is running after the fish and shouting, “WAIT! STOP! WE’LL FEED YOU ALL THE SERFS YOU WANT!!! JUST DON’T DESTROY THE KINGDOM!!!”

And the fish said, “Very well, lowly carbon-based being. I shall not destroy your kingdom.” And he skipped back down towards the lake of drainage and plopped down into the murky depths, awaiting his yearly meal.

So that is why, year after year, the council of ConVal (often referred to as the football team) yearly tosses a serf (often referred to as a freshman) into the magical pond of drainage.

FIN.

*(That was not a pun)*

Estella (Part V)

Okay. The first thing I have to say before you read this is that I didn't write it because I have a love for the novel Great Expectations. Far from it. Honestly, I found the book to be boring as crap; I just really loved Estella’s character. Then I had this project assigned to me in English class. We read The House On Mango Street, and we were talking about a protagonist’s journey to self-discovery, and we had to choose a protagonist from a novel we’d read earlier in the year and write a bunch of vignettes about them. So, I picked Estella. And I wrote these vignettes from her point of view, and I used literary devices and crap (using literary devices was part of the project) and I just really like them, okay?! So, if you’re like me and you were forced to read Great Expectations, I hope you read and enjoy the only Great Expectations fanfiction in existence. Oh, also: SPOILER ALERT. I follow Estella through the entire plot of the book, so if you don’t know how it ends and you don’t want to know, DON’T READ IT. Okay. Cool. Enjoy. This is part five...

Part V. Jewelry & Hope; A Message For You

You did not teach me right.

You said things, and I believed them. You taught me about love and marriage and men, and all of it was a lie.

You ruined me.

You gave me jewelry, and at first I took it and wore it and I thought it was beautiful. I thought I wanted the jewelry, I thought it was better than the flowers that the other girls got.

None of those girls wear jewelry like I do. They are happy, they smile inside and out. The flowers they grow, planted from the seeds of the flowers their husbands gave to them, thrive in vases on their windowsills. But my flower is stunted. At first I thought it was just different, and in a good way. Better. More mature.

Now I see that my flower cannot blossom because it grew from a plant that is sickly and diseased, a plant that passed its sickness to the young flower growing from it.

You forced me to wear the jewelry, but it is too much, too heavy. It weighs me down. My head sinks under the weight, I cannot raise my eyes and look at what else I could be. My hands are laden, dripping with jewels, and I cannot lift them.

I do not understand how to take the jewelry off. I have changed my mind - I want flowers now. I realize that I could have had them all along, but you stopped me. ‘Don’t play in the dirt with the flowers,’ you said. ‘Ladies don’t need flowers.’

The fire burns behind you as I tell you this. The flames leap and flail as if they are the two of us, one attacking the other, pouring out resentment as the other cowers and tries to make it all fine.

You cry. You apologize to me, your tears sliding down your face as if they know the way very well. And they do - they have traveled that path many times before. Your tears do not sway my heart. I have cried their equals, cried them because of what you have done to me.

Maybe you wanted to help me. Maybe you wanted to teach me to avoid that which destroyed you. But all you did was wreck me just as completely as you are wrecked.

A boy stands with us. We have known him forever, and he is the reason why I share with you my resentment. He scares me, and I am scared at my being scared of him. Scared enough to realize exactly what is wrong with me, and exactly why.

If he did not already hate me for the way you prodded me into treating him, he surely hates me now. And that makes me hate myself, and it makes me hate you. Because in a lot of ways, it is your fault that he must hate me, and I don’t want him to hate me. I think that he is the sort of person who would make me smile not only on the outside, but on the inside as well, if I were ever to dance with him.

He would give me flowers. He tried, a long time ago, and I ignored him. Now I have to hope that he’ll ask again someday; I hope that he will help me take off all this jewelry, that we can plant flowers together.

You do not know what hope is. You left hope, neglected whatever shred of it you had until it withered away, and you cannot help me. I don’t even want you to try. You did not teach me right, and now all I have left is hope.

Goodbye.

- CinnamonGinger