something nice

[scubadiving-writers]

She was the ocean

As he sat in his seat, his heart fluttering, his head began to flood with memories of the girl. He closed his eyes, and they began to play like movies on the back of his eyelids. The first time he'd seen her, he knew she was the one. She was wearing a black, flowy dress with little yellow sunflowers on it, and yellow sunglasses. God, how he'd loved those sunglasses. And she had on a big floppy sunhat. She was looking at a cheap necklace in one of the stalls at the flee market they were roaming around. 'Hey, um, I think you dropped this?' he stated nervously, holding out a piece of gum he had pulled out of his pocket. She turned to him and giggled. 'I don't chew gum, I'm sorry. I appreciate the effort,' she replied, flashing a toothy smile to show off the braces that lined her teeth. He blushed. 'Sorry, that was lame. But I'd love to hang out with you some time,' he told her. He didn't bother trying to remember more of that moment. It hurt too much. He let his mind play through to the next memory he could find. 'Hello?' he asked groggily, rubbing his eyes as he sat up in his bed. The clock read 4:32am. 'Can you come over? It's my cat, something's wrong.' He rushed over to her small apartment to find her on the floor of her kitchen, crying softly and stroking the small body of the cat her mother got her for her tenth birthday. She cried softly as she looked up at him. 'He's dead,' she whispered. He dropped to the floor and pulled her to him, and she sobbed into his jacket as he rubbed her back soothingly. That was the night they illegally buried the cat's body under the rose bush in the backyard of the apartment building where she lived. He smiled a little bit at that one, recalling how they were never caught for that. His mind suddenly pushed forward the memory of the first time they'd kissed. She was wearing the sunglasses again, but this time, they were paired with a plain white t-shirt and short denim overalls, pushed back on her head and holding her hair in place. He loved the way that she dressed. She was looking up at the list of movies on the wall. 'That one,' she whispered to him, pointing at the second one on the list. He smiled, and paid for their tickets while she went to order their food. After the movie was done, he drove her home. He recalled sitting outside of her house until she finally just exclaimed, 'Oh, kiss me already!' And he did. He kissed her long and hard, and then she pulled away and got out of the car. Suddenly there was a light tap on his shoulder, and he realized that the ceremony had started without him. There were eyes on him, several pairs, and then it dawned on him that it was his turn to speak. He stood and stumbled toward the front of the building. The pastor moved away to make room for him. He stood at the pedestal, a microphone on the stand in front of him, the papers he'd prepared clutched tightly in his shaking hands. The people in the room looked on as he cleared his throat and looked down at the way the buttons on his white shirt were crooked. His voice trembled as he began to speak. "She was special to me," he started. "She, um, held a very precious spot in my heart..." The boy's voice faded as he turned his head away from the microphone. "You know what?" he asked, looking back toward the large crowd of people in the small, stuffy room. "Fuck that. Do you know what she was? She was a bright red rose in a row of yellow daisies. She was a diamond in a bag of coals. She was your favorite brand of cereal, the one your mother hardly bought because there was too much sugar. To me, she was the ocean. And to her, I was the boy who loved the waves, but was completely terrified of swimming. I loved her with my whole heart, and I never got a chance to tell her. I wanted to watch her grow old, not watch her mind deteriorate until she felt that the only solution was to put a gun in her mouth. I wish I'd had that chance. I'm sorry," he whispered into the microphone, finally breaking into a fit of sobs. He rushed away from the pedestal and down the road to where his car was parked in a small lot made for car-poolers. As he climbed in, he pulled out the keys for the vehicle. He started the car and drove as fast as he could toward the old apartment building where the cat was buried. His tears poured freely down his cheeks as his radio blasted the mix-tape she'd made for him not two weeks before she died, and he tried so hard to sing along, because it's what she would have wanted. The car sped faster and faster until suddenly he hit a pothole and swerved onto the wrong side of the road. A horn blared, and he wasn't sure whose car it was coming from, but all at once the car was tumbling down into the ditch and he was not afraid to swim anymore, for he was going to meet the ocean.

[scubadiving-writers]

The Garden Was Long Overgrown Now

She took a step closer to the gate and looked up at the dark purple flowers that spilled out overtop of the entrance. The garden had once been tame and beautiful and now it was wild and rundown (however, she thought, the same could be said for herself). Time had not been kind on either of them.

After a moment’s hesitation, she pushed on the gate. It opened slowly, and she could feel its hinges protest against the movement. The flowers on the gate bobbed as the gate moved, and she could feel a breeze wafting through the crack as it opened up.

Taking a deep breath, she slipped into the garden.

The first thing she recognized were the paving stones. They were cracked, with weeds sprouting up between them, but they were still the paving stones she had danced over years ago on that one august night. She took a small step forward, and she could almost hear their laughter and the chirping of the crickets again.

From the back of the garden, she heard the faint sound of running water. She recognized it as the little stream that ran through the garden, the same one she’d fallen into, gotten soaked, and then dragged him in with her. He had laughed, she recalled, and they’d spent the time lounging in the water as her skirts billowed out around the two of them.

She moved forward, taking in all the changes that had taken place in the garden. The flowering bushes were now mostly dead, and had been engulfed by the pink roses. Once, she had worn them in her hair, and proclaimed herself the queen of the faeries. He had bowed down before her, and sworn allegiance to her and her alone.

The pansies were also gone, their beds taken over by weeds. The hydrangeas, however, were flourishing. They had grown even bigger than she remembered. How ironic, she thought. He had always hated the hydrangeas. She remembered him threatening to chop them all off at their stems. “Over my dead body they’ll stay there,” he had said, all those years ago.

She continued walking back into the garden, taking a left and veering off of the paving stone path and onto a dirt one, brushing past dead shrubberies. She remembered running down this path, holding his hand, pulling him along. She let out a laugh. That had been when every step didn’t ache, when she had had enough energy she felt as if she could climb any mountain (and of course, she thought with a smile, she’d have dragged him along with her).

She came out of the dirt path and into a small clearing, surrounded by thick shrubbery which had only gotten thicker as time had progressed. In the middle was a stone bench, now cracked in the middle and fallen apart. She closed her eyes. She could almost take herself back to the day when he’d been the one who had pulled her down that dirt path, into the clearing. He’d sat her down on the bench, and she’d remarked that this was awfully unlike him. He’d bit his lip with a nervous air then, which was much more like him. She had smiled at him encouragingly, and he had smiled back. Clearing his throat, he’d gotten down on one knee, pulling a box out of his trouser pocket. He opened the box, and he hadn’t even opened his mouth before she jumped on top of him, peppering his face with kisses and whispering, “yes, yes, yes.” He’d burst out into a smile, and his nervous air evaporated. Sliding a ring onto her finger, he’d kissed her as they both lay on the dirt floor of the clearing. She’d let out a laugh after that, saying, “I’d wondered when you’d finally ask.” He had responded by looking down at her dress and with wide eyes, cried out about how she’d ruined her dress with all the dirt. She’d only laughed again at that and pulled him into another kiss.

Swallowing hard, she turned and made her way back out of the clearing. Brushing back past the shrubs on the dirt path, she stepped back onto the paving stone path.

She walked slowly past the one rock they’d sat on one summer night at midnight, watching the stars and talking about the future. (She’d confessed that she wanted to see the world. He told her that he’d like to learn Italian. She’d gone on and on about how unfair it was that she had to stay at home while he went places. He had promised he’d take her along on his next trip. They’d made a wish on a shooting star, and fallen asleep together in the flowerbed.) As she passed the arch made of now dead flowers, she tried not to think of what had transpired within that space. (They had brought the priest into the garden, and he had stared in awe. She had worn a white dress and a wide smile. He had stood at the end of the walkway, next to the altar they had moved in specifically for the occasion. As she had passed under the arch made of flowers of all colours, she had locked eyes with him. He’d looked the most confident she had ever seen him look. She had wanted to rip off the veil, run down the aisle, and just kiss him right then and there.) She deliberately avoided looking at the garden chairs, the white ones with the delicate backs that the two of them had found together when he had finally taken her on one of his trips. (He’d sat her down in one of them, and had taken a deep breath. She had looked up at him with her encouraging smile that had always made him feel better, but he hadn’t smiled back this time. She had asked him what was wrong, and he had only shook his head. When she’d stood up to give him a hug, and he had whispered into her ear as he clung tightly to her, she had felt her heart sink down lower than she had thought was physically possible.)

She felt her feet still propelling her forwards, even though everything in her was screaming at her to go back, to leave the garden now. She turned the corner, and came across another clearing. She felt tears fill her eyes and spill down her cheeks, pouring down into creases and making their way to the ground slowly. The small white stone in the clearing was almost so blurry she could barely see it. She remembered when she had made the arrangements to have it put in, floundering around as she attempted to converse in languages she didn’t know, the ones she had always relied on him to know. When they told her that it was a good idea to engrave “deceased in battle” on it, she had only cried harder and turned to lean into his shoulder, before remembering he wasn’t there. The day she had walked through the garden in all black, following a box she refused to believe he was in, she could have sworn she’d heard him telling her to smile. When they had lowered the box into the ground, she had thought she saw him out of the corner of her eye, laughing with his arm outstretched, running down the path, almost as if he was being pulled along. And when the stone had been placed on top of the dirt, she hadn’t seen or heard anything.

Steeling herself, she felt herself turn sharply on heel as she walked the paved stone path back out of the garden. She had walked this same path before so many times for so many different reasons, however only once before for the same reason as she was now. When she reached the exit, she turned around just as she had before, hoping that maybe this time she might see a glimpse of him. She choked back a sob, just like before, and slipped back out of the garden.

With one smooth motion, she closed the gate again.

[scubadiving-writers]

Greetings!

Hello, friends! This blog is for posting things that we (Emily and Shannon) and possibly some other friends (who will be credited when their stuff is posted) have written based on prompts we either received from friends or gave to ourselves. We will probably also reblog the odd thing here and there that may or may not be a tad random, but mostly prompts or quotes that can be used as such. Also, please feel free to submit prompts (or quotes that can be used as such) and it will probably end up being written.