chapter two

The continuation of my 7th grade novella, Shadows of the Night.

The fresh taste of morning air filled me with energy as I woke up. A cool breeze danced around me and ran through my hair. As I opened my eyes wider I thought I saw a glimpse of bright green eyes above me. Laurie, I thought.
Someone must have left the door open last night by accident. It was cold. Also the mattress was hurting my back. Then I realized with a start that I wasn’t sleeping on the mattress, or on the floor, for that matter, but on the ground in the middle of the forest.
Then it all came back to me. Where was Laurie? Where was I? I looked around me and thought there was no way I could have gotten here by being rescued from a fire, unless someone took me here purposely. I remembered those silver eyes (which were still vividly in my imagination), and thought someone probably did.
Then I remembered the green eyes I saw and realized it couldn’t have been Laurie’s green eyes, which I had thougt. Suddenly I saw her. One moment she wasn’t there, but now she was. I cautiously sat up, thinking she wasn’t really there, that I was just dreaming, but my conscience knew she was there.
The first thing I noticed were her eyes. They were the brightest green I’ve ever seen. My light blue eyes were nothing next to them, but her hair was just a shorter version of my waste-length reddish-blond hair. Big, soft curls complemented her perfect complexion. Her hair was pulled back and showed off her ears which were triple pierced. To tell the truth, she looked like an older version of me. Only, I have my ears pierced just once. She was wearing bleached jeans and a pink tie-die shirt. I noticed she wasn’t wearing any make-up.
“Hello. Did you have a good night’s sleep?” she walked over to me. “My name’s Cathy.”
“Actually, I had a terrible night’s sleep,” I answered. “Where am I?” Something made me feel at ease with her. I’m not sure what is was, but it was easy to talk to this stranger. I wondered if she was related to me because I’m adopted and I don’t know much about my real family. I started to stand up.
“Maria,” she said.
“How do you know my name?” I stumbled backwards and tripped over a twig.
“You look like a Maria.” She laughed. “Don’t worry, it’s just a guess.” I relaxed again. “Why don’t you come in my little cottage over here and talk over some hot cocoa.”
Just then I saw the log cabin behind Cathy. She must be a mother, I thought. The way she handled things for the last five minutes, I thought, she had to be a mother. It was strange thinking of a mother with her ears tripled pierced, though.
“I can tell what your thinking,” Cathy interupted my thoughts when we entered the kitchen. “You’re wondering if I have any kids. Well, I had one girl,” she looked away for a second. “She was killed in a plane crash when she was five.” A chill ran though my spine as she said that. I’ve always been afraid of planes even though I’ve never been on one.
“I-I’m sorry,” I stuttered.
“And the reason I have three holes in each ear is because I have a wild streak in me. At least, that’s what my mother always used to say.” I just stared at her.
“What are you? A mind reader or something?” I couldn’t believe my ears! How could this lady read my mind?
“Or something,” she replied.
“Well, anyway,” she continued, aren’t you going to tell me what you’re doing in the middle of the woods?”
“I-I don’t know. I was camping out with a class from school and there was a fire last night, but I ended up here somehow.”
“Did you notice anything strange last night?” she asked. Yes, I certainly did, I thought, as I remembered the events of the night before.
“Actually, I did,” I said. “I was being lead outside and then I passed out from the smoke, I guess. But right before that, someone laughed and I thought I saw silver eyes.” I turned towards Cathy. “I know that sounds weird. It was probably from inhaling too much smoke. I ended up here.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad,” she surprized me by saying.
“What do you mean ‘It’s not too bad’? I have no idea where I am, and you say it’s not too bad!”
“Shh, calm down! It could have been worse. Just think about it. They could have taken you.”
“What the devil are you talking about? Who could have taken me?” she was confusing me.
“Shhh! Don’t say that! They might hear you!” she clapped her hand over my mouth
“Hear what?! Who? What are you talking about?”
“Listen, Maria. Strange things are going to start happening to you and that’s why I’m here.”
“Are you my mother?” I burst out. I don’t know why I said that, but Cathy got real stiff.
Suddenly I felt something. A chill went up my spine as a breeze went by me. The sun seemed to dim and a shadow wrapped around us.
“So, Momma, you found your lost baby,” a familiar growl rolled out of nowhere. “Well, don’t expect him to be pleased,” it spat.
I was frozen in my seat even as the sun came out again. It wasn’t so much about the voice that scared me, or that Cathy was my long, lost mother. I just remembered her words.
“I had one girl. She was killed in a plane crash when she was five.”

“shadows of the night”

When I was in the 7th grade I wrote a book for my final project in Mr. Goldberg’s English class entitled Shadows of the Night. I still have it, and since I’m hanging out at my mom’s place for a few weeks, I thought I would take this opportunity to create a digital file of it, and publish it, chapter by chapter, on my blog for those of you who remember what it was like to have the mind of a middle schooler. It starts off normal enough, but gets weird – and spooky – really fast. Clearly I had issues, and you all can feel free to psychoanalyze me, but I did aspire to be an accomplished author someday, so it’s not half bad for a 7th grader. Enjoy, if you dare! I haven’t changed a thing – not even spelling mistakes.

CHAPTER ONE

She was late again. Where was she? It was seven-twenty and she said she’d be here at seven-fifteen. We were probably going to get the bottom bunk of someone’s bed.
When I saw her pull up in the driveway, I grabbed my duffle bag. “She’s here!” I yelled to my mom.
“Finally!” my mom said. “Here, let me help you, Maria.”
I opened the door as Laurie and her father came up the walk.
“Hi, Maria,” she said.
“Hi, Laurie,” I sighed. When her father wasn’t listening, I said, “You’re late again and this time you promised you would be on time.”
Her father never seemed to like me and I didn’t want to make a bad impression on him.
“We got here as soon as we could,” started her excuse. “You should have seen my dad. He was practicly speeding! We got here in five minutes.” That was pretty good beacause we live about ten minutes apart, but that meant she left her house at seven-fifteen. Oh, well. Always being late was just one of the strange characteristics of my best friend.
When everything was in the car and I said good-bye to my family, we left. Laurie and I were going to Wild Life Lake in southern California (where we live) for a wild life class we were taking after school. The lake fits in really well with this class because of its name, and because of all the wild life around it.
The instructor for the class was Mrs. Janet Gold, but she told us to just call her Janet. Our tenth grade history teacher, Miss Ramsel, was also coming on the trip because she was good friends with Janet. I didn’t know her that well because I had just started tenth grade, but there was something different about her that made her stand out from other people. She was almost everyone’s favorite teacher, including mine.
“I have an early Christmas present for you,” someone said.
“Huh?” I was thinking about the trip and I now realized Laurie was talking to me. “Oh! Laurie, that’s very nice of you, but in September?”
She leaned over towards me. “Well, actually I couldn’t think of any other reason to get my parents to let me buy it,” she whispered. She pulled out a small box with a curly blue ribbon on it (a tradition we’ve had for awhile).
I opened the box and in it was a best friend charm with half a heart on each of the two necklaces.
“Oh, Laurie! It’s what we were going to get at the mall. I should pay for half,” I said.
“Oh, no. It doesn’t matter. It’s all taken care of.”
“Thank you, Aurie-Lay,” (we like talking in made up languages like Pig Latin). “I’ll put it on right now!”

When we arrived at camp we were two of the first people there, even though we were late. The people already there were Jenette, Anna, and the twins Casey and Stacey. (I don’t know why twins always seem to have names that start with the same letter, or rhyme.) There were twenty girls, including me, that were going on this trip. (The boys were going next week.)
“Casey, hi! Hi Stace!” They’re good friends of ours. “Where are you sleeping?”
“Over here, you guys,” Stacey called. They had already chosen the bottom bunks for themselves, so Laurie and I got the top bunks, which we wanted anyway.
I was having a great time at camp until the last night.
“Maria, I have bad news,” Laurie said to the floor. “I lost my necklace.”
“Oh, no! Why don’t I help you look for it?” I started to climb down from the top bunk.
“It’s no use, Maria. I’ve already looked.”
“Did you ask anyone about it?”
“Just the twins.” She didn’t seem to be trying very hard to find it.
“Why don’t you ask Janet?”
“Maria,” she sounded irritated, “I told you I looked already.” There was no arguing with Laurie when she got that tone. You could be in a fight with her for days if you did. That was one thing I hated about her, but there were a lot more good things about her.
“All right, all right.” I climbed back up to rest because I wasn’t feeling to well.
That night we all sat around the fire, sang songs, and played games. It was the last night and we were all exhausted by the time we went to bed at twelve o’clock.
When I went to sleep I dreamt the cabin was on fire. Someone was leading me outside, but as the icy coldness of the strange Californian night hit me, I realized I wasn’t dreaming.
As I was laid down by the figure silhouetted by the flames, the last thing I remembered were those silver eyes staring down at me before I passed out.
The body seemed to disapear, but those silver eyes…
“At last, my dear child.” There was distant laughter, and everything around me was gone.

why not universal health care?

I’ve been meaning to post this for quite some time. It’s from Michael Moore’s film Sicko, and yes, I know that he can be rather extreme and needs to be taken with a grain of salt or two, but that doesn’t mean that his message is entirely not true. I have personally been without health care for a number of years, except for an amazing program at a local hospital that covers all medical costs for those in need (like poor grad students and ministry workers), and I am glad that it is finally becoming an issue to be reckoned with in American politics.

In his film, Michael Moore interviews Tony Benn, former Member of Parliament, who explains the philosophy behind total health care coverage in the UK:

Well, if you go back, it all began with democracy. Before we had the vote all the power was in the hands of rich people. If you had money, you could get healthcare, education, look after yourself when you were old, and what democracy did was to give the poor the vote…I think democracy is the most revolutionary thing in the world. Far more revolutionary than socialist ideas… And this idea of choice which capital[ism] talks about…choice depends on the freedom to choose, and if you’re shackled with debt, you don’t have a freedom to choose…People in debt become hopeless, and hopeless people don’t vote…See, I think there are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all, frighten people, and secondly, demoralize them. An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern…1% of the world’s population own 80% of the world’s wealth. It’s incredible that people put up with it, but they’re poor, they’re demoralized, they’re frightened, and therefore, they think perhaps the safest thing to do is to take orders and hope for the best.

Benn then reads for Moore the 1948 leaflet on the subject.

Your new National Health Service begins on the 5th of July…It will provide you with all medical, dental, and nursing care. Everyone, rich or poor, man, woman or child, can use it or any part of it. There are no charges, except for a few special items. There is no insurance qualifications, but it is not a charity. You are paying for it mainly as taxpayers and it will relieve your money worries in times of illness.

I know that people are afraid that this just won’t work in America and that it means higher taxes and longer waiting times for necessary medical care, etc., but let’s consider this: when thousands, perhaps millions of people are using the emergency room as their primary care doctor (i.e. in lieu of preventative medical care), resulting in those with actual emergencies having to wait up to 8 hours – maybe even more – to get medical attention, are our fears really justified? Total health care coverage works in many countries in Europe, and even Canada…why not here? With all the money that our HMOs swallow annually, I bet we could find a way to make it work.

I’m open to hearing thoughts that agree or disagree with those I’ve posted here.

so proud of my mia…

She’s making headlines with her latest music project. To be a part of her Sukey Rose project, you can order your own pre-sale here.

at the turnpike rest stop

I’ve been chastised for not blogging during my cross-country travels, but I must say I had a bit of a moral dilemma: how could I blog about the people who were nice enough to put up with me in their homes? Every household does have funny quirks and I can’t say that I didn’t want to share, but I restrained myself.

I will say, however, that I had a classic encounter at a rest stop on the Jersey Turnpike. Walking back to my car in the parking lot, I noticed a few kids peering in the windows and laughing. Just as I got within earshot, the oldest girl of the three shouted quite definitively, “That car is UGLY!” As I walked up to the driver’s side door, I just smiled and said, “You guys don’t like my car?” “Sorry,” she said, looking at the ground, “I didn’t know it was yours.” “That’s ok, she is a very old car, but she’s also a very good car.” Then the younger girl said, “I like the folded clothes,” pointing to the tank tops I had taken out of my backpack and had neglected to pack them back in. “Thanks.” Then the boy, who seemed to be the youngest of all three, and who looked like a cool little dude with his shades said, “It has style.” I laughed at that. “Yes, yes it does.”

SNL on survey

I often get the question, “What is language survey?” Well, this short SNL clip gives an idea of what survey might be like..

spivey’s thoughts on the issue

My real name is Spivey Jones.
As you can see from the attached pictures:

I talk in my native language.

I try to understand taxes and I eat cereal. What could be more real?

Now this human-only thing seems to be outright discrimination.  Thanks for pleading my case to Facebook.

(All good points, though I think this is also pretty good evidence for the state of Dad’s desk.)

the deal with spivey

So, a few weeks ago this message appeared on Spivey’s Facebook account:

“Please Read This! Warning! Your account will be disabled very soon if you don’t take action! You must get confirmed by another person at Bangkok Intl. Academic School, or your account will be disabled.To get confirmed, send a friend request to any people you know on the Bangkok Intl. Academic School network. We will ask them to confirm that you do attend this school. If this is not the high school you currently attend, please transfer to the correct network.”

Apparently Spivey was charged with trying to join some high school network, but since he did not actually attend that school, Facebook was afraid that he was an online predator (they obviously had not seen the exchange between him and Charis, or him and Tohu). At any rate, I didn’t really take it seriously until realizing that the message was not going away, no matter what I tried to do to appease the Facebook gods.

I finally wrote an email to Facebook’s user operations staff saying that, obviously, Spivey does not attend this high school, nor any high school, and never attempted to join this network. I explained that I had tried to follow the directions to “transfer to the correct network,” but the message still remained. I also googled the issue and found that others have had their accounts disabled by this same fluke in the system.

So, upon their investigation of the issue, they discovered that Spivey was “non-human” and I was told:

“Fake accounts are a violation of our Terms of Use. Facebook requires users to provide their real first and last names. Impersonating anyone or anything is prohibited. Unfortunately, we will not be able to reactivate this account for any reason. This decision is final.”

Poor Spivey. He was the coolest bird on Facebook.

i’ve finally found him

counseling observation over fish sticks

“What were you in the hospital for?”

“Uh, bipolar-ism and depression.” (It sounded more like a question than a statement.)

Without batting an eye, “Oh, really, man? I didn’t know that.” Then, “Are you on meds?”

“Yeah.”

“How are you feeling now?”

“Much better, yeah, thanks.”

I watched and listened in wonder as this conversation unfolded before me.  Between two grown men over lunch after church. I had just met them both, but since he had already discussed this much in my presence, I chimed in with a question or two of my own. Then the first guy, still chowing down on his fried fish sticks, added, “Well, you know, sometimes this sort of thing can last your whole life and sometimes it’s just for a season. I was really depressed when I was younger. I mean really. Just melancholy all the time, you know. Now, not at all. I mean the only time I might feel a little sad for no real reason, I usually need my umbrella that day. A buddy of mine, he’s struggled with it his whole life. He’s been through some really bad times, but now at his age he says to me, ‘You know, if I could trade having Jesus in my life for being healthy, I would never do it. When I look back, all of this will just be like a bad day at the park.’”

“Yeah, man, absolutely.”