Gaia: Beyond the Horizon

Re: Highway Romance

http://musicalfreedom.gaia.com — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:31:21 GMT

I really like it! Even though you said it was a true story, I think it would be a great start to a fictional story if it was expanded.

Re: Hey there. :)

http://musicalfreedom.gaia.com — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 21:48:38 GMT

Hi, my name is Shannon and I'm a college student from Mississippi. I write both prose and poetry on various subjects, almost all of which are fiction. I've been writing for as long as I can remember, but I am just now finding the free time (still scarce) to continue. Like Jesse, I am also lucky enough to have found the love of my life who is the inspiration for many of my lyrics (I am also a slight musician) and have trouble finishing what I start.

Highway Romance

http://Jessethestoryteller.gaia.com — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 08:35:08 GMT

Based off a true story. :)

The window was down and the music was extra loud to make up for it. I had my hair back, but little wisps of it were flying around my face in the 55 mph wind. There were a lot of cars on the road, but I was in a sort of empty space between two clusters of them. My left leg was up in my lap and my elbow was resting on the windowsill. For once, I was going the speed limit. I had no place to go in any hurry, and I didn't really want to go home.

Cars pulled onto the highway and cars pulled off of it. I bit my thumbnail and stared at the stormy clouds. It was raining off and on. I was more or less hoping it would rain while my window was down so I could get shot by a few drops of it. They stung and were cold and then trickled down your fingers.

Woosh. Woosh. Honk. Woosh. The cars sped by. I stretched my hand out towards the ones going the opposite direction. Sometimes on two-lane roads, I'd try to see if I could touch them. It would be really stupid if I ever did, they might take my fingers off, but it was fun to imagine sometimes.

It was a lazy day. Hot - kinda. The air was wet and it smelled wet and the concrete was wet. Wet and hot. I was content. I had just come back from the park, where I laid on a brick wall and stared up at the sky and listened to thousands of millions of leaves snuggling against each other when the wind blew. A long, drawn-out thought kept repeating itself in my head when I heard the sound. "It sounds like the ocean. It sounds like the ocean. This is Kansas' ocean. It sounds like the ocean."

Of course, then a very large fly buzzed in my ear and I no longer wanted to sit outside. Once you become aware there are bugs around you, you can't forget that they might crawl on you at any moment. I had gone to my car, turned it on, hung my feet out the window, and read a comic book. I cried because the little girl in the comic painted a picture and gave it to an old man who had killed his baby and said "This is the last picture I paint as myself."

I wasn't thinking of any of this while I was driving. I wasn't thinking of anything, actually. I was fighting with my hair to keep it out of my mouth and was singing along to the music without thinking about it. The highway had opened up and two lanes had become three. A fourth lane was coming up to join us, since we were passing over another highway, and cars needed to get on.

I was in the far right lane, because I was used to flooring it and going seventy just about everywhere. I was going sixty something, which was still in the speed limit, actually. When they added another lane, they tacked a few more miles onto the limit. Don't know why, the road was just the same. Bigger, but it didn't curve or have stop lights or anything.

I didn't think about any of this, though. I wasn't thinking about anything.

The fourth lane dissapeared and the cars adjusted themselves, settling in for a long ride. Some jerk who thought he was too cool to hang around behind me had just rocketted past and was off to piss off more drivers. I didn't care. His bad mood was wasted on me. I was content.

I saw another fourth lane showing up. We weren't passing a highway this time, just a busy street. I started to hear the loud, angry whirring noise of a motorcycle sifting in through my windows. I glanced over and saw him.

Him.

He had a dark red shirt on, billowing against his body and making him look fatter than he was. His helmet was yellow, and he had kahki pants on. He looked over at me, or at least I thought he did. He turned his left blinker on and pointed at the space in front of me. In barely half a second, he crossed all four lanes of traffic and settled in front of my car.

I couldn't breathe. I stared at his back, my mouth open, my eyes not blinking. The wisps of hair flying around my face stuck in my mouth and I didn't care. I watched him.

Motorcycles had always fascinated me. They always seemed devillishly romantic. I think it's how you have to hold onto the guy if you're riding with him. Actually, in all honesty, I think that motorcycles are the modern horses. Girls always wanted guys with white horses to come sweep them off their feet. I think the modern version of that is a guy on a motorcycle who can come carry you away.

The motorcyclist in front of me wasn't doing anything exciting, just driving straight. He was following behind a red truck, and I was following behind him. I kept close enough to him so that nobody could cut in between us, and far enough away so he didn't get nervous. I wanted him to stay in font of me so I could watch him.

He kept glancing around him. I guess it's because he didn't really have mirrors like a car does. In a car, you just glance up and you can see behind you. There's no rearview mirror on a motorcycle. He kept looking at the other lanes, and I started to worry he wanted to pass the red truck and get away from me. He didn't, though. He stayed for a few minutes.

More cars got on via another fourth lane. He was cornered in by a sporty silver car, and would have to stay in front of me. I smiled.

I was perfectly content to stare at him and watchin him glance around. I didn't want anything more, but he gave me more.

He turned around and looked at me.

Well, turned around isn't such a good word. You can't turn around on a motorcycle and not crash. He just looked over his shoulder. I mean really looked. No little glances. His entire neck craned around and there was no doubt he was looking directly at my car. Whether or not he saw me, I have no idea.

My heart sped up and my breath was gone again. I imagined he was looking directly at me, and was doing it on purpose. I saw him look over at the silver car and the red truck. The two were so close that they were almost beside each other. The motorcyclist cast another glance back at me. He had to have been looking at me. On purpose. He couldn't just be seeing my car. Why would he be looking at my car - twice - so intently? My blood was running hot and my breathing was back, but quicker.

He looked at the space in between the truck and the silver car. I knew he was asking for my permission. That's why he looked back twice. He was showing off for me, and he wanted me to see. I whispered, eyes in a rapture, fixed on him. "Do it."

The angry whirring of his bike got louder as he sped into the tiny space between the two vehicles. The silver car honked at him, and I started laughing. "Yes!" I shouted, "Go for it!"

He sped up and flung himself around the red truck. I stamped on the gas pedal, no longer following the speed limit. I knew I couldn't keep that up anyway. I zipped over into the slow lane and passed the silver car, following the motorcyclist as he dashed in between traffic. Fits of giggles broke out of me and my heart was running faster than my car. The wind from the window tore my wisps of hair out of my mouth and completely drowned out the music. I had to have been going eighty, at least.

Three cars were pacing each other, creating a moving road block. The motorcycle was stuck behind them, and I caught up to him. He was in the middle lane, and I took my place in the faster left lane. I looked over at him, and he looked over at me. I couldn't see his face. I knew he had to be smiling. He took off between the cars, zipping onto the yellow lines and causing them to honk at him. As he sped off into the distance, I thought I saw him look over his shoulder at me again. My heart skipped a beat and I sighed softly to myself.

I had lost him. I wasn't sad, I was still content. I had had an adventure. I had almost had him. I smiled.

I knew, that if he had just waved his arm, and ushered me to the side of the road. If he had called for me to pull over, I would have. I could've seen his face, and known his name. I smiled.

I would see him again someday.

The End.

Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily

http://Jessethestoryteller.gaia.com — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 08:32:56 GMT

... Life is but a dream.

I wrote this story two and a half years ago... but I think it's still beautiful. I could probably touch it up a bit in places, but in a way that would ruin the raw form of it how it is. I wrote this all in one long stretch one night as I was thinking about how I would describe my room.

She's got a million pieces of paper lying around her desk, stapled to her walls, taped onto her furniture. Tens of thousands of post-it notes flake off as the fan twirls around her head, covered in glow in the dark stars that swirl together into a giant glowing tornado in the ceiling. Her clothes are nothing exceptional, except on her they look like like magic. Nothing ever fits her, and it's not that she can't find the right size, it's just that clothes don't seem to go with her. She looks like she's about to burst free in a million different directions. She looks like she's on the verge of something exciting and she's about to explode. Her clothes always look as if they cannot contain her.

She sits in her room, amid those papers and post-it notes that are covered with quotes from books that mean so much to her. Things she never wants to forget. There is a television in the corner collecting dust. Her parents bought it for her years ago and it has never been used. The computer in the other corner is equally dusty, and covered in more post-it notes than even the television. She has a stack of papers, books, journals, and other things covered in words, all piled up on her left. She has a box of crayons, another of markers, a jar of pencils, a sharpener, and more tubes of glitter than you've ever seen, all sitting on a table to her right. She's lying in the middle, on a bed that's broken and old. She's lying in between the input and the output, and she's staring at the lit-up tornado in the ceiling.

There is no real light in the room, except the stars on her walls and the faint glow that comes from the moon outside her window. It's not anything worth mentioning, but there is barely a sliver of a moon, moments away from eclipsing into darkness. There are no streetlights, and there are no cars, and there are no other lights on in any other houses. Everyone is sleeping, even the crickets that used to be singing in the bushes outside.

Her walls are alight with constellations that were carefully crafted from detailed maps of the heavens. Her ceiling is devoid of such stars, however, because she cannot reach high enough to put them up there. Her room has no door, and the ceiling is so high above her she feels like she's in a cave. The spiralling tornado seems to move and shift and change as she stares at it without blinking.

The hum of the air conditioner and the far-away bark of a dog are the only noises that reach her ears, which are drowning in a puddle of her tears. She has nothing to be sad about, because her life is completely perfect. She has nothing to be happy about, because she has no one.

Quietly and softly she sits up. She looks down at her hands, and she can see right through them, and through her knees, and to the bed that should be creeking. Placing first one foot on the old carpet on the floor, then the other, she walks to the window. It has no glass, and she puts both her head and shoulders through it. The tears continue to fall, and they clatter to the ground like foreign rain drops.

The moon dissapears behind the earth's shadow and the world is quietly darkened. She steps out of the window and floats in the air, her hair not fluttering in the wind. Her clothes not rustling in the wind. Her tears falling due to a gravity that doesn't control her body.

With jealousy and nothing else, she turns aroud to face the window. Inside is a girl, covered in blankets and sleeping soundly, a light smile on her lips. The stars shining on her walls are illuminating enough for the floating girl to see the sleeping girl's body rise slowly underneath the blankets with every single breath. The tv isn't dusty, and neither is the computer. Papers and post-its are not so littery, and the ceiling is not so high. The window has glass, and the door is shut. Another few tears sprinkle the ground beneath her feet.

The sky in the east is tinged with colour as tear by tear falls to the ground. The floating girl looks back in through the window at the sleeping girl, as her body slowly fades away. The sun rises higher, and her tears continue to fall as she presses her hands on the window pane. She can barely see her reflection in it now, the sky is burning pink, and she sees that she is beautiful. The tears streak down the glass and the sleeping girl turns, her face now brushed slightly pink from the rising sun.

And the girl outside fades to nothing, as she cries because she wishes she was the sleeping girl. Her tears dribble over the glass, as she wishes she could give away her beauty, her adventure, her grandeur, her exotic nature, to be the sleeping girl for just one day. And as the tiniest bit of the sun peeks up between the neighboring houses, and the first car drives down the street, she dissapears completely, for she is only a Dream.

The sleeping girl's eyes flit open and she walks up to the window, wet running lines still slowly creeping down its surface. She yawns. "It must have rained last night," she thinks. The scenery outside is beautiful, but it doesn't make her any happier. "I wish I could be someone else," she smiles bitterly to herself. "I wish I could be how I am in my dreams. Beautiful, adventurous, grand, exotic... I wish I could be her. Just for one day."

The sun comes up in its full glory, and smiles on the irony of the thousands of sleeping girls waking up and the thousands of dream girls fading away.

Fin.

Re: Remember

http://Jessethestoryteller.gaia.com — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 08:29:56 GMT

Oooooh. Incredibly creepy. Incredibly interesting. Nice twist at the end! There were a frew grammar errors... but I think the thing this story needed most was description. You could have really chilled me and made me feel the incredible creepiness of everything... but you stopped short. Probably because you said this was just an assignment for a class. I love the twist at the end, though. You should polish this up and make it better... it would be worth it. :)

-Jesse

Remember

http://forgottenpromises.gaia.com — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 08:08:58 GMT

I'll throw one of my stories out here to kick things off. I wrote this last semester for a creative writing class. Not really my best work, but I'm quite fond of it anyway. Getting it to format like this withouth it bunching all up took some time. If I find an easier way, I'll you all know.

Remember

A broken padlock hung from a rusted hasp on a old wooden door at the back of a vast square building. A sign near the front door had declared Gymnasium, but it was clear from the state of the place that it had not served its intended purpose for quite some time. Late one night in the tail end of October, two figures stole from the shadows and crept up to the back door.

The smaller figure, Rebekah McAleister, was a dark-haired young woman in her mid-twenties. Following her to the building was the spiky-haired Ezra Barlow, whom she had know since they were in high school. Upon reaching the door, Rebekah silently removed the remnants of the lock and swung the door open with only the slightest creak. The nocturnal pair then disappeared into the dark doorway and closed the door.

"You want to tell me again why we're down here?"

Rebekah rolled her eyes at him as she took a flashlight from her coat pocket. "I explained this. Twice. I want to show you something."

Ezra shivered in the chill of the basement. "Doesn't this place creep you out?"

In response, Rebekah flicked her hand spastically to dislodge a cobweb that had ensnared it. "Ugh, immensely."

"So why are we here? I hate it here, it's like it almost..."

In the vague glow of the flashlight, he saw the look that crossed her face as he broke off his sentence. It was a strange look of sadness and something resembling pity. She noticed him watching and rearranged her features. She gave a little laugh, but it sounded forced and empty.

She gave up on appearing upbeat and prodded, "Almost what?"

"It almost seems familiar, but I don't recall ever being here before. But it's like I almost remember something... Something happened here..."

"Of course something happened here. This was part of a school for years. All kinds of things happened here."

"No, that's not what I mean, it was something--What the hell is that?"

Rebekah followed his gaze into one of the side rooms off of the narrow hall they stood in. Among the various shadowy leviathans, something gleamed slightly in the darkness. Rebekah moved past Ezra, shining the flashlight into the room.

"Well," she began, "it appears to be a guillotine." She turned the flashlight back on Ezra and giggled at the stricken look on his face. "I don't think it's real. They used to have a haunted house or something down here."

"I can see why."

She smiled half-heartedly. "Come on, we haven't got much time. I have to show you something."

Ezra looked at her like she had lost her mind. "Not much time? What the hell? Do we have an appointment to keep or something?"

"Um, yeah, something," Rebekah muttered as she resumed her intended course down the hall. Thirty feet further, and the hall ended at a wall, with a perpendicular hall extending in either direction. Rebekah led Ezra to the left, and around a corner, to the base of a derelict staircase. Part of the staircase had collapsed, and it was to the pile of rubble where Rebekah directed her flashlight beam.

"There."

Ezra stared blankly. "What?"

"On the floor. Do you see it?"

Ezra moved closer and focused on the floor within the halogen glow of the flashlight. A rust-like stain covered the floor in a amoeba-like patch, partially covered by rotted beams and dust.

Ezra looked at Rebekah quizzically. "Is that blood?"

"Yeah."

"Whose is it? Why are you showing me this?"

Rebekah sighed. "Five years ago, some kids came down here... Well, more than kids. A few years out of high school. It was just a stupid game. First one to make it in and up to the main floor-"

Vague recognition dawned on Ezra's face. "Was I there? That sounds sort of familiar."

Rebekah closed her eyes, as though to keep tears from escaping. "Yeah, you were there. You would have won, too..."

Ezra stood in front of her and looked her straight in the eye. His voice shook slightly as he asked, "Rebekah, what happened?"

"We didn't know the stairs were rotten!" she nearly screamed, causing dust to jump off the old rotted wood. Ezra's eyes widened and shone in the dim light of the flashlight.

"What the hell are you saying?"

Rebekah said nothing, but held out her hand that was not holding the light. She extended it, palm up, to Ezra. Slowly, he reached out to take her hand. He jumped back sharply as his fingers passed through hers.

"What the hell?!"

Rebekah looked at him with tears in her eyes. "I'm so sorry." She took a deep breath. "You couldn't let go until you remembered, so I had to show you."

"Remember what?!" Ezra's voice cracked with panic.

"Remember that five years ago tonight, here in this basement, you died."

~finis~

Re: Hey there. :)

http://thatoneguy314.gaia.com — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 05:13:28 GMT

Hello there! I saw you were a little low on members in this group so i thought I would jump in. i'm also new, just joined a few minutes ago and am exploring.

Re: Hey there. :)

http://Jessethestoryteller.gaia.com — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 04:58:04 GMT

Yay! We should get more members. I'm no help there, though... I don't know anyone on here, haha.

Re: Hey there. :)

http://forgottenpromises.gaia.com — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 04:49:19 GMT

Welcome!
This is very exciting, we've got a member! It's not often I'm this chipper. I hope that you can benefit from my little pod.

:)

Re: Out here counting Airplanes

http://Jessethestoryteller.gaia.com — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 04:44:23 GMT

Airplanes are cool.. :) I actually have an entire story in my head about airplanes... I should write it dangit. Too much procrastination and life always gives me a reason to be distracted.

-Jesse

Hey there. :)

http://Jessethestoryteller.gaia.com — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 04:43:03 GMT

I'm new to Gaia and to everything on this site in general... I'm 18, in college, in love, and I'm minoring in writing (my school doesn't offer it as a major). I want to write teen fiction when I finally "grow up". I want to bring back the wonder and adventure of childhood, but also stretch the reader's mind and make them think about things in a way they haven't before. I want my works to be real literature instead of just entertainment, but I do want them to be entertaining above all else. Right now I'm trying hard to work on my own personal writing style and working on the finer details of my writing. I think the hardest part for me is to actually FINISH something. Haha.

So... I'm excited! This should be interesting. :)

-Jesse

Out here counting Airplanes

http://forgottenpromises.gaia.com — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 04:35:41 GMT

For instance, you may wonder why some of the boards are apparently airplane themed. Honestly, that just sort of happened while I was trying to come up with clever titles.