The Semi-Fictional Lives of a Girl Named Struggle [entries|friends|calendar] The Dark Horse [ website | Struggleofwords ] [ userinfo | livejournal userinfo ] [ calendar | livejournal calendar ]

Chapter 9: The Escape Artist [19 May 2005|12:28am] This made it the third time she had gotten caught. The Chinese couple in the basement had a certain knack for attracting strays. Three times, three escapes, three captures. And there was bound to be more. She could not help her youth, her agile frenzies, her sense of adventure. Three: 1) Slipped through between legs, unbeknownst to her hosts. Slid by before the door clicked shut, and suddenly before her loomed the death white halls of freedom. The floor, cleaned the day before with dirty water, stank of stagnancy. The stables at the end of the flight of stairs offered mystery before hunger got the most of her. At midnight, she surrendered. 2) The threat of a prison is almost unbearable. Doomed to this injustice on prior occasions - held hostage, illegally transported, de-sexed in vicious operations - she fled. The crazed bolt was chased by loud voices and a storm of feet. But the darkness enveloped her; she let out a couple fading cries to confuse her pursuers, then became silent. Hours past. The slimy mildew and dustmites offered no intelligent conversation. In her loneliness, she forget herself and tried to find her way home. 3) The encroaching summer boredom had her crazed out of her mind. Desperation encouraged the huge leap out of the three-story window. The fall, arms outstretched, had been hard to shake off. The impact made the pads of her feet ache. But the smells, the bright green, the sun smarting of her dark hair made her wild. A few days later, she found herself back inside, dazed with wonder and stupefied by the architecture of her home. Warm welcomes greeted her, and for the moment she appreciated their intentions. But ever faithful to her daring enterprises, she schemes - Number Four.

Chapter 8. The Tea Drinker [04 Mar 2004|12:55am] Described by friends with whom S. drinks tea– A: “She dresses immaculately. It is absurd really. She could wear that dress seventeen upon a hundred times and still walk in with hardly a wrinkle or a stain. Nothing but a perfectly pressed outfit. I always thought cleanliness said a lot about a person, in a good way too. She never follows the fashions and almost comes to tea in simple outfits, flat planes of color. Her skin is so pale and fine. I tell her that she could use some pattern, some excitement. But she never does.” B: “I had always thought that she hated pets. Whenever I went to her house, she was always so picky about Bubbles, that’s my Pomeranian. I suppose her husband felt the same way about pets as he did about children. One time as I was getting out of the car on the way to someone’s house, a kid on a messenger bike hit Bubbles in the leg. I was just an awful mess, the maid did not know what to do, and all the other ladies just stood in the doorway gasping and fanning themselves. Then S. comes out, looks at Bubbles, and calmly tears her shawl to pieces. After bundling up the Bubble’s leg, she lifts him into my arms, just like that, plop, like a sack of sugar. ‘Take him to the veterinarian,’ she says, looking at me straight in the eye. Then, leaving us all there dumbfounded, she goes back in and drinks some tea.” Ordering at the restaurant – Her husband refuses to look the waiter in the eye. He smoothes his suit and fingers the blue silk tie. “I’ll have the roasted duck with orange.” “Very good, sir, and the lady, what—” “She’ll have game hen, with rosemary.” S. gives an encouraging little smile to the young man. He does not make much of a reaction, and suddenly she is worried might be taken the wrong way. Did she show too much teeth? Where there too many crinkles around her eyes? She touches her fingertips to the cold water glass and steels herself. The diamond pin on her husband’s tie catches her eye and fractures in the light. S. breaks the mirror –A nightly ritual occurs in front of the mirror in her room. She takes her time, mulling over a close inspection of her face, noting new wrinkles, imperfections, gray hairs. Preserving herself in youth helps her to remember a life before this one. She refuses to disrobe, and instead undoes her hair. The ivory engraved brush combs through the strands with infinite care. Her husband is calling her from the other room, but she is not done brushing her hair. She tries to ignore him. He calls louder, and she wants to tell him to be quiet. She wants to tell him to be quiet for someone’s sake. But there isn’t anyone. She hears his footsteps up the stairs. His voice moves closer. Before she knows it, the brush has flown out of her hand and into the mirror.

Chapter 7. The Interview [04 Mar 2004|12:51am] Mayonnaise. Real mayonnaise – soybean oil, whole eggs, water, distilled vinegar, egg yolks, salt, sugar, lemon juice concentrate, calcium disodium edta to protect flavor, natural flavor. She turned the packet over and over again, reading the small passages of text. She had practically memorized every word at this point. Placing the packet on the table, she looked around without calling attention to herself. None of the faces turned toward her. Her hands moved absentmindedly to smooth the creases of her skirt and pull the sweater tighter over her slight shoulders. Silently, she reassured herself that she had indeed come to the right place at the right time. She fingered the paper in her pocket with the date and time written in her precise, flowing handwriting. She toyed with her watch, occasionally glancing at the time. The watch had ridden halfway up her arm, leaving little impressions of links on her skin. Funny, it had not seemed to be so loose before. “Whatcha havin’, honey?” She looked up and shook her head, muttering something that sounded like “Nothing yet,” to the waitress. The woman’s name tag read Dakota and clung desperately to the shirt strained over her bosom. Dakota shifted her weight and held out the pitcher to the bird-like girl with a warm smile. “Do you want some more water then?” “Yes, thank you.” Her voice came out higher and more girlish than she had intended. She watched the flow of water and ice in silence. Dakota finished pouring and clicked off in her high-heeled pumps. The girl lifted the water toward her face. She looked down through the glass at the table, the wood grains stretched and warped through the liquid. Ice cubes drummed against each other, pressing cold kisses to her lips. She lowered her head and bit the rim of the glass between her teeth. The colors on the table swirled and glittered, dancing slowly in the sunlight. She bit down harder, trying to calm the swaying. The shapes and forms ignored her and continued. The gentle tap on her shoulder startled her. She turned around slowly, still holding the glass against her mouth. Strands of hair swept across the base of her neck, assuring her of movement. The man behind her was very distinguished looking without being the least bit handsome. His face, all curves of tan, molded clay, looked oddly out of place with his plain, straight figure. “Do you happen to have the time?” His meaty lower stuck out more that the upper one, but lifted easily to smile. His teeth were blindingly white. She pointed helplessly at her wrist, barely holding it out. The man leaned over close to look at the small numbers. Too close. She could smell his cologne, some brand too refined for her own taste. The pungent scent made her think of ornate foreign cities where girls drowned in jewels and richly colored silks. The rings under his eyes were a deep purple. Up close, their smooth texture seemed unlike skin. When he blinked, his dark lashes created a soft crescent of shadow over the puffiness. “Are you waiting for someone?” He asked nonchalantly as he leaned back, crossing his legs. The pants followed in suit, clean and pressed without a wrinkle. The girl shrugged and shook her head at the same time. His eyebrow raised a little, but he did not respond. She lifted her glass and turned slowly back in her seat. She felt as if she should cross her legs as well, but she only succeeded in banging her shoe against the leg of the table. A metal twang rang out and faded into the air around her. The sound made her shiver, but no one else seemed to hear anything. She sat in her chair, her legs awkwardly bent and stiff with supporting her immobility. The man noticed the dark stain on her left leg, a small spillage across her white calf. The sunlight through the window wavered, and the dark spot, some birthmark no doubt, shifted as a muscle in her leg twitched. The man wiped his mouth and paid his check. As he stood up from his chair, he tried to catch the young woman’s eye, but she purposefully avoided him. Outside, his thin shirt billowed about him in the wind, giving him a temporary roundedness. His body inflated like a parachute, balancing the curves in his face. Fine leather shoes took him swiftly out of sight. Watching him leave, she had the sudden urge to twist up an end of the mayonnaise packet until it exploded. It would spill all over the woman sitting across from her, a sweet motherly type with her pretty little son out for a bit of lunch. Dakota drew near the table often, engaging the mother in cheerful conversation while she teased the boy playfully. The boy answered back boldly with a spark of wit he did not understand. Dakota let out a hearty laugh, a big one that made her chest jiggle. She playfully ruffled the boy’s fine hair. The blond strands caught gold in the light. The girl’s eyes pricked with tears, and she fought to keep her mouth from twitching. A daddy-longlegs danced in the window pane by her face. It took her a couple of glances before she assured herself that he was indeed on the other side. Making sure no one was watching, she pressed her fingertips to the cool glass. She almost felt wispy tender legs fluttering across her skin. The sudden need to have herself laid flat against the window washed over her in a heated wave. She leaned sideways until she the sheet of glass pressed back against her pinked cheek. Dakota made her way back over to her table. The girl turned her face to the waitress without moving her head from the glass. “Yes, I would like a steak, please. Medium rare. And a glass of red wine.” “Anything else, sweetie?” “No, that’s all. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

Chapter 6. The Sunbather [04 Mar 2004|12:34am] Struggle woke up early every Sunday, long before morning, to ride out on her bicycle across the uneven terrain. The wind stung at her legs, whipping dark, unruly hair across her face. Faster and faster she would go until the wheels blurred into mist. The gully of warped rocks offered no set road. But she knew, swerving and leaning into the whirring pile of metal. Routes appeared between the parting mounds. The rocks could be forgiving if one knew how to watch them. They rose and fell like waves, soft as waves, or crushing like them sometimes. Struggle felt only fearless joy as he turned sharp curves, going almost horizontal with speed. Others had their churches, their sermons, their Sunday mass; this was her day of worship too. Eventually, the land became too difficult to navigate, and she hopped off his bike. On foot, she felt the ground rise up unyieldingly to meet her. The soles of her worn shoes gripped the arches of stone; every muscle was sent to work. With one hand she guided his bicycle while the other pushed up against the rock for balance. The land was harsh, a collector of heat and death. But most people, they were weak and soft, unable and misplaced in their love for adventure and beauty. The waves of rock grew progressively larger. Struggle leaned her bike against a wall of stone and continued on hands and knees. She climbed up and over and small hills rolled toward her. The rock continued pooling in, threatening to drown whoever approached. The girl kept glancing as her large structured hands to make sure she was still separate from the earth. She stopped after a few minutes, grabbing the thermos from her bag. The cool water cascaded down her throat. Beads of sweat dropped from her face and trickled into the crags below. “Drink up,” she said, shaking droplets from her dampened hair. The girl continued climbing until she had found a suitable place to rest. She wedged herself between two large formations of rocks. The sun had not yet climbed high enough, and she was entrenched in black as he lay in the large indentation. Struggle imagined this place to be his tomb. A person should not be buried, she thought, but merely die on warmed rock, nothing but sky above, and impenetrable hardness underneath. Her heart beat slowed and deepened like ritual drums. She felt like an ancient king, hidden and bronzed, melding with the earth. Even the birds and ants would not find her here. She had found a dead bird once, shrouded in rock shadow. The delicate thing was broken, as if it had never been alive. Struggle had thought that if she breathed into once, the bird might fly off again. It was a light thing, a little light thing that the earth could not bear to lift off again. An eagle soared overhead, letting out a cry that resounded of pain. Its stiff wings formed a cross of loneliness emblazoned in the air. Perhaps that dead fledgling had been its child.</p> “Little bird,” Struggle whispered. She lifted an outstretched hand to it, tracing a slow arc across the sky and obscuring the creature from view. She finally closed her hand, capturing the eagle. She placed it upon his chest. It fluttered against her heart and then released itself into the day again. The sun was moving, encroaching upon her slowly and bathing her left hand with warmth. She grated her fingers on the rock, feeling the rough surface and ancient scars. Struggle suddenly felt incredibly weak. If she could only take an axe and lay her full weight into the swing perhaps she could split the earth, opening a dark chasm into its beating heart-core. The girl turned her face scratching it against the rock’s coarse surface. She could taste the grainy salt of rock on her tongue. Before her eyes, the sky and earth blinded her with color, reducing her view to form and color. Look at the scene abstracted down to its simple components, Struggle wanted to cry. The sun was overhead now. The figure on the ground was lit with a dry heat. She was on fire, burning and unable to move, trapped between two walls of stone. The striated rock had turned obstacle to man. The muscles on her arms, legs and back pressed into the rock. Next to it, she no longer looked hardened and capable. She was all smoothness, dark halo of soft curls resting on the solid surface. She closed her eyes, and she could still see the sun burning through her lids, imprinting itself on her retina. The sun marked its territory on her body, and the child offered herself to the fire. The hair on her arms and legs caught first. Her heart almost burst from the power of the flames. She would burn until the rocks turned soft, swallowing her into some dark, safe place within the earth. Struggle opened her eyes.

Chapter 5. The Passenger [26 Jan 2004|11:22pm] She sat very still as the aircraft rumbled awake with the deep trills and whirs of a giant whale in the ocean. The plane angled upward until its nose parted the clouds. The foot of the man behind her poked her in the ankle every couple of minutes. She had half a mind to suddenly lean her seat backward in a sad attempt to smash the man in the nose. Instead, she turned on her right cheek to watch the rows of people wandering in and out of various states of consciousness. A black woman in her mid-thirties had just finished reading a chapter in her book. She turned off the overhead light, placed the complementary headphones over her ears, and leaned back in relaxation. Struggle thought to herself, Is she listening to the same station as I am? The woman's eyes remain closed, channeling meditation. Yes, I think that she must be. A bleached blond slept with her mouth wide open. Another woman with dyed red hair had propped her feet up, displaying and accenting the strange bony protrusions by her big toe. A few hours passed, and she kept herself busy by watching the people walk to and from the cramped lavatories. A man with glasses frequented, seeming to enjoy feeling the thin carpeting with only his socks on. A mother took her son, and when she returned Struggle could see the heavy mole by her left eye. Otherwise she would have been a normal middle aged woman, but now, now she left Struggle hoping that somewhere, the father was waiting with a bouquet of daffodils in hand.

Chapter 4. The Dictionary [25 Dec 2003|01:54pm] She had recently become obsessed with the dictionary. Struggle had made it her goal to learn five new words each day. however, each day she would forget about three of the previous day while the even older words faded completely from her mental grasp. He ignored the girl, figuring that she would give up sooner or later. She always did. On the sixteenth day of this practice, she began to tire of the randomly generated words. Her fingers bore the marks of the heavy edges of dictionary pages. So she decided to make up words of her own. She put down the Haruki Murakami book she had been re-reading and looked across the table at him. "You're are a Windup Bird." He raised his eyebrows and glanced at the cover of the novel. "Now what exactly does that mean?" "Well, the question is what do I want it to mean now. My own take upon it." "Right," he replied, turning his attention back to his breakfast. "I take it to mean a man or woman, but not a child mind you, who loves to eat honey-flavored oatmeal with a fork, despite its unsatisfying difficulty." He paused his actions and looked her in the eye. "Are you making light of my eating situation?" The corner of his mouth twitched involuntarily. The girl laughed delightedly. "Perfect!" He couldn't help laughing too as he placed the fork beside him on the table. "At this rate, I might have to endure this nonsense for another two weeks." "It's what you love about me," she grinned while tossing some hair over her shoulder. Struggle leaned in on her elbows. "And it's what I love about you, Mr. Windup Bird." He shook his head and chuckled to himself. "Oh, Mr. Windup Bird? Give me another month. I'll make sure this one lasts a month."

Chapter 3. The Plum Eater [24 Nov 2003|02:39pm] “I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold.” Slowly he made his way from the top of the staircase. When he finally reached the kitchen, William turned away disinterestedly. Without looking at her in the eye, he wandered over to pour himself a cup of coffee and sat at the table. “Did you hear what I said?” She asked mildly. “Yes. You ate the plums. What else do you want?” The young woman walked to the opposite side of the table and yanked the chair out and plopped down nosily. Resting her cheeks against her hands, she stared at William. She twirled a lock of hair furiously around her fingers and tried to whistle. Which, of course, she did very poorly indeed. “Can I not just drink my coffee in peace?” he muttered through clenched teeth. William turned to his side to look out the window. The girl silenced and pursed her lips. The tip of his nose had reddened in annoyance. Watching his profile in the morning light reminded her of the pictures that his mother had shown of William as a toddler. She had immediately hated that adorable self-smug boy, yet his unbearable mother had continued to coo over her son. The grown son enjoyed any attention from his mother immensely. She cleared her breath extensively. “I can go buy some more this afternoon if you would like,” she offered. “They will be chilled and ready for after dinner.” “Well, that’s not the point is it?” he snorted while remaining completely still. “I was just saying,” the woman muttered into her chest. She sighed with a sideways puff of air, blowing strands of hair away from her forehead. Struggle stared at the plum pit she had left on the table. The thin knobby piece looked like a tumor upon the wooden table stained a similar color. It flattened itself out against the surface, refusing to cast a noticeable shadow. The cavities created miniature faces that grinned at her, egging her on. It was nice, almost, to have some fleeting company. “What can I do to make it up to you, Will?” “Don’t call me Will,” he snapped avoiding my question. William drowned the rest of his coffee in a large gulp. “Well, I can’t dawdle around here all day. I have to get ready for work.” He got up and stalked back up the stairs to get ready. She continued sitting there. After a few minutes Struggle reached out a hand and began stroking the texture of the pit with her forefinger. William came downstairs, grabbed his suitcase and headed toward the garage without saying goodbye. “See you later, darling!” she cried in a too-sweet voice, adding a giggle to the end for good measure. When he slammed the door she had to suppress a sudden urge to laugh. She got up, twirling herslef around and sang while washing the dishes. The sponge squished in the mug and she snickered to herself. Struggle picked up the plum pit and carried it upstairs with her. After making their beds and smoothing out every wrinkle, she carefully placed the pit on top of his pillow. It would be waiting for him when he got home.

Chapter 2. The Onion Peeler [12 Nov 2003|10:35pm] She was sitting in the kitchen, peeling off the layers of an onion with her fingernails. The pungent fumes pierced her nose, yet they proved unsuccessful. In disgust, she threw the flaking remains on the countertop. The ball separated, scattering the thin quivering layers across the marble surface. She watched them for a moment. Then picked up a sliver and put it in her mouth. Her tongue curled up to meet it, otherwise she did not move. When her lips opened again the piece had disappeared. She reached into the plastic bag and began to peel the other seven onions as well.

Chapter 1. The Scientist [11 Nov 2003|12:17am] Reconstructing his memory, she did not think it would have been so fragmented. It was broken almost beyond recognition. But there was no turning back now. If she stopped, the sequence would fall apart, and she might never be able to get it to the same point again. He would most likely be completely shattered. A hollow feeling in the back of her stomach was growing. The implications of her failure were unthinkable. Morally she had taken a wrong step. She should never have attempted to mess with something this complicated, but it was too late now. Fatigue was clouding her mind, making her fingers clumsy and slow. They were fumbling, disconnected and distracted with the branching possibilities of what each barely-caught slip might be doing to his mind. Then, she suddenly realized that without a doubt, she had made a grave mistake.

Introductions Seem In Order [10 Nov 2003|11:27pm] The girl named Struggle, fictionally speaking, is not of any particular age or appearance. She belongs to no particular place, has no set hometown. Tonight is a night she does not sleep. She stays awake, listening to the breathing of others. She watches the streetlamps, and they are lonely. 1 comment|post comment

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