Thoughts at an Obscene Hour

It is a beautiful hour in the darkness before dawn. There is no one in the hallways, and for a brief time almost everyone is asleep, and those who aren't are silent. It is easy to believe that the Apocalypse has come and I am the only one who did not receive the memo, with the dorms silent around me and no light in the skies. When I am awake in these hours, I feel at peace. Peace that I only feel floating in water, with my eyes closed and my ears submerged, surrounded by nothing but my breathing and my heartbeat loud in my ears. Living in a landlocked state it is hard to find a body of water that has a pulse, like the ocean. Here I must make do with the roaring arteries, waterfalls of veins, instead of the beating heart of the waves. But in this hour when the moon has set and the sun has yet to rise, when the stars are the only meager light, I can feel the ocean beat in my blood, relaxing the tension of the future. Sitting on the roof, where I am not supposed to be, a slight breeze teases my hair into dance. I can feel it leap with a joy awoken by the wind, a joy that I wish I felt.

I watch the sun rise, it does so quickly, like a nature video on fast forward. Ruby turns to amethyst turns to sapphire turns to periwinkle. The dew catches the light and sets the grass on fire, newly emerald stalks blazing with light. It is beautiful, these hours when I am the only one awake, caught in stasis that I wish could last forever, building dreams made of gossamer and glass. An alarm clock shatters the silence and I am pulled back to reality. If only the night could last forever.

Tapping the Crazy Keg: Entry 1

I have noticed lately that my life has become suspiciously like the song 'Shy' by Ani di Franco. I am not sure how I should feel about this, other than I do so enjoy the song. I am also worried about my math class tomorrow, as I have missed the last one because of a migraine. Waking up with migraines, I must confess, is one of the greatest pleasures life has ever given me (I hope that you can see the sarcasm dripping from that sentence). We are learning about annuities and such things, but we have probably moved on already to something new. It's something that no one really teaches you, college classes move so fast compared to high school, being taught something new each and every class. I must confess it is exhilarating, but if you miss a class you are so fucked it's almost funny.
I'm currently taking a break from my catch-up maths homework, writing this and talking to a friend of mine (the one who is currently making my life seem like that song I mentioned earlier) about his troubles and doubts. I wish I was human at times like this, instead of just acting it. When I say 'I wish I was human' I don't mean that I am some type of cryptid (although that would be pretty cool, I think). What I mean is that I don't feel emotions the same way others seem to, I can understand other species more than I can understand my own, which is kinda sorta sad. I know the underlying motives for people, group dynamics and herd/pack instinct and all that, but interacting with humans? Ha. Been on my own, lost among pages and fur, for to long. I can hold a conversation and I've even had a boyfriend, which I suppose makes me a damn good actress, but I just wish that all these feelings and emotions and all the things I pretend were real and I didn't have to pretend anymore... If I didn't have morals, I think I would make a damn good psychopath.
Anyway, I think that's enough for a little while, hahahaha. Hope I haven't scared any readers off (if I actually have any). The next bit of Ghost Girl should be up soon!

Ghost Girl; Chapter 5, Part 2

Chapter Five, Part Two: Between Idea and Reality
It is the weekend. He has no business being awake this early on a Saturday, but he can't go back to sleep. After about an hour he gives up on sleep and gets dressed. Downstairs he make breakfast for himself, his parents are already at work. Five eggs, scrambled with cheese and tobasco. Two pieces of toast with butter. Six strips of crispy bacon. A large glass of milk. It takes him approximately five minutes to polish everything off, another ten to clean the pan and put things in the dishwasher, and then he is out the door. He knows, at least subconsciously, where he is going. He is going to the place he should not go, trying to find the girl that he should not talk to. The woods are cool, a reminder that winter will soon be there. He walks quickly, hoping to see the silent girl with coppery brown hair, surrounded by dogs. He wants to ask her who she is, tell her about the Ghost Girl in his school. He wants to hear her speak, he wants to know what class she is in, if she goes to his school. He wants to know why he has only seen her the one time and why he can't get her out of his mind. His feet move quicker as the questions build in his mind, imaginary conversation playing out and ending and starting again. He can see paw prints frozen in the mud, and he thinks he will see her again before the reality hits him. Disappointment, for something he hadn't know he was looking forward to, makes his breakfast sit like lead in his stomach. She is not here. He has combed the woods almost daily since he saw her, looking for her, wanting to see her again. He has neither seen nor heard a trace of her or her mismatched pack. He keeps coming back here in hopes that she will be there again one day. It will be two and a half more years before that day comes.

Ghost Girl; Chapter 5, Part 1

Chapter Five, Part One: Sand and Blood
She hates days like this. When she opens her eyes it feels like all the sands of the Sahara Desert have found their way between her eyelids. When she tries to move pain flares in every corner of her body. She curses at the people she didn't know who thought it would be sooooo hilarious to push her down some stairs. The fingers on her left hand hurt because some random person stepped on them while she was trying to peel herself off the floor at the bottom of said stairs. The nurse had questioned her about how she had gotten hurt, and all she had told the nurse was the truth. She had fallen down the stairs.
It is a Saturday morning and the alarm doesn't go off on Saturdays. She can feel Whisper at her side, warmth radiating from the dog like heat from a woodstove. Two other dogs are draped across the foot of her bed, she doesn't want to move to see which ones they are because the pain has only just started to subside. She sighs and feels Whisper sigh along with her, before snuggling closer to her human's bruised side. The dog's heat makes the constant ache there fade a little. She sighs again.
She thinks back to the day, two days ago, a Thursday, when she had been licking her wounds (so to speak) in the library. She hadn't realized that he went to the same school as her, which was stupid, considering that this school was the only high school in the district. She still doesn't know his name, still doesn't know why he interrupted her thoughts so often. Still doesn't know why he helped her. If she concentrates hard enough she can still feel his hand taking hers, warm and dry and real. Human contact that she, other than her parents, has never had. She is craving it now, like she imagines a junkie craves the next fix.
And suddenly she misses her old school, her old life; where she was ignored, but not hated. Where she didn't think of a boy she had only seen twice, crave the feeling of his hand in hers. She wishes that she had never come here, wishes for her old house, her old woods. She feels tears start to slid down her face, falling from the corners of her eyes into her hair and ears. She raises an arm, oblivious to the pain that shrieks down her side, to cover her eyes as silent sobs shake her.
Yeah, she definitely hates days like this...

Ghost Girl; Chapter 4

Chapter Four: His Ghost Girl
The first time he notices her at school it is the flash of blue hair that draws his eye to her. She is wearing an oversized black hooded sweatshirt, loose faded blue jeans, glasses with thick black frames and purple earbuds in both ears. Tattered sneakers that looked as if they had been mud wrestling with lawnmower blades complete her outfit. He can't remember seeing her around before and he asks the group he hangs out with who she is that day as they all gather around the lunch table. This is the first time he will hear rumors about the ghost girl. His ghost girl, because as he listens to the rumors he can feel himself growing protective over this girl he has never spoken to and has only just noticed.
"I heard she's a lesbian."
"Oh yeah? Well I heard that she killed some people in the last place she lived in and moved here to get away from the cops."
"I heard that she's a whore. You can buy her for a fiver any night of the week."
"I heard she accused the football team at her last school of raping her. As if anyone would touch her with a ten-foot pole."
"I know, right? She fell from the top of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down."
Laughter follows each comment. His friends start to remind him of hyenas and the laughter is cloying in his ears. He leaves the table and no one notices, to absorbed in trying to out do each other with rumors about the chick that nobody will talk to. He finished lunch on one of the library couches, his back to the librarian's desk so they can't tell he is eating. Five minutes before the class bell rings he is done. He gathers the wrappers of his lunch and gets up to go. He slings his backpack over his shoulder and is turning to go when he sees something that he hadn't noticed before.
His ghost girl is on the floor, huddled in a corner created by two bookshelves. She is trying to make it look like she is interested in the books on either side of her, but he can see the way she is holding her wrist. He can see the way she is using her hair to hide the fact that her left cheek is red, like someone slapped her. her can see that the frames of her glasses have been cracked. He can see the minuscule flinch that moves her when he drops the remnants of his lunch into the trash bin. When he goes over to her and holds out his hand, he can see her trying to make herself smaller. It takes almost half a minute before she takes his hand.
He helps her up and he can see the way she holds herself, like her ribs are bruised or cracked. He holds her hand as he takes her to the infirmary. Neither of them say a word on the walk there, neither of them say a word as he leaves her by the infirmary door.
It will be two and a half more years before he hears her voice.

Ghost Girl; Chapter 3

Chapter Three: Can You See Me?
A month and two weeks and a day have passed since they met in the forest. School has begun. She thinks that maybe it is time to make friends who can speak English, instead of the language of the forest, the wind through the trees, the oncoming storm. Maybe, she thinks, it is time to have a friend among my own species. So she dresses like a human female. A thin, tight shirts, tighter jeans that have been acid washed and cut in strategic places so they can cost more than normal blue jeans. No sweatshirt. Makeup on her face and polish on her nails. A light spray of perfume. Shoes that are part of a trend instead of her battered old sneakers that Gyp has been gnawing on while she got ready. She grabs her backpack, which is black and littered with buttons that have statements that make her laugh on them, and makes it to the bus stop a minute and a half early. No one talks to her on the way to school and the few times she attempts a conversation no one responds. She gives up.
By the time she gets back on the bus she has gotten lost on the way to class three times. She has tried to engage in conversation more than three times. She has said "Hi! I'm new here." to people who didn't care and didn't hear more times than she cares to remember. She has made no new friends, no new acquaintances. She almost misses her bus stop, but the driver seems to remember her in time. She gets off the bus, goes home and throws the girl clothes on the floor, where they will remain until she remembers them several years from now and throws them away. She pulls on blue jeans that are almost two sizes to big and have been faded by sun, not acid, and have holes that were not there when she bought them. She finishes her homework quickly, only two assignments because it is the first day of school, and pulls on the ratty sneaker that she should have worn this morning. The left one is still partially damp from when Gyp was chewing on it this morning, but they are still more comfortable than the other pair of shoes. It takes her less than a minute to tie the laces and be out the door and into the woods, all the dogs sprinting after her.
She wonders, as she has for one month, two weeks, and a day, who the trespasser was. She wonders, like she has every time she gets near the place where they had seen each other, why she still thinks about him. By the time she gets home she has decided it is time for a change. She buys hair bleach and hair dye that looks dark blue on the board at the shop, but in reality makes it iridescent indigo, like the shell of a beetle's wing. Three years from now, when they meet again in the same spot, he will look startled to see she has been crying and say, "Ghost Girl? What's wrong?" She will think he is a hallucination and tell him what she has told no one and he will be unsure how to fix things. Her dogs will mill around her, uneasy at their pack-mate's pain, and the bull terrier will lick at her tears. He will hug her and tell her everything will be alright, even though he has no way of knowing the future. They will sit there until she stops crying and, when he asks, she will tell him her name.

Ghost Girl; Chapter 2

Chapter 2: It Takes Time
The first time he sees her, he's not entirely sure she's real. Surrounded by the most eclectic pack of dogs he has ever seen, gold streaked copper hair that looks like she cut it with a knife, one side cut shorter than the other, the left side is barely below her earlobe, the right side almost an inch below the earlobe. He can see a couple of braids bound in copper wire poking through the rest of her unbound, uneven hair. She is dressed like a boy, the first time he sees her, in basketball shorts that reach her knees and a loose T-shirt that hides the fact that she is female and probably came from a gas station. He can see scars on her legs; her shins are littered with them; two are the most prominent: on her right calf there is a faded one that goes from two inches above her ankle to three inches below her knee, on her left leg there is another that goes from mid-calf and ends somewhere beneath the black shorts.
A greyhound whines and presses against her leg, she rests her hand on it's head. Her eyes never move from him, they are calmer than anything he has seen before. They are beautiful in the way that the brief respite that the eye of a hurricane brings is beautiful, peace in the center of chaos. He wants to speak, he wants to ask her name, what she is doing here, where she lives. He wants to ask her if she is real, this girl who is not beautiful but is. This girl who is feral and tame and full of conundrums. She turns and runs from him, disappearing into the forest like a deer or a dryad, before any words have a chance to come out of his mouth. He thinks that she is a ghost, running with ghostly dogs. Whenever he thinks of this meeting he will think of her as 'the ghost girl'.
It will be three years before he meets her again, three years before he discovers that her eyes are different colors, the left one is deep green and the right one is ice blue. It will be three years before he learns her name. He will know her before then, through rumor and seeing her in the hallways at school, but he will not remember this meeting in the forest. He will only see a girl that no one talks to, a girl who has dyed her hair an iridescent blue, always has headphones in, and always walks with her head down. He will not connect that this girl with blue hair who looks as if she has been beaten by the world is the same girl who looked at him with quiet confidence and disappeared into the forest with her pack of dogs. It will be three years before they meet again in the forest and he recognizes her for who she is.