A/N: wow. I haven't been on here forever. I currently have a really fun writing assignment that consists of a short story based on a show of our preference. My teacher didn't specify, so instead of a tv show, I'm doing a musical! I've been in love with this musical for a really long time. I thought it would be a cute thing that fit some of the characters from PP. In the version that I'm turning into school, all of the names are different, but I figured I'd post it. So for the next month, there will be about four more posts with the remainder of this story. Enjoy? Don't hate me pls ?
One By One
"Good morning! Would you like to take a… Hi! Could I interest you in…Excuse me! A free piece of stock!" Benji pushed his way through the hustle and bustle of New York City as he does every single day. He stopped short of a young man on the street who had a mug for money collecting. "This is for you," he said. "On the road of life, let no obstacle, great or small, stand in your way." The man reluctantly grabbed the paper from Benji. At least he waited for Benji to leave before crumpling it up and tossing it back into the street.
Benji strolled down the street with his backpack slung across his shoulder, as usual. This was his job. Sure, it's a very peculiar job. Could one even call it a job? Benji didn't work for a corporation or business of any sort. He liked to call himself an "ambassador for a very very influential downtown artist who has been featured in the New York Times." Turns out, this "artist" liked to paint these pithy sayings all across the city, but then he got arrested. The artist hired Benji to watch his cat…while he's in jail.
Benji saw it as an opportunity to keep the artist's vision with the people on the street, even though the artist was incarcerated. So, he made these flyers with the sayings the artist had painted on the sidewalks and the walls, and every day, Benji passes them out one by one.
"Good morning, sir! Wouldn't you like to brighten up your day?" Benji half-shouted to get the attention of this young man passing in front of him.
"No," the man replied, not even giving Benji a second glance.
"Well, these were made especially, but wait—hey mister!" Benji cried out after him. "Ma'am take a work of art with you today!" he tried again as this petite blonde, young lady passed by, coffee in hand.
"Not today, thanks," she blew him off with one full swoop.
"But it's been created by a—well, screw you! Kindness is a virtue that is oftentimes ignored." Benji took deep breaths to counter the frustration caused by those two strangers.
"The city tends to make me feel invisible," he rambled on to himself. "Yes, of all the superpowers, it's the one I'd like to have, but it isn't very handy when you're trying to get noticed as a pioneer of visual art." Benji shoved the papers back into his backpack and carried on.
After many failed attempts, Benji took out one of the papers and read it carefully. "Never let tall buildings block the view of your dreams." In frustration, Benji balled up the paper and threw it on the street before heading to his favorite place to go contemplate about life.
Don't Wanna Be Here
Beca slumped in the chair across from her classmate, who had ever so graciously invited Beca out to lunch. "So tell me a little bit about yourself!" he suggested, not entirely sure what he was getting himself into.
"Where do I begin?" Beca began to trail off. "I grew up in like, the middle of nowhere, and I swore I would never go back. My hometown was like the suburb of a suburb, I actually lived on a cul-de-sac. That's literally a road that goes 's the definition of dead end. I said 'I can't wait to learn to do a three-point-turn' because I really did not want to be there."
"Wow," he responded, sipping his tea in wonder at the tiny, brunette. "Everyone has always been pretty curious about your story."
"That's not even half of it." Beca explained. "In four long years, I finished up with high school, graduated top of my class. Thank you! But in college I discovered that devising my own major was a bureaucratic pain in the ass. I thought I'd recontextualize Sartre, but could only register for first-year French. Ha! Well, you should've heard my mom when I dropped the bomb and said, 'I don't wanna be here. No, I don't wanna be here.'"
"Geez Beca!"
"Now let me just make one thing clear! I am not a negative person!"
"Okay. I'll believe it when I see it." he huffed under his breath.
"Hey! It's just that I've always known that I had places to go! Dreams to fulfill and ideas to discover. They're just never where I am…" she explained, settling back in her chair. She gets excited when she's explaining something. "After college, I finally got a job in some hum-drum office, like everyone right out of school does. I sat there at my cubicle every day sending faxes, and that's what my life was! Can you believe it?"
"Honestly, I'm having a blast trying to picture you pushing pencils." he teased.
"Pipe it pip squeak."
"Hey! You asked!" he defended himself quickly.
"I went back home and said to my parents 'I know what I've got to do.' And since I am a dork, I moved to New York. And I started grad school. I really don't wanna be here."
The Space Between
Jesse sat at the bar with some colleagues as he celebrated, what he'd call a success.
"There were fourteen blocks between her place and mine. I walked those blocks every single day. I started feeling with each passing sign that she was living too far away. So, I got to her place and said 'We've been together a year. Wouldn't it be genius if I lived, well, right here!' I got one of her priceless stares but said 'Honey, haven't you noticed there's all this space between where I leave my house and I see your face. All this space between when I buzzed your door and then we embrace.' I must've flashed my sexy grin 'cause the next thing you know I am moving in with her!" Jesse lifted up his beer and clanked bottles with his colleagues.
"I'll drink to that." one of them half-drunkenly shouted.
After drinks, Jesse made his way back to his new place and to his wonderful girlfriend. His mind was a little fuzzy due to the alcohol, but he began merging their two apartments into one. Jesse ripped the tape off a cardboard box and laid his claim on a dresser drawer. He said goodbye to those fourteen blocks and just imagined what lied in store.
The city had gotten him down, but that's because you really don't want to do New York alone. This was the best thing he ever did, saying "screw it" and getting rid of the space between he and his girl he can't get out of his head. All the space between, the moment they're in and what's lying ahead. He'd been waiting for something here, but now he's rushing toward the future and leaping clear of the space between.
Let Things Go
"How does this happen?" Aubrey sighed in defeat as she and Chloe took a break from condensing her belongings to make room for Jesse. "All my life, I though the space I had was not enough. Then I opened my closet door and thought 'my life must be more than the sum of this stuff.' It's time to begin to let things go."
An hour later, Chloe and Aubrey are sitting amongst a pile of old memories from Aubrey's life, out-of-date planners and dog-eared postcards.
"What in God's name was I keeping these for?"
They began to pack the small things back into boxes just in case since now Aubrey really needs the space. She's determined to clear out some room in here and let things go.
Chloe came across another box full of mementos, years and years of junk and flotsam, plastic souvenirs, birthday cards, a pamphlet on Van Gough. They both stared in amazement as Aubrey told Chloe why each one was so very special. After packing the box back up very carefully, Aubrey laid eyes on the container she had tucked away years ago. Her heart sank into her stomach.
"It's so very strange finding stuff from a lifetime ago." Aubrey began, not taking her eyes off of the grey lid. "Even when the life you find is yours." Chloe watched as Aubrey swallowed the knot in her throat. "'Cause there are things that make you feel that you need this proof your past was real. And I can't let them go." Aubrey could feel herself start to lose it, so back into boxes she put everything.
"Why can't I just be some other Aubrey who can just let things go? I mean, I said I would try, and I did, but I can't let things go. You know, Martha Stewart, I'm not her. I'm gonna let things go back where they were."