Lift
Disclaimer: Roses are red, violets are blue, I don't own, and you won't sue. Right? I'd hate to have to sic my muses on you. (smile) Eureka Seven belongs to Studio BONES, and the assignment belongs to my Creative Writing teacher. But the plot is mine, and if you steal it, I'll eat you.
Challenge: Write a short first-person narrative (approximately 500 to 600-ish words) in which the narrator may only refer to him- or herself twice (i.e. no personal pronouns; other characters if present may use them, however).
The sky was a bright, jewel-like blue that afternoon, with barely a cloud in sight. Its color was pure and inviting, almost the exact shade of a robin's egg in a photograph. It had always been a pretty, tantalizing shade on hot summer days like these, but not quite like this. The grass was long and hadn't been mowed in a long time, with tickly points that had a tendency to poke any space of open skin on anyone who sat or lay down in it, and still presented a palpable pressure through clothing. It was a punchy green, the color one was more likely to find in a child's box of crayons than outside in real life. Even the few clouds were puffy like cotton balls that had been stretched out just a little bit, right before the point where they become translucent. The sun was an unbelievable spot of brightness in that wide open space, sending rays of little circles across the field of vision of anyone looking up, and occasional flocks of skyfish flitted back and forth up above. They were pretty, like tiny little yellow-green stingrays, and they looked so playful, as if they were inviting everyone to just fly right up and dance in the air with them.
It was a scene as striking and lovely as anything out of a child's picture book.
And then, there was me.
Knees, elbows, shins, and forearms covered in a mass of pink, peach, and patterned band-aids. Blue and white babydoll dress literally covered in grass and dirt stains—so much so that it looked almost polka-dotted. Scuffed, worn sneakers that had probably reached the end of their life expectancy yesterday, despite the fact that they were new, barely out of the cardboard box they'd arrived in three months ago, with untied laces grayed, fraying, and hanging limp as cold, wet, soggy spaghetti noodles. Short, unruly pale blue hair clumping up between the humid air and the sweat of a rigorous and ineffectual workout, ready at any moment to burst free of the delicate hairclips that strained to confine it. Dirty, frustratedly clenched fists. Eyes half-closed against the sun's glare, lips twisted into a pout, and a throat locked against the petty hiss building up in it.
The one blemish on the beauty of that bright and open summer day: A dirty, sweaty, liberally scabbed and band-aided, highly annoyed eight-year-old, and her banged-up, battered lift board.
The one could use a good polishing and a visit to a repair shop. The other, a cold glass of lemonade and a few hours out of the sun and away from that tauntingly lovely sky. (No, there are no prizes for guessing which needed what.)
There was nothing, absolutely nothing more incensing than trying and failing repeatedly at something that should come completely naturally to you.
And if one more person came up with another meaningless, obnoxious platitude like, "You're doing really well, Eureka, you're almost there! Just a little more practice, and I know you can do it!" (ugh)… heads were going to roll.
I wanted to fly, up there where things were all beautiful and the rest of the world was little more than tiny dots far down below—and just couldn't stop falling.
There just had to be some shortcut to learning how to lift.
:owari: