Disclaimer: not mine. Yet.

Dedicated to: Avra, personal friend of mine, for it is her computer whom is described below (reader?) :D just keep reading

…

"Hi mom I'm home!" I called into the apartment as I let myself in. My older sister and one of her friends were watching TV on the couch, which wasn't to far from the door.

"Your FACE!" my sister said.

"Why so late?" my mom called sternly from the kitchen.

"Oh heh heh…" I began. I was SO not telling Mom about the whole bizzarities that actually happened- Dwnn had said Haeley was not to know, but I knew that he also meant in general no one was to know. That was simply common knowledge. "I was just helping clean up some stuff on one of the stages, you know- some dude asked me to... He might be the janitor or something." This was simply a stretch of the truth- I did clean off a part of the stage to sit on for a while. Dwnn had asked me to bring him a piece of writing, so I was simply being vague. He could be the janitor, I mused, but somehow I doubted it- he seemed to young to be. And yet he didn't seem a child- he seemed… ageless.

"I see. Well, its 9:30, which means you should be home earlier," my mom said in a scathing voice. I knew if I said ok I would be doomed because I had already agreed to give Dwnn my stuff, and I knew crossing him could be fatal.

"Look, I always get home ok, so I don't see why I can't stay out a little later. Plus, the dude seemed to enjoy the company," I insisted, still telling the truth. Or at least stretching it only a bit. My mom is a bit zen-ey, so she took this quite well, or better than I imagine most moms would.

"OH REally?" she said, "It's not your decision to MAKE, now IS IT?" I bit my lip- my writers mind told me that there would be an exclamation point there as well as a question mark.

"Well… no…" I mumbled, "but-"

"You KNOW the rules in this house," my mom snapped.

"Yea, I know," I grouched, "No ands ifs or buts. Anyhow, LIKE I WAS SAYING…. I'm not asking to be out till ten o'clock."

"The answer is no."

"Look, I know I was late to night, b-" I stopped myself. "however, today I sort of got lost because… my backpack spilled open and I had to chase my papers back into them." this to was true- two papers fell out of my pocket (see? papers)

"You don't have a backpack with you," my mom said in definitive tone.

"Okay, my pocket, whatever," I sighed, "you know what I mean. Please- you know how much I like to be out at night, and I promise I won't come home this late often- generally I'll come home… say…five or ten minutes precedent?" my mom sighed- she couldn't argue with vocabulary. It was just another way of reminding her that I was academically PERFECT. Ok, academically advanced if you don't like my crazy big ego.

"Oookay, you win," she said, "but if you come home any later, you're grounded, and if you a. get drunk or b. get high, you're also grounded."

"Alright, fair enough," I said. I sped into my room in order to avoid having to explain myself further.

And besides, I had to choose some writing for Dwnn.

My room is a closet I turned into a room- a roomy closet, to be more specific. There was couch-like bed on top of a shelf (a "loft" according to my mom), beneath which I put a beanbag chair, a rug and a small, wooden, grid-like shelving unit for my growing collection of nick-knacks. There was a 'miniature dresser' (aka shelves for cramped spaces, aka for college dorms and teens because they're so messy, even though I fit into neither category) for my clothes (which, fortunately for me, there wasn't a lot of because I hate shopping (asterisk)) and a hamper for my dirty clothes (my mom gave up on my being neat quite a while ago). I clambered up some unused piping on the wall- my latter- into my 'loft.'

A long time ago, all the members of the household used one, broken down PC. This meant that because I was the youngest, I had to hand write everything, which meant that I was embarrassed time after time by my handwriting.

Then my mom got a new PC for the household, and only a few days later, the school she taught at got rid of their old laptops, so my mom was given one. She was going to try to find something 'useful' to do with it, but I asked her if I could have it because PCs are junk, even the good ones. Plus, it was an old, colorful ibook, so it was cool. My mom shrugged and said "sure," so I obtained a previously used laptop. I upgraded the system to OX 10, but it still is as slow as I am, and in addition to that dysfunctional. When I'm checking my email, if I keep my cursor on the links to long they become dead links, so in order not to get stuck on one page, I half to sneak up on them. It's almost like a game, and I'm not too bad at it.

When I got into my loft, I grabbed my computer and plopped it down on my lap and opened it up. I had to search through all of my stuff to find something good to give to Dwnn.

I knew it would have to be completely free of my writers' voice, despite how cool it is. That eliminated all but 7 quality choices: three poems, a cool, several page story consisting mainly of fight scenes I so carefully choreographed- with some help from a friend on a fencing team-, a less than one page piece of junk about some dude walking toward the gallows to be hung in whatever time it was England, and two other random pieces.

I immediately threw out one bad poem. The other two were two were some very quirky poems I had written; one about a clock and how it's better than civilization, and one about a rabbit being chased by a fox. I liked the fox chasing the rabbit- imagery central there- but decided that it was a bit too mundane a subject, and it didn't spark thought like the clock piece did. I printed out the clock poem, and decided I needed one long piece. Reading through the two random pieces, I scowled at there over sci-fi-ness, quickly eliminating them. Part of me was tempted to print out the gallows piece, but I told that part to shut up and that my fighting masterpiece was better. All it needed was some editing.

After I had gotten through the third fight scene, I realized that my masterpiece wasn't any good- it was just a bunch of blood and gore, completely lackluster. I frowned- I never would have agreed with myself just a day before, and here I was, gashing one of my favorite stories. Maybe I had changed suddenly, or maybe I was afraid it wasn't good enough.

I very aggressively stopped caring.

I took a look at the gallows piece- I had written it a while ago because I was bored with pouting over some things that happened earlier. Reading it for the first time, I admitted it was much better than I had given it credit for. I had been quantity over quality, and there was much more mass to the swordfight piece. I printed out the finished clock piece and the gallows piece. Scanning both for any minor errors, I realized how amazingly stunning the gallows piece was. And yet it was perturbing, hellish and violently ablaze. It pulled you into Dante's Inferno, into the seventh ring of hell. Not to different from Dwnn's piece, I mused. Both were vehement, and both were horrid and beautiful.

It had to be worth a shot.