Rain fell, pattering against the ground. Each drop broke on the pavement of a road outside a small high school. It had started out as just one. Just a single raindrop hit the leaf of a sapling outside the door. Then another, and another until droplets of water were showering down.
The office had a large window that saw out into the parking lot. The eyes of a child who was sitting uncomfortably in a half-padded seat near the secretary watched as the rain slid down the window. There was a steady clatter as the secreatary's fingers flew over the keyboard to a computer. Though, Fiona's ears seemed to block everything out except for the gentle patter outside. She forgot to blink every once in a while, her head tilted slightly to the side, thinking about everything and nothing. Her dark hand rested against the armrest, and her elbow lay on the opposite one. Her legs were folded up underneath her and she sat on one of her ankles. The rain outside held her in a sort of trance that she'd been sitting in for the last ten minutes, waiting for the principal to return. A voice rang quietly in her ear, as though someone was yelling a couple of miles away. Then the sound grew louder, until suddenly Fiona snapped back into reality to the exasperated words of
"Miss NELSON!"
"Eh? What what? I'm sorry, I must have spaced out."
"Apparently."
Fiona didn't move, her eyes just traveled upward and saw an exceedingly pretty woman looking down at her. This woman had wavy blonde hair that came to about her shoulders, and a porcelin-doll face with about 50 pounds of make up. Her arms were crossed across her VERY obvious chest, that was also VERY obviously fake. Fiona snorted under her breath, blinking at her barbie-doll principal. Fiona tilted her head to the opposite side, trying to hide a smile as she wondered if she held a magnifying glass up to Miss Percey she would melt.
"Miss Nelson are you listening to me?"
"I'm all ears." Fiona batted her eyelids and gave a fake smile.
"Get up and follow me."
Fiona rose and followed her bouncy principal back into the actual office, Miss Percey closing the door after she'd come in.
"Sit."
The girl complied, sitting down on the chair in front of Miss Percey's desk. Her spine slouched against the cement-like chair, watching the other for sign of intelligence. In school Fiona was more of a 'class clown' type of girl. She spoke her mind, and if you were unfortunate to be shallow, she'd have to trouble whatsoever making it completely obvious to you. The kid got exceptionally good grades, yet also spent an exceptional amount of time in the principal's office. The reason was that she argued with the teachers when she didn't agree with a point they made.
"So, Wanda," Fi said as though she were an adult talking to another adult, reaching forward and picking up a paperweight off the desk. Miss Percey slapped Fi's hand away and snorted, glaring at her.
"Give me your backpack."
"What?"
"Give it!"
Fiona hung her tongue out of her mouth and curled her hands over near her chin, panting. She scratched behind her ear then said
"Grrrruff.." then rolled her eyes, picking up the backpack and tossing it to the other.
"Isn't this illegal? You've gone through my bag 50 thousand times MA'AM You aren't gonna find anything. This is a violation of my rights. I'll sue. What are you gonna say then mrs.principal? You gonna seduce the judge like you do the 14-year-old frosh boys who don't know any better?"
"Be quiet Nelson."
"No I won't be. You knw me better than that Wanda."
"I am MISS PERCEY!"
"And I'm Fi, nice to meet you."
"AHA! I FOUND IT! FINALLY! I KNEW IT!" Miss Percey pulled a small tightly rolled-up white thing out of the bag and showed it triumphantly. "I knew all along that you were taking drugs."
Fiona glanced for a second at the white thing, expressionless, then back at the other. She spoke in a cooing voice and smiled, as though Miss Percey were a child and wouldn't understand. "That's pocket lint honey. But better luck next time finding the drugs in my backpack that don't exist because I'm not a mindless fool and I don't take drugs. It's okay don't get discouraged, there's always tomorrow." Dropping the voice she continued "What made you think I take drugs?"
"You were in the bathroom for an hour, and plus, you dress like a druggie."
"You dress like a hooker, but you don't see me making assumptions now do you?"
"Get out. I'm calling your father."
Fiona's eyes widened like plates, her heart stopping, all the sarcasm dropping out of her body and piling up on the floor like wet laundry.
"Don't.. I'm sorry I was just kidding around..."
"Too late. Get out. You'll be suspended."
Jumping to her feet, fuming she demanded, "On what grounds??? Arguing a stupid point you made? Well fine if I'm going to get suspended for excercising my rights at least I'll be far away from YOU." Fiona snatched her backpack out of her hands and tramped out of the stuffy room. Once outside, the wet laundry of all her lost hope still clung around the bottom of her ankles dragging behind her like weights. The child couldn't go home. She knew her dad would be notified, and God knows what he would do to her. Satan, rather.
A bell somewhere above her sounded, and soon she was outside in the pouring rain. Insta-soaked. It didn't matter though. There was nothing left for her to go to. Instead of walking home, she turned a different way.
~*~*~*~*~
The time just between dusk and dark is when real stars escape the oureaches of the sun. The last snake-like rays straggle to catch up with the others on the horizon. The lady of night gliding above with her cloak of blackness, speckled with small glowing gems. It is a silence then, when everyone is just getting home from the toils of the day, just before the riotous teens and young adults leave for their alcohol partying and drugs. When the only cars on the road in the cities are people rushing to do things they've forgotton...
It was there that this thin being walked, through the roads that led her to worlds that only she could not see nor ever imagine. Now all she saw below her were the squares of the sidewalk. One cement block after another, passing by like nothing. Fiona couldn't help but think, that one square of sidewalk was like a lifetime. That it seemed like nothing and could pass by like nothing but was so much no matter how short.
With that thought, Fiona stopped herself in the middle of a sidewalk square, unfortunatley also in the middle of a puddle. She would have rolled her eyes under any other situation, but now...no. The people that had to walk out of their way to go around her made no difference. This life could end with a single step past the boundaries of the square. One footprint out of the puddle of the infinity she'd always known. Her hand found itself on a random stranger passing by. Grasping their shoulder she felt thier eyes rest upon her. Without turning her head or looking to see who she'd stopped, Fiona spoke in a calm voice.
"This could be the most memorable hour of our lives."
She stepped OVER the line between the sidewalk edges, but before letting go she added a clipped ending, addressed to her startled victim.
"It will happen whether we're there or not."
With that her hand released itself from the folds of the other's clothing, and continued to walk, the rain pattering down upon her head.
*~*
Knock...knock...(crickets chirping)
No answer.
Knock...KNOCK KNOCK?!?!
"mmmphh..the hell are you. we don't want any vacuums."
"Shush Tavie your parents will wake up."
The glassy-eyed dream-drunk teenager stared back at her friend. Her hair was a matted mess about her head as though someone had rubbed a balloon against it then stuck her head next to an electrical socket. Her eyelids looked as though they weighed about 50 lbs. each, and took an exceeding amount of effort to keep open even a sliver. Her mouth hung open loosely, slackjawed off to the side, her tongue sitting lazily on the edge of her lip. A wrinkled white t-shirt went down to her knees, underneath that were pasty white legs and squeeky ducky slippers poking out from the ends of her toes. The crickets still chirped relentlessly.
"Uh, Tavie?"
Nothing seemed to be registering.
The annyoing insects in the bushes around the front door were just about to start up another chorus, when an exasperated foot stomped one of them. Those remaining were all stunned into silence.
Fi snappped her fingers in her friend's face.
"AAAAUGH BOB THE RUBBER CHICKEN IS CO-"
Tavie's eyes were as big around as golf balls, and Fiona's hand was clamped firmly around her mouth.
"I told you to be quiet."
"mmphgrrrf..."
"Can I stay here tonight?"
Silent nod, for lack of the use of an oral instrument.
*~*~*~*~
(next morning)
"Fiona, sweetheart, hun, you know I love you and everything but you are completely off on this one."
"The heck are you talking about fool? Tavie, zero is not a number."
"Yes it is! You can't write 'twenty' without a two and a zero, it doesn't work! So zero HAS to be a number!"
Tavie and Fiona were debating once again, each on either side of the breakfast table. Both of Tavie's parents were watching in slight amusement. It was the same every time, Fiona was slouching, her arms crossed, looking calm and comfortable.. While on the other side of the table Tavie was getting hyper/angry/excited all at the same time trying to prove her own point.
Tavie's mom felt sorry for the danish that unfortunatley ended up on the table between the two.
"But Tavie, listen, two plus zero equals what? two. Zero will never change and will never change anything else. It is forever and never, unlike any other number."
"But FI! Thousands upon thousands of databases for computers are written with what two symbols? A zero and a 1! You of all people should know that. If zero didn't exist then we wouldn't have computers, technology! You'd have to wake up every morning to find that your poor toast has not been toasted for LACK OF A TOASTER!"
"First of all, toast isn't toast before it's been put in the toaster, it's bread. Secondly, zero exists, I agree with you on that. But it's not a number. It's something else. It's the only 'number' that is constant, it is the only 'number' that no matter what, will leave the number it's affecting the same, or change it to itself. It is the support for every other number, from beginning to end. Think of it this way, that every human is a number. We all exist. Do we call the inside layer of a mother's womb a human? No! Just because if it weren't for that then humans wouldn't exist, doesn't mean that the layer of flesh is human."
Fiona paused, waiting to see if Tavie had any retorting comments yet, but she blinked, apparently still thinking. So Tavie continued,
"Last of all, to give you an example on a smaller scheme, the Jackson5 sang 'abc, just as easy as 1-2-3' NOT 'abc, just as easy as 0-1-2'. Make sense?"
"I don't even know why you bother trying to argue with her Tavie, you know she could convince the president that the sky is green if you gave her enough time," said Tavie's mom, sipping at her coffee.
"Well with our current president that's no big accomplishment..." mumbled Tavie's Dad.
"Shush you," Tavie warned, picking up the victimized danish and taking a triumphant bite of it.
"Hey!" Fi protested, snatching at the danish.
"So where did you say your dad was again, Fiona?" questioned Tavie's mom.
"Uh... He's out of town on business."
"Oh, what sort of business?"
"UH OH! TIME FOR SCHOOL! GOTTA GO MOM AND DAD THANKS FOR BREAKFAST IT WAS GREAT SEE YA LATER!!" Tavie snatched Fiona and they were gone in a whirlwind, a napkin fluttering down from the air like a helicopter.
"Do they realize it's saturday?"
"Probably not. Let them go anyway, should prove to be interesting."
Once outside Fiona grabbed onto Tavie
"Do you realize it's saturday?"
"Yeah, but if we'd stayed it would have proved to have been way more interesting then we needed it to be right now."
"Tavie I don't know what to do.." Fi's high spirits had dimished quickly once again. She had spilled everything to Tavie last night, but tavie, being the sensible one, dismissed the mirror part for just a hallucination.
"Stay with me for a while, my parents won't mind."
"And then what? Whoever the hell that guy was comes after YOU too? That's not gonna happen."
"Says who?"
"Me."
Tavie stepped over to Fiona and eyed her as close as humanly possible without their eyelashes rubbing against one another.
"Listen, you are the only person I can depend on that is close to me and I can't lose you."
"Damn child your breath stinks how about we gets some mints and shove them in your NOSE, you're invading my personal bubble.. Don't get all mushy on me I might have to slap you."
Tavie smirked and backed up a little bit, shaking her head
"You're the only person I know who can make light of any situation yet somehow stay serious at the same time."
"Are you being sarcastic? I can never tell with you."
Tavie just grinned stupidly. Which was soon greeted by the aforesaid 'slap'.
"Ow, what was that for?"
"It's my turn to be serious for a minute. Look out there Tavie. Just look. You see that? THAT is the road to the rest of your life. Are you scared? Cause I am. This is the world of instant-gratification. Of fast food franchises with the incoherant mumblings of drive-thrus. This is your world of automatic teller machines and the security cameras that help you sleep at night. This is your world of single-minded bigots and greedy politicians that feed of the lives of those who don't understand.***"
Tavie nodded and smiled slightly "So go ahead, find the beginning of the road Fiona. But watch your step." she winked then dissapeared back into her house.
Fiona was left alone again on a pathway. She knew that Tavie was supporting her in whatever decision she made about her life, and she wanted her to be able to make it on her own. Fiona also knew that Tavie would forever be just inside that door, waiting for her to come running back for help.
The sun was just rising, though hard to see above the skyline of the city in the distance beyond the suburb in which she stood. A scrawny dirty pigeon flew down onto the cobblestone at her feet, spreading it's wings to warm itself against the increasing rays. Upon closer inspection it was found that one of the pigeon's feet was missing. It hobbled along on a single foot, limping over to the grass and snitching at a lone crumb of bread. Fiona watched in fascination as it took off from the ground again, into the air. Once lifted from it's constraint of the ground it flew with all the gracefullness of a dove, just as beautiful silhouetted against the blinding rays of the bright star.
***((quote by Christopher Johnson))
The office had a large window that saw out into the parking lot. The eyes of a child who was sitting uncomfortably in a half-padded seat near the secretary watched as the rain slid down the window. There was a steady clatter as the secreatary's fingers flew over the keyboard to a computer. Though, Fiona's ears seemed to block everything out except for the gentle patter outside. She forgot to blink every once in a while, her head tilted slightly to the side, thinking about everything and nothing. Her dark hand rested against the armrest, and her elbow lay on the opposite one. Her legs were folded up underneath her and she sat on one of her ankles. The rain outside held her in a sort of trance that she'd been sitting in for the last ten minutes, waiting for the principal to return. A voice rang quietly in her ear, as though someone was yelling a couple of miles away. Then the sound grew louder, until suddenly Fiona snapped back into reality to the exasperated words of
"Miss NELSON!"
"Eh? What what? I'm sorry, I must have spaced out."
"Apparently."
Fiona didn't move, her eyes just traveled upward and saw an exceedingly pretty woman looking down at her. This woman had wavy blonde hair that came to about her shoulders, and a porcelin-doll face with about 50 pounds of make up. Her arms were crossed across her VERY obvious chest, that was also VERY obviously fake. Fiona snorted under her breath, blinking at her barbie-doll principal. Fiona tilted her head to the opposite side, trying to hide a smile as she wondered if she held a magnifying glass up to Miss Percey she would melt.
"Miss Nelson are you listening to me?"
"I'm all ears." Fiona batted her eyelids and gave a fake smile.
"Get up and follow me."
Fiona rose and followed her bouncy principal back into the actual office, Miss Percey closing the door after she'd come in.
"Sit."
The girl complied, sitting down on the chair in front of Miss Percey's desk. Her spine slouched against the cement-like chair, watching the other for sign of intelligence. In school Fiona was more of a 'class clown' type of girl. She spoke her mind, and if you were unfortunate to be shallow, she'd have to trouble whatsoever making it completely obvious to you. The kid got exceptionally good grades, yet also spent an exceptional amount of time in the principal's office. The reason was that she argued with the teachers when she didn't agree with a point they made.
"So, Wanda," Fi said as though she were an adult talking to another adult, reaching forward and picking up a paperweight off the desk. Miss Percey slapped Fi's hand away and snorted, glaring at her.
"Give me your backpack."
"What?"
"Give it!"
Fiona hung her tongue out of her mouth and curled her hands over near her chin, panting. She scratched behind her ear then said
"Grrrruff.." then rolled her eyes, picking up the backpack and tossing it to the other.
"Isn't this illegal? You've gone through my bag 50 thousand times MA'AM You aren't gonna find anything. This is a violation of my rights. I'll sue. What are you gonna say then mrs.principal? You gonna seduce the judge like you do the 14-year-old frosh boys who don't know any better?"
"Be quiet Nelson."
"No I won't be. You knw me better than that Wanda."
"I am MISS PERCEY!"
"And I'm Fi, nice to meet you."
"AHA! I FOUND IT! FINALLY! I KNEW IT!" Miss Percey pulled a small tightly rolled-up white thing out of the bag and showed it triumphantly. "I knew all along that you were taking drugs."
Fiona glanced for a second at the white thing, expressionless, then back at the other. She spoke in a cooing voice and smiled, as though Miss Percey were a child and wouldn't understand. "That's pocket lint honey. But better luck next time finding the drugs in my backpack that don't exist because I'm not a mindless fool and I don't take drugs. It's okay don't get discouraged, there's always tomorrow." Dropping the voice she continued "What made you think I take drugs?"
"You were in the bathroom for an hour, and plus, you dress like a druggie."
"You dress like a hooker, but you don't see me making assumptions now do you?"
"Get out. I'm calling your father."
Fiona's eyes widened like plates, her heart stopping, all the sarcasm dropping out of her body and piling up on the floor like wet laundry.
"Don't.. I'm sorry I was just kidding around..."
"Too late. Get out. You'll be suspended."
Jumping to her feet, fuming she demanded, "On what grounds??? Arguing a stupid point you made? Well fine if I'm going to get suspended for excercising my rights at least I'll be far away from YOU." Fiona snatched her backpack out of her hands and tramped out of the stuffy room. Once outside, the wet laundry of all her lost hope still clung around the bottom of her ankles dragging behind her like weights. The child couldn't go home. She knew her dad would be notified, and God knows what he would do to her. Satan, rather.
A bell somewhere above her sounded, and soon she was outside in the pouring rain. Insta-soaked. It didn't matter though. There was nothing left for her to go to. Instead of walking home, she turned a different way.
~*~*~*~*~
The time just between dusk and dark is when real stars escape the oureaches of the sun. The last snake-like rays straggle to catch up with the others on the horizon. The lady of night gliding above with her cloak of blackness, speckled with small glowing gems. It is a silence then, when everyone is just getting home from the toils of the day, just before the riotous teens and young adults leave for their alcohol partying and drugs. When the only cars on the road in the cities are people rushing to do things they've forgotton...
It was there that this thin being walked, through the roads that led her to worlds that only she could not see nor ever imagine. Now all she saw below her were the squares of the sidewalk. One cement block after another, passing by like nothing. Fiona couldn't help but think, that one square of sidewalk was like a lifetime. That it seemed like nothing and could pass by like nothing but was so much no matter how short.
With that thought, Fiona stopped herself in the middle of a sidewalk square, unfortunatley also in the middle of a puddle. She would have rolled her eyes under any other situation, but now...no. The people that had to walk out of their way to go around her made no difference. This life could end with a single step past the boundaries of the square. One footprint out of the puddle of the infinity she'd always known. Her hand found itself on a random stranger passing by. Grasping their shoulder she felt thier eyes rest upon her. Without turning her head or looking to see who she'd stopped, Fiona spoke in a calm voice.
"This could be the most memorable hour of our lives."
She stepped OVER the line between the sidewalk edges, but before letting go she added a clipped ending, addressed to her startled victim.
"It will happen whether we're there or not."
With that her hand released itself from the folds of the other's clothing, and continued to walk, the rain pattering down upon her head.
*~*
Knock...knock...(crickets chirping)
No answer.
Knock...KNOCK KNOCK?!?!
"mmmphh..the hell are you. we don't want any vacuums."
"Shush Tavie your parents will wake up."
The glassy-eyed dream-drunk teenager stared back at her friend. Her hair was a matted mess about her head as though someone had rubbed a balloon against it then stuck her head next to an electrical socket. Her eyelids looked as though they weighed about 50 lbs. each, and took an exceeding amount of effort to keep open even a sliver. Her mouth hung open loosely, slackjawed off to the side, her tongue sitting lazily on the edge of her lip. A wrinkled white t-shirt went down to her knees, underneath that were pasty white legs and squeeky ducky slippers poking out from the ends of her toes. The crickets still chirped relentlessly.
"Uh, Tavie?"
Nothing seemed to be registering.
The annyoing insects in the bushes around the front door were just about to start up another chorus, when an exasperated foot stomped one of them. Those remaining were all stunned into silence.
Fi snappped her fingers in her friend's face.
"AAAAUGH BOB THE RUBBER CHICKEN IS CO-"
Tavie's eyes were as big around as golf balls, and Fiona's hand was clamped firmly around her mouth.
"I told you to be quiet."
"mmphgrrrf..."
"Can I stay here tonight?"
Silent nod, for lack of the use of an oral instrument.
*~*~*~*~
(next morning)
"Fiona, sweetheart, hun, you know I love you and everything but you are completely off on this one."
"The heck are you talking about fool? Tavie, zero is not a number."
"Yes it is! You can't write 'twenty' without a two and a zero, it doesn't work! So zero HAS to be a number!"
Tavie and Fiona were debating once again, each on either side of the breakfast table. Both of Tavie's parents were watching in slight amusement. It was the same every time, Fiona was slouching, her arms crossed, looking calm and comfortable.. While on the other side of the table Tavie was getting hyper/angry/excited all at the same time trying to prove her own point.
Tavie's mom felt sorry for the danish that unfortunatley ended up on the table between the two.
"But Tavie, listen, two plus zero equals what? two. Zero will never change and will never change anything else. It is forever and never, unlike any other number."
"But FI! Thousands upon thousands of databases for computers are written with what two symbols? A zero and a 1! You of all people should know that. If zero didn't exist then we wouldn't have computers, technology! You'd have to wake up every morning to find that your poor toast has not been toasted for LACK OF A TOASTER!"
"First of all, toast isn't toast before it's been put in the toaster, it's bread. Secondly, zero exists, I agree with you on that. But it's not a number. It's something else. It's the only 'number' that is constant, it is the only 'number' that no matter what, will leave the number it's affecting the same, or change it to itself. It is the support for every other number, from beginning to end. Think of it this way, that every human is a number. We all exist. Do we call the inside layer of a mother's womb a human? No! Just because if it weren't for that then humans wouldn't exist, doesn't mean that the layer of flesh is human."
Fiona paused, waiting to see if Tavie had any retorting comments yet, but she blinked, apparently still thinking. So Tavie continued,
"Last of all, to give you an example on a smaller scheme, the Jackson5 sang 'abc, just as easy as 1-2-3' NOT 'abc, just as easy as 0-1-2'. Make sense?"
"I don't even know why you bother trying to argue with her Tavie, you know she could convince the president that the sky is green if you gave her enough time," said Tavie's mom, sipping at her coffee.
"Well with our current president that's no big accomplishment..." mumbled Tavie's Dad.
"Shush you," Tavie warned, picking up the victimized danish and taking a triumphant bite of it.
"Hey!" Fi protested, snatching at the danish.
"So where did you say your dad was again, Fiona?" questioned Tavie's mom.
"Uh... He's out of town on business."
"Oh, what sort of business?"
"UH OH! TIME FOR SCHOOL! GOTTA GO MOM AND DAD THANKS FOR BREAKFAST IT WAS GREAT SEE YA LATER!!" Tavie snatched Fiona and they were gone in a whirlwind, a napkin fluttering down from the air like a helicopter.
"Do they realize it's saturday?"
"Probably not. Let them go anyway, should prove to be interesting."
Once outside Fiona grabbed onto Tavie
"Do you realize it's saturday?"
"Yeah, but if we'd stayed it would have proved to have been way more interesting then we needed it to be right now."
"Tavie I don't know what to do.." Fi's high spirits had dimished quickly once again. She had spilled everything to Tavie last night, but tavie, being the sensible one, dismissed the mirror part for just a hallucination.
"Stay with me for a while, my parents won't mind."
"And then what? Whoever the hell that guy was comes after YOU too? That's not gonna happen."
"Says who?"
"Me."
Tavie stepped over to Fiona and eyed her as close as humanly possible without their eyelashes rubbing against one another.
"Listen, you are the only person I can depend on that is close to me and I can't lose you."
"Damn child your breath stinks how about we gets some mints and shove them in your NOSE, you're invading my personal bubble.. Don't get all mushy on me I might have to slap you."
Tavie smirked and backed up a little bit, shaking her head
"You're the only person I know who can make light of any situation yet somehow stay serious at the same time."
"Are you being sarcastic? I can never tell with you."
Tavie just grinned stupidly. Which was soon greeted by the aforesaid 'slap'.
"Ow, what was that for?"
"It's my turn to be serious for a minute. Look out there Tavie. Just look. You see that? THAT is the road to the rest of your life. Are you scared? Cause I am. This is the world of instant-gratification. Of fast food franchises with the incoherant mumblings of drive-thrus. This is your world of automatic teller machines and the security cameras that help you sleep at night. This is your world of single-minded bigots and greedy politicians that feed of the lives of those who don't understand.***"
Tavie nodded and smiled slightly "So go ahead, find the beginning of the road Fiona. But watch your step." she winked then dissapeared back into her house.
Fiona was left alone again on a pathway. She knew that Tavie was supporting her in whatever decision she made about her life, and she wanted her to be able to make it on her own. Fiona also knew that Tavie would forever be just inside that door, waiting for her to come running back for help.
The sun was just rising, though hard to see above the skyline of the city in the distance beyond the suburb in which she stood. A scrawny dirty pigeon flew down onto the cobblestone at her feet, spreading it's wings to warm itself against the increasing rays. Upon closer inspection it was found that one of the pigeon's feet was missing. It hobbled along on a single foot, limping over to the grass and snitching at a lone crumb of bread. Fiona watched in fascination as it took off from the ground again, into the air. Once lifted from it's constraint of the ground it flew with all the gracefullness of a dove, just as beautiful silhouetted against the blinding rays of the bright star.
***((quote by Christopher Johnson))