Three Bricks Shy-Alias, PG-13 (A touch of the occult and some humor)
Peregrine
Alias is owned by ABC, Touchstone and is the creation of JJ Abrams and Bad Robot Productions
Vaughn visits his crazy aunt Trish.
*****
Sorry this is so short, but I didn't have much time to write today.
Chapter Six
The house was sunny and cheerful, and somehow, it was not what I expected. Instead of bead curtains and incense burners, I saw immaculately appointed rooms with highly burnished hardwood floors and floor to ceiling windows of sparkling glass. The front two rooms were full of exercise equipment and a high-tech entertainment system. Weiss looked like he was creaming his pants and if the Porsche had been an appetizer, then the audio system and wall- mounted plasma screen were a full course dinner.
He flipped through rack after rack of CDs and looked at me in wonder. "Talk about eclectic music tastes. She has everything from Linkin Park to Toscanini. Think she'll let me borrow some disks while we're here?"
"Maybe." Weiss was like an AC circuit, his opinions flipping back and forth between fearing her and liking her. Ever hopeful, he never let life keep him down for long. He moved on to her DVD collection and left me to my own devices.
Trish was nowhere in sight, but I heard dishes clattering from the back of the house. Funny, I don't remember her ever cooking or helping out in the kitchen. During those long ago occasions when the family gathered for holidays, I remember her holding fort in the front parlor while my mother and her other sisters toiled away on the turkey. They resented her easy ways with the men, flirting and smoking and downing highballs like they were lemonade.
With a shake of my head, I stopped to look at a series of paintings, astounded by what I saw. Graceful landscapes with exquisite dashes of color, pointillist perspectives of the French countryside, and surreal curios filled her walls, artfully arranged and displayed by someone with the instincts and tastes of a master decorator. Who could this unknown artist be? I knew talent when I saw it, and these pieces were unfamiliar. When I looked closer and saw the looping lines of the artist's signature, I was sure I must be hallucinating. Looking again changed nothing. Trish had painted these pictures. Unbelievable. I had to sit down and absorb this. This did not compute. Like an unbalanced equation, it hovered in my mind, unsolved and cryptic. Why should this bother me? Well, it's like this. I happen to be a pretty good artist and painting is one of my hobbies. It's therapeutic and helps me relax after a long day at the job. While other guys flop on the couch and drink beer, I retreat to my studio and lay down brushstrokes on canvas. It's one of my closely guarded secrets and not even Weiss knows about it.
Coldplay started up in the background while Trish sliced and diced in the far reaches of the house and I was sitting here freaking out over a few pieces of art. But it was more than that. It was everything. The way I looked like her, our mannerisms, my "gift", and now this artistic ability. Memories I had suppressed were being dredged up and thrown in my face at every turn. What other skeletons lurked in her closet, ready to spring their nasty surprises on me?
"Hey, Michael, get a load of this." Eric's voice sliced through my self- absorbed state and drew me to my feet. Like a sleepwalker, I moved slowly to his side and stared dumbly at an old, sepia-toned photo of a hockey player with my face.
*******
Peregrine
Alias is owned by ABC, Touchstone and is the creation of JJ Abrams and Bad Robot Productions
Vaughn visits his crazy aunt Trish.
*****
Sorry this is so short, but I didn't have much time to write today.
Chapter Six
The house was sunny and cheerful, and somehow, it was not what I expected. Instead of bead curtains and incense burners, I saw immaculately appointed rooms with highly burnished hardwood floors and floor to ceiling windows of sparkling glass. The front two rooms were full of exercise equipment and a high-tech entertainment system. Weiss looked like he was creaming his pants and if the Porsche had been an appetizer, then the audio system and wall- mounted plasma screen were a full course dinner.
He flipped through rack after rack of CDs and looked at me in wonder. "Talk about eclectic music tastes. She has everything from Linkin Park to Toscanini. Think she'll let me borrow some disks while we're here?"
"Maybe." Weiss was like an AC circuit, his opinions flipping back and forth between fearing her and liking her. Ever hopeful, he never let life keep him down for long. He moved on to her DVD collection and left me to my own devices.
Trish was nowhere in sight, but I heard dishes clattering from the back of the house. Funny, I don't remember her ever cooking or helping out in the kitchen. During those long ago occasions when the family gathered for holidays, I remember her holding fort in the front parlor while my mother and her other sisters toiled away on the turkey. They resented her easy ways with the men, flirting and smoking and downing highballs like they were lemonade.
With a shake of my head, I stopped to look at a series of paintings, astounded by what I saw. Graceful landscapes with exquisite dashes of color, pointillist perspectives of the French countryside, and surreal curios filled her walls, artfully arranged and displayed by someone with the instincts and tastes of a master decorator. Who could this unknown artist be? I knew talent when I saw it, and these pieces were unfamiliar. When I looked closer and saw the looping lines of the artist's signature, I was sure I must be hallucinating. Looking again changed nothing. Trish had painted these pictures. Unbelievable. I had to sit down and absorb this. This did not compute. Like an unbalanced equation, it hovered in my mind, unsolved and cryptic. Why should this bother me? Well, it's like this. I happen to be a pretty good artist and painting is one of my hobbies. It's therapeutic and helps me relax after a long day at the job. While other guys flop on the couch and drink beer, I retreat to my studio and lay down brushstrokes on canvas. It's one of my closely guarded secrets and not even Weiss knows about it.
Coldplay started up in the background while Trish sliced and diced in the far reaches of the house and I was sitting here freaking out over a few pieces of art. But it was more than that. It was everything. The way I looked like her, our mannerisms, my "gift", and now this artistic ability. Memories I had suppressed were being dredged up and thrown in my face at every turn. What other skeletons lurked in her closet, ready to spring their nasty surprises on me?
"Hey, Michael, get a load of this." Eric's voice sliced through my self- absorbed state and drew me to my feet. Like a sleepwalker, I moved slowly to his side and stared dumbly at an old, sepia-toned photo of a hockey player with my face.
*******