Candlelight Sessions
Last night, Larisa and I were attempting to squish boredom in a RP session over at Sylvan Hollow. Of course, just as things were about to get interesting, the power randomly vanished. To make matters worse, when my brother and I went for a walk … there was power on the other side of a relatively busy street that runs a block away from me. It was like a slap in the face. My brother told me to go sit in an empty soccer field and try to steal someone else’s internet signal. I passed.
So after a really lame game of Go Fish — can that game ever be cool once you’re no longer six? I went to my room and stared at my laptop with longing before pulling open my notebook and writing until my hand felt like it was going to fall off, by what else? Candlelight.
Apparently I get inspired when I can barely see the paper.
But here is a snippet of what I wrote — I don’t know if any of this will make it into a final draft. As I read it now it looks more like a character development than anything.
I knew she only had my best interest in mind. She worried obsessively over me since dad died eight years ago. Not that I had given her much, if any, cause. I’ve always been somewhat of a homebody, preferring to curl up on the sofa with a good book to going out with friends. Out of all my idiosyncrasies I always thought this would be the one thing she understood — it wasn’t like she was a social butterfly. Rather than understanding she liked to tell me that she had only “settled down” after she had met Dad — that partying and getting into a “little trouble” was character building. I honestly think she only said that to let me off the hook — that or she thought I was wired wrong. Knowing Mom, both options had probably crossed her mind. She had a hard time relating to me after Dad’s death; most did. Despite her claims that she wanted me to “embrace life,” and “be young,” I think she was relieved that I gave her little cause to worry. No, my high school days passed with about as much fanfare as the flicker of a flame.
In a lot of ways she was right.
My father, Walt Davis, was the one person on the planet who got me. He and I would talk for hours. For me home was never the four walls that surrounded us — it was found in his booming laugh, or his twinkling gray eyes that changed color with his mood, or his broad smile. When he died so did a piece of myself. So, with all the wisdom I possessed at sixteen, I did the only think I could think of, I hid.
I withdrew deep inside of myself, because there, all of my memories of him were safe. If I didn’t create new memories there was no danger of losing the old ones. It wasn’t rational, I know, but it was the only way I could guarantee that I wouldn’t lose him. It worked, but not the way I had hoped. Once clear, my memories faded, distorted. I clung to them like I would a life preserver, but all they are now are brief flickers — some clearer than others.
Had he still been alive, he would have understood why I was sitting in the car, on my way to the airport, with an uncertain future looming on the horizon.
Like I said … a snippet. There’s another good four pages that I wrote — and it is rough. A lot of changes in this bits future — for instance, the dad’s name will be changed.
