Starlight

‘I really should be going home.’ I got up. Jenn was still hanging on the couch.
‘What time is it?’
‘Half past one. Gotta go to work in the morning.’ Her eyes opened.
‘Yeah. You should go home. But…’
‘Another wine? Really?’
‘Come on. You don’t turn 21 every day.’
‘I don’t. Because, you know, it’s already past midnight. It’s not my birthday anymore.’
‘Still, you’re not 21 and one day every day either. It’s just once.’
‘I know. But if I used that excuse every time, I wouldn’t have a job anymore.’
‘Like me.’ That was stupid of me.
‘It’s okay. I don’t mind. Little bit of money would be nice. But I have time to think.’ Right… Jenn and thinking.
‘What are you thinking about?’ She opened a curtain and looked through.
‘There are so little stars out there.’
‘What?’
‘With the lights and everything. You see less than half of the stars that are really out there, you know.’
‘I did know, actually. But hey, I really should go.’ I turned around.
‘I want to sleep.’
‘Me too.’
‘No, I mean, I want to sleep for thousands and thousands of years. In a space ship bound for the stars. So that I can reach them, you know. ‘Cause it’s too far, I’d be dead if I didn’t sleep.’
‘Aren’t those stars, like, already dead? The light travels, right?’
‘I know. And it makes me sad.’
‘Wait… are you crying?’
‘No. Yes.’
‘Why? It isn’t all bad, is it?’
‘Is it weird to want that?’
‘Want what?’
‘To fly away. To sleep and sleep until there’s nothing left. Is it weird to cry about light?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t lie, Esther.’
‘Jenn, are you okay?’
‘Are you?’
‘I don’t know. It’s half past one in the morning. And I need to go. I’m sorry, I need to go.’ This time I made it to the door.
‘I don’t want to die.’
‘Jenn… what? You’re not going to.’
‘I am. You too. I never get to see the stars. And that’s sad. There is just so much out there. And I will never get to see it. The night sky changes, you know. Stars die, their light too. I wish I could be frozen, in a glass coffin. Waiting, waiting, until everything has changed. I want to see that.’
‘Jenn, seriously, are you okay?’
‘No. I’m drunk.’ She sighed. ‘Just go. Okay?’
‘I can stay.’
‘No, you need to go to work in the morning. I’m sorry.’I went back to the couch and took her in my arms.
‘I just want you to be okay. Okay?’
She nestled closer. Through the curtains I could see the sky.
‘You know, I think I understand. Stars make me feel so afraid. It’s really silly. But it’s… because I’m so tiny. Makes me want to do something with my life, you know? I mean, I’m 21. I could do so much. But I’m not doing anything. Because I never think of a day as special, a day is just a day, you know? Jenn? Jenn?’
She was asleep.

The second Wordplay challenge I did. This time the challenge was dialogue, so I tried to write good dialogue (which isn't easy by the way). Not sure if I succeeded, let me know what you think! 

Envy (Nanowrimo challenge)

This is a short story that I wrote in the first week of Camp Nanowrimo July. I have given the usual Nanowrimo a twist, by writing a short story every day instead of writing one bigger story of 50.000 words. My first week's theme was 'Seven sins'. This is the story I came up with for Envy. Hope you enjoy!

‘Emma! Leave your sister alone.’ Emma ignored her mother and started playing with the truck. Lydia kept crying for a moment, but then stopped.

‘Can I play too?’

‘No.’ Emma kept looking at the truck. She pushed it down the road, until she hit a car. ‘Bam!’ She let the truck go and took the car. ‘Shoooh…’ she mimicked the sound as she turned the car round in the air. ‘Kaboom! Ow, ow, help us, help us!’ She took the truck again and said, in a very mean voice: ‘No, I’m driving on. I must work. Toot, toot!’

‘Emma…’ She ignored her mother and went on, to the next car. Then she saw that Lydia held a baby. She was singing. Emma scrambled to her feet and walked over to Lydia.

‘I want the baby. You are too small to have a baby.’

Lydia shook her head and pressed the baby to her chest.

‘Give it!’ Emma took the baby and started to pull, but Lydia held tight.

‘Emma, stop it!’ Mom was suddenly there. ‘You can play together. You can have a baby together, right?’

‘But I want the baby!’

‘Don’t scream, Em!’Immediately Emma dropped to the floor and screamed as loud as she could.

‘Emma!’ Emma didn’t stop.

‘Okay, have it your way. Come Lydia, we’re going somewhere else.’ Emma kept on screaming, but mom didn’t come back. Even when she screamed extra loud. Eventually she stopped and stood up. Mom and dad were playing with Lydia. And the ugly baby. They never looked at her. Dad pretended to cry. Everyone laughed. Lydia laughed really loud and really ugly. When mom poked her belly, she laughed even louder.

‘Tickle!’ she said. ‘Tickle!’ Mom did this, until Lydia was lying on the floor. Then dad started to tickle mom. Suddenly he look up, to Emma.

She turned quickly and took the truck again. ‘Toot, toot!’ The driving sounds were extra hard. Another car was thrown into the air. A bear lying on the floor was also run over. Emma was so immersed in her play that she almost bumped into someone. It was a man. He was big.

‘S-sorry,’ Emma said.

‘Hi Emma!’ David sat next to the man. They were playing with a castle together.

‘Is that your father?’ Emma asked. David laughed. The man laughed too.

‘No, he’s my brother, Stefan,’ David said. Stefan smiled and held out his hand.

‘And what’s your name, fair maiden?’ He looked nice. Emma smiled back and shook his hand.

‘Emma,’ she said.

‘Do you want to join us, Emma?’ Stefan asked. Emma looked at dad and mom and Lydia. They were still playing together. Then she looked back at Stefan.

‘What are you playing?’ she asked.

‘I’m the lord of the castle!’ David said. ‘Stefan is attacking. I must defend! But you can join if you want to.’

Emma nodded.

‘What do I do?’

Stefan and David looked at each other.

‘What if you play with David,’ Stefan said. ‘I can handle you two little ones on my one easy, muhahaha!’Emma and David laughed.

‘No way!’ Emma said. ‘We’re going to win, right David?’

‘Of course!’ David said. ‘I always win.’

‘Me too,’ Emma said. Ze crawled over to David, to the castle. There was playmobil everywhere.

‘The men must be prepared,’ David said. ‘We must man the walls! If you give them weapons, I’ll put them in the right position.’

Emma took a man and looked round. There, an axe. Ze gave it to the man. Meanwhile David was putting a man with a bow on a tower. The man constantly fell over. Emma put the man with the axe next to David and went on with the next one. Soon there was a whole pile. When the bow-man was finally standing, David wanted to take a new figure. He took a princess with a sword.

‘Emma!’ he said, angrily.

‘What?’

‘Women don’t fight!’

‘They do.’

‘They can’t,’ David said. ‘Women cry and get scared. And they aren’t strong enough.’

Emma hit him. David started crying.

‘Stefan! She hit me!’

‘Women do fight!’ Emma said. ‘I read it myself.’

‘Reading is stupid.’

‘Reading isn’t stupid.’

‘It is. You only read and read and you are stupid.’

‘No, gaming is stupid.’

‘Guys, calm down,’ Stefan said. ‘You have to fight me, not each other.’

‘I don’t want to play with Emma anymore!’ David said. ‘I will win without her, anyway.’

‘David…’

‘I don’t want to play with you anymore,’ Emma said. ‘It’s boring.’

She hit against the castle, so that all the men fell and got away quickly, before David could start fighting. David really was a pussy. He started to cry all the time, but if he fought, he bit and pinched.

Emma looked round. Children and parents were playing everywhere, but the kids were all stupid and their parents were stupid too. And none of the toys were fun.

‘Emmy, sweetheart. Are you okay?’ Her dad was next to her. Emma clung to him.

‘Dad! You are all so mean!’

‘Well, you weren’t exactly nice to Lydia,’ her dad said.

‘Lydia is stupid.’

‘No, she is not.’

‘You like her more then me!’ Emma yelled. ‘I hate you!’

Ze wanted to go away, to run away, but dad was much to strong.

‘Listen to me, Em,’ he said. She always liked him calling her Em. ‘That is not true, do you hear me? We like you very much, but we also like Lydia. That’s why we don’t want you to hurt her, understand?’

‘I don’t hurt her,’ Emma said. ‘She just has to give them to me.’

‘That’s not how it works.’

‘But I’m the oldest and I am sad.’

‘And if you hit Lydia and take things away from her, she is sad. So you’ll have to give her the things she wants, right?’

Emma stared.

‘No… not.’

‘Why can’t you and Lydia play together. You always have so much fun, don’t you?’

Emma didn’t answer. Instead she rubbed her face into his shirt.

‘Dad… can you play with me? Please?’

Ze closed her eyes and wanted him to say ‘yes’. It took a long time. She heard him sigh.

‘Well, allright,’ he said. ‘What do you want to play, Em?’

Emma jumped up excitedly.

‘With the prince and snowhite and the dwarves.’

Dad smiled and gestured to the ground.

‘Lie down then, Princess,’ he said. Emma lay down and closed her eyes. She tried to stop laughing. She also wanted to see what dad was doing, but if she opened her eyes, dad would say: ‘Don’t peek!’

It started.

‘Oh, this is terrible,’ dad said. He talked in a very high voice and Emma giggled. Quickly she put her hand over her mouth. ‘Our poor Snowwhite. She did so much for us. And now she is dead!’ Dad the dwarf cried.

‘Let’s put her in a glass coffin, so we can still look at her.’

Now Emma peeked for a moment. Dad was drawing a coffin around her. He was very good at crying. It almost seemed real. When dad looked at her, she closed her eyes again.

‘What was that?’ dad the dwarf asked. ‘It looked like her eyes were open. But that couldn’t be, could it?’ Emma shook her head.

‘And she shakes her head,’ the dwarf said, surprised. ‘Maybe she is not dead.’ Immediatly Emma went dead still. Now the best part started.

‘But wait!’ the dwarf said. ‘Who is that? What a beautiful horse! And what a handsome young man! It must be a prince.’ He made horse sounds.

‘Dear God,’ he said, in his prince voice. ‘What is this? It’s a beautiful girl! What pretty lips and eyes and what a beautiful face.’

‘You’re doing it wrong,’ Emma whispered. Ze tried to say it without moving her lips. ‘You forgot the hair.’

‘And what beautiful hair,’ the prince said. ‘Just now it looked like she was still alive. But no, that’s impossible. She is so very still and… but she is so beautiful.’

The prince cried too. Of course, the girl was so pretty.

‘Maybe I should give her a little kiss,’ the prince said. Emma laughed. She really wanted to look, but she kept her eyes closed.

‘I want to be snowwhite too!’ Lydia always ruined everything. Still worse, dad forgot he was a prince for a moment.

‘Hey little one,’ he said. ‘You can go next, okay?’ Emma didn’t want Lydia to be next. She opened her eyes.

‘You can’t go!’ she said. ‘A prince can only marry one princess.’ Lydia looked back, angrily.

‘Papa says he can, right?’ Lydia said. She held dad’s arm and stuck out her tongue. Emma got up and wanted to hit her.

‘Wait up!’ dad said. With his prince-voice, he said to Lydia: ‘You too are very fair, but first I’ll have to wake this young maiden with a kiss. Even if it seems she is already awake.’

Emma lay down again and closed her eyes. But she didn’t like it anymore. Dad kissed her on her cheek and she opened her eyes.

‘Oh, you are alive!’ the prince said. ‘But you do look a little angry. I’m not sure if I dare to marry you.’

Emma tried to look happy, but it didn’t work. When she saw Lydia, she only looked more angry.

‘On the other hand I don’t dare to refuse,’ the prince said. ‘Come with me on my noble steed, we will get married.’ He lifted her up and put her down a bit further.

‘We’re getting married!’ he said. He took her hands and the danced. He sang ‘going to the chapel’. Emma sang too, really loud, until she couldn’t breathe. Dad stopped dancing.

‘We are married!’ she said.

‘Now me!’ Lydia was stupid. Emma walked over to her and pushed her down.

‘Emma, don’t do that.’

‘But she can’t!’ Emma said. ‘I’m snowwhite.’

‘Then Lydia is Sleeping Beauty,’ dad said. ‘Is that okay?’

‘No!’

‘I want to be sleeping beauty, dad!’

‘No!’

‘Guys, quiet now!’ Lydia and Emma were quiet. ‘Emma, just let Lydia be snowwhite… don’t sulk. You can leave, but it’s a quarter past three now. Do you understand?’

Emma tried not to cry.

‘It’s not fair!’ she said. ‘Lydia can always play with you. ‘It’s…’ She gasped for air.

‘I want…’ She started to cry.

Dad knelt next to her.

‘I want to go home!’

Dad pulled her close.

‘I understand, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I don’t want you to go!’

‘I’m so, so sorry. But you do have friends here, right?’

‘I want to go home!’ Then she couldn’t say anything. Everything was tears and snot and dad’s shirt hurted her face. Dad held her. She didn’t want it to be three o’clock. She didn’t want them to leave, mom and dad, alone with Lydia. She didn’t want to go back to ward. She didn’t even want to read anymore, or play with David’s DS. She couldn’t stop crying.

‘Dad! I want to be snowwhite!’ Lydia said.

‘Later, Lydia,’ Dad said. Through the crying, Emma heard Lydia’s angry screams. It didn’t work. Daddy had to comfort Emma for now.

 If you have any comments, positive or negative, please let me know. Also, it is very possible (in fact inevitable) that I made some mistakes with the English. I am not a native speaker and I translated this story from Dutch. So if you have anything to say about spelling or syntax, please say it. It will only help me.

The Photographer

I am a respectable woman. I have cats. I go to the theatre. I look good in a dress. And when people ask me why I decided to be a war-photographer, I answer dutifully: ‘To make other people aware of the terrible things that go on in this world.’ I lie.

Yesterday I visited the site of an attack, only hours after it happened. It was a complete and utter chaos, but as I looked through my lens, this chaos disappeared. All sound was blocked, the crying and the wailing of the survivors and the moaning of the barely living. What was left were the different colors - the red shoes of a little girl, the black irises of the wide-open eyes of a woman, the blue jeans of a young man -, the composition – how the pile of bodies when seen from one side resembled ‘The Tower of Babel’ by Brueghel, how I needed that crying woman to be visible in the background - and of course the touching details, like a mother embracing her children, a dead child holding the hand of another dead child.

However, when I came upon the little boy, I knew that all the other shots were nothing, nothing compared to this. He did not cry. In fact, he did not show any emotion at all. His face was the absence of any feeling, except for his eyes. His eyes were wide-open, and mostly black. He was bleeding.

It was art given life and I had to capture it. So I went up to him, kneeled down right in front of him and pointed my camera to him. I shot a few photos, but there was something missing. It was not the composition, which was perfect, nor the colors. And suddenly I knew what I needed.

I lowered the camera and showed him my face. He stared at it, blankly. Then I smiled, and talked to him. At first he did not respond, but eventually he stretched out one hand, his right hand, to me.
That was it. That was what I needed. I put the camera back and took the picture. It was perfect.

There was no need for the camera anymore after that, so I lowered it again. However, by now the kid had dropped his arm. He had been looking at me, but now his gaze was only directed inwards. I took him to a hospital, of course. I am not a bad person. The picture will be published. People will feel for the boy. They might even cry.

I did not feel. I saw. And what I saw was not death and destruction and pain. What I saw was beauty. Perfect and utter beauty.

 This is a short story that I wrote in response to the challenge of the Geek & Sundry vlog 'Wordplay'. The genre was Noir fiction, and the themes were 'the photographer' or 'the other view'. It was actually the first time that I wrote a story of less than 500 words. My minimum was 2000 until now. So I was quite proud of myself :). If you have any comments, I'd love to hear them.