Lost and Away - The Body - Tea Time

Doc enjoyed having his own place.  He loved knowing that this place--despite how run down it was--it belonged to him, and him alone.  He could do with it what he liked.
   It was an old Victorian house nestled between the trees, surrounded by morning glory flowers.  When he had discovered the house, Doc had found it relatively untouched and well preserved with tools, furniture, and even a library.  There was even a generator out back which rivaled the generator that supported the castle that was Big Tree.  Sometimes he was still surprised Ethan hadn't tried to intimidate him into pillaging the place for Big Tree.
    He only had to board up one of the windows, kill all the racoons that had made it a home, and do a fair amount of cleaning to make it a suitable place to live.  But the thing that had pleased him the most with his little find was the perfectly large basement  he used to store his herbs and spices.  Jericho liked to call it Doc's mad scientist lab, but Doc didn't see anything "mad" about it.
   Currently, Doc stood at his kitchen counter.  It was ivory white, and so clean that it glistened under the lights.  He opened up the cupboard doors above the counter and stared at the rows of jars before him.  At the top shelf stood Allspice, Basil, Bay Leaves, Cumin, Cinnamon, Dill...He halted. Cumin and Cinnamon were out of place. He rearranged them back into alphabetical order and continued his survey of spices.  Finally he pulled out a jar labeled Lavender.  Happy with his choice he grabbed a pot of already hot water and a small mug.  After pouring the dried lavender into the water, Doc pulled out a large jar from below the kitchen counter.  It was unlabeled and filled with small black seeds, similar in shape to the sunflower seed, but much browner.  He crushed 10 seeds with a knife and sprinkled the dust into the steeping tea. 
   He saw the special  concoctions he made as beneficial towards the people's morale.  If a simple plant could help them forget the shit hole existence that was left for them in this world, why the hell not?  Besides, at times when he found himself most bored, the special teas seemed to liven up the place.
   Doc lifted the hot cup of tea to his lips, but as he was about to take the first sip, there was a harsh banging at his door.  He sighed, putting the cup back down. 
   "You better run, before your sister finds you," Doc said, still looking down at his cup of tea.
   Out from one of the bottom pantries crawled Jericho.  He patted himself down, all the while grinning at Doc.  "How did you know?"
   More harsh banging on the door. 
   Doc turned to face Jericho, giving no hint of anger, surprise or urgency.  "You're not very good at alphabetizing." 
  

Lost and Away - The Body - Kaleidoscope Vision

VIOLET
   I didn't expect it all to happen as fast as it did.  Ethan was barking out orders, one after the other, and everyone could hear him clearly.  They shook their heads and scrambled to leave.  But I couldn't.
   I couldn't hear anyting.
   I wouldn't move.
   It was all so blurry.  The colors of the trees mixed in with the backdrop of the now darkened sky, and everyone else swirled around me in all sorts of colors. In the midst of the spinning, the surge of heat that had originated in my stomach finally reached the tips of my fingers. 
   Then Ethan slapped me.  It didn't hurt at first.  But when he came into focus before me and I was able to stare into his light blue eyes, the sting burned across my face and lips.
   "You made me do it," he said.  His breathing was heavy and deep and I could see a tinge of guilt in his wide-eyed expression.  He was scared, just like me, but was better at hiding it.  He reached for my hand and started pulling me towards the trees.
   But I yanked myself away.  "I need to find Jericho."  My brother.
   Frizz appeared beside me and put a hand on my shoulder.  "He's the one who found it."

 ETHAN
   She turned and started running faster than I could blink.
   Ethan cursed the ground and turned on Frizz.  "Why didn't you say that in the first place?  Why?  You idiot."  He paced the ground as Leo, Thayer, Cosmo, and Margot waited by the trail towards Big Tree.  The gang just stared at him, waiting for more orders.  Nemo on the other hand knelt by the rocks beside the water to clean his glasses.  "Damn it Thayer, get him out of the water!"
  Thayer shifted quickly and pulled Nemo from the rocky floor.  "Get up here idiot," he said and let Nemo climb onto his back.
  Ethan froze and looked back to Frizz.  She looked all dirty and scared; the mud all over her dress from when she fell, and grass in her hair from running through the high grass field that surrounds Big Tree.  She looked expectantly up at him, awaiting an order.  "Has anyone heard about this outsider back at Big Tree?" Ethan asked her.
   She shook her head 'no'.  "Jericho ran straight back from where he found the outsider. He was on his way back when he ran into me in through the garden.  He was so shook up Ethan."  Her eyes started to get shiny and wet.  Ethan turned away from her and tried to focus on what to do next.
   "We have to go see it," Cosmo said.
   Thayer stepped forward and had a stern look on his face.  "What was he doing on the border anyway?"
   Ethan shook his head, and raised a hand for Thayer to quit speaking.  "Wait, screw what he was doing.  Ok?  We have to go see for ourselves.  I can't think with all of you freaking out like this."
   "What about Jericho?  What if he tells some of the others at home?" asked Leo.
   "No, last I saw, he was headed towards Doc's," said Frizz.
   Ethan stepped back and smoothed damp hair out of his face.  He looked back towards the direction Violet had ran.  He laughed to himself.  "That's where she went."  He realized then that Violet had been able to read her brother like a book.  Jericho hadn't been running home.  He was going to hide at Doc's.
      

Lost and Away - The Body - Skinny Dipping and God

Ethan and Violet returned to the water where everyone floated around in a calm silence.
   "This is nice," said Margot.
  
   Cosmo scooped up water and let small streams of it slide down his wrist.  "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork."    
   "Here we go again," said Thayer.
   Cosmo got out of the water and started making his way up the side of the waterfall.  It was big and beautiful, with rocks jutting out on all sides.  The water just poured out so vigorously, and the mist it created was all around them; their own perfect little dream world just beyond the high grass of Big Tree.  It was a well kept secret, and they hid it well.    
   "If God exists, Cosmo, what would happen to us?" asked Margot.  She watched intently as Cosmo found a proper footing on the regular diving spot.
   Leo swam up behind her and wrapped her in his big, bulky arms.  He kissed her neck and breathed heavy against her skin.  "Don't get him started."  But Margot shoved him off.  Leo slapped the water after her, but it did little to steal Margot's attention away from Cosmo on top of the waterfall. 
   Ethan tossed a few rocks into the curtain of water.  "He's crazy.  Who needs a god like that anyway?  So angry all the time."
   "I heard Cosmo's book the other day.  We sin.  This is sin isn't it?"  Margot made a gesture towards the world around her. 
   "We all need a God brother," said Cosmo.  He looked different, up there so high.  His body was red from the rocks, and his chest heaved in an out as he stood above the mouth of the fall.  "What if some did not have faith?"  Cosmo smoothed his hair back.
   "The idiot's gonna jump," said Leo.
   Margot shrieked in realization.  "Cosmo!"
   "He won't do it," said Thayer.
   "You'll die," shouted Violet
   "Will their lack of faith nullify God's faithfulness?"  He smiled down at Margot, and gave her a quick wink.  "Not at all!" he shouted.  Then, he jumped.
   The splash shattered the peace.
   When Cosmo found his way back up to the surface, he choked up some water and laughed.  Margot swam over to him, and patted him on the back.  "Really, Cosmo, tell me what you think.  What would happen to us out here?"
   He looked around at everyone's faces and laughed. "Well, we'd probably all go to hell."
   Leo and  Ethan started laughing.  Cosmo smirked back at them, but when he looked back at Margot, she had a harsh eye set on him.  She shoved him back in the water and told him he could go to hell for all she cared.
   Cosmo still laughed, but he could see that he hurt Margot's feelings.  He waded over to her and knocked her with his elbow.  "I was only kidding.  You won't go to hell, Marg, not a girl like you.  Why you so worried about God now anyway?"
  Margot didn't say anything.  She cast her eyes down at the reflection on the water.  There were small ripples coursing over the naked bodies of the boy and girl.  It was hard to make out the image, but it was her standing there. Finally she said, "If God were real, he would bring change to this horrible place."
   A little ways away, Ethan tossed water at Leo.  "Better watch out for your girl there Leo.  Cosmo isn't as pure as the quotations from the Book."
   Leo's eyes became wary, and he quickly attacked Cosmo from behind.  He pretends to drown him, while Margot screams for him to stop.  Violet and Ethan watched from their rock; Ethan's smile big and proud, as he goaded on the beating.  They splashed around until Thayer became sick of them.
  "Calm down."  His voice was growlish, like a bear, bringing the pair's fighting to a stand still.  Thayer didn't like commotions lately, and everyone could feel the unnecessary hostility in his voice.  But after a few moments of the silence, Thayer climbed out of the water and found his clothes on a nearby bush.
   "What's the matter?"  Ethan asked. But Thayer just kept putting on his clothes and stayed quiet. 
   Ethan was about to speak again, but Nemo caught everyone's attention.  Sometimes that boy could be so far gone he just seemed to disappear.  Everyone nearly forgot he was there. 
   Still in the water, Nemo stopped counting numbers and began jumping up and down while clapping his hands excessively.  "She's coming. She's coming.  She's coming" 
   Everyone looked at each other confused.  
   "Who's coming?" Leo asked.
   Everything remained still for a moment, as everyone tried to listen for this sound indicating the "she" Nemo spoke of.  But nothing.  Nothing but the flow of tons of water rushing down the smooth green rocks.  
   In a silent agreement, everyone decided that nothing was there.  Violet rushed into the water and led Nemo out onto dry land. "It's getting late, we should get him back."
   "No, he's fine.  We don't get to sneak away from everyone often enough," said Ethan.
   Violet shook her head in disagreement.  "We shouldn't be away for so long."
   But Thayer stepped toward the trees and paused.  "Wait.  I hear it."
   A general hush overcame the group.  It was as if the rushing of water grew silent, and the swaying of trees froze in time. The sound was barely audible, but they all felt it.  Slowly, you could hear the faint, yet swift patter of feet breaking twigs in its way.  The snaps, and a manic panting, grew louder and louder until a girl with big, black hair sprang forth from the trees.  She landed on her knees while her big, brown eyes scanned each of us, until she landed on her reason for running so far.  "Ethan!" she cried.
   It was Frizz.  Her breath was completely gone, and in between the gasps, it was hard to make out what she tried to say.  But she only needed to say one thing.  One thing that would make everyone understand.  "Outsider."  
   And just like that, everything changed.  

Lost and Away - The Body - Gifts

After Nemo scampered away, Ethan shrugged the situation off and reached out for Violet.  She helped him out of the water and he wrapped an arm around her neck.  With the other hand, he presented to her a smooth black stone.
   "For you, my love," he said.
   "It's beautiful."
   He grabbed his pants off the ground beside her feet and pulled them back on.  "I know.  I just saw it down there, at the very bottom, and I had to have it." He turned back toward the water.  "Mr. Leo!"
   Leo stopped struggling in  the water with one of the girls.  "Yes, Ethan?"
   "Could you put a hole through this?"  Ethan snatched the slippery smooth rock from Violet's hand and raised it in the air for Leo to see.
   Leo squinted, and shook his head 'yes'.  "Sure can, kid."  The girl suddenly jumped his back and they were back playing some wrestling game with the others.
   Violet stared at the group.  All naked and carefree.  Leo.  Margot.  Nemo.  Birch.  Thayer.  Their clothes were all sprawled about the boulders among the waterfall.  She always fancied the idea of running off with their clothes, forcing the six to return to Big Tree nude.  But she never did.  
   "I'll make you a necklace," Ethan said.
   Violet finally looked back at him with big eyes.  "What?"
   He took her wrist and put the stone back in her palm.  She caressed it in her hand and lifted it to her cheek.  She rubbed it gently there.
   "It's smooth."
   Scotty's cheeks flushed.  He lead Violet away from the others.  Leo whistled, but Thayer threw a clump of dirt at him.  They continued to play, forgetting all about Ethan and Violet for a while.
   The two stopped in a damp corner behind the waterfall.

Violet
   When he pushed me down on the ground, my body winced against the cold sensation of the rocks.  He was quick to enter me and covered my mouth so that the others wouldn't hear.  It never got easier like Lulu promised it would.  I wrapped my arms around him and tried my best to adjust my hips and legs and hands. 
   But what happened next could not be avoided, no matter how hard I tried.
   "Violet," he whispered over and over into my ear.  
   I tried to focus on his words; the sound of his voice fervent and quick.  But it did no good.  With each of his moans, my stomach began to churn and the temperature in my cheeks began to rise.  I developed a clammy sweat all over my body.  Then, what felt like a gurgling creature at the top of my stomach suddenly sloshed its way up my throat and escaped from my lips.
   Ethan finished almost immediately after.  He paused for a moment, tense and breathing heavily above me.  When he removed himself from me, he stood up and put on his ripped jeans.
   "Where's the stone?" he asked.
   I reached toward him and pulled it out of his left side jean pocket. 
   "Sneak," he said.
   We ignored the puddle of bile which bubbled beside me.
   My dress was on the boulder beside him.  He pulled me up off the ground and handed it to me, so I slipped it back on.
   "I love you, Violet."
   "I love you, Ethan."
   I felt his arms wrap around me from behind, and we stood there for a while.  
  

Lost and Away - The Body - Nemo's Premonition

Ethan just jumped.  That's how he was in life and in swimming.  You just go in.  Head first, no thoughts.  Just go.  He loved it.  He liked the shock of cold, and the slap against his skin as his body met the glassy surface.  Once he got down deep enough he would dig his hands into the soft dirt and sometimes bring up something for Violet.  This time he found a smooth black rock.  Once he broke the surface, Ethan spotted Violet still on her boulder.  He smiled at her and she gave him a wave.  He swam past the group, still splashing around and having fun.
   Nemo waded past him spitting out sequences of numbers again.  "F-fourty two-eighteen-one hundred-s-seven-sixtynine."
   "How's it going Nemo?"
   "L-long day.  It's a long day."
   Nemo was so pale that he looked slippery and translucent beside Ethan in the water.  A dribble of snot sat comfortably beneath his nostrils and no matter how often he snorted, the poor kid's congestion never went away.  Ethan slapped Nemo's back, half expecting his hand to stick to the slimy looking skin, and laughed.  "Oh, don't be so down.  The sun is going down, and tonight we celebrate!  Right Vi?"
   Violet ignored him.
   Nemo adjusted the big black rimmed glasses on his face.  He didn't need them, to anyone's knowledge, Nemo just liked'em.  "What are we c-cel-brating?"
   Ethan shrugged.  "Nothing."
   Nemo  began laughing hysterically.  But they way he laughed was strange and foreign.  It was high pitched and wheezy like an odd cross between a hyena and a jackass.  He braced two hands on Ehtan's shoulders and said, "N-no, we're celebrating s-something.  We celebrate.  Eight-twentyfive-eighty-two-five."  And he kept on wading through the water and reached up toward Violet on her boulder.
   Her hands quivered a little, and her eyes seemed to focus on Nemo real hard.  She looked back at Ethan and then quickly back at Nemo as she helped heave him up out of the water.  Ethan could tell she was afraid, and to be honest Ethan was a little spooked too, but that's what Nemo did.  He creeped the gang out. 
    

Lost and Away - The Body - Violet

It was one of those cool days.  When the sun was covered by a thick layer of clouds in the evening, and the world seemed a certain shade of blue.  But the water was warm.  I dipped my feet in and remember feeling a keen sense of relief.  I looked over a few feet away  at Ethan.  He stood on top of one of the boulders by the water fall.  He raised his hand up over his head and shouted,
   "I am king!  And you my subjects!"
   Everyone in the water shouted back at him; some in agreement, some cussing him out.
   I let my feet play in the water and watched the gang of misfits splashing  around in our hidden paradise.

   I tried my best to relax, but I could never get rid of that nausea at the pit of my stomach.  It just never went away.  Ethan said it was because I refused to take Jin Kim's medicinal herbs.
   "Don't call him Jin.  He's Doc.  He goes by Doc here," Ethan told me when we first all met.  But I didn't take it then and I wouldn't take it now. 
   I lied back against the stone, which was smooth and warm.  Sometimes, out there I felt safe.  It was easier to pretend I was somewhere else, someone else.  Sometime else.
   But when Dakota came running that late afternoon, I knew something else was in store for us all staying in Big Tree. 

Lost and Away - The Beginning - Jericho

My sister had a leash on me so tight I could barely stand to be around her the first few years we stayed at Big Tree.  It was a funny feeling because I knew there was love somewhere there, but at the same time I hated the living guts out of her.  She was just so uptight, and it seemed like she was always afraid.  I would wander outside sometimes, when everyone went outside to revel under the stars and drink till they passed out, I just liked to watch 'em all.  Everyone seemed so free.  I didn't understand what was in the mason jars that they drank from, and I didn't know why Ethan would drag Violet away into the shed some nights.  All the bigger kids were an enigma to me.  But I enjoyed watching them all.  Most nights though, Violet would see me, her eyes would get big and she would shove me back inside and tell me to go sit with the other little kids.  I didn't know what she was so worried about all the time.  We'd been there for nearly 9 years.  This was our home, and she still slept with a knife under her pillow.
   There was only one thing I was afraid of here in Big Tree.
   Doc.    

Lost And Away - The Beginning - Violet

What I enjoyed most about following Ethan to the middle of fucking nowhere was meeting Lulu.  She at the time was debating between names.
   "Lola or Lulu?  I look more like a Lulu, don't I?" 
   I was speechless.  I had never met one of her kind before.  She was gorgeous.  Her lips were much fuller than mine, and she loved to wear red-red lipstick if she could get her hands on any.  Her eyebrows were thin and shaped.  She had thick, purple hair that reached her shoulders.  And her body was large.  Not fat in any way, just bigger. I felt like a small child when she first met me and proceeded to give me a big hug which lifted me off the floor.
   "Finally, another girl to talk to!" she had said.
    I still wasn't sure about her.  She seemed strange, but I couldn't place my finger on it.  She showed me up the stairs of the broken, old house and directed me to the room with the red door.  I wanted to run downstairs to find Jericho and make sure he was alright, but Lola was intimidating.  She had a big smile, with lots of teeth.  Surprisingly they were all white.  My tongue brushed against my own. She could see me staring, so I felt compelled to explain myself.  "How--how do you get your teeth so white?  Do you have toothpaste?"
   Her face softened and she opened the red door, "Oh sweet cheeks, you are going to have fun living with me."
   The room was big enough for two people, with matching twin beds and two vanities.
   "I think the family must have had twin girls, because they left a bunch of make up," she said.  Lola opened and revealed drawers full of lipsticks and powders and creams.   She got up and grabbed my hands and sat me down at the opposite vanity.  Her hands were big too; made mine look like baby hands.  "You are going to love it here sweety.  Don't be afraid.  We're going to have a lot of fun together."
   "You're different," I said.
   That's when she started to laugh at me.  She looked like she was going to pass out from suffocation.  "Oh, sweety.  You have no idea!  Good lord, I can already tell we are going to be best friends." 
    And that's how I became best friends with Everest "Lulu" James. 

Lost and Away - The Beginning - Doc

   I remember the moment exactly.  I was sitting in what was left of the family room, my lamplight slowly but surely dying on me.  It was hard to see but I needed the herbs to be separated as quickly as possible.  The more time they spent in open air, the less powerful they became.  And the weaker the substance, the less likely my product would sell.  My hands began to shake, but I was almost finished.
   A dim light appeared in the hallway.  It got brighter and brighter, until finally a small figure walked into the room.  The kid was barely a foot tall, had very light blond hair and the biggest smile on his face.  The I-found-you kind of smile.
   And that was when I knew.  That was the moment I realized that I was going to get stuck with this kid Jericho Wood. 

The first time

Writhing.  Pain.
Twitching hands.
That initial trickle of blood you left me with.
We danced in slow motion,
I couldn't see a thing.  But I remember hands.
Your hands found me.  All over they found me.
Sometimes we choose to forget the sin,
Pinned to our mortality by our foremothers.
Just a bite of that red round apple,
Sweet, crisp taste on the tips of our tongues,
The foam, that drips off the corners of our lips,
And we readily take it all in. Inch by inch.
Surrender and sweltering pain, that thing you did to me.
Under that tree.

Lost and Away: The Beginning - Ethan

We were just a couple of kids who sat on top of the rooftops and watched as all the world burned.  It was beautiful in a sickening kind of "end-all-hope" way.  But it just made us even more restless as a generation.  So we ran.  If the whole world went to shit, why should we listen to any adult?  Who were the adults now?  Violet had to take care of her sick little brother when her parents died in the bombings.  She was 14, he was 7.  She grew up faster then any of us.  My parents were taken when I was 12, so I had been living alone for two years before I met Violet.
   It was nearly dark, and the rain was pouring.  She was carrying Jericho on her back, and when she came across me she paused.  I assumed she was scared to pass me, I wasn't the most friendly looking back then.  But she did something that completely surprised me.  She spit.  And then she said, "Do you have food?"
   I shrugged and said, "No."
   She repositioned the little boy on her back and then continued on her original walk down the abandoned freeway.
   I don't know what possessed me to call out for her, but I did.  It couldn't be that she was beautiful.  She was covered in ash and dirt, and she seemed as plain as any other girl.  When I really think about it, it was how she carried Jericho.  She didn't seem tired, or upset.  She was strong.  And for such a little thing, this impressed me.
   She didn't stop when I called out for her.  "If you don't have food, I'm not interested."
   "I can help your brother."
   She froze in place.
   "Is he sick?"
   She turned around and stared at me with her cold blue eyes and waited, I'm sure, for more of an explanation.  
    And that's how I met Violet Wood and her little brother.   

The way

I watched the way he wrote
with his hands on the table
initially erect, elevating his head
because he had a good idea
and excitement pulsed through his fingers.

A blank page, flat and hopelessly empty
seemed grand and full of possibilities.
But to take such a task
and to put it lightly--to say it is easy--
This was a horrible, irreparable mistake.

As he wrote on, he realized on
that what he ejected
and what he scratched
and what he wrote was just
not good enough.

And his back began to break--
a slouch so strange
so seemingly curved
like the curl of cats startled back--
it was a hard to watch
as the man I loved
the writer
began to die.

And so swiftly did my love.
For as his back curled, and
his head inched closer and closer,
almost kissing the scibbles on the page
on the desk
and as his hands dug into the wood surface
and his pen seemed to scrape instead of
flow
I could not see the writer.

He was becoming a part of the desk.
Some sorrowful nights
when I would turn up the lights
I would wait a while against the door frame,
eager to be there if he should rise,
But he stayed there where he was,
still hunched over
still writing away
still stuck on the same sentence
he had been on for five years:

Once upon a time,

But his 

The Rejection

The big R-E-J

Nice fat blank
where your name should be

A personalpublic humiliation
contemplating the reactions of people who may have known you applied and for some God-damn reason remember that you did, and wish to offer a congratulatory smile or a "you'll get'em next time pal" reply

You don't want a pity smile
which from behind those lips block the words:
I kinda knew you wouldn't get in.

Infuriated and calm
it's all the same
and the promise of time will allow the self embarrassment to subside

Pathetic at best
You deal out the alternatives and
realize that you have much more important things to do anyway.

The fact

The fact is, I love what I do, and I will keep doing it till the day I die.

The fiction

Once upon a time.  Once upon a time?  Why only once? Cinderella wondered.  Was her story meant only to be told once?  If you shut the book and put it back onto the shelf, does the story just stop?  Mid sentence, as little Miss Cindy was just about to slip her foot into that dainty glass heel?  Can it not continue? Move forward?  Surely, a closed book does not entrap her in the moment, foot forever floating mid air above her destiny?

What Cinderella didn't understand was that each page was stuck forever in story-time limbo.  She was on page 57.  Cinderella on page 58 is the girl who realizes her dreams have even the slightest possibility of coming true, and Cindy on page 107--the final page--gets to live infinitely in love on her wedding day with prince charming.

She doesn't understand that once that ink is stamped and dried, her fate is sealed into the page.  She never will reach her happily ever after. 

But she doesn't realize this and that's the way it will stay.