Friday, October 13, 2006

Sara: How did you get here?
Boy: I followed you.
Sara: Impossible.
Boy: I only had to close my eyes the moment you vanished.

Silence for a moment. Sara in her private Wonderland was right to be astonished. "By Invitation Only" was the law of her fantasy realm, yet here was the boy, and somehow he had found a way in.

"Run that way," Sara pointed off in the direction of the pink sun. He was off immediately. "But he'll be back," she thought to herself, "when I turn the path the opposite way." Now she pondered the uses of a boy in her Wonderland. "He could put the leaves back on the trees." They were constantly falling to the ground whenever the trees snapped themselves to attention. "Or put me on the slide, in moments I am not." She slid the blue slide down to the gravelly ground. "Now come back," she spoke.

"Here I am!" the boy announced, "I found a tablecloth. We can have a picnic!"

"What will we eat?" she smiled coyly, "There's no food here." There really was nothing. If Sara became hungry, she merely forgot more of the real world, to notice, moments later, that her socks became striped or a wall sprouted dots in shades of primary colors. The boy went away, then returned a while later with a handful of jelly beans. Sara was trying to catch her breath after swinging a complete Ferris-wheel cycle on the swing. He let the jelly beans fall and helped her, heading off the long strip of breath that looked like a rosy red ribbon flapping in the chaotic wind. What a mad dance it was! Never more than two feet on the ground between the two of them, and sometimes none, and neither in reach of the other - nor the ribbon. But finally they cornered the renegade breath. Sara snatched one end, the boy the other, and they shared it between the two of them. Afterwards, contented and waiting for something to say, they noticed the spot where the jelly beans had fallen. A spiral of cotton candy had sprouted into the strawberry sky!

"You can't catch me" Sara teased, or maybe it was the boy. They chased each other first one way, then the other, all the way up the candy, pausing for little bites along the way, for the running was making them hungry. When they reached the top they were holding hands and stickily sweet all over.

There they sat, on top of the Wonderland world, breathing their breaths together. "I still would like to know how you slipped into my Wonderland," Sara persisted.

"It was easy," the boy answered while glancing down at rainbow meadows. "This whole fantasy is my imagination."

She smiled with primal joy, and joined his gaze into the fairy-tale lands below, "I knew there had to be a logical explanation."

Story #377

Thank you to Dark Firefly for sharing her photo with us!

And now, for your further reading enjoyment: Comatose...

26 comments:

Cie Cheesemeister said...

Whoo, I'm the first!
I'm in kind of a discouraged mood, so this story will probably reflect that.

Bonita looked down from her vantage point on the slide and watched the girls from the private school walk by. They always had such pretty clothes, and cute boys with cocky attitudes were always making plays for them.
Bonita's sixteen year old sister Nina's boyfriend Pablo was cute, and very Macho. But he was twelve years older than Nina. Bonita thought there was something not quite right about that, but her father said that she needed to mind her own business. Pablo had gotten Nina pregnant, and she had married him. When Nina had gotten married, she had been filled with joy. But now she cried all the time and always had bruises on her face. Her little boy Ronaldo moved slowly and didn't cry much. He had been born too soon. Nina didn't move very much either. When Bonita visited her, she mostly sat and stared at the wall, rocking her frighteningly inactive son.
Bonita liked to look at the boys, and some of them made her young heart skip. But she didn't think she ever wanted to let one of them get hold of her heart. Boys grew into men, and men turned girls into silent, sorrowful women; like Nina, and like Mama.

Frances bo bancess said...

Finding herself homesick in a country too different from her own, Rose walked the streets of Alicante in search of something familiar. She had been in the area staying with her host family for almost a month, absolutly loving the culture, the people and the language. Her host sister, Maria, was a wonderful friend to her, had helped her with her halting Spanish and had made her stay one of her most enjoyable experiences ever. But now only a week away from returning home, Rose felt dramatically out of place.
Two little children ran out infront of her and turned into the park, and thats when she saw it. Almost exactly like the one that used to be at her primary school. She ran to it, how she hadn't even noticed it earlier amazed her, but not as much as it's exsistance at all. The slide was the same colour and so was the rope bridge, the only real difference was the graffiti was in Spanish. She chuckled to herself, overwhelmed by her discovery as she climbed the ladder and mounted herself at the top of the slide. She looked out at the park and relised it wasn't that different from home at all. Children played the same as anywhere else and their laughter reached her ears. She was going to miss Spain, but probally not as much as she missed home right now.

(there's a very similar playground at a park near my house, if you didn't say it was Spanish, i would have never known.)

Anonymous said...

Hola! I'm the girl in the pic ^___^

It's cool when people who don't know me write bout me as if they do ^__^ thanks for your stories :)
Maybe, if you want, someday, I can tell you the real one... or tell you which one of yours is more similar :)

Hey! I'm Spanish (Canary Islands - Gran Cnanaria), as Indie said, so, my English is not perfect...

http://www.flork.com/dark_firefly.html <-------that's me!!

I don't know if you'll trust me when I say I'm that girl... Hey! I am!!

Keep on doing nice stories :)

Thank you for all of them!

Indeterminacy said...

Cheesemeister & Frances: Thanks already for two great stories - I know they're great without reading them, which I'm afraid to do until I've written mine.

Dark_Firefly: I didn't know if you wanted to be mentioned or not, so I kept it a secret. But I'll add a link in the post, so people can go and visit you! It is fun - a few times I posted my own photos, so I know the feeling.

The Mushroom said...

Sometimes Alice has to wait in her wonderland for the mad hatters and march hares to show up.

Firefly: Great picture and I like the stockings! :) Thank you for letting Indie share that photo, and I for one look forward to hearing the real story behind the photo. :)
(I was going to write this on your page but I'm not a member of flork.com so it wouldn't let me.)

Doug The Una said...

"The next time an Elf asks to see my license and registration, I'm kicking his ass."

Miles to go said...

Coming from the bush country, there are ruminants and carrion over vast tracts of land. There are trails of river beds and winged creatures riding the circling winds of the cliffs. I am a man of the country with a healthy country outlook-especially when it comes to girls.

So here it is- I’m in Wonder City for the first time. I stumbled into the Untervasser section where I found in this city a port-a-potty behind polka dot rocks smelling like curry. I noticed a pretty girl sitting in a Red house with here legs out the window. I thought, what an opportunity for some discreet enjoyment! Sitting on a knurled bench with a complimentary view of the girl, I noticed buttons. You can imagine my surprise when I pushed one of those buttons. The knurls massaged my bottom and my sciatica which had been bothering me was soothed “…mmm”. But I digress; I refocused on my objective-that lovely creature sitting on her window sill. Hoping to see the delectable, I looked toward her direction. At first I thought there is nothing more distracting for a guy than to see a woman’s legs wrapped in stripes! Then with a sudden movement of my head side to side I was taken over by a power beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. I felt the stripes diverting the musculature of my eyes. Damn those stripes are powerful! The stripes would move and my eyes would follow; at times, my head nodded up and down and then my eyes veered toward the port-a-potty then to the rope ladder with the cherry-balls. When she rested from her game, her shoes took over. My eyes were held still like man concentrating on hitting a bulls-eye in dart game. I noticed the knurling movement hadn’t stopped either and my once ropey glute muscles were relegated to gelatin. I have never been thwarted so effectively in my life. I hope she tires of this game soon and goes into the house-I’ve got this sudden urge to use the port-a-potty!

Anonymous said...

I can never wait for your sptries inde, Barcelona sounds nice.
I worite too much already and one day I will attempt another story but until then I'll just come here and read the real writers.

On first quick look and the blogger was doing a slow unveiling some kind of physical excercise room came to mind..

Miz BoheMia said...

Oh to visit Spain is a luxury but to live in the damn place? Ack!

Glad you only get to visit! Enjoy your trip!

Jay said...

I think there are way more interesting places for Sandra to go than merely wonderland.

Indeterminacy said...

Thanks for all these comments - which I can't even respond to now. Still in BCN, and will have to pause the blog, because of workload. I'll beback and post a story next week.

Cheers,
Indie

Anonymous said...

She was stuck inside her fall. So, I decided to give her a push. But the constituents that made up her body had changed. She belonged to the anti-gravity now. When I pushed her she fell back higher and higher. And the top has no bottom.

I brought down a dictionary from my book-shelves and started browsing through it. S, t, u, v. Ve. vel, ven, ver. Vertigo.

[How are you doin' Indie? I hope all's well. Bon voyage.]

Edgar said...

Inversion...

Kyahgirl said...

great stories and Indie, congrats on being named Blog of the month!!

Hobbes said...

"Dad? How much longer do we have to stay here?"
"That's right, lift your head. And--smile! There! I think that'll show your mom what a great time we had, right?"
"Uh, sure Dad."
"What's the matter, nina? You've always loved going to the park on your birthday."
"Well, honestly, I was hoping no one would see me in these striped tights."
"But you always wear those. I thought they were your favorite!"
"Dad! I'm sixteen years old. Can we go NOW?"
"I think SOMEone's getting cranky! Pobrecita. Better get you home for a nap."

Indeterminacy said...

Cheesemeister: It may not have been a cheerful story, but you described a real piece of life. That last sentence was a shocker. And there she is, waiting for her fate.

Frances: Your story was a wonderful reminder of how important the little details of life are, those details that make something familiar to us, and break the ice, when we are feeling isolated.

Mushroom: That's a one sentence coup. I never would have thought of that.

Doug: I see the misanthropist in you extends to fairytale creatures.

Miles to Go: A story about the small pleasures in life. Socks with stripes fascinate me as well - one of the reasons I liked this photo so much.

Cooper: Your comments always make my day. I hope you feel like writing stories some time later. You're better than you think you are.

Miz Bohemia: Sounds like you are fed up with Spain. I loved Germany while there on vacation. But I changed my mind after I moved there.

Jay: She didn't have to go anywhere. Wonderland came to her, apparently.

Clown: Very poetic inspiration. I think too that something magic will happen if she tries to slide down the slide.

Readings: The one word short story. This is a fun thing to try with Doug (Waking Ambrose)

Kyahgirl: Thank you for the congratulations, and I'm glad you had time to stop by.

Mrs. Weirsdo: Daddy's little girl. Or maybe an introspective story. Will you show it to Mall Diva?

Anonymous said...

I loved Sara's wonderland, and the logical end. An adult fantasy of a childhood world

Indeterminacy said...

Batul, I'm very flattered by your compliment, and glad you enjoyed the story. Thank you very much.

Frances bo bancess said...

what a magical realm, something one would always want access too. magnificantly captured, it's really one of the stories that expresses the dreaming inner-child. but it did make me crave for some jelly beans...

Indeterminacy said...

Frances - you're making all my days. The funny thing is, I don't know how I wrote this. It was late, I was half asleep, and just writing without thinking or really knowing what I was writing. Those stories seem always to turn out best, but it takes sleep deprivation to write them!

Hobbes said...

Maybe. Last year she drew a hysterical cartoon in which Dr. Weirsdo not only insisted on walking her into the movie theater in front of her friends, but also objected to her mini-skirt and offered her instead large sacks he had sewn himself in a variety of colors--black, brown, grey, and dark grey.

Anonymous said...

Hey, I think I should tell you that this is by far my fav. I haven't read many of your others, but I completely adore this one.. You're incredible..

ps -heather from flork.

Indeterminacy said...

Thank you very much, Heather. It's really a wonderful picture, but I still don't know how I wrote the story.

Hobbes said...

That is a great story. I can hear Lewis Carroll in it, up until the end, which is pure Indie.

Indeterminacy said...

Mrs. Weirsdo: Thanks so very much. Funny thing is I never read the book, although it's on my list of books to read.

Indeterminacy said...

P.S. I saw a couple of movie versions of Alice in Wonderland some years ago, so they must have done a good job of conveying the mood of the story.