Driving... Driving... I'm in Michigan now!

I'm typing on the road, as we drive through Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, Indiana, and (sometime this afternoon) Michigan. I haven't put up any writings from the past few days, and I hardly wrote any Monday or Tuesday, although I did write some. However, I wrote a lot Sunday and plan on writing a lot today, so it makes up, I think. Here's the short story I wrote Sunday.

The lights are down low and the music is playing softly. The sound of worship resounds through the building. Softly, so unobtrusively that at first no one notices her, a young girl enters the room. She doesn't come through the entrances most people use, but she slides in using a door set into the back corner of the stage, tripping lightly past the drum set and flitting her fingertips through the atmospheric candles. In her other hand she holds the laces of two dirty combat boots, and tucked under her arm is an old, warn Bible. Softly, she folds up on the stage, back from the activity but still visible from the audience. Boots leaning against her knee, she peels open the corner of the Bible and begins to read.

When the musicians stop, they set their instruments aside and move past as if they don't see her at all. The pastor walks on stage and begins preaching. The girl sweeps back her tangled hair behind her ears and pulls a folded sheet of paper and a stub of pencil from a pocket and begins taking notes, tapping her foot under her knee as she writes, pencil, hair, knee, and foot bobbing up and down, offbeat from each other. Throughout the sermon she occasionally pauses and braids tiny strands of her tangled red hair, her bright green eyes flashing from the candles to the preacher to her notes and back. Near the end of the sermon she yawns grandly, stretching her lithe arms wide, and then pillows her head on her bulky shoes, clutching her Bible and paper close.

After the sermon ends, she peeks up and glances around, but whatever she looks for does not present itself. Laying back down, she props her sock-footed legs up on the piano bench. Her colorful but faded dress shifts, but its many layers drape so thickly that she is still covered. After a time, the chattering people move to and fro, drifting out of the church until only a few clumps of people remain, their children running around happily. One little boy gallops up the steps to the stage and stops, looking back at his friends. They continue playing happily. Timidly, the boy walks up to the strange girl and reaches out, as if unable to stop himself, gently flicking the tip of the girl's ears. Her eyes flash open and her feet swing around, stopping in midair inches from his arm.

“Hello there, little boy,” she says, dropping her feet and sitting up. “Are you lost?” the boy asks, but speaks again before she can answer. “Why are your ears pointed? Where are your parents? Won't you get in trouble for, for, for not wearing shoes and being on stage and sleeping during the sermon?” Laughing, the girl pokes his nose, shaking her head. “I know where I am, my parents are Someplace Else, I hardly ever wear shoes, I go where I want, and sleep when I want.” The little boy gapes in astonishment. “No shoes!?” he queries, shocked. She nods solemnly, and then says, “Shouldn't you go with your parents? I think they're waiting for you.”

Turning, the boy glances into the pews. “Oh, yeah, I guess I better go. Bye, Lady.” He waves, and tumbles down the steps, running through a knot of his friends, tugging on his mother's skirt and pointing back at the stage. “Not now, honey, Mommy's talking. What is it, dear? No, I don't see anyone on the stage.” As the family hurries off to their busy life, the boy looks back, and the girl wriggles her fingers at him, laughing. He smiles and hurries after his parents to the car. She laughs, gathers her combat boots and Bible up again, and flits out the stage door and off to wherever she came from again, happy.

(That's what I wrote Sunday, unedited, exactly as I set it down then. I think I'll add on to it eventually, and the main story will be about the boy grown up, either high school/college age or an adult. Here's what I wrote Monday. It's not exactly fiction, and it didn't get very far, but eh. It's what got written.)

Girls in love are like a cat chasing the little red dot from a laser pointer. We gallop after it at full speed, gracefully turning sometimes and running into chairs other times. Finally it's right there, and we pounce, only to see it floating just out of reach once again. Confused, we reach out for it, and it disappears, only to flicker up on the wall across the room, or right in between our paws for a moment before the person controlling the laser pointer gets bored and moves on, leaving us swiping the air and looking around bewilderedly, wondering what we did wrong.

(I wrote this after playing with Squirrel and talking with one of my friends about life. Here's two loose items from yesterday, and then I'll get to work writing for today!)

A comment about writing:
All the finely sculpted plots with lovable characters who say funny things and do exciting stuff that I've ever heard of are already taken . . . so I make do with my own writings.

A short poem:
Just because I'm colorblind
Doesn't mean I don't see the light.
My being stuck in a bind
Doesn't indicate a helpless plight.
Some times I trip and fall
On something I never saw,
Build a mountain on something small,
Rub it 'til it's raw.
But I have hope for a better day
That I can see up ahead.
I'll live my life a better way,
And not feel quite so dead.

(There 'tis! My writings from the past few days. Now I'll read for a while and then work on something for today.)

Note: I ended up working on my book for my writing today. It's classified, For My Eyes Only until I get somewhere I like with it, although I know some people who'll be willing to help me with editing, especially since I took a metaphorical red pen to their stories with a vengeance, Some of which happens to be the other writing I did today. :) But only because I like their stories so much, honest.
So that's all for the moment.


Now I'm in Michigan, talking with cousins about weddings, and music, and it's grand!