Cheating Death

Can you feel the wind on your face?
Can you feel the soft dry breeze blowing on your face, the hot air flowing through your cheeks? You should keep your eyes semi-closed to prevent the thin desert sand from entering your retina and forever ruin you accurate visual perception.
You may never be a shooter for the army.
Maybe that’s the whole point.
The thought of what you’ve left behind crosses your mind for a few seconds, then comes a smile.
Sometimes I wondered how beautiful can things get. They can’t get much more beautiful than this.
Have you ever been to the desert?
It doesn’t get more beautiful than this.
Yesterday I left home, I needed a break, some time off you know? Don’t we all?
I also needed not to get caught by the military police. This was my second problem: war.
She wants me there, I don’t want to be anywhere near her.
I can’t figure what it would be like to be trapped in the desert with a machine-gun in my hand, not knowing where I am, what I’m doing, where I’m going.
Neither of us would.
New recruits are always pawns in a war, sacrifice.
Can you transpose yourself to this reality?
Bombed cities, gun shots every minute, screams, dodging bullets, evading bombs, cheating death…
I can’t, and I won’t.

This is why I’m in this car. That’s why all of us are here, with the upcoming war we were all called to serve the mother land… Yeah, like the mother land ever did anything for us.
This is not our war, why should we fight it?
Today, throughout the desert you can see an as-long-as-you-can-imagine caravan of cars. We are all literally and metaphorically on the same road. Ridding whatever gas powered vehicle you could find to evade a war about gas.
By the way, here in the backseat to my left is Kate, in the front, on the wheel is Coop and leaning on his shoulder is Andrea. Us four go way back.

Welcome in.
As you can see we aren’t very happy, despite the incredible sense of freedom.
We left everything, I mean absolutely everything.
You have a desperate feeling of survival when your friend enters through your house breathless saying you’ve got to leave town.
"They are after you!" After everyone.
At this point your brain presses “auto-pilot”, you just shovel whatever comes to your attention as necessary into your backpack and close the door on your way out.
Survival mode.
Your mental timing of you exiting town is no more than 10 seconds.
When conscience comes to you, you are already 100 miles away from your life.
Life as you knew it just ended.
This is hitting the “pause” button in our lives (at least our legal lives) for who knows how long.
We stop existing.

We plan to survive doing whatever we can do. Sara has brilliant ideas, Coop knows mechanics and Kate knows absolutely everything about everything (kind of a walking encyclopaedia).
Me? Well, I’m good at planting stuff. Geology and botany are my specialties so I can tell what you can and can’t do with a piece of land.
Useful stuff to survive.
What about you? Get a hat and put in on the ground, don’t worry, we’ll teach you to juggle…
You’ll make it.

By the end of the second day of our journey we started to get our status report on the radio.
“The refugee caravan is now 3miles long and heading towards east…”
It was also heard that they were starting to hunt us down like dogs. From what I’ve heard some have already been caught.
Forced into the army.

Is this thinkable? Hurt you until you agree to hurt others?
Some mother land.
Coop hit’s the gas harder.
“Those sun’sa bitches will never catch us!”
Do you know what a B-1B Lancer is? You’d know if you heard the deafening sound of one. Well, just imagine looking back to a loud noise a see a fleet of military aircrafts in one of those fancy triangle formations heading towards yourself, ready to drop fifty bombs on your head.
All of this for war.
Presidents love war.
(Why don’t presidents fight the war?)
This is why I’m in the desert with a machine-gun in my hand, not knowing where I am, what I’m doing, where I’m going.

Can you feel the wind on your face?
I keep my eyes wide open.

Welcome madame et monsieur to the Grand Opening Event of the Creativewritingdisorganization blog by the "Terrible Two". We sure wish that you knock yourselves out here by the pleasure of reading and writing. Here's the first story. Hope you enjoy it. Tah tah

the tale of One

Little Jenny was, albeit her sad expression, a very pretty girl. So was Lucy, the Stevensons’ daughter.

Jenny

On her daily walks wandering between home and school, Jenny would often escape into the woods, urging to let those sour noises behind, fading away in the wind.
The forest’s smells awakened some exquisite power inside her, as she would often delve into the madness of running as fast as she could among the trees and the bushes for hours.

She was running from herself it seemed. Something had happened in her life that had caused huge damage inside her.

The Void had been a tormenting presence ever since then. She was looking for freedom, but no freedom feeling had come along lately.

It had been getting tougher for her as the months went past her.

She’d started giving up hope as she couldn’t manage to come out of that damn hopelessness. No matter how fast or how much she’d run her tiny chest was often assaulted by shadows of emptiness and despair.

The poor kid …

Lucy

Since early childhood, little Lucy had felt a little despise for ordinary people’s town life. Not that she wanted to escape somewhere or from her own self; she would rather play in the woods, alone, dancing with the butterflies, waving her rosy tiny frail arms to the rhythm of nature’s symphony.

Sweet Mother Nature’s enchantments fulfilled her urge to live and so did the time she spent playing along with her friends along with the happy moments they’d share.

She’d always felt a bit different, but not an outcast or anything like it.

A sad day would come along every now and then, but she was happy. That was part of life.

One day Lucy slipped, and took a deep dive, and found herself living on another land…

Thoughts from the woods

The Trees had never seen as nice two girls as Lucy and Jenny before. “Trees are older and wiser than man” – A usual verse in local folklore stories.

They booth lived near the woods and were the same age; born on the same day.

The woods were pretty thick, with huge hideous trees which completely dwarfed the surrounding bushes and vegetation. It had animals, rocks and all the things that take to give a forest its own and magical identity, specially the one regarded on this tale. Wise trees, dumb trees all lived together on that same greenish place where one could hear the sigh of the wind in the trees, the Woods.

The trees used to feel quite confused as both girls were constantly mistaken by the animals as if they were twins. Although the differences between them would come up very clearly, their physical resemblances would at times appear confusing.

They looked similar, so the animals didn’t care much. But trees were a little wiser.

The Cave

In the centre of the forest there was a cave, “deep it was” - the old tales said. Its entrance was mysterious yet inviting as any cave is, especially to young minds who are always seeking mysteries.

Swirling dust sounds emanated from the Cave as well as wind whisper sounds as if exhumed from their tombs. “The Cave of one speaks through the wind…”

The mist came down that night, the 13^th of November, as the two little girls were wandering around the woods at noon. Jenny running and crying, Lucy dancing and jumping around with the butterflies, they had booth gotten lost and found themselves standing face to face on a glade with no one else around.

The pond

In the middle of the Glade there was a pond. Its water was deep blue and the wind made it tremble, making little waves round the pond. It didn’t seem to have a long depth, and a strange magnetism was all over it, possibly because of the brightness of the blue water.

The pond had no fish, no plants, just water.

“Old mystery pond makes people wonder. Guess we’ll never know what’s inside it. Only the ones who gaze at it with strong will, will be able to take what it holds”.

As the girls were getting acquainted to the place, they saw a tiny leaf dancing on the water.

“No leaf would dare land on that water but the one which comes from the Mother tree.”

A lot of life stories had taken place in those woods, “the woods of One”.

The Mother Tree never spoke to the other trees or animals, but it was the only tree that had and would ever understand all that was going on.

“On behalf of giving people a way too make ends meet, the Mother Tree drops the golden leaf on the blue pond, and the Ones who deserve it get their chance.”

“Mother Tree has powers beyond understanding.”

As both girls were starring at each other as if they had met before, Jenny said:

- I feel alone, empty; I don’t want to drawn. I’m just trying to find my way around.

- Can you help me? Can you?…

Jenny was on a tailspin.

Lucy said nothing, felt nothing. No sooner had it happened than they were booth gazing at the water. The magnetism…

A green flash of light exploded out of the water making the girls feel each other’s emotions in equal halves. It made them shake and shiver, and when it stopped, they were booth feeling fulfilled by truth.

They heard whispers coming from the pond, calling them, inviting them in.

Leaves were swirling in the air, the fog had washed away. Jenny starred at Lucy as if she were looking in the mirror.

In a Leap of faith (or despair) Jenny went in, and Lucy, who had by that time figured out what was happening to them, drew a smile on her face and jumped in next.

The water felt warm as they were surrounded by it and sliding down a light blue tunnel that took them to a closed dry and dark place.

The tunnel had taken them to a cave. There was a ground scent in that place.

The girls realised they were wearing the same dress, made from the same cloth.

Jenny looked scared yet Lucy was smiling.

In the Cave

Jenny was appalled as she was beginning to understand too, but indeed too frightened to admit it. As that happened, Lucy, who had managed to keep a strange calmness, shouted out loud at the other girl:

- “Jenny you are me! I mean, I’m you, I mean, we’re one together! You’re my body I’m your true soul!”

And while that was being said, their figures were coming together as two frames condensing into one.

The new Jenny, let’s now say, Lucy, was finally made from flesh and bone again. She was no longer a ghost playing on the forest and living on the other side,

“the Ghost Land Side of people’s happiness is a place where people’s true souls go when it is taken away from them”.

That was the night, the right time, it was Jenny’s chance and she took it. After regaining her breath from the shock she walked through the cave’s tunnel that suddenly had become visible due to a sudden moonlight invasion of the place that was known in old folklore tales as “the cave of One”.

Then, the tunnel lead her to the forest again…

Now Lucy is on her way home although she had been lost before. She is no more feeling scared or despaired. There is no emptiness around her heart, no torment. She is feeling a feeble wind breeze on her face that is so fresh and as delicate as morning snow. The sound of her tinny steps on the ground smoothly cracking the little pieces of twig and pushing the fallen leaves closer to each other and to the ground is as expressive as if the forest is telling her life is worth living again.

By that time, the other side of the forest had already realized they’d lost a soul. So they celebrated another departure from their land to the land of the real life.

Then, for the whole night, the whispers in the Cave echoed “the singing of the Cave of One” once more, for another life had been revived.

“Hold them by the hand,

For Jenny won’t stay here no more,

The wind will blow, and whisper

‘till little Jenny’s gone

Lucy is the name,

Annie and Jack are screaming for,

Her destiny is now… in the Lap of the gods.

Little Jenny’s nowhere to be found.

And so may Lucy be blessed forever

by the magic of this holy ground “

.

Lucy had made it this time; from her hole into the glade where she could see stars in spite the clouds.

There are still many ghosts of people who wish they could return once more to real life, blessed by happiness. “They just have to find the cave of One”

“Everyone gets a chance to choose at some time or another… letting one’s urge become one’s will.”- In the book of One, our own book, our imagination, our reality, our life.

B.M.Duarte