Saturday, August 19, 2006

something old, something used
Okay, a little back story.
The piece I am posting is about two years old. It was used for an assignment in my Eglish Comp 1 class that I took while I was at Ft Carson. The assignment was to write about an event in your past, from a first person stand point. But since the teacher knew I am trying to write a book, she let me use one of the characters. This is one of my first atempts at writing in first person. It's a bit long so I am going to break it up through different posts.


PART 1

Another day wasted and I still can’t find anything out about where Vermillion has gone. It’s been over a year and a half since he disappeared, there should be something. Anything, damn it. My gut tells me that he has at least been to the Galactic Police station outside the system. So I went to the municipal center to see if I could find a link to the station. I could ask the bartender I met during my class’s field trip a year and a half ago; when I followed Vermillion around the station after he disappeared from the group. It was funny cause all Lilly, my teacher, said when she saw that he was missing was “You’re up, I suggest you keep him in line. I’ll send a mail when we are ready to leave.” It’s always up to me when it comes to Vermillion. And I’m useless at providing information to anyone about him as well.
Now, here’s my current problem. Am I awake? All these colors I see flying in front of my eyes. Maybe, I do hear music. But then again I hear music in my dreams all the time. Ah, the brief interlude where you learn the names of the songs just played. I’m awake. If Rachel wasn’t off seeing family in another town, I’d go bug her for a while. Knocking? Knocking equals door, “Coming!” I yell to the mysterious knocking. I run to the door and open it, “What can I do for you?” I ask a man that is clearly not from this planet. What mostly tipped me off were the ridges on his scalp. He is kinda nerdy looking too. “Are you Mrs. Kurasawa’s daughter, Nagie?” He asks in a calm tone.
“Yes I am,” Right now I’m feeling really confused, a bit worried but mostly confused, “Is this about my mom?”
“No, it’s about a friend of yours. A boy named…” Great, now he’s gone and done it. Being the topic of many worry attacks, just the mention of someone that could be Vermillion got my blood flowing. So, stressing out already, I overly dramatically grab his hand and ask, “Is he okay? Have you seen him?” The man looked like he wanted to laugh, I don’t blame him. “He’s fine. It’s okay.” Yeah, perfect. I just embarrassed myself in front of a stranger. I don’t know about you but at this time I felt the best course of action was to hear the man out. I closed the door behind me and felt like going for a walk. “Your mom said you two were close?” The man asks.
“As close as anyone can get with him.” Ain’t that the truth.
“What do you mean?” His tone of voice hasn’t changed at all.
“Why do you want to know?” And don’t lie.
“When I met him, I thought it was a bit weird that some kid was alone on the station.”
“Where did you meet him?”
“In the temple.” Well, at least he is not that bad. But still. A light breeze blew in my face, chilly. I look around, everyone was going about their day as usual. The winter festival isn’t till Sunday, so most are being lazy and haven’t started to prepare. I look back at the man, “So you are one of us as well?”
“I like the belief of this religion.” The man scratches his head, “But if I remember right, your species is not a big follower.”
“Vermillion welcomed me on a field trip a few years ago.” I look the man over, he is rubbing his wrist, “You work there, don’t you?”
“How do you know that?”
“Your watch, everyone who works there has one.”
“Good observation.”
Back on subject, “So when you saw Vermillion, he looked like this.” I take out my ‘have you seen this boy?’ picture from pocket and show it to the man.
“Yes.” His head wandered, he is probably thinking, “Wait, you’re shape-shifters. Now I get why you asked.”
“Yeah, so I don’t know, I just find it weird that he would be careless like that.” Actually he can be at times. That’s why I carry the picture.
“Imagine my surprise seeing a young boy alone, praying. I guess he was praying for you.”
“But I still don’t get the interest.”
“I talked with him a few days, it was hard to believe that he really is nine.”
“I’m nine.”
“Yes, I can see that. But he didn’t talk like he was. I know your species it more advanced in thought than mine but, shit, he was talking like he was in his fucking twenties.”
“Yeah, he’s that way. It annoys the hell out of me too sometimes.”

I guess I can see where he is coming from, but I still need more information on him. Where to take him? Ah, the hole in the cliff that looks out over the fields. They were just cut so the crystals should look good under the clouds. Better view means a more relaxed conversation, that’s what Rachel always says. It turns out that the man can fly too, so we had no trouble getting there. I almost thought I’d have to carry him down the cliff to it. We get there and, after a proper introduction, I start to quiz him on more about himself. His name is Leon, he really hasn’t started to work on the station yet, he is on leave before he starts actual work. That is why he’s here, I guess, since he has the time to waste. He says he has a week or so.
He came here on a personal shuttle I guess. I met her (the shuttle), she was a bit odd. Leon says he reprogrammed the computer to be more real. He didn’t do a half bad job, they bicker most of the time though. I got them on the topic of a name and there was more bickering. They sounded like brother and sister almost.
The computer’s name ended up to be Omoikane, meaning chime of hope or metal thought pending how it is written. I gave him till the end of the week to make one that I’d approve. Leon’s use of random languages was funny; he says that “the basic language used by the soldiers on the station is just a mogpog of other languages. A few weird words here, a few words from some underdeveloped planet there.” Yeah, so at times I had no idea what he was saying when he got lost in thought.


“You should sleep in my room.” I suggest after I pestered my mom enough to let Leon stay. He was just going to sleep in the back room of his shuttle on some hard table like bed thing. I won’t have any of that. Anyway, it was my mom’s idea to have him talk to me in the first place.
“Where are you going to sleep?” He asks.
“The couch or something,” I answer.
“No, I’ll sleep on the couch, it’s your house.”
“But I’ll fit on the couch.” Leon was 6” 2’, there is no way he’ll fit on the couch. Well it turns out he really doesn’t sleep much anyway. “36hrs schedule and all.” Yeah right, I’d still find time to sleep. That is not an excuse.

Days two and three of his visit were fairly productive. As far as I could tell, Leon had no bad intentions. Mom, though, is still biting her lip on this. She won’t tell me what it is about him that makes her worry. Dad is just going with the flow; he’s been so busy with work that he really hasn’t had much time with Leon. Except for the nights when he stays up to have a cup of tea after work.

I told Leon more about my relationship with Vermillion. I know I love the guy, and I know he has some strange quirky Vermillion sorta way of love for me. Leon, being from a more stricter and adult oriented society (I even think they have arranged marriages there too, but I didn’t ask), had a hard time following how two nine year olds could even think about love. Especially during a war. I answer with “I’m nine, why should I worry about a war that hasn’t hit this town yet.” But then again, Vermillion could be on the planet we are at war with. I wish I could understand why, but I was just barely able to get the fact that he wanted to help with the war, out before he up and disappeared.

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