Sunday, October 15, 2006

   Oh god...
I tried to get back online earlier today and there was ANOTHER virus! -_- The virus scanner called the last one Trojan. This one it called Bloodhound. F***.

*sigh* Anyway...

I'm 19 10/15/06! ...Today apparently! Whoo!

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Now what? Do I get to retire yet? No? Damn.

Eh. I got a lots of stuff to do the next few days. Backup files, job applications etc. So I'll try not to stay online too much tonight. I is gonna post my story. I reread it and cringed every other line, but i've learned that just cuz I'm disgusted with some of my work it doesn't mean that other people hate it too. Or something like that...

Skip if ya don't wanna read it

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((This was an assignment that I had to do. For the teachers sake, I had to throw out ALL of the science fiction and end the story on a happy note. Not my style, but it was fun to write))

-Valentine Ribbons-


Ryan woke up to Tobias’ excited gibbering and a fuzzy blue plush in his face that resembled a cat except for the whole thing. He had finished the plush for his girlfriend Erynn.

“I worked so hard all night just to finish it for her!” he yelled excitedly. “Don’t you think she’ll love it?”

Van came down the stairs into the basement, also known as Ryan’s room, with a pot of coffee and two mugs. He was smiling as he always does.

“Well you sure are excited. I could hear you all the way from the kitchen!” he proclaimed cheerily, stating the obvious as usual. At this hour of the morning, Ryan believed that Van’s smile made him resemble the Joker from Batman.

Ryan squinted at his clock. It was about six thirty a.m.

Ryan’s mother had left for New York yesterday morning, so he invited Van and Tobias to stay the night for a “Nightmare on Elm Street” marathon because he had just saved enough money and bought the entire collection and a portable DVD player. The truth was, Ryan wanted Tobias to have a little change of scenery.

After Tobias’ father tried to burn him to death, he was burned all over except for his hands and half of his face. When Ryan was done knocking the stuffing out of his father, Ryan called Van to come and pick them up. Once before this, Tobias had said, “I would never tell the police what my father did. Mothers heart can’t take that.” He had two black eyes and a broken arm. Ryan commented that there was blood seeping through his shirt, but Tobias denied it and would not let anyone look. Vans father, a wheelchair-bound retired pediatrician, agreed to fix him up and hide him no questions asked.

Tobias flinched. “I almost forgot to write a note to go with it!” he whispered as if God would strike him down on the spot if He heard. As a Christian, he probably did think that. He quickly set the plush down and sprinted upstairs to get a pencil and paper.

Ryan dragged himself upstairs to take a shower, leaving Van alone with the coffee and plush. He was sitting cross-legged on Ryan’s mattress, staring thoughtfully at the plush that was perched on an upturned cardboard box.

As he listened to the sounds of Tobias accidentally turning on the hot water while Ryan was in the shower, he snapped his fingers and grinned. He reached up and pulled off the white ribbon that he was holding his hair up with, letting the hair fall around his shoulders. The only time he wore a white ribbon was on Valentines Day and for situations just like this.

Apparently, the story goes that if a boy ties a girl’s hair back with a white ribbon on Valentines Day, their love would last forever.
But in this case, the ribbon tied in a bow on the plush would have to do.

“The coffee is getting cold!” he chirped to himself cheerily and began to take the pot of coffee upstairs to reheat it. Tobias opened the door just as Van reached the top step.

“Hey, what’s up?” Tobias asked innocently.

“Just reheating the coffee for his Highness.”

They both laughed a little at this. Somewhere down the hall in the bathroom, Ryan sneezed.

“Anyway,” he continued, “I just figured that he might be a little chilled.”

“Oh, yeah, whoops.” Tobias turned pink in embarrassment. “I had to clean my hands because…” he held up his right hand to make his point. The fingertips were all bandaged up with paper towels and scotch tape. He had spent the past three days sewing the plush together and had somehow managed to prick every finger on both hands with the needle.

“Your scabs reopened, huh?”

“Yeah. All over my first draft.” He smiled. Van could tell that it was the smile of someone who was stressed beyond reason.

"Go put your note with the gift,” Van said encouragingly. “Then get some sleep. Scratch that. Get lots of sleep,” he said as he felt Tobias’ forehead. “Ryan will get them to her at school. They have a class together, remember?”

“Yeah, I remembered,” Tobias replied warily. “That’s why I made a box to put them in so they wouldn’t get all dirty from that rust bucket he’s driving.”

Ryan sneezed again.

“Just go rest, ok?”

Tobias rolled his eyes, “ok! I heard you, mother!”

They both snickered and went their separate ways, Tobias to the basement and Van to the kitchen.

On his way past the bathroom, Van yelled at the door, “sorry, I just thought it would wake you up, your Highness!” He was already around the corner by the time Ryan opened the door.

On his way back from getting the coffee, he grabbed a box of band-aids from above the sink. For some reason, Ryan had moved them. Later that morning, he explained that his cat has a taste for the sticky stuff found on band-aids.

- - - - -

“Why do I have to carry this dumb thing around? I look like I’m getting soft,” Ryan mumbled to himself through gritted teeth.

His choice of style is a black Mohawk, black shirt, black pants and black and white shoes.

At some point in his life he, he very clearly said, “I would rather be locked in a jail cell with a fat guy named Meatloaf putting the moves on me than be caught anywhere near the color pink." He also had similar speeches for the colors yellow, purple, and sky blue. Apparently, darker shades of blue don’t count.

Right now he was carrying a red and white box covered with pink circles, pink squares, pink hearts, and a big pink ribbon on top.
He got to class early and sat at the desk next to Erynn’s. It was biology class. The most bizarre class to get a Valentine.

“It looks like we’re dissecting cats today,” he said out loud to the metal tray in front of him stacked high with dead kittens in plastic bags.

“Mr. Fildbinn must be bitter about today,” he continued warily.

The first bell rang and he waited. He was usually the last one to get to class, so it wasn’t strange that the person who always gets to class first, Erynn, was surprised.

Erynn walked in and saw Ryan with the colorful; box. He saw her and held the box out to her.

“Here,” he said flatly. “Tobias wanted me to give you this.” He looked so irritated that she decided he was not lying.

“Thank you, I guess,” she responded.

People began filing into class. Ryan had already gone to his seat across the room and Erynn sat staring at the gift from someone that she hadn’t seen in a year.

When the teacher walked in, she quickly covered the box with her jacket.

- - - - -

After school while Ryan was walking to his car, he saw Erynn sitting on a bench trying to open the box. He walked over and sat down next to her nonchalantly.

“What’s in it?” he asked, knowing that she had not opened it yet.

“If I could get the ribbon off, I’d tell you,” she replied, annoyed. He looked at the box out of the corner of his eye and realized what was wrong. He sighed to stop a laugh.

“Don’t tell anyone that I did this,” he said as he flipped open his pocketknife. “Tobias knows how to tie knots that can’t be untied. Ever,” he continued jokingly as he cut the bow off quickly.

She looked at him suspiciously, but he had already put the knife back and was now stretched out lazily, staring at a little puff of cloud in the distance. She slowly opened the box and looked in. There was a little post-it note stuck to the bottom.

“‘Meet me at Ryan’s,’” she read out loud. Ryan raised an eyebrow in surprise. She concluded that this was news to him. After a few seconds, he rolled his eyes.

“Fine. I guess I have to give you a ride,” he stated as he stood up. “Follow me.” They walked to his car in the parking lot and got in. He had finally put a clean towel on the passenger seat the other day. Tobias had insisted that it was neccessary.

- - - - -

Tobias was waiting outside, fingertips newly bandaged and holding the plush. It still had the ribbon around his neck. He was staring at something that only he could see.

The burn scars had only made him tougher. His eyes didn’t glimmer like they used to and his smiles more strained as if he only did it to hide his pain. Except when he thought of Erynn.

No one was around, so his face was a blank expressionless mask. He looked much older than his usual bouncy sixteen-year-old self.

Ryan drove up to the curb. He and Erynn sat watching Tobias for a moment. He was looking in the other direction and apparently hadn’t noticed them yet.

“Scary.”

Erynn jumped in surprise. “What?”
“Nothing,” Ryan replied. “Anyway,” he continued, “I think that the only thing that kept him alive was you. You haven’t seen him for so long because he’s so terrified that you’ll turn him away if you saw him. We’ve done all that we can for him.”

He reached over and opened her door.

“Your turn.”

She hesitated, and then asked, “Why are you being so nice?”

“I told you, don’t tell anyone,” he replied irritably.

She smiled and got out. Tobias saw her and looked nervous to meet her like this. He knew that she could see his face, and he wanted to hide it. She saw that he was about to bolt and quickened her steps. When she reached him, she didn’t know what to say.

He didn’t know what to say either. They just stared at each other for an unmeasured length of time. Tobias made the first move.

“Here, this is for you,” he said, holding out the plush to her.

She took it from him slowly and saw his fingertips on either side. He had worked hard, that was certain. The white ribbon reflected all of the sunlight and it almost seemed to glow.

“I love it,” she said, “It reminds me of a cat, except for the whole thing.” they both smiled awkwardly. He reached for the ribbon and untied it with a quick tug.

“May I?” he asked, holding the ribbon delicately.
She looked at him for a moment. He waited so patiently and she could tell that this was taking all of his strength to not run away and hide. She nodded and turned around. He relaxed and began to tie the ribbon in her hair.

Earlier that day Van had seen Tobias’ handiwork with tying bows, so he took it upon himself to teach him how to tie a bow properly. The lesson was showing through as Tobias tied a perfect bow without using his favorite knots.

Ryan was still watching from his car. He was a tough guy, but not when he saw this performance. He smiled contently at them.

Suddenly, Van popped up in front of him and took his picture for blackmailing reasons.

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Oof. Sappy. Oh well. Again, I cleaned it up for the teacher. Made the characters friends-ish. There was alot of screaming, crying, destruction of plush, destruction of other property, etc. in the real version. So there. Lots to look forword to. -_-;

*sigh* I love playing with homework assignments... NEVER give me a paragraph to correct that involves food right before lunch! E V I L ! If you've seen Saiyuki, please imagine how they would say they're lines as they were talking to poor, food deprived Goku. It's funny XD

-PIZZA-

Gojyo: The waitress set down the pizza.
Sanzo: The pizza was huge.
Hakkai: The pizza was mouthwatering.
Gojyo: The pizza was smothered with good things.
Sanzo: One thing was cheese.
Gojyo: The cheese was melted.
Hakkai: The cheese bubbled.
Gojyo: The cheese steamed.
Sanzo: There was sauce.
Gojyo: The sauce ran over the cheese.
Hakkai: The sauce was made from tomatoes.
Gojyo: The sauce was rich.
Sanzo: The sauce was red.
Hakkai: The sauce was flecked with bits.
Gojyo: The bits were dark green.
Sanzo: The bits were spices.
Hakkai: Pepperoni was in the cheese.
Gojyo: Sausage was in the cheese.
Sanzo: Onions were in the cheese.
Hakkai: The onions were green.
Sanzo: I was hungry.
Gojyo: I dove into the pizza.
Hakkai: Soon the pizza was gone.

Goku: You guys suck...
Sanzo: Tch.*newspaper*
Gojyo: Hehehe...bet ya wish you hadn't slept till noon, eh?
Hakkai: I'm sorry, Goku, but you wouldn't wake up.


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