Trading Stories

So my friend and I exchanged sentences and then used them to write stories for each other. The first one is mine to my friend, then the line is the divider, the second one is my friend's to me. We're cool like this. Here it goes.

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"Blessed up and down but never satiated," he muttered under her breath. He wasn't listening, he rarely ever did. She continued to chatter about all of her problems and her life and her world, as though it was the only one that ever existed. She was so self centered -- self righteous, really. The way she claimed to have faith, but rarely showed it and then hated herself for it. The different times she was seeking attention by talking about things no one wanted to hear about in the first place. That's what she was doing right now. He couldn't stand it, if it wasn't for the fact that he was totally and completely captivated by her spirit.

The thing about her is that she hates being one of those people who doesn't practice what she preaches. But something is stopping her from being who she wants to be. Whoever that is. He started to put away the dishes as she dried them with the dishtowl that had the cherries printed on it. They matched the rest of the kitchen's red and white theme. The checkered curtains and the deep brown wooden table with it's picnic benches' were drenched in sunlight. The one sided chatter continued and he threw in an occasional 'mmhm', 'right', 'I know'...hoping she wouldn't notice his lack of utmost attention. His thoughts wandered, 'What would it be like to marry this girl?' He never would, mind you, but he wondered about it.

Where was life going? What direction would they take? Together or separate. It would be so much easier to see things laid out for them. Blessed up and down but never satiated. What did it take to show her how amazingly lucky she was? The world is full of people who can't see what's right in front of their eyes because they're too busy looking into the future or pondering the past. Instead of worrying about it all, get down on your knees more often. If she was so worried about it why didn't she pray more? Why don't any of us start praying more?

Blessed up and down but never satiated, God answers every prayer but doesn't always say 'yes'. The clouds started to cover the sun and the dishes were finished. He kissed her on the nose and asked if she'd join him for a walk. They went down the drive and dark clouds rolled across the sky. They were having a rare moment of silence. When they reached the top of the hill, the rain fell from weeping heavens and the ran for cover. He screamed a deep throated yell and picked her up. She tickled him and he threw his light spring jacket around her shoulders as they sprinted across the street. It was the kind of rain that is so sudden and hard and warm that you just want to look up and spin in a circle until you can throw yourself down into a field of grass. They pulled open the door of the first building they found and her glorious laughter rang and echoed.

Instinctively, he glanced over his shoulder. Empty. "It's been a long time. Why didn't I come here sooner?" she asked quietly, staring at him hard. He gently held her hands and lead her into a pew. They kneeled down and she started to cry, something about the incredible miracles and gifts and faith that were here and the fact that she ignors it always hit her soul. Blessed up and down but never satiated, "I'm not good enough," she whispered. He dried her tears and said "No one is. Just say 'thank you'."

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It had the potential to be beautiful. Well, rather 'he' than 'it' I suppose. No need in degrading it any farther, now is there? No, not really, but he's been suffering that type of objectification since the beginning. His father-not having a good beat bag to let loose into after work (his mother being deceased since forty-eight)-he was a smart man and he figured a way to fill the gap. Can't hear shit from the neighbors house if either of you have the windows shut, and here in Fargo, everyone does.

To see him at seventeen he's the same character. A real quiet kind of guy a real hand in pocket kind of guy, he'd never been too active with women. Never could read the faces and the moods quite the way the most of us can, so he'd never been too active with women, even to the point of his sexuality coming to question, but he didn't care enough to point it, no one cared nearly as much as him. This was still sufficient motive to justify the thrown stones from the churchyard. Wait, what do they say? In Fargo, everybody does.

Now the point of this whole mess isn't to ramble for most of this page on the nature of parental and phallic love, but to tell the entire story of his first romance. After a brief episode near the church, an episode I will not delve here because only he and the girl were there, and they chose to forget it entirely, he'd come to fancy a girl, and her him. A good thing really, but a nervous thing. A nervous thing on which he spent the customary (customary to an experienced creature of habit like her) three day period of silence after the initial expression of mutual affection pondering the possibilities.

Where is she? Has she fallen for someone else? Was it a lie? And as the guilty questioning turns to fearful proclamation. I'm very forgettable. My father would never like her. I'm not good for me, I can't be good for her? She's gone. On and on into the night and the day and the night and the day and the night and the morning of the eventual confrontation. She approached him with a poorly masked smile, compassionate towards the jaded and lonesome looking man before her. "Where is the glitter form your eye?" she asked him passionately. And he walked away, a forgotten man.