The Top Ten

So, I read some blogs and as I promised I ranked the top ten and here they are:

1.land-of-roses.blogspot.com
2.jonnyha.blogspot.com
3.ideru.kansaiblogger.com
4.expeditedrop.com
5.demiworks.com
6.craziestgadgets.com
7.healthzones.blogspot.com
8.letusgrow.blogspot.com
9.samokan.wordpress.com (this blog had some really cool pics)
10.new-scients.blogspot.com

Okay,if your blog didn't make the list it doesn't mean that it was bad,it's just that I could only pick ten.If your blog did make the list,then congrats.

All Comments Welcome

Summer Finale

I sit at the lake's edge,my legs ankle deep in the murky water.Tadpoles encircle my feet and race away like olympic swimmers when I kick my legs.The sun is setting and Aunt Bett is calling everyone to the picnic area,a clearing in the woods a few yards from the lake.Me and my cousin Ian don't rush,we won't have to be at the picnic tables to see the big finish.We ignore our aunt and continue to sit.


"School tomorrow," Ian says.

"We still have the afternoon," I reply lazily.

"Nope,the sun's already setting,soon as it comes up we have classes and homework and-"

"We have the night." I kind of snap at him without meaning to,but he doesn't say anything about it.He knows I'm just sulking over the end of summer vacation.


"You're right Bell,we have the whole night.Only...my mom wants me in bed early."


I don't pay attention because the sun,a blood red ball,rapidly sinks until it's out of view.The lightest portion of the sky is navy blue and the rest is black with globs of stars appearing around the moon like a quilt pattern.


"Everybody,everybody,get ready for the finale!Keep your eyes on the sky!" Aunt Bett's booming voice orders.


"Bell?" Ian whispers.


"Ssshh," I reply,keeping my eyes glued to the night sky,waiting,waiting,waiting-



"Here it is everybody!"



"Boom!" It sounds like a cannon goes off inches from my head, my ear canals vibrate, and the night explodes into a dozen shades of purple,green,blue,red,and orange.Smoke curls around everyone's legs and fills my nose.Additional fireworks pop and crackle and burst into flowers and twists of color.One in particular explodes directly in front of the moon so it looks like an iced sugar cookie.The sky momentarily goes blank while Uncle Will and some of the other kids prepare to launch the next batch of fireworks.



"You know what else we have Ian?"



"What?"



"The Summer Finale."


All Comments Welcome

I f I See You Again

It's been a decade.You were a teenager, newly christened an adult by the government.You were short and skinny with curly black hair and highwater jeans , and I always remember the green t-shirt you wore.You rode a bike,moussed your curls and doused yourself with cologne.If I see you again I might not recognize you.
Why?Because I heard you're not a pencil anymore,you're six feet now,and your hair is so short that no one would know you once sported large,shining loops.Plus,the jeans and t-shirt are gone and your bicycle has been replaced with a four wheeled motor powered machine also known as a car.But I wonder,do you use the same cologne?If I passed you on the street would I know your scent?Salty skin masked by musky,male perfume.You probably don't.If I see you again I probably won't recognize you.
Last year I spoke with you on the phone,you sound the same, maybe a little more mature.If I was blindfolded I would know your voice.Of course I probably wouldn't need the blindfold to hinder me from identifying you,years passing might've already done the job.You don't look or dress the same,you're not the same.Neither am I.If I see you again I won't know you.


All Comments Welcome

Reward

He knows he shoudn't be here, that any moment they'll find him.He hears cooing from the dark brick building.A foot appears around the corner and headlights from a passing car illuminate a metal object above the foot.Jewelry,no, something less innocent,brass knuckles.


"You shouldn't be here Eric," a voice comes from around the corner,the foot is fully revealed followed by a man's body,a large man's body.The man from school,well, the man-sized boy from school.Three others come into view and stand in the dim light of the alley.

"I was just on my way home," he says ,"I don't want any trouble Kurt."

Kurt approaches him and stands with his face centimeters from his.He raises his hand and delivers a heavy backhanded slap,causing Eric's head to whirl around to the right,his neck and face aching from the blow.Kurt grabs him by the shirt collar just before his body falls backward onto the brick building.

"You know something," Kurt growls,maliciously tugging at the collar,"I really hate rats.Always ready to sell you out,and for what?For nothing,just to be honest."

He releases his collar and violently shoves him into the brick wall.Eric groans,the brick scrapes his neck and head,blood seeps from a wound and collects in his red hair.

"Kurt," Dylan,Kurt's bestfriend and righthand steps forward ,"you know I have to be home by ten,could you hurry it up?"

"In a minute man," Kurt runs his fingers through his brown hair,addressing Eric,"I know you're the one who told the principal I spray painted his car.Am I right?Now be honest."

Eric looked around,the four hostile players from the varsity hockey team weren't going to be merciful whether he tried to deny it or told the truth,he might as well as get it over with.

"Answer you piece of trash," Kurt grabs his shirt and jerks his thin body from left to right,making his jaw slip back and forth resulting in Eric accidentally grinding his teeth into his tongue.

"I told,okay,"Eric gasps and his body goes limp as Kurt reels his right hand back,but rolls it into a large fist this time.The brass knuckles crack against his jaw bone and blood shoots past his lips.

"Always honest,aren't you Eric?" Kurt doesn't wait for an answer as he smashes his brass-clad fist into Eric's nose.Crimson fluid gushes from his nostrils and he slides down the wall,lying crumpled on the wet ground like a discarded bubblegum wrapper.

"Ooohh," he moans and attempts to sit up.

"Stay," Dylan cruelly kicks him in the side before he can pull his body up.

"Broken jaw and nose,maybe even broken ribs," Kurt says,leaning down and staring straight into Eric's eyes,his sweat moistened brown hair spilling into his face,"I think that's a fair reward for your honesty.Don't you think so?Nod yes if you think you should have a bonus prize."

Eric manages to shake his head no,the pain shooting from his nose to his jaw to his ribs.

"Okay,lets get outta here," Dylan says.

"Sure thing," Kurt replies,"and Eric,enjoy that reward."

Kurt,Dylan,and the two silent lackies turn around and melt into shadows,their footsteps fade and they're gone.
I shouldn't be here,Eric thinks as the alley goes black and he falls into the cupped hands of unconciousness,I shouldn't be here,I shouldn't be here...


All Comments Welcome

Trees,Reason For Inspiration

It was when they saw the tree that they knew,knew the infinite possibilities of-well-of everything.They didn't know why they knew this and they didn't even think of this discovery in these words.
Jake's exact words were , "I can climb to the highest branch, I could touch the sky!"
He imagined his thin body stretching like an elastic band,reaching until his fingertips grazed the cloud dotted blue,bringing his digits to his face for examination and finally proving that the sky
was a mammoth blue and white, or red and orange, or blue and purple mural(depending on the time of day of course).
He wondered if he could bring his paints and add pterodactyls to the scene,ressurecting the ancient creatures.He sighed longingly and continued to nurture the ache in his chest that told him that the mysterious height of the tree's brances could assist him in transforming his flimsy tin foil fantasy into a sturdy steel reality.

Laura too thought of the oak,what secrets those leafy branches could hold.

Her exact words were, "A world could be hidden in all of those leaves.I bet there is a whole kingdom of orange people and green people and red people-like in the fall.A different shade for every season..."

Her sentence trailed off into admiring quietude.She knew,she absolutely knew that the leaf people glided from branch to branch,more delicate,more graceful,more gorgeous than a monarch butterfly.

She imagined how all winged insects were modes of transportation and how squirrels supplied the food and how when autumn and winter arrived ,the leaf fairies would turn completely invisible(since there were no leaves to conceal them) and would resort to living in the trunk to escape the chill.She was positive that if she could only climb to the uppermost branch that she would find them.She wondered if they would turn her into a leaf person and allow her to ride their dragonflies,like mini helicopters they seemed.She slurped in her breath and tilted her head back to view the vanishing limbs,the very top arms obscured by clouds,just a few fingers sprouting into space,wearing a few of Saturn's rings.

Jake and Laura simultaneously decided they would scale The Giant,as everyone in town kindly referred to it.Jake and Laura,both eight years- old and best friends for as far back as either's memory could reach went to Laura's house,they constructed a plan.

The plan was simple,they would use a latter to reach the lowest branch and free climb from there.That very afternoon they returned,equipped and ready.The two groped and climbed until breathless and took seats on a fat,sturdy branch.

A week later they built a treehouse.Jake stood on the roof attempting to scrape away a bit of the sky's paint,Laure hardly blinked hoping to capture a glimpse of of her leaf dwellers.

Of course they never scraped paint from the heavens or discovered a secret civilization,but they realized as the days and weeks,then months and years passed that the tree inspired them every moment of every day.Their other dreams flourished like the limbs of that tree.

Of course there was the day when they were thirteen that Laura had painted the ceiling of the little structure bright blue and surprised Jake.

"Your mural sky,and it's still wet-touch it,you'll have a piece of the sky."

He did,and sure enough his fingertips were stained blue,he laughed and surprised Laura the next day.He made doll sized people of leaves,constructing makeshift wings of construction paper.Laura soared them into the branches,they weren't as graceful as butterflies but they were her leaf people.

Then,as they sat at the base of that same tree at eighteen years of age (no longer trusting the branches that seemed much smaller with their almost adult bodies)they spoke of The Giant.

"I think that even though the tree has been silent all of these years it's been shouting something," Jake said.

"What's that?" Laura questioned.

"Reach for the sky,ya know,there aren't any limits.Like discovering gravity,Newton never woud've done that without his tree."

"Huh," Laura reclined in the moist crabgrass ,"the sky?Why stop there?Reach for the moon."

"Or the stars,"Jake suggested grinning,"trees,they're reason for inspiration."

All Comments Welcome

The Hospital and The Ditch

I walk into a house,an apartment really.My family,my sister,my brother,and Mom are there.They welcome me home,for some reason I know without a shadow of a doubt that I've been gone for awhile.
"We have to go," Mom says.
The four of us know where we're going ,to the hospital.Oddly enough,in the dream we live directly above a hospital,as in the living room could be just above a patient's room.
We walk through the smelly,disinfectant solution saturated corridors,after a few seconds we go in different directions.I pass those little curtained rooms for patients either waiting to go home or to be wheeled away on a gurney to a drab room.I'm not at ease but I'm not completely uncomfortable,I'm familiar with hospitals and sickness.
Somehow I stumble out of the network of curtains,partitions,and know-it-all machines and into the cafeteria.The windows are the size of doors,which happens to be their second if not only function,for even though the windows serve as two of the cafeteria's walls it's still stuffy and gives me the sense that tinted shades are drinking the sunlight.An artificial overcast.
I'm drawn to the glass,I swing the window/door open and step outside.The cement ground gently slopes into a ditch.A ditch like under a highway,there's water collected at the bottom.It's sunny and for some reason a sense of nostalgia or history,something like a forgotten moment of my early childhood scents the atmosphere.
A group of three or four kids chat and fool around on the slope.One in particular is the most familiar and my favorite companion.He has short,dark brown hair and reminds of my cousin.We're all caught between the elementary years and adolescence.We're safe.Time is frozen and we talk,and I remember things I didn't even know were forgotten.
"Come on,I've been looking for you,time to go."My sister holds the glass door open,summoning me to another familiar place,maybe a park,or one of the many schools I've gone to,or maybe-but unlikely another place woven from not-quite memories and not-quite familiar faces,like the ditch.Perhaps I'll be slightly uneasy,yet acquainted,like the hospital.
"Come on," she urges,thawing time into motion again.I look one last time at the boy who could be my cousin,then lift myself reluctantly from the warm,shimmering cement and shuffle to the window/door.
I wonder,Will I come back?Will I see them again?

What Do You See?

Person One:What do you see when you look at this painting?Just tell the truth.

Person Two:I see three schoolkids playing in an autumn leaf pile.Dry leaves crunching,shattering,and cracking under shoes and knees.Hands tossing the tree's shedding;hands that haven't been burned,frostbitten,or even touched the things that will one day mold their minds and lives.
I see bicycles strewn on lawns soon to be abandoned during the frigid months,waiting to be pedaled from one end of town to the other in summer races to the refreshment stand.Where innocent,panting tongues are coated with sweet dripping ice cream and fizzing soda,sticky fingers gripping handlebars.
Cars line the curb,tires nearly bald from months of simmering asphalt,rain soaked roads,and countless errands.There are many trees, so there are many leaf piles and strewn bikes.The sky wraps all of this in rich yellows,oranges,and brilliant reds comprising the waning sun.

Person One:Thank you.