7th October
Now playing: Beat It - Michael Jackson
No one wants to be defeated, showin' how funky strong is your fight. It doesn't matter who's wrong or right.
Today has been awesome. Seriously. I managed to hit my goal for 80k at school and then had the rest of the night to do absolutely nothing. NOTHING. I didn't go any homework. I surfed the internet until gone eight in the evening, and then decided that I fancied having a crack at writing a character development sketch for Rouge, my new villain. I wrote the scene where she first buys her mute Talk Monkey pet. I really enjoyed it, wrote 2k, and for the first time in ages I geniuinely like the whole thing.
Sure, it would need editing and crap, but I don't care. I like it so much I'm going to post it here. Beware: Crap Ahead. =P
CHIZ
The first time I saw Chiz I knew I’d fallen in love. I remember he was sat by the side of some Gypsy gentleman with a wide-brimmed hat, long coat and moustache that could rival Blue’s teenage ponytail. It was getting dark outside, and the weather was taking a turn for the worst. It was getting colder, and the dark clouds overhead threatened a storm if I didn’t hurry along soon. It was the perfect weather for a carnival.
Blue had told me that morning that I couldn’t have a pet. We’d sat in the Sun Room discussing animals in general, their plus sides and negatives, because Blue loves to talk about things in terms of business deals, and I had mentioned that I wanted to get a pet. I wanted something, an animal preferably, to lighten up the house because it gets awfully lonely in the towers around wintertime. Blue had shaken his head in annoyance, smiled at me and told me that I was always buying things to make the place less lonely. He said we should just downsize.
I disagreed. And so, when Blue argued with me again I did exactly what any other self-respecting independent woman would do: I went out and bought myself a pet. The carnival was in town and had been for a couple of weeks so far, but I’d neglected going that far into the C.C. before the day I went for Chiz. The walk seemed unnecessary effort, and I was far too busy trying to paint the guest room for when Mother came to stay- she didn’t come to stay, after all, but the room does look nicer now that it’s not that hideous orange that Indie painted it the last time- and I hadn’t felt like walking more than two feet from our house, never mind all the way into the centre of the C.C. I would have needed to take the train, and at the time it seemed like more discomfort than I could bear.
But when it came down to it, I would have done anything to prove to Blue that I was right, and that he was just being childish. So, I walked the half-mile to the nearest inner-city rail station, slid on at the back and hoped that nobody I knew would see me. I hate being seen on public transport, it’s so humiliating. I’ve told Blue time and time again that we should buy a car, but he insists again and again that we don’t need one. He says that we hardly ever go anywhere, and as much as I hate to admit it, it’s true. The only time I ever leave the house is to pop into the Palace Corp. to meet with The Directors, and I do that so seldom it’s not even worth it. Most of the time we work over the weblink.
The city was cool and damp, but the carnival was set apart from this biting weather in the dome they’d set up for it. Walking through there was like stepping into some giant bell jar, some bubble with almost-invisible walls. They forgot the roof though, so while the sidewalks were dry, the rest of the damn thing- all the roofs of the stalls and the little counters where they keep the rubber ducks- was soaked through.
The menagerie was located at the far end of the carnival, in a tent the size of our back yard. It stretched perhaps thirty feet in width, and was longer than I could be bothered to investigate. I didn’t head in there with the intention of buying anything in particular; I just knew that I really wanted something to live in the house with me. It would be even better if it could annoy Blue, though, and ideally I wanted something that would give Indigo the heebies. I was about to settle on searching for a snake- spiders seemed to commonplace, and besides which we already had enough of them in the attic- when I caught sight of a young girl.
She was probably no older than eight or nine, only ten or so years younger than myself at the time, and she was waving this great big banner above her head that read something like ‘Anim-azing animals on display. Beside the bar’. I didn’t even know it was legal for them to have a portable bar in a place like that, but being in the situation I was in- public transport really does mess with my nerves something rotten- I decided that it wouldn’t hurt me to have one drink. And the Anim-mazing animals didn’t sound too much of a bore either.
And that’s when I saw Chiz for the first time. The Gypsy man was sat on a barrel nursing a drink that smelt faintly like whiskey, or coffee, or possibly a combination of the two. Chiz was the most magnificent monkey I’d ever seen. He was also the first monkey I’d ever seen, and the moment I laid eyes on him I knew I had to have him.
“Is he for sale?” I asked the man, eyeing up the little ball of brown fuzz cautiously. He looked a little young- I assumed it was a ‘he’ anyway- and his face looked like a smashed watermelon, but I found him adorably cute. He sat stock-still, gazing at me with eyes that could have melted iron.
“Sure is love,” the man told me. “Hickle-back monkey, two years old. He’s an Animi, least we thinks he is. I fink he’s one of them talking ones, but as far yet we ain’t managed to get a peep out of him.” I continued to gaze at him, weighing his posture and his stare with my own. He certainly looked healthy, but if I didn’t know what a Hickle-back monkey was before that day, what did it matter if I thought he looked healthy?
“You want to get him off your hands then?” I asked coyly, twirling a strand of my hair around my finger. I learnt quite quickly in life that if you want anything for cheap, the best way to get it is to act cheap. It never fails.
“We sure do sweet ‘eart. He’s lovely an’ all, but we can’t take ‘em all back with us. You want him?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I played for time, twirling my hair some more and shifting from foot to foot. “I don’t have much money.” I counted what I did have, and that came to just over eighty Exos dollar bills. I wanted to get a drink before I left, and then maybe stop on Fourth Street to see if the new order of boots had come in.
“We was lookin’ for around sixty white,” the man told me. Sixty dollars was probably not bad for a monkey. I’d heard they were expensive; especially for a talking monkey. The little creature watched me intently, eyes following my every action as though he knew exactly the kind of scam I was trying to pull, and he admired every inch of it.
“That’s a shame,” I said, pawing at my mini skirt. I was glad I hadn’t dressed for the weather, for once. The Gypsy man was groping me with his eyes now, but I resisted the urge to shiver with disgust. All in the name of getting back at Blue. “All I’ve got is fifty dollars, and I’ve got to pay for the train fare back home...” One flick of my hair and he was almost drooling.
“Fifty you say?” he asked me. “S’all you gots?”
“Yessir,” I answered in my most earnest voice. “I really want him, too.” The monkey was bobbing his head excitedly now, rubbing his hands together.
“An’ you really want the flea ball?”
“Yessir.” I shifted feet again and brought my hands down to my lap, trying to appear younger than I was. It wasn’t hard; he was all over me.
He appeared to be thinking about my proposition, or rather my appearance and what he could say to his wife when she found out that the monkey had gone for ten dollars less than she’d wanted. He watched me, and I watched the monkey, and finally he spoke.
“So, you gots to catch the train?”
“Yessir.”
“How much white does that cost?” I quickly calculated how much it would cost a girl half my age without a privilege pass, and then clicked my fingers.
“About six dollars for that maybe.” It seemed like the long way around a negotiation, but I wasn’t going to rush him. He could ask me as many questions as he liked as long as I could get my hands on that monkey. I had the perfect little outfit in mind for him sitting in my closet from the time Indigo decided to raid the animal right’s works for contraband.
“So, you want the monkey?” I wasn’t going to get annoyed at him. I wasn’t.
“Yessir, and I have forty four dollars to give you. Can I please have him?” It took all my effort to keep the edge from my voice, and the smile I gave him hurt my face. The monkey appeared to be laughing at me.
“Forty four? You fink that’ll buy the monkey?”
“It’s all I have.”
He thought about it some more, and I imagined I could see his wife at home threatening him with a belt and sleeping on the grass outside their trailer, but apparently even her threats couldn’t hold off my charm. Finally he shook his head and laughed.
“I must be insane, girl, but you convinced me. I take it you know how to look after ‘im then?” I didn’t, but I nodded my head anyway. This kind of thing was what the weblink was for. “Alrigh’, take the poor sod. I’m sure he’ll love you.”
With a smile on my face I handed him the money from inside my bra and allowed the monkey to swing up into my arms. He still seemed to be laughing at me, but now it was in a respectful kind of way.
“By the way,” I said just as the Gypsy began to back away with his whiskey-coffee into the darkness of his stall. “Does he have a name?”
“The Misses named him Solomon,” he said. “I think it fits him.”
“Thanks.” I looked at the monkey with a degree of amusement, and the look in his face told me that he hated his name just as much as I did. “Alright,” I said once we were out of earshot- the bar was much less appealing now- “How about Chiz, and then a cup of tea in the HeartBreak?”
He nodded, and it was settled. Chiz was mine, and tea was on the menu.
Words written today: 3,267.
Lines for today: most of them.
No one wants to be defeated, showin' how funky strong is your fight. It doesn't matter who's wrong or right.
Today has been awesome. Seriously. I managed to hit my goal for 80k at school and then had the rest of the night to do absolutely nothing. NOTHING. I didn't go any homework. I surfed the internet until gone eight in the evening, and then decided that I fancied having a crack at writing a character development sketch for Rouge, my new villain. I wrote the scene where she first buys her mute Talk Monkey pet. I really enjoyed it, wrote 2k, and for the first time in ages I geniuinely like the whole thing.
Sure, it would need editing and crap, but I don't care. I like it so much I'm going to post it here. Beware: Crap Ahead. =PCHIZ
The first time I saw Chiz I knew I’d fallen in love. I remember he was sat by the side of some Gypsy gentleman with a wide-brimmed hat, long coat and moustache that could rival Blue’s teenage ponytail. It was getting dark outside, and the weather was taking a turn for the worst. It was getting colder, and the dark clouds overhead threatened a storm if I didn’t hurry along soon. It was the perfect weather for a carnival.
Blue had told me that morning that I couldn’t have a pet. We’d sat in the Sun Room discussing animals in general, their plus sides and negatives, because Blue loves to talk about things in terms of business deals, and I had mentioned that I wanted to get a pet. I wanted something, an animal preferably, to lighten up the house because it gets awfully lonely in the towers around wintertime. Blue had shaken his head in annoyance, smiled at me and told me that I was always buying things to make the place less lonely. He said we should just downsize.
I disagreed. And so, when Blue argued with me again I did exactly what any other self-respecting independent woman would do: I went out and bought myself a pet. The carnival was in town and had been for a couple of weeks so far, but I’d neglected going that far into the C.C. before the day I went for Chiz. The walk seemed unnecessary effort, and I was far too busy trying to paint the guest room for when Mother came to stay- she didn’t come to stay, after all, but the room does look nicer now that it’s not that hideous orange that Indie painted it the last time- and I hadn’t felt like walking more than two feet from our house, never mind all the way into the centre of the C.C. I would have needed to take the train, and at the time it seemed like more discomfort than I could bear.
But when it came down to it, I would have done anything to prove to Blue that I was right, and that he was just being childish. So, I walked the half-mile to the nearest inner-city rail station, slid on at the back and hoped that nobody I knew would see me. I hate being seen on public transport, it’s so humiliating. I’ve told Blue time and time again that we should buy a car, but he insists again and again that we don’t need one. He says that we hardly ever go anywhere, and as much as I hate to admit it, it’s true. The only time I ever leave the house is to pop into the Palace Corp. to meet with The Directors, and I do that so seldom it’s not even worth it. Most of the time we work over the weblink.
The city was cool and damp, but the carnival was set apart from this biting weather in the dome they’d set up for it. Walking through there was like stepping into some giant bell jar, some bubble with almost-invisible walls. They forgot the roof though, so while the sidewalks were dry, the rest of the damn thing- all the roofs of the stalls and the little counters where they keep the rubber ducks- was soaked through.
The menagerie was located at the far end of the carnival, in a tent the size of our back yard. It stretched perhaps thirty feet in width, and was longer than I could be bothered to investigate. I didn’t head in there with the intention of buying anything in particular; I just knew that I really wanted something to live in the house with me. It would be even better if it could annoy Blue, though, and ideally I wanted something that would give Indigo the heebies. I was about to settle on searching for a snake- spiders seemed to commonplace, and besides which we already had enough of them in the attic- when I caught sight of a young girl.
She was probably no older than eight or nine, only ten or so years younger than myself at the time, and she was waving this great big banner above her head that read something like ‘Anim-azing animals on display. Beside the bar’. I didn’t even know it was legal for them to have a portable bar in a place like that, but being in the situation I was in- public transport really does mess with my nerves something rotten- I decided that it wouldn’t hurt me to have one drink. And the Anim-mazing animals didn’t sound too much of a bore either.
And that’s when I saw Chiz for the first time. The Gypsy man was sat on a barrel nursing a drink that smelt faintly like whiskey, or coffee, or possibly a combination of the two. Chiz was the most magnificent monkey I’d ever seen. He was also the first monkey I’d ever seen, and the moment I laid eyes on him I knew I had to have him.
“Is he for sale?” I asked the man, eyeing up the little ball of brown fuzz cautiously. He looked a little young- I assumed it was a ‘he’ anyway- and his face looked like a smashed watermelon, but I found him adorably cute. He sat stock-still, gazing at me with eyes that could have melted iron.
“Sure is love,” the man told me. “Hickle-back monkey, two years old. He’s an Animi, least we thinks he is. I fink he’s one of them talking ones, but as far yet we ain’t managed to get a peep out of him.” I continued to gaze at him, weighing his posture and his stare with my own. He certainly looked healthy, but if I didn’t know what a Hickle-back monkey was before that day, what did it matter if I thought he looked healthy?
“You want to get him off your hands then?” I asked coyly, twirling a strand of my hair around my finger. I learnt quite quickly in life that if you want anything for cheap, the best way to get it is to act cheap. It never fails.
“We sure do sweet ‘eart. He’s lovely an’ all, but we can’t take ‘em all back with us. You want him?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I played for time, twirling my hair some more and shifting from foot to foot. “I don’t have much money.” I counted what I did have, and that came to just over eighty Exos dollar bills. I wanted to get a drink before I left, and then maybe stop on Fourth Street to see if the new order of boots had come in.
“We was lookin’ for around sixty white,” the man told me. Sixty dollars was probably not bad for a monkey. I’d heard they were expensive; especially for a talking monkey. The little creature watched me intently, eyes following my every action as though he knew exactly the kind of scam I was trying to pull, and he admired every inch of it.
“That’s a shame,” I said, pawing at my mini skirt. I was glad I hadn’t dressed for the weather, for once. The Gypsy man was groping me with his eyes now, but I resisted the urge to shiver with disgust. All in the name of getting back at Blue. “All I’ve got is fifty dollars, and I’ve got to pay for the train fare back home...” One flick of my hair and he was almost drooling.
“Fifty you say?” he asked me. “S’all you gots?”
“Yessir,” I answered in my most earnest voice. “I really want him, too.” The monkey was bobbing his head excitedly now, rubbing his hands together.
“An’ you really want the flea ball?”
“Yessir.” I shifted feet again and brought my hands down to my lap, trying to appear younger than I was. It wasn’t hard; he was all over me.
He appeared to be thinking about my proposition, or rather my appearance and what he could say to his wife when she found out that the monkey had gone for ten dollars less than she’d wanted. He watched me, and I watched the monkey, and finally he spoke.
“So, you gots to catch the train?”
“Yessir.”
“How much white does that cost?” I quickly calculated how much it would cost a girl half my age without a privilege pass, and then clicked my fingers.
“About six dollars for that maybe.” It seemed like the long way around a negotiation, but I wasn’t going to rush him. He could ask me as many questions as he liked as long as I could get my hands on that monkey. I had the perfect little outfit in mind for him sitting in my closet from the time Indigo decided to raid the animal right’s works for contraband.
“So, you want the monkey?” I wasn’t going to get annoyed at him. I wasn’t.
“Yessir, and I have forty four dollars to give you. Can I please have him?” It took all my effort to keep the edge from my voice, and the smile I gave him hurt my face. The monkey appeared to be laughing at me.
“Forty four? You fink that’ll buy the monkey?”
“It’s all I have.”
He thought about it some more, and I imagined I could see his wife at home threatening him with a belt and sleeping on the grass outside their trailer, but apparently even her threats couldn’t hold off my charm. Finally he shook his head and laughed.
“I must be insane, girl, but you convinced me. I take it you know how to look after ‘im then?” I didn’t, but I nodded my head anyway. This kind of thing was what the weblink was for. “Alrigh’, take the poor sod. I’m sure he’ll love you.”
With a smile on my face I handed him the money from inside my bra and allowed the monkey to swing up into my arms. He still seemed to be laughing at me, but now it was in a respectful kind of way.
“By the way,” I said just as the Gypsy began to back away with his whiskey-coffee into the darkness of his stall. “Does he have a name?”
“The Misses named him Solomon,” he said. “I think it fits him.”
“Thanks.” I looked at the monkey with a degree of amusement, and the look in his face told me that he hated his name just as much as I did. “Alright,” I said once we were out of earshot- the bar was much less appealing now- “How about Chiz, and then a cup of tea in the HeartBreak?”
He nodded, and it was settled. Chiz was mine, and tea was on the menu.
Words written today: 3,267.
Lines for today: most of them.
Just Beat It, Beat It
posted by Kitty Taylor at 10:38 pm
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