Ok, now before you read this story, understand that yes, it is long, that yes I am aware it is riddled with grammatical errors and needs work but fuck it, I want to post it anyway. If you dare to read it in it's entirety, let me know what you think.
Tara Twyler was of the opinion that her freckles looked like water stains. She was convinced that they just weren’t vibrant enough to be considered an actual freckle. She usually covered them with a thick layer of Ivory foundation but this morning a severe deadline at work had her on the train a good two hours earlier than normal and in order to not pass out at her desk, she decided to forgo any unneeded prep time. She was examining herself in the window of the train and after scrutinizing her freckles and rolling her eyes at the copper mess that was her hair, she noticed her right eye seemed more defined than her left eye. It was then she realized she had only put mascara on that one eye. She tried to remember what else may have forgotten to do but the only thing that came up hazy was if she had put deodorant under both arms. She remembered swiping underneath her left arm but a stubbed toe caused her to just move on to the next thing so she could make the train. She supposed it was her body’s way of balancing everything out and she snorted out loud at the thought.
An old woman who was already white knuckling her purse glared up at Tara while attempting to inch her narrow body further away from the seemingly crazy snorting girl. Tara ignored the urge to snort again and rolled her eyes fully aware that the person the woman should have been inching away from she was actually moving towards and he was having a full on conversation with a spray painted rock who's name apparently was Betty. Tara smiled and buried her head in her arm while muttering “Only in this city.” She sighed, tightened her grip on the muni pole and began mentally preparing herself for another Monday of work. She hoped she wouldn't be the only one on her team to be at work early and desperately hoped that Adam wasn't coming in early. Even thinking of his name had her blushing and her mental processes stammering. She had pining over him for a good three months now ever since he transferred in from the main office but had yet to speak more than one sentence to him. She sighed when she imagined his curly blond hair and somewhat geeky demeanor.
Tara had tried to come up with some creative conversation starters but whenever she got within four feet of him a strange feeling would come over her. It was almost like something was battling for control inside her head. She grew to understand to be wary of this feeling because it usually warned of a humiliating experience ahead. You see, Tara had an “issue” with her emotional and logical parts of her brain. The cause of all her trouble was the fact that they just didn’t get along. In fact, they had been feuding for her cognitive functions since an unfortunate incident involving Tara’s 7th grade crush, an ice skating rink, and a trip to the ER. Tara's emotional side thought it would be romantic to skate up to her crush all cute like and grab his hand while Tara's logical side pointed out that Tara didn’t know how to skate. The fight for control of her actions started and resulted in Tara's body literally fighting against itself and when she hit the ice face first her emotional side refused to relinquish control so she clawed her way to the horrified boy still intending to grab his hand. By the time logic finally regained control Tara had managed to drag herself across the rink and had the sense to grab his skate and scream “Help me.”
Ever since then any date she had been on usually ended with her breathing into a paper bag or running to the bathroom in order to orally expel the dinner that had just been paid for. Needless to say her love life was nonexistent.
A sudden horrid screeching of brakes, the muffled sounds of curses and an elbow to her ribs snapped Tara back to the present. More people crowded into the already cramped space and a flash of blond set Tara's heart racing. She counted to ten and convinced herself that the chances of Adam actually being on this particular train car was one and million.
“Hey! Hey Tara!”
Tara felt the blood drain from her face and frantically tried to find a way to hide.
“Tara! Hey! Excuse me.”
Adam was fighting against the crowd in order to come talk to her and she was frozen in fear. From some where in the back of her head emotion's surprised voice echoed
“Holy fuck, he’s talking to her!”
And logic answered “Astute observation genius.”
“Hey! Oh! Sorry!”
The foot that Adam had unfortunately stepped on belonged to the crotchety old lady and she was now glaring at Tara with an accusatory look on her face. Tara fought back the urge to start laughing hysterically and turned to meet Adam.
“Uh, hi.”
“Good morning!”
Adam's enthusiasm had logic thinking the boy must have be on drugs in order to be so chipper at this hour. Emotion was too busy fawning over Adam's boyish charm to realize that logic had taken control and was now forcing Tara to speak.
“What drugs did you take to make you so hyper this morning?”
Tara's eye twitched as she realized this just wasn't going to end well. Adam threw back his head and laughed.
“I usually go rock climbing in the morning so I'm a bit hyper by the time I get on the train. That and I've had about 4 cups of coffee.”
Tara's emotion attacked logic in order to gain control of the situation and while they fought Tara was on her own so the first thing that popped into to her head shot out of her mouth.
“I would kill for a cup of coffee. I mean.. not like really kill someone. That's bad... I mean I can't even kill a bug. It's the crunch that gets me. Then I always wonder if it has like a mate waiting for it at home or something...”
Tara stopped her rambling when she noticed one of Adam's brows arch. An awkward silence ensued. Adam cleared his throat, ran his hands through his hair and adjusted his glasses
“Yeah so this deadline is rough.”
Emotion and logic were duking it out to see who go to govern the next response so Tara was stuck with whatever words decided to fly out of her mouth again.
“Usually I like it rough. I mean... not like that! I would never say that to anyone that's above me at work.. I mean not “above me” like physically but like in the hierarchy that is our job.. cause you're like my boss so you're above me. In that way. I meant I like steep deadlines because they push everyone to be more creative.”
Adam's bemused expression took on the softer overtones of amused and he smiled.
“I know what you mean!”
As soon as that statement left his mouth three voices chimed together in an astonished “You do?”
Logic and emotion were baffled. Tara was near hyperventilation and hanging on his every word.
He noticed her astonished expression and continued.
“Well yeah. I mean I'm so lazy so I never get anything done even though I have all the time in the world. But when someone puts pressure on me thats when I produce some of my best stuff.”
Tara was enthralled but logic needed some clarification. So to Tara's horror another question slide past her lips without her control.
“What do you mean work? You just manage us don't you?”
Tara slapped a hand to her mouth to try and prevent anything else from escaping. Adam furrowed his brow at her and laughed again.
“I'm also freelance graphic designer. It doesn't pay the bills so rely on my “management skills” to bring home the bacon, or in my case 3-d software.”
Tara's logic immediately jumped to the conclusion that since he did graphic design he must be a bit of a geek and immediately she launched into geek talk.
“Really? What operating system do you use? I'm a fan of Linux myself but was a bit miffed that Redhat became Fedora so I switched to Suse but then Ubuntu came out and I've been using that ever since.”
Adam's face was blank and emotion wretched the controls out of logics proverbial hands and was trying to think of something witty to bounce back with but Tara had clamped her jaw shut and while her vocal chords were trying to follow emotions command the only noise emitting from her was steady “gghhhhh” that had the back of Tara's teeth vibrating like tuning forks.
Adam bent down and pat Tara on the back.
“Are you ok?”
Tara answered through her clenched teeth. “Super.”
Emotion decided to press the over rule button and Tara's jaw dropped open and a jumbled mess of words fell out.
“asdfnkalsdnf alsndfksadnfkln.”
Tara could feel tears forming in the corner of her eyes. She silently began pleading with what ever deity that popped into her head to please make this stop.
Now emotion and logic weren't alone in Tara's head but no one had interfered before but someone had had enough.
“OK! You two need to stop fighting and play nice because the cognitive functions are all spastic because they trying to keep the girl from wetting herself and throwing up at the same time. The poor girl is sputtering worse than a volkswagon Rabbit in a snowstorm so just let HER take control of her own damn actions and words otherwise you'll be visiting the colon for a very, very long time.
Logic and emotion had the sense to look perfectly placated and removed their hand from Tara's mental controls. They both took a step back and with their heads down they acknowledged their defeat. “Yes Mrs’ Common Sense.”
“Honestly, and the nether regions wonder why they’ve been so lonely lately.” Mrs Common sense marched up to mission control and switched it on to auto pilot.
“Do not make me come back over here!” With that Mrs. Common sense left mission control with random words trickling behind her as she marched down the hall and soon the only words left reverberating were “dumb” and “shits”.
Now that Tara had finally gained control of what she said she was handling herself just fine. Some of her responses were still more than a little spastic, but that was just Tara. Adam happened to like quirks so the next words out of his mouth nearly floored her.
“Do you want to get breakfast?”
Logic and emotions looked at each other, then looked at the control panel, then looked back at each other. Before either of them could dive in and take command Tara's voice rang through the air.
“I'd love to!”
Emotion and logic were stunned. She had never before answered with such ease and honesty. They sat down in defeat. Perhaps she really didn't need one or the other to control her so they both accepted their future duties would probably only involve a lot of advising..
Logic offered his white flag first. “Truce?”
Emotion got teary eyed and agreed. “Truce.”
As Tara and Adam got off downtown emotion couldn't help but notice how cute they were together.
“Say, logic, wouldn't it be quite if she grabbed his ha...”
“Don't even THINK about it!”
Thoughts?
Tara Twyler was of the opinion that her freckles looked like water stains. She was convinced that they just weren’t vibrant enough to be considered an actual freckle. She usually covered them with a thick layer of Ivory foundation but this morning a severe deadline at work had her on the train a good two hours earlier than normal and in order to not pass out at her desk, she decided to forgo any unneeded prep time. She was examining herself in the window of the train and after scrutinizing her freckles and rolling her eyes at the copper mess that was her hair, she noticed her right eye seemed more defined than her left eye. It was then she realized she had only put mascara on that one eye. She tried to remember what else may have forgotten to do but the only thing that came up hazy was if she had put deodorant under both arms. She remembered swiping underneath her left arm but a stubbed toe caused her to just move on to the next thing so she could make the train. She supposed it was her body’s way of balancing everything out and she snorted out loud at the thought.
An old woman who was already white knuckling her purse glared up at Tara while attempting to inch her narrow body further away from the seemingly crazy snorting girl. Tara ignored the urge to snort again and rolled her eyes fully aware that the person the woman should have been inching away from she was actually moving towards and he was having a full on conversation with a spray painted rock who's name apparently was Betty. Tara smiled and buried her head in her arm while muttering “Only in this city.” She sighed, tightened her grip on the muni pole and began mentally preparing herself for another Monday of work. She hoped she wouldn't be the only one on her team to be at work early and desperately hoped that Adam wasn't coming in early. Even thinking of his name had her blushing and her mental processes stammering. She had pining over him for a good three months now ever since he transferred in from the main office but had yet to speak more than one sentence to him. She sighed when she imagined his curly blond hair and somewhat geeky demeanor.
Tara had tried to come up with some creative conversation starters but whenever she got within four feet of him a strange feeling would come over her. It was almost like something was battling for control inside her head. She grew to understand to be wary of this feeling because it usually warned of a humiliating experience ahead. You see, Tara had an “issue” with her emotional and logical parts of her brain. The cause of all her trouble was the fact that they just didn’t get along. In fact, they had been feuding for her cognitive functions since an unfortunate incident involving Tara’s 7th grade crush, an ice skating rink, and a trip to the ER. Tara's emotional side thought it would be romantic to skate up to her crush all cute like and grab his hand while Tara's logical side pointed out that Tara didn’t know how to skate. The fight for control of her actions started and resulted in Tara's body literally fighting against itself and when she hit the ice face first her emotional side refused to relinquish control so she clawed her way to the horrified boy still intending to grab his hand. By the time logic finally regained control Tara had managed to drag herself across the rink and had the sense to grab his skate and scream “Help me.”
Ever since then any date she had been on usually ended with her breathing into a paper bag or running to the bathroom in order to orally expel the dinner that had just been paid for. Needless to say her love life was nonexistent.
A sudden horrid screeching of brakes, the muffled sounds of curses and an elbow to her ribs snapped Tara back to the present. More people crowded into the already cramped space and a flash of blond set Tara's heart racing. She counted to ten and convinced herself that the chances of Adam actually being on this particular train car was one and million.
“Hey! Hey Tara!”
Tara felt the blood drain from her face and frantically tried to find a way to hide.
“Tara! Hey! Excuse me.”
Adam was fighting against the crowd in order to come talk to her and she was frozen in fear. From some where in the back of her head emotion's surprised voice echoed
“Holy fuck, he’s talking to her!”
And logic answered “Astute observation genius.”
“Hey! Oh! Sorry!”
The foot that Adam had unfortunately stepped on belonged to the crotchety old lady and she was now glaring at Tara with an accusatory look on her face. Tara fought back the urge to start laughing hysterically and turned to meet Adam.
“Uh, hi.”
“Good morning!”
Adam's enthusiasm had logic thinking the boy must have be on drugs in order to be so chipper at this hour. Emotion was too busy fawning over Adam's boyish charm to realize that logic had taken control and was now forcing Tara to speak.
“What drugs did you take to make you so hyper this morning?”
Tara's eye twitched as she realized this just wasn't going to end well. Adam threw back his head and laughed.
“I usually go rock climbing in the morning so I'm a bit hyper by the time I get on the train. That and I've had about 4 cups of coffee.”
Tara's emotion attacked logic in order to gain control of the situation and while they fought Tara was on her own so the first thing that popped into to her head shot out of her mouth.
“I would kill for a cup of coffee. I mean.. not like really kill someone. That's bad... I mean I can't even kill a bug. It's the crunch that gets me. Then I always wonder if it has like a mate waiting for it at home or something...”
Tara stopped her rambling when she noticed one of Adam's brows arch. An awkward silence ensued. Adam cleared his throat, ran his hands through his hair and adjusted his glasses
“Yeah so this deadline is rough.”
Emotion and logic were duking it out to see who go to govern the next response so Tara was stuck with whatever words decided to fly out of her mouth again.
“Usually I like it rough. I mean... not like that! I would never say that to anyone that's above me at work.. I mean not “above me” like physically but like in the hierarchy that is our job.. cause you're like my boss so you're above me. In that way. I meant I like steep deadlines because they push everyone to be more creative.”
Adam's bemused expression took on the softer overtones of amused and he smiled.
“I know what you mean!”
As soon as that statement left his mouth three voices chimed together in an astonished “You do?”
Logic and emotion were baffled. Tara was near hyperventilation and hanging on his every word.
He noticed her astonished expression and continued.
“Well yeah. I mean I'm so lazy so I never get anything done even though I have all the time in the world. But when someone puts pressure on me thats when I produce some of my best stuff.”
Tara was enthralled but logic needed some clarification. So to Tara's horror another question slide past her lips without her control.
“What do you mean work? You just manage us don't you?”
Tara slapped a hand to her mouth to try and prevent anything else from escaping. Adam furrowed his brow at her and laughed again.
“I'm also freelance graphic designer. It doesn't pay the bills so rely on my “management skills” to bring home the bacon, or in my case 3-d software.”
Tara's logic immediately jumped to the conclusion that since he did graphic design he must be a bit of a geek and immediately she launched into geek talk.
“Really? What operating system do you use? I'm a fan of Linux myself but was a bit miffed that Redhat became Fedora so I switched to Suse but then Ubuntu came out and I've been using that ever since.”
Adam's face was blank and emotion wretched the controls out of logics proverbial hands and was trying to think of something witty to bounce back with but Tara had clamped her jaw shut and while her vocal chords were trying to follow emotions command the only noise emitting from her was steady “gghhhhh” that had the back of Tara's teeth vibrating like tuning forks.
Adam bent down and pat Tara on the back.
“Are you ok?”
Tara answered through her clenched teeth. “Super.”
Emotion decided to press the over rule button and Tara's jaw dropped open and a jumbled mess of words fell out.
“asdfnkalsdnf alsndfksadnfkln.”
Tara could feel tears forming in the corner of her eyes. She silently began pleading with what ever deity that popped into her head to please make this stop.
Now emotion and logic weren't alone in Tara's head but no one had interfered before but someone had had enough.
“OK! You two need to stop fighting and play nice because the cognitive functions are all spastic because they trying to keep the girl from wetting herself and throwing up at the same time. The poor girl is sputtering worse than a volkswagon Rabbit in a snowstorm so just let HER take control of her own damn actions and words otherwise you'll be visiting the colon for a very, very long time.
Logic and emotion had the sense to look perfectly placated and removed their hand from Tara's mental controls. They both took a step back and with their heads down they acknowledged their defeat. “Yes Mrs’ Common Sense.”
“Honestly, and the nether regions wonder why they’ve been so lonely lately.” Mrs Common sense marched up to mission control and switched it on to auto pilot.
“Do not make me come back over here!” With that Mrs. Common sense left mission control with random words trickling behind her as she marched down the hall and soon the only words left reverberating were “dumb” and “shits”.
Now that Tara had finally gained control of what she said she was handling herself just fine. Some of her responses were still more than a little spastic, but that was just Tara. Adam happened to like quirks so the next words out of his mouth nearly floored her.
“Do you want to get breakfast?”
Logic and emotions looked at each other, then looked at the control panel, then looked back at each other. Before either of them could dive in and take command Tara's voice rang through the air.
“I'd love to!”
Emotion and logic were stunned. She had never before answered with such ease and honesty. They sat down in defeat. Perhaps she really didn't need one or the other to control her so they both accepted their future duties would probably only involve a lot of advising..
Logic offered his white flag first. “Truce?”
Emotion got teary eyed and agreed. “Truce.”
As Tara and Adam got off downtown emotion couldn't help but notice how cute they were together.
“Say, logic, wouldn't it be quite if she grabbed his ha...”
“Don't even THINK about it!”
Thoughts?
No comments:
Post a Comment