A Year of Stories: April Stories

Half way there . . .

(Disclaimer: I'll try to make this short . . .

I feel I must have a disclaimer to tell everyone what my idea for this blog is. It's getting to the point where there are a lot of posts and I fear the idea of the blog is getting lost. I am a young writer and I'm still trying to learn this art. Like any art I love to hear constructive criticism about my work, which is why I am posting my earliest drafts of my writing. Some of these drafts I have only looked over once or twice at best, and they may not be the very best I can do, but nevertheless, I want to show them off.

I'm looking for constructive criticism while I'm working. I am also trying to show everyone my progress as I grow as an artist. Being an artist of any kind takes a lot of work and time to make your craft perfect. And I want to show everyone that a man with a learning disability and dyslexia can be a writer. I may not be the greatest writer in the world and I'm alright with that, but I can be a writer who inspires people to create. Even if I only inspire one person to become an artist, I want to inspire them because my friends and family have done that for me. They have never given up on me and I want to show them the gifts that God has given me.

So with that said, I hope you enjoy my work. I would love to hear your ideas on what you would do to make the writing better. Also, if a draft get removed it's because I'm working on it or I feel like it doesn't need to be on my blog anymore. Thank you for your time, I know reading can take a while. So I thank you again.

With a handshake,

Chase L. Currie)

 The Night the Moon got Lost

Draft_4

By: Chase L. Currie

To: Leanna King

My feet hurt; which is easy to explain why, since I have been standing on them for hours at a time today. I stand on them, smiling as people come and go at the place I work. Even if the people I smile at snarl at me or say rude remarks to me. I keep smiling because I have to; it's a part of the job.

I don't truly enjoy my job nor do I really enjoy the money I make from it. Money after all is the root of all evil, or so I've been told, and sometimes, I understand why they say that. I hate money. I hate it more than I hate the smell of my shoes after I take them off from standing on them for hours. I seem to never have enough money but I have enough stress and needs to keep me standing around for hours to make it.

The truth is if I could be somewhere else, I would be. I’d rather not be at my job, which just seems to not pay me enough to put up with the rude people. Sure, I can pay the bills but that’s all I can do. My check hits my bank account and in a flash all my money seems to be gone. I look at it with a smile as the number in my account slowly counts down to zero, again, my smile fades. I wonder where all that evil is going? I hope I’m not funding some terrorist cell I don't know about.

I'm sure you are asking yourself, if I can pay your bills, what more do I need? I need to be enthusiastic about my job. I need to not only pay the bills, but I need to love what I am doing. However, the sad truth of it all is I'm not. Not happy, not enthusiastic, with my job and my life. I think, like so many of us, I'm a little lost.

When I feel this overwhelming drag of my current state of feeling lost, I do one thing and one thing only. I pack a pipe, step outside, and look up at the sky. I watch the stars and the moon thinking to myself how lovely Heaven looks. How great it feels to be alone in the dark with my thoughts and my pipe. What more could I ask for? Maybe a chair.

As I reach the door, on this night, I notice something different. There is a light coming from the other side. I knew it was a full moon out, the best time to star gaze, but this light was brighter, pale but brighter than normal. I looked over to the switch which controls the light over the deck and it was off. I was not sure where this light could be coming from. Maybe it was the neighbor shining a flashlight at the door or maybe, there was a car in the driveway.

But the light, it was so pale.

I open the door, slowly; to make sure it isn't aliens. I've never meet an alien before and only seen movies about them. If you have not been to the movies lately then you might not know, but aliens are bad. All they want to do is kill us or destroy the world or put stuff in places we don't want them to. So I'm sure you can understand where my fear is coming from.

I step out onto the old wooden deck. The wood announcing to the world I was now outside. I was here and no matter where I walk, everyone would know it. I just hope the neighbors weren't sleeping with their windows open.

As I looked for the light, it was easy to find. The light was sitting in one of the chairs outside. I stood there for a moment, rubbing my eyes, keeping my pipe in my mouth. I blinked a couple of time. I wasn't too sure why I made myself blink more than once. Everyone seems to do it in movies and books when there is something in front of them they can’t believe they are seeing.

I blinked and I still couldn't believe it. The moon was sitting in my chair, smoking a pipe, looking a little disoriented.

“Hmmm . . .” I started to say. I wasn’t sure what word would fall from my lips next. What do you say to the moon? I couldn't yell at him for being in my chair. Even if he wasn't supposed to be and was supposed be in the sky. I didn't even know the moon was a ‘him’. I've always read it as being a ‘her’, this was news to me. And even more news to me was the moon smokes a pipe. So I ask the only thing I could, “Do you have a light?”

I left my lighter inside and I was not about to go back in for it.

“Oh sure,” said the moon, handing me his lighter.

“May I?” I ask, taking the lighter and pointing at a chair next to him.

“Oh, by all means,” he said back to me, moving his legs so I could sit down. I sat beside the moon, lighting the tobacco in my pipe, taking in the smoke slowly, watching the cherry burning bright. I had to make sure I did it just right so the cherry would sit for a while in the pipe and I could pull the smoke for a good bit.

“Thank you,” I said handing his lighter back. I looked up to make sure the moon wasn't in the sky and the spot where it should be was black. The moon was, for a fact, sitting on my deck.

“I love your pipe,” he said.

“Thanks,” I reply. “My sister and my brother-in-law got it for me in Turkey. Apparently, the more I smoke from it, the darker the stone will turn.” He eyes the Arabian looking face on the front of the pipe seeing the stone still being a bright white. Then he smiles a little, not saying a word, and turns back to studying the area in which he was in.

“So, hmmm . . . what you doing down here?” I ask, letting the smoke pour from my mouth.

“I am a little lost,” he replies.

“Where are you trying to get to?” I ask him.

“I'm trying to get to the Queen's building,” he told me, looking over at me, smiling. “I have someone I have to meet there.”

“Oh, well, lucky for you,” I said back, smiling as well, “you are not too far away from uptown. I can take you there if you like? It’s only about a twenty minute or so drive.”

“That’s good to know,” he said sitting back. “But I'm in no rush, I have time to kill.”

“So who do you have to meet there?” I ask quickly followed by a short statement. “If you don't mind me asking.” I know it's rude to pry into someone else’s’ business but it's not every night you get to meet the moon. I had to know who he was meeting. I wonder if it is an angel or the devil or God or aliens.

“The sun,” he said and the light around him brightens. “I can't wait to see her.”

“The sun is a ‘her’?”

“Ah yes, she is and she is the most lovely thing I've ever set my eyes on,” he said, smiling, looking up. “She is greater than all the stars in Heaven.”

“Are you and her, you know,” I asked leaning in, “together?”

“We are,” he said looking over at me. I could see it in his eyes, love. The kind of love you only read about or only see once in your life. The love you see and you can't help but be envious of. You wish, you knew what it was like. Because the kind of love that sits in his eyes makes all the other love you felt in your past fall short. And you wonder what that kind of real love feels like. I try to stop my heart for longing for that kind of love. I try to fight back the envy in my eyes. I was sure he saw it but I smile, because seeing that kind of love made me believe that one day I could have it. One day we all can have it.

“I see her rise and fall each and every day, “ the moon told me. “I chase after her and I long for her.” The love never fades from his eyes. “It's a game we are doomed to play forever. We run from each other to never hold one and another; it's the rules of fate. But - - -” he lift his a hand, taking his pipe from his lip. “Once a year we are allowed to have a few hours with each other. Once a year we are allowed to hold each other and that is tonight.”

“Oh wow,” I yell jumping to my feet. “Is she waiting for you right now? We should get going; we don't want to miss her.” Look, I can’t tell you why I was so happy for him. He said his short story to me and my heart jumped for joy. My heart wanted them to have every moment of every second with each other. I couldn't for the life of me understand why he was sitting around waiting. I couldn't understand why he wasn’t jumping to his feet, leaping into my truck and speeding down the road to the sun. I couldn't understand.

“Sit back down,” he calmly said waving his hand for me to do so. “She’s not there yet and I like the wait. To tell you the truth I'm a little afraid of being with her again.”

“Why?” I ask sitting back down. I move the pipe from one corner of my lips to the other, pulling in some more smoke. “Why would you be afraid of seeing her?”

He laughs and I wasn't sure what was funny. Was there a joke somewhere in the world he heard but I didn't? Or maybe he was laughing because I didn't understand him. But the laugher faded and he started to say, “I dream about her every night. I dream about the way she smells, the way her skin is a burning warmth to the touch and her eyes are bright and gold. I dream about every time I touch her, she giggles a little or when I kiss her, she always adds a little kiss after a long one. She grins, holding my face with both her hands before we kiss each time. I dream about this every night. And yet, I'm afraid she won't live up to my dreams, how funny is that?”

It's not funny at all. In fact, it's a very bad joke but I seem to understand where he is coming from. I didn't know how to tell him I understood. You build someone up in your mind. You dream about them every night for days, weeks, almost a year. You play little plays in your head with them and when you get the chance to act those plays, you freeze. What if everything you scripted goes wrong? What if they aren't the person you thought they were? What if they changed? And for a moment you can't face them. You step back and you tell yourself the dream, the actor is better.

I understand the joke, I just don't think it's very funny but I understood.

My laugh tells him I feel a little sad for his fear and then I ask, “Does the sun taste like an orange?” So it wasn't uplifting like it should have been, but it was the only thing that came to my mind.

The moon chuckles and said, “Kind of, she taste like an orange cream popsicle.”

“Man, I would make out with her the whole time.”

He laughed again. “I don't dream about that,” he said. “I mean, I know what she tastes like but it's never the same in my dreams.” He looks over at me, thinking for a moment. “In my dreams she doesn't really act like herself, you know?”

“Not at all,” I said, smiling. “I've never met the sun before.”

“Right, right,” he replies, waving away my sarcastic comment. “She’s a wildfire. You never know what she going to do or what she’s going to say. Sometimes, she dances for hours in my light and then other times she throws fire balls at you for the hell of it.”

“Sounds a little painful.”

“Nah, it's kind like a snowball, just with fire,” he tells me. “But she never acts that way in my dreams. She acts different in my dreams like she’s not real or something.”

“Sounds like a good reason to go and see her.” And that was hitting the nail on the head. We don't want people to be like the actors in our heads because if they did, it wouldn't be them. We want someone to be themselves and not the version of what we see them as.

He stood up, looking around and then asks me, “Which way?”

“I can take you,” I told him. I wasn't about to miss seeing what the sun looked like when she came to earth. And who doesn't want the moon riding in their truck? We climbed into my truck and off we went. I pulled up to the stop sign near my house and beside me was a cop, who looked dumbfounded to see the moon sitting in the passenger seat. We waved at him and he blinked a couple of times as I drove away. The cop didn't follow for I was sure he was sitting there still not sure what he just saw.

I jumped on 485 as I put my foot down harder. The truck screamed down the road and the moon held his head out laughing as we went. “This is great!” He yelled back at me. I just pushed the speed up some more making the wind beat harder against his face. He just laughed more.

Finally after about ten minters of the moon acting like a dog he pulled his head back into the cab. His hair shooting wildly off the side of his head and for the first time I understood how everyone else saw me when I came up to them without my hair done. I smile, knowing I was never going to tell anyone how stupid I look.

I hate combing my hair so much.

“I wish we had cars in the sky,” he said,

“It's not bad,” I tell him, “but driving sometimes gets old.”

“Couldn't imagine how.”

We sat in silence for a few moments and then he asked me, “What are your dreams?” He asks as he looked up at the sky, at all the stars, thinking about what tomorrow would bring him. His eyes yelling the same thing mine has done so many times before. How do I make my life work?

“Well, last night I had a dream I found a dollar,” I said, trying to keep my eyes on the road and not him. “And then I knew someone out there was dreaming they lost a dollar.”

“Wrong kind of dream.”

“Ah,” I quietly reply, “I have many dreams but the big ones, is that what you want to know about?”

“I want to know the dreams that drives your life. The ones you wake up for everyday and you tell yourself every step forward or backward is for those dreams,” he said, never looking over at me.

“Right. I was afraid so,” I said, sighing. “I dream of . . . a simple life, I like to think. I want to teach art. I want to paint for me. I want to write books and sell one or two. I want to have a wife with a house, somewhere off the beaten path. I want to make love to her every night. I want to see the world with her and then I want to spend the later part of my life in the mountains. With my wife and I writing, painting and playing with our grandchildren all summer. A simple life, a simple dream.”

“A lovely dream,” he said, looking over at me with a grin on his face. “Do you feel like you are close to having it?”

“Not at all,” I told him with a smile on my face. “I'm so far from that dream I can't even see it anymore. I keep waiting for it to start and then I have to keep telling myself it has.”

“Would you compromise your dreams?”

“I hope not,” I said. “I know as I grow up, I'll change but I would hope, I would never lose them. I know, I won't because I fear losing them so much. I know, I might have to compromise the way I get to them but I'll always have them.”

I keep my eyes on the road, the headlights playing against the ground. I think only about the lights and the road. I don't see the cars beside me or the people eying the moon. I keep looking down the hood of my truck into the lights, hoping as I speed down the road it is the path forward to my dreams.

“I've seen so many people in my life compromise or give up or stop on their dreams. I get so angry with them for it. I fight to not be like them and every time I wake up alone or poor or still in the same bed, I feel like I am them. Every time I write and post something online I feel like a fool and a loser. I feel like my dreams are just that . . . dreams,” I confess to him.

“But you keep going, right? You keep trying to reach for your dreams,” he said, leaning over to me.

“I do,” I said. “I fear giving up but I won't give up because who knows what might happen. I might wake up one day and my dreams have come true. Or I might wake up and keep having to reach for them. But I will never, I mean NEVER, give up on them.”

“Good,” he said, sitting back, looking up at the sky. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

“What about you, what are your dreams?” I ask, not too sure if the moon has dreams or not.

“My one and only dream is to live a life with the sun,” he said, smiling as we enter downtown. I slowed, and looked around but I could tell he knew where we were. He could feel the heat from the sun and I turn down North Tryon heading for the bright light down the street. He looked out the window as I pulled up to the front of the Queen's building. And there, standing with her hands behind her was the sun. Her hair reaching down to the ground, burning a warm blonde and then fading into a raging red.

My eyes didn't hurt, like they should have. She lessens her power, the brightness of her will. She stood there for a moment, eying her lover, smiling from ear to ear. I'm not sure she even saw me.

 The moon slowly got out of the truck, thanked me and turned just in time for the sun to jump into his arms. They kissed like the long lost lovers they are. She winked at me, thanked me, and they stepped up to the top of the building. I sat there in my truck for a few moments, looking up at the building, seeing the moon and the sun dance. I sat there until I saw the cop pull up behind me and then I drove away, knowing the moon has had his dream for just a moment.

 The Lion in the Sky

By: Chase L. Currie

“I love you . . .”

I have always loved you, even though you do not know who I am, I still love you. I have seen you every night as you wish on me many times. I smile down at you when you wish for silly things. I cry with you when you wish for a moment of peace in a life falling down around you. I wish onto you the same thing you wish to me. I wish I could touch you, smell you, and kiss you, but I cannot. It might be because of fate or the way the rules of life are written. It might be because you are so far below me and I am so high in the sky. I don't know why. I do not care why because all I do is wish for you.

And so as it might be I am doomed to never sit beside you. I watch in horror as the passing nights come and go and you fall deeper into your darkness. Until this very night, at the bottom of your wine bottle, you cry out for me. Cry out the wish all lovers make.

I pull at my cage. I reach for you. I fight to break free and I fall to the world to save your life.

I sit my place on the ground next to you. Your face is hiding behind your hands trying to stop the rushing flood of tears. I sit beside you in still silence, my big golden eyes fixated on your long brown hair. How do you manage to make your body seem so small? Your knees in your chest and your arms wrapped around them as you cry your pain away. You seem so tiny to me, it would take nothing for me to carry you away. And trust me when I say I gave it some thought.

Finally, after I made slight sound you left your head and your blue eyes fill with shock. “There is a lion next to me,” you said, although I am sure it was to me. You might have been talking to yourself. You had to tell yourself what you were really seeing. “A lion with blue and white fur,” you told yourself. It is a shock and I understand. After all you have never really seen a lion before, not a blue and white that is.

I smile as a lion can smile, “I am much more than a lion, my love,” I said.

“And you can speak . . .” Your voice said filling with fear but at the same time my ears have never heard something so beautiful. I have heard the singing of angels and yet, your voice moves my heart to tears. I wanted to cry but I did not. A lion is strong and a crying lion . . . is, well, something no one wants to see.

“I can,” I reply. Your feet move, telling me you want to jump away. You want to run through the woods, screaming for your life but you didn't. A part of you believes if you didn't run than I wouldn't eat you. The beast part of me wouldn't see it as a game if you didn't run. But the other part of you knew sitting still didn't matter much either. If the beast part of me was strong than I would eat you anyways.

“I will not eat you,” I said, as you scooted away from me every so often, hoping I wouldn't notice. I stood up, putting my face next to your while saying, “I am not that kind of lion.”

“What kind of lion are you?”

“Not a real one,” I said and you could hear or feel I wasn't breathing. I didn't need to breathe because I was not a part of this world.

“Then what are you?” A fair question as your body relaxed a little. If I wasn't a real lion then I couldn't eat you. Although, if I was you, I would wonder if I was a demon or an angel. But then again you don't believe in those things, do you?

“I am,” I said looking up at the sky, where the little star should be. You know the one, the one you wish on. “Someone who always listens to you but never talks back.”

“Are you?” You question, raising an eye brow but the answer was easy to see, so you did not ask it. “Can I touch you?” You ask instead.

“By all means,” I said and you reached out touching my cold fur. I smile and my fur becomes warmer like hot running water, you continued to pet me.

“Why did you come down here for me?” You ask, your voice creaking from the overwhelming feeling of joy mixed with a tad bit of sadness. Sadness, I believe you felt because no one else can wish on me if I am on earth with you.

“You wish for someone to be here with you,” I said, as you stop petting me, looking me in the eyes. “And I wish to be that person.”

“I wish for someone I could love,” you said, “someone who would never leave me. A person who knew what they wanted and what they wanted was me. Me, and nothing more. We could wake up every morning holding each other, then have some tea together and need nothing else in life. That is what I wished for. I can't wake up with a lion. I don't even know if a lion can drink tea.”

“Well,” I reply, keeping the smile on my face, “if you had a really big bed I could wake up with you and I really do love tea.”

The grin across your red lips made me wish for you to smile. I could only imagine what your smile must look like. I was sure it would send me into tears of joy. What more could I ask for then to see the person I love smile? There are no greater joys on Earth or in Haven then a smile from a loved one.

“My bed is not that big,” You jokingly said.

“Ah, yes, but here I am now and you are not alone.”

“I guess I am not, huh?” You said, looking up at the sky. “What is it like up there?”

I followed your head and studied the sky, seeing the spot where I should be. “It's big,” I said. “So big it's easy to get lost. You forget there are other people out there. You look around and all you can see is darkness until you look down and beneath your eyes is a world full of burning lights. A world of people looking back at you, whispering all kind of dreams to you. So you smile and you wish,” I look back down at you, “to make every one of those wishes come true.”

“But you can't make them all come true,” you told me with a hint of a pessimistic tone.

“I made this one come true, didn't I?”

You rolled your head over to me as I lie down. You fall to the ground beside me, studying my eyes, my head, my powerful body. “Why me then? Why did you come all the way down here for me?” You ask.

“Because,” I said, “I love you. I've always loved you.”

“How?” You ask. “You don't even know me.”

“I wouldn't say that,” I reply. “I remember when you were six and you wish you could have a puppy and the next weekend your father got you one. I remember the first kiss you had under the moon light, you were eleven. Then I remember when you wished for me to make the pain in your chest go away, a boy just broke up with you, after you gave him everything you had. And I remember when you made love on the roof in Paris while you were spending a year there. And that man wasn't even your boyfriend. You see, I have been with you all your life. I have watched you, understood you, and believed in you. I have loved you more then you know, then anyone else.”

“But I know nothing about you.”

“What do you need to know? Other than the fact I want to love you and I just ask you do the same thing back,” I said to you, as the smile fades from my lips, your eyes said unspeakable things to me. You were lost in my words, wishing to believe them but the blackness in you said not to. It whispers to you, telling you I was a liar. My words were dark lies and you should not fall for them. You smile but I could not tell if the smile was a lie or not.

“You have always loved me,” you said, “but will you always do so?”

“I will,” I told you. “There is no deed you can commit which will rip my love from you. I may not always be happy with the action you chose to take but I will always love you.”

“I don't know,” you said sitting up. “That is a tall order to fill.”

“Might I remind you,” I grin. “You are talking to a blue lion from the stars. You have no idea what orders I can fill.”

“Fair enough. So what do we tell people when I walk around with you?”

I sit up, looking up at the stars, not wishing to tell you what will happen but I must. So I speak the words that will fill you with sadness, a sadness that cuts at me like knife against my flesh. “When the sun rises, I will return to the sky,” I told you, not looking at your eyes.

“So you're going to leave me?”

“I must do so,” I said.

You shot to your feet, throwing your hands to your side, and tears rushing down your face. “You're going to leave me alone! Alone, again! You out of everyone know how much I fear being locked inside myself. You know how much I need someone like you in my life. So why did even show yourself, if you're just going to leave me, like everyone else?”

I understand it was the wine talking but it did not make it any easier to hear. Your words cut deeper than they should. “I am leaving you because I have to,” I said. “Those are the rules, but know I am waiting for you. Every night, I will return to this spot. Every night, I will drop from the Heavens to be by your side. And you must understand I will never truly leave you. I will always be here.”

“How do I know you are not lying?”

“You don't know that,” I said, looking up at you with all the belief in me. Hoping you can see that I am telling you the truth. “You'll just have to have faith in me.”

“I don't have faith in people anymore,” you scream at me.

“But I'm not a person, I'm a lion.”

You smile and the smile was the brightest thing I have ever seen. You smile because you understood the joke and the fact it was true. I was like no other person on Earth because I wasn't of Earth. When I gave you my word I meant it. I am going to return to you every night.

You sat down beside me, putting your arm around me, petting me. We talked the night away. I told you about more stars. You told me about what your life was like during the day. We talked until the sun came up and I returned home.

I waited for the next night and went down to the world, but you were not there. The boy who broke your heart the very night we met was sitting at your house when you return home. You fell back in love with him; the kiss was hard and long. You stepped in to your house, shutting the door, falling for him again.

You never came back to me but I still waited because I love you and I will always be here for you. I will never step away from you because I know, you will always need me. It may only be for a couple of hours. It may only be to cry on my shoulder when life is falling part. I understand that and I understand your smile, your laugh and your love is for someone else and I am just a wishing star. But I will always be here because for you. Because you always have another wish to tell me. And . . .

I love you . . .