Chapter 1 - Candy Cigarettes

Crystal Jackson

February 22, 2006

Lit & Comp

Creative Writing #3



Candy Cigarettes



Lights danced over my head, leaving impressions on my near-waking eyes. At first they flashed an angry red, darkness then bright red falling over everything… until it wasn't the same anymore. The light was a warm yellow color, falling on my face and drawing me back from sleeping. What at first had felt like asphalt cooling in the night air was now actually tall grass, waving and grabbing up towards the stalks of sunflowers. What was once the industrial smell of rain and oil on blacktop was now the dusty smell of meadows and warm summers. The flowers dipped there heads, lazily in the warm light. Their movement sent ripples and curtains of sun down onto my face.

I just laid there for a while,wanting to soak in the beams of light. I don't remember getting here though, I don't remember much actually. Well, nothing after a loud noice that seemed huge in the back of my mind. I sat up slowly, feeling the soft ground underneath me, and catching patches of blue sky above me. I stood up then, my head not even reaching those of the towering flowers. I pushed my way through them, pushing leaves away from my face and heading off into some direction that seemed the most promising.

After a few minutes of walking though this sunflower forest, they started to clear and spread out a little more, and I found myself at the foot of a rolling green hill that all the golf courses in the world would have envied. The air smelled of fresh cut grass faintlly, and the ocean of sunflowers offered up their subtle, warm smell in the wind. I started to climb, wishing only to get a better view of where exactly I was. It was easy climbing, but I was ready for a rest as I reached the crest, and I sat down feeling the pull of the warm wind at my hair and clothes. I was wearing jeans and a light yellow cotton shirt with a smile-y face on it, forming the letter “o” in the word “Arizona” written across the front in black letters. It felt like it was made just for me, and worn in like a second skin. Brand new converse were laced up on my feet.

This was odd. I half remembered putting on a white shirt… this morning? Or was it a dream? It didn't settle right, and I shook it off and started to look around. The way I came was a sea of giant sunflowers, almost reaching farther away then I could see, and it ended at the base of more rolling green hills that held up the horizon. To my right, bone white rock broke the surface of the hill, shining bright in the mid-day sun. Little purple flowers where scattered agross them, in any place that would support them. Then at the peak of the boulders sat a figure clad in all white, in sharp contrast to the perfect blue behind it.

As I moved closer, I could see that the shape was actually a girl no older than I, in a white dress that caught and danced with the wind. When she saw me she laughed and called out my name, and waved me over, as if she had been waiting there in the sun. She stared over the side of the rocks as I made my way up. “It's about time you made it.” She said, “I've been here awhile, you know.” She seemed familiar, although I was sure that I hadn't met her before now. “I'm sorry?” I mumbled as I scrambled over the last rise in the rock. From up here the tumble of rock below looked like the bleached bones of something forgotten.

She just sad there as I marveled at the landscape, with her eyes closed against the sun, her dress sleeves darting about while she sat motionless. “What is this place?” I asked, worrying a smooth white pebble in my hands. I could smell the flowers around us, almost like lavender but warmer, like nutmeg almost, as well as the clean cotton smell of laundry lines. “I'm not quite sure, really.” She said, not seeming to move at all, except for her dark brown hair that was blown across her face. “I wasn't here one moment, and then I was. Seem's like I've been here forever though.” She laughed and tossesed her hair over her shoulders, “It's been a long time.”

“Right”, I thought, I swung my legs over the boulder, sending a shower of debris down the slope. The sound of pebbles hitting the rock below brought back another sound, the sound of glass falling around me, far away and a millienium ago but happening here and now, right behind my eyes. Then another sound, The screech of tires and someone yelling my name, loud over everything else. Then, finally, the sound of sirens as I lie still on rough pavement.

My eyes came open then, with a start and I must have gasped and shook because she looked at me with understanding and something like pity. I shook, and the warm air seemed colder now, and I could not seem to breath properly. When I could finally formulate words I asked, in a whisper, “I'm dead aren't I? Is this heaven I asked, looking around for the harps and clouds.” She laughed, sadly though, like she'd heard it all before. “We'll you are dead” she said, “At least until it's your time again…” She looked of towards the horizon, past the hills and said “This is heaven, sort of, it's Your place, Your reality, you decide things here.” I nodded, as if everything were sinking in, as if I understood any of what was going on. “And you?” I asked, “An angel, I would presume?” She laughed again, this time with what seemed to be happiness. “ Me? An Angel?” She shook her head, “No, not me. In fact They are all a bit arrogent and full of themselves if you ask me. No, I'm this place. I am your reality and I am bound to thee for ever. I am not human, not really, I just like this fom for the new arrivals.”

“I am really just a manifistation of what you think, what you wish your reality to be. This place can be anything you wish it to be. I'm the force that allows it to be so, I am your canvas, your book ampty pages and all. Anything you can create will be real here. You may change the world everyday, if you do so wish, and I will be here, as everything, as the wind, the sky, the earth. Everthing is from me, and everthing I am is formed by your mind.”

I started to cry then, quiet and deep. It was as if someone had taken my heart and shook it around, leaving it to settle heavy and sinking in my chest. “I know that this is a lot at first” She said, “But know that this is not the end of it all. Doorways, more like it. This is an In-Between place. Neither here nor there, so it has it's own joys, and.. it has its own pains.” She took the white rock that I had been rubbing in one hand, placed her hand over it and closed her eyes for a second. The rock began to move and when I opened my hand, a ladybug as red as emergency lights crawled there.

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