Somewhere down South

These are two small little exercises that I've decided go together. They were written about two months apart, and I feel a story coming out of them. I'm working on some character development and stuff in the meantime, and a plot and all that good stuff... Also praying it develops into something amazing.

As the summer wore on, I spent more and more time studying science and less time practicing the piano. The dandelions outside my bedroom window wore from a flaxen bed to one of dreamy cotton. Often, I was tempted to jump out of the window into them when I couldn’t fall asleep. I thought about how soft the dandelion fluff would feel on my skin, and how the hollow steams would bounce upon my body’s arrival, and how gravity would react against my weight, and how the pollen would soar on the wind, and eventually settle where the breeze placed it, fertilizing other dandelions, continuing the lives of many more dandelions to come.

My morning routine started with running the water through the old brass pipes in my dwelling to shower, and starting a pot of water to boil for coffee; putting one piece of wheat toast in the toaster, and getting a plate and the orange marmalade ready in the anticipation of the timer. I put the clothes on that I laid out the night before, and find a pair of shoes to make the outfit complete, usually my canvas red pumps that had belonged to my grandmother, oddly enough still in near new condition, even after the beating that her and my mother gave them. 

Before I do all this, I lay in bed for a while, reflecting, visualizing. Remembering how much I love the white paint chipping on all the door frames in the house, revealing dark wood; how the brass feet on my tub shine in the morning when the sun is coming in through the window, and how each individual stair creaks and groans when I put my weight down on them. 

That day in church in the middle of sermon, I saw his face peeking up from the one of the windows by the confession boxes. I told my mama that I was feeling dizzy and needed to step out for fresh air, and before I was all the way out the door he grabbed me by my right arm and we flew behind god's house, where my prayers came true: he kissed me right then and there like no other boy beforehand, well, like billy had, but it was still the kind of kiss that really did make me dizzy, and my lips felt loose and buzzed with the flutters of my heart. His hand was on the middle of my back, dragging his fingers up to my shoulder blades and down to the top if my butt. I had never been more out if my mind than I was now, and before I knew it his hand had come round to the side of my leg, and it slowly made it's way up my dress.