The Marzipan Thread

[Rachaman]

Thats Beautiful. I don't really have a story to tell.....I wish i had something interesting....

But I'm sure you DO have something, you just haven't realized that it is yet.

Did you want to hang around in the land of the dead forever? You better come up with something!

[Mockingbird]

What a splendid thread, and what a darling story.

This is something that really scared me the first time I read the book, the idea that I might not have stories to tell the Harpies when it was my turn.

I can't quite think of one as vivid as yours at the moment, I will try to recall one.

[DustDaemon]

Did you want to hang around in the land of the dead forever?

So longs as it is quiet! Well i suppose there is this, not much of a story mind, :

When i was 9; me, my brother and my father went on holiday to Mexico, Cancun. (my mother didn't join us as she presently had had a large row with my father, preffering no to be in his presence)

The hotel was fabulous, and had many pools, but we personally found the beach a much better prospect. So we packed and travelled to 100 or so yards to the pearl white sand. Me, being 9, presently sprinted towards the waves, selectivly deffering to notice these were, extremly large waves. So soon, my brother had joined me.

Then we tested each other. We, recognising the tremendous force of the waves, were to stand as long as possible against the waves. Now, my brother, stocky and well built was easily able to withstand them, though he still fell under the force on many an occasion. Me, being weedy, thin and considerably less fed, fell to the power of the waves.

As the tides tossed me as a rag-doll to the floor, my father on a few yards away was laughing. And to be honest so was i. But then i was dragged back into the sea. Not far but, still laughing, attempted to rise.

But, just like a comically portayed swing, as soon as i stood, the waves forced me bck down, my borther, experiencing the same, was also laughing, but he could resist as i could not.

So after 5 minutes of futile attempts of escape from the ever powerfull pull of the ocean, i began to tire. As my small body began to cramp, i had the odd sensation of mixed mirth and sobs. Eventually i stopped trying to get back up and dug my nails into the sand to try and stop myself being sucked into the current.

I was no longer laughing now and was prenstly crying, slowly being sucked further into the sea. My brother and father, still laughing failed for a long time to realise i was crying my eyes out and being slowly more enveloped in the sea.

Eventually, after long struggles to cry out to my father, he realised something was wrong. He is an accomplished swimmer, previously, his preffered choice of career was to be a life guard or something similar. He managed to drag me from the waves and dried me off. Despite the ocean being warmer considerably than my native English waters, i was shivering and was left to dry in the sun.

Long since, its is humourous again, but i can't help but revere the power of the ocean.

[Rachaman]

That was a great story, DustDaemon! It is always eye opening to find yourself tested, and having your family so close and yet not able to realize you needed help is so like everyone's worst nightmares

It reminds me of a similar experience that I will share.

But first - this thread was dead for months! Come on, people, did you want to hang out in the land of the dead forever!

And now...

I traveled to the Hawaiian islands three times during my childhood, and each had something memorable. I will share the first one now, and save the other two for later.

The first time was when I was very young I believe I was only 6, so most of that trip is lost to me, but this one event remains.

I can remember how warm the water was. It was also crystal clear and filled with beauty, but those memories I know come more from my later trips. From this first time what I remember most was the warmth.

I loved to swim in the ocean, and body surf. My sister was still very little, so my mother was putting all her time into watching her, and my father was watching me play on the edge of the surf.

Only, perhaps not so much, for the currents of the ocean don't only move in and out, they also carry across the land. I played in the water for who knows how long, to my young mind it seemed like all the time there was, which is to say it was 'now' just as it always was, but eventually I was tired and went to look for the bright red umbrella that I knew was over my parents' blanket.

So I walked up the beach. No umbrella, or rather, lots of umbrellas but no red ones, or no red ones that I knew. And then I realized, with amazing clarity and shock, that my parents were lost.

Yes, that is exactly how I remember thinking of it, my parents were lost. They were clearly not where I wanted them to be, and so they had certainly left the appointed spot. I walked up to a man with a beard sitting alone.

"My parents have gotten lost." I said.

He smiled, though at the time I did not know why. I was lucky, as he was a kind man, and he took me up the beach and listened to me describe just where the spot should be that had so rudely moved away. He ended up taking me to a police kiosk of some kind, and through one way or another, my father was found. He walked up to me with such serious eyes.

"Daddy." I said, "I'm so glad you aren't lost any more."

He burst into a laugh that I can still hear.

[bee]

AHA! Inspiration.

I read this entire thread but couldn't come up with any story that was good and not really really long.

But lost stories. I can do stories about being lost. I got lost like crazy when I was little. The thing was, I was never lost. My parents thought I was lost, but I always knew where I was, so I was fine.

When I was maybe 6 or 7, I got "lost" in a grocery store. My mom was in one aisle and I sort of wandered off and was over by the cottage cheese somewhere (I distinctly remember the cottage cheese). These two old ladies (probably in their 20s or 30s... old to a 6 year old!) came by and asked me if I was lost. I'd been told, though: Never ever talk to strangers! So I didn't. I absolutely refused to say anything to them. They took me up to the front of the store to page my mom, but I refused to tell them my name. They tried guessing ("Is it Lindsey?" "Is it Rachael?") but I just shook my head over and over. Finally my mom came up and found me.

Not quite as powerful as the past few stories, but one I remember clearly.

[Rachaman]

AHA! Inspiration.

I read this entire thread but couldn't come up with any story that was good and not really really long.

Thank you Bee! I see I was not alone in realizing that my parents were the ones who were lost.

But long is ok - lets hear the long ones! You can serialize them if you'd like - just make sure you end on a really good cliff hanger

[the31337ofPurgatory]

There are some amazing stories in this thread (I haven't gotten the chance to read all of them yet) but here's my really cliche cute story.

In the summer between Freshman and Sophomore year I asked this girl, Kayla, to go steady with me (you know how it is with that age kids - we ask a girl to go steady with us then do nothing but hug for like 3 weeks).

So we hung out on rare occasions. I took her to see a concert downtown (Days Away, JamisonParker, The Academy Is..., and Mae) one day. We had a blast, it was a great show...and my mom pulled up at her house to drop her off (I was still too young to drive), she kissed me on the cheek as she got out of the car. It felt good haha.

Then she left for a three-week trip to Australia and New Zealand. It sucked. While she was gone, I wrote a poem about her while she was gone which you can read at the bottom of this post.

When she got back, we hung out some more and on fourth of July I went ot her house to hang out before going to this park to watch the fireworks. We watched "Never Been Kissed." This was particularly ironic because Kayla had never been kissed before and there was her boyfriend watching the movie with her (I had been kissed before, but that's beside the point). Later on that night, I gave her her first kiss...during the finale of the fireworks show.

I know it's totally cliche. haha

here's the poem I wrote her. I called it Growing Up when I wrote it...but I later changed it to "Why Can't we go back to Kindergarten Before Everyone hated me." Later on....I changed the words around and put it to music and called the song that emerged "Death By Cashregister." you can hear the song here: http://myspace.com/thestyrofoamcupsymphony (The styrofoam cup symphony was the old name of the band I was in last year, we later changed it to Meet On Denali and wrote better songs haha. Death By Cashregister was our first song ever the recording on the above myspace is about two years old and it sucks but whatever). anyway - here's the original form of the poem.

Growing Up

You had so much more attention from me in my perception of a cliffhanger ending at the school of useless facts for the junkies getting high in bathroom stalls and the kids like me cutting feelings into walls.
It’s just a fifteen minute drive away, but we’d rather exchange notes in the stars.
Timeout time is over now, go back and join the other kids at recess. Sit in your little corner all alone thinking “of all the things to pass the time,” until the cutie in the third row second seat comes to relieve all the stress. So you can drive a good fifteen minutes away from the school of no ideas. It’s fifteen minutes closer to growing up……

[bee]

First kiss during fireworks. That's pretty cool for her... I didn't know anyone used the phrase "go steady" anymore.

Came up with another story. More personal. And longer. I remembered a "essay" I had to write in an English class in the style of Catcher in the Rye--basically a realization or loss of innocence theme. Most people made stuff up but I didn't and I'm trying to find that for you all.

Anyways. This isn't that story. This is:

Last summer my boyfriend went away to a camp for a week and we'd been having problems and during that time I fell rather out of love with him. At the same time I was spending more and more time talking to another guy friend of mine, who was depressed and seriously lacking in self-esteem and needed someone to love him, to prove to him that he was worthy of being loved.

So for a while we sort of jokingly flirted. After a bit, things got better with my boyfriend. However I was still pretty into this other guy and rather confused about the whole scenario. I wanted to help him out, but I was back in love with my boy (or rather realized I was never out of love, just rather disillusioned about it).

Finally it was decided that, at 17, he needed to at least have been kissed. He'd had a girlfriend, but they never kissed, not least brought on by his fear that he wouldn't know how. Somehow it came up that I could kiss him.

Strangely enough, he and my boyfriend worked out an agreement that I could kiss him and my boyfriend would understand that it held no romantic meaning but was simply an effort to help a very close friend.

We went on a two "dates" to the movies. On the second one, we sat through most of the credits and he turned to me and said, "I suppose we ought to work on this."

So I kissed him. He, by the way, was a terrible kisser, but I've heard he's improved. If nothing else, it absolutely reassured me beyond any doubt of the connection I have with my boyfriend. A kiss is just lips touching unless you make it something more. I kissed this friend and I felt nothing. It was just a weird social interaction. The next day I made my boyfriend go out for ice cream with me and I kissed him quite a lot. Every single time, it elicited physical and mental reactions from me.

And the moral of the story is: Make sure your mother never finds out about situations like this or she will likely be furious and ask about your future intentions in prostitution. (As mine was and did.) Also... It's best to kiss who you love.

Edit: /me decides this story is slightly incredibly personal and reveals a very bad side of me (possibly the side with no moral core).... yikes.

[Rachaman]

Bee-

I don't think you have no moral code. If you had done it behind your boyfriend's back, that would have been wrong, but the way it was done was, while out of the ordinary, not immoral. And you allowed it to teach you something important- I think your mother has less to worry about than she may think.

I was very like your friend once, and had a similar experience. But..

I still owe two more Hawaiian adventures, but not tonight.

[the31337ofPurgatory]

Bee, I don't really use the phrase "go steady" either....but with all the different slang terms for dating I couldn't really find one that portrayed my situation (or one that everyone would understand) better than "going steady" haha.

[bee]

Found my loss of innocence essay... Long, and possibly a badly formatted copy and paste job... But hope you enjoy (and hope the harpies enjoy):

It’s the flying that always sticks in my head. Sometimes it seems odd that in fifteen years of living with him, only a few memories of that time really stick in my head. I remember best the days of the sprites and unicorns, the clerics and the warlords. We created our own fantasy world where anything could be real, my brother and I. He always told me I was part sprite and that I could fly. He was the only person who ever told me my most unrealistic dreams were true. He would push me on the rickety, old metal swing in the neighbor’s yard and up, up, up I would go. Past the grape vines and up between the branches of the pecan tree I would fly, and then closing my eyes, I would swoop back down, imagining wings carrying me through the air.
***
I felt sick to my stomach and I thought I was going to throw up. I reclined the seat and stared at the beige ceiling. Breathe in, breathe out. Think of good things, I told myself. Pretend not to be here. Breathe in, breathe out. I was sweating. My hands were shaking as I forced myself to open the door a crack. I could hear my brother talking, but his voice was muffled. I peeked out the window. A fat man in swim shorts laughed, his rolls jiggling disgustingly. I couldn’t stand to look at him anymore. Watching as the short, dark-haired man handed my brother a lighter, I felt my stomach turning again.
I lay back in the seat, staring out the opposite window. Grey squirrels darted around, jumping between the trees and scrambling on the ground. They were oblivious to the actions of the people next to them, the dealings that affected me so much.
***
It was totally secret at first, I suppose. It wasn’t like he told anyone, at least not that I knew. At first it simply seemed like he was acting strange once in a while. He’d come home and be starving, or he’d go straight to bed instead of watching his favorite T.V. shows. I don’t really know when my brother first started, so I don’t know how long it was after that that the bigger changes started taking place. Every single time he left the house, he would come home later than he’d said he would. Sometimes he’d slip in and get away with it, sometimes he wouldn’t. It was the nights that were the worst. The sound of his car, noisy from a broken muffler, would be the warning. The door would slam, and he would tromp upstairs.
With a forced calm, my mom would call him into the bedroom, just across the hall from mine. That’s when the yelling would start.
“Where have you been?” My mom would still be trying to stay calm.
My brother would be more truly relaxed, “Around.”
“I thought I told you to come straight home after your class.” Sometimes it was his college class; sometimes it was just out with friends.
“Yeah, I know.” His footsteps would move down the hall towards the bathroom.
My mom would roar his name and he would nearly snarl back “WHAT?”
“Give me your keys, I don’t want you driving anywhere anymore.” She never followed through with her threats, she would always let him drive again or go out with friends or whatever privilege she claimed to take away.
“No! I was just out. What’s wrong with that?” Their voices would get louder, each trying to drown out the other.
I always wondered, as I turned up my stereo to drown out the noise, what was he thinking? Why was he doing this? Didn’t he know the yelling would only make it worse? I guess he couldn’t think straight, or perhaps he just wouldn’t.
It wasn’t long after that that the rumors started reaching me. Talk of things I willed not to be true. I kept my ears firmly shut. Shut, that is, until the last day of summer, when it was my eyes that I needed to shut.
***
It was steaming hot in the car. I felt like I was melting. That wouldn’t be so bad, I reasoned. Melted. Gone. Away from here. I didn’t really want to, but something made me look out the window. My brother had lit whatever was in the glass pipe and was passing the lighter off to the man in the shorts. I started to duck back down, but they were heading towards the house.
Something possessed me to follow. They walked towards the door and I lingered in the driveway, right where they had been. The dark-haired guy, the smaller one, turned as he reached the door.
“You can come in if you want, you know,” He seemed polite, at least. I remember thinking how absurd it seemed at the time, that this person with my brother could even be polite. It seemed he should be cruel or mean and it made no sense that he wasn’t.
I followed them inside, saying nothing. After that, I managed to numb myself. I didn’t let it affect me, and I tried to remain invisible.
***
It never occurred to me before I found out that it was even a possibility. After I found out, I saw the signs everywhere. Everything he did could be explained so simply. The strong colognes he would be wearing when he got home, the bleary eyes that always seemed to be laughing, the incessant raiding of the fridge even after he’d been out to dinner with friends, it all made sense. Even the little things seemed so clear. How had I never noticed before?
I knew why I hadn’t noticed. I hadn’t wanted to. I didn’t want it to be true. Even after I knew, I refused to let it influence me. I kept out of things. For a while I went about my life in a sort of oblivious haze, as if by not thinking about my brother, I could make his actions any less real. That didn’t work. The signs that were so obvious now kept pushing themselves into my conscious.
***
I stood by the brick wall, watching from a distance. I could see him talking to some friends. He handed a plastic bag to one of the guys. I wasn’t close enough to see what was inside, but I knew what it was, the dried leaves I’d seen slipped out from under his backseat before. I forced myself not to look away. Instead, I studied him. Who was this person? He wasn’t someone I recognized. Swallowing to undo the knot in my throat, I blinked away tears. I never dreamed it was possible, but he had changed. No longer was he my playmate, my confidant, my advisor, my friend, my wings. He would always be my brother, but I could never fly again.