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passivenovember · 4 years

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If Snow Loves the Trees and Fields.

Billy's job at Willowbrook Elementary is the only reason he puts up with this weather at all.

His hatred for winter, a season which hardly existed when he taught in the Valley, morphs and becomes something violent on the first Monday after Christmas break.

He wakes up feeling like his toes have gone missing, frozen black and blue with the cold, and after his phone tells him it's below zero outside, with wind-chill, his heart stops beating.

Hawkins is -10 degrees, to be precise.

And it leaves him feeling like that's gotta be illegal, or. He could for sure call all the scientists on Earth and have a law passed that clarifies: those born and raised in a Southern climate get a free pass on days when Hell is actively freezing over.

But it's not snowing today. And all the ice on the street has been scraped into terrible, disgusting drifts that block his driveway, and Hopper would immediately call bullshit. All, gonna have to suck it up if you wanna live here, buttercup.

So Billy decides to be an adult, or whatever. He spends another five minutes on his phone definitely not stalking his ex Instagram before rolling out of bed to get dressed.

And, like.

Even his underwear drawer is stiff from the cold so Billy decides to bundle the fuck up--a trick he learned from Max last fall, during the coldest year Indiana had ever seen. He manages to stack five layers in total; one pretty pink thermal set just brushing his his skin and a button down shirt to stave off the goosebumps. A sweater and jeans for professionalism. One Grateful Dead hoodie, because it makes him feel like he's not a total sell out, and a thick winter coat, sent special from the snow capped mountains of California this Christmas.

It still smells like his mom's pikake lei perfume.

Billy tries not to think about that, of home, on a day when he'd give his left nut for a ray of sunshine.

Instead, he spends ten minutes filling his thermos with coffee. Boiling the rice milk more than once so it'll stay warm on the ride across town. He sticks his pinky under the lip after his third go, and fuck that shit is so hot it will burn his mouth tomorrow, before checking the weather app again for closures.

Hoping against hope that something has changed in the last five minutes.

Of course, nothing has.

The superintendent believes that everyone in Hawkins is somehow used to temperatures that makes their eyelids freeze shut in the thirty second walk to the car in the morning. Billy jams a knit cap on his head and seriously considers calling in.

A last ditch effort to quell the rising fury in his veins, that like.

He's gonna have to scrape his windows, and freeze his dick off, and deal with the neighbor.

The one who looks like he doesn't mind the cold so much because he carries the sun with him, fucking asshole.

People shouldn't be wandering the streets when their eyelids could freeze shut, right?

Billy checks his phone one more time, frowning at a text from Joyce to pick up some coffee on your way in, and tosses his bag over his shoulder before he can change his mind.

It's so much worse than expected.

Billy's lungs seize up on his second intake of fresh air because no one should be huffing sulfur or gaseous ice or whatever the fuck this shit is first thing in the morning. On a Monday. The first one after Christmas break, and.

"God damn, holy shit, holy shit," Billy bounces the whole way to the Camaro, breath coming in short, comical bursts of steam that make his nose run. He swipes dramatically at his face, struggling to get his keys into the lock while balancing his thermos on one arm and his messenger bag on the other.

Billy's in the middle of forcing the door open, its hinges are frozen solid with ice goddammit, when Steve fucking Harrington appears like a cloud on the wind.

"Howdy neighbor," Steve says. Like they're cowboys in a shitty film from the 1970s. The wind kicks a lock of brown hair into Harrington's face and he shivers. "Wow, it's really blowing out here, huh?"

Midwesterner's love doing that.

Pointing out the obvious.

Billy grumbles a response, flinging his car door open and jamming the keys into the ignition.

Steve's saying something.

Talking like always, about his cat or maybe the beer they keep saying they'll have together, and generally Billy puts up with it but not today. He isn't going to freeze to death for a pair of legs.

The Camaro roars to life, clearly pissed at having to work on such a disgusting day, and. Alright. Letting your car "warm up," is something so Midwestern Billy can't even talk about it.

It takes him all of two minutes to scrape his windows, electing to carve holes in each wall of ice rather than clear the whole thing. The metal handle of the scraper Max got him feels like the ninth circle of hell against the peachy skin of his fingers.

He should've bought some mittens.

Joyce is always saying he needs mittens, he should've asked for some--

Billy tosses the scraper into his back seat and climbs in, slamming the door shut behind him and cranking the heat up to high. Steve's watching from next to the fence in a fucking pea coat, and a scarf with care bears on it and.

Nothing else.

Fucking asshole.

Steve waves at him, like; hey I'm talking to you. Frantically, like the mouse Mr. Bane caught last week is important.

But Billy's too busy trying to back out of the driveway with five layers of shit restricting his movement. He cranks the music up and cautiously pulls onto the street. Nice and smooth like he's seen Steve do effortlessly, even with three inches of ice on the ground. Fucking asshole.

Billy makes it halfway before he hits something.

The wind kicks hair into his face as he assesses the damage.

"You should've scraped your driveway last night." Steve says helpfully.

He's got a cigarette hanging from his lips, stark in contrast to the weird home made scarf he's got folded around his neck. Billy tries not to think about Steve's lips as he makes his way to the back of the Camaro to see that, yup.

Of course.

His baby is stuck in the snow. Billy kicks the tire. Like that'll fix anything.

"That's not gonna fix anything." Steve says, leaning against the fence.

"Jesus, fuck. I know, Steve." Billy scrubs a hand across his face, gesturing to the Care Bear scarf. "Why the hell are you wearing that thing, you look like a fruit."

"I am a fruit."

"Well you look like the whole goddamn bowl, pretty boy." Billy digs around for a cigarette. "My kindergarteners don't even fuck with the Care Bears enough to own scarves." Billy squints, assessing Steve from head to toe, delighting in the awkward squirm of his limbs. He clicks his tongue, disappointed. "Couldn't look any fruiter if you tried."

Steve shrugs his shoulders, like. Don't yell at me, this isn't my fault.

And okay.

He's cute.

Billy gets struck by that every time he sees the guy, all over again, like. His profile is perfect. Sharp nose, pretty eyes. Thick lips.

Steve holds out a cigarette.

Billy takes it.

"One of my residents made it for me. He's learning how to flat pattern." Harrington says shyly. "Well, he made it for his grand daughter, but. It turned out worse than he expected so I offered to take it."

Billy squints. "The fuck does that mean?"

"Just means I was trying to be nice--"

"No, the." Billy grins in spite of himself. "The flat patterning, what's that?"

Steve shrugs again. "I'm not sure, I think it's like. A sewing term. Or something." A pretty blush the color of Steve's scarf spreads across the bridge of his nose. It looks like strawberry ice cream and Billy.

Has to look away.

"My mom sews," Billy says gruffy. "I've never heard her say that."

"Well, maybe she drapes?"

Billy squints again. "What?"

"Draping. That's another thing people do--"

Billy stamps the cigarette out and kicks his tire again. Steve jolts, like. Billy tried to kick him or something, which just makes the situation worse.

"God, they should've cancelled classes." Billy states. Well, screams, to no one in particular. "Who wants to go to work in the snow, who fucking. Likes this white bullshit?"

Steve leans against the fence and looks thoughtful. "I love the snow."

"You're not helping."

"You asked."

"No, I didn't." Billy shoots back. He digs his cellphone out and shakes his head. "Why are you still here, Harrington? Don't you have old people to take care of?"

Steve chuckles again. Light, like Christmas bells. "Don't you have screaming brats to teach?"

"My car's kinda stuck in the snow, you fucking dick." Billy's so focused on trying to order a lyft that he doesn't waste time on pleasantries. He expects that to be the end of it, when the wind picks up and he swears again, but. Steve just moves closer.

"Let me drive you." Steve says.

And.

The moment sort of hangs there.

In the two years that Billy's lived next to the guy, they've never hung out. Never house sat for each other, never spoken outside the occasional could you make sure your idiot friends don't block my driveway, and empty promises to grab a beer sometime.

So the offer catches him off guard.

Billy glances up from his phone, confused, to find Steve looking everywhere but at him. Harrington's shifting his weight, like. He's fucking nervous, or something.

Or maybe hoping Billy will say no because he's just being polite.

Billy glares.

Of course he's just being neighborly. Charitable. That's what Midwestern assholes do.

Billy waves his phone in the air, like, "I'm ordering a lyft." And it comes out sharper. More aggressive than he means it too, but Steve doesn't seem to notice.

"Just ride with me, it's on the way."

Billy points at the screen. "Jason will be here in ten minutes."

"What's Jason got that I don't have?" Harington quips, and.

Billy just wants shit to go back to normal. He shakes his head again, "Nah, 's okay, pretty boy. Thanks anyway." Before turning back to his phone like he's got important shit to worry about.

Steve stands.

Stares.

Waits, for longer than is necessary, before clearing his throat. "Okay, well. Happy first day back." He says.

And if Billy didn’t know any better he'd say Steve sounds almost.

Disappointed.

When Billy gets off of work that night the snow is gone from his driveway.

Billy still has bad days.

They always start before dawn. With the claws of his nightmare leaving scratches down the lining of his throat. It's like Billy's carrying an anchor around his neck, or his veins are filled with playdough the color of the sun on those afternoons. He feels lazy and sluggish and like if someone looks at him for too long he'll break. Snap and crackle, like an open flame against fresh skin.

Billy still has bad days but they don't come unless he's been slipping for a while. Like forgetting to take his medication, or not writing his letter every night before bed.

The one to Neil, that his therapist says will help him work through the last of the road blocks that stand in the way of, "ultimate healing."

Billy used to think it was horseshit.

But Neil. Everything that happened, everything that still happens--when Billy goes home for Christmas, or when Susan calls and he can hear the slur of hate on the other end of the line--is standing in the way of something.

There are so many letters.

So much he wants to say.

Written on anything Billy can find, like. Napkins and the backs of take out menus--old drawings that the kids send home with him after Art class on Fridays.

The pages are kept in a binder.

His therapist says it's important to decorate the binder with, like. Stuff that makes him feel good. Words and phrases, stickers, pictures of the people he loves and drawings of all his favorite things. The folder is supposed to act as a visual reminder of the blanket of love that surrounds him, or something.

Melvalds only had brown folders when he went to pick his up, so.

The folder is brown. Disgusting.

And so far the only decorations he's been able to stomach are one of those fancy stickers from Redbubble that depicts his favorite episode of Daria, and a picture of him and Maxine with underwear on their heads.

Billy thinks it could be sad to some people.

That a poor, little abused boy only has two things in life that protect him from the shadow which falls with the setting sun, but it's the truth. Life is hard and fucked up. Billy has trouble letting people close, letting people in, so he sticks with the basics. The tried and true.

Maxine and his gravity bong.

Billy Hargrove is a simple man.

So it's two weeks after Steve shovels his driveway and Billy tells his therapist, like. "This fucking guy just. Did something nice for me."

And she clearly wonders what's wrong with him. "Did you say thank you?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because," Billy tries not to get defensive about shit these days, because. It's only a hop-skip-and a jump from defensiveness to downright aggression and Megan, his well meaning shrink, doesn't deserve that even on her most annoying days.

His leg bounces under the table, thwacking against its mahogany edge loud enough that Megan can hear it over the fucking phone, so she says, "Billy. Stop."

Because they have a deal about nervous ticks.

Billy is supposed to say his safe word when he starts to feel anxious, but.

He fucking hates that shit. Hates being babied. Hates feeling like he's a goddamn basket case that needs to be rooted in reality when his trauma rears its ugly head. Billy smiles, the whole thing falling flat against his face. "I'm stopping."

Megan sighs. "Why haven't you thanked Steve for his act of kindness?"

"Because, like." Billy's shaking his leg again. Softer this time; it's a secret. "How do I know he isn't trying to, fucking. Get information out of me. Or out me to the community, or. Make fun of the way I'm a grown man who can't shovel his own driveway after a snowstorm--"

"I think you're internalizing your fears, Billy."

"Yeah, no shit." He snaps. Billy feels bad for half a second but then she's giggling, like she always does, which makes him feel less like the big bad wolf and more like one of the three little pigs. The guy with the straw, maybe?

Billy sighs, scrubbing at his face. "What does that even mean?"

Megan makes a noise on the other end of the line, like. In the six months that Billy's been in therapy he should've learned this by now.

Dude's got a short attention span, sue him.

And, sure enough. "Twice a week we meet over the phone and you don't know that internalizing your fears means you're trying to write the ending to a story you haven't even read yet?"

"Like, uh," Billy says intelligently. "What's that shit you're always saying? About seeing a book on the shelf and--"

"Guessing the ending. Yup, that's right." Megan sounds pleased. Billy ignores the bloom of happiness in his chest, because like. He doesn't really deserve it. She doesn't give him time to dwell, though. "Steve did something nice for you. Maybe he has suspicious intent--"

Billy sucks in a breath, like.

Dramatic. Loud enough that Megan snorts and says, "Hold on, you're jumping to conclusions again."

Billy really fucking.

Hates how perceptive she can be.

Megan keeps talking and Billy listens, because he pays her after all. "If you're really worried that his intentions are cloudy, do something nice for him in return."

"Something nice," Billy repeats. Like he's never heard of such a concept. "Something nice, like. Buy him flowers?"

Megan snorts. "Do you want to buy him flowers?"

"No, why would you think that?"

"Because you--" His therapist sighs. Billy embraces the feeling it gives him, yanking her chain a little bit. "Listen. I don't know this Steve person, and I've never heard you talk about him beyond this beer you're supposed to have together, like. Never. But has he ever given you a reason to think he's out to hurt you?"

Billy thinks back over two years and a million one-dimensional interactions.

Steve never loses his temper.

Not when Billy calls to have the cars that block his driveway towed, not when Billy bitches about the daisy bushes shedding into his yard in the fall, and Steve always picks up Mr. Bane's cat shit from Billy's front porch when the Gremlin actually goes outside.

Always with a smile and a sweet little, I think Mr. B likes you.

And, like.

It was pretty nice of Steve to offer Billy a ride that morning.

And shovel his driveway after work, just because he knew Billy probably wouldn't do it.

The whole thing, it. Fills Billy with something he can't quite express, a warmth he only ever feels when Max calls a dozen times to remind him to eat dinner when he sends a few intense messages.

Megan takes his silence, as always, like a breakthrough.

"So," She says, clearly satisfied. "Same time next week?"

Billy spends three days waiting for Steve to make it easy for him.

Because Harrington's a home owner, and there's always something, right? A problem he needs help with, like. A leaky pipe that needs fixed, a cup of sugar for a recipe that he didn't account for, ghosts in the attic. Typical HOA bullshit.

Billy stares out his window at the lovely split level next door and decides he'll take anything, do anything, to get this fucking anchor of guilt off his back for the whole driveway situation. The opportunity never presents itself.

The ducks never fall in a row.

Steve just leaves the house every morning, same time as Billy, same as always, with a gentle Howdy neighbor. And a smile tugging at his pretty pink lips, hair perfect and windswept because he's a fucking asshole and it only takes two days.

Forty-eight hours before Billy's hatching a plan to pay Harrington back and inventing problems to solve, like some sort of demonic Bob the Builder.

He calls Max on Thursday and comes up with a list. Something tangible, like breaking Steve's garage window with a ski ball. Or trapping Mr. Bane in a sweater and pretending like he's gone missing so Steve will have to round up a search party, but.

Billy knows Megan would call that instigating, antagonizing, and causing trouble, which Billy's trying not to do anymore.

So he brings up flowers again, because.

Fuck it--maybe he's wanted to see Steve behind a bouquet of Lilies of the Valley for months now.

And Max goes all soft.

And quiet, too, before whispering, "I'm really proud of you, you know? For getting better."

Then suddenly Billy can't breathe because there's a lump in his throat.

Because he is trying to get better. To live honestly, to lead with love--whatever hippie-dippie bullshit Megan is always spoon feeding him, so.

With Max's blessing, Billy's about to, like. Knock on Steve's door with a plate of pot brownies and a shitty thanks for being a decent human card when Mr. Bane leaves a dead bird on Billy's porch, the third one in a month, and Billy hatches an idea.

Steve's front door is yellow.

Like. Sunshine yellow. Valley girl yellow.

Which Billy used to think was charming but now thinks is kind of annoying, when coupled with Steve's perpetually sunny disposition. And okay. Maybe it sort of pokes and prods at that piece of him that's always missing home.

Maybe it makes him a little bit sad, like. He'll never really feel at peace anywhere else.

But before Billy can dwell on it, or raise his fist to knock on the door, Steve's opening it and preparing to step through. He's using his foot to stop Mr. Bane from running out into the yard so he doesn't see Billy right away, which.

Also means he's going somewhere.

Which inherently means Billy's caught him at a bad time. Billy holds the paper bag closer to his chest and feels the words bubbling up before he can practice his breathing, or. Stop them. Because this is his third biggest fear after arguments and spiders.

"I've caught you at a bad time, I'm sorry, I'll just come back la--"

Steve breaks out into a grin so big. So bright, that it rivals anything Billy's ever seen before.

"Howdy, neighbor!" Steve says.

And Billy shifts nervously from one foot to the other, like. "Is this a bad time?"

"No, it's not a--"

"Because I can come back later." Billy nods, already turning on his heel to escape, and like. Fly into the sun. "Or not at all. I can just mail it to you, that's. Yeah, I'll just stick it in the post or something."

Steve grabs his elbow.

Billy looks at the hand on his elbow, and down at Steve’s feet. There aren’t any shoes or anything, so.

Billy's overreacting.

Fuck. He swallows, raising his eyes with caution to see Steve smiling again. Even wider than before, if that's possible.

Harrington licks his lips. "Whatcha got there?" He says, nodding to the bag, and Steve.

He's wearing glasses today.

Billy feels like someone hit him on the back of the head with a ski ball. Steve looks so soft, in white stripped overalls and a green sweater, that Billy doesn't know whether to fluff him like a pillow or fucking.

Punch him in the face.

Billy holds out the paper bag. "It's for you."

Steve looks at him strangely but he's still smiling, which.

Is good.

Billy thinks it's good but then he knows its good when Steve giggles. "I gathered that. What is it?"

"It's a, uh. You know." Billy tries. "You know one of those things? Where it's, like, a thing but you aren't supposed to know what it is?"

Steve blinks at him, cheeks turning pink like they always do. "A surprise?"

"That's the one." Billy snaps his fingers, like. Ah-ha. Except it isn't a surprise, it's just. "It's a way to say thanks. For the whole," Billy concludes, gesturing vaguely to their front lawns, to. "The driveway."

Steve blushes even harder. "You didn't have to get me a present--"

"It's not a present."

"That was just me trying to be nice." Steve leans against the door jam, eyes searching. "It doesn't call for a--"

"It's not a present." Billy says again. Steve doesn't look like he believes him, so Billy, like. Shoves the paper bag to his chest. "Look, open it now or don't. Fucking, throw it away for all I care, it's fine."

Billy turns on his heel because fuck this.

Fuck trying to pay back nice with nice and fuck Steve for starting this whole debacle to begin with. Billy makes it down one step and then Steve is laughing so hard he can't stand up straight.

Which just makes Billy feel worse, because.

"You're laughing." Billy gapes. "I bring you a present to say thanks for not being an asshole, and you're laughing."

Steve doesn't answer, he just.

Keeps on laughing, and okay.

This is Billy's third greatest fear. After abandonment and fighting. Fists covered in blood--his or someone else's, it doesn't matter. He frowns, turning to leave again when Steve straightens and coughs once into the palm of his hand.

"Thought it wasn't a present," Steve quips, and he's looking at Billy with, like. Sparkly eyes. He shrugs. "I'm not sure what it means."

Billy doesn't get it. "It doesn't have to mean anything--"

"No, like." Steve peers into the bag again, clearly holding back tears. "Why did you get me a bag of dead mice?"

"You can get them at the pet store." Billy says, because. You can, alright? He fiddles with the sleeves of his winter coat. "They're for Mr. Bane."

Steve just stares at him, eyes twinkling like two polished diamonds in his head.

And he's not saying anything, or. Laughing anymore, he's just. Watching Billy fall to pieces on his walkway as he tries to defend himself.

Billy focuses on the clouds that inch across the sky. "Mr. Bane, he's. He's always catching shit, like. Dead shit and leaving it on my porch. I just thought if he wants to eat dead things I can just. Buy him a pack or whatever. Like a normal person."

Steve grins. "You know they do that because they think you can't feed yourself."

Billy wrinkles his nose. "Well I fucking appreciate it, but I don't want to eat dead mice and birds and shit."

Steve chuckles once before staring again.

Like he's memorizing Billy's face, or like. They're having a competition that Billy doesn't know about.

Billy gestures to the bag again. "Would you just accept it, Steve? Please?"

Harrington looks down at the mice in his hands and nods slowly, like the decision is really requiring some thought.

Billy feels stupid.

This was so fucking stupid--

"Sure, Billy." Harrington says. Soft, and. Sweet. "No one's ever given me such a thoughtful gift before, so. Thank you."

And Billy feels like the tin man getting oil on his joints after a year of rusting in the forest, when Steve accepts his weird ass gesture. He nods, mouth lapsing into a thin, unamused line. "Okay, then. See ya 'round," Billy says.

And then he's turning, and.

Leaving.

Before Steve can say anything else.

The clouds inch like caterpillars across the bright winter sky and Steve's walkway seems so much longer on the journey home.

#harringrove #i'm sorry aaaaah #I wanted to post the first chapter here too #because I'm fucking proud of this one alright #and I feel like I need a little fluff #and maybe you need a lil fluff too #cmon man #let me fluff you like a pillow bro

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peeterparkr · 5 years

Text

clear|20|t.h.

CHAPTER 20: ECLIPSE.

pairing: surfer!tom x reader

word count: 5.5k

warnings: angst, cancer mention, swearing, chemotherapy.

summary: The summer ends.

series masterlist playlist (updated!) previous chapter epliogue

what did you think?

Hello! This is the Last Chapter of Clear, thanks for everyone who’s stuck around through this mess, thank you so much for your support. Love you guys, I loved writing this and while there’s still an epilogue on its way, I am sad this ended but... I’m glad there are people who liked this story as much as I loved writing it. I listened to Harry Styles’ new album while writing this. And you should too. Or listen to the playlist.

That was not the last time Tom had ended up in the hospital. As the summer came to an end, there were more and more nights when Y/N would be in the waiting room along with his brothers and parents.

Other times Y/N would go to the beach and facetime him so they could watch the sunset together. Still, they tried to see summer differently. Like a summer chickflick. Ice cream, sunny days, and sitting on the swing outside the cottage. Y/N had begun painting her grandfather, her grandmother.

Suns and Moons.

Her grandparents' house was now painted with a beautiful story, with a sea, which began with shells, and followed with waves and riptide, and then followed with storms, and Ferris wheels, ice cream, suns, moons, surfboards and lighthouses. It was a masterpiece, no doubt. A story worth telling.

Y/N had organized a surprise, a surfing competition between them, simply because Tom had not been able to participate. Due to her grandfather's incident, they had to return back and y/n was always blaming herself for him losing his chance. It was a game between them, clearly, Tom won.

“When will you go to London?” She asked Tom, while they were in the Blue Valley, he was lying on the sand while she painted shells, of different colours.

"I need to save money, maybe in a year," Tom confessed.

Y/N fell silent. She didn't want to say much. One year.

"What?"

Tom sighed. “I thought I mentioned it.”

“But… You said…”

“Yes, I will go to London,” said Tom. "But it's expensive ..."

Y/N sighed. "And what if ... I could sell my grandfather's car, it would help you-"

"I don't want to be anyone's charity."

"It's not charity," Y/N said. "I love you and-"

"I don't want you to, Y/N," Tom said. "Really, I can wait."

"Your cancer can’t."

They had been counted, the times Y/N had used the word with c. But that was the time it hurt the most. Tom supposed she was right. But there wasn't much he could do.

"Well, maybe not a year, but ... You know, I still have to fix things."

"Well, fix them. Time does not wait, time does not forgive."

And she was right. Time simply follows. The tide was not going to go down. Tom had to make a decision. And it was still not clear what it should take.

There are no people who are meant to be. There are no soulmates, as some like to call them. Love does not come from someone who is tailor-made for someone. No, love, it's a decision. And it is choosing to continue taking it. But sometimes the decision that has to be made involves letting go.

They were both watching a sunset, letting the waves wet their legs, sitting on that surfboard that Y/N had painted. Both feared for the end. Because well, everything comes to an end.

Summer was over, his love was not, but they had to make decisions. Decisions that would probably make that wave that looked far away, terrifying for Y/N and challenging for Tom, become somewhat minimal. It was such a tiny wave compared to the decision they would have to make.

It is not easy to say goodbye. Less when two people love each other.

But they had already learned lessons, the tide had brought to the shore ways to heal them both. Heal them of diseases. Make a smile again after a dark moment. They found themselves in each other's eyes.

And it came down to something simple, to a story that Y/N would have loved to see in a romantic movie. Making it simply as simple and superficial. A surfer falling in love with a painter. A popular boy falling in love with a quiet girl. A girl who was born again, and a boy who lived again. A boy who turned all gold and a girl who turned all blue. A girl who was the moon and a boy who was the sun.

Simple. Beautiful. Colourful.

There are times when you can not stand with the different options and alternatives that life gives you. It is easy to accept that there is a risk that is actually based on non-existent probabilities.

But they had already decided. Tom had decided it, at least. They would have to break up. Tom had taken it for granted, for her, for him. Because he didn't know what the future would hold.

It was healthy. For now. Because while they had found each other in their eyes, they needed to know who they were after being reborn. Who they were after seeing that the sea had decanted the salt that was leftover. Heal wounds. They needed to be alone, no matter how much it hurt.

Besides, Tom wouldn't go to London. Not so soon, however. He had to get prepared for the chemos and had to take more therapy sessions. But they would see each other. Tom thought, at least.

It was not a pretty conversation. Not at first, at least.

"I need you to live," Tom told her. "Y/N, listen, listen."

"You promised not to get rid of me," Y/N said, raising her voice. "No ... No."

"It's temporary."

"And what do you know?" Y/N finally shouted. “You can't… You can't just say goodbye to someone you love when you still have time.”

“I am doing it for you.”

“For me?” She laughed. "Tom, you said it yourself, time ... All this."

Tom took his hands. "It's temporary, easy, easy y/n, we'll ... we'll see what happens in London."

"But, Tom what if ..."

"You're being very negative, Y/N," Tom continued.

She sighed. "That’s who I am, okay?" She laughed softly, mocking herself. "I always turn everything blue, remember?"

"But you also see the positive side, yes, I love you, but this ... This is ... For both of us you ... were reborn y/n and I still need to know who I am. I barely know it anymore, and I need to figure it out. Alone. ”

He kissed him, an innocent kiss.

"I will never stop loving you," Y/N told him.

"Until my last breath." Tom had hugged her. But she had screamed again, and it didn't end well.

They had been, for the last days, both fighting for their decision. Y/N said they had to be together. Tom begged her to find out who she was.

“It's just… Tom, no… I don't understand why it has to end like this, we should be like any movie, you know? Any love story. ”

“We are not a book, we are not a story, Y/N, you said it, ”Tom reminded her. “I need… I need to know that I will be fine.”

“You will be,” said Y/N. "And although ..."

"We both know that there is a possibility that I won’t be, everything looks blurry, Y/N, I can't commit to this," Tom explained. "I want you to ... Be happy."

"But I'm happy with you," she said.

"And I am happy with you, but I need you to get ahead, okay?" Tom asked.

"But how?" She frowned. “Please, do… Do something, so then I can hate you and even forget you.”

“What?”

“If you're going to break up with me at least make me hate you, it will be easier to know that it's over for something ugly rather than knowing we still love each other. ”

“No, because we love each other...Exactly because of that, I don't want to say goodbye with tears and reproaches, ”Tom asked. “You just have to let us go.”

“No, Tom… You can't build… It's like… It will erase a whole summer,” she explained.

"No, no," Tom said. "Do you remember everything you painted?" He asked.

“Tom, Tom, please,” she rolled her eyes, “not the time.”

“Our story will remain there, on those paintings,” I continued.

"What a stupid thing to say," she frowned, laughing.

Tom was thrown back. “What?”

“All of this summer, for nothing? And you try to come up with a wise romantic thing so I simply forget you're breaking up with me? ”

Tom closed his eyes. "Y/N."

"It is stupid," she continued. “Sorry, sorry. It's all so blurry right now. ”

“Exactly, maybe this will make things finally… clear. ”

And that had been his goodbye. So Y/N had returned to her old apartment in London, she would continue studying and painting. Tom kept surfing. Because sometimes love is about letting go. Sometimes love is simply knowing that you have to move on.

They stopped talking. She was finding herself in London, with her life back in her sights. To Tom's bad luck, Y/N had started to hang out with Marcus Jones.

Nothing important, but Tom knew that this could be good, in the future, at least. Tom knew who Marcus Jones was for Y/N. Marcus Jones had been what had kept Y/N a little distracted. Tom thought they had started dating.

He did not ask her about it, he did not talk to her.

How do you continue life after having lived a summer with such enthusiasm? The worst part about pain is that when you think it finally ends, it comes back stronger. To test your resilience, which sometimes isn't enough.

After months, Tom had gone to London. Around Christmas time. Talk about a Miracle.

Something that nobody says about chemos is how they take your life by putting your death on an extension. 5 years. 5 years that were nothing more than a promise without foundation. Chemotherapies that were just a way to delay the inevitable. They did not promise to eradicate it, and they did not promise that he would last the whole 5 years.

Tom was listening to those words. He was in London and his mother was holding his hand. The doctor was explaining the whole procedure and Tom really didn't want to pay attention. A lot of blablabla about how there could be side effects and how they didn't make promises, how this could weaken him and how he would go once a week. The cares he had to maintain and how he was going to lose a bit of his essence.

Tom knew that. Tom was perfectly sure that despite being alive, he would not have a... life.

But there was a motivation, Y/N. Y/N was in London. And at first, he had hesitated to call her, but eventually ... He called Joanne.

And the response was quick, they would see each other in a cafe.

How different everything was. The sea breeze was no longer felt, and both were in big coats and with their cheeks pink from the cold. And yet, seeing her, Tom remembered July, with the heat and the tide and the waves and the fires. Tom saw Joanne and remembered Y/N. With his sleepless nights and painting and discussions ending in kisses. Y/N was fine, he knew.

Tom ... Tom would be fine. Eventually.

He saw her and they hugged each other like old friends, as if they had gone to study elsewhere and simply gathered to know what was going to happen through life.

And they started to catch up, telling about their adventures. She would often visit the town, near Croyde, stayed at her grandfather's house and dated Haz, but Tom usually avoided seeing her, it was hard to know that he had let Y/N go, with a silly excuse. And he felt again as if it were summer, as if it were an afternoon in July with Y/N's embrace listening to Joanne’s stories.

Tom explained, how it would be, his cycles would last 6 weeks. He would be there for a while. He told her he would have breaks and told her he’d probably go surf in those breaks, although he knew he wouldn’t have the strength, but he didn’t tell her that, only the good things. He didn't tell Joanne about the side effects or the bad times that would happen, he didn't say it was basically postponing his death, nor did he tell her it wasn't safe. He told her that after 5 years, he would be cancer-free.

He asked for Y/N. Because he knew that being with her would make everything clearer.

"She's studying, she's doing a speciality... And in the afternoons she studies arts," she explained. "I thought you would call her."

"I will ..." Tom replied. "Eventually."

She looked at him.

"She still loves you, you know?" Joanne told him.

Tom cleared his throat. "And I love her."

"I never understood ... What happened."

Tom sighed. “I think we were both in murky waters, in the end, her greatest fear was true. We were swimming in riptide. ”

“She used the word storm, ”Joanne said.

Tom laughed. "She always said that I was one."

"Are you?"

Tom laughed. "I didn't plan it to be this bittersweet."

Joanne shook her head. "You don't always have a happy ending."

"We wouldn't have had it anyway," Tom said sadly.

"What about the 5 years of treatment?" Joanne asked.

Tom shrugged. "Nothing sure."

"Then?" Joanne asked. “Why the hell are you not going and looking for her? Have a fucking happy ending! Live what you have left together! ”

Tom sighed. “Yes, I suppose, yes. But what about Marcus? I know she is seeing him. ”

“ They work together, I don't know if they date, I just know that whenever I go to Croyde, she asks me about you, I can't tell her much because, well, I don't see you much, I also didn't know that you were in London. ”

“ And why doesn't she call me? ”

“I guess because you asked her not to. ”Joanne crossed her arms.

"Well, I ..." Tom sighed. “Will you tell her?”

“I don't know, Y/N has changed.”

“Is she okay?”

“Yes, perfectly, she keeps painting and… She's happy,” Joanne admitted. “She brought the blue Jeep, she wants to open her gallery.”

“See? That is her happy ending, she has ... to live, take a brush and paint it all blue. ”

Joanne looked at him. "You know, I think I owe you a favour," she reminded him.

"I thought we had already settled it," Tom denied. "I mean, I owed you one and now ..."

"I don't know," Joanne chuckled. “I could tell her to come now, you know? Tell her I want to see her in this cafe ... "

"I think it's not time yet. "Tom sighed. “I wanna… Heal, you know? I want to be sure that medicine will work. ”

“ And if it doesn't? ”Joanne asked, a little more directly than Tom wanted.

Tom crossed his arms. "Well thanks for your good will and vibes."

Joanne closed her eyes. “Sorry, sorry… I just can't stand to know that… You are apart, you know? I see a whole summer and it seems that everything went to hell in a second, please, you are Y/N and Tom! You have to go find her in the rain while she is crying in a car. ”

Tom sighed. "Yes, yes, problem is, London is too big, and I can't really afford the luxury to stand out, shaking in the rain anymore."

Joanne looked at him sadly. "Sorry ... Yes, you're right."

"I owe you, though," Tom admitted. “For bringing her into my life.”

"Really?" Joanne asked. "Huh, and all because I wanted to go out with Harrison."

Tom laughed after coughing. "Yes, thanks to those blue eyes."

"And that blond hair," Joanne said.

Tom looked down. "You ... your sister ever mentioned some of my hair?"

"Why would I do it?" Joanne asked.

"I don't know ... I don't know," Tom cleared his throat. "Well, I hope you didn't like it for that."

Joanne avoided her gaze, knowingly. “Oh, no, she… she liked you for you.”

“I'm… debating,” admitted Tom. "There's these ... Cold caps," Tom bit his lip. “To minimize hair loss.”

“Right,” Joanne sighed. “And do you want to wear them?”

“Dunno, they said it can be really painful but, well, I won't be the prince charming with amazing hair but…”

“And you need it?” Joanne pushed.

"My hair?" Tom laughed. "I ... I guess?"

"For what?"

"I dunno, my happily ever after," Tom joked. “There's never been a bald prince.”

“And there never really was a prince with cancer and a princess with anxiety,” Joanne spoke, clearly. Tom wasn't sure if her wording was what I needed to hear, he had started to refer to it as' the c-word '. "And yet."

"And yet," Tom admitted. "I ..."

Joanne smiled. "You know, a lot of things happen after a conventional Happily Ever After, life is more than that," she said.

"It doesn't always work out," Tom nodded.

"It's because it's not the end," Joanne told him. "Not really."

And it wasn't. And it was impossible. And neither of them had called the other, because they still had to meet. Tom was far from doing it, but he was in London and going to the places where he would believe Y/N would be found. She was never there

How easy it was to live in the fantasy of his summer, and how difficult it was now to be in that cold London.

Real life was not like that romantic comedy they had lived in. Less now in rainy London. Tom was going to the chemos and little by little the light he had found in the summer was fading. His hair fell and his dark circles grew, his skin paled.

An effect of chemotherapy, Tom said, was to look like a zombie. Besides, he saw others around him, fading away, but with hope.

Nikki and Tom lived in an old apartment they had rented, Nikki hadn't told him to whom it belonged. His brothers also went to see him, they took turns. Sometimes everyone came. Paddy liked to spend time with Tom, alone.

Jared went to visit him one day. It was like talking with an old friend, for the first time Tom didn't see him with such contempt and Jared seemed genuinely worried.

Haz would go visit him several times too. Even Joanne appeared from time to time, but not Y/N.

Tom was returning to London and at each visit, he intended to speak to her, he never did. And he didn't understand why she didn't look for him either.

On one of his many visits to the hospital, he had a recurrence. His mother told him that several of his friends had come to visit him while he was unconscious. He would have sworn he had seen Y/N beside his bed at the hospital.

Tom was an idiot. He had to call her. Who does not speak to who is possibly the love of his life? Tom was in a crisis. Because everything was still blurry. And he didn't have any strength. Another side effect. See yourself becoming what you did not want to be.

But it was for a good thing, right?

It's stressful, isn't it? Knowing that he lived something extraordinary and that he was now someone who no longer radiated light. He had no colors. Tom did not speak. He did not sing and when he returned, he did not want to surf.

Days after relapse around summer, Lex had gone to visit him in London.

"Do you remember when we came a few years ago?" She asked.

Tom just nodded.

"I want that, Tom," Lex admitted. "That light you had, all golden, no ..."

Tom looked at her.

"I don't mean with me, I know you wouldn't be happy," said Lex. "But yes ... I do want you to be."

"Be what?"

"Happy."

And that week ... that same week was his birthday. He could go home and have a party, pretending everything was fine. Another summer pretending.

On one of those days when Tom just felt cold, even though summer had come again, because it does get harder, he was staring at the ceiling of that old apartment they lived in. It was his birthday, His mother was not there, he had gone to God knows where, he supposed to buy him a cake. His mother did that, he supposed, to forget all this. It was raining, as always. London always seemed to adorn his sad days with rain. Tom was fed up, he had become someone he didn't want to be with, and what else could he do? He was always alone with his thoughts.

He heard how they knocked on the door. Tom sighed and eagerly approached.

"Who's there?"

"Someone who's interested in some surfing puns," a warm voice called from the door.

Tom opened it quickly and saw her, with a full bag, and a shy smile. She had certain raindrops around.

"Y/N," he murmured.

"Is it ... a good time?" She asked. He let her in while she hugged the bag. "I came to ... I came ... Well, I, I know you wanted time, but ... Your mother called me and then," she smiled delicately, while she looked at him sadly.

"I ..."

"No, no, I know," she looked at him. His hair had fallen, his eyes were dark and his skin paled. "I ... brought you this," he said as Tom sat down. She handed the bag over and he looked at it, shells. “They're yours.”

“What?” He stared at her hands, full of paint. It was a weird parody of his own hands, full of bruises.

“They're the ones you gave me at the beginning of the summer, last year,” she reminded him.

"Oh, they were a gift," Tom chuckled. “They're yours…”

“No, no, look at them, see? I painted them, ”she told him as she took one out, showing him the colours.

He smiled. "Thank you." And for the first time, he had smiled in a long time, genuinely. And the colour on his cheeks had returned.

"Happy birthday," she told him, with a small smile.

And Tom was struggling not to throw himself into her arms. But he only replied with a simple, "Thanks."

She looked at him. "Hey, hey, I .." She cleared her throat. “I came here because I wanted to take you out.”

“Out.”

“I enjoy your company, I've missed you, and really, you're such a mess, you need some sun,” she said, quoting the exact words Tom had used the summer before. He smiled.

"Really, Y/N?" He asked her.

"Really, let's go have an anti-date in London, my style this time, alright?" She grinned. “I want to show you my secret place in London, and… who knows?”

“I… I can't really…” Tom coughed.

“Tom, c'mon.”

“Fine.”

And he put on a jacket. He didn't know very well how to act in front of someone he had already seen the stars with. How were they supposed to go from being someone who loved to two strangers?

But, the moment they got into the blue jeep, everything was forgotten, they talked like they did in the summer and although Tom sometimes had to take time to breathe, he was still the same. And Tom felt how she, with her words, was painting on him again, but she didn't paint a storm this time, she painted a clear blue sky. Y/N had changed, she looked free, happy.

"So, your ... secret place?" Tom asked as soon as they arrived at an old place, it was an old building, winged from an old coffee shop and a clothing store.

"Yep."

"Are you kidnapping me?" Tom asked.

"I should, honestly, that's how I'd make sure you're not leaving me this time," Y/N joked.

Tom laughed. "I ..."

"No, no, I don't want to hear it, it's a new summer now, okay?" She told him.

He walked inside and looked at him, there really wasn't much, it was a single room, white with some drawings of Y/N hanging here and there. There was a table in the centre and two chairs. The place was a bit disastrous, there were canvases, some painted, some blank, paint on the floor, easels around the place. Y/N lit some candles.

“And what’s this place?”

“My gallery,” confessed Y/N. "Well, it will be one day, it’s my studio… Gallery, my..Everything, my room is upstairs."

Tom smiled. "I see you did well."

“This old place?” She laughed. Y/N smiled sadly, shrugging. "No ... not exactly, I missed you, I still do," she confessed.

Tom approached her, cupping her cheeks “Missed you too.”

“But I understand, you know? I think it was good to clear my life, sort it out. ”She walked around the place. "Well, everything is better."

Tom looked at her. Things had cleared up for him too, he needed Y/N's light.

He approached one of the drawings. A lighthouse.

“They clear the path,” she said as she watched him look at her drawing. “For the lost ones.”

“Always romantic,” Tom chuckled.

"Me? May I remind you who climbed a bloody Ferris wheel in the carnival? ”She laughed.

Tom sighed, he wouldn't be able to pull any stunt like that anymore. Tom walked over to the chair, and sat down, to catch his breath.

“I was madly in love with you,” he reminded her.

“You're using past tense I see,” she looked down. “I still… well, I still love you, Tom.”

He didn't answer.

“That's the worst thing you've heard, isn't it? That's possibly the worst thing I could've said, ”she closed her eyes, and sat across him. “If something goes wrong here and I have to sell out the place… because it'll be yet another thing that reminds me of you—“

“What?”

“Oh, it's going to sound stupid and cliché, but… I've had to hide everything that reminded me of you, ”he said. "That's why ... I haven't gone to town, nor ... I don't know, if something goes wrong here, I'll have to sell it because it will be another reminder of our 'what if."

"Pretty stupid of us to break up," Tom murmured.

She laughed, throwing her head back. “You were the one who suggested it… No, let me rephrase that, you were the one who broke up with me.”

“I was… I am very stupid,” he admitted.

"Ah, so for that you use present tense," she looked down, whispering to herself.

Tom closed his eyes. “I didn't-”

“No, hey, it's alright,” she dedicated him a smile, “I assume it's been hard.”

And Tom didn't know why he didn't want to admit that he still loved her. He guessed it was the face she had made when she first saw him, scared, or disappointed. Or a combination of both, because he guessed she didn't expect to see him so destroyed, and he guessed that he wasn't the guy whom she had fallen in love with. And things would only get worse from there.

Tom avoided her gaze. “You assume or you know?”

“Both, I guess, I can tell,” she agreed as she looked at his hand. "You're not being your particular way of being annoying."

Tom laughed. “I'm sorry, now, I'm a different kind of annoying.”

“Very annoying, Tommy.”

He cleared his throat. "Well, and ... How are you doing with Ken?"

"Ken?"

"Marcus, sorry, he’s so perfect."

She rolled her eyes. “I'm not dating him.”

“Huh, alright.”

“Not right now, at least,” she admitted.

"Oh."

"Went out for a few dates," she continued. “Really boring, you know.”

Tom cleared his throat. "Right."

"Have you ... seen anyone?"

Tom scoffed. “I don't exactly think I'm datable right now.”

She watched him. "You never were," she teased. “You were a walking cliché only willing to break my heart,” she reminded him. "Yet."

Tom smiled. “No, but…”

“You're still a work of art, Tommy.” And she meant it. They looked into each others eyes but before he could say anything, she looked away. “So… Uh, this is an anti-date, remember? I… ordered some burgers. ”

Tom smiled, slightly.

“So, what's it gonna be this summer?” She asked him. “Another hoax? Friendship? What cliché- ”

“ Y/N. ”

She chuckled. "C'mon, I'm just trynna ..."

Tom smiled. “I know.” He looked around. “So how did you buy this place?”

She cleared her throat. "Sold the Aston Martin."

His eyes widened. “What?”

“Well, it's… kind of pawned,” she admitted. “I… sold it to Jared and he promised to sell it back, eventually.”

Tom smiled. "Oh, alright," He looked down. “So, your gallery, huh? When are you going to…”

“Open it? ”She laughed. “I would love to know, too, I only have a few… Paintings but I haven't… Really.”

He raised his eyebrows. “What?”

“Well, I told you, I've had to hide everything that reminded me of you and well… The paintings I had--” She cleared her throat. “Well, they kind of all revolve around last summer.”

He stood up and scooted his chair beside her.

"Everything comes back to last summer," he admitted.

She looked at him. “You know, I'm not asking for much,” she started. “I just… I don't need you to say you love me back,” she said. “I just… Let me love you, you know?”

Tom reached out for her hand and intertwined their fingers.

"Love," He whispered.

She closed her eyes. "No, no, don't you call me love if ... If ..." She gulped. “I ... Look, I just want to love you, alright? Let me be around but if you're not going to ... To let me in, don't- ”

And he kissed her. Because he had missed her lips this whole year, and he knew that he needed her to be around. Because one love shouldn't last only a summer. A love like theirs should last a lifetime. And though he didn't have any strength left he managed to mould their lips together, creating a sunset. And it tasted just like the end of June, and he didn't want to stop.

"I love you, too," he whispered against her lips.

She sighed and smiled, resting her forehead against his. “That's the worst prelude to a kiss I've ever had.”

He laughed. “Why?”

“Really? You're asking why? Thomas! ”She rolled her eyes. “I thought you didn't — you didn't like me anymore.”

“I never liked you,” he joked. "I just loved you."

She pushed him away, jokingly. “You are such a complicated mess.”

He leaned against the table. “I've become more of a mess while we were apart.”

“I've been around,” she confessed. “I haven't exactly been… absent.” Tom knew that. “Sometimes I was with your mom, I went and talked to her in the hospital, I wanted… I wanted to know that you were fine.”

Tom kept listening to her.

"And last week..." she closed her eyes. “Sorry to do this about me, but I went to see you because… because we all believed we would lose you, and I thought… what would I do without you? I couldn't be away any longer. ”

“ I've been drowning without you, Y/N, ”Tom said. “I've been… feeling blue.”

“That's my thing, silly,” she chuckled but kissed him again. “I'm here to save you, now.”

“But now I feel calm,” he continued.

Tom hugged her.

“Soon you'll get better, Tom. You're healing. ”

Tom smiled. Although he didn't know if it was true, he believed her. And maybe it was a way to fool himself, like last summer, play pretend. He took her in his arms and walked to the centre of the room. And so without music, they started dancing. There were many reasons why Tom shouldn't have gone, but he decided to dance with her. Because they had run out of things they could say, and Tom fell again to her.

She gently began to whisper the lyrics of that song they both loved, Somewhere Over the Rainbow. They merged together, and their shadow did not let the incandescent candlelight see the street from the small window.

The blue moon and the golden sun had come together to form an eclipse. And it was beautiful, and although it was dark, they glowed.

They were the necessary antidote to make everything stop being blurry. And at that moment, Tom didn't feel it was just medicine.

And it was a decision. Because that's love, deciding to be together, in addition, Tom had made a promise that he would love her until her last breath. And he wouldn't break it. Because despite having little hope, there was a little light. It was like a lighthouse in the distance. And they would be together, because one summer is not enough. Because whenever they were together, no matter how dark, how agitated the sea was or how dense the storm was, everything became… clear.

Even if time ran out.

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crazymecjc · 6 years

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Quotes from Mary Poppins

So I was in Mary Poppins this summer and it was the best show I've ever done, it was also one of the funniest backstage experiences I've ever had so here's some quotes from rehearsals :)

I'm referring to everyone by their character names except if they're my friends yeet

My friend Miranda, staring me dead in the eyes: “Cannibalism."

Both of us simultaneously: "hmmmm”

Miranda, frantically: “Do you want some.... boNeLesS AiR”

(She then proceeded to research if boneless air was a thing for like ten minutes)

Me, angrily: “buT wE hAvEnt had our mILK”

Honestly idk who this was: “What is in your boob?”

(Context: we were all volunteering at a meat raffle, which I didn't know was a thing before then but ok)

The guy in charge of the raffle: “If you’re selling tickets, stand up”

*everyone simultaneously drops to the floor*

Guy running the raffle: “Hors d’oeuvres is not a person”

The same guy, a half hour later: “I’m not trusting you, because you said hors d’oeuvres were a country”

The radio:“I’m looking for some way to bond with my kids” Miranda, whispering: “Mr. Banks?”

My friend Anthony:“That’s like the worst way to reduce reuse recycle”

Miranda during rehearsal for Step in Time, pretending to be on Disney Channel:“Hi, I’m a low class citizen, and the only time I see the light of day is at night”

Anthony, sinisterly:“We’re all dead bodies in the end”

Anthony, in the car: “Smells like... g g g g g g g g g g ggrravy”

Miranda:“buT THEY TORE MY spinal cord.... aGAIN!?!?!”

Anthony, walking out of rehearsal:“It smells like a hot dog out here”

Me:“mE”

Anthony, incredulous:“you smell like a hotdog?!?”

Also Anthony:“My uvula is quook”

My friend Maddie, who we all call Marcy bc that was her "character" for the show and it stuck:“Why do you guys know what windex smells like??? Hello???”

Miss Andrew: “You don’t smell windex? What’s wrong with you???”

Anthony, in the car, shouting:“sTEP AWAY FROM THE GOODS”

Anthony, discussing Into the Woods:“I feel like Little Red is sort of like Smeagol”

Me: “There’s a whole family standing in the middle of the road??”

Anthony:“Are they ok?” Me:"They’re not even crossing, they’re just chilling.”

Anthony to me, while in the fake plant section at the craft store: “It’s like you’re trying to get into leaf Narnia”

Miranda to me: “You look like the Kool Aid Man”

Anthony, to me:“Go onto stage like ‘OoOh yEaH”

Anthony, to the tune of one of he songs:“Reeeedd Robin, Yum!”

Miranda, dramatically crossing her legs:“I’m a fucking queen” *mouth pops*

Miranda calling after me on my way out the door:“Wait I’ve gotta tell you a secret “ *whispers in one ear* “the snack that smiles back” * in other ear* “goldfish”

Me, singing:“Someone is returning”

Miranda:“the demons in my house when I’m coming home”

Miranda, in a whisper:“Mary and Bert look like they’re gonna fight”

Anthony, in the car: “No one is alone.. that’s kinda scary”

Anthony:“When I was young, I ate people”

Miranda:“crispy”

Miranda, in the car after a long rehearsal, exhausted:“Can we play some tunes? I don’t want some hard tunes tho, I want gentle tunes”

I honestly don't know who this was, probably Anthony:“Why are you discriminating against whales?”

Miranda, with jazz hands:“Just a spoonful of... pizazz!”

Miranda, a few minutes later:“Just a spoonful of soot helps the depression go down”

Miranda:“What’s the month after January?”

Me, sister struggling:*counts on fingers* “October, November, December, January, feBRUARY”

Anthony,:“Doesn’t it smell like cat food? Oh no that’s McDonalds”

Anthony:“You smell like Cheerios.”

Me:“Thanks????”

Mary, standing by the roof set we had:“Bert, you look like a cat”

Bert, on the roof: “meow”

Marcy, working on her character:“I’m doing research... drug research “

Marcy, trying to explain her character to me:“Marcy Tippetome is a drug addict. But she’s addicted to Tylenol”

Bert:“Bloody hell”

Michael:“sTOP THERE ARE CHILDREN “

Bert:“well you’re the one who keeps pretending to shoot people on stage”

Anthony, singing:“Someone smells like celery!!!!”

Anthony, moments later:“So I was in my room and my body collapsed”

Miss Andrew:“In 20 years I’ll be like ‘hey, you owe me a soda kid’”

Michael:“I’ll be dead in 20 years”

Mr. Banks:“All hair is dead”

Miranda:*bad Italian accent* “would you like some rigatoni???”

Anthony:“Spit the alcohol out Marcy”

Miranda, ranting:“The government can leave. I only know... I don’t know English”

Miranda, reenacting the Sound of Music:“Donde es Maria??”

Miranda and Anthony:*speaking in simmish for ten minutes*

Bert:“I’m gonna hiss. Like a cat. Meow.”

Mary:“Bert, I’m done with you. Jump off the rooftop.”

Probably Anthony??? I don't know:“My name is Margaret, and I like cheese”

Me:“Michael who? I only know mILK”

Anthony:“Remember when I asked what century it was?”

Anthony:“There’s blood on my finger”

Miranda, deadpan:“blood is the cure”

Me:“There’s something in your pocket”

Anthony, nonchalantly:“it’s just a chair”

One of the statues:“Ohmigod who’s on your phone screen Anthony?”

Anthony:“I’m gay”

Anthony, staring into the distance:“Death is my cure”

Anthony, moments later:*valley girl accent* “I’m gonna die”

Miranda, disdainfully:“I never had emo phase. I didnt want to associate with tHAT”

Me to Anthony because he had to wear this frog costs and it was skintight: “Dicks out for Mary Poppins”

Anthony, giving Mrs Banks a hug:“Hi mom!”

Mrs. Banks, deadpan:“did I give you the permission to touch me?”

Anthony, after we went to Wendy's:“Oh my gosh there’s a spoon between my legs! I just wanted my phone and I reached down and then... there’s ice cream on my crotch”

Also Anthony:“I was exhaling really intensely the other day and my tongue started flopping around”

My little brother right before tech week:“Dress rehearsal?? More like stress rehearsal”

Anthony:“Marcy put the Tylenol DOWN!”

Miranda:“Noooo, she’s doing cocane”

(I swear we're good children I'm sorry)

The lady who played Queen Victoria, approaching Miranda:“Can you blow into my eye?”

An ensemble member:“Don’t choke me”

Mr. Banks:“I don’t even know you yet”

Miss Lark, handing someone her dog puppet:“Here, hold my bitch”

Literally all of my friends: *simultaneous “it’s poppin”*

Who knows, but now we all say it:“Rest IP”

Anthony, buying frozen yogurt at the mall between shows:“Is chocolate supposed to be crispy??”

Me, dying inside because I thought it would be a good idea to leave my show tights on while we went to the mall:“Oh No tHeReS SorBeT oN mY TigHtS!?!”

Ok backstory: we had this table for Spoonful of Sugar that is supposed to break and then magically repair itself. So it's motor powered, and so far it's been working great. Fun! So the last night of the show arrives. I accidentally sweep the guy playing Robertson Ay because he's on the floor, so we're already dying. Mary goes to fix the table, and it goes as planned, only to revert back to broken a moment later with a bang. I'm breaking character, and trying to keep singing, but I lose it bc out stage manager offstage, sounding completely dead inside, goes:“Well, there goes the table.”

????:“Why is it wet??” Anthony:“Because I salivate”

Michael, on his way out the door on closing night:“Keep it poppin”

(I cried)

Other notable moments:

This girl started crying about cows in the middle of rehearsal bc she loved them so much

The guy who played Mr. Banks did origami and he made me a dragon

The lady playing Mrs Andrew would regularly balance chairs on her chin

I had to pretend to rip a dolls arm off and the second night I actually ripped its arm off oops

One night I forgot to preset said doll, so it didn't have an arm for a full scene

We'd been joking about building a fort in the dressing room for a while so on the last day, we walked in to find Mrs Banks surrounded by chairs. "It's Fort Banks." She said. Someone had blankets in their car and suddenly there was an actual blanket fort in the dressing room

The girl who played the messenger would write letters to Mr Banks to read during the shows. One of them was about robbing a bank, I think??? She gave him her address and we're still waiting for a reply for the final letter

The flying equipment got caught on the lights one rehearsal and Bert almost died

We'd sing Feed the Birds for warm ups sometimes and I'd cry. every. time.

We were in the Disney store, and the Mary Poppins trailer starts playing as we’re buying Mary Poppins shirts, with Mary Poppins shirts already on

#this is such a long post I'm sorry #if you get through this congrats #not newsies #mary poppins

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5hfanfiction · 7 years

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The Golden Rose (Chapter 7)

Lauren and Camila spent every waking second with each other yesterday. Camila ended up spending the night at Lauren’s and changed into a pair of Lauren’s clothes in the morning. The clothes were slightly bigger on Camila, but she didn’t mind. It felt like a dream to actually be in Lauren’s clothes.

Yesterday was also the first day both Camila and Lauren were able to stay in the classroom without Diane pulling one of them out. Their day was mostly spent doing assessments to see where each child stood, but before the kids left they threw an ice cream and bubble party. The kids had a blast while a few of the parents shot a death glare while their child bounced off the walls.

Lauren also came back to find two golden roses sitting on her desk. She liked the little game she was playing with the mysterious person, however she desperately wanted to know who she was receiving them from. When she walked in today she found not only another rose, but a CD too. The CD contained eight different tracks and a letter explaining what each track meant. She was excited to listen to it later.

Today went a bit slower than the other days this week. Lauren blamed it on Diane for stealing Camila yet again. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t somewhat curious about what Diane had Camila doing. Diane occasionally pulled teachers out to help with minor things, but Camila was being pulled out almost everyday, and sometimes she’d be gone the entire day. Was there something bigger going on that Diane didn’t want everyone to know about?

Diane finally let Camila free before the school day ended. Lauren was grateful for that because recess was always the most stressful part of the day. The boys always roughhoused while the girls stayed put in their little “house”. However, today’s recess was a bit more stressful because they used this time to have water play instead of running around on the playground.

“Let me see your eyes,” Lauren said sternly as Camila placed a bucket of water on the ground. Everyone except for Jude and Grady moved their eyes to Lauren. The rebel twins as all the teacher called them, focused their attention on the giant tub of water.

“Jude and Grady, listen to Miss. Lauren,” Camila calmly said as she redirected the twins attention. Lauren shot Camila a thankful smile.

“I don’t want do see anybody putting water on somebody who doesn’t want to get wet. I’ll give you one warning, but anything after that and you’ll have to sit on the stairs until it’s time to go home,” Lauren stated. “Does everyone understand?”

“Yes,” the class said in unison.

“Go have fun,” Lauren said as she watched all the children run to the bucket and immediately start spraying each other.

Everything was calm and everyone was playing nicely with each other for the first time until Camila grabbed a few water guns out of the the supply closet. The boys practically tackled Camila to the ground when they took them out of her hand. In a matter of seconds they had the water guns filled up and were squirting everything and everyone insight. The girls squealed as they tried to dodge the water shooting at them. Camila ended up becoming a shield and took most of the water. She was also the least prepared for water day. She was still wearing her regular clothes which included a now see through white shirt. Lauren tried her hardest not to stare, but it was hard when Camila’s body looked as good as it did.

“Do you want to take the kids up while I clean up this mess?” Camila asked with a slight laugh as she ringed out her drenched shirt.

“Y-yeah,” Lauren stuttered as she tried to move her eyes away from Camila’s abdomen, but her eyes stayed glued.

“Like what you see?” Camila playfully smirked, making Lauren reddened.

“Maybe a little."

"Only a little?” Camila questioned. “Geez Lauren, you’re a tough one to please."

"Okay maybe a little bit more than a little,” Lauren admitted shyly.

“Miss. Lauren can we go get changed?” Aria asked, interrupting Camila and Lauren’s conversation.

“Line up,” Lauren yelled, making all the children stop what they were doing and get into a straight line except for the trouble twins.

“Good luck with them.”

It was a little harder than it should’ve been, but Lauren managed to get all her kids dressed and ready to go home before the parents arrived. It was an absolute miracle. Camila came back as soon as the rebel twins were walking out of the school with their mom.

“I see you changed,” Lauren mentioned as Camila walked into the class with a black hoodie on.

“No one warned me what day it was or else I would’ve been prepared,” Camila said as pushed the sleeves up to her elbow.

“It’s been on the schedule.”

“No one reads the schedule.”

“Well they should because it holds valuable information,” Lauren said as she lifted the chairs up onto the table.

“Maybe I’ll look at it next time,” Camila said as she helped Lauren put the chairs on top of table for the cleaning lady. “Hey Laur, I was wondering if you’d be able to give me a ride today? I hate to ask, but Diane drove me today and she has to stay late because she’s meeting with some people.”

“What kind of people?” Lauren asked interested.

“I don’t know, I think it’s potential buyers for the school, or something like that.”

It was finally hitting Lauren on how real all of this was. The school she’s always loved is now going to people who will probably change it into something mainstream like a gym.

“Uh yeah, I can give you a ride if you want. I want to stop at target beforehand since it’s on the way to your place if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all. What do you need?”

“A few household supplies and possibly some things for the classroom.”

“Yeah, I don’t mind as long as I can get Starbucks.”

“And me a cake pop,” Lauren added jokingly.

The two girls finished straightening up the classroom so the custodian could do a proper clean without moving everything. Once they were done everything, they made their way over to Lauren’s favorite store; Target.

“I’m gonna get some Starbucks real quick,” Camila said as they walked through the sliding glass doors.

“Meet me in the dollar spot when you’re done,” Lauren replied as she grabbed a red cart.

Lauren walked over to the dollar spot and started to examine all the junk laying out on the shelves. She was a sucker for all of it. Often she would buy things in case she would need it one day, but all that stuff was packed away in her storage unit. Her roommates tried to help her declutter when they moved into their new apartment, however anytime someone tried to throw something away, Lauren threw a little hissy fit. They eventually started throwing things away without Lauren knowledge and to this day Lauren still hasn’t noticed anything missing.

“Lauren? Lauren Jauregui is that you?” A young girl in her early twenties asked, grabbing Lauren’s attention.

“Hannah,” Lauren replied in a fake happy voice as she was pulled into a hug by the blonde girl. “It’s been forever.”

“I know. Are you still working at the Golden Creek place?”

“Uh, yeah I am,” Lauren nodded.

“Wow I’m surprised that place is still up and running. Wasn’t it supposed to shut down last school year?”

“Nope, we’re still running.”

“Wow, I’m surprised considering half of your enrollment is now attending my school. It’s only a matter of time before the school is empty.”

“Mhm,” Lauren hummed along as she tried to control her anger.

“I’m sure you’ll be looking for a new job soon, and right now is a great time to apply for a position at Elenor Walks Academy. We’re starting a kindergarten program next school year.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. I actually have something lined up,” Lauren lied. She could really use a job at Hannah’s school, but the last thing she wanted was to be apart of the school that ruined Golden Valley over mere family drama.

“Well if that falls through don’t be afraid to give me a call. We would love to have a teacher like you at our school.”

“Hey Laur, I got you a cake pop like you requested,” Camila said as she came back with a bag in one hand and a tea in the other.

“I’ll catch you around Lauren,” Hannah said before disappearing into the clothing section.

“Who was that?” Camila asked as they began to walked towards the craft section.

“Hannah,” Lauren grumbled as she hands clenched onto the plastic handlebar.

“Hannah? Who is Hannah?”

“Hannah was that girl who was just talking to me.”

“Well I know that, but what did she want? Do you know her from somewhere?”

“We used to go to preschool together at Golden Valley. In fact, her family was the previous owners of the school,” Lauren explained. “Her parents got a divorce before she entered second grade and she spiraled out of control because her parents were never on the same page. Her dad had money and gave her everything her little heart desired while her mom made her work for everything. Well when her mom went to sell the place, Hannah decided she wanted to take over, but her mom was only going to sell it to her if she saw Hannah put some actual work into in the place. Of course Hannah is too good to do any work and threw a hissy fit, so her father bought her a new school. I personally think he didn’t it to piss off his ex-wife, but that’s none of my business.”

“And how do you know all this?"

"We used to be friends for the longest time,” Lauren shrugged. “It wasn’t till I took a position at Golden Valley that we stopped being friends.”

“Are you going to take her up on her offer?”

“I don’t want to,” Lauren sighed as they pulled into the aisle. “But if I can’t find a job then I have no other choice. It’s not my first option.”

“What’s your first option then?” Camila asked interested.

“Well I would love to take Golden Valley over because I have so many ideas that would make it grow, but I don’t have the money to buy it from Diane. My next option is sending out my resume to every school in the area, and I’ve even thought about moving back to Florida and trying to find a job there.”

“You really don’t want to work with her.”

“It would be literal hell. She’s driven me insane for twenty years now,” Lauren shared as she turned out of the craft aisle and down the party aisle.

“Then why were you friends with her?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Lauren laughed as she grabbed a pack of black plates and napkins.

The two girls continued shopping for everything on Lauren’s list and even some things not on her list. Their conversation drifted into different subjects. Some of it was about the school and another part was how Lauren celebrated birthdays in her classroom. At the very end of their trip, Lauren indulged on some of the memories she made at Target with Lucy. It was the first time she ever openly talked about Lucy without thinking twice or struggling with it. She felt comfortable talking about her Camila. More comfortable than she did with people she’s known her entire life. For once she didn’t feel guilty. It was like she could tell Lucy was happy for her.

“Do you want to come over to my place?” Lauren asked as she placed the last items up on the conveyor belt. She was enjoying her time with the brown-eyed girl and didn’t want it to stop.

“Sure, if you want me too.”

“I do,” Lauren nodded as she pulled the cart forward. “I found a CD on my desk this morning from that mysterious person. We should listen to it.”

“I don’t know Lauren. Is that something you should listen to by yourself?”

“Possibly, but maybe you can help me figure out who it’s from and we could solve the case together."

"I don’t know.”

“Please Mila,” Lauren practically begged. “It’s driving me insane that I can’t figure out who this all tracks back to. If it gets too deep and personal then we can turn it off and do something else.”

Camila hesitated for a second before finally agreeing.

—

- Ashley

wattpad: iloveyou1234566

#UPDATE #series #AU #camren #humour #romance fluff #submission #The Golden Rose

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thebestintoronto · 5 years

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25 reasons to get outside this spring in Toronto

From street fairs and street protests to art shows and concerts, these are the best events happening outdoors in April and May

APRIL

Score free stuff at the Really Really Free Market

Experience the life-changing magic of tidying up (or, alternately, of getting free stuff) at this recurring event in the Junction Triangle. Once a month, declutterers and treasure-hunters meet in the open air to scour through pre-loved items, from clothing, shoes and jewellery to housewares, books, movies, pet items and more. There’s no cash and no swapping – just take what you want to keep. Everything not claimed at the end of the day gets passed along to charity.

April 6, May 4 and June 1. Campbell Park (225 Campbell). rrfmarket.blogspot.com.

Get your bike ready to ride

After a winter of storage, it’s time to make sure your wheels are road-worthy (unless you’re one of those brave souls who rides all winter long, in which case, hats off to you). If you need some pointers on how to do a DIY tune-up, Broadview bike repair studio Bike Sauce is hosting free workshops that will walk you through safety checks and basic maintenance. Can’t make it? Bike Sauce and Parkdale studio Bike Pirates are both open for DIY tune-ups throughout the week.

April 6 and 13 at Bike Sauce (341 Broadview). 11 am. Free. bikesauce.org.

Show up for National Day of Action on the Overdose Crisis

According to the latest numbers, more than 600 people died from opioid overdoses in the first six months of 2018. Three years after frontline workers first warned of the opioid-induced overdose crisis sweeping the country, we still grieve. And now the Ford government has announced it will no longer be funding safe injection sites. We’re falling behind when it comes to dealing with the biggest health care crisis since AIDS and stemming the death toll from tainted drugs. Organizers of this year’s National Day of Action on the Overdose Crisis, which takes place in cities across the country, say 2019 is a wake-up call for the urgent need for the legalization and regulation of all hard drugs.

April 16, see website for details. Noon-2 pm. facebook.com/NationalDOA2019.

Get legally stoned on 420 for the first time

Organizers for city’s first post-legalization 420 smoke-out couldn’t secure a permit for Nathan Phillips Square so are staging their annual event at Woodbine Park. The event is also happening on a Saturday, so you don’t have to worry about the stigmatization that comes with getting stoned midday on a weekday in uptight Toronto. The park location means there will be vendors and a stage this year.

April 20 at Woodbine Park (1695 Queen East). Noon-7 pm Free. fb.com/420toronto.

Get social with Toronto’s cherry blossoms

Over 10,000 kilometres separate Toronto and Tokyo, but cherry blossoms can be enjoyed in both cities. Starting in April, partake in the centuries-old tradition of hanami, the Japanese term for viewing sakura, at parks and sites across the city including High Park, Trinity Bellwoods, York University and Birkdale Ravine. Once cherry blossoms bloom, the equally photogenic Eastern redbud follows suit. Find these bright pink trees at Corktown Common among dozens of parks.

Late April/early May. toronto.ca.

Help clean-up and revitalize the Don Valley Ravine

The 200-hectare ravine stretching from Pottery Road down to Corktown Common is Toronto’s largest and most hidden urban park, which means it’s also a common dumping ground for trash. Join a large volunteer group to clean up a section of the lower Don Ravine and help revitalize a green space that’s home to deer, fox, beavers, muskrats and great blue herons.

April 27 and May 11 starting at E.T. Seton Park parking lot (next to 71 Thorncliffe Park). 10 am-2 pm. Free (registration required). dontmesswiththedon.ca.

Mark Earth Day at Downsview Park

We’d like to think that every day is Earth Day, but most people recognize April 22 as the largest environmental celebration in the world. While there are events scheduled across the city that day, a big one happens a week later. Now in its 15th year, Earth Day at Downsview Park is a free family-friendly event including outdoor vendors, a scavenger hunt, workshops and more. See a birds of prey demonstration, enjoy guided nature walks and take part in litter pickup and invasive species removal.

April 28. Downsview Park Discovery Centre (70 Canuck). 11 am-4 pm. Free. downsviewpark.ca.

Rally to protect public health care

Spring is the perfect season to hit the streets, protest and demand progressive change. The Ontario Health Coalition, a network of more than 400 grassroots community organizations, says the Ford government’s recently tabled legislation to restructure health care will end up selling off vital services and impose costly “mega-mergers” that will put local services and hospitals at risk. In response, the coalition is organizing a massive rally at Queen’s Park, which will bring in busloads of protestors from across the province. So much for Ford’s promise to end hallway medicine.

April 30. Queen’s Park Lawn. Noon. ontariohealthcoalition.ca.

MAY

Check out Carrie Mae Weems’s first Canadian exhibition

One of the U.S.’s most celebrated contemporary artists will make her Canadian debut at Contact Photography Festival, with three site-specific outdoor installations. Carrie Mae Weems, the first African-American woman to have a retrospective at the Guggenheim, will exhibit work at Metro Hall, TIFF Bell Lightbox and via a banner at 460 King West. Her work examines shifting cultural landscapes around the ways Black women have been represented in pop culture – today and throughout history. Other artists’ works will be shown at 16 public sites, as well as on billboards, around town.

May 1 to 31. Various venues. Free. Launch party May 1 at Ryerson Image Centre, 7-11 pm. contactphoto.com.

Get a new perspective on Toronto during Jane’s Walk Festival

Explore your neighbourhood with fresh eyes or discover a new one during Jane’s Walk 2019, the annual festival that honours urban thinker Jane Jacobs through citizen-led walking tours. This year’s highlights include imagining the future of the high-traffic corridor Bridgeland Avenue, near the 401 and Dufferin; a stroll around old Agincourt in Scarborough to explore the development of a suburb and the racial tensions around the Dragon Centre; and a walk through Wychwood Park, designed in 1874 as an artists’ haven.

May 3 to 5, at various locations. Free. janeswalk.org/toronto.

Catch a baseball game at Christie Pits

It doesn’t feel like spring until you sit in open-air stands and watch a baseball game. You never know when the Blue Jays will decide to open the dome, but in the meantime you can catch free games at Christie Pits Park. The Toronto Maple Leafs intercounty league team has been playing since 1969, with baseball at the park stretching back even earlier – and catching a game there is an essential experience. One of the city’s hidden gems.

Season starts May 5 at Dominico Field at Christie Pits, 2 pm. Free. mapleleafsbaseball.com.

Mosh at Yonge-Dundas Square during Canadian Music Week

Ever since the music fest moved from March to May, CMW has been summoning the summer spirit of its rival festival, NXNE, with outdoor gigs at Yonge-Dundas Square. No headliner has been announced yet, but last year Sloan took that spot. We do know the fest will have Azealia Banks (May 8) and Television (May 6), plus a discovery series with Hooded Fang, Witch Prophet, Ebhoni and Ice Cream. Plus: at least one event at the (finally) reopening El Mocambo.

May 11 at Yonge-Dundas Square (1 Dundas East), noon to 11 pm, all ages. Free. cmw.net, ydsquare.ca

Ponder urban monuments at the Bentway

Cities are questioning the relevance and meaning of public monuments, particularly as we Canadians grapple with the legacies of colonialism and residential schools. An international art exhibition and day-long event will ponder the future of city monuments to kick off urban park the Bentway’s spring/summer season. New Monuments For New Cities will feature 25 large-scale posters responding to the questions “What should a contemporary monument look like? Who are they for and what should they represent?” The show is simultaneously at similar land-reuse sites in four other North American cities, and will launch at the Monuments Summit on May 11. Public tours will happen every Tuesday (except June 4) during the run.

May 11 to August 30 at the Bentway (250 Fort York). thebentway.ca/new-monuments.

Eat, shop and party on the sidewalk in Parkdale

Summer is a big season for street fests and road closures, but if you can’t wait for pedestrian-only fun, head west. In early May, the annual Spring Into Parkdale Sidewalk Fest takes over a 1.4-km stretch of Queen West between Roncesvalles and Dufferin, with a kids area, a Little Tibet market, a zero-waste fair, free bike tune-ups, DJs, live music, a flea market and a night market. The event is emphasizing zero waste by encouraging visitors to bring their own containers, cups and cutlery.

May 11 in Parkdale Village. 11 am-9 pm. Free. parkdalevillagebia.com/festival.

Dance at Electric Island

There’s some sort of magnetic pull toward the ferry terminal the second the weather gets warm enough to expose your forearms, and Electric Island is the perfect excuse to head over to the island this spring. The first of four outdoor beach-adjacent raves takes place May 19. And though the lineup hasn’t been announced yet, you can bet on a strong-as-always slate of electronic acts and DJs.

May 19 at Hanlan’s Point Beach (Toronto Islands), 2 pm. $40-$60. ticketweb.ca, electricisland.to.

Check out the Strokes’ first Toronto concert in 13 years

Budweiser Stage, the outdoor amphitheatre at Ontario Place, is celebrating its 25th season, and it’s got a hell of an opener: the Strokes. They’ll take you back to the early 2000s NYC rock dives – or at least 2006’s Virgin Festival, the last time the Julian Casablancas-fronted rockers performed here. (If you miss this gig, Bud Stage’s second show of the season is Florence and the Machine with opener Blood Orange on May 26.)

May 20 at Budweiser Stage (909 Lake Shore West), 7 pm. $55-$175. ticketmaster.ca.

Visit architectural gems at Doors Open

The annual architecture festival gives curious Torontonians the opportunity to snoop inside spaces usually closed off to the public, like secret subway stations, water treatment plants and century-old movie theatres. For this year’s 20th anniversary, Doors Open will also include walking tours that explore the social impact of Queen East and the LGBTQ heritage of King Street, as well as spotlight Toronto’s Indigenous past, present and future through events, panels and films.

May 25 and 26, at various locations. Free. toronto.ca/doorsopen.

Take over the streets at Kensington Market’s Pedestrian Sundays

The launch of Pedestrian Sundays in late May means the city has completely shaken off its winter hibernation hangover. Street performers and pop-up vendors line car-free streets, the patios are bustling and Bellevue Square Park is packed with picnickers snacking on churros, empanadas, fish and chips and burritos from the nearby restaurants.

Launches May 26 and happens on the last Sunday of every month until October, Kensington Market. Free. kensingtonmarketbia.com.

Ride into Bike Month

What better time than spring to discover the joy of biking? Toronto gears up for another bike month in June with the 30th annual Bike To Work Day group commute on May 27 hosted by Cycle Toronto. Participants will ride together from various starting points around the city and arrive at Nathan Phillips Square for a pancake breakfast and coffee. Cycle Toronto will be hosting events throughout June, from films to group rides to workshops. Check out the events calendar for details.

May 27 to June 30. Various locations. bikemonth.ca.

Go on a modern dance journey on the waterfront

Harbourfront Centre will raise questions around land ownership with a site-specific indoor/outdoor dance show taking place toward the end of the spring season. Toronto-based choreographer Heidi Strauss’s interactive experience Lot X will cap off the dance series Torque by leading audiences from Harbourfront Centre Theatre to the waterfront arts complex’s East Campus. The performance is weather dependent. Also: bring comfortable shoes.

Lot X runs May 29 to June 2 at Harbourfront Centre Theatre (231 Queens Quay West). 8 pm. $20-$35. harbourfrontcentre.com.

Sway to R&B stars Jorja Smith and Kali Uchis at Echo Beach

Ontario Place’s other outdoor venue gives you a chance to put some sand under your feet via its (totally artificial) beach. After a couple of louder concerts from Bring Me the Horizon and Led Zep clones Greta Van Fleet, the venue hosts the perfect soundtrack to wafting warmness: a pair of buzzy and rising R&B/pop singers – UK artist Jorja Smith and Colombian-American Tyler, The Creator collaborator Kali Uchis.

May 30 at Echo Beach (909 Lake Shore West), doors 7 pm, all ages. $49.50. ticketmaster.ca.

ALL SEASON LONG

Eat your way through T.O. on a food tour

Think you know everything there is to know about Toronto’s food scene? Walking food tours are a great way to discover something new while soaking up some sunshine. Savour Toronto offers a bunch of tailored recurring tours, including dining excursions around Kensington and old Chinatown ($65 each), as well as a coffee and sweets-specific jaunt around the east end ($55). Or start your weekend off right with T.O. Food Tours’ brunch tour of King and Queen West ($99).

savourtoronto.com, tofoodtours.com.

Shop local at a farmers’ market

The abundance of these markets greatly increases as the weather warms up, and many start up in May, including ones in Trinity Bellwoods, Cabbagetown, Davisville Village and the Junction. Shop local produce, dairy, bread, honey, flowers and more from farmers and artisans. Many of the weekly markets also feature live music, kids’ activities and prepared foods.

Various dates and times. Visit tfmn.ca for a complete list.

Brighten your life at the Toronto Flower Market

Even if you don’t buy anything, theToronto Flower Market is beautiful to walk around in. Once a month from May to October, over 30 vendors selling Ontario-grown flowers and plants gather on the lawn of CAMH’s Queen West location. They’ve got everything from potted succulents and artful bouquets to bunches of tulips, wildflowers and more. The first market happens just in time for Mother’s Day.

May 11. Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (1001 Queen West). 10 am-3 pm. torontoflowermarket.ca.

Hit up a flea market

In addition to the year-round indoor staples (shout-out to north-end faves like Merchants’ Flea Market on Eglinton and Downsview Park Merchants Market), a few warmer-weather favourites are about to return for your bargain-hunting pleasure. East-end fave Leslieville Flea is back at the Distillery District Fermenting Cellar on April 28 before returning to its open-air location, Ashbridge Estate, on June 9. And the Parkdale Flea is returning from a brief hiatus on April 13 with a brand-new location at 1605 Queen West.

merchantsfleamarket.com, dpmarket.com, leslievilleflea.com, parkdaleflea.com.

The post “25 reasons to get outside this spring in Toronto” was first seen on NOW Toronto

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newstfionline · 7 years

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Inside The World’s Largest Walnut Forest

By Peter Ford, Roads & Kingdoms, July 2017

ARSLANBOB, Kyrgyzstan--Nestled in a lush valley of Kyrgyzstan’s Chatkal mountain range lies the village of Arslanbob, home to both the world’s largest natural walnut forest and a legend, the truth of which is harder to crack than the nut itself.

“This is a secret,” said Roma Tohtarov, a guide with the village’s Community Based Tourism (CBT) organization, before continuing: “During the Soviet times, Red Army soldiers came with saws and cut down a large number of walnut trees and sent them to Rolls-Royce in England to be used to decorate the inside of their cars. Mr. Churchill had seen a piece of wood from here before the war, and asked Stalin for some wood in exchange for weapons.”

Verification of the story proves elusive; the luxury car manufacturer did not reply to questions and the story does not appear in any public records.

But it is an example of the kind of legend that villagers have passed on through the generations about the forest. Such is the central importance that walnut trees play in Arslanbob.

Hugging the 6,500-foot-high slopes in the shadow of the Babash-Ata mountains, the sprawling, ethnically Uzbek village is home to 16,000 people, most of whom have livelihoods that revolve around the annual harvest of the walnuts.

Families spend the long winters extracting the nuts from their soft outer covers and cracking the hard shells. Pretty much everyone, old and young, is involved in the process.

“Full nuts we sell, broken ones are made into oil--we rub it on our skin in winter to keep warm,” explained Tohtarov. “Of course, we also eat them,” he added, “but by the end of autumn everyone has eaten too many and are sick of them.”

Fortunately, there is a wide international market for walnuts not consumed locally. According to the United Nation’s trade statistics database UN Comtrade, 1,200 tons of walnuts were exported by Kyrgyzstan in 2016, worth $2 million.

They come from a forest that spreads east and west of Arslanbob in a confusing network of trails that weave through the dark green of the forest, punctured by patches of grass pasture and blossoming wild apple trees.

As you enter the forest, the smell of wood and coal fires near the village gives way to an earthy richness, as the muddy ebony paths crisscross over and around undulating hills. Tire tracks from Lada Niva cars-- the tank-like 4x4s ubiquitous across former Soviet states--mingle with horse and donkey hooves, churning the cloying mud into an even thicker mess, greatly slowing attempts to walk.

Recent nursery-grown walnut trees line up in regimental rows, while the older trees stand alone. In some of the deeper sections, trees are 500 years old, according to Tohtarov. Walnuts from these trees are prized for their superior flavor.

“October 2 is the beginning of the walnut season officially, but in September people start to collect from the trees closest to town, to stop the kids from getting them and trading for ice cream,” he said.

During the harvest season, hordes decamp to the forest, setting up makeshift shelters to allow for easier walnut collection, and the whole event has a carnival feel, with people sharing food and gathering around campfires to sing and share stories.

Story telling is an important part of Arslanbob culture, leading to various explanations over how the walnut trees came to be in the valley.

“There are two similar stories involving Alexander the Great, and at least two others saying important Islamic men brought the seeds from paradise to plant here,” Tohtarov explained.

“I don’t believe the Alexander stories, but about the Farsi or Arabic visitor bringing the seeds, yes, it must be true. Someone had to bring the seeds for the trees, as how else did they come here?” he asked as he slipped and slid up the forest track still muddy from the morning’s downpour, occasionally panting for breath, a result, he joked, of spending the winter months eating walnuts and getting fat.

Zahid Ubayidullaev, a former guide who now devotes his time to running one of the homestay options for visitors, explained the Alexander stories over hot black tea and walnuts at the single-story house built by his grandfather.

“When Alexander and his army was crossing the area, some of the soldiers got sick. Alexander sought the help of the local people, who gave them some of the walnuts to eat, and the men all got better. In gratitude Alexander did not attack them, and they accepted him as their king and built the village here,” he said.

“The other version says that after fighting nearby, some of Alexander’s men were injured and couldn’t travel with his army as it continued its journey. So they were left behind in this valley and expected to die. They ate some of the walnuts and recovered and decided to live here, which is why some people have blue eyes and light curly hair,” he said, repeating the somewhat common idea that classically European features sometimes exhibited across Central Asia can be traced back to Alexander’s rovings.

The forest has played an increasingly important role in the village since the fall of the Soviet Union. In the Soviet-era, everyone had a basic income and guaranteed work, with potato farming the primary occupation. Collecting the forest’s bounty was simply an additional source of food and income. But upon independence in 1991, Kyrgyzstan lost the financial support that Russia provided. Lacking the petrochemical resources of fellow -stans Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, citizens found it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. In Arslanbob, residents quickly looked to the forest to provide their needs.

The village’s economic fortunes now rise and fall on the strength of the walnut harvest. This year, for the second year in a row, residents are concerned that the walnut yield will be disappointing.

On a recent visit, vigorous spring showers had added to the muddy remnants of a late dump of snow that blanketed the valley in up to a foot of snow. Drifts of what at first glance looked like a plague of fat green caterpillars turned out to be a carpet of dead walnut flowers, discarded by the trees after the frosts that accompanied the snow.

The seasonal nature of the harvest has led to efforts to diversify employment options in Arslanbob, primarily in the form of tourism. Efforts to bring in outside visitors to experience the natural beauty of the area have been decades in the making.

Speaking at a 1995 conference in Arslanbob convened to explore ways to preserve the forest, then-forestry minister T.M. Musuraliev waxed lyrical: “The walnut forests of southern Kyrgyzstan represent a great recreational asset for the population. The pure air, with the fragrance of trees and flowers, healthy, clear water, hundreds of picturesque gorges, mountain waterfalls and lakes attract thousands of tourists yearly from other Central Asian countries.”

Visitors have generally been welcomed by the community since.

“The rise in tourism has been broadly accepted by the community. Some of the older and more religious men do not like the tattoos or shorty-shorts on show, but that is about it,” explained Hayat Tarikov, Arslanbob CBT manager and a former forest ranger.

Speaking from his photo-festooned office near the village square, he added: “Its life. We have to change.”

The CBT network has proved an increasingly source of employment in the village, Hayat explained. In 2001 there were seven people working at the Arslanbob CBT. In 2016, that figure had risen to 162, with locals employed as guides, cooks, porters, homestay hosts, and drivers.

In concert with the growing tourism industry has been government-led efforts to protect the forests from overuse and exploitation.

“There is now a tree nursery where new walnut trees are grown and later transplanted to the forest. Cutting the living trees for firewood is banned; instead, the forest rangers identify the dead trees and branches that people can use instead,” said Hayat.

The 1995 conservation conference identified key areas that were threatening the forest, which at some 74,000 acres is a shadow of the former 1.5 million acres that the forest of wild walnut, apple, pistachio, plum, almond, and pear use to cover. Prior to 1917, logging was unchecked. In 1945, the forest received protected status, which limited the felling of trees, but not the damage caused to the forest’s ability to grow and replenish old trees from overgrazing by domestic animals, fuelwood collections, haymaking, and the almost 100 percent collection of fruit and nuts.

High fences of dead branches and barbed wire now partition the forest areas closest to the village. Locals can rent land from the forest ranger, in exchange for a percentage of their harvest.

Tohtarov said outside visitors had begun to influence how people in the region care for the forest, encouraging a culture of not littering during excursions.

It is also helping reintegrate the Arslanbob community into Kyrgyz life, after it recoiled following anti-Uzbek violence across the south of the country in 2010.

That year, a vacuum of power in the wake of the country’s second revolution in five years saw violent clashes between the country’s Tajik and ethnic Uzbek populations, resulting in the deaths of at least 200 people--mostly Uzbeks--and causing large numbers briefly fleeing over the border for safety.

“There were no problems in Arslanbob thankfully, but there was a big drop in tourists that year,” Tohtarov said.

Further strengthening the tourism industry and ensuring the health of the forest is the best course of action in safeguarding Arslanbob’s economy and culture, the local guides believe.

“In the future, I know that the forest will be bigger than it is now, with bigger older trees. The roads in town will be asphalted, the road to town will be bigger, and the Internet will be better,” said Tohtarov, explaining his vision for developing the village.

“I hope that a factory or industry will open here to give people jobs, maybe making t-shirts or shoes, and some apartment buildings so that the urban sprawl will stop. I hope that people here will better understand nature and not throw trash everywhere, inshallah.”

For former ranger Tarikov, the preservation of the ancient forest is the key.

“If I had a million dollars, I would make a wall around the forest with checkpoints, great rangers with good salaries, and really encourage the wildlife to return,” he said.

“Do you have a million dollars?” he asked, somewhat hopefully.

#Kyrgyzstan #Arslanbob #walnut forest #walnuts

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anyway-i-love-vanderwood · 8 years

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The Mystic Messenger Harvest Moon AU No One Asked For

✿ But I did anyway because I’ve been binging Stardew Valley nonstop.

Occupation: Farmer

One day, you drop everything and spend your meager savings on purchasing a small plot of land in Mystic Valley, a town that’s marketing itself as a great new start for those looking for a new life. Upon arrival, you realize that the farm you bought is overgrown with weeds, riddled with stones, and more forest than arable land, and the town around you is slowly dying due to the absence of the local Goddess. The crops won’t grow right, the animals get sicker than they should, the bounty of the sea is less... bountiful, and the wind feels dry, poisonous, and far different from the scenic country town you expected.

But you decide to take a shot at living there anyway, because there’s nothing left for you in the city... and hey. Nothing else in your life has worked out; it’s not like you aren’t used to disappointment, right?

Yoosung

Occupation: Rancher

Loved Gift: Tomato, Melon, Flowers

Hated Gift: Coffee

His mom and dad own the farm right by yours, but instead of growing crops, they raise animals. Yoosung seems to like this well enough, but it’s fair to say being a rancher isn’t something he’s passionate about. For awhile, he had dreams of going off to school and coming back with new, amazing skills that could help his small town thrive... but those dreams have since died after the death of his cousin, Rika. Now, he’s complacent to let Mystic Valley slip into obscurity as he plods along, taking care of chickens, cows, and not thinking too hard about his dying dreams.

When his cousin, Rika, was still alive, he helped her with all sorts of “improvement projects” to aid their ailing town. This included an attempt to wake the local deity - the Harvest Goddess - up and return her blessing to the land, but it failed, leaving Rika strangely reclusive and despondent. After her “suicide”, he gave up hope entirely, and quietly abandoned all those improvement projects in favor or goofing around.

It just seemed pointless to try without her, y’know? But maybe the cute new farmer can give him his drive back...

Zen

Occupation: Musician

Loved Gift: Gemstones, beer, Bungeoppang (fish bread)

Hated Gift: Tiger’s Eye

Once a gang member in a nearby city, he - much like you - dropped his entire life to come to Mystic Valley. He came a few years before you with a guitar and a hat full of dreams, and those dreams haven’t quite died, even though all of his efforts to start a theatre in town have been thwarted by the mayor, Jumin, who says “it would be a waste of already scant resources.”

Zen thinks that music, acting, and culture would restore the town to its former greatness and make it a thriving tourist hotspot, and when Rika was alive, she tried to get him the theatre he so desperately desired. It never got built, however, and after her death, the project lost all steam. Zen still hopes, but for now... it seems like all he can do is practice until his fingers bleed and try to forget his parents telling him that he’d always be a failure.

Perhaps the new farmer has some insight into his problems?

Jaehee

Occupation: Secretary

Loved Gift: Coffee, Tea, Picture of Zen

Hated Gift: Dirt, Stone

A profoundly overworked civil servant who is trying her best to keep the town running despite the profound unpopularity of her boss, Jumin. The financial wellbeing of Mystic Valley is dicey to say the least, and she often needs to go to elaborate lengths to make the most of very, very few resources.

She came from the city when she was fresh out of college, and is bound to the town by debt and fear of unemployment. Jumin was the first person to offer her a job in a shaky job market, so part of her is loyal to him and Mystic Valley for that... but part of her just wants to give up on everything, because she’s been trying so hard and nothing ever seems to work.

Every time she listens to Zen’s music, she remembers the dreams that brought her to Mystic Valley in the first place, and she finds the strength to continue. Perhaps you’ll help her position become a bit more secure?

[the others are under the read more]

Jumin

Occupation: Mayor

Loved Gift: Wine, Tiger’s Eye, Pancakes

Hated Gift: Beer

Jumin’s father was the mayor, as was his father before him, and his father before him, so he feels Thoroughly Entitled to the position he now wields. However - despite his best efforts - the town finances have been getting worse and worse, and he’s been considering the offers a big company has made to buy the town very seriously.

With that money, he could help everyone find places to settle where they’d be more successful.

The locals are still defensive of Mystic Valley and do not want to see it fall into corporate hands, making Jumin very unpopular for advocating this idea. He thinks it’s the only hope the people in his charge have, though, and he’s getting close to making the decision to sign it all away.

Will a new farmer affect anything?

707

Occupation: Wizard

Loved Gift: Starfruit, Herbs, Potato Chips

Hated Gift: Spinach

For as long as anyone can remember, there’s always been a strange person living in a strange tower on the highest hill in town. No one can really say if it’s always been the mysterious Seven-oh-Seven, but he acts like he owns the place so who questions it?

He’s not often interacted with by the majority of the townspeople, though he’s sometimes consulted by starry eyed lovers about their fortunes. He has a huge telescope and an observatory he uses to predict the future, but most people think he’s just a goofy weirdo. His main source of companionship were those who associated with Rika before her death, but many of them have stopped coming to see him, aside from Yoosung (who comes to him to play games), Zen (who is so into having his fortune told, you don’t even know), and V (who brings him food on a regular basis). The jeweler, Vanderwood, often pays visits too, but they claim its just “for business reasons”.

Rika was often seen heading up the hill to his tower, even before her attempts to bring the Goddess back. What was that about?

Occupation: Restaurant Owner

Loved Gift: Wine, tobacco

Hated Gift: Radishes

Once Rika’s fiancee, V has become much more quiet and secretive since her death. He was integral to ‘town revitalization’ projects due to owning the main hotspot in town, the main restaurant/bar that everyone visits at night. After Rika, he’s been... difficult to motivate about anything to do with saving the Mystic Valley, which frustrates Yoosung to no end.

Zen often plays at V’s bar in the evenings, and there was talk of V using the space to hold art shows, but that has since died down. Strangely, he’s taken to wearing sunglasses at all times, and seems oddly.. sickly, which means he can’t keep the bar open as often as he used to.

He took lots of beautiful pictures of the town in his glory years, one of which was used to lure you to Mystic Valley. He’s seemingly put down his camera forever, though...

Unknown (Saeran)

Occupation: Unsettling Forest Maybe-Demon Who Might Kill You

Loved Gift: Ice Cream, Cake, Candy

Hated Gift: Spinach

What is up with this dude? Who knows? He lives in the deep, dark, overgrown woods and threatens you every time you come close. He - from his house - seems to be involved in some kind of... cult? Dark magic? Look, you really shouldn’t be here, alright?

He has a striking similarity to the star wizard up in the tower, but if you bring him up, he gets really scary and really violent. If he could go to town, Unknown says, that false wizard would have his sins brought to light. But the day when he’ll be able to leave is coming soon, when the Magenta Goddess comes to save the valley and all its people.

Ooookaaaaay then. Back away slowly.

Vanderwood

Occupation: Jeweler/Ore Refiner

Loved Gift: Amethyst, Gold, Hamburger

Hated Gift: Apples

Vanderwood claims that they’re “just a normal jeweler”, but man, they’re weird. Sometimes they appear without you having heard anything, sometimes they walk into another room and seem to disappear without a trace, and they seem to be doing something weird in the mines. Like they’re... looking for something...? Anyway, they’ll turn your ore into bars, inspect your gemstones for quality, and turn your best stuff into jewelry that you can wear or.. sell or.. whatever.

They don’t seem overtly passionate about the state of the town, implying that if things go bad, they can just go elsewhere. They don’t spend much time around anyone else, though they do visit the Wizard, 707 on a routine basis. They say it’s to deliver materials he asks.

Seven says it’s because they’re his maid.

✿ Well, I hope that was an enjoyable deviation. Let me know if you like it! I might write heart events if people do.

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readbookywooks · 8 years

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'Mr who?' said Mort. 'Mr . . . your new master.' 'Oh. Him. No. No, I don't think so,' said Mort slowly. 'I don't think he's the marrying type.' 'Many a keen young man owes his advancement to his nuptials,' said Lezek. 'He does?' 'Mort, I don't think you're really listening.' 'What?' Lezek came to a halt on the frosty cobbles and spun the boy around to face him. 'You're really going to have to do better than this,' he said. 'Don't you understand, boy? If you're going to amount to anything in this world then you've got to listen. I'm your father telling you these things.' Mort looked down at his father's face. He wanted to say a lot of things: he wanted to say how much he loved him, how worried he was; he wanted to ask what his father really thought he'd just seen and heard. He wanted to say that he felt as though he stepped on a molehill and found that it was really a volcano. He wanted to ask what 'nuptials' meant. What he actually said was, 'Yes. Thank you. I'd better be going. I'll try and write you a letter.' 'There's bound to be someone passing who can read it to us,' said Lezek. 'Goodbye, Mort.' He blew his nose. 'Goodbye, dad. I'll come back to visit,' said Mort. Death coughed tactfully, although it sounded like the pistol-crack of an ancient beam full of death-watch beetle. WE HAD BETTER BE GOING, he said. HOP UP, MORT. As Mort scrambled behind the ornate silver saddle Death leaned down and shook Lezek's hand. THANK YOU, he said. 'He's a good lad at heart,' said Lezek. 'A bit dreamy, that's all. I suppose we were all young once.' Death considered this. No, he said, I DON'T THINK so. He gathered up the reins and turned the horse towards the Rim road. From his perch behind the black-robed figure Mort waved desperately. Lezek waved back. Then, as the horse and its two riders disappeared from view, he lowered his hand and looked at it. The handshake . . . it had felt strange. But, somehow, he couldn't remember exactly why. Mort listened to the clatter of stone under the horse's hooves. Then there was the soft thud of packed earth as they reached the road, and then there was nothing at all. He looked down and saw the landscape spread out below him, the night etched with moonlight silver. If he fell off, the only thing he'd hit was air. He redoubled his grip on the saddle. Then Death said, ARE YOU HUNGRY, BOY? 'Yes, sir.' The words came straight from his stomach without the intervention of his brain. Death nodded, and reined in the horse. It stood on the air, the great circular panorama of the Disc glittering below it. Here and there a city was an range glow; in the warm seas nearer the Rim there was a hint of phosphorescence. In some of thedeep valleys the trapped daylight of the Disc, which is slow and slightly heavy[1], was evaporating like silver steam. But it was outshone by the glow that rose towards the stars from the Rim itself. Vast streamers of light shimmered and glittered across the night. Great golden walls surrounded the world. 'It's beautiful,' said Mort softly. 'What is it?' THE SUN is UNDER THE Disc, said Death. 'Is it like this every night?' EVERY NIGHT, said Death. NATURE'S LIKE THAT. 'Doesn't anyone know?' ME. You. THE GODS. GOOD, IS IT? 'Gosh!' Death leaned over the saddle and looked down at the kingdoms of the world. I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU, he Said, BUT I COULD MURDER A CURRY. Although it was well after midnight the twin city of Ankh-Morpork was roaring with life. Mort had thought Sheepridge looked busy, but compared to the turmoil of the street around him the town was, well, a morgue. Poets have tried to describe Ankh-Morpork. They have failed. Perhaps it's the sheer zestful vitality of the place, or maybe it's just that a city with a million inhabitants and no sewers is rather robust for poets, who prefer daffodils and no wonder. So let's just say that Ankh-Morpork is as full of life as an old cheese on a hot day, as loud as a curse in a cathedral, as bright as an oil slick, as colourful as a bruise and as full of activity, industry, bustle and sheer exuberant busyness as a dead dog on a termite mound. There were temples, their doors wide open, filling the streets with the sounds of gongs, cymbals and, in the case of some of the more conservative fundamentalist religions, the brief screams of the victims. There were shops whose strange wares spilled out on to the pavement. There seemed to be rather a lot of friendly young ladies who couldn't afford many clothes. There were flares, and jugglers, and assorted sellers of instant transcendence. And Death stalked through it all. Mort had half expected him to pass through the crowds like smoke, but it wasn't like that at all. The simple truth was that wherever Death walked, people just drifted out of the way. It didn't work like that for Mort. The crowds that gently parted for his new master closed again just in time to get in his way. His toes got trodden on, his ribs were bruised, people kept trying to sell him unpleasant spices and suggestively-shaped vegetables, and a rather elderly lady said, against all the evidence, that he looked a well set-up young lad who would like a nice tune. He thanked her very much, and said that he hoped he was having a nice tune already. Death reached the street corner, the light from the flares raising brilliant highlights on the olished dome of his skull, and sniffed the air. A drunk staggered up, and without quite realising why made a slight detour in his erratic passage for no visible reason. THIS IS THE CITY, BOY, said Death. WHAT DO YOU THINK? 'It's very big,' said Mort, uncertainly. 'I mean, why does everyone want to live all squeezed together like this?' Death shrugged. I LIKE IT, he said. IT'S FULL OF LIFE. 'Sir?' YES? 'What's a curry?' The blue fires flared deep in the eyes of Death. HAVE YOU EVER BITTEN A RED-HOT ICE CUBE? 'No, sir,' said Mort. CURRY'S LIKE THAT. 'Sir?' YES? Mort swallowed hard. 'Excuse me, sir, but my dad said, if I don't understand, I was to ask questions, sir?' VERY COMMENDABLE, said Death. He set off down a side street, the crowds parting in front of him like random molecules. 'Well, sir, I can't help noticing, the point is, well, the plain fact of it, sir, is —' OUT WITH IT, BOY. 'How can you eat things, sir?' Death pulled up short, so that Mort walked into him. When the boy started to speak he waved him into silence. He appeared to be listening to something. THERE ARE TIMES, YOU KNOW, he said, half to himself, WHEN I GET REALLY UPSET. He turned on one heel and set off down an alleyway at high speed, his cloak flying out behind him. The alley wound between dark walls and sleeping buildings, not so much a thoroughfare as a meandering gap. Death stopped by a decrepit water butt and plunged his arm in at full length, bringing out a small sack with a brick tied to it. He drew his sword, a line of flickering blue fire in the darkness, and sliced through the string. I GET VERY ANGRY INDEED, he said. He upended the sack and Mort watched the pathetic scraps of sodden fur slide out, to lie in their spreading puddle on the cobbles. Death reached out with his white fingers and stroked them gently. After a while something like grey smoke curled up from the kittens and formed three small cat-shaped clouds in the air. They billowed occasionally, unsure of their shape, and blinked at Mort with puzzled grey eyes. When he tried to touch one his hand went straight through it, and tingled. YOU DON'T SEE PEOPLE AT THEIR BEST IN THIS JOB, aid Death. He blew on a kitten, sending it gently tumbling. Its miaow of complaint sounded as though it had come from a long way away via a tin tube. They're souls, aren't they?' said Mort. 'What do people look like?' PEOPLE SHAPED, said Death. IT'S BASICALLY ALL OWN TO THE CHARACTERISTIC MORPHOGENETIC FIELD. He sighed like the swish of a shroud, picked the kittens out of the air, and carefully stowed them away somewhere in the dark recesses of his robe. He stood up. CURRY TIME, he said. It was crowded in the Curry Gardens on the corner of God Street and Blood Alley, but only with the cream of society – at least, with those people who are found floating on the top and who, therefore, it's wisest to call the cream. Fragrant bushes planted among the tables nearly concealed the basic smell of the city itself, which has been likened to the nasal equivalent of a foghorn. Mort ate ravenously, but curbed his curiosity and didn't watch to see how Death could possibly eat anything. The food was there to start with and wasn't there later, so presumably something must have happened in between. Mort got the feeling that Death wasn't really used to all this but was doing it to put him at his ease, like an elderly bachelor uncle who has been landed with his nephew for a holiday and is terrified of getting it wrong. The other diners didn't take much notice, even when Death leaned back and lit a rather fine pipe. Someone with smoke curling out of their eye sockets takes some ignoring, but everyone managed it. 'Is it magic?' said Mort. WHAT DO YOU THINK? said Death. AM I REALLY HERE, BOY? 'Yes,' said Mort slowly. 'I . . . I've watched people. They look at you but they don't see you, I think. You do something to their minds.' Death shook his head. THEY DO IT ALL THEMSELVES, he said. THERE'S NO MAGIC. PEOPLE CANT SEE ME, THEY SIMPLY WONT ALLOW THEMSELVES TO DO IT. UNTIL IT'S TIME, OF COURSE. WIZARDS CAN SEE ME, AND CATS. BUT YOUR AVERAGE HUMAN . . . NO, NEVER. He blew a smoke ring at the sky, and added, STRANGE BUT TRUE. Mort watched the smoke ring wobble into the sky and drift away towards the river. 'I can see you,' he said. THAT'S DIFFERENT. The Klatchian waiter arrived with the bill, and placed it in front of Death. The man was squat and brown, with a hairstyle like a coconut gone nova, and his round face creased into a puzzled frown when Death nodded politely to him. He shook his head like someone trying to dislodge soap from his ears, and walked away. Death reached into the depths of his robe and brought out a large leather bag full of assorted copper coinage, most of it blue and green with age. He inspected the bill carefully. Then he counted out a dozen coins. COME, he said, standing up. WE MUST GO. Mort trotted along behind him as he stalked out of the garden and into the street, which was still fairly busy even though there were the first suggestions of dawn on the horizon. 'What are we going to do now?' BUY YOU SOME NEW CLOTHES. 'These were new today – yesterday, I mean.' REALLY? 'Father said the shop was famous for its budget clothing,' said Mort, running to keep up. IT CERTAINLY ADDS A NEW TERROR TO POVERTY. They turned into a wider street leading into a more affluent part of the city (the torches were closer together and the middens further apart). There were no stalls and alley corner traders here, but proper buildings with signs hanging outside. They weren't mere shops, they were emporia; they had purveyors in them, and chairs, and spittoons. Most of them were open even at this time of night, because the average Ankhian trader can't sleep for thinking of the money he's not making. 'Doesn't anyone ever go to bed around here?' said Mort. THIS IS A CITY, said Death, and pushed open the door of a clothing store. When they came out twenty minutes later Mort was wearing a neatly— itting black robe with faint silver embroidery, and the shopkeeper was looking at a handful of antique copper coins and wondering precisely how he came to have them.

#Mort

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mrmichaelchadler · 5 years

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Larry Cohen: 1941-2019

Since the creators of B-movies generally do not have such luxuries as famous actors, familiar properties and large budgets to work with, they have to rely more heavily on an ingredient that is just important but much lower in cost—a great idea. Not just any great idea, of course, but the kind of idea that makes you stop in your track and think “Man, I’ve gotta see that.” The problem is that, in many cases, even if they do manage to beat the odds and come up with that killer idea, they don’t always have the resources or talent to do it justice.

One B-filmmaker who never had that problem was Larry Cohen, who passed away this weekend at the age of 77. He may have never had the same level of name recognition as such contemporaries as George Romero or John Carpenter, but his films, in which he took often outrageous premises and built upon them with witty dialogue, incisive social commentary and colorful characters, were among the best genre films of their era and continue to pack a punch today.

Cohen was born on July 15, 1941 in Manhattan and from a young age, he developed a fascination with movies. In an interview I did with Cohen a couple of years ago, he professed a special fondness for the films produced by Warner Brothers during that era. “It was a great studio—they had really ballsy movies and political movies … They were shot at a fast pace with a lot of action and fast talk, as opposed to MGM movies, which were a lot slower and more luxurious. He began his career as a writer for television, first by writing for such shows as “The Defenders, “The Fugitive” and “Rat Patrol” and then by creating such shows as the 1965-’66 Western “Branded” (sorry fans of “The Big Lebowski”) and the 1967-’68 paranoid sci-fi saga “The Invaders.” Watching the shows that he created today, one can actually see the ideas and conceits that Cohen would embrace throughout his career—especially in the mixing of standard genre tropes with sly commentary about what is going on the real world, including the blacklist and the Red Scare—coming together in distinctive ways that set them apart from a lot of what was going on in television at that time.

He then began to make the move into writing feature films in 1966 with “Return of the Seven,” a largely forgettable sequel to the hit Western “The Magnificent Seven,” “I Deal in Danger” (1966), a spy film comprised of the first four episodes of another series he co-created, “Blue Light,” and the psycho artist horror film “Scream, Baby, Scream” (1969). Later in 1969, he would come up with what would prove the first great example of his kind of audacious storytelling that would eventually become associated with his name. In “Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting,” on which he cares a co-writing credit with Lorenzo Semple Jr., Cathy (Carol White) arrives from London to live in San Francisco and immediately meets and falls in love with the seemingly nice and clean-cut Kenneth (Scott Hylands). She soon becomes pregnant but then begins to discover that Kenneth is deeply disturbed and elects to not only break up with him but to have an abortion as well. Some time passes and Cathy has now married a rising politician and given birth to their child when Kenneth turns up again with a shocking demand—Cathy must kill her baby to even the scales for having aborted his child. Channeling real-world concerns into a thriller framework, this was a truly startling screenplay (one that almost certainly would not pass muster today) and if the execution did not quite do it justice—although the screenplay required a daring test pilot of a director to do it justice, Mark Robson, fresh off the success of “Valley of the Dolls,” was strictly United material—it certainly promised better things to come in the future.

"Bone"

Like so many screenwriters, Cohen tired of directors messing with his material and finally moved into the director’s chair in 1972 with the bizarre dark comedy, “Bone.” As the film begins, Beverly Hills couple Bernadette (Joyce Van Patten) and Bill (Andrew Duggan) interrupt their latest round of bickering when they discover a strange man (Yaphet Kotto) on their grounds and invite him in, assuming he is an exterminator. The man, Bone, isn’t and takes the two hostage but soon discovers that his captives are not as rich as they appear to be. Nevertheless, he sends Bill to the bank to get more money and threatens to do great harm to Bernadette if he doesn’t return. While in line, Bill gets distracted by a sexy young woman (Jeannie Berlin) and decides to abandon his wife. While all this is going on, Bernadette gets increasingly drunk, seduces her captor and launches a plan for them to murder Bill and collect his insurance money. Making the most of what were presumably limited resources, Cohen devised an ingenious work that tackled racial, sexual, and class concerns in a manner that pulled no punches and got great performances from his cast to boot. Although closer in tone to something like “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolff?” than anything else, the film ended up being sold more along the lines of a straightforward exploitation movie—one wonders what the typical grindhouse crowd must have thought when they encountered this instead of the usual junk that they were presumably expecting.

Cohen was then contacted by Sammy Davis Jr., who wanted to do a film where he was the central character for a change, and the idea of doing a contemporary version of the Warner Brothers gangster films of the Thirties came up. When Davis couldn’t pay for the script for “Black Caesar” (1973) due to tax trouble, Cohen ended up selling it to American-International Pictures and wound up directing the film as well with Fred “The Hammer” Williamson in the lead. Charting the rise and fall of Tommy Gibbs (Williamson), who begins as a kid struggling to survive on the streets of Harlem, becomes the head of the black crime syndicate and wages a war against his enemies that leads to his downfall, the film was fairly conventional in its structure, Cohen added any number of twists that are still startling to observe today—in perhaps the most infamous bit, the adult Tommy gets the drop on the racist cop who beat him as a child when he was doing shoeshines on the street, smears the guy’s face with shoe polish and forces him to sing before beating him to death with a shine box. These wild bits, coupled with Williamson’s undeniable screen charisma and a driving soundtrack by James Brown, helped make the film a hit and AIP clamored for a sequel despite the fact the central character had definitively died.

Needless to say, that didn’t stop Cohen and by the end of 1973, he had “Hell Up in Harlem” in theaters with Williamson again in the lead. Like most rushed sequels, this is a relatively undistinguished programmer but it does contain one magnificently inspired sequence in which Tommy chases an attacker through the streets of New York that seems to end when his quarry eludes him and boards a plane taking off for Los Angeles. That doesn’t stop Tommy—he boards the next flight to L.A., spends the next few hours flying out and lands just in time to finish things up at the baggage claim at LAX.

"It's Alive"

Not wanting to be pigeonholed solely as a blaxploitation filmmaker, Cohen made his shift to the horror genre where he would achieve his greatest fame. His first effort there, and one of his most famous films, was “It’s Alive” (1974), in which he took one of the squirmier premises in screen history—a woman gives birth to a monstrously deformed baby that slaughters anyone unlucky enough to cross its path—and embroidered upon it with a narrative that managed to make its so-called monster somehow sympathetic in the manner of Frankenstein’s Monster, presented some extremely pointed commentary regarding the pharmaceutical industry (who devised the pills the mother took that presumably caused the mutation and who need the child killed in order to cover up their culpability) and included moments of jet-black humor as well as well as impressive contributions from makeup maestro Rick Baker and famed composer Bernard Herrmann. Completed in 1974, the film was released by a regime at Warner Brothers that did not get it and thus the film only received a limited release. Three years later, the film was re-released with an inspired new ad campaign (“There is only one thing wrong with the Davis baby. It’s alive.”) and became a box-office hit that would inspired two Cohen-directed sequels, “It Lives Again” (1977) and “It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive” (1987) and a 2009 remake that was so bad that Cohen claimed that the head of the studio that made it actually apologized to him for it.

From this point, Cohen embarked on a series of wildly ambitious films (especially considering the low budgets that he was working on) that continued to join together familiar genre tropes with increasingly pointed social satire and commentary. In “God Told Me To” (1976), he tackled religion with a story of a New York cop (Tony Lo Bianco) trying to solve a rash of bizarre violent crimes perpetrated by people who claim that God told them to kill and stumbles upon a cult whose leader (Richard Lynch) inspires some startling revelations about his own past and possible connection to the increasingly bizarre happenings. “Q-The Winged Serpent” (1982) involves a giant flying serpent that is flying around decapitating New Yorkers and a small-time crook (Michael Moriarty) who happens to discover the beast’s hiding place and tries to trade that information to the police in exchange for a big payday. “The Stuff” (1985) was a broad satire target crass commercialism and corporate indifference in telling the tale of a brand new dessert treat, known as The Stuff, that sweeps the country and turns those who eat it into addicts. An industrial spy (Moriarty) hired by the now-struggling ice cream industry investigates and it turns out that the Stuff is a living parasitic organism that is essentially eating the very same people who are eating it—a minor fact that those selling the substance seem blithely unconcerned with in their quest for profits. In “The Ambulance” (1990), a comic book artist (Eric Roberts) investigates the disappearance of a woman he just met—after collapsing on the street, she was picked up by an ambulance but never made it to any hospital—and uncovers the expected mad and elaborate conspiracy.

Among genre movie fans, the films that I have just cited, with the possible exception of “The Ambulance,” are justly famous, not only for the films themselves (which expertly blend the comedy and horror genres with style and ease) but for the stories regarding their productions. In “God Told Me To,” there is a scene in which someone dressed as a policeman begins to shoot up New York’s St. Patricks’s Day parade. Considering the number of elements that would be occurring, there was no way that he could possibly get the required permits to film during the actual parade and recreating it would cost far too much money. Instead, he just took his actor—a then-unknown Andy Kaufman, just to add to the weirdness—and stuck him into the parade and filmed without any permits. As for “Q,” that film came about when Cohen was fired from another movie that he was directing, a big-budget adaptation of the pulp classic “I, the Jury” and decided to conceive another movie to do instead—not only did “Q” beat “I, the Jury” into theaters, it cost only a fraction of that film’s budget and wound up being a bigger hit to boot.

"Full Moon High"

Although these horror/satire hybrids would be the films that he would become most associated with, Cohen would occasionally change things up with unexpected forays into different types of filmmaking. “The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover” (1977) was an ambitious biopic that centered on the 40-year career of the former FBI director (Broderick Crawford) but which also served as a corrosive look American history during that time. Although the budget limitations are a little more obvious this time around, the film hit more than it missed. “Full Moon High” (1981) was a sweet-natured comedy in which Adam Arkin plays a teenager in 1959 who is bitten by a werewolf while on a trip to Romania—rendered ageless by this attack in addition to the usual side effects, he returns to his old high school 20 years later to reenroll, this time posing as his son. Although it had the misfortune to come out in the midst of a mini-glut of werewolf movies (that included “The Howling,” “An American Werewolf in London” and “Wolfen”) and disappear from view, it remains a charming work that suggests what the later “Teen Wolf” might have been like if it was actually good.

Cohen then returned to his early thriller roots with two 1984 films that he shot back-to-back. In “Special Effects,” Eric Bogosian plays a filmmaker driven mad by a massive flop who accidentally films himself murdering a one-night stand (Zoe Lund). After discovering a lookalike (also Lund), he elects to make a movie about the dead woman utilizing that footage but when it gets destroyed, he becomes convinced that he needs to recreate it. In “Perfect Strangers,” a Mob hitman (Brad Rijin) discovers that a young, pre-verbal boy has seen him committing a murder and is ordered to kill the kid but before he can, he finds himself getting into a relationship with the boy’s mother (Anne Carlisle). “Wicked Stepmother” (1989) was another overt comedy but one perhaps better known for its own oddball behind-the-scenes story—after filming for a couple of weeks in the title role, star Bette Davis suddenly left the production and rather than shut everything down, Cohen rewrote things so that her character would suddenly change her appearance so that the rest of the part could now be played by Barbara Carrera.

Although it would become harder over time for Cohen the director to get work—especially since the studios were now specializing in expensive versions of the B-movies that he specialized in—he still found work as a screenwriter and his name turned up on the screenplays for such films as “Best Seller” (1987). “Maniac Cop” (1988), “Body Snatchers” (1993,” “Guilty as Sin” (1993), and “Cellular” (2004). Of his work as a pure screenwriter during that time, his best-known project is probably the 2003 hit “Phone Booth,” a thriller in which a fast-talking publicist (Colin Farrell) with a messy personal and professional life impulsively answers a call at the last phone booth in New York and finds himself targeted by an unseen sniper who threatens to kill him if he attempts to leave. Cohen originally pitched the basic idea for the film to no less than Alfred Hitchcock but it was abandoned when they could not conceive of why the guy would have to remain in the phone booth.

Cohen’s final film as a director was “Original Gangstas,” an entertaining blaxploitation revival that brought back some of the genre’s greatest icons—including Fred Williamson, Jim Brown, Ron O’Neal, Richard Roundtree and Pam Grier—to kick some young punk ass. However, while he wasn’t doing anything new, his legacy continued to flourish. A member of an informal club of genre filmmakers known as the Masters of Horror, he would go on to direct an episode of the horror anthology series by the same name in 2006. He had reportedly been working with JJ Abrams on a project anthology series for cable television.

"Q: The Winged Serpent"

His oeuvre returned to the spotlight in 2017 with the release of “King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen,” a wildly entertaining documentary in which Cohen looks back on his crazy career and which features additional testimonials from friends and coworkers as well as a slew of mouth-clips that will make you want to see the full features immediately. Among students of the genre, Cohen’s influence as a storyteller cannot be denied.

Of course, any discussion of the works of Larry Cohen at this site cannot conclude without mentioning an anecdote that Roger and others would often cite. In 1982, “Q” screened at that year’s Cannes Film Festival under the original title “The Winged Serpent.” As those who have seen the film know, the movie is largely dominated by a brilliantly out-of-left-field performance by Michael Moriarty, the kind that might have earned awards had it not been included in a film where giant creatures tear the heads off of topless sunbathers. Anyway, after the screening, there was a luncheon and the following conversation was said to have taken place between Samuel Z. Arkoff, the B-movie legend who produced “Q,” and film critic Rex “Myra Breckenridge” Reed.

REED: Sam! I just saw “The Winged Serpent!” What a surprise! All that dreck—and right in the middle of it, a great Method performance by Michael Moriarty!

ARKOFF: The dreck was my idea.

A great story, of course, but the genius of Cohen—and I do mean “genius”—was that he took concepts that others could have easily reduced to dreck and transformed them into witty, provocative works that pushed all the right buttons. As a filmmaker, Larry Cohen was a true master—not necessarily of horror alone. For film fans who have long sparked to his offbeat output, his passing will prove to be a great loss.

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