#if he eventually just tells me it’s my ibs I think I will start crying | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

give-baek-my-love · 5 years ago

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Can We Try Again? (1)

Characters: Namjoon X Y/N (ft. Jin)

Genre: Angst/Fluff

Chapter: 1,

Description: After ten years since your broke up with your first boyfriend, Namjoon, you meet him again ten years later, and as you are on the search the answer to the iconic question ‘Can exes stay friends?’ you find yourself constantly questioning whether or not you did the right thing ten years ago. On top of that, you’re now faced with a new question, ‘Can we try again?’

“Can exes stay friends?” Now that’s a very controversial question that you’ve seen many people on the internet debate on. “It depends. If both of them have moved on, then staying as friends seems doable.” One side would argue. “No. How can you just lose feelings for someone that you once loved and be able to act like friends again? Impossible. You’ll always carry some sort of feelings towards them which will make it impossible to simply see the other as ‘just friends.’’ The other side would argue. Both sides presenting very reasonable and logical explanations, but when the same question is asked your answer is…

(10 Years Ago) Your soon-to-be ex-boyfriend, Namjoon, and you were seated side by side on the swing sets at your middle school playground. By ‘soon-to-be,’ this is because he was just notified today that he was accepted into the prestigious IB program that he had so badly wanted to get into. Although the white lie ‘we can try to make long distance work,’ could have sufficed the heartache that started building from within the moment that he told you the news, you knew deep down, that this relationship would have to come to an end. You had heard about how tiresome and intense this program was, and you knew that for him find the time to talk and meet up with you would be close to impossible. This was going to be it. “Do you think that exes can be friends?” He asked as he stared down at his feet, struggling to find the willpower to look at you. You debated on lying to him, but seeing that the two of you had known each other for such a long time, he would have seen right through you. “No. I don’t think so.” You said as calmly as you could while turning to meet his sadden eyes. Although you were only at the age of fourteen, you had met your boyfriend at 8 years old and had instantly fallen in love with him, or at least felt what seemed like the love that Disney princesses felt in movies. Your heart broke as you saw his eyebrows furrow with pain followed by a pout on his face. Even though you knew that this break up was inevitable, no amount of prep talk that you’ve been doing could have made this day any easier. “Do you?” You asked in the calmest voice possible while gripping onto the metal straps of the swing tightly, hopelessly hoping that it would help you suppress any amount of pain that you were feeling. The two of you sat in complete silence as the sound of the little kindergarteners playing in the park were in the background. “We can still be friends.” He finally said, in the softest and gentlest voice that you’ve ever heard. Those words instantly sent tears down your face because you knew. This was it. The break up was going to happen. You were going to have to say goodbye to your best friend and first love, and there was nothing that you could do that would stop it. You simply just had to accept it. The sound of you sobbing were like nails on a chalkboard, painful and uncomfortable. He quickly got off the swing, and crouched down in front of you so that he was now at eye level with you. “Hey. It’s okay.” He comforted, pulling your hands from the metal ropes and onto your lap with his hands enveloping yours. You wished that you could say something, but nothing but tears and sobs could come out. You were guessing that the children had left the park after hearing you cry because you could no longer hear their squeals or feet stomping on the park, rather all that you could hear was him repeatedly saying that it was going to be okay while he occasionally wiped your tears away. Finally, the tears came to an end and you stared blankly at his face, hoping to take in all his facial features and admire the face of the boy that you fell so deeply in love with for as long as you possibly can. He stared at you with a sweet smile and a fond tender look in his eyes that for even just a minute made your worries disappear. A unique power that only he could have on you. Hoping to break the saddened atmosphere, you tried to make a joke, “I think I just scarred those kids for life.” He snorted and shook his head in amusement, “This is why I love you Y/N. What am I going to do without you?” “Shut up don’t make me cry again.” You warned as you wiped the last bit of your tears dry. Although it wasn’t necessarily a, instant break up, nothing more was needed to be said for the both of you to know that the relationship was going to eventually come to an end the moment that the next school year started. Without much of a word needed, the two of you made a silent agreement that with whatever time that the two of you had left, it would be spent wisely with as little tears shed as possible. Even though fourteen was a very young age, neither of you doubted that you were both in love, however the relationship just seemed to have ran its course.

Or at least that’s what you thought.

(Present Day)

Now at the age of twenty-four, freshly graduated from university, you by some lucky chance got hired back from the company that you had worked for last summer. As oppose to most of your friends who only took four years in university, you needed an extra year and graduated with a bachelor of science specializing for actuarial science. You didn’t necessarily care about the number of years that it took you, because you were just glad that this company was happy to take you back. It feels nice to be able to work in a more familiar environment and with people that you had previously worked with. Once you stepped into the main entrance of the building, you were greeted by Emily, one of the employees at the front desk that you had gotten very close with, and even went out on a few dinner dates with a couple of other co-workers. She guided you to the photo booth where you were required to take a new picture for your employee badge as she updated you on the new employees that were added to your department at work. “I heard that there’s this new guy that the company brought back from Asia. He had been working there for a little over a year that’s why you haven’t met him yet, but apparently he’s a real cutie and smart. He graduated after only going to university for three years and became a supervisor in just two years.” She nudged you as she linked your arms whilst the two of you walked towards the elevators. However, you weren’t paying much attention to her, instead you were staring excitingly at your new employee badge. With this marks a new era to your life Y/N. We’re growing the fuck up. “Hello? Y/N? Did you hear anything that I said?” Emily asked as she nudged you again.

Ding.

“Hm? Yeah. New guy from Asia.” You mumbled as the elevator doors open and the two of you walked in. “Yeah. He seems like your type. Should I set you up? I know someone from human resources who can help me get his phone number.” She winked. This time it was your turn to nudge her, “Hey. Don’t be a creep. No. I’m not really interested in dating anyways. I’m just going to try and do my job well and start paying off my student debts.” You laughed as she mumbled something about you being no fun. Ding. The elevator rang again it reached your department’s floor. “Hey Y/N! Great to see you back.” Jin greeted you with a bright smile the moment that he saw you and Emily walk out of the elevator. After the three of you each took your turns sharing how their weekends went, Emily escorted you to your new desk where you saw a cute new pot of aloe plant presented right beside your computer screen with a big red ribbon wrapped around the plant’s pot. “Thank you.” You turned to Emily, knowing very well no one but her would give such thoughtful gifts. As Jin argued with Emily about how he never got a plant from her, you settled down and hung your bag by the side of the desk, staring amusingly at the pictures of you and Emily along with some other co-workers at a dinner a couple of weeks back. “Oh Y/N. I forgot to tell you I have a friend that I want you to meet, he works in your department. He recently just came back from Asia-“ “Oh. My. God. You’re friends with him? I was just telling Y/N about him.” Emily squealed with so much excitement that you stared at her filled with confusion. Is this guy really good looking or something? “Really? I was thinking of the same thing too!” He laughed. “Are you guys trying to sell me off or something? I don’t need a boyfriend right now.” You sighed as you plopped yourself down into the chair now staring up at Emily and Jin talking away about how this mystery guy is ‘so your type.’ “Okay. Y/N at least hear me out. He’s young. He’s your age. He’s a bachelor. Smart. Single. Good looking. Need I say more?” He asked waving his hand into the air. You figured that instead of trying to fight with him, you just let him continue talking while your mind wandered off for the first time in a very long time, to someone that you once knew who was very good looking and smart. As it finally came time to start working, the three of you resigned to your own work space and you were filled in by one of your co-workers on what tasks you would be taking on for the month. You were told that your supervisor would help you out and tell you in more detail on what you needed to do for the end of week meeting, but by the time it came for lunch, your supervisor was nowhere to be seen but even so, you worked as productively as possible. You happily joined Emily and Jin who were already at one of the table in the cafeteria, gossiping yet again about this friend of his. Shaking your head in disapproval, you turned towards the food stalls to go look for food. As you looked around the assortment of food options with nothing capturing your attention, you pulled out your phone and decided to order from one of your favourite Vietnamese restaurants nearby on Ubereats. However, you were too engrossed on what to order on your phone that you didn’t see that someone was walking towards you until you bumped right into their chest causing your phone to fall onto the ground. “Oh. I’m so sorry.” You quickly apologized turned to the strangers face. Oh. But it wasn’t a stranger standing in front of you. He was anything but a stranger. The man now standing right in front of you, gave you the same sweet smile that he had once given you ten years ago. The exact same smile that melted your heart ten years ago, and still after all these years has the power to melt it all oer again. He was taller now, much taller than before, at least a head taller than you. He also looked much more mature. Grown up. Handsome nonetheless. These ten years must have treated him real nice. “Hi Y/N.” He greeted in a dark and calm voice. You should have said something, anything would have been nice, but you were too shocked to even let out the breath that you were holding in. It wasn’t until Emily and Jin rushed to your side that you realized that you were probably just staring awkwardly at him without saying a single spoken word. “Y/N are you okay?” Emily asked as she picked up your phone from the ground while you and him never once broke eye contact. “Hey. You okay?” She asked again, now in a whisper as she nudged the phone into your hand. You mumbled a simple yes, suddenly becoming hyperaware by how long you and him were holding each other’s stare, causing your cheeks to flush in a deep red colour. “Oh! Y/N just in time. This is my friend that I was talking about! His name is-“ Jin started. “Namjoon. Kim Namjoon. But you already knew that didn’t you Y/N?” He smirked. A little too well. It almost amazed you just how confident he looked staring amusingly at you, as if he didn’t care that other people were watching. It suddenly felt as if the two of you were in your own world. Somehow the longer you stared, the more you felt yourself turning back to your fourteen-year-old self, a past that you tried so hard to get over. The Y/N that often blushed whenever her eyes met Namjoon’s. The Y/N who attended math club with Namjoon just so that she could spend more time with him. And more importantly the Y/N who was deeply and madly in love with fourteen-year-old Namjoon. Before you could even muster the courage to say anything to him or Emily and Jin, Namjoon straightened out his suit and said, “Ah. I almost forgot to add. Welcome to the team Y/N. I’m your new supervisor.” He smirked as he extended his hand. Oh no. Oh no no no.

#bts imagines #bts scenarios #bts namjoon #bts #bts fanfics #kim namjoon #rm #namjoon x reader #bts ff

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mrs-hollandstan · 6 years ago

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This concept of tom holland being a nurse is awesome. Would you do something with Peter Parker where the reader is still studying to be a nurse and suddenly one day in the middle of the the night Peter goes to her room in his Spiderman suit begging for help because he's terribly injured but he haven't tell her yet about being Spiderman so she starts to freak out because he's bleeding a lot and also due to the fact that he didn't tell her his secret and starts to cry while cleaning his wounds?

Mmm yes. Moooooorrrreeeeee bloooooooddddd.

“Diazepam treats muscle spasms, anxiety and seizures. Lorazepam treats IBS, anxiety and epilepsy. Warfarin treats-” You’re interrupted with a knock at your bedroom window and more questions than answers. The darkness outside doesn’t do anything else and until you stand, your heart is pounding.

Walking to it, you open and none other than Spider-Man falls through your window, blood splattering on the beige carpet as he holds his side. You gasp, grabbing his arm to sit up before hauling your arms under his and hoisting him to his feet, dropping him against your bed. He groans,

“Y/N…”

“How- who…” Reaching a shaky hand up, he removes his mask to reveal a familiar face, gashes and bruises littering his beautiful face. Peter Parker,

“What-”

“I know… I know but… m'sorry… I need help.” You nod,

“Take… take the suit off. I need full access to you.” You mutter, listening to him groan as he strips of it. Meanwhile, you grab the needle and sutures from your nursing kit the program provided you before hurrying to the bathroom and getting the alcohol and cotton pads as well as the box of bandages under the sink. Looking at yourself in the mirror, you brush the beads of tears rolling down your nose away and find him again.

Clicking open the alcohol, you crouch beside him, pulling a cotton pad out and sniffing back your tears. Dampening the pad in alcohol, you raise your head, finding the first small gash near his hipbone. You look to his face, his eyes closed,

“Keep still.” You murmur, waiting until he nods to drag it across the flared ends of his skin. He hisses, but holds still, his abdomen contracting in pain. You clean it and sew it up, minding the tears slipping down your face. His breathing is ragged from the cuts littering his face and body.

You repeat the process until you get to the bad slash, pressing down on it to stop the bleeding. He wheezes but allows you to do it, his eyes squeezing shut tightly.

“God damn.” He groans, holding your hip tight in his hand as you crouch over him, hands crimson in his blood. He grunts, but his blood eventually stops leaking from the wound. You draw back, wiping your hands off on a towel but his hand reaches up to brush a tear away,

“What’s this… huh?” You sniffle,

“Its nothing.” You can hear the wheeze in his voice,

“Yeah? You always cry for nothing?” Brushing a fresh cotton pad across his skin, he hisses again, his eyes squeezing shut again before he opens them,

“I am sorry. I didn’t wanna keep this from you but… it’s another secret you would’ve had to keep and I didn’t want that.”

“So you would’ve let me lose you? No context, just my best friend in a casket and I don’t know why?” He sees the tears clouding your eyes before you slip the needle beneath his skin, a little bit of blood seeping from his wound.

“I never thought about it… I hate myself for doing this to you.”

“Me too.” You mumble, closing his side up. He watches you climb off of him, walking to your nurse kit and finding the painkillers. Walking back to him, you hand two to him,

“I love you.” He mutters, slipping them into his mouth and swallowing them down with water. You open the box of bandages, finding the handful of big ones to cover his stitches with,

“I have for a while but… now that I’ve screwed everything up… you should know that.” He watches you bandage him before cleaning up the area,

“You didn’t screw anything up Peter. There’s just so much going on right now. You’re Spider-Man and you didn’t tell me. You came to me, beaten and bloody and I don’t know how to handle it. It’s a lot.” He nods,

“I know… I know.” Folding your arms across your chest, he sighs and holds his own up,

“C'mere.” Walking forward, he rubs your back as you climb in beside him, laying your head over his shoulder. He reaches up to play with your hair,

“Is there any way you can forgive me?” You nod, running your finger over his pec, just beside his nipple,

“You got me some practice in the stitch district. It helps. I’m not upset about it. I get it. But if I’d lost you, I don’t know what I’d do. I love you too Pete, and… I just don’t want to lose you.” He nodded,

“I get it. I should’ve told you. There’s a number of times I wanted to tell you. But I just… I didn’t want you to have to deal with it. Keeping that secret.” You nod, craning your head. The corners of his lips twitch as he raises his head,

“But I’m still here… and I just stained your floor so… it was time.” You nod before crawling further up to gently, ever so slightly press your lips to his.

The both of you lose your breath and Peter holds your hips, wanting to drag you ever closer. You break when the door swings open and your roommate steps inside, looking at the open window, the blood on the floor, Peter’s suit, and you and Peter laid on your bed,

“God you two are disgusting. Use protection.” As she turns and closed the door again, you giggle as Peter looks after her, shocked,

“Did she just blatantly ignore the fact that your room looks like a crime scene and I’m Spider-Man?” You giggle again,

“I think she did.”

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cerillosvillage · 6 years ago

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One-shot: My Little Despot

Your my little despot/ What an iron fist you’ve got/ Are you willing or will you not release/ The hearts that you hold

Dedicated to that anon who keeps asking about Grax and Ajra. Takes place immediately after Mercenary Work.

WARNING: Not safe for work

Three sharp knocks on the door roused Grax from the tome he'd been quietly reading to himself. There were no follow-up knocks, but there didn't need to be. He knew the sound of that fist anywhere, and Ajra knew he would always open the door for her.

He set the book down and got to his feet, his knees creaking as he did. He took a moment to stretch, which only elicited more pops and groans from his joints. He was getting old, and the hard life he'd lived before he found her was catching up to him.

He crossed to the door and opened it, and there she was. She was getting old, too, but she was still as lovely as the day they met. More so, even, since she was no longer half-starving. The curves of her body had filled out with food, and then again after childbirth -- but her eyes still held that hungry, wild look that they'd had when she was younger. No matter what happened, she always needed something to satiate her various appetites, be it food or attention or something else. He'd never been able to fulfill her needs, and for that he felt a little bit like a failure.

But he tried. He would always try. He wanted nothing more than to make her feel at peace, even if his moral compass put strict limits on what he would and would not do for her.

"Wife," he murmured, holding out a hand to her.

"Husband," she said curtly, placing her palm in his. He lifted her hand to his mouth, pressing his mouth to her knuckles, breathing in her scent.

He could already smell the other man on her.

He lowered their hands and let her step inside. She kicked the door closed behind her.

"What are you doing?" She asked as she squinted at the low table set against the wall and set with oil lamps. Her voice was like she was - stony and hard-edged - but Grax knew her well enough to know that that did not necessarily mean she was voicing disapproval.

"I was reading," he replied. "It is quite a good book."

"Feh," she huffed. "I don't know why you bothered to learn how."

"It is a worthwhile skill to have, my love," he said, looking at her out of the corners of his eyes and trying not to smile. This was a conversation they frequently had. "You could learn a lot from books."

"Why should I bother," she said, "I know you'll just tell me about it all anyways."

At that he finally did smile. The edges of her mouth twitched. It was as close to a smile as she usually got. Grax loved it all the same - though he loved it when she fully smiled even more.

"I've missed you," he said, bringing the hand that wasn't holding hers up to her cheek.

"I've missed you as well," she replied. This, again, was a conversation they frequently had. It was their main greeting for one another.

Grax leaned in and kissed her mouth. He had taken a number of lovers in the past few years, had learned the differences between kisses. Ajra had never been very good at it, her lips rigid and unyielding, chapped and cracked. She didn't melt or give way like some lovers did. But Grax did not mind. She had been his first kiss, and he knew she would be his last. After all these years, kissing her still felt like coming home.

Up close, he could smell the other man even more clearly. It was the musky scent of sweat and sex, and underneath it the smell of dogs and something metallic.

"You've been with another man," Grax murmured as he ended the kiss. There was no accusation or judgement to his voice. He said it as a casual observation, the way one might point out a new cloak.

"Hmm," Ajra hummed. She released his hand and flung herself down on the straw mattress at served as his bed, crossing her legs underneath her and her arms across her chest.

Grax sat down behind her, legs on either side of her. He grasped her shoulders, using his thumbs to feel for the knots he knew were in her back. She hummed again as he dug his fingers into them, this time in approval.

"Who was it?" He asked.

"The mercenary."

Well, that was surprising. "I thought you didn't like mercenaries," he said, pressing hard against a knot in her shoulder and pulling a groan from her lips.

"He looks at me like a smitten teenager," she replied. "I wanted to see if this would wipe the stupid look off his face."

"Really?" Grax grinned slightly, pressing his lips to the nape of her neck. "Is that all?"

"Does it matter?"

"Mm. Perhaps."

His hands smoothed across her back, sliding down her shoulders. His mouth moved up along her neck, following a pulsing vein, until he reached the spot just beneath her ear. Her head turned towards his, mouths meeting. Her kisses were hard, but they were hungry, needy. He wondered if she kissed her lovers - few they had been - like this, or if it was something she reserved only for him.

His hands continued to slip down, moved from her arms to her sides, pulling her shirt free from her trousers. They moved underneath the fabric, pressing against her hard stomach. She flexed against his touch.

"Not that I think it worked," she said against his mouth. He moved back to kissing her neck so that she could talk. "He begged like a whore the entire time, and again after."

Grax's hands drifted upwards. Her chest heaved against him, guiding his hands to cup her breasts. He dug his fingers into them, massaging the surprisingly still-firm flesh. She moaned, her back arching slightly.

"How was he, at least?" Grax asked in her ear, his voice just above a whisper. He could feel a shiver move down her spine.

"Disappointing," she breathed, straining against his hands. "He has a good, massive cock but I did all the work."

"A pity," Grax said. One of his hands left her breast, trailing down her stomach. It slipped under her sash and into her trousers, pressing onwards between her legs. Her back arched further as she lifted her hips, guiding his hand down to slip between her folds.

"You're a mess," he murmured as he drew his fingers along her slit. Even without seeing it, he could feel the other man's cum mixed with her own. She must have walked directly from his apartment to Grax's.

"He's a filthy man who doesn't bother to clean up," she groaned through gritted teeth.

Her chest rose and fell heavily. She pressed her body against his hands, willing him to use them. She made a noise of disappointment as he removed his hands from her, even as he moved to undo her sash and roll her trousers down her legs.

She helped him by kicking the fabric off, pausing as he awkwardly pulled one of his legs back so that he could get his own off. Soon enough his legs were on either side of her again, and he took her by the hips and lifted her up, moving his legs beneath her.

She hovered over him, spread-eagled. His cock rested just beneath her, warm and stiff. He guided her hips down, just low enough to rub her wet slit on the head of his cock. Her breathing got heavy, her body still sensitive from an orgasm only minutes before.

He reached around her, lifting his member, guiding it up into her. She groaned in pleasure as he filled her. He wrapped an arm around her torso, slowly laying back and bringing her down with him.

Bracing his heels against the straw mattress, he brought his hips up and down, sliding back and forth in and out of her. The hand grasping her took hold of one of her breasts, rolling her nipple between his fingers.

He was gentle - he had always been, even when they had first fucked and she had gritted her teeth against the odd feeling of him inside of her and begged him to give it to her harder. She liked fighting, she liked pain, but he had never had it in himself to deliberately hurt her.

He more than made up for it, though. He took his time, drawing things out, finding just the right angles to hit certain spots inside of her. He brought his other hand up between her legs, rubbing against her clit, starting slow and gentle, just enough to bring breathy gasps to her lips, then using a more firm pressure to make her moan. He kissed her neck, and nibbled against her ear lobe, which made her tighten around him.

And he teased her. He would, at times when he knew she was close, halt all of his movements, making her mewl in frustration and grind against him until he began again.

He did this multiple times, until she was swearing at him, begging him to finish, to both let her come and to come inside of her. Only then did he thrust into her hard - not enough to hurt her, but enough to make her cry out. He rubbed her clit fast and hard, and she tensed, and then the tension broke, her legs shaking, giving way to spasms that racked her whole body. And he released too, coming inside her, mixing with the mercenary's cum.

He slipped out of her, but she did not move, laying back against him and trying to catch her breath. He wrapped both arms around her, kissing her once more against the neck.

Grax knew she'd go back to the mercenary. She stayed the rest of the night there in his quarters, but he knew she'd eventually go back to the mercenary. Ib, or whatever his name was. She so rarely stayed the full night, and it was only when something else had made her happy. Her bit about being disappointed with Ib was a lie, an attempt to spare Grax's feelings, but he didn't much care. As long as she was happy, he was happy.

Well, within reason. He just needed to make sure the mercenary knew where the line was drawn.

#rockbreaker lore #long post

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nogreatillusion · 7 years ago

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A brief list of things that have made me feel like shit lately (you know, in addition to literally everything happening politically, rampant sexual assault inside and outside of Hollywood, and the omnipresent threat of nuclear war):

-- A coworker brought donuts to a meeting on Halloween and then one girl refused to eat one because she had been too "bad" lately and the most senior person at the meeting, the boss of everyone there, acted concerned and disapproving and said "you were doing so good before... what happened?" and the girl had to "explain" her "bad behavior" (ie. not dieting well enough) and then the boss asked another of her employees how much weight she'd recently lost in a way that made it clear she had to share this information with everyone at the table, which she did, and everyone oohed and aahed approvingly and no one else ate a donut.

-- The past three times I've gone to a movie theater, I've been either too scared to enter the room, or asked Ben if we can leave before the movie started because I have this deep, intense foreboding that a white man with a gun is going to come in and start shooting everyone.

-- My boss's boss's boss decided to strike up a rare conversation with my colleague and I about what a menace the homeless people in our neighborhood are and how "firm" he is with any who try to enter his business to use the bathroom. Another colleague chimed in to laugh about how hilarious it is when another manager confronts a homeless person washing themselves in the bathroom and forces them to admit why they're there.

-- A guy I went to high school with, who is still a distant friend of friends, posted a video on facebook of a half-naked girl at some sort of frat party (I didn't watch the video), and every comment was about how she would be someone's slut wife some day, how this was the reason they didn't want daughters, how this girl would eventually post about the experience as sexual assault when it was clearly her fault, how ludicrous it would be to reply that it's her body and she can do what she wants with it.

-- I know it's not my job, but it still feels like my job to fix the problems between my parents, even now, 21 years after they first split up. I am still the mediator, even when I say nothing, I live with the guilt for not fixing what they've broken. Even my neutrality feels like choosing a side.

-- My IBS is getting worse and there are new symptoms and sometimes it's hard just to get through the day. Sometimes I kneel on the bathroom floor in my office building with debilitating stomach cramps and pray no one comes in, because we're not allowed to take sick days without a doctor's note. I'm too anxious to go to a doctor because last time I went to a doctor he told me my abdominal pain was a pulled muscle, and I started to argue with him, to insist it was not a pulled muscle, and he said "what do you want me to do?" and then I started to cry, so I left. It turned out that I had c. difficile, a potentially life-threatening infection.

-- My grandma -- my brilliant, funny, artist grandma who was so thrilled for me when I moved to New York and used to tell me about her life as a flight attendant and art teacher and mother of six -- doesn't really know me anymore, and doesn't sound like herself when she talks, and doesn't exactly have a place to live because all of her children together can't afford the kind of care she needs.

Last night, for no reason, I started crying uncontrollably and when Ben asked me what was wrong I just kept saying "I don't know, I don't know," and I really didn't! I had no idea. I thought, maybe it's my hormones. Maybe I'm about to get my period. I just realized how much of this stuff I'm dealing with and compartmentalizing and stuffing further and further down, like my mind is a trash compactor.

Some nights, I really wish I had a friend here. I just want to get a margarita with another woman and commiserate about how fucking scary and dark things seem, how all the worst people I know are in the highest positions of power. I want to tell all the women I know that I'm here if they're not ok, if they feel crushed by the weight of an unnameable responsibility, if they cry some nights after work and can't pinpoint the reason. It's happening to a lot of us, I think.

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feitanswife · 8 years ago

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Day three- brotp

Wise guy

Summary: dual-story! Checking another piece off the long Shotgun Verse to-do list and fulfilling a Nanbaka Week prompt! This one was either relationship or brotp and I went with the cutest bros to ever bro, Seitorou and Nico! Also this is a story about Nico getting his wisdom teeth removed, and discovering that needles aren’t the only medical thing he’s afraid of. And I’m also projecting real hard because basically this is what happened to me. I’m petrified of medication don’t blame me it’s basically drilled into us in this state like some kind of anti-everything cult.

Nico was crying, gauze stuffed in his creeks, looking hypothetically cute, but more pity inducing than anything else.

“H-Hajime” the muffled voice calls out, “don’t weave me hewre awone! I’m gonna die!”

Hajime pushes him gently off, “you won’t die Nico, it’s just a half dose of pain medication, you literally could not be more careful if you tried.”

“But… But… it’s inside me!”

“and? You take worse shit daily!”

Nico slunk to the floor, sobbing. No one could make out the words he was trying to say anymore.

Rock pulled Hajime to the side, “listen man, I can explain. It’s an American thing. Especially in the city where we grew up, that word printed on that bottle? That… we don’t even say it. It’s like that old saying, ‘speak of the devil and he shall appear’. That shit’s a death sentence in pill form. There is no coming back from that. If it doesn’t kill you directly it’ll starve you by siphoning your money until you lose everything.”

“maybe in a higher dosage, it’s 75% Tylenol what they gave him. And he only took a one when the thing said two pills.”

Rock shook his head, and clenched his jaw before sighing, “It’s still scary, even for someone like Nico, not to mention the anesthesia hasn’t completely worn off, he’s going to get emotional. Just… please don’t force him to take them. If the pin gets bad enough he will, but for now just let him take the standard Tylenol.”

Hajime threw his hands up, “fine, whatever, but I’m going home. I have a pregnant fiancée to take care of!”

Nico had stopped crying, “I-I’m sowry Rovk, if I didn’t have this stupid allergy to Ibu…ibe… that thing, we wouldn’t have had to get the alternative ones.”

Rock helped Nico back into the recliner, “Nico, it’s fine, you’re fine. You head what hajime said, that only made up ¼ of the pill, and you only took a ½ dose. And from here on out you don’t have to take any more unless you want to. I’ll leave them here, in case you need them. Seitorou will be here in a minute, and he’ll keep you safe!”

Nico had sat watching food network for a while until Seitorou wandered in with a shopping bag.

“Ah, there you are! Hajime said I was going to be watching you tonight. Are you doing better?”

Nico shrugs, but pointed to the pile of used up gauze on the table next to him.

“Yeah, you always have been a bleeder. I bought some extra gauze just in case. Do you think you’re up to eat something?”

Nico removed some gauze to talk somewhat normally, “tongue’s still numb but I am hungry.”

They managed to get some jello into Nico’s stomach, but he didn’t look satisfied.

“tummy feels bad.”

Seitorou furrows his brow, “your stomach? Did you take an medicine?”

“half dose of that- had a panic attack after.”

Seitorou picked up the bottle Nico had pointed to and read over it, grimacing, “oh wow, I guess with your allergies they didn’t have much of a choice. But this probably could upset your stomach, even at a half dose. But you’re half way through the time so at a half dose it should wear soon. Are you planning on taking more of these? Or do you want to try with just the normal ones for a while?”

“Normal.” Nico murmurd, “Hajime got mad though.”

“Well he’s not too well versed in American drug culture, so he probably thought you were being overly dramatic. But Rock explained it to me before I came it. Anyway, enough about pills and culture, why don’t we watch some anime? I never did get around to watching that one that came out last November that everyone loved to much.”

Nico’s face lit up even though he couldn’t smile. Seitorou didn’t know what he was missing!

Several hours later, they sat crying happy tears in the dark lounge, Nico’s head resting against Seitorou’s shoulder. The dramatic near-death of the main character’s beloved pet and eventual tearful reunion between the love interests was just too much to bear. It was Nico’s third watch, but it still got him every time. Or maybe it was the sleep deprivation and lack of proper sustenance. Hard to eat anything when you can only open your mouth an inch or so.

He had wanted to sleep but he kept thinking the gauze would fall out of place and he’d choke on it. It was a rational fear! But he couldn’t take it out to sleep because A. he’s still bleeding after like ten hours, B. having it out hurt for some reason, and C. although he hadn’t fully read the instructions, it sounded like something he wasn’t supposed to do.

And apparently if you somehow screw this up, it’ll ruin your life forever, according to the internet.

So instead they decided to Re-watch One Punch Man for like the fifth time and hopefully be lulled to sleep by the sounds of breaking bones and explosions.

It worked. Somehow.

Day two was fine, not much happened.

But day three, oh god day three.

Day three is the worst, lemme tell you.

Nico sat, the bottle of pills in his hand, jaw throbbing like Saitama himself had just socked him right in the face. It was excruciating, and it had begun to swell and bruise a dark, ugly yellow.

Go to a mirror and puff out your creeks as hard as you can. Now imagine that it looked like you just lost a fistfight with god. Combine those images. And you have Nico’s current predicament.

At least it had stopped bleeding? But it still felt better to have the gauze supporting his jaw.

Seitorou had stepped out to go to the bathroom, and Nico knew this was his only chance. He had just downed a bowl of terrible chicken soup and a jello cup, meaning he was more than set for the nausea to come.

But… maybe he’d do a one-fourth dose, just in case.

He had to swallow his pride before the pill, but he managed it before Seitorou returned.

And the regret was immediate. His knees went immediately week, the room spinning more than it already had been in his weakened state. He dropped to the floor next to the mirror he used to help take the pills while he couldn’t open his mouth like he normally would. He’d cry, but with how much it hurt to do anything, it likely wasn’t a solid idea.

Seitorou had returned then.

“Nico! Nico what happened?” his voice was high, trembling.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I couldn’t take it!” Nico cried, handing over the bottle and pill cutter, “it hurts too much.”

Seitorou kneeled next to Nico’s trembling form, hushing him gently, “you’re okay, you survived the first one right? And this one’s even less.”

“but I can’t Sei! I can’t!”

Seitorou took his hand, “Yes you can. The doctor wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, you know that. Come on, lets go back to the couch and watch something, to take your mind off it. How about we check out a show Hitoshi recommended to me? It’s a magical girl show themed around princesses and apparently it’s really good.”

There was around 50 episodes of it, so they’d easily be busy watching for the rest of the recovery time at least. And it really was a good series. It was unique, nothing like the rest of it’s franchise, but it brought a fresh spin to the concept and the execution was just great. It was the sort of show that reminded the viewer why they jumped down the anime rabbit hole in the first place.

And, as Seitorou had so expertly predicted, Nico was quickly and surely distracted.

It had taken five days for Nico to be up and about at all, even though the surgeon had estimated he’d be back in his cell in four, tops. But Seitorou had been glad to spend the extra time with him, as there really was no need to watch the halls these days. Everyone, even the prisoners, were too focused on the wedding to cause mischief.

An when Seitorou was finally tore away from his coddling/anime binge session, something just didn’t feel right about returning to his post.

“don’t tell me you’re getting attached to the kid now.” Hajime grumbled.

“w-well he’s really not that bad Hajime!”

“still, you’re a prison guard! And regardless of how ridiculous his circumstance is, he cant just be your friend like that!”

Seitorou frowned, “and what makes you say that? Your future wife doesn’t seem to have much of an issue with it.”

They both turned to Momoko, who was reading through some mail, “what? Don’t drag me into your fight. It’s hardly my business what Seitorou does with his free time as long as he doesn’t cause any trouble.”

Seitorou grinned smugly, “you know, he even gave me a nickname~”

Hajime��s head hit the table so hard it cracked.

(A/N: hey, if you’re curious about the rest of this crazy AU then check out the Nanbaka tag on ao3, you’ll find my incomplete mess of fics there! i swear i’m going to be publishing new chapters of both Who I Am and Shotgun itself the minute this week of prompts ends! and when I finish Who I Am, i’m going to start on the Honey and Trois mini arc... or maybe the Rock and Liang mini arc? idk i’ll see where my muse takes me.)

#nanbaka week #nanbakaweek #my writing #nanbaka nico #idk i'm out of tag ideas #sorry this is kind of late i ran out of ideas

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myaekingheart · 7 years ago

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I’m honestly feeling so goddamn tired right now but I really don’t want to go to sleep. Not yet, anyways. It’s the same cycle I always go through, with my mind running on overdrive so that even if my eyelids are heavy and my body is lethargic, my brain keeps pushing me to stay awake. Plus, I also feel kind of...off. Which means no matter how tired I am, sleeping is not a great option. There’s nothing quite like laying in a silent, dark room to really make your mind wander and I know exactly where it’s going to go if I give it the chance right now. It’s going to contemplate every worst case scenario about why I feel weird and spiral me into some sort of stupid panic attack which is certainly not ideal in the slightest. I don’t know what, exactly, is making me feel weird but I know there are definitely a few options on the table.

1) The dishes. My boyfriend asked me to do the dishes while he was at work today. I did not. I have a valid excuse (the cat ripped my hand up yesterday in a flea collar incident and it’s been sensitive ever since) but that doesn’t mean I don’t still feel guilty about it. I made it a point to avoid doing the dishes at all costs because of my hand (and it doesn’t help that I absolutely hate doing the dishes regardless) but at the same time, I was nervous that my boyfriend was going to be upset with me when he got home from work and found that they were still just as they were when he left. Luckily he wasn’t upset (or at least as far as I could tell) but a part of me still felt/feels guilty about it, like I should’ve done it anyways.

2) My mom. I had been planned to call my parents tonight ever since I woke up because I felt like I hadn’t called them in a minute and wanted to say hi and see how they were doing. I waited until after my boyfriend left for work, then called my mother on Messenger so we could video chat. It rings for five minutes and then says she’s unavailable. No sweat. It’s happened before. I figured she was probably just in the bathroom or something. It was 8:30pm so I didn’t dare think she had gone to bed already. She doesn’t go to sleep that early. Well, she texts me and lo and behold she says her and my dad are going to bed because my dad is really tired. Makes sense. He works really long shifts and has to be up at, like, 4:30am. I told her not to sweat it and that I didn’t want to bug them if they were tired but then she insists I call her, so I do. Everything’s fine for the first .25 seconds until I tell her about the incident yesterday with the cat and the flea collar and show her my hand. She immediately breaks down in hysterical tears. I assure her that I’m fine, that it doesn’t hurt that much anymore, and ask her if she’s alright (because honestly, hysterical tears is a little bit of an over-exaggerated reaction if you ask me). She explains how she’s had an emotional day because her and her best friend went to go see this movie about these parents trying to stop their kids from losing their virginity on prom night and it reminded her of me. Not the virginity part, but she said there was a mother-daughter relationship in it where they were best friends and did everything together and the girl got accepted to this college and hid it from her mom but then the mom found out and started crying because she realized her daughter was going to be moving away and they wouldn’t have that relationship anymore and it reminded my mom of me. I get that, I really do, and I understand why she’d be emotional about it, but at the same time she’s just so goddamn overemotional. She was crying so hard that she had to hand the phone to my dad and I didn’t see her or speak to her for the entire rest of the call. This was probably the most palatable part of this whole thing, honestly, because, I mean, at least my dad is sane. I really like talking with him these days. It’s casual. There’s never any crying or whining about how much he misses me. I know he does, but at the same time he’s the kind of parent who knows when to let go and I think he’s really proud of me for doing so well in school and starting my own life and chasing my dreams and all that fluffy shit. So yeah, talking to him was really nice. We didn’t speak for too long because he was really tired and he did have to be in bed early for work in the morning so by 9pm we were saying goodnight and talk to you later. He was sitting in his room getting ready to turn in and I asked him if I could at least say goodnight to my mom before we hung up. I didn’t even know where the fuck she had gone but apparently she was in bed perhaps asleep though my dad couldn’t quite tell. He asked her if she wanted to say goodnight to me and she didn’t answer for a few minutes, and then she let him turn the camera onto her and I am honestly not surprised by the completely indecent vision of her I saw. It’s the same sort of lens I always see her through when she’s had too much to drink and is overemotional and an absolute fucking mess: the red, puffy face, the eyes so narrow they look like slits, the fact that she had already taken her shirt off and was censoring herself with the blanket. I hate when she’s like this, and I know it’s partially influenced by her goddamn best friend. I don’t know, man, I just always feel bothered every time this happens. I moved 300 miles away to get away from this shit, and yet here I am over six months later still getting pulled back into it. I asked my dad how much she had to drink. He said he didn’t know, that he was at work. He didn’t seem all too concerned with her, but maybe he’s just used to it or maybe it’s just his hallmark calm demeanor. I don’t know. Either way, she’s ridiculous and I hate when this happens. It’s like every time I build up some hope that things are getting better and she’s getting a grip on this, she goes and completely destroys it and sends me right back to cynical square one. I should honestly just stop trying to have faith in her at this point.

3) Food. My stomach’s been feeling kind of off today, probably because I binged on Oreos earlier. Either way, I’m in one of those weird moods where I’m kind of hungry when I should be but I don’t feel like eating whether it’s because I feel bloated or crampy or what. I don’t know, maybe I’m just having an off day. I woke up around 2pm and spent the entire day doing laundry which isn’t all too labor intensive but I still found myself tired out from it. I feel like I haven’t had a lot of energy lately, though. Or at least today and maybe yesterday. I go through these spells of feeling really pepped up and sharp-eyed, like I‘m finally getting out of my fog, but somehow I always seem to find my way back. Not that I mind my fog all that much. It feels kind of safe and hazy here. When I’m bright-eyed and fully awake, everything looks too sharp and feels too amplified and it can be daunting and kind of anxiety inducing. But then again, sometimes the fog isn’t a great thing. Tuesday I took allergy pills that warned for potential drowsiness but I didn’t think much of it until I was nearly falling asleep every five minutes in class and still couldn’t breathe. I feel like I‘m in a similar haze right now, exhausted but fighting to stay awake. I feel like if I go to sleep, though, I’m going to set my mind spiraling and food is one of those concerns. When I woke up, I had a decent little breakfast of cinnamon toast and a mandarin orange cup that satisfied me enough. The toast is usual but the mandarin orange cup was a treat. Then I set myself up for failure. I broke out the Oreos. I finished off the family size box. I’ve really taken a liking to Oreos lately but they’re not always the best on my stomach. They set off my IBS if I eat too many and that was partially the case today. Eventually I had to run to the bathroom but it wasn’t for a flare-up so much as for an urgency that was painlessly relieved. My stomach has felt kind of crampy all day since, though, but not necessarily IBS cramps nor even period cramps. It’s more of just a general ache. My boyfriend got off work at around midnight and said earlier he’d get us some food on the way home. I was a little hungry beforehand so I binged on cheese balls and a pack of fruit snacks which was fine but it wasn’t after this that I started to feel kind of bloated and overall just “ugh.” I didn’t really eat much of my dinner because of this, but I felt bad about it. I didn’t want him to know I wasn’t that hungry. I didn’t even know I wasn’t that hungry until the food was sitting in front of me expecting to be eaten. It was hotter than usual, too. Normally when we pick up food from this restaurant, it’s lukewarm by the time we get home but tonight, it was burning hot so I had to skirt around it for a moment lest I completely scorch my mouth. I might even go so far as to say it even tasted kind of weird tonight, too, but that might just be my anxiety talking. Either way, at this point I just feel bloated and sleepy and kind of weird and I just want to stay up all night until this feeling goes away so I don’t have to deal with the unending thoughts I’m no doubt going to get bombarded with when I do finally climb into bed. I don’t know, man. I guess it’s just one of those things I kind of have to wade through.

#ramblings

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pika-ace · 8 years ago

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...Sonib...

THIS CROSSED MY MIND FOR A BREIF SECOND WHEN I GOT THAT HORROR GAME ASK THANK YOU FOR BRINGING IT BACK!!!!

Spoilers for those who haven’t played the game under the cut! Speaking of, if you haven’t played it or watched someone play it GO TO YOUTUBE AND DO IT NOW!!

Obviously, it would star baby seven-year-old Sonny as Ib, and I’m thinking Lincoln as Mary (kinda tying into his whole forgotten character thing since he never made it into the final product; poetic.)

But honestly, Garry could be SO MANY people! Usnavi, Benny, Vanessa, or Nina are ALL perfect candidates but I think Usnavi as Garry could make a few changes.

Let’s start with Benny, Nina, or Vanessa as Garry. The story in that case would be that Usnavi and Abuela have taken Sonny to the art gallery to see the new exhibit. Obviously, we got a good age difference with them. If Nina or Vanessa took the role, Sonny would only be a few years under them; they’d be like ten.

Oh geez, but the ‘Loves me not’ scene would be fucking brutal! I don’t know about you, but I’m not a fan of child death, ESPECIALLY if a creepy child is LITERALLY PLUCKING YOUR LIFE AWAY LITTLE BY LITTLE!! And Sonny would fucking cry forever when he saw the Forgotten Portrait and-OH GOD WHAT IF VANESSA’S MOM OR NINA’S PARENTS OR ABUELA WERE LOOKING AT IT??? Like, they really like the sleeping person in it for some reason and Sonny just bursts into tears!!

Okay, you know what? Let’s just pretend the bad ending doesn’t exist in this AU. We’ll take it, tuck it away, and not speak of it for this AU. Everyone gets out alive! …Well, except Lincoln, but…there’s literally no way for all three to get out and Lincoln’s not real here anyway, sooooo…

I know Vanessa wouldn’t be scared, at least, not as much as the others would be. Her story would be that her mom took her to the gallery and she was super bored, cause she’s a ten year old tomboy she doesn’t want to look at boring paintings. She would probably see the whole haunted exhibit thing as an adventure. ‘Who knew art galleries could be this exciting! Don’t worry kid, I won’t let those statues catch us!’

I think Nina would definitely try to be strong for Sonny’s sake. She’s a caring girl, Sonny’s her responsibility right now, and she has to be the grown-up if they want to survive here. She came here with her parents and maybe Sonny has to comfort her when she sees them in a painting for some reason (that’s never explained, wth game?) ‘Don’t worry Nina; we’ll find your parents, and my cousin and Abuela too!’

I could picture Benny being the most like Garry out of these three, with his age (him being sixteen or seventeen) and with him acting tough, but when, say, a picture spits at him he jumps. I think Benny and Sonny could have some good banter along the way.

Now Usnavi as Garry, I could see this going one of two ways. Either, Usnavi and Abuela took Sonny to the art gallery, and they have a fluffy reunion when they reunite and Sonny gives Usnavi his rose (and they see Abuela in a painting)

OR, now hear me out here… What is Sonny’s an orphan in this AU? Like, he lives in an orphanage or foster home nearby and he and a bunch of kids went to the gallery for a field trip. So when Sonny stumbles into the gallery by himself and he finds Usnavi and they start to bond over their journey. Eventually, maybe after Usnavi wakes Sonny from his nightmare, he tells Sonny about his family to make him feel better. Then he asks Sonny about his family and he gets all quiet 'I don’t have a family…Mama left me at the foster home…’ AND THEN when the whole adventure is over, and they get their memories back and reunite in the museum, Usnavi promises Sonny that he’ll see him again. AND THEY DO!! Usnavi visits the foster home and gets permission to bring Sonny out and get macaroons (like they promised :)) and he gets along with Abuela and everything for a few weeks until finally…Usnavi and Abuela decide to officially adopt Sonny.

I know that has nothing to do with the main game, I just wanted to throw in more family fluff for that route.

#ib #in the heights aus #I wrote a hetalia au for this a loooong time ago #with both endings #good times #now I should finish watching life is strange #the game's really cool so far #in the heights #sonny de la vega #ib au

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threeorphanpilgrimage · 7 years ago

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Chapter 78 - Maturity

"You ready?" asked Clementine as she adjusted her grip on Sarah.

"I… I don't know," admitted an uneasy Sarah. "I guess so."

"Okay, hold on." Clementine pushed the bike forward as Sarah began to pedal. It wasn't long before Clem could feel the bike beginning to pull away from her and before she knew it had flown right out of her grip.

"Don't let go until—"

"I already did!" Clem watched as Sarah looked back over her shoulder. "Pedal!" Clem felt a lump in her throat as the bike wobbled beneath Sarah as she tried to pedal faster.

"I… I… I'm actually doing it," realized Sarah as she found her balance. "I'm… I'm riding a bike, without training wheels!"

"You did it!" cheered an overjoyed Clem as Sarah made a u-turn and came racing back.

"I can't believe it," professed a still exhilarated Sarah as she skidded to a stop in front of Clem. "I know you said I was going to finally ride a bike today, but I didn't think it'd actually happen."

"Me neither, I thought we could just get in a little practice after lunch," admitted Clem. "Maybe you're a natural?"

"I never thought I'd like riding a bike so much," said Sarah as she turned the bike back towards the road.

"Oh, let me get my bike, we can ride together real quick." Clem hurried past the gate and around the back of the Brave. She removed her bike from the rack, which wasn't easy since it was so heavy. Rolling it forward, Clem arrived back at the gate just in time to watch Sarah take off into the distance.

"Sarah, wait! Where are you going?" Clem mounted her bike and started pedaling as fast as she could but couldn't catch him. Sarah raced into the forest surrounding the farm and Clem soon lost sight of her behind some trees as she banked around a corner with surprising speed. Clem's heart was beating against her chest now as the trees were flying by her so fast that they all melded together into a blur.

Suddenly, the woods disappeared, and Clem was sailing along a lush field that spread out into the horizon like a green sea, and just off in the distance was Sarah standing in the middle of the road.

"Hey!" called Clem as she slid her bike to a sudden stop. "Wait… wait up," pleaded Clem between breaths as she wiped the sweat off her face.

"Sorry," said Sarah as she looked back at Clem. "It's just…"

"It's just like… flying," spoke an exhausted Clem with a smile. "I know."

"I guess, but, I just realized, I haven't left the farm since we got here."

"You haven't?"

"No. Everyone else has left at some point, usually to get stuff, even Sin went with Devlin and Patty when they got the backhoe. Other than Omid, I'm the only one who's never been away from the farm," said Sarah as she stared out at the horizon. "Do you ever miss it?"

"Miss what?"

"Moving around, like we used to?"

"No," answered Clem bluntly. "You do?"

"I don't know, maybe a little? I mean, some of it wasn't bad."

"Like what?"

"Like going to the Space Center," reminded Sarah. "That was a lot of fun. And seeing Disney World was kind of cool, even if it was wrecked, and that time we went to a mall and played with toys and got new clothes and—"

"Those people almost stole the Brave," concluded Clem.

"Yeah…"

Clem looked around at the empty fields surrounding the lonely road they were standing on. Other than the grass swaying slightly in the wind, there was nothing to see, just untarnished earth beneath a clear blue sky. It was as if looking out on empty space itself, and the longer Clem stared at it, the more afraid she became of it, and what could fill it.

"We should head back," blurted out Clem as she turned away.

"Oh come on, I just learned how to ride," pleaded Sarah.

"It might not be safe," reasoned Clem. "And besides, you were just telling everyone at lunch how we need to start harvesting some of our crops today."

"Oh yeah, and I'm the only one who knows how to do that… sort of."

Clem looked over at Sarah and saw the weariness on her face.

"I'm sure if you do it it'll be fine," assured Clem. "You're always really careful and double check everything."

"If I'm not I'll be the one who has to figure out how to fix it later…"

Clem looked over at Sarah and could see tell she was probably tired just thinking about the pending harvest. "I'm sorry," spoke a sympathetic Clem. "But everyone's going to pitch in so you can take your birthday off tomorrow, and we'll have fresh stuff to eat, and I'll make you a really tasty dinner like we used to have when we had the garden, and—"

"And the day after that everything goes back to normal." Sarah looked over at Clem, then turned away in shame. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't complain."

"It's okay. I get tired of it too… a lot."

"I wish we had gotten more time not having to do this stuff," said Sarah. "I keep thinking back to when I stayed at Shaffer's, you know, before I met you. My dad would always tell me I should enjoy myself, and not worry about things because he would worry about stuff for both of us. For a long time, I thought he was just saying that because he thought I couldn't handle things or that I was stupid… now I think he meant it."

"Anytime I told my mom I was sick of being little she always told me I shouldn't because I'll just be sick of being grown up when I got older… I thought she was crazy." Clem turned her bike around and looked out at the thick woods that concealed their humble home from view. "Come on, they're probably all waiting on us… well, waiting on you."

Pedaling back through the woods, Clem felt a mix of relief and fatigue as she saw a familiar two-story farmhouse come into view. The chainlink fence surrounding it, the two RV's and a truck parked in the driveway, the rows upon rows of tall plants growing in the field across from them, even the three apple saplings they pedaled past all felt comforting yet constricting. She meant it when she told Sarah she hadn't missed living on the road, but for every day they spent living in this small oasis they created the rest of the world felt that much more barren, and Clem dreaded there'd be nothing left in it at all before long.

"There you are." An impatient Sin was waiting for the pair outside the gate, along with everyone else. They had all gathered outside with baskets under their arms and looked at Sarah with anticipation, almost like children waiting for their mother's permission to open their Christmas presents. The only exception was Omid, who happily strolled past the group to greet the pair personally.

"Kem-men, Sah-rah, aye-gah-dah-pree-bee!" he announced as he held up a dandelion clutched between his tiny fingers.

"I was showing him how to pick a flower while you two were gone," informed Patty before noticing Sarah's bike. "Did… did you manage without training wheels?"

"Yeah," said Sarah.

"She's a natural on a bike," added Clem.

"That's great Sarah, congrats," the forced enthusiasm in Patty's voice barely lasted through the word 'congrats'. "So…"

"Let me just grab my notes on harvesting things so I make sure I'm not doing anything wrong," said Sarah as she wheeled the bike past the gate. "Then we'll get started."

Sarah returned from the house with a binder under one arm and a step ladder under the other. Everyone instinctively followed her single file into the field like mice following the pied piper. Slowly leading Omid by the hand between two rows of corn stalks, Clem still found it hard to wrap her mind around how tall they had gotten. It seemed like only yesterday they were just struggling sprouts that came up to her ankles; now they towered over everyone and cast so much shade that it was noticeably cooler in the space between them.

Omid kept stopping to look at the plants more closely, eventually pulling free from Clementine's grip. Clem watched as a curious Omid got down on his knees to examine a large leaf hanging from a vine between two corn stalks. He babbled softly to himself as he crawled underneath it, then started giggling loudly. Carefully pulling back the leaf, Clem could see Omid slapping his hands on a small, green pumpkin nestled in the dirt.

"Come on," Clem said as she picked up Omid. "That ball isn't ripe yet."

"Buh-aye-wah-ib!" protested Omid as he was plucked from the dirt. "No!"

"Come on," said Clem as she cradled the heavy boy in her arms. "Sarah said there's plenty of stuff we can take today."

Clem carried a fussy Omid towards the edge of the field where everyone was watching Sarah inspect a corn stalk. Even with the stepladder, she could barely reach the ear of corn that had sprouted near the top. Carefully, Sarah peeled back a portion of the husk, revealing the golden kernels glittering inside. Next, she removed a pin from her pocket and punctured one, which caused a white substance to ooze out.

"Oh shit, that's bad isn't it?" asked an anxious Anthony. "It's a sign of corn herpes or some other stupid disease we've never heard of."

"No, it's good," said Sarah, the pleasant surprise in her voice easing the group's concerns. "That means it's ripe." Sarah twisted the ear off the stalk and then peeled back more of the husk. Clem shifted her grip on Omid so that he could see the little rows of bright yellow kernels nestled inside like so much treasure just waiting to be collected by his chubby hands; then Sarah took a bite out of it.

"Damn Sarah, are you really that hungry?" asked Patty. "We just ate."

"It's good, really good," she said between mouthfuls, sounding almost happy enough to cry. "Try it."

"Raw?" said Patty as Sarah passed the corn down to her.

"Yeah, just try it."

Patty shrugged, then took the corn and bit into it. "What… what the hell?"

"What's wrong with it?" Patty passed Sin the corn, who sampled it next.

"It's… it's not wrong, but…"

Clem watched as Sin's normally chiseled face started contorting into odd shapes as his mood seemed to rapidly shift between confused and pleasantly surprised. He tried to pass the corn to Jet next but Anthony intercepted it and took a bite out of it, forcing Jet to wrest it from his hands as the same strange wave of pleasant confusion seemed to infect Anthony next.

"That isn't corn," spoke a puzzled Anthony between chews. "It's really damn good, but it's not corn."

"I know, right," said Patty as Jet handed Clem the mostly eaten ear next, a certain eagerness in the way he passed it to her.

Clem bit into a small chunk of kernels the others hadn't eaten yet, and found herself finally succumbing to the baffling but not unwelcome taste everyone else was discussing. The corn was sweet, very sweet, like sugar almost, and the kernels burst into a sticky milk as Clem bit into them.

"It tastes more like creamed corn than regular corn," concluded Jet as Clem passed what remained of the ear to an eager Devlin.

"Or corn milk," added Sin. "I always thought that was just a name."

"Or candy corn," added Clem after finally swallowing her morsel.

"It certainly doesn't take like regular corn," mumbled Devlin with the same sense of conflicted wonderment as the others.

"It's regular sweet corn, it's just fresh," explained Sarah as she moved her step ladder to the next nearest stalk. "The books I read said corn is actually really, really sweet when you first pick it, and it's only after it dries out after a day or so does it become like the corn we used to buy in stores."

"So, the corn we were getting in stores all this time was stale?" asked Anthony in disbelief.

"It's not stale, it's just after you pick it, the sugar inside starts turning into starch, so it gets less sweet," explained Sarah as she pricked another ear of corn with her needle. "That's why you usually boiled it before eating it, but since this corn is so fresh, you don't even need to cook it."

"But if we just left the corn out for a while after we picked it, it'd be more like the corn we used to get in stores?" asked Jet.

"Why would you ever want that again?" asked Anthony.

"I liked the boiled starchy corn," insisted Jet.

"We could do that," assured Sarah. "We might even get to try popcorn again someday. We're gonna have to leave some of the corn to dry out and turn into hard kernels we can use for seeds next year. But if we get enough of them, we can try popping a few of them to eat."

"Migh, migh!" Clem suddenly noticed Omid was trying to grab the ear of corn Devlin was still holding. Devlin eyed the mostly empty cob in his hand and spotted a few loose kernels that hadn't been eaten. He removed a knife from his belt and carefully sliced them off before handing them to Clem. Clem fed Omid the sticky kernels and nearly lost her fingers doing so as Omid bit down the second he got a taste of the corn. He made happy noises as he chewed, signaling his approval, then looked at Clem.

"You want some more?" she asked.

"More!"

The harvest went slowly, but hardly felt like work due to the group literally getting to reap the rewards of what they sowed. Sarah led the way the entire time, examining plants, explaining how to know when they should be picked, and how much they should take, and how they should pick them. It was a little much for Clem to absorb, but seeing the baskets the others brought slowly be filled with corn, green beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, and lettuce was enough for her to hang on Sarah's every word.

They were only picking a small portion of the entire field, and Sarah advised them that the pumpkins, wheat, potatoes, carrots, and onions were still not ready to be harvested. It was actually a relief for Clem to hear that since just collecting the crops that were ready was taking a very long time. Sarah was very meticulous in their process, often stopping to request water or soil for a particular plant before resuming the harvest.

Something that eased the burden of the task at hand was Sarah saying the group could eat anything they picked, and eat they did. Devlin sliced off loose kernels for Omid while chewing on green beans he plucked right from the vines wrapped around the corn stalks. Anthony seemed almost addicted to corn now and would eat through one ear after another. Jet and Sin shaved slices off a large cucumber and passed them out like refreshingly cool chips. Patty was eating tomatoes raw off the vine, and so was Clem. Even Sarah could be seen chewing on a little lettuce in-between dispensing instructions and consulting her binder.

It was late into the afternoon when Sarah announced they had enough. Clem broke away from the group and went to remove the soiled sack covering their scarecrow's head. Sin had deduced if walkers can't sense the living through a bloodied raincoat, then covering their heads with something soaked in the same substance would effectively blindfold them. It had worked remarkably well, with Buster going silent almost immediately after being bagged and loudly moaning back to life anytime he was unmasked. Walking with the others back to the house, Clem felt secure knowing Buster's loud groans would chase away any hungry birds eying their crops.

By the time they had left the field, everyone in the group was carrying plenty of produce, both in baskets and in their stomachs. Setting out the haul on the front porch, Clem was utterly stunned at the bounty of fresh food laid out before them. They only had picked a small portion of the crops they visited, and they had only visited half their field, and now they had enough to eat for a couple of weeks, and eat well; very well.

"This is so weird…" said Anthony as he stared at the baskets.

"What is?" asked Clem.

"I see food, but I don't want to eat it," he said. "I think this is what people used to call 'full'."

"And there's still tons of it in the field," added Jet in awe.

"Literally," commented Sin.

"Aye-migh!" declared Omid as he placed his hands on the basket full of corn.

"If only Tulsa had stood long enough to see this," mused a sentimental Devlin.

"At least we lived long enough to see it," said Patty with a smile as her eyes gazed up at the cracked sign hanging over the porch. "Hallelujah, Ceres Acres has arrived."

"Not yet it hasn't," corrected Sarah as she emerged from the house with a different binder in her hands. "This is a lot right now, but it won't do us any good if it all rots before the winter; we need to preserve it."

"Now?" asked Clem in disbelief.

"None us have ever made our own canned goods before, so if we want to get it right we should start now, that way we have time to fix any mistakes we make before it's too late," explained Sarah as she thumbed through her notes.

"Well let's just not harvest anything other than what we eat," suggested Patty. "At least until we get closer to winter, then there will be less to preserve because we ate a bunch in the meantime."

"We can leave some crops out there for a while, but there are limits," said Sarah.

"Limits?" repeated Jet.

"The sugar in corn turns to starch even when it's on the stalk, just much more slowly. Eventually, it'll dry out and become stuff that's too hard to eat without grinding it up first," said Sarah as she flipped past a couple of pages. "We need to pick the beans and tomatoes soon so hopefully more will grow before the winter; cucumbers eventually turn yellow and bitter if you wait too long; the lettuce will become bitter as it gets hotter."

"God plants are fussy," griped Patty. "Every time it feels like we're getting ahead on this farming stuff we get hit with another dose of reality."

"Tell me about it. After this we gotta learn how to get enough seeds so we can try to do all this again next year," said Sarah with a weary sigh as she closed her binder. "All right; Anthony, Jet, I'll need your help today to try and preserve some of this stuff."

"Got it," said Jet.

"With pleasure," added an enthusiastic Anthony.

"We've still got a lot of daylight left," noted Sin as he turned to Devlin. "You and I could probably finish the second rainwater collector."

"Sounds good to me," said Devlin.

"We already watered everything today, so that just leaves you and me for babysitting and gopher duty," noted Patty as she looked at Clem. "I was the gopher yesterday."

"All right, I'll go get my radio," said Clem as she pried Omid away from the basket of corn.

"No! Aye-wah-da-pree-bee!" he protested as Clem handed him to Patty.

"Is it okay if I give him one of the corn to play with?" Clem asked Sarah.

"Sure. In fact, you should take a little of everything so you can practice cooking with it."

"We get to have this stuff for dinner too?" asked an excited Jet.

"For every meal," answered Sarah.

"For tomorrow, or a week, or how long exactly?" asked Patty.

"Well, probably the rest of the summer really. We probably should have spaced out when we planted the seeds so things would come in gradually, but we didn't…" said Sarah with a hint of shame. "Since we'll have a lot all at once, we're gonna have to eat as much as we can while it's still fresh and preserve whatever we can't before it spoils."

"So, just every meal basically?" asked Clem.

"Um, yeah, basically." That last bit of confirmation along with a slight smile from Sarah was enough to send everyone to work with a zeal they hadn't felt since first arriving here. Clem didn't mind 'gopher' duty since she had some freedom to move around. Basically, she was just a spare hand wherever it was needed, and she divided her time between minor chores that always needed doing or running to aid whoever called her on the radio.

She started with just fetching water from the pond and dumping it in one of the barrels close to the house. They always needed water, and not long after she started she could see Jet scooping it out of the barrel by the literal bucket load. Clem did that for a while until her arms began to hurt, then stopped long enough to check in on Patty and Omid in the Brave. Patty was entertaining the boy by stacking empty cups for him to push over, which, much to Clem's surprise, Omid would then try to stack for Patty to push over.

Before Clem could join them, she got her first call as gopher from Sin and Devlin. She headed over to the two semi-trailers which were now parked across from the short side of the field. The pair had already built a new set of barrels and pipes to store rainwater that were nearly identical to the ones set up by the barn, and Devlin had painstakingly bolted gutters across the side of each trailer.

All that remained was to create a roof to actually catch the water. Devlin had welded fence posts on the tops of the trailers and they just needed to run a tarp over them now to form a kind of tent that rain could roll down. The only trouble was to get the tarp sufficiently taut by Sin's standards, both men had to be pulling on it as hard as they could, meaning they needed someone else to tie it off. Balancing on a ladder, leaning over a gutter, and tying a knot all at the same time was tricky for Clem, but she managed to do it enough times to secure the tarp to both trailers.

After stepping off the ladder to admire the big blue tent top they had erected, Clem asked Sin if this would actually work. He said functionally it was the same as what they had done at the barn, right down to the blue tarp serving as a roof after the barn lost its own roof. Moving back around to the barrels, Clem asked if this would be enough to water the whole field, and Sin said it should. Clem then looked up, hoping to spot a sign of incoming rain, but the sky was perfectly clear.

A rumbling sound drew Clem's attention back down to the ground where she caught eye of Anthony emerging from the opposite side of one of the trailers. He was hurrying back towards the house with a couple of cases of glass jars tucked under his arms, to which Devlin informed her was actually Anthony's third time doing so today. Clem asked Devlin and Sin if they needed her for anything else, and when they said they didn't she returned to the pond to fetch more water.

Clem's arms started to ache again before long and by now she noticed the sun was setting. She returned to the Brave and, with Patty's help, started preparing the crops they picked for dinner. Shucking the corn was easy enough, and the lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers all made for a nice salad again, of which Patty was all too happy to handle herself. Before Clem could start on her own dish, she got a call from Sarah. She looked forward to visiting her, but all Sarah needed was some nutmeg, something Jet arrived to retrieve shortly after Clem confirmed they had some in the Brave.

With Patty hard at work mixing the salad and Omid loudly exclaiming his love for the already perfectly edible corn, that just left Clem to prepare the green beans. Removing the actual beans from the pods was tedious and time-consuming. Clem eventually resorted to cutting them in half with scissors then peeling the skins off. Throwing them all into a pot, Clem realized the only beans she cooked were ones from cans, which she usually just added spices to as a way to offset the bland flavor.

She did use to make simple stews back in Spokeston, but they had carrots and onions then, which weren't ready yet, leaving Clem only with her spices, except for the nutmeg. No matter what she did, she couldn't seem to make anything other than watery green beans with seasonings floating around. Most of the canned beans she used already had some kind of broth or gravy with them, and the ones that didn't they just ate without cooking into anything.

Clem alternated between digging through the Brave's overstuffed closet for anything to add to the soup and standing idly in front of a hot stove trying to think of anything else she could do to improve the dish. She repeated this pattern for so long that she was actually surprised when Patty informed her it was dark out now. Looking down at the watery concoction, Clem sighed and turned off the burner. Patty carefully placed the salad bowl and a couple of bottles of dressing in the basket with the corn while Clem strained her already sore arms toting her pot of bean soup outside.

Omid followed the pair across the yard to the big picnic table being illuminated by a couple of electric lanterns. Walking up to it, Clem discovered the table was covered with dozens upon dozens of jars that left her almost no room to place her pot. Past the table was a trail of discarded cartons, cornless cobs, and empty buckets leading over to a couple of grills where everyone else was already standing.

"Oh, hi Clem!" said Sarah as she turned away from the grill. Her glasses were missing and she had a messy apron on along with a couple of stained oven mitts. Standing beside her was Anthony and Jet wearing similar attire, and next to them Devlin and Sin, who just seemed to be awing at the filthy pressure cookers resting on the grills.

"Here, you gotta try this." Sarah picked up an open jar half-filled with a red substance and thrust it towards Clem. "Try it."

"What is it?" asked Clem as she eyed the concoction.

"Jam," answered Jet.

"A damn good jam," added Devlin.

Clem dabbed her finger in the sticky red substance and tasted it, and then had to resist the urge to eat her own finger.

"Oh my God…"

"Oh, let me try," insisted Patty as she inched in to sample the jam.

"You made this?" asked Clem in disbelief. "From what?"

"Tomatoes, sugar, lemon juice, a bit salt and a hint of nutmeg," listed Anthony.

"And pressure cookers," added a weary Jet as he threw off his apron.

"I was just going to can the tomatoes, but then I remembered what Winnie said about pepper jam, and one of the jars came with a recipe for that and… I thought why not make jam instead?"

"Migh! Migh!" Patty lifted Omid up, who immediately plunged his hand into the jar. He pulled out a large dollop of jam and stuffed it into his mouth. "More!" sputtered Omid before trying to grab more jam.

"I think that's enough for now," chuckled Patty as she set Omid down.

"No, it's okay, we got a lot," said Sarah as she tossed off her oven mitts and headed over to the table.

"These are all jam?" asked Clem as she eyed the dozens of jars.

"No, these are all jams." Sarah gestured to a couple of rows. "These are just regular canned tomatoes; I wanted to make a few to be sure they were okay. These are canned green beans, lettuce, cucumbers, corn."

"You canned all of that stuff?" asked Clem in disbelief. "And how did you can corn?"

"Ugh, that was a pain in the ass," said Anthony as he picked up a couple of cobs and tossed them in a bucket. "We had to slice off the kernels in big strips, every single one of them."

"It was almost as bad as the pickles," added Jet.

"You made pickles?" asked a surprised Clem.

"Just a few jars. We didn't have any dill, but we had the chives we planted and some other stuff, so we decided to try it out." Pulling a jar out of the stack, Clem was surprised to see it stuffed with slices of cucumbers floating in a briny looking substance. "It's gotta set overnight before we can try it, so I don't know how it tastes. We're supposed to let the jam set too but… we couldn't resist."

"I didn't know you could can lettuce," said Patty as she eyed a jar stuffed with a green leafy substance.

"It takes a lot of lettuce to fill a single jar," said Sarah as she untied her apron. "But I think almost anything can be… canned."

"Pree-bee!" Turning to Omid, Clem spotted him hurrying towards a clothesline where ears of corn and green beans were hanging.

"What are those?" asked Patty as she followed after Omid.

"That's our attempt at drying stuff," informed Jet.

"I get the corn, but what did you do to the green beans?"

Moving in for a closer look herself, Clem could see dozens of green beans had been stuck together with a single string running through the center of them. They twirled in place slightly with the breeze, almost like they were an elaborate wind chime that made no noise. "What… what is this?" Clem finally asked out loud.

"Leather britches," answered Sarah.

"Leather britches?" repeated Clem.

"You run a string through a bunch of greens beans, then you hang them up for a few weeks and let them dry," explained Sarah.

"And… that preserves them?" asked Clem.

"Hopefully," said Sarah. "It's a lot easier to do that than canning them."

"You just thread a needle through them and that's it," said Jet. "Sort of like making garland for Christmas."

"Cept I'd rather have popcorn than green beans," groused Anthony.

"If the corn we hung up to dry works out, we might actually have popcorn again," said Sarah with a smile.

"Migh!" giggled Omid as he swung his hands up at the dangling row of beans. His fingers managed to tap the bottom and sent them all spinning in place like a top, prompting Omid to giggle even louder.

"This is amazing Sarah," complimented Patty.

"Yeah, it really is," said Clem as she looked out at everything Sarah had accomplished. "I can't believe you did all this in one afternoon."

"Too bad we can't just have this stuff for dinner." Clem couldn't help feeling a little wounded upon hearing Patty say that. "But I guess we need to save it for the winter."

"Actually," said Sin as he set down one of the pressure cookers. "Sarah and I were discussing the need to test her canning techniques."

"I think I did it right, but the best way to know is just for everyone to take some jars with them," said Sarah. "Everyone can eat some of it over the next few days, and then another jar like a month later or so to make sure they were preserved right. Just make sure to sniff them after you open them; if they smell bad don't eat them."

"This day just keeps getting better and better," said Patty as she immediately pocked one of the jars of jam.

"Oh, you guys made us a salad," said Sarah as she noticed the bowl.

"Yeah, I figured it was a hit when you and I made one last time so why not make another?" said Patty with a smirk.

"Pree-bee!" said Omid as he picked up an ear of corn from the basket and offered it to Sarah.

"Clem, what'd you make?" Before Clem could answer Sarah took the lid off the pot.

"It's… green bean soup," said Clem without much enthusiasm.

"You took the beans out of the pods?" noted Sarah.

"Yeah… was I not supposed to?"

"Well, you can, it's just you don't need to."

"I… didn't know that."

"Really?" asked a surprised Anthony. "That's how they always show them on the packing for canned green beans, with the skins on."

"I… guess I haven't eaten green beans in a while."

"It's all right Clem," assured Devlin with a smile. "I prefer string beans with the skins off."

"Thanks," said Clem as she managed to crack a little smile of her own. "It was a real pain peeling the skins off."

"You didn't string them?"

"String them?"

Devlin looked over at the beans hanging from the clothesline. "Those going to be okay if I took one off from the bottom?"

"Go ahead," insisted Anthony. "We're gonna have millions of them by the end of the summer."

Clem followed Devlin as he headed over to the nearest set of green beans. "All right, you see this little tail part?" Devlin gestured to the pointed end of the pod.

"Yeah."

"You just pinch this, give it a little force to crack it, and…" Clem watched in disbelief as pulling on the tail also peeled away a thin green strip that ran across the length of the bean. "It's sort of like peeling a banana, except then you gotta pinch the other end, and peel it back the other way." Devlin tugged on the other end and continued to peel away the strip until it made a complete circle around the entire pod. "And that's why they're called string beans."

"I thought they were called green beans," said Clem.

"Either one, my momma always called them string beans," said Devlin as he handed Clem the 'string' before easily removing a few loose beans from the pod he 'strung'.

"I wish I knew that before," said Clem as she looked at the string.

"It's fine," said Devlin as he chewed a couple of beans. "Hell, I shouldn't be spoiling my appetite like this, you made us a soup and everything."

"Let's eat already," suggested Anthony. "Running a farm is hungry work."

Everyone sat down and dug into the small feast that had been prepared. The salad, the fresh corn, and what remained of the open jam were all practically devoured by the hungry group. The only thing people weren't scarfing down had been the 'soup' Clementine prepared. Almost everyone had taken a couple of spoonfuls, then just stopped eating it, except Anthony, who didn't want any, and Omid, who refused to eat it no matter how much Clem tried to convince him otherwise. The exception was Devlin, who couldn't seem to get enough of it, but then Clem had just seen him eat raw green beans.

Her soup aside, everything was delicious, arguably the best meal Clem had eaten in a long time, and yet she found it hard to enjoy herself. Everyone was talking to Sarah, thanking her for what she had done, asking what she wanted to do for her birthday tomorrow. She seemed a little overwhelmed by the sudden swell of attention, but mostly she appeared flattered and even a little excited by the outpouring of gratitude.

Clem was glad to see Sarah smiling so much, but what she really wanted was just to talk her friend. She kept trying to, but couldn't seem to get a word in edgewise over the others, and the one time she did, Omid managed to spill salad dressing all over himself. Clem hurried him up to the bathroom and scrubbed the boy until he stopped smelling like ranch. Clem needed a bath herself but had to find someone to watch Omid first.

Heading back outside, she was a little relieved actually to see the meal was over now and everyone was just helping to clean up. Sarah had already passed out a couple of jars of preserves to everyone and just had gotten back from storing the rest in the kitchen. She came over to Clem and tickled Omid in a way that made them both laugh. Clem looked forward to finally spending some time alone with Sarah, and that's when Patty proposed an improv celebration.

Before Clem knew it, everyone had gathered in the living room and a small party had broken out. Sarah put on music, Patty fetched beer, and Jet stopped her from wasting their only fire extinguishers on cooling said beer. Everyone was enjoying themselves, and even Sin found some amusement in Omid's reactions to him speaking Thai. All Clem wanted was just to sneak off to get a bath, but apparently Sarah had the same idea because the bathroom was locked and Clem couldn't find her anywhere downstairs.

What she did eventually find was Patty coddling a sleepy Omid in her lap. Clem was happy to take him to upstairs, and the relative quiet of Omid's bedroom gave her a much-needed respite from the noisy party. Tucking Omid in, giving him his stuffed elephant, turning on his baby monitor were all strangely cathartic for Clem, and she almost didn't want to go back downstairs. Heading out into the hall, Clem noticed the bathroom door was open now. She grabbed a change of clothes, hurried inside, and quickly discovered there was no water left.

Frustrated, Clem tossed her clean clothes aside and grabbed an empty bucket. She headed out past the party and into the dark where she managed to gather about half a bucket's worth of water from the nearly empty barrel she spent so much of the day filling. Clem toted the bucket back upstairs, her already sore arms begging for relief by the time she reached the top step. Finally making it back to the bathroom, a weary Clem tossed off her dirty clothes, grabbed a rag, and climbed into the tub.

A rag bath with water she strained through some cheesecloth was a poor substitute for the Brave's semi-functional shower, but it hadn't rained in a while and they already had used up the water in the Brave's tank. Still, Clem did find some comfort in scrubbing off the layer of dirt that seems to come with every day of living on a farm. She was finally starting to relax a little after such a long day, then she noticed a pair of eyes staring at her from the door.

"Hey!" Clem ducked into the tub just as she heard the bathroom door slam shut. Peeking up past the edge, she saw the door was closed now. Clem quickly grabbed a towel, hurried over to lock it and then got dressed as fast as she possibly could, a sickly feeling settling in her stomach as she did. Heading back downstairs, Clem discovered the music had stopped and everyone was gathered in a circle around a very guilty looking Jet.

"What'd he do?" Sin immediately asked Clem.

"He… he was watching me take a bath," said Clem, hardly able to believe her own words.

"What?" asked Sarah in disbelief.

"You little fucker," swore Patty as she glared at Jet. "She's ten!"

"Wait, hold on," said Anthony. "How the hell did Jet get in the bathroom if you were already there?"

"The door was unlocked, it was an accident," insisted Jet as he tried not to cry. "I didn't mean to."

"Is that true?" Patty asked Clem.

"I… I might have forgotten to lock the door, I don't know," mumbled Clem as she tried to remember.

"So he walked in on her by accident, case closed," concluded Anthony.

"But he… he was staring at me, I saw it!" accused Clem as she glared at a quivering Jet. "And you didn't stop until I saw you."

"I wasn't—"

"You apologize to Clementine!" ordered an infuriated Sin. "Right now!"

"I'm sorry," cried Jet. "But—"

"Don't make excuses!" dictated Sin as he slapped the back of Jet's head.

"Hey!" Devlin grabbed Sin by the wrist.

"Unhand me!"

"Only if you tell me that hand isn't hitting that kid again."

"I barely touched him," insisted Sin as he pulled his hand free. "And how is that the issue after what he did?"

"You don't answer one wrong with another."

Jet suddenly took off running. Everyone listened as they heard him rush upstairs, dash across the hall, and slam his door closed behind him.

"That a regular thing?" asked Devlin.

"Him locking himself in his room? It's not uncommon," answered Sin.

"I wasn't asking about him."

Sin scowled at Devlin in response. "Not that it's any of your business, but Jet's never done anything like this before, at least, not that I know of."

"And smacking him is only reserved for this kind of thing?" Sin's scowl deepened before he pushed past Devlin and out the door.

"Well, I guess the party is over." Devlin sighed and looked over at the others. "If any of you need me, you know where to find me." Clem watched as Devlin headed for the back door.

"I can't believe Sin hit him," said Sarah in a whisper.

"I saw it; it was hardly a tap," dismissed Patty as she looked at Sarah. "Jet peeping on Clem is what you should be worried about."

"Oh good, another thing to worry about." Sarah yawned. "I'm gonna go to bed; it's been a long day."

"Tomorrow won't be, not for you," assured Clem as she followed after Sarah. "You're not gonna have to work on your birthday."

"Happy?" Clem just barely heard Anthony say in the distance.

"About what?" retorted Patty in a harsh tone as Clem turned around.

"About making the kid public enemy number one?"

"He gets caught perving on a ten-year-old girl and naturally you take his side," accused Patty.

"Nobody else is," shrugged Anthony.

"Because what he did was wrong; really wrong," dictated Clem as she moved back over to the pair. "But I guess you don't think so."

"I just think your roommate walking in on you by accident doesn't make him a sex offender," rambled Anthony half-heartedly as he headed for the door. "But you two have made it clear before what I think doesn't matter."

Clem scowled as Anthony stepped outside.

"Man that guy pisses me off," groused Patty.

"Yeah, me too," added Clem. "It's like anytime something happens to us, he always tries to make it sound like it's our fault."

"He was like that constantly when the two of us used to go out looking for food. Anything ever went slightly wrong, and he'd always make it sound like it was my fault, then he'd tell me he was joking, that's when he wasn't hitting on me, then say he was joking about that! But he never actually stopped until that night you and I told him off, although I guess he didn't stop then either, least not entirely." Patty looked over at Clem, her scowl disappearing as soon as they made eye contact. "Are you all right? Do you want to talk about what happened?"

"I… think I'm okay," said Clem. "It's not like I got hurt, but…"

"You feel violated, and by someone you thought you could trust."

"Yeah…" conceded a weary Clem. "I thought Jet was my friend."

"Yeah, sadly, you never really know what goes through someone else's head. I've seen people go to pretty crazy lengths to make you think they're your buddy just because they wanted something off you."

"Yeah, me too…" Clem took a deep breath. "Does… does this mean Jet was just pretending to be friends with me because… because he wanted to see me naked?"

"I doubt that Clem. He was probably just being stupid, and needed a stern reminder not to be," said Patty in a harsh tone as she removed her cigarettes from her jacket. "But like I said, you never really know what's going through a person's head, and something like this always leaves you wondering." Patty pulled a cigarette from her pack and popped it in her mouth. "Anything else like that happens you just come get me, okay?"

"I will." Patty gave Clem a reassuring nod, then headed out of the house, leaving Clem alone in the living room. She headed upstairs and couldn't help eying Jet's door with suspicion as she walked past it. Walking into her own bedroom, she found an already half-undressed Sarah lying on the bed, staring at her diary.

"I thought you were going to bed," said Clem.

"I was, but then I realized I hadn't worked on my diary today, but it's so late, and I don't know…" rambled Sarah in a tired voice.

"You don't have to write in it," suggested Clem as she slipped off her hat and tossed it on the dresser.

"I know that, and it's weird writing down everything that's happened to us, especially when so much of it was bad," said Sarah as she sat up.

"Then why do you keep writing it?"

Sarah's eyes drifted towards the baby monitor. "I figure one day Omid will be old enough to want to know this stuff; know about his mom, and why we're living on this farm, and who these other people are, and how we met them, and this diary can tell him all that."

"We could always tell him that stuff ourselves someday."

"I know, but the longer I wait, the harder it gets to remember everything. I start mixing up details or forgetting things and…" Sarah looked down at the pages. "I don't want to forget anything about all the people who helped us before, and everything they did for us. Writing it down in a journal isn't much, but…"

"I'm sure they'd be happy knowing that you're thinking of them," assured Clem as she kicked off her pants. "Do you mind if I read it?"

"Go ahead," said Sarah as she slipped off the bed. "I can't write without my glasses anyway, and I left those in the bathroom."

"You should get dressed; Jet might still be up," warned a bitter Clem.

"I've got a shirt on," reminded Sarah as she headed for the door.

"He might try to pull it up."

"He wouldn't do that."

"I didn't think he'd watch me take a bath, but—"

"I really don't think you and Patty were being fair to him," said Sarah as she turned around.

"Fair to him?" repeated an indignant Clem. "What about me?"

"I really think it was an accident, like he said. Sin even said he's never done anything like that before, and—"

"He was staring at me, I saw it," insisted Clem. "And I've known people who never did anything really terrible, until they just did one day."

"I don't think Jet is like that," insisted Sarah. "He was crying just now."

"He could have been faking it," suggested Clem. "You never really know what goes through another person's head."

"So… I could be faking being friends with you then," concluded Sarah. "And I'm really just someone horrible who's really good at hiding it."

"What? No, of course not. I know you."

"Do you? You just said you never know," repeated Sarah.

"That's different, I…" Clem took a breath. "Just forget it, okay, it's late."

"All right." Sarah stepped outside and Clem just stretched out on the bed, glad yet another long day was finally over. Picking up the diary, she flipped through the pages, her eyes falling on the familiar names of Nick, Carlos, Walter, Pete, Matthew, and Christa. Skimming through the book, Clem found herself recalling their night at the ranger station, the week they spent imprisoned at Shaffer's, the long and miserable journey to Saint Christopher's, and Omid's birth.

Looking at the last few pages, Clem found herself reading out loud. "Even though it was only a week, it had felt like we had been trapped at Shaffer's for years, and now that we finally escaped, we suddenly realized we had no idea where to go next.

"Racking my tired mind for some sort of answer, I suddenly found myself envisioning us, all of us, living out on some sort of farm, far away from Shaffer's and all the terrible people who would hurt us, where we could grow our own food, and Omid could grow up, and we could just live together, and be happy, and it all felt like a dream, but I could see it, and so I said Oklahoma… maybe it was Kansas."

Turning the page, Clem saw the rest of the journal was blank. She set it on the nightstand, then realized Sarah still wasn't back, and the bathroom was just next door. Clem was about to step out into the hall when Sarah suddenly emerged in the door frame.

"Whoa!" said a surprised Sarah.

"There you are," said Clem. "What took you so long?"

"Oh, I forgot, I actually took off my glasses when we were canning because the pressure cookers were steaming them up, not when I was taking a bath, so I had to run outside real quick and find them."

"You should have come gotten me, I would have helped you find them."

"Oh I found them right away, but Anthony was taking out some garbage at the same time and I stopped to talk to him for a minute."

"You… you let Anthony see you in your underwear?" asked Clem, concern seeping into her voice.

"What? No, I… I had my shirt on."

"And no pants."

"It's no different than when he saw me in a swimsuit."

"He couldn't see your underwear when you were in a swimsuit."

"He didn't see them a minute ago."

"I can see your underwear right now." Sarah started tugging her shirt down in embarrassment after hearing that. "What did you talk about?"

"What?"

"What did you talk about with Anthony?" repeated Clem.

"Why do you want to know?" asked Sarah in a defensive tone.

"Because, Anthony acted like Jet watching me in the bath was no big deal, and he was always hitting on Patty even though she told him to stop, and now stopped to talk to you when you weren't even dressed and—"

"I stopped to say hi to him, he didn't stop me," corrected Sarah. "And all he said was the jam I made was the best he ever had and wished me an early happy birthday, that's it," reported Sarah with a groan. "It's… it's like I can't even speak to him without you getting mad at me."

"I'm not mad at you; I'm worried about you," insisted Clem.

"I don't think you are," accused Sarah.

"What? Of course I am. What else could I be?"

"I… I think you're just jealous someone other than you really likes me."

"You mean like how Mick liked you?" Clem immediately regretted saying that. She watched as the stunned expression on Sarah's face quickly twisted to one of anger. "Sarah, I'm—" Sarah marched over to the dresser and hurriedly put her pants on. "You.. you don't need to get dressed now, we're going to—" Clem watched in disbelief as Sarah stomped out of the bedroom. "Sarah, wait! Where are you going?"

Clem hurried after Sarah, only to remember she wasn't dressed either as she passed the threshold. She rushed back inside and cursed herself as her pant legs bunched up from trying to get dressed so fast. Clem zipped up her fly as she stumbled out of the bedroom. Hurrying down the stairs, Clem found the front door was wide open, and rushing outside, Clem finally caught sight of Sarah entering Anthony's camper.

"Sarah, wait!" Clem watched as the door to the camper slammed shut behind her. "Sarah!" repeated Clem as she rushed over to Anthony's camper. "Sarah I'm sorry, just come to bed." Clem tried opening the door but it was locked. She hurried over to the left front tire of Anthony's truck and found the key box hidden there, but there was no actual key inside.

"Dammit," swore Clem as she put the box back. "Sarah!" called Clem even louder as she returned to the camper door. "I said I'm sorry, just talk to me." Clem tried fruitlessly to open the door again, then pounded her fist against it. "Come on, you can't stay in there all night." Clem waited for a response, but received only silence. "Seriously, you'll have to come out sooner or later." Still no answer. "Just say something!" demanded Clem as she angrily banged her fist against the door. "Just… just talk to me… please." Clem's pleas were met with only more silence.

Eventually, after several awkward minutes of silence, Clem started back towards the house. She walked away slowly, hoping to catch a glimpse of Sarah covertly exiting Anthony's camper; no such luck. After that, Clem moved back upstairs, hoping to hear Sarah coming up behind her; she didn't. Finally, Clem got into bed and turned off the light, praying Sarah would be along any moment and everything would be as it always was; she fell asleep waiting for her.

Previous Chapter - First Chapter - Next Chapter

#TOP #three orphan pilgrimage #Chapter 78

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love-the-bug-blog · 6 years ago

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An Expats Exit Strategy

China 1 - Tourism 0

The following words are an opinion only. It’s meant to enlighten, educate and please anybody who decides to read it. Enjoy…with Empathy.

June 2016

We decided to move from Hanoi, Vietnam to Beijing, China.

First mistake….

August 2016

We left Hanoi to fly to Beijing.

Second mistake….

The best place to begin is at the beginning.

Boarding the plane with a promise of riches, glutenous food and a life of leisure punctuated only by bursts of culture and short periods of teaching English in a popular language centre seemed like an idea sent from the heavens. The phrase “If it seems to good to be true then it probably is” springs to mind.

And, in a nutshell, it was.

We should have known from the second we got on the plane that things were not as they seem. The surprisingly long flight from Hanoi to Beijing started in a regular fashion. Joyous excitement and mild IBS mixed with a dodgy airplane meal and trying to figure out what the lady at the check in counter was gesticulating at when she spoke to us in Chinese for several minutes despite our protests. Being Irish, and naturally positive we nodded with vacant smiles on our faces and decided she was probably just explaining the usual tripe that gets explained at check in desks. Don’t bring liquids through security, your bags are marginally overweight, the country you’re traveling to will suck the soul out of your body etc etc.

Despite us booking our flights directly to Beijing we were forced to land in Guangzhao where we were forced to exit the plane (with all our baggage) and go through customs. At this point it might serve us well to mention that we had a very short layover, somewhere in the region of two hours. Which, in any other country in the world would be plenty to get through customs and make it to the boarding gate with some time for a bathroom visit for the IBS to rear its ugly head. No pun intended.

Customs was/is/will always be a joke. There must have been 300 people lined up like cattle at a mart waiting to get to the customs booths. Only a few of the booths were open and housing some of the meanest looking agents you could possibly hope to come across. Long story short…we missed our flight.

We approached the desk and pleaded our case. We met a young gentleman, lets call him “Bruce”. “Bruce” was of usual Chinese build. 5’ 4” and about 55kg with absolutely no muscle tone on him at all and in dire need of a ham sandwich.

We explained to him that we had missed our flight because of a delay in customs and we wanted to find out the quickest possible way to rebook our flights.

“Bruce” stared back with a blank stare…

This was to become a stare we were forced to grow quite accustomed to over the preceding 12 months .

“Bruce” and his bowl haircut tapped furiously on his keyboard and shouted loudly at his colleagues sitting beside him for what felt like an eternity. He guided us to a steel bench and asked us to wait. Or at least we think he did.

Sitting on the bench thoughts drifted to the collection agent who was supposed to pick us up in Beijing international airport at 10.00pm that night. We took out our phones and found that they didn't work in china. No shock here. One was an Irish phone and the second a Vietnams phone so why would they work?

But Wifi….wifi works everywhere. And especially in an airport. An airport..where people wait for hours for their flight, where access to the internet is quite important and sometimes, a vital necessity.

No joy. No wifi in the airport. No hope of getting a message to the agent who was supposed to pick us up.

IBS decides to say hello again…FML.

“Bruce” has seemingly forgotten about us. He seems to be smiling a lot considering he’s very close to being pulled across the counter.

We sit patiently until I approach him, under strict instructions from my partner NOT to assault him. Which i thought was a bit much.

He saw me coming and quickly resumed furiously tapping on his computer. The cheeky bowl topped fucker!

I stood menacingly over him and asked through gritted teeth what our plan was.

He didn’t blink, he printed off two tickets and handed them to me.

The dick!

We probably would have sat there for another few hours before he would have thought to approach us and hand us the tickets.

He got off with a light verbal warning and we headed to our gate of choice. Hereby known as Hells Gate.

We landed in Beijing nearly three hours late. We frantically debarked the plane and frantically searched for our luggage and then we frantically made our way through the arrivals gate hoping against all hope that somehow the collection agent had pieced together that we experienced difficulty on our journey.

Nope. Not in China.

We were on our own. In a strange country. No phones. No wifi. No internet points.

But hey, this is china. The most populated country in the world. Where 1.6 billion people live and work and travel. An information point will surely be able to help us sort out the predicament we have found ourselves in.

Nope. Not in China.

Not a word of English. This waste become a regular thing throughout the year.

But we’ll get to that.

So there we are, stuck in the Airport, exhausted and genuinely confused. We had no way to contacting anyone. No one knew where we were. What had happened to us? Did they care? Apparently not.

We wandered around for what seemed like hours, up and down escalators, looking for some sign of familiarity that might be our saving grace.

Nope. Not in China.

Eventually we found a nice lady who agreed the let us hotspot onto her wifi and send an email. We did.

And got a response saying the collection agent had left and headed back to the city.

After a long and arduous day traveling we had eventually sorted out our issues and things were starting to look up.

Nope. Not in China.

Our collection agent spoke broken English and was about as pleasant as a sexual education class from your granny. He greeted us coldly and grabbed Emily's bag and walked off through the sliding doors and off towards his parked car where we had the pleasure of meeting a loud, brash American girl who despite being only 22 had 6 years teaching experience under her belt.

After maybe an hour of driving we pulled up outside a dive of a hotel and he gruffly told us to get our as he grabbed Emily's rucksack from the boot and walked crankily towards the reception area.

At last. A hotel with a reception. Someone will speak English here.

Nope. Not in China.

After much moving of hands and sweating of brows and slight grumbles suggesting the IBS was not yet finished we produced our passports and were pointed to an elevator where we made our way to a room with two single beds and a prostitutes business card slid under the door. Classy shit.

A quick shower and a good nights sleep and a full day tomorrow with nothing to do but explore this city looked promising. As our heads hit the pillow we gratefully accepted the sleep that quickly descended upon us as the promises that were made to us overshadowed the disaster of the last 24 hours.

Surely things would get better.

Nope. Not in China.

Now we have the start of this little rambling out of the way we can get down to the nitty gritty of recanting some funny stories and situations have found ourselves in over the past year. They are all as true as can be…unfortunately for us.

THE ‘MY FIRST DAY’ INCIDENT

We joined First Leap. It’s a huge language centre based in China. We requested Beijing because we thought the language barrier and western society might be more prevalent here than in some of the other cities.

We were wrong. Fuck!

We trained for two weeks at the company HQ where we were brought to our nerves end by a group of “trainers” who were barely in their twenties telling us both to smile more. This didn't go down well. The more they told us to smile the more we scowled.

Now, let me be clear, this was my first teaching job so I did find the training helpful but they went about it all the wrong way. Making us teach certain scenarios in front of the rest of the trainees who pretended to be children wasn't as industrious as they probably planned. Either way, we did it. Two long hard weeks and we were ready to step into the fray and impart our wisdom. Needless to say…the training did fuck all to prepare me for what was to meet me.

Now, Emily has plenty of experience. Many years of standing in front of young minds and trying every possible method to try and get them to remember what a Cat is. She was and Is a natural.

Me…No one would describe me as a patient man. Nor would they ever suggest in good conscience that I would make a good teacher. Either way, this was the life I have chosen for the next year.

First day, First class.

I had a Scottish teacher, Darren, rampant closet case who had the uncanny ability to turn his thick Glaswegian accent into a south Californian twang at the drop of a hat and his job was observing me to make sure I didn’t scare the children or make them cry.

So I step into the classroom and see all the children running around and I decided to express my authority as the new teacher in a proactive way the best way I knew.

So gather up all my courage and let a mild roar out of my mouth “Hello everyone, It’s time for class now SIT DOWN”.

I didn't see the kick coming, it was all a blur, all I can tell you is that it was possibly the sweetest hit you could possibly imagine.

BOOM. Some little Chinese fucker spin kicks me right in the family jewels.

Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

Down I go…like a Thai hooker.

I don’t remember who started laughing first but I can assure you it wasn’t me.

I retreated to the safety of the hall to nurse my wounds and think to myself where I went wrong in life.

THE SHOPPING INCIDENT

China has their equivalent of Tesco. They call them Lotus or Lotte Marts.

They are huge sprawling building where you can find all the basics one needs when residing in China. Bread, Vegetables and Washing detergent. All the basics.

Now, we were fortunate to live quite close to a aforementioned facility. Warmly known as “Ram Alley Shop”.

It received this strange yet highly significant name due to the large Ram who is tied to a car outside the alley leading to the shop. This Ram is morbidly depressed and fears for its life on a regular basis. It is tied to the old rusted structure of the car with a 6 foot length of frayed rope. We presume the ram, if blessed with nimble fingers, would tie a knot in the rope and hang himself. Either way, hence the name “Ram Alley”.

The story continues…Emily is in work, I’m home early from a field trip to the Coca Cola Factory with several dozen unruly Chinese children. I’ve decided to surprise Emily with a steak and potato dinner so I hit “Ram Alley” to get the supplies. Obligatory sympathy for the Ram ensues and I hit the market.

I’m wandering around picking up the essentials when I turn into the dairy section and I’m confronted by…and I have no nice way of saying this…A child taking a shit on the floor.

I freeze, mainly because I have never seen a child take a shit..in a bathroom let alone in a shopping centre.

My eyes dart around looking for the bewildered mother who is looking for her missing child hoping that when I point in the direction of the child she will do her motherly duty and take care of the…situation.

Nope. Not in China.

Mother approached, mother grabbed child. Mother exited the area with the child leaving an abnormally large pile of child shit on the tiled floor.

I quickly maneuvered the trolly past it and headed for the checkout still in a state of mild shock.

Note: They recently built a large wall around where the ram was “housed”. We presume he’s still there. But hope that he’s not.

THE NOODLE LADY “RAIN” INCIDENT.

Noodle lady. Our mother away from home. Not a fucking word of english. Bad teeth. Worse Hygiene. And without doubt the best noodles and dumplings we’ve had in our lives.

She operates a very small and very dirty shop on the way from the Subway stop to our apartment complex and is a vital source of nutrients on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. We work late on these days and most places close in China around ten o’clock. So it provides limited options for cuisine.

Enter noddle lady. She smiles and makes our order most work nights as her small child plays paper, rock, scissors with Emily. He’s learning English in school and spouts random words at us.

“Chicken”…Yes, very good.

“Blue”…Excellent.

But thats about it.

About a month into “dining” there I felt comfortable enough to pick him up playfully throw him in the air. He was about 20kg so it wasn't exactly strenuous.

I grab him under the arms and lightly toss him into the air catching him as he descended. He didn't smile…in fact, he looked in a touch of discomfort. As devilment quickly turned to worry I lowered him to the ground wondering internally if I had hurt the young lad. He grasped at his chest and as he pulled his T-shirt away from his light frame I spot the eight inch scar on his breastbone. A sign of major heart surgery. Oops.

Needless to say I haven't touched the little fucker since as running the risk for manslaughter and spending twenty years in prison for killing a six year old boy with a mistimed game of “airplane”.

FML

Noodle lady has thrown us a few surprises in our time here too mind you. There was the old “cockroach” in our dumpling box. That one is always a classic.

Or quite recently, when we returned home from work with Jack, our large predominantly loud Scottish friend. Noodle lady beckoned.

We ordered and stepped to the door. People can smoke wherever they want in China. It’s shit. So we stepped just outside the door to get some fresh air and stay cool.

Just as we stepped outside Jack asked us did we “feel rain?” in his thick Scottish drawl.

We did.

It was definitely starting to drizzle. We didn't panic too much. It was a warm night and it was only a drizzle. It took us about ten seconds of looking up into the night sky to realize something was wrong.

It wasn’t rain!

We jumped out of the way when it dawned on us.

Right above the noodle shop is an apartment and in this apartment lived a little boy and sometimes the little boy likes to piss off the balcony onto unsuspecting foreigners trying to get fed after a day of teaching.

This is frowned upon in most countries.

Nope. Not in China.

Getting pissed on whilst waiting for dinner is a must do that the guide books sometimes neglect to mention.

Either way, Noodle lady is the bomb. She smile regularly and looks constantly exhausted. She is open at 7.45am every weekend when we are going to work and on numerous occasions when we have drunkenly returned from Sanlitun (Bar area) or from a late night Visa run from HongKong we have found her and her husband standing outside at midnight waiting for a stray customer to get his food or perhaps a late beer.

Our order usually consists of two portions of dumplings and two portions of fried noodles with veg. It costs us 26RMB which converts into about 3.39 Euros.

A bargain.

We leave next month and we have saved all the small coins and small notes that are not worth converting into our currency and we intend to give them to the young lad.

Not the one who pissed on us. The one I nearly killed.

Might get him something nice.

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youknowmejustin · 7 years ago

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I don’t

I don’t know if you’ve ever felt the way I felt.

2017 started good, very good. With a best friend by my side who was very dear to me, listening to everything I had to say no matter the time. I thought my life was complete. Because there are things worth waking up to. Then came that feeling that I didn’t put on show, that I wasn’t aware it’s in me, until…my other best friend made me realised about it. I was in denial for almost 4 months and I didn’t even know it. That feeling was known and told right after the realisation and I didn’t regret doing it right there and then. I was happy, really happy and lucky to have gotten such a great guy to be with me through it all in the last semester of IB. He saw everything. From my happiness, my craziness, my excitement when it comes to things I love, my sadness, my doubts, basically…my ups and downs. He made me tell everything and I felt a lot better after that. I’m not sure how did he break my super high walls but he did and I’m glad. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t tell anything to anyone, I’m usually showing my cheerfulness all the time. But I got weak when it’s with him and it’s not normal for me but I felt it was magical. Sometimes there are arguments but most of the time, it was all laughs and jokes. I was content. Until, the thought of converting hit him, hard. We had to be apart, because we have to admit that it was something that we as humans have no control over. It shut me down. I went on full crying mode that whole month. I couldn’t get over it. It is one thing to lose a guy you love, but it’s another thing to lose a best friend who’s always there for you. I felt lost. I didn’t feel at ease. The saddest thing is, he shut me down 100% after that then came right back on the first day I came to stay in another country. I have no clue on why he did that but it was his choice and I have no control over his mind. It’s been 6 months and I’m still fantasising and hoping a little. What am I hoping for? I’m not even sure. I’m living life but in all honesty, he’s still one of the things that I keep in the back of my mind. He just won’t vanish away and I’m confused. Sometimes he’s giving me mixed signals but sometimes he just shut me out. Every time he do that, I’ll try to not mind over it and try to think positively of him because there’s no use in dwelling on it, I’m to going to get any answer and he’s not going to give it anytime soon. I guess I’ll just have to live with this. Now, he’s starting to push me away again and I’m not sure why. I don’t think he’d want anything to do with me anymore. So, do I want to move on? I don’t. Do I have to? Yes, of course. But it’s not that easy to forget someone that has seen everything you’ve gone through and to add to it, you grow as a person together. I will move on eventually, but I’m going with the flow, I’m not forcing myself. Slowly but surely. I’m a girl who’s committed, that’s why. I don’t give up easily, I’d do anything to get what I want. I’m going to work hard on this and hopefully, there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

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allenmendezsr · 5 years ago

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Cure Ibs Naturally - Blue Heron Health News

New Post has been published on https://autotraffixpro.app/allenmendezsr/cure-ibs-naturally-blue-heron-health-news/

Cure Ibs Naturally - Blue Heron Health News

Buy Now

Once upon a time IBS used to cripple me. Fighting it was a constant battle.

And without the risk of being or sounding melodramatic, it nearly ruined my life!

Thankfully, I’m well rid of it now!

IBS…Irritable Bowel Syndrome…Nervous Stomach…Irritable Stomach…Irritable Bowel…Irritable Colon…call it what you like, it’s all the same – awful!

It left me feeling frustrated, exhausted, depressed, and at times, just plain angry, but today I can confidently say that these things are all a thing of the past.

When It All Began

Now that I’m IBS free I’ve managed to get my life on track, but this hasn’t always been the case.

It first hit me at college – during my exams. Terrible timing, but not really that much of a surprise when you think about it.

Thinking back to when IBS really began to rear its ugly head, stress and assignment deadlines were constantly hanging over me.

In retrospect, after everything I’ve learned since becoming IBS free, it was an accumulation of things that contributed to my deteriorating health, stress being just one of them!

But still I had no idea what was going on with me. Back then I guess I just put it all down to those “exam nerves!” Wouldn’t you?

Food slowly started to become my mortal enemy.

Without going into too many unpleasant and graphic details, it either disagreed with me and went straight through me, or bloated me to the point where I sometimes appeared pregnant.

My typical diet was that “usual student diet”. You know, the kind that was ridiculously high in carbs, lots of grease, salt galore…basically, I ate anything sweet and stodgy, as you do in your college years.

But that wasn’t anything new. I’d been eating like that for some time. Partying was also the norm. It wouldn’t really be college if it were any different, right?

But like I said, my diet hadn’t really given me any grief up until that point.

BANG – Just Like That It Came From Nowhere

Even now that I don’t suffer from IBS anymore, I can vividly remember the physical and emotional turmoil my body went through time and time again.

Mild cramps that turned into gut wrenching ones (thank God I finally said good-bye to these IBS symptoms once and for all a while back).

I always thought that I had a high pain threshold, but the first time I really suffered from it properly I knew all about it.

I remember buckling over with the worst cramps I’d ever experienced. I have no words to really describe how it felt.

At times it felt like a knife had been stabbed into my stomach and twisted around ever so slowly.

I ended up going to the campus doctor. He sent me home, told me to drink more fluids and stop my worrying.

“Exam stress!” He said.

Stop worrying?

How?

Easier said than done. I guess he didn’t remember how he felt at medical school when his entire future was riding on a few hours in an exam room.

Luckily, I haven’t had to see a doctor for any IBS-related symptoms for years now, which I’m grateful for, as I felt like I had a medical loyalty card at one point, which would give me X points for every visit.

If loyalty cards for doctors’ visits were actually a thing, I’d have certainly racked up a fair few points.

Next…

Another doctor put it down to bad menstrual cramps and put me on the contraceptive pill to try and control it better.

It didn’t work.

And Then This Happened…

Two days before my exams I found myself in bed writhing in pain and suffering from diarrhea.

Despite not having experienced such excruciating pain in years, it’s all still very vivid.

You just can’t un-forget some things!

Every few minutes I found myself in the bathroom, afraid if I moved I’d have a very embarrassing mishap, which of course was the last thing any college student wanted.

Imagine!

Again, I found myself back in the doctor’s surgery staring at the sterile white walls, trying to blink back tears, and begging him to fix me so I could do my exams.

The same doctor as the last time gave me Imodium and told me to rest up.

Needless to say those exams didn’t go so well.

I listened to the doctors and wrote it all off as performance anxiety.

They were the experts after all! They knew best!

Ironically, it wasn’t a doctor that eventually cured my IBS.

Making Acquaintances With Doctors

After the whole college experience, I did see a number of different doctors with my various symptoms.

The exams were well and truly over, and by some miracle I passed them all and got the results I needed, but I was still experiencing strange gut sensations, lethargy, and uncomfortable pain.

I couldn’t blame those exam nerves anymore.

Something wasn’t right.

They all said the same thing – that I was the only one that could measure the symptoms, because unlike a simple sore throat that could be easily diagnosed by simply looking in the mouth and seeing redness and inflammation, and possibly even some miniscule white spots on your tonsils, my symptoms were broad and as most of the doctors said “immeasurable” from a medical standpoint.

How I Nearly Lost My Firm Tens Of Thousands Of Dollars

Fast-forward a few years when I was working in busy advertising firm.

I loved my job, and I was good at what I did.

I was slowly working my way up, and there were even whispers that I’d one day make partner, which of course is every person’s dream in the world of advertising and marketing.

We worked with some major clients and big-name brands, so the office was always buzzing.

Over the years I learned not to get star struck by some of the famous faces that walked in our doors, and I’d go as far as saying that I was in my dream job.

One day, in a board meeting, as I was listening to our Director pitch a new project idea to one of our longstanding clients (who also happened to be a Hollywood actor and director), I felt a sharp pain run across my stomach.

It took me by surprise. I grabbed onto my stomach. I may have even gasped.

The room went black and I could hear people buzzing around me.

My stomach bloated and I felt like it could explode at any moment.

I remember the Director’s PA giving me some water and asking me if I were OK.

I can’t remember what I mumbled back, but I do recall the looks of horror in the sea of very important faces that were sitting around that table.

I made a quick exit, without explanation, and ran to the bathroom.

It was at that stage my boss said to me I needed to get to a doctor quick. He cared, I knew he did, but he was also thinking about work.

Now that I’m 100 % healthy again, I completely understand where he was coming from. Having fewer people on board and having to hire temps could have potentially cost our company thousands, if not millions, of dollars.

Thankfully, our client was a loyal one and we were still able to get him on board.

I’d Been Lying To Myself

Honestly, I had been burying my head in the sand. Obviously, now that I don’t suffer from any of these awful symptoms anymore, it’s easy for me to say. But I really was petrified of what the doctors were going to tell me.

I replayed the worse case scenarios in my head over and over again.

I sat in front of another doctor yet again. I was pale and slightly yellow, almost jaundice, holding my stomach, and trying not to cry.

He nodded his head knowingly as I listed my symptoms.

Pain, excruciating pain at times.

Cramps, much worse than any monthly female ones.

Bloating and constipation…sometimes so bad, my stomach felt like it had tripled in size.

Diarrhea. This came and went. It was almost as if I alternated between being constipated and having diarrhea at times. Over the years, this had become more frequent, but I just hadn’t ever properly addressed it since my college years.

Fatigue was a massive one. I’d always been a bit of a night owl, but my body struggled to stay up late.

All of these symptoms wrecked havoc on my personal life.

I barely went out in a social capacity, and at times I became a recluse, isolating myself more.

This obviously led to even more things, such as depression, panic attacks and anxiety.

I had many a sleepless nights.

I relayed everything to the doctor, hoping he’d give me an answer.

He did!

But first he asked me to rank my pain.

There were two different types of criteria he worked on:

Rome criteria – this gauged the pain and discomfort I felt in my abdomen, and;

Manning criteria – this gauged the pain and discomfort I experienced when I was either constipated or passing stools.

I gave him my honest answers – they were high numbers!

“IBS!” He said quickly! “It looks like Irritable Bowel Syndrome!”

However, he could not be 100% sure since there is no actual formal diagnosis or tests for IBS.

Do you know that feeling of relief?

No pun intended, trust me!

Relief is what I felt at that very moment, relief that someone was finally able to put a name to what I had, although I’m even more relieved now that I don’t have to worry about any of this at all.

I think I may have even smiled through the pain at that moment!

I wasn’t even sure I knew what it was. I’d definitely heard of people having it before though.

My gym instructor, who was in her late 40s, was as slim and as fit as could be. She often complained about her IBS “flare ups” (as she would call them). There were times when I even had to do a double take – she often appeared “pregnant” out of nowhere.

“So what’s the cure?

“How do I fix this?”

My questions were innocent enough and quite ‘normal’ considering I was in a place where most people would expect to receive some sort of answer.

It Was Like A Slap Around The Face

“There is no cure!” The doctor replied in a very matter of fact way.

“Excuse me?” I shrieked.

He went on and on. I zoned in and out. I tried to force myself to listen and pay attention to what he was saying, because I’m sure something that he was saying must’ve been of value – he was a medical practitioner after all.

But those words kept ringing in my ears, “THERE IS NO CURE!”

All of a sudden I forgot my stomach cramps and nauseating pain. I felt sickness of another kind. I wanted to desperately throw up.

“No, no, no, no!” My voice screamed at me inside! “No!”

“But there are ways you can manage it!”

Honestly, if only I knew what I know now, and I could’ve been free from the shackles of IBS long ago.

I Couldn’t Believe What I Heard Next

Apparently there were ways to manage it.

Change your diet. I nodded solemnly. Although admittedly, my eating habits were far better than my college years when I lived on take-outs, pasta and beer. I considered my diet to be quite healthy.

He didn’t tell me what I should do to it though.

Cut out alcohol. Or at least limit it. I breathed in. Of course a doctor was going to say that.

Take laxatives for the constipation and Imodium for your diarrhea.

That was like an oxymoron.

He was telling me to take two drugs that basically triggered two of my major IBS (I was so glad I had a name for it finally) symptoms.

It didn’t make sense.

But he was the doctor. He knew best. Who was I to disagree with his six-plus years of medical school?

“Relax!”

I really wished doctors would stop telling me that. If it were that easy to sit back and take it easy, we’d be living in a hippie-type world and wearing flowers in our hair.

Needless to say I think I was left with even more questions than answers.

The Truth About IBS

I just don’t think doctors get it. Well how can they if they’ve never experienced the pain, discomfort, tiredness, and not to mention the sheer embarrassment themselves?

The honest truth is that IBS can turn your world upside down, and it can also catch you off guard, so I discovered the hard (and embarrassing) way.

When it strikes, it can mess up and disrupt everything going on in your life.

IBS doesn’t care if you’re in the middle of a multi-million dollar deal. It doesn’t care if you’re on the sideline watching your kids play Little League. It doesn’t care if you’re on a second date with someone. It really doesn’t care at all!

If that’s not bad enough, it also affects you in different ways, even between your episodes.

Once officially “diagnosed” (if you can call it that without any real tests), I found myself feeling anxious all the time.

“When is it going to strike next?”

That was why I found the doctors’ advice to stop stressing out to be a bit ironic.

I felt like it was impossible to enjoy life like it should be enjoyed.

I certainly couldn’t relax.

In fact, I’m almost certain that my constant worrying also negatively impacted my condition even more.

IBS Changed Me

I wish I could say that my initial confirmation from the doctors gave me comfort, but it didn’t.

I couldn’t see how taking both laxatives and Imodium could help me.

Nor could I see how I could relax more and stop stressing when I had no idea when it was going to catch me out again.

I did seek second and third opinions, but they all pretty gave me the same advice.

In the next year or so, the situation got even worse.

Sometimes I’d be off work 3 or 4 days in a row.

I’d lock myself in my room, in total darkness, praying that it would quickly pass.

I lost friends because of my IBS.

It’s not because they weren’t supportive of me; it was because I just couldn’t face going out into the real world. I went where I had to go and then headed immediately home.

I’d cancel on friends and family at the last minute. I’d turn down invites. And not surprisingly, the calls, messages, and invites slowly began to cool off.

My Career Suffered Too

Forget the day when I had to run out of the boardroom holding onto my stomach in agony…that day was just one of many!

And because I’d had no “cure” it meant that I still had IBS.

Chronic fatigue set in. As a result, my productivity suffered too, to the point that I was hauled in front of my boss and asked if I had some dependency issues. I think he was referring to drugs or alcohol.

To be fair, I’d lost weight, looked pale, and had permanent dark rings under my eyes.

I wasn’t a pretty sight.

I explained that I’d been diagnosed with IBS, but this meant nothing to him. He had a business to run.

I got a formal warning.

I got a written warning.

I lost my job.

The Tipping Point

Losing my job was a bit of a reality check.

I guess I could’ve fought it. I possibly could’ve sued them. But what was the point?

I had to figure it out. I needed to take control back. Because who, in their right mind, would ever employ me in such a state?

I wouldn’t!

Desperation sunk in.

No way was I going to pump myself up with a concoction of laxatives, Imodium and anti-depressants.

I joined every IBS forum I could find. I spent hours chatting on Facebook to people that were also suffering from it.

Some people had it even worse off than me. There were some that had lost their homes, and their families.

How could one condition that some stated wasn’t even a proper medical condition cause so many problems and wreck so many lives?

I’m just so thankful that I have a happy ending to my story and my IBS has well and truly gone.

Unfortunately, there are so many other people out there that can’t say the same. Because just like I had once done, they rely solely on the advice of doctors.

The Triggers

To say I became a little obsessed in ridding myself of this condition is an absolute understatement. All you had to do was go into my computer history to see what I mean.

Some friendly people online had been experimenting with treating their triggers.

What did I have to lose?

Surely, focusing on the triggers could at least minimize my flare-ups. Doing this could help me get back on track with everything. I was desperate to try and rebuild my life.

What I had learned about IBS was not one size fits all. Every single person is different, and what might trigger my IBS could be something completely different for someone else.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy as the doctors made it out to be.

Dieting

One thing many doctors told me was to change my diet.

They told me to eliminate things, but they didn’t tell me what to remove.

I had no idea about how to eliminate and then re-add.

Was it a matter of going cold turkey with certain food?

I had no clue!

So while the medical experts’ advice sounded good and made sense to me in theory, it was difficult to put into practice without guidance.

So I took it upon myself to try almost every diet I could find online that came up when I tapped in the words “Diets for IBS”.

High-fiber diets, low-fiber diets, low-fat diets, the ketogenic diet, a gluten-free diet, and a low FODMAP diet were just some of the diets I attempted and failed at.

Nothing seemed to work!

Again, if I were armed with the information about how to get rid of IBS back then, things would’ve been completely different.

A Random Online Encounter Changed My Life

I lose count now as to how many online groups and forums I joined, however one thing for sure was that these were the groups that I regularly (and still do) interact with.

The difference now is that I’m often the one giving advice and pointing people towards the thing that can change their lives.

On particularly bad days, I sent public pleas for help and advice. I wanted to know anything and everything that has worked for other IBS sufferers.

Julissa contacted me on a random Saturday morning. She’d seen a post that I’d written. The post that referred to doctors telling me to eliminate things from my diet without giving me any details as to how to do it.

Elimination Was The Right Answer

She explained to me her family’s personal experiences with IBS and how elimination had worked for her niece.

But it all had to be done in a systematic way; otherwise the “elimination process” would be a fruitless exercise.

She definitely had my attention.

How I Became IBS Free In Literally No Time At All

Apparently I didn’t need long to reduce and perhaps get rid of some, or all, of my IBS symptoms.

I’d been fighting these symptoms for years. For the longest of time I didn’t even know I had IBS. I’d even lost the job that I’d absolutely loved because I just couldn’t get on top of things, which included my mental health.

This short period of time for healing myself compared to the countless days of anguish that I’d previously experienced was a drop in the ocean, and something I was 100 % willing to have a go at.

There were rules to be followed to get the answers I was looking for, which I did, and what I found out shocked me.

I learned that there were a few foods that set my IBS off; they were not dairy or wheat products like I’d originally thought or had been told.

I discovered I’ve always been quite an anxious person, long before my IBS problems – the IBS just exasperated everything. I learned that I couldn’t cure it, but I sure as hell could get it under control so I didn’t have to suffer from it on a day-to-day basis like I had been.

I found out that doing some simple meditative exercises and practicing some forms of mindfulness actually ease many of my triggers. They’re so easy (and also helpful in many other aspects of my life) that I still to this day do them despite being in the clear.

I’d pretty much consider myself to be IBS free.

Well, I haven’t experienced any of those awful IBS symptoms that are commonly associated with this crippling condition for well over a year. I’ve learned that there are ways to beat it and minimize the risk of having an episode again, and now that I’ve made those necessary and very easy tweaks in the way I live, my quality of life is so much better.

Empowerment and control are just two words I’d use to describe what this simple program has given me. And obviously, because everything has a knock-on effect, I feel more relaxed, less anxious and much happier.

Here’s to being IBS free now and the rest of my life!

The Truth About IBS

Once you go through Julissa’s step-by-step plan, you’ll quickly see and understand that there are more triggers (and secondary triggers) than what research tells us.

It’s about understanding your body and your environment. Each person is different.

But as well as triggers, there are other factors that contribute to IBS, which in a way I guess could be classified as triggers as well.

Your gut’s flora, its ability to chemically break down food, and intestinal and gut muscle spasms are all pieces of the bigger puzzle.

So What’s It All About?

This thorough and well laid out step-by-step plan addresses the physical and emotional triggers and the possible medical explanations of IBS.

I found the program easy to follow, and because of it I am now a happy and healthy person once more.

A clear cut diet, explicit instructions how to eliminate and re-introduce food, exercises, supplement advice, and additional information about alternative therapies are what make this step-by-step plan more useful and valuable than anything else I’ve read, including advice I received from doctors.

Because let’s face it, all the doctors I’d ever spoken to said that I could never get rid of my IBS, and how wrong they were…

Because I never suffer from it anymore!

Here’s The Thing…

To make it work, you’ve got to follow it. No cutting corners, no nonsense.

But it works.

I’m forever grateful for the advice I received from Julissa that day.

She reached out at the right time, when I needed help the most, when I felt like I was losing control.

I followed the step-by-step program and her advice down to a tee, and even in week one I began to notice differences.

I feel like a whole new person, mentally and physically, and I’m happy to report I am currently IBS free, and I have been for some time, and I credit it all to this amazingly informative plan.

Although I do consider myself cured, I still follow the plan – I consider it to be my bible.

My diet is on point. The exercises have become a regular part of my daily life. I supplement with Vitamin D, turmeric, and magnesium, AND…

I’ve never felt happier and healthier!

Not only am I back working, I’ve also managed to land a position I love.

My friendships are back on track, and I’ve even found happiness in love as well.

OK, so this program isn’t magic in the fact it will find you a new romance or rekindle friendships, but it will point you in the direction you need and give you all the necessary information.

One thing I can vouch for is that it definitely worked for me.

Over To You

If you suffer from IBS, whether it’s a mild form or chronic, I know you’re not 100% happy.

I also know that you’ve been suffering from pain and discomfort.

The thing about this step-by-step plan is it is so incredibly easy to follow. Like super easy!

I didn’t need to buy anything new!

No expensive “diet” foods. No gym memberships or equipment. No expensive experimental drugs. Nothing!

The best thing is I don’t have to spend endless hours in doctors’ surgeries or hospitals waiting for answers anymore.

I’m proud to say that I haven’t stepped into a doctor’s office for almost a year and half, which is quite a feat for somebody that had once frequented every family practice in the locale on a regular basis.

The exercises I did (and still do) at home. Sometimes, when I have a moment, I also do them at work, because they’re that short and that easy. And when I have to travel for work, I often find myself doing them on the plane.

They’re great, because I can incorporate them into my everyday life with ease without any disruption.

I’ve learned to change my lifestyle. I continue to follow all the instructions. Because by doing this, I know that I’ll be able to maintain a life free of IBS and its crippling symptoms.

Click below to get your easy to follow step-by-step program today.

Yes, please send me my step-by-step plan now…

Nothing To Lose

What have you got to lose by trying this method out?

Other than your awful IBS symptoms and unhappiness?

Even in my desperation I was a little skeptical of it all, especially since I’d tried and failed so many other methods, and no doctor I’d visited could help me like I’d hoped they would.

This clear program isn’t made up from nothing. It’s based on scientific factual evidence concerning the triggers of IBS.

It’s an easy-to-follow plan, and because it is so easy, it’s not that difficult to include it in your life and make the necessary tweaks in the way you live.

And if you’re anything like me, once you start noticing the differences, you’ll become determined to make it work for you and continue with the program well after the suggested time is up.

Julissa’s program is different to the rest.

It’s so simple. It’s easy to follow and it also offers some step-by-step instructions.

What makes this plan even more unique is that it looks at IBS holistically. It looks at every aspect of IBS and all its triggers. From there, everything is separated into manageable chunks, which make it easy (and even fun) to follow.

Trust me when I say you won’t live to regret this.

I hope that you too can find all the answers for your IBS you’re looking for just like I did.

Here’s to living IBS free forever!

You’re 90 seconds away from owning a program designed to make things right for you.

Click here and it’s yours….

PS: I really hope that you too can find some relief from this awful condition like I have. But if for some reason you aren’t satisfied with your outcome, Julissa offers a 60-day money back guarantee, no questions asked, however, I’m almost certain you’ll never need to use this guarantee.

Believe me, I’ve never been happier and healthier in all my life!

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