#she's looking forward to painting it a soothing green maybe later this spring or summer. it's gonna be the final step of redecorating.

[ayyponine]

you can't take a picture of this - it's already gone.

one year since i moved out of my mom's house to live on my own. all this clutter and stuff came to the apartment w me but still, i am unable to really call it home. before i even lived there we lived in a different house which i was then longing to return to post-divorce so i know change is inevitable and it's all just part of how life goes but still it's like. will home ever stop feeling like a place and time you only keep growing more distant from every day. idk

[chicagocryptid]

'I WATCHED YOU WIN AN EATING CONTEST THEN THROW UP' THAT'S SO HORRIBLE I'M LAUGHING

County Fair // Maple x Chug

Warnings: None!

Summer in Nockfell was hot, but Maple and Ash would have braved hot coals every year to make it to the county fair. The week it was in town was always the most exciting for the entire gang, who all spent their allowance on tickets and fried oreos, but especially for the girls, who could get a free ride or two by winking at the operators, and who loved the excuse to beat the boys at every game they encountered along the dusty path.

It was just them that afternoon. Sal and Larry had been especially sore losers about a game of Balloon Darts, and had declined their invitation for a rematch, so Ash and Maple were walking arm in arm through the crowd, sharing a lemonade shake up and a handspun cotton candy the size of Maple's head. They were both windblown from the tilt-a-whirl, sweaty and a little smelly, but both of their faces hurt from smiling, and if you had asked either one of them, there would have been nowhere else they'd've preferred to be.

Maple groaned and pulled Ash to the side of the path so she could rub a blister forming under the strap of her flip flop. "I feel like we've already done everything," she said when she straightened up again. "We've done all the rides once and I promised myself I would wait to have a funnel cake until after we get dinner."

Ash hummed and tore a piece of cotton candy from the stick, popping it into her mouth. "We could try to break Larry's record on Zero Gravity?"

Maple's stomach lurched at the idea, and she leaned back against one of the makeshift buildings to hide her disgust. "Nah, if we did break it he'd say it was invalid 'cause he wasn't here. We'd just have to do it all over again."

"You're right," Ash sighed, joining Maple against the building. They were quiet for a stretch, watching people from all the over County pass them by. It was another reason they liked fair time so much; It was the only time Nockfell felt like a real town.

"Isn't there a show or something?" Maple asked, soothing closer to lean her head on Ash's bare shoulder. She could feel the heat that meant Ash would be calling her later to complain about not putting sunscreen on, though Maple had reminded her twice before they left. Ash craned her neck to try to get a view of one of the various events signs staked in front of booths and on corners.

"Looks like the only thing going on is an eating contest. It started at 2."

"What time is it now?"

Ash pulled her pager from her pocket and squinted to see it in the light. "2:04. I bet we can catch the end of it at least."

Maple shrugged off the wall and twisted her pinky finger around Ash's, pulling them back into the path. "Great, that means we'll get to see if anyone throws up."

To both of the girls' surprise, the eating contest seemed to be a hot commodity. Still, they were small enough to slip through the throng of people, and somehow, Maple figured out a way to get the two of them pressed against the platform. The sickly sweet smell of pie wafted over them, crusty and warm, and even though she was stuffed to the seams on fried foods, Maple's mouth watered. Most of the contestants were older, some in their twenties, some her dad's age, but there was one young boy second from the left she thought looked familiar.

Maple tapped Ash on the shoulder and gestured towards the boy, a round faced, green haired cherub, with his hat on backwards to keep the strays out of his eyes. "Do we know him?"

Ash used her free hand to shield her eyes against the sun. "Oh! We go to school with him. I think his name is... Chip? No. Ch... Chuck..." She rolled a few names around on her tongue, and then her face lit up. "Chug! That's it . I'm pretty sure he lives in the Apartments with the guys."

"Huh." Maple watched as he dove hands first into another pie, his fingers stained purple with blueberry ink. The pile next to him was smaller than the others, and she felt a little spark at the thought that he might win. Even Ash appeared to be interested, if her wide eyed gaze was any indication. He finished that pie, and then another, and then the crowd around them started to cheer louder. Maple realized Chug only had two pies left, and so she started to cheer too.

She hadn't been looking at anyone else's pile, but it must have been a close race, because as Chug took his last bite, a loud groan rippled through the audience. Chug had won, and although she hadn't meant to, Maple was screaming, jumping up and down on the hard dirt. Ash was right alongside her, caught up in the excitement. The judge came to Chug's side, lifted his hand above his head, and declared him the winner.

And then Chug's hair wasn't the only thing that was green. Maple must have been the only one who saw it, and it made her stop dead in her tracks. It flashed across his face for just a moment, and then Chug pushed back his chair, leaned over the side of the stage, and puked.

And puked.

And puked.

A rainbow of pie, every color imaginable. The crowd, in disgust, had begun to disappear, while the judge was standing behind Chug, looking horrified. A woman rushed on stage to rub the small of his back. When he regained his composure, only Ash and Maple remained.

"Should we go?" Ash asked, leaning close to Maple's ear and looking a little nauseous herself. But Maple's feet wouldn't let her move, although Chug was heading off the back of the stage into the other side of the fair.

"Uh..." His green head was threatening to disappear into the masses. "Why don't you grab us another lemonade and meet me at the Yo-yo?" She was already headed in Chug's direction, Ash calling after her.

"Okay, but you get the next one!"

She caught up with him a little ways away from the stage, in line for a shwarma stand. The woman, who Maple had assumed to be his mom, was no where in sight.

"Hey, Chug!" He turned, and looked rightfully surprised to see her moving in his direction. He had a chunk of thrown up pie on his t-shirt. She pretended not to notice.

"Maple, hi." He smiled when he saw her, kind of crooked and goofy. She liked it.

"I just uh... I just wanted to make sure you were..." The person in front of him stepped aside, and he moved into the window with two fingers up. "Are you really about to eat again?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah." He laughed a little."I wait all year for this truck. I'm not missing out."

"You literally just threw up 15 pies."

Chug blanched a little as he took his order. "You saw that huh?"

Maple flushed. "Unfortunately. I was actually trying to make sure you were feeling alright but... Well." She gestured at the paper boat in his hand. "Curried meat speaks for itself."

Chug laughed again, longer this time, and picked up one of the skewers. He held the other one out to Maple, and after a moment, she took it. Chug touched the end of their sticks together and made a clunking sound, and then took a bite.

"I see you around at school a lot, you know. I noticed your paintings at the art show last spring." Maple blushed again, busied herself with finding a good angle to bite her shwarma.

"They're okay."

"What?! They're amazing. I know Mrs. Doyle hung that one in the art room. I go in there to look at it sometimes." The sun shifted overhead, and Chug turned his hat forward. "You know sometimes they show off local work at The Bean. You should submit something."

Maple was so surprised that she nearly choked, and spent a good thirty seconds trying to dislodge the food in her throat. When she felt she could breathe again, she tried to wave him off. "Oh no. I'd be so intimated and I wouldn't even know what to paint..." Chug frowned, and then took another bite and lit up again.

"Why don't you come with me the next time they have one? Then you can see what you'd be up against." Maple heard her name cut through the air like a knife, but from further away. Ash just have gotten tired of waiting and was on the move. Maybe it was a blessing though, because her face was so warm she thought she might be getting a sunburn too.

"Okay, sure." Chug smiled wide, even more crooked, and knocked their skewers together again.

"Cool. It's a date."

Maple heard her name again, closer.

"I gotta go." She turned slightly in the direction of Ash's voice, then paused. "Oh, and Chug?"

He lifted his gaze toward her, taking another bite.

"When you ask me on our second date, make sure you don't still have vomit on your shirt?"

[ofstormythoughts]

Earth

••Earth was meant to ground, but sometimes it took you under.

The earth was a relic. Seeped into the pores of its mantle were the memories left by all the souls that had come before. These imprints of life circulated through the rocks, sands, trees and clays that had stood the test of time. While people went absently about their day, touches they made left behind a history that most wouldn’t see.

But one might say I could go through the looking glass.

I’d first encountered my connection to earth when I was six. It had happened during a daily ritual that was nothing out of the ordinary:  the walk home from school. There was a cemetery that Birdie and I passed every day along the way. In the vibrancy of a spring at its peak, I had been drawn by the green.

The grass was so vividly colored and the blades begged for the trample of bare feet. I’d kicked my shoes off and couldn’t wait to dispose of my socks to run past the fence with abandon. The birds were chirping, the air was alive with the hum of bees and the sun was making the flowers dewy. I remember the feeling of my smile that pivotal moment before my foot landed on the sod, squishing under my toes and ….

The images came at me as if I was thrust into a dark tunnel at warp speed… skeletal remains filling in with faces before their memories came into view with an acceleration that was dizzying. There was no exit, no safe direction to turn;  I was lost in a plume of inescapable, terrifying imagery.

Each step triggered a landmine, images exploding and erasing the setting of present with rapid fire reels of the past. I heard my own blood-curdling screams but not even their force could pull me out of the nightmarish reverie. Birdie had quickly lifted me to rescue, retrieving me from maelstrom I had unknowingly entered, drawn by the colors of spring and completely carefree. The terror had lasted for less than a minute, but to me it felt like eons and in the aftershocks I had stumbled into a fear that wouldn’t settle, turning me tentative when it came to parks and playgrounds.

It was a fortunate circumstance that not all ground was hallowed and I had eventually conquered my fear of being barefoot. Time, experimentation and the careful guidance of my grandmother had provided the invisible map needed to navigate another anomaly that was intrinsically part of me.  

My grandma had taken me to the ocean when I was a little older, but not yet a young woman.  I’d slipped out of my sandals and took a tentative step into the sand and had been overwhelmed with excitement and glee. I had been met with so much joy and playfulness that I had fallen to giggles as we’d made our way to the shoreline.

As a day-dreamy teenager I had found a tree; the canopy had offered me shade from hot sun in the precursor to summer and was a quiet spot out of the fray where I could study. In leaning against it, shoulder bare in the heat of summer, I was whisked into an image of a boy that had propped a hand against it as he had dipped down to give a girl her first kiss. The memory lived in the ring of the year it had happened and my contact with the bark had drawn it out from the roots.

Birdie had always had a knack for gardening and making home medicinals. She self-educated by pouring through books in hours spent at the library and then more at home. There were nights her mortar and pestle were subjected to hours of abuse so that she might find the cure for a headache or a balm to sooth a bruise. I was her willing guinea pig and participant in her daydreams. It was not lost on me that she may have been in search of a secret remedy to ease the parts of me that were harder to cope with.  

A deeper connection to earth was discovered in the garden. Birdie cultivated everything she used in her potions and lotions. She readily involved me in her every passion and whim. I was her constant companion and she was mine.  My green thumb grew every year along with my inches and it was in new growth I had discovered the wonder of my connection to life. A newborn bloom or tender sproutling held in its small but mighty roots... potential.  Unburdened by age, they posed no threat to my enhanced senses, instead bringing the refreshing perspective that came with new beginnings.  I lost hours to running my fingers along the herbs in the garden, and the flowers along the fences. It was a world of my own:  Raine in Wonderland.

And then… something even deeper.

My connection to the earth extended beyond reading its memories like pages in a picture book, and as with the more harrowing happenings, it had been stumbled upon quite by surprise. While out in our garden, the drying leaves of a plant at the corner of the bed had caught my attention. I ran my fingertips over the foliage, the ones past rescue fluttering to the soil just below. I had been confounded by the single struggling plant surrounded by all others lush and robust.

“Birdie, why isn’t this one well?”

Walking over to pat her gentle reassurance on my shoulder, my grandmother had been quick to answer. “Sometimes, my darling Raine, it is just a matter of the survival of the fittest.”

“Can we let it be until all the leaves have fallen?”

She had answered me with a decisive nod before flitting around to prune and feed and pick things in her garden. I’d whispered to the plant my sorries for its struggle to grow and then continued about my other business.

The next morning brought a miracle. I’d decided that the plant deserved company every day so that it wouldn’t be sad about losing its leaves. Skipping straight to it, that very next day, my eyes had immediately gone wide and I’d questioned what I was seeing. “Birdie! Look! Look!”

I remember very clearly she had wiped her hands on her gardening apron and hurried over then her jaw had gone slack. The plant that could have been a long lost relative to Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree had filled out and grown up while we slept. That was the day I found I had a literal green thumb. Or maybe it was more than just a thumb…  

This inexplicable gift and my undying love of Birdie’s garden had inspired my own passions and drove me to pursue a double-major of plant science and plant biology. My path had illuminated towards a future in botany with a healthy knack for horticulture on the side. There was not a question in my mind of what I wanted to do once I was old enough to understand it.

Birdie was an absolute sponge and my number one study partner throughout my schooling. We applied my education to her ingenuity and fervor for the field. Combined we were a powerhouse. We created remedies and therapies and indulgent home spa treatments with herbs and flowers and oils.

In my mind the earth still held untapped and untold potential.

I was motivated in my studies, excelled and graduated in exactly four years. A typical experience for someone who was less than typical. I don’t think Birdie had ever been so proud as the day I crossed the stage. We’d celebrated my accomplishment with an elaborate farm-to-table meal that we made together, complete with homemade vanilla bean ice cream and our very own tea.  There was a hint of nutmeg in the aromatic blend - an irresistible detail that had been my idea. I had always loved the scent of nutmeg, it had an amazing quality of home, earthy and grounding with that je ne sais quoi.

After schooling, it had been my determination to have a business plan drawn up and secure a loan to bring Birdie’s apothecary to life.  Most every thing had been in place as far as framework went when my grandmother had fallen at the the hands of a stroke… It was then I had shifted from entrepreneur to caregiver, despite the protests of Birdie herself.  Sadly there were some afflictions the derivatives of earth could not fix…

Eventually, in Venice Beach, the dream would be realized. Birdie wouldn’t be there for the moment I found my place, or when I had brushed it to new life with paint,  but she had been there before, when we had ordered the prototypes for our original line of inventory. I would carry other brands, but our featured line came from her as much as it did me. She knew I was moving forward before she said a silent farewell and drifted into a sleep from which she would not wake. My grief was deep and by some measure, would always remain a part of me. Perhaps this was the way the heart tried to fill the void left by absence of someone you loved unconditionally.  

Happiness had arrived in a box a few short weeks later. I didn’t have to guess at its contents but that didn’t dull my anticipation to get to what was inside at all, quite the opposite. I didn’t bother with scissors, instead catching an edge of the tape that had lifted and ripping it free of the cardboard. The jade colored bottles were so rich and perfect in their jeweled tone, I had actually squealed my delight, which was certainly not my style. In those moments, I felt so much joy and a connection to my Birdie that defied description.  It was then my mourning had altered, morphing into something less lonely and more hopeful.

That very first box was the front seat passenger in my otherwise solo drive to my next destination.  I’d not left it in the car when I arrived, opting to carry it up the three steps of the storefront instead of going ahead to unlock the door. To me this was symbolic, the next best thing to my grandmother’s fingers joined with mine as we crossed the threshold.

Now, weeks later, my apothecary, with its fresh coat of paint, was taking on its shape and personality. A newly constructed greenhouse was its neighbor to the back, already filled with plants which were mostly from clippings that came from Birdie’s garden back home. Her legacy lived in their roots and my gift would ensure their eternity.  

Inside, the walls had been painted a soothing shade of grey, and razor thin glass shelves jutted out proudly from the walls.  The flooring had yet to be completed, for that would be the final touch for a specific element that had been non negotiable to me. As it were, many may have found it premature to set up any display.  I, however, could not resist the pull I had to see those jewel-toned bottles out of their box and adorning the shelves.  One by one I had taken them out, stopping to open each cap and indulge in their scents before I set them in the center shelves of the left wall, Birdie had been left handed.  Not a moment after I’d placed the last bottle I was beaming and welling with pride.  The emotion of that moment washed over me with a power that defied description; I suppose that might actually be normal when on the precipice of realizing a lifelong dream.

Survival of the fittest, my grandma had said so long ago in the garden, and Birdie had certainly survived.  Birdie was right there in the contents of those bottles, displayed with a graceful strength and purposeful dignity, the very essence of who she had been.

The earth could take you under…

… but it could also set you to bloom. ••