#who needs homework when you have squirrel TV right outside your window?

[trishekebab]

Kintsugi

This is an original short story I wrote for English class that I thought I'd share. kintsugi (Noun) To repair with gold; The art of repairing metal with gold or silver lacquer and understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken.     It was early. Early enough that the sun had not yet graced the sky with its warming presence and the chill of night still remained in the summer air. I was in the kitchen, nursing a cup of hot tea out of my favorite japanese style teacup with purple and blue abstract flowers. I hadn’t intended to be up so early, but these things just happen sometimes. As I stood, hip resting of the low granite counter, I let my mind go blank, savoring the calm you only find before the world is awake. The doorbell rang. Now that was odd, who could possibly be visiting at this hour. I walked to the door of the apartment I shared with my sister Alison. A glance in the peephole revealed two men in suits. I unlocked and opened the door to the police officers. “Good morning officers,” I said sweetly, if a little tiredly, “What can I do for you so early this morning?” “I’m detective Jones, and this is my partner, detective Wallace. We’re looking for Alene Brogan” Jones queried softly. “That’s me. What do you need?” I took a sip of my tea. “May we come in?” “Umm…sure?” I opened the door all the way to allow them entrance to my small apartment. “Why don’t we sit down, Miss Brogan?” detective Wallace’s voice was a comforting baritone. “Right this way officers” I led them to the modest living room area with dark hardwood floors and a dark green couch adjacent to a white floral chair with fluffy cushions. I sat in the white chair and the detectives took their places on either place on the sofa, turning to face me. “We’ve been sent to inform you that at 2:36 this morning the remains of who we believe to be one Alison Brogan were discovered behind the fifth street bar and grille. As you are her only living relative, we thought it best to tell as soon as possible. We are very sorry for your loss.” Jones’ voice was soft, as though he was speaking to a frightened deer. I hadn’t heard his whole speech. At the mention of my sister’s name, my teacup slipped from my hand and shattered on the floor, embedding tiny ceramic shards in my bare feet and dousing them in the hot liquid. I didn’t feel the pain. I didn’t feel anything. In that moment my entire world had stopped and I was numb, robbed of all ability to feel. The detectives had rushed inside to help me with my injuries while I stood completely shell shocked. They asked me where my first aid kit and paper towels were. I answered automatically, letting them bandage my feet and clean up the remainder of the broken teacup. I have no idea how long these events took. They blurred together in the clouded vortex of a mind in shock, making it feel as though time was zipping by too fast to even glimpse and yet it passed lethargically. It was as though this moment, this one, terrible moment, wanted to latch onto me forever and never let me go, to seep into the cracks in my shattered form and prevent any adhesive, no matter how strong, from putting me back together. Detective Wallace moved to throw away what remained of my purple and blue teacup, but I stopped him. Taking the small handheld dustpan from his grasp, I transferred the teacup to the empty fruit bowl on the counter. It might seem strange that I was so focused on a ten dollar ceramic, but that dinky little teacup was one of my most treasured possessions. Alison had given it to me six years prior for my fourteenth birthday. She had been fifteen and had painted the teacup herself with the colors of our birthstones. Ali had always been wonderful at art; she was getting her degree in graphic design. Well, not anymore, obviously. She would never get her degree, or make herself a cup of tea, or even take a nap ever again. And I was all alone. A poor little orphan girl with no one left.     In the year that followed, I fell into a pattern of not living but simply existing. I went to my classes, came home, did homework, ate, bathed, went to sleep, and woke up in the morning to start all over again. I rarely spoke when it wasn’t required and I never smiled. I passed all my classes and was one year closer to my degree in computer engineering; but I didn’t care. Not really. It was a little over a year after they found my sister and I had not left my house save for grocery runs all summer. School started back up in two weeks and I was contemplating dropping out. It wasn’t as if there was anyone left to be disappointed in me. No. I have to do this. For her. For them. My family. I thought. They never found Ali’s killer. It was some back alley mugging, and she had been coming home from a party.  It might be assumed that this was the beginning of my search for her killer and the subsequent revenge which comes with such tales, but I was not that strong, nor did I seek to enforce any penance for what had happened. I had long ago accepted the fact that her death was simply one of many such attacks. She just ran out of luck. I had spent the day laying in bed, doing nothing of importance and wallowing. As had often been the case in the past year. There was some ad on the tv for a novelty mop of sorts. “Change your life for the better,” it said. And that got me thinking, which got me moving, and the next thing I knew I was out of the house and driving to a local coffee shop. In a couple of weeks it would be flooded with college students doing homework, studying, or just having social hour, but right then, it was mostly empty. I ordered a tea and sat down at a counter facing the window. I didn’t care to look at the stereotypical interior of the coffee shop meant to invite the business of hipsters and struggling artists. As I observed the street traffic and the distant sun, which was quickly nearing its nadir, a small blonde girl sat down next to me with a paper cup of coffee that must have been 30 ounces at least. Her hair was cut into a short bob reminiscent of the roaring twenties, her eyes were a warm and inviting grey with a slight downward tilt, and she wore a bright pastel blue dress adorned with depictions of squirrels in orange. “Hey. I’m Shawn. I know what you’re gonna say, and yes, it is actually a girl’s name,” Shawn smiled lightly and looked at me for a few seconds, as if waiting for something, “And you are..?” she prompted me. “Oh! I’m Alene. It’s Irish,” I responded with a mental facepalm, of course she was waiting for me to give my name. It seemed that my time away from humanity had left me a bit socially handicapped. “Well, it’s nice to meet you Alene. Say, have you ever seen Slipper and The Rose with Richard Chamberlain?” she asked excitedly. “Uh… No?” Shawn gasped, “Welp, that settles it. We must remedy this immediately!” She began to rapidly relay the plot of the movie, along with what she felt were the most important quotes and a few song excerpts. However, the conversation quickly turned to dinosaurs with feathers for a short time before turning to zombies. We sat talking for four hours and it was well past dark by the time I had gone home. Shawn and I began hanging out nearly every day and even had a few classes together when the semester began. Shawn was studying Applied and Computational Mathematical Sciences so there was some crossover. She and I became very fast friends. Shawn was good for me. After all, she was exactly what I hadn’t been for so long. Happy. Shawn was excited by nearly every new occurrence, which seems like it might get annoying very quickly, yet it never did. She helped me start to see joy in the little things again. And all of a sudden I realised that I had been color blind, living in a world made of grey, thinking that there were no other colors. Because, for the first time in a very long time, I had the rainbow back. Seven months after I met Shawn however, my worst nightmare came true. There was no visit from the police telling me that the person I now considered family was gone. No, this was worse. It was about six fifteen and I was heading out to pick up some popcorn for our weekly movie night where one of us forced the other to watch a movie we had been deprived of. I was listening to a bouncy pop song when I turned the corner and saw it. Shawn was on the ground with her back leaning against the brick wall of an old pawn shop. Why is she sitting outside? I had thought innocently before I noticed the dark stain spreading from her lower abdomen and the thin red line trailing from the corner of her mouth. I dialled 911 quickly as I ran to her. The phone operator spouted off the classic opener with a bored tone. My voice was frantic and stuttery as I tried to explain the situation, “Hello. I-I’m at 213 Prenton Way. Um, it’s my friend. Oh god, I think she’s been stabbed!” The dispatcher’s voice was suddenly invested as she informed me that there was an ambulance on its way and how I could help in the meantime. Seven and a half minutes. That’s how long it took the ambulance to get there, how long I held my hands over her wound and begged her to stay with me.     It was sixteen hours in the waiting room before I could see her. She was in a private room which felt sterile and invasive. Her skin, which was normally pinkish with a sort of glow was ashen and grey, with dark circles under her eyes. I walked slowly to her. When I reached the side of the bed I collapsed and broke down in tears, which soon devolved into pathetic blubbering. I don’t know when it started, but Shawn had been running her hand over my hair, trying to calm my breathing.     We sat in silence for a long time before she finally spoke, “Thank you, for saving my life.”     “I didn’t do anything,” I said, looking down at my hand that was in my lap and not Shawn’s hand.     “Yes you did. I heard you. And I listened. I stayed.”     I broke down again, weeping for a solid ten minutes from both leftover shock as well as relief. And that was when I told Shawn everything. About my sister, and my parents, and that awful year of nonexistence. She hugged me and told me everything would be alright. We talked for a while after, eventually deciding that she would be coming to stay with me. Permanently. And after a week of observation, we moved her belongings into my apartment.     Two days later, after I came home from a grocery run, she bounced my way excitedly with a small wrapped package. “Here, I got you something,” she held it out with a nervous smile. When I opened the small blue box, I gasped and tears sprang into my eyes.     “M-my teacup? B-but, how did you fix it?”     “Kintsugi, it’s an ancient japanese art of repairing pottery with gold. It’s also a mindset, that something broken, once repaired, is more beautiful for the trauma it underwent. Just like you.”

[agentverbivore]

the squirrel just almost tripped over his/her little paws while carrying a leafy branch that was too big for him/her 😂