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zesty_pinto For those curious, I haven't been posting all my stories from FOD onto here, so I felt it was appropriate to place them here.
He looked through the clear four-panel window of his room, and as he looked, his lips pursed in disgust that it was still dank and gray. "I was told that people actually revel in this weather... how they can is-" He cut himself off and quickly shuttered the window to hide the gray and immediately switched on a nearby lamp to flood the room with golden light. While his face faced the wooden tabletop of his desk, he only felt compelled to look back at the blinds, almost hoping that he could see through it... Hoping for something that he knew would never come.
A year ago, New York City, John F. Kennedy Airport
The college student carried a framepack on his back and tugged a wheeled luggage case along the perpetually gray concrete he walked on. Looking around for a cab, the student then rummaged his paper-laden pockets and, finding what he wanted, pulled out a slip with a few names and some addressed printed neatly in Times heading but crumpled slightly from the hours of travel. He then walked over to one of the cab drivers lazily sitting in the driver's seat, the windshield just as lazily fending off the specks of drizzle that started to spatter from the dull gray darkness of the sky.
Through the trip in the cab, the drizzle that was being slowly fought off with the slowest strokes of the windshield wiper began to grow heavier in beat. Soon the rain was tossing in loud drumbeats as the driver wordlessly switched the wiper to go more quicker to fend off more of the wet drops that fell. When he paid the cab driver for the trip, he stepped out with his luggage and an immediate attack from the sky's water. He looked up as he quickly reached to the double doors.
"I wonder who's crying..." he muttered to himself in a half-second reflection before pushing through the stainless steel window pane doors.
The lobby of the dormitory was a small area with wood panel walls, a fine grain wood counter with a computer and a desk attendant, and a pigeon hole from behind. An elevator and a mailroom were not too far behind.
The desk attendant immediately took notice and shot up from her seat and stated a "May I help you?" as though he had caught her at a most embarrasing time.
"Ahh, I'm the intern from Missouri?" He tried to mat his hair a bit in the hopes of pushing the water out of his dark brown cowlicks but seemed to just force more of the water into his hair.
"Oh! Yes, I was told about you!" She reached underneath the counter and produced an index box and opened it, searched through a number of papers, and then removed an envelope "You have room 314. No noise after eight p.m. and laundry room is on the second flo-" she stopped herself as the door behind him opened and he turned around to look.
There was a girl not too much shorter than me, in a sweatshirt and sweatpants and long light hair that dripped heavily from what may have been from being doused deeply in water. There was makeup on her face, though it ran heavily and while it was prevented from running down to her cheeks, there was a fragment of a fingerprint that hinted of the wiping. She looked up with dark blue eyes with a look of disdain at the woman behind the counter.
"And where have you been, hmmm?" asked the attendant with a look of subdued annoyance.
She sneered angrily and stormed across the carpet.
"You come and speak to me when spoken to, Margaret!"
She did not listen and headed down a hallway, and as the desk attendant ran off after her, I heard a sound of a heavy metal door slamming shut behind her.
---
The student surveyed his room. The meager belongings he brought with him was barely an amount of things that seemed amazing in amount, but was enough for him to live without too much trouble. He patted the laptop on his desk thankfully and turned to the sole window that viewed outside. In the night, without a lamp light to guide one's eyes, one could see the light of a busy midtown street, even if all he saw through his window was an alley. He peered down in curiosity and saw from below a light yellow-haired girl and a pair of large men that seemed to be approaching her. He saw her turn back slowly into the wall.
He turned to his phone but then turned instead to his still half-filled luggage...
"You still owe us. Now you gonna pay or are we going to have to take?" The larger one sneered a malicious grin. His hand still was deep in his pockets, reaching for something.
The girl looked back and looked as though she was about to mouth something back, but then stopped.
They stopped when they began to hear footsteps from behind them.
A tall man about six foot four was walking this way. His hand held a long wavering sword and by his side.
"Hey, get the fuck out of here!" one of them shouted.
"Not until you do first." He replied as he brushed by his dark brown hair.
The girl looked at him with surprise, perhaps astonishment but certainly surprise.
The men turned their back "Yo, Andrew, take care of him." and he drew a switchblade from his pocket. The man was quick and quickly rushed into him, and the girl was shocked, since a rapier would have been nothing against such quickness.
The boy replied against Andrew with a quick flourish as he rushed, ducked and then dodged, and then pushed the end through the man's pits, forcing him to scream in pain as he pulled back the blade, drawing blood.
"Bitch!" The other drew a handgun and immediately as if knowing, he reached behind him and pulled out a firearm, smiling, the rapier quickly sheathing into his belt as he cocked the gun.
"Leave." Was all he said as he stared at him back.
She then saw that behind him Andrew was coming close and she screamed "Behind you!"
He turned and saw the man about to aim for his face. His reply was a quick duck and he replied with a spinning kick in reply that fell the man to the filth-ridden ground. He pulled a grin, but then heard the loud reverb of a high pitched ring as the alleyway flashed from gunfire.
...
He was not bleeding.
The girl had kicked the gunman between the legs with a fierce pull her own leg. He misfired and the shot ricocheted someplace else. He took the opportunity to yell "Leave!" to her. She did not listen though.
At that moment, Andrew got the pace on him and he felt something heavy pull him to the floor. The large man quickly pinned him to the floor. He looked up and saw the gunman, who only smiled as he pressed the soles of his mud-stained shoes into his face... and then kicked him with it.
The first blow he recoiled against. It was the third that drew blood, the seventh that drew a small scar. By the twelveth... the flashing red and blue of a police car flooded the alley.
"You should be lucky he was there to help you," Margeret's mother said as she approached the kitchen with the dull brown bottle of iodine and the cotton balls. She replied with a sulking silence as she sat in her seat. "Still giving me the silent treatment I see," she remarked as she uncorked the bottle and dabbed the ingredients. "Hold still..." and then she applied the cotton to the knuckles of the girl. She flinched slightly in her chair as it was applied.
"Later tonight, I want you to come to his room and thank him for risking his life for you."
The girl continued to glare at her knuckles.
...
Margaret looked at his door and then at her hands. She brushed her long gold hair back for a moment and then stood still for a moment in the hallway. Her hand came close and began to finger the knob of the door, the digits rubbing closely against the smooth surface. A quick pull of the wrist, and she noticed it was locked. The digits pulled close... until she felt the sting of the still-raw skin. Her hand pulled up and she pulled it back a bit before she would knock the door and-
"Hello?"
She turned and saw the man, a few rolled bandages across his face and a black eye but still walking normally. He blinked in curiosity and then his eyes widened and he gave a smile.
"Ah, it's you! Are you all right?"
She turned back to him and stared into his dark eyes. He blinked again, and she saw that despite the great bruised circle around his pupil, it was still a cool even brown.
"Is something wrong...?"
"Thank you."
"What?"
She turned around and started to walk away "Hey! Wait!"
She did not turn back, continuing to move away. His mouth pursed into a peculiar formation at the confusion.
The door opened and he went through, closing the door behind him. The sound of the phone began to vibrate its three tone verse. He reached up and picked up the receiver.
"Oh, hey babe!"
"No... no... it went well, just got a little injured, nothing too bad."
"Sure, I have some time, my internship won't be for awhile."
"Uh huh."
"Uh huh..."
"Oh."
"..."
"I'm sorry..."
"..."
"Yes, I understand... it's for the best."
"Yeah... friends is good."
"...bye."
---
"Did your internship close well?" greeted Tanya the Desk Receptionist.
He smiled back "Yeah... not as bad as I was worried it would be. Feels like time has gone by so fast... almost like I stepped in just a moment before." He looked back glancing to the rain outside, shaking his umbrella slightly as he did so.
"When do you leave for home again?"
"Tomorrow, at the crack of dawn."
She shook her head "Margaret's not going to take well to it..."
"Oh, I'm sure she has other things to think about." He said almost as a brush off.
"Haven't you noticed her?"
He shook his head "No, I can't say I have... has she been watching me?"
"She's been looking at you every day. i think she's just being shy." She smiled "I find it cute. Before she used to be outside all the time doing who knows what... and now she's a homebody always looking out the window. Will you be here all night?"
"Yeah, I've got a lot of packing to do..."
"Then I better send you on your way."
---
He returned to his room and as he began to pack away his items, he looked at a photo frame that had begun to gather dust, pulled it up and looked at the photo of him and a girl. He gazed into it for awhile, a thumb slowly reaching for the face of the girl slowly... and then he heaved the photo into the wastebasket, producing a crashing sound.
He turned as he heart a knocking "Come in, the door's open."
The door gently pushed open and he saw the bright hair and the dark blue eyes of Margaret as she quietly looked through the side of the door.
"Hey there," he said almost as though he was greeting a child "Heard you're going to be graduating to college soon. Choose a major?" She shook her head from behind the door and then quietly shut it behind her, without answering the question.
"Is... something wrong?"
She ran to him, tears falling from her cheeks in heavy drops, and her arms quickly wrapped around him. The lamp flashed and soon winked out with the rest of the world as lightning pealed crackles and the wind hissed behind it through the endless coming of falling water.
---
She was not there when he left. He looked up and thought that she may have been looking down from a window, but shook it aside.
"What could that have meant..." he muttered to himself.
"Eh?" The driver grunted.
"Nothing, nothing. To the airport please."
---
"Did this rain stop yet?" His fingers leaked open a crack, the water still falling in heavy drops was his sight, linked with a gale of winds. He sighed and looked at the laptop on his desk. A doorbell rang and he pulled himself up as he yelled out "I'll get it!"
His ears caught the endless downpour outside. "Who could it be outside in this terrible weather?"
The door rang again "I'm coming, I'm coming!" He shouted in response and he made it to the front door.
He turned the knock, opened it, and saw a girl in limp wet yellow hair, large dark blue eyes that were stained with running makeup, and a sweatshirt and sweatpants that were doused heavily from the outside rain.
He looked through the clear four-panel window of his room, and as he looked, his lips pursed in disgust that it was still dank and gray. "I was told that people actually revel in this weather... how they can is-" He cut himself off and quickly shuttered the window to hide the gray and immediately switched on a nearby lamp to flood the room with golden light. While his face faced the wooden tabletop of his desk, he only felt compelled to look back at the blinds, almost hoping that he could see through it... Hoping for something that he knew would never come.
A year ago, New York City, John F. Kennedy Airport
The college student carried a framepack on his back and tugged a wheeled luggage case along the perpetually gray concrete he walked on. Looking around for a cab, the student then rummaged his paper-laden pockets and, finding what he wanted, pulled out a slip with a few names and some addressed printed neatly in Times heading but crumpled slightly from the hours of travel. He then walked over to one of the cab drivers lazily sitting in the driver's seat, the windshield just as lazily fending off the specks of drizzle that started to spatter from the dull gray darkness of the sky.
Through the trip in the cab, the drizzle that was being slowly fought off with the slowest strokes of the windshield wiper began to grow heavier in beat. Soon the rain was tossing in loud drumbeats as the driver wordlessly switched the wiper to go more quicker to fend off more of the wet drops that fell. When he paid the cab driver for the trip, he stepped out with his luggage and an immediate attack from the sky's water. He looked up as he quickly reached to the double doors.
"I wonder who's crying..." he muttered to himself in a half-second reflection before pushing through the stainless steel window pane doors.
The lobby of the dormitory was a small area with wood panel walls, a fine grain wood counter with a computer and a desk attendant, and a pigeon hole from behind. An elevator and a mailroom were not too far behind.
The desk attendant immediately took notice and shot up from her seat and stated a "May I help you?" as though he had caught her at a most embarrasing time.
"Ahh, I'm the intern from Missouri?" He tried to mat his hair a bit in the hopes of pushing the water out of his dark brown cowlicks but seemed to just force more of the water into his hair.
"Oh! Yes, I was told about you!" She reached underneath the counter and produced an index box and opened it, searched through a number of papers, and then removed an envelope "You have room 314. No noise after eight p.m. and laundry room is on the second flo-" she stopped herself as the door behind him opened and he turned around to look.
There was a girl not too much shorter than me, in a sweatshirt and sweatpants and long light hair that dripped heavily from what may have been from being doused deeply in water. There was makeup on her face, though it ran heavily and while it was prevented from running down to her cheeks, there was a fragment of a fingerprint that hinted of the wiping. She looked up with dark blue eyes with a look of disdain at the woman behind the counter.
"And where have you been, hmmm?" asked the attendant with a look of subdued annoyance.
She sneered angrily and stormed across the carpet.
"You come and speak to me when spoken to, Margaret!"
She did not listen and headed down a hallway, and as the desk attendant ran off after her, I heard a sound of a heavy metal door slamming shut behind her.
---
The student surveyed his room. The meager belongings he brought with him was barely an amount of things that seemed amazing in amount, but was enough for him to live without too much trouble. He patted the laptop on his desk thankfully and turned to the sole window that viewed outside. In the night, without a lamp light to guide one's eyes, one could see the light of a busy midtown street, even if all he saw through his window was an alley. He peered down in curiosity and saw from below a light yellow-haired girl and a pair of large men that seemed to be approaching her. He saw her turn back slowly into the wall.
He turned to his phone but then turned instead to his still half-filled luggage...
"You still owe us. Now you gonna pay or are we going to have to take?" The larger one sneered a malicious grin. His hand still was deep in his pockets, reaching for something.
The girl looked back and looked as though she was about to mouth something back, but then stopped.
They stopped when they began to hear footsteps from behind them.
A tall man about six foot four was walking this way. His hand held a long wavering sword and by his side.
"Hey, get the fuck out of here!" one of them shouted.
"Not until you do first." He replied as he brushed by his dark brown hair.
The girl looked at him with surprise, perhaps astonishment but certainly surprise.
The men turned their back "Yo, Andrew, take care of him." and he drew a switchblade from his pocket. The man was quick and quickly rushed into him, and the girl was shocked, since a rapier would have been nothing against such quickness.
The boy replied against Andrew with a quick flourish as he rushed, ducked and then dodged, and then pushed the end through the man's pits, forcing him to scream in pain as he pulled back the blade, drawing blood.
"Bitch!" The other drew a handgun and immediately as if knowing, he reached behind him and pulled out a firearm, smiling, the rapier quickly sheathing into his belt as he cocked the gun.
"Leave." Was all he said as he stared at him back.
She then saw that behind him Andrew was coming close and she screamed "Behind you!"
He turned and saw the man about to aim for his face. His reply was a quick duck and he replied with a spinning kick in reply that fell the man to the filth-ridden ground. He pulled a grin, but then heard the loud reverb of a high pitched ring as the alleyway flashed from gunfire.
...
He was not bleeding.
The girl had kicked the gunman between the legs with a fierce pull her own leg. He misfired and the shot ricocheted someplace else. He took the opportunity to yell "Leave!" to her. She did not listen though.
At that moment, Andrew got the pace on him and he felt something heavy pull him to the floor. The large man quickly pinned him to the floor. He looked up and saw the gunman, who only smiled as he pressed the soles of his mud-stained shoes into his face... and then kicked him with it.
The first blow he recoiled against. It was the third that drew blood, the seventh that drew a small scar. By the twelveth... the flashing red and blue of a police car flooded the alley.
"You should be lucky he was there to help you," Margeret's mother said as she approached the kitchen with the dull brown bottle of iodine and the cotton balls. She replied with a sulking silence as she sat in her seat. "Still giving me the silent treatment I see," she remarked as she uncorked the bottle and dabbed the ingredients. "Hold still..." and then she applied the cotton to the knuckles of the girl. She flinched slightly in her chair as it was applied.
"Later tonight, I want you to come to his room and thank him for risking his life for you."
The girl continued to glare at her knuckles.
...
Margaret looked at his door and then at her hands. She brushed her long gold hair back for a moment and then stood still for a moment in the hallway. Her hand came close and began to finger the knob of the door, the digits rubbing closely against the smooth surface. A quick pull of the wrist, and she noticed it was locked. The digits pulled close... until she felt the sting of the still-raw skin. Her hand pulled up and she pulled it back a bit before she would knock the door and-
"Hello?"
She turned and saw the man, a few rolled bandages across his face and a black eye but still walking normally. He blinked in curiosity and then his eyes widened and he gave a smile.
"Ah, it's you! Are you all right?"
She turned back to him and stared into his dark eyes. He blinked again, and she saw that despite the great bruised circle around his pupil, it was still a cool even brown.
"Is something wrong...?"
"Thank you."
"What?"
She turned around and started to walk away "Hey! Wait!"
She did not turn back, continuing to move away. His mouth pursed into a peculiar formation at the confusion.
The door opened and he went through, closing the door behind him. The sound of the phone began to vibrate its three tone verse. He reached up and picked up the receiver.
"Oh, hey babe!"
"No... no... it went well, just got a little injured, nothing too bad."
"Sure, I have some time, my internship won't be for awhile."
"Uh huh."
"Uh huh..."
"Oh."
"..."
"I'm sorry..."
"..."
"Yes, I understand... it's for the best."
"Yeah... friends is good."
"...bye."
---
"Did your internship close well?" greeted Tanya the Desk Receptionist.
He smiled back "Yeah... not as bad as I was worried it would be. Feels like time has gone by so fast... almost like I stepped in just a moment before." He looked back glancing to the rain outside, shaking his umbrella slightly as he did so.
"When do you leave for home again?"
"Tomorrow, at the crack of dawn."
She shook her head "Margaret's not going to take well to it..."
"Oh, I'm sure she has other things to think about." He said almost as a brush off.
"Haven't you noticed her?"
He shook his head "No, I can't say I have... has she been watching me?"
"She's been looking at you every day. i think she's just being shy." She smiled "I find it cute. Before she used to be outside all the time doing who knows what... and now she's a homebody always looking out the window. Will you be here all night?"
"Yeah, I've got a lot of packing to do..."
"Then I better send you on your way."
---
He returned to his room and as he began to pack away his items, he looked at a photo frame that had begun to gather dust, pulled it up and looked at the photo of him and a girl. He gazed into it for awhile, a thumb slowly reaching for the face of the girl slowly... and then he heaved the photo into the wastebasket, producing a crashing sound.
He turned as he heart a knocking "Come in, the door's open."
The door gently pushed open and he saw the bright hair and the dark blue eyes of Margaret as she quietly looked through the side of the door.
"Hey there," he said almost as though he was greeting a child "Heard you're going to be graduating to college soon. Choose a major?" She shook her head from behind the door and then quietly shut it behind her, without answering the question.
"Is... something wrong?"
She ran to him, tears falling from her cheeks in heavy drops, and her arms quickly wrapped around him. The lamp flashed and soon winked out with the rest of the world as lightning pealed crackles and the wind hissed behind it through the endless coming of falling water.
---
She was not there when he left. He looked up and thought that she may have been looking down from a window, but shook it aside.
"What could that have meant..." he muttered to himself.
"Eh?" The driver grunted.
"Nothing, nothing. To the airport please."
---
"Did this rain stop yet?" His fingers leaked open a crack, the water still falling in heavy drops was his sight, linked with a gale of winds. He sighed and looked at the laptop on his desk. A doorbell rang and he pulled himself up as he yelled out "I'll get it!"
His ears caught the endless downpour outside. "Who could it be outside in this terrible weather?"
The door rang again "I'm coming, I'm coming!" He shouted in response and he made it to the front door.
He turned the knock, opened it, and saw a girl in limp wet yellow hair, large dark blue eyes that were stained with running makeup, and a sweatshirt and sweatpants that were doused heavily from the outside rain.
