Dear Mother

(Note: No, I do not need to get on anti-depressants. This is actually the start of an idea for a novel)


You did nothing wrong. I've carried around this piece of paper for days wondering how to start it. This is the only way that feels right. You raised me, invested your time in to me, and to see 20 years of your life's work fail must do nothing but leave that deadly question: what did I do wrong?

Nothing.

This was inevitable. I know it has never felt that way. I went to a good school, got a good job, and just got married! You and aunt Terry alwyas talk about how I bright my outlook on life is. I've hid my emotions well. Part of it has been because I love you all and I know my pain wouldn't just be my pain. Most of it is becuae I just wouldn't be able to explain why. Do you understand? My whole existence is a marathon on an internal hell I can't seem to climb out of and for he longest time I had no clue why.

Now I do.

Attached to this letter is Dr. Milligan's diagnosis. There is an imbalance in my brain that makes it hard for me to feel joy and easy for the other way around. This is not becuase of drugs or upbringing, just a random disorder that clicked in to my world sometime around sophormore year. Nothing helps. Believe me, I've tried. Milliford doesn't agree with my way of solving it, but he admits there's nothing else I can do.

This is selfish of me, I know. I've thought about that, too, and so I've made arrangements. You had me young and lord knows you sacrificed everything for me, so I want you to have the chance to see your only son become a man, have a family of his own, be happy.

I found someone who's willing to help. Her name is katrice, and she's extraordinarily become an integral part of my life throuh this process. She's attended my sessions, and i've lead her to believe I will be okay. But the arrangements have been made. She's pregnant with my child and when he's born, he'll be yours. His name is Michael. My condition is not genetic, but rather an anamoly, and katrice's family's medical history is spotless. You're still young and I hope you can come to think of him as your own. Come to think of him as me. I already do. My second chance.

I don't think even I can imagine the pain this is causing you. But I've done everything to make sure you will feel happiness again one day, something I just cannot do. Please take my gift and know that, if anything, I am finally happy.

To second chances,
-Michael

Daniel (Draft)

Earth Angel, Earth Angel, will you be mine?

I love this song. I first heard it at my high school dance, where I had my first kiss and the rest of my life became set. Do you remember that moment for you? When you knew the rest of your life was determined--not exactly that you knew what that life would be, just that the path was set and you're ticket was booked for the ride. That's how I felt that night. The beat of the music, his gentle and cutely awkward sway, the soft touch of lips...it was magical.

I wish Daniel could know how grateful I am for that moment. I wish he could know that he was my first, no, not in the way that most people past a certain age talk about their first, but in the way that your heart always remembers. I never had the chance to tell him how glad I was he decided to save the last dance for himself out of respect for me, and how it made me shine inside even the more to be able to fill that void when I decided to show. I never had the chance to tell him how special he made me feel. I never got the chance to tell him that his singing of the words--

(Earth Angel, Earth Angel, the one I adore)

--while looking into my eyes defined my existence. I never got the chance to tell him I loved him.

And I never will.

I sometimes stare up at the stars and wish the dead and the living could talk. The embroidery of light in the black sky knows my frustrating--billions of stars visible in the same span of two eyes (one when I decide to close one and not the other, which I do often when looking at stars) yet they are cut off from each other by a barrier which I can see, but they cannot. The space between them so small I can put my finger over it, yet so inscrutably intraversable.

This is how I feel. That something so simple as the shutting down of the machine that is the body, as easily done as taking the engine out of car, could cease the development of two lovers. Yes, I loved him before I had the chance to love, beyond the point where he could even be loved.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I miss Daniel. And I always will.

But--

Earth Angel

I smile and look upon the stars again. I close my eyes and put myself back on that dance floor, the perfect moment. I am there again, knowing my haphazardous life has finally clicked into place on a puzzle I can't wait to finish. Knowing the kiss will come, loving when it does. Knowing that he wants to touch me, pull me closer, but he doesn't because he's a gentleman, even when we kiss, he's a gentleman.

I don't think about the end of the song. The end of ends, a thing inevitable for all. I don't think about how when it is over I will have to leave and Daniel will still be there. I don't think about the moment would have defined my life, and how impossible it was for it to then. I don't think about that he can't feel me, or I can't feel him, or that he can't see me. I tell myself he knows I am here. I don't think about how I will have to pass over after the dance, how this will be my last moment. I don't think about the car slamming into my body the day before. These things are out of my mind, because that's what happens when you define your life, even if that life is too late.

All I focus on is Earth Angel, and how that is me.

A story a day will keep the (brain) doctors at bay.

SO, I haven't NOT been writing. I've actually been writing a good deal. I'm typing up my long-ass manuscript that still has no name (Afraid of the Dark = pending, but that's kind of cliche). I hope to finish it this week so I can read right through it this weekend and start on that second draft.




Reading, too. I finished Ghost Story by Peter Straub, almost done with Dark Tower II by Stephen King, and have listened to Mossflower by Brian Jacques, Duma Key by Stephen King (bomb) and am currently listening to Hell House by Richard Matheson (also bomb).



But enough about the past. To quote Jay-Z (another writer, he just doesn't use a pen), loiterers should be arrested. So on to the next one....



And the next one for me is that I have to stay fresh. I need to write everyday and even though I am doing that with typing up my story, I think I also need to write something NEW everyday. So, I have committed to writing a short story everyday. I've already started with today's six-sentence long contribution: Michael. As you can guess, length will vary. Also, I might do it so that a story goes on over multiple days, but I'm at least shooting for a different one every week.



So, dear reader, stay tuned.

Michael

by. Justin C. Key

A brown shoe in the middle of the road. Behind, the sirens whirr, the crowd is confused, and the hysterics of the loved will echo long after the day is done. With its toddler Nike sign and glow in the dark strings, the forgotten shoe is the antithesis of joy, yet it holds the happiest memories. The car's dank oil travels the tar and circles around the sole, but never touches. Night will fall before a suit takes it away. Goosing his skin, behind him sad wind whispers through insightful trees: Michael.