Gallant Generation 1.1: Serah Gallant

It may surprise my friends today, but I was rather sickly and frail during my childhood. I spent many days out of school, forced to stay in bed while my neighbours and classmates gambolled under the sun. I must have read all the books in my room five times each, and they didn't have any fancy video games during my day. I was always bored out of my mind. My mother must have felt sorry for me, because she bought for me a nice little journal to try and keep me occupied.

I never used it, of course. What would I have written about? How bored I was? Yeah, right.

But now that I'm in my golden years, I find myself changing my tune. This is why I'm sitting here in bed, this leather-bound journal in my lap. I want to write down my story for future generations of my family, so that they can see their history unfold throughout the ages.

I moved into a small house after I graduated from university; my parents helped me to pay for it, since I was still broke from all my student loans. They didn't give me much, but I am eternally grateful to them for helping me get back on my feet. The house was sparsely furnished, but I didn't mind; I was only really home to eat and to sleep. After what felt like a lifetime inside my childhood bedroom, I was in no rush to start spending my downtime indoors.

I loved the outdoors with a great passion. I enjoyed fishing, jogging, swimming ... you name it. The exercise and fresh air must have done wonders for my health, since I never got as sick as I did as a kid ever again. I worked as a gym teacher at the local Twinbrook high school, and I loved it. I'm sure the kids didn't appreciate it when I got them to do the beeper tests, but at least it got the less athletically-inclined ones to run around!

I particularly liked to spend summer vacations in Shang Simla, China. I always chose to stay in a remote mountain village, away from the hustle and bustle of cities like Shanghai or Beijing. In my opinion, I want my vacations to be the exact opposite of what I get in my everyday life. Twinbrook's no Bridgeport, but the industrial sectors and job opportunities really made it a busy little town. I wanted to get away from all that noise, even if it was only for two months a year.

Martial arts became my most beloved hobby. It's less a sport, really, and more a lifestyle, if you understand what I'm saying. None of my previous sports experience really prepared me for learning the art, so it was really fun learning something new. I wasn't very good at it, but hey, no one is perfect.

During my time in Shang Simla, I met and fell in love with a man named Jiang Lu. He was a local merchant who also liked to visit the martial arts academy on weekends. Though I had to return to Twinbrook at the end of each summer, we wrote letters and e-mails to each other constantly. We spent three summers flirting with each other in between training sessions, before I finally confessed my attraction to him.

He admitted to me that he was actually the father of three kids despite his young age, and that he had separated with his wife after irreconcilable differences. I was shocked, to say the least. He had never mentioned any of that! But I wasn't disgusted or anything, like I think he expected me to be. I loved him all the same, despite his less-than-perfect romantic background.

The two of us decided to move to Twinbrook; he wanted to start a career away from the judging glares of the Shang Simla people. I was pretty happy with that decision - to be honest, I don't think my relationship with Jiang would have turned out as well as it did if I had had to move to Shang Simla for it! I may love the place, but I wouldn't have been able to stay there the rest of my life, especially since it meant uprooting my life as a teacher.

Jiang and I lived together for about a year, and then Jiang proposed to me out of the blue in our kitchen. I was pleasantly surprised; I certainly expected a proposal, but never in my wildest dreams did I think he would do it while we were doing the dishes! I love that man, but he's no casanova, that's for sure.

We decided not to have a wedding party; we weren't really interested in paying an exorbitant amount of money for a party, and Jiang didn't want to have to invite his relatives all the way from Shang Simla (especially because some of them were still bitter about his divorce with Jiannan). We had our own private wedding along the cleanest of Twinbrook's rivers, in the midst of the autumn chill. I can still remember the bitter bite of the wind, but Jiang kept me warm in his embrace.

Jiang wanted to 'get a real job' in Twinbrook, but he found it difficult to do so. He moved to town right after the big employment rush, and there were no more jobs for him. He started fishing to pass the time, and found that he had a real knack for the craft. Luckily, the market never turned down fresh fish, and Jiang managed to scrape together some bucks for us by selling off the salmon and whatnot he fished from the river. 

"I was hoping the fish I catch could feed us," Jiang had explained to me once while we were tucking into our usual dinner of grilled cheese. "It was just to save some money. I never thought we would be making money off of it."

"I guess we could keep some of the fish you catch," I had suggested. "Maybe I can make grilled cheese anchovy sandwich."

"No," Jiang had grimaced. "You should see the stuff they dump into the rivers. I wouldn't want to eat that."

It was good for us that Jiang's career as a fisherman had started to kick off, even though it wasn't exactly what he had had in mind when he moved here. I had become pregnant, and we would definitely need the extra cash. My wages as a teacher were livable, but if we wanted to give our baby a happy childhood, I knew it wouldn't be enough.

Leap Wishes

For all I consider myself an 'aspiring novelist', I haven't been writing as much as I was in the past. There's something about adult life that kills my muse, but it might also be that since I have less time for leisure time, I try to get the most out of it. Obviously, writing is not the top of my 'leisure' list!

In my spare time, I do keep writing just so I can stay in practice. My inspiration during these writing sessions is from, embarrassingly, my Sims. I write stories about my Sims 3 legacies, and it's actually pretty good in terms of practice. If I write in a diary form, I can work on different voices, which is something I always struggle with, since I can only write as 'me'. If I write in semi-omniscient third person, I can work on my prose. I can work on world-building and description, since I can't rely on pictures as I usually do for Sims stories. It's pretty great fun, and I'm quite happy with it.

I'm thinking I might post some small samples online so you guys can see what I'm talking about. But, of course, I will have to polish them first. Keep an eye out for that! I will probably include family trees or something as my Sim family gets along in the generations, but that's mostly just for my own fun. I don't know if you guys know, but I LOVE the Sims. Now that I'm focusing all my attention on this blog rather than my other blogs, you can expect lots of Sims rambling!

Wash your Dolls with Machines and not the Sink

You look at Laurie one day and notice something off. Her hair is black when it should be brown. It’s infuriating, because she is only fourteen, and you know girls that young should not be dyeing their hair without an adult’s permission. Though it hurts you, you decide you have to discipline her. She’s broken one of the rules, and so of course she needs it. You lock her in the basement for an hour, and your heart breaks when you hear her crying behind the door, but at the end of her punishment, you give her a hug and present to her a plate of baked eggplants, her favourite. 

The next week, you notice that Laurie’s eyes are blue when they should be green. It’s infuriating, because she is only fourteen, and you know girls that young should not be using coloured contacts without an adult’s permission. Though it hurts you, you decide you have to punish her. She’s broken one of your rules, and so of course she needs it. You force her to stand in the corner of the dark bathroom, and you lock the door. You can hear her crying, begging you to open it and save her from the monsters, but you tell her that it’s all in her head. Monsters don’t exist. At the end of her punishment, you let her out, give her a hug, and present to her a plate of baked eggplants, her favourite.

“She’s fourteen,” you tell yourself. “She’s old enough to be making her own decisions.” But Laurie is getting more and more disobedient. She watches television when she shouldn’t. She comes home, her hair dyed another colour or her eyes artificially stained with someone else’s colour. Your friends tell you to let Laurie live her own life, that you shouldn’t interfere so much, but it’s impossible. You can’t help it. You just love your baby so much. Is it too much to ask that she stay under your wing, just a while longer? 

On your way home from the supermarket, your hands full with bags of groceries, you overhear several women in the parking lot, their faces creased with worry. 

“Mrs. Lau was in tears when I saw her this morning,” says one of the woman, a pudgy Indian lady who looks as if she was about to burst our crying herself.

“It’s the third one this month,” another whimpers. “I haven’t been letting Amber out unless she’s with me or my husband.”

A woman with mousy brown hair and pallid skin shakes her head with a sad sigh. “They don’t come back. We don’t know what he’s been doing to the girls.”

You put your groceries in the trunk of your car and drive home. Laurie’s waiting for you. When you walk in the house, you exclaim, “Laurie, I’m home!” 

But Laurie doesn’t answer. 

Immediately, you race upstairs to her room, your heart pounding. You don’t care that the bags of groceries are sitting by the front door, and that if the milk will go bad if you don’t put it in the fridge. You burst into Laurie’s room, ignoring her surprised shriek; there are no secrets under your roof, after all, and whatever Laurie does, you want to be involved. 

She’s sitting rigid on her bed, not looking at the walls you painted for her or the dolls you bought for her. She’s staring straight at you, her eyes wide.

“If you’re home, you should have said something,” you tell her, relieved. “I thought you were in tr -“

But then you notice. Her hair is black when it should be brown. Her eyes are brown when they should be green. You step over an eggplant-covered doll and sigh. “Oh, Laurie, you went and dyed your hair again? Now I’ll have to punish you. Such a shame; I was going to make you your favourite tonight.”

Prompt: "Did I die?"

   Did I die?

   Laying flat on his back in the snow, Max stared up at the inky sky, his thoughts as dark and murky as water in a well. There was a throbbing pain in his head and he could feel rather than see something blood brain life seeping into the white around his body.

   I can't be dead. It hurts. Everything hurts.

   The wail of sirens sounded through the air, breaking through the fog of his mind. Max struggled to move but something moved wrong in his torso and he let out a sharp hiss of pain. Despite himself, he slumped into the snow again. The icy cold bit into his skin where's my jacket I swear I had a jacket on but surrounded him, embracing him like a possessive lover.

   Lover.

   Jacqueline.

   "J-," Max tried to yell but he was interrupted by his own cough and the sound of someone approaching him, calling for him to stay still and quiet and that they were going to help him. No, they can't waste time with him; where's Jacqueline? 

   The men - paramedics, Max managed to recognize even with his addled brain - helped him onto a stretcher, carefully supporting his neck. It was a haze of movement and noise as they placed a breather around his nose and mouth and carried him to the hospital.

   He reached out with one hand and weakly grasped the jacket of one of the paramedics, who looked down at him. She had big brown eyes. No, Max wanted to see Jacqueline's blue ones. Blue like the lakes and the sky and the sea of cornflowers that grew in their backyard.

   "My wife... Jacqueline... where is she?" He breathed heavily, panting and struggling around the artificial air pumped into his lungs.

   The paramedic looked at her partner and frowned, a silent question in her eyes. She looked back down at Max and stated in a calm, soothing voice, "Sir, you're the only one we found. The police are examining the remains of your car but - "

   Even with the hard stretcher underneath him, Max felt as if he was falling. The remains of the car. He could remember it, faintly. The truck. The tree. The crushed remains of their small Honda, smashed as if it had been caught between the hands of a giant. How did he survive? How did he survive when Jacqueline...

   I made a mistake.

   I did die. 

The Search

   The soft rhythm of jazz was a comforting backdrop against the muffled zoom of the city, as people clicked and clacked down the concrete streets, and cars drove by in bright streaks of noise and exhaust. Peter played with the handle of the ceramic mug. There was a thin crack near the rim; he said nothing to the barista but shifted the cup so that he was no longer in danger of cutting his lip open.

   The warm scent of vanilla roast coffee made him smile unconsciously but when his gaze fell to what was before him on the table, his face fell.

   A blank sheet of paper sat accusingly in front of him on the table, intimidating in its sheer whiteness. The pen in his hand was useless without his brain to guide it, and Peter's brain was stuck in an odd sort of limbo. He looked around - left, right, left again, outside the window where he caught the eye of an old woman, down to the paper ... his mind was racing just like his line of sight. 

   What should he write about? His notes were scattered before him, his neat cursive decorating the papers. But to Peter, they were nothing more than a jumble of letters and words. Meaningless. Worthless.

   "Would y'like some more coffee, love?" The barista appeared at Peter's side, holding a pot of coffee in her hand. Her long red hair was tied in a side ponytail and she looked bored. There was none of the false cheer on her face that Peter saw adorning the ones on young students sweating their summers away at Starbucks.

   "I need to write a story," Peter found himself replying instead. "I need to write a story but I don't know what to write about."

   "Didn't ask you that. Asked if you wanted coffee," the barista huffed. She turned away, taking Peter's answer as a no. Peter watched her as she returned the coffee pot to the machine and began to bustle about at the counter, her long hair swishing like the tail of a fox.

   What was her story? How did you start working at this coffee shop and why? Was it to pay off student loans? Was it to pay for school? Maybe she's saving up to go to Europe and expand her horizons, and maybe meet a handsome French man and enjoy a hot date at the Eiffel Tower?

   Peter thought these thoughts and pondered these ponders. He picked up his pen, twirled it once, and then set it down. He took a sip out of the coffee and found that it had become cold.

   He picked up his pen again, and began to write.

Scene from a Coffee Shop

   “I like your dress. It looks really good on you.”   
   “Thank you. That’s very kind of you.”   
   “It really brings out your eyes. They’re a beautiful shade of ocean blue.”   
   “…Thanks.”   
   “I don’t believe I’ve introduced myself. My name is Terry. Terry Pratt. And you?”   
   “Madison.”   
   “Madison what? What’s your last name, please?”   
   “I’m sorry, I must have forgotten my manners. Madison Perry.”   
   “Ah! Perry. It rhymes with Terry. It’s a lovely name for a lovely woman. Madison is.”  
   “Oh. I thought you might have meant Perry.”   
   “No, no. Madison.”   
   “Okay, because it sounded a lot like you thought Perry was a nice name because it rhymes with Terry.”   
   “No, no. Madison is a nice name. Perry is a nice name. They’re both very nice names for a nice lady like you.”   
   “Thank you, Terry. I appreciate it. I would also appreciate it if I could drink my coffee and read my book.”   
   “Of course, of course. What did you order? What are you reading?”   
   “Um, I’m reading this book. It’s called Please Go Away and Leave Me Alone.”   
   “I’ve never heard of it before. Is it good?”  
   “Not right now, no. It’s not very good.”  
   “That’s too bad. Do you want to grab a drink with me, then? Not here in this danky coffee shop, but maybe at that bar down the street?”   
   “I’m meeting a friend.”   
   Madison closed her book and shoved it into her bag. Without a backwards look, she strolled out of the coffee house and began to trek toward the train station, shaking her head. She pulled out a phone and dialed her best friend’s number. “Oh my God, I just had the worst encounter at the coffee shop. Some creepy bastard wouldn’t stop talking to me! What an ass!”   
   “Yeah, girl. He must have been a real fucking douche.”   
   “Ugh, tell me about it!"

   Meanwhile, Terry, still in the coffee house, leaned back in his chair. He frowned. "Huh." He pulled out a Dating For Dummies from his bag and flipped through the brightly-highlighted pages. "I suppose common slang would have been much more advisable in a situation like the one I had just found myself in. A pity; Miss Perry seemed like she would have been a most delightful conversation partner. Ah, well. Better get going. It's poetry night at the bar."

--

Creative writing assignment from last semester.

Fake Nails

   Olivia watched in awe the way that the crowd in the mall seemed to part like water as Irina swaggered forward confidently, her heels clicking sharply against the fake marble floor. Her perfectly manicured nails caught the artificial glare of the fluorescent lights with each swing of her hand. Olivia had tried to wear some of Irina’s body-length dresses and shoes before and had failed miserably, only managing to walk a step before stepping on the overlong hem. Her cousin managed to make it seem effortless, like she was gliding instead of walking.

   Irina didn’t visit often; her life in New York was a never-ending haze of parties, work, and more parties. When she did, however, she insisted on spending her time with Olivia.

   “You’re my cousin,” Irina had said with mild surprise on her pretty face, “so of course I like to hang out with you. Why would you ever think otherwise?”

   Looking at Irina with her flawless skin, perfect auburn curls, and extensive collection of the latest fashion and makeup, it was pretty obvious just why nerdy Olivia would find it strange that Irina insisted she be accompanied by Olivia on her jaunts through Surrey.

   Irina looked back at Olivia with a small smile on her glossed lips. “You want to take a bit of a break? Maybe we should go get something at the Orange Julius.”

   “Nah, they only sell fattening stuff there. I’m on a diet.”

   Irina frowned and paused, uncaring that they were in the middle of the mall. “You look fine to me.”

   Olivia fiddled with the hem of her ratty t-shirt. “It’s just … I don’t know. I’m heavier than I should be, I think.”

   It was hard not to feel unconfident next to perfect Irina, but Olivia kept her mouth shut.

   Suddenly, Irina reached out and grabbed Olivia’s hand in a startlingly tight grip, her sharp nails digging into Olivia’s skin. Looking up in surprise, she saw that Irina’s eyes were wide and serious, her lips pulled in an uncharacteristically somber frown.

   “Never think that about yourself, Olivia. You’re beautiful, just the way you are. Don’t change yourself into something you’re not just because someone else wants you to.”

   Irina’s lips were trembling and she pulled away, brushing at an errant curl that had fallen in front of her face. Olivia looked at her cousin. Really looked at her. And for the first time, she saw that the perfectly filed cherry-red nails on her hands were nothing more than fake nails. 

--

A former creative writing assignment that I wrote.