A New Chapter

The young boy pulled his dog closer, shuddering at the random words that floated up and into his ears from where he sat at the top of the stairs in his family home.
'move', 'new house' and 'sell' were only some of the words he heard and he didn't like the sound of them. Resolving, after a moment's contemplation that he didn't want to hear anymore, the boy got up without so much as a sound and padded off to his room, his faithful canine companion trailing slowly behind him. Once there, he flopped down on his bed, sprawling out and getting lost in the type of book he loved the most. Adventure books.


It was a while later that the boy surfaced at the feeling of his mother's soft hand rubbing his back. Slowly, re rolled over and sat up, cuddling into his mother's side and looking up at her. "Mummy, what's going on?"
"You and I, are going to go to a new house," his mother answered gently.
Panic filled the boy's eyes and he gazed at his dog, who'd been curled up in the corner of the room until the boy's eyes fell upon him, at which point he lifted his head, ears pricking up and eyes locking with the young boy's.
The mother followed her son's worried gaze, "don't you worry," she said with a laugh, "Buster will come too. We wouldn't leave him behind."
"You promise?" her son asked, returning his eyes to hers.
"Promise," said his mother, clasping his hands in her own and squeezing them as a small smile formed across her lips.




It had been a few nights since he had received the news, and still the young boy could not decide whether it was good or bad, though he seemed to be leaning toward bad. So, he wandered into his mother's room.
Seeing her son in the doorway, she patted the bed beside her and he came over, scrambling up to sit beside his mother.
"Mummy, I don't think I want to move," said the young boy.
"No?" his mother asked curiously, her eyes in his. He had her full attention. "Why not?"
"Because," said the boy, "I like my room and I like it here. I don't want to go away. I don't want things to change."
"There are two ways to look at this," his mother said seriously.
"There is?"
She nodded, "you can be mad about this and sulk here and when we go," the mother looked at her son, whose curious eyes never leaving hers, "or, you can think of it like one of those adventures in your books."
"How's that?"
"Well, you know how sometimes, each chapter brings new adventure?"
"Yeah..."
"This is a new chapter. A new adventure."
"Maybe," he said, the tiniest of smiles creeping upon his lips.
"It's how you look at it," said his mother, "which makes you happier, hmm?"
"I don't know."
"I think that maybe if you think of it like a new chapter in one of your adventure books, you might feel better, what do you say?"
"A new adventure..." said the boy, his mind wandering. Finally, his eyes met his mother's again and he nodded. "A new chapter. "

Overshadowed

Normally, you could hear a pin drop in the street at that time of night, but not tonight. Tonight, the street was engulfed by countless terrified screams. The cause of everyone's screams isn't immediately obvious, but once you see it, it makes you want to scream too. Up the end of the road, maybe even further away, is an abnormally... large.... whether you'd call it a thing or a creature, because it definitely wasn't human....


It seemed to glide forward and it's looming figure became increasingly larger and larger. If you were right up close, it would be all you could see...


When it was closer, and you could sort of make more of it out, people began to run, screaming for their lives. They had seen what it was doing. As it moved over things, they... disappeared. There was simply no other word for it. It... engulfed them.


Soon, the only thing left in the street aside from the creature was a solitary figure, who seemed glued to the spot. On closer inspection, you could see the immense fear in his eyes, the terror in his face as the thing came closer and closer. But what had made the creature this way in the first place? It had all begun with a man with a problem...


Yes, he'd been human once and he'd had his fair share of troubles. Some may not have seemed as big to others, but they were all huge to him, increasingly so with the passage of time. They weighed on his mind, and sometimes it felt like there was a huge weight on his shoulders, constantly dragging him down. As he began to lose people, there was a hole in his life and he used food to fill it. He just ate. Every time a negative emotion came, he ate, even a happy one, he turned to food. Food slowly became his world and he hadn't even realized he'd pushing everyone he had left away until he found himself completely alone.


As families do for the ones they love, they tried to talk sense into him... They tried to stop him... They even tried an intervention, but the voice in his head had become too strong. It was so loud now that he couldn't hear anything else. Even his own thoughts had become overshadowed by that voice. Ever since he'd started listening to it, it had grown stronger and as he continued to listen to the lies it fed him, the voice slowly became louder until it was all he could hear.




"You're such a fatty!" It yelled in his ear now, "why do you even bother trying!?"
"Kevin!" This other, new, kinder sounding voice sounded so far away and though his eyes tried to search for the thing belonging to it, he found nothing.
"There's no point! Just give up!" Though it was still loud, strangely, the voice in his head wasn't quite as loud as before.
"Kevin!" This time, he looked down and saw the man belonging to the voice. He recognized him from somewhere. He looked familiar.
"Look at the monster you've become!" Came the voice in his head, but it was barely even a raised voice now.
"Kevin!" The man below called again.
"Steve?" Kevin asked in surprise as it clicked in his mind. This man... this man was his brother.
"Listen to me Kevin!" He said, his voice kind. Kevin smiled for the first time in a long time he could remember. There was no malice in that voice. His brother didn't resent him.


The big gooeyness of the creature Kevin had become seemed to melt into the earth suddenly, and Kevin emerged to his brother's open arms, seemingly unscathed.
"We can work this out Kev." His brother said, clapping his brother's shoulder as they wandered away down the street together, "I'll help you mate, I promise, we've just got to call that voice in your head."
"I think you already did," Kevin said quietly, for he wasn't hearing any yelling anymore.
"Well that's a start." Steve said with a smile.

Our Place

Even as I walked up the driveway, I could hear the commotion behind the closed doors. My house could be chaos sometimes. I had a brother with autism, which could make things hard sometimes, especially when he'd have one of those attacks with lots of crying and screaming from overstimulation or lack of control and my parents fought other times, which from the sounds of things, is what was happening now. They always get over it, given time, but initially they go at each other, all guns blazing, like now.


I can tell me brother's not here, this would have sent him into a frenzy. He's probably still at his after school program, Lucky thing too, something like this, one of our parents' screaming matches would set him off and the noise would be a whole lot louder. Everything would be a lot worse. Because then not only would they be fighting, but Mum and Dad would have to stop in order to calm him down, then their fight would resume, and so the cycle would go on. I shake my head. That's not happening, so there is no need to worry myself thinking about it.


Taking a deep breath, I reach out clasping the door handle and slowly turning it, opening the door. I slip inside, closing the door behind me. The brief creak as the door opened and closed is nothing compared to the screaming. I drop my school bag by the door and kneel down in front of it, unzipping a section and pulling my book from inside. Clutching it to my chest with one arm, I zip the bag back up with the other and rise to my feet.


I look around, and as if by a magnet, my eyes are drawn immediately to Lilly, the family dog, standing motionless amidst the chaos. Her eyes meet mine and they are wide with panic. I reach her with a few long strides across the room and scoop her up in my free arm. As I carry her away, I feel the continuous, un relenting thud as her heart beats with my hand.


The moment her feet touch the soft sheets of my bed, she calms. Her eyes sparkle as I settle myself vertically along the bed and when I turn to look at her, her tail is wagging. She is happy to see me, just as I am happy to see her. We are happiest together. I pat on the bed and without hesitation, she comes closer to me, beginning to lick my hand as I stretch my arm across her back and around her, pulling her close. With me free arm, I open my book and I begin to read. The noises of screams soon fades away and if it weren't for the feel of Lilly's soft fur under my arm, and her warm tongue as it licks my hand, I would be lost completely somewhere else. Her tail wags gently, falling against my legs every so often and I begin to smile. This is our place.

Walking On Air

"Are you sure we can..." she asked, carefully extending a leg before returning it to what she knew for sure was safe ground.
"Do you trust me?" he asked, a smile forming across his lips as he offered her his arm.
Slowly, she nodded her eyes following at an equal or possible slower still, snail's pace. "I don't know..." she said honestly, "I only just met you. Can I trust you?"
"That's not my decision to make," he said wisely, "but I can say one thing."
"What's that?"
"This is a once in a lifetime thing. If you don't do it now, I guarantee you'll regret it."
"I won't fall?" she asked, her voice the slightest bit shaky.
"You have my word," he said, offering his arm again.
Slowly, shakily, she took it and took a small cautious step onto the immense cold, white pillow-like cloud. He didn't let go as they walked around together and she gradually became more confident. Eventually, he let go and began to leap and bound along the long cloud like a happy, overexcited child while she continued with her small, cautious shuffles, confidence building.


Pausing in her tracks, she looked up at him, as far away as he could get while still being on the same cloud. "I'm doing it! I'm walking on air!" she said happily, smiling back at him.
"Actually, you're walking on a cloud," he said, returning her smile from across the way.
"It doesn't feel like a cloud," she said, skipping around confidently now, in a complete and utter happy daze.
"What does it feel like then?" he asked.
"It's not like people say. It's not all soft and fluffy. Apart from it feeling like a freezer, it feels..." she paused a moment, "like I'm walking on air!" Throwing her head back, she looked up at the sky and spun around.
"I'm glad you like it," he said, his never ending smile unfading, "it is quite beautiful up here."
"Wait..." she said, stopping once again to look at him, in the eye, "you've been here before?"
"Oh plenty of times," he said wistfully, wandering toward her, "it's a lovely place to think. Quiet, beautiful, alone. Pure paradise," he breathed, following her upward gaze to look at the seemingly endless blue of the sky above them ,surrounding them, enveloping them, on their cloud, in it's embrace.


Compared to that cloudless blue, her ceiling was rather bland and as she lay still on her bed, looking up at it, she remembered and as she thought of it, the memory made her smile. Only, was it really a memory? It seemed real, and the memory was as clear as if it had happened yesterday. But at the same time, it seemed too good to be true. Walking on a cloud... Walking on air... How could you do that, really? She knew there were miracles, so was this one of them? Or was it just a dream, so good it felt real yet too good to actually be real?

Casting Arrows

'That's weird,' thought Cupid, 'I've never hit the wrong person like that before.' Shaking his head, he leaned cautiously forward from his seat in the clouds, looking and watching to see what would happen next.







Down below,  a young woman smiled across the dim nightclub at a man who would have been around her age. He gestured to himself as if to say 'me? do you mean me?' Eagerly, the woman nodded, her eyes lighting up at his having noticed her.
A smile formed on his face as he crossed the room to her. "Hi, I'm Oliver," he said, his pearly white teeth sparkling as the light hit his smile.
"Chloe," she said, returning his smile.
"Would you like a drink?" He asked, turning to the bar not too far away. Happily, Chloe nodded, slipping easily into the bar stool beside her.


A few months later when Chloe introduced Oliver to her family, they acted nice around him, but Chloe could tell something was up so she took her sister aside to see if she could find out what was going on.
"Hannah, is something wrong?" She asked.
"Look Chlo," her sister said "we all like him. Gees, he and Ben get on so well they could've been brothers or something. But Sweetie, we're just worried that's all."
"What about?"
"Well, what if he's not the right guy. For you. You're great, only I've got to wonder..."
"Hannah, can't you just be happy for me? I've finally found someone."
"You're my baby sister, Chloe. It's my job to look out for you." Hannah whispered after her sister as she wandered off, a little annoyed, "but I am, happy for you..."


When everyone had left late that evening, Chloe and Hannah's parents had a little discussion of their own.


"What did you think, Michael Love?" Beverly asked. "They didn't seem.... right, did they?"
"I hate to admit it, but I think I'd have to agree with you Bev," he said with a sad look as his wife's eyes met his own. "He's a lovely fella, but something about them as a couple just didn't seem right. How do we tell her though?"
"Hannah's already tried, but Chloe just stormed off in a huff. It's early stages, they're madly in love. It might take a bit of time, but maybe they'll work it out on they're own."
"Let's just hope," Michael said.




Chloe's family had hit the nail on the head and the 'honeymoon period' was over rather quickly and before long they began to fight. It only stopped when Chloe just agreed with him, because she thought she loved him too much to let him go.




Oliver's concerned eyes met hers as she slowly lifted her head to look at him and he took her hands in his.
"Chloe, is something wrong?" he asked gently, his voice a whisper.
She let out an involuntary gasp. "What makes you think that something would be wrong?"
""I'm not sure," he said, reaching out to brush hair from her eyes. "Only that you didn't seem happy. Maybe we should..."


Up above Cupid allowed himself to fall back heavily on the cloud, letting out a big sigh of relief. At least he was starting to get it, even if she was still too caught up to see the truth. Maybe it wouldn't be a complete disaster after all... But where was it his job to guide the love? He only cast the arrows.

It Gets Better

I know this isn't a story, but I think it's worth watching anyway. This is inspiration, motivation to hold on and proof that it gets better.