Maggie Curtis (15)
In A Moment
It felt like a dream, a hazy, tinted, time-defying air bubble, for it didn’t seem real... lying side by side like that, bestrewn in a record-breaking amount of mosquito bites and feeling completely and utterly satisfied.
It probably wasn’t entirely real, amplified by the lilacs’ intoxicating perfume swirling generously amongst the high grasses and dozing eyelids, the shy rays peeking bashfully over the crests of the clouds, the humming of birds who had seemed to acknowledge the makeshift fairytale and let them wallow, possibly for amusement.
And so Dale, despite himself, braced for impact, donning a sorry yet indulgent grin stapled at the corners. The sun was bewitchingly balmy today.
“I kinda feel like that one Twilight scene right now,” Isaac said, sighing blissfully.
“If that’s your way of saying I sparkle, try again.”
“You know what?” The viridescent canopy overhead shifted in the barely-there breeze. Dale felt like submitting to the lethargic undercurrent trudging beside the cordial ladybugs.
“Indulge me.”
“The amount of times I save your life in a day by suppressing my urge to strangle you is heroic.”
Dale scoffed. “That’s not how that works.”
“How does it work then?”
He brushed an outstretched hand over the adjacent emerald grasses in thought, the teasing strands prompting, urging. He wanted to laugh in their faces, if only they had them. He was sure they wanted to do the same and probably already were. Whatever.
“Well, first of all, heroes have to actually care about other people.”
“That’s easy, as long as you don’t count.” Dale suppressed the urge to roll his eyes into the back of his skull.
“Second of all, heroes have to have useful skills. And being an idiot doesn’t count.”
“I can cook a mean boiled water. That’s gotta count for something.”
“It doesn’t. Unless your only ability is pouring boiling water on bad guys, which is lousy.”
“Isn’t everything lousy to you?”
“Everything that involves you and your stupid face, sure.”
Isaac’s blissful giggle accompanied his words, the vibrant, eruptive kind that bubbled from only the most flammable of sentiments, and nearly shocked him out of his enchanted stupor. That wasn’t supposed to happen, surely. Surely, this couldn’t be real.
Isaac was of calculated movements, a controlled chaos, nearly robotic. Everything was done with a purpose, pre-programmed in formalities and expectations—from the way he cast his fishing line with a concentrated frown on breezy days just like this one to the way he stared blankly at the floral arrangement on his kitchen table to avoid his father’s scathing, omniscient gaze. Isaac was not of spontaneity, of reckless, wracking giggles that spilled over like boiling sugars.
“Third of all...,” Dale continued, his heart gripping onto something raw and absolutely, hilariously real.
And then maybe it was because the clouds were parting again, light dancing across the tall grasses and rich greens. Maybe it was because he would be up in the clouds in less than a week, a one-way trip to somewhere that for some horrible reason wasn’t right here, right now. Maybe it was because the boy across from him seemed to enter the atmosphere he’d been orbiting since forever ago and for a millisecond appeared to be in reach.
Maybe, but for right now he was doing something as ordinarily unordinary, as inconsequentially consequential, as turning on his side, elbow propped, to face a half-asleep Isaac, whose eyelids were drooping, lips pulling a lazy smirk, and, as he suspected, guard lifted for once.
“Heroes have to be confident.”
“Oh?”
It was a lighthearted utter, contemplative and soft, playful and airy. A fitting match for today’s ambiance, if only everything were so surface level.
If only the silence that followed didn’t unearth a summer chock-full of subtleties found between the lines of the greatest friendship either of them had ever discovered, one that had become defined by its red ears and teasing grins.
Delicate moments like this were not reserved for mere best friends.
Then again, mere best friends probably didn’t go on picnic dates on overcast days where the sun seemed to break the clouds at just the right moments and watermelon colored their lips red.
They probably didn’t face each other on small baby blue blankets in grassy meadows, a world of meaning in the inches between them.
Isaac seemed to have perked up now, eyes alert and searching, hair ruffled. Dale would have reached over and flattened it out if he wasn’t a bit busy attempting to hide a very obvious nervous gulp.
Because this couldn’t be real, but it was. It was real how close they were, how Isaac was biting his very red lips, cheeks rosy with what he might’ve assumed a few minutes ago was just watermelon juice he planned to save for later, how Dale’s heart was attempting to escape his chest with each fracturing pound and the only reason he would have cared was because Isaac would realize how flustered he was.
The universe grew muted as if all that remained in existence was Dale, Isaac, and their baby blue picnic blanket. Time curled upon itself, seconds warped and humming distantly. The smile returned.
It was an offer coated in seedy red, flattering him in its candor and spared inane duplicity. After all, his contract with the stars indulged upon his eager ignorance, and so did he.
Dale stared at the puzzle across from him. Isaac’s lips were pursed in deep thought and Dale could only imagine the war inside the boy’s mind... Hailing shrapnel detailing disparaging glares, bullets bathed in poisonous utters, the sickening red of vulnerability, and stranded in the crossfire a boy waving a naked stick.
While he suspected his guard may be down for now, those wretched thoughts were probably gaining ground by the second.
Would Isaac regret whatever happened in the next few yielded seconds? However much Dale wanted, would it be worth it?
A million possibilities, a million scenarios, a million consequences. He wanted to scream.
His air was stolen, however, when Isaac’s eyes glazed in deliberate, familiar resolve.
It was a silent confirmation—details blurred, sure, but everything seemed to be a bit blurry in the moment. What mattered was the validation of countless agonizing fallacies and mixed messages he couldn’t begin to decipher and a resolve that calmed his frantic heart in its unbelievable clarity.
It was easy to reflect such clarity in his own thoughts after that, to let the insufferable lilacs permeate his racing, incessant mind, to ease at the idea of mutuality.
As long as Isaac wanted, he could settle with letting himself want too.
...Eyes tapering, yearning, reaching. The extension of a trust so pure, so new and delicate.
Delicate enough, it seemed, he didn’t deserve it. Or rather, a frangibility confronted with raw, overpowering intensity.
For eyes widened, faltered, grasped—a hesitation so clear it struck him breathless.
It desperately clawed through his own eyes, calculating initial impact versus a diminishing delusion, tearing further and further until it reached the stunned core, and wrapping its weary hands around clarity it yanked.
He supposed he shouldn’t have felt so robbed.
It was inevitable after all—the burst of an unbreakable juncture, the chipping of the stone, the apprehension awarded. A moment so perfect that it wasn’t, the forever dilemma of persistent, predictable imperfection.
He didn’t pity himself; there was nothing personal in the affairs of the universe. The painfully very real universe.
Nevertheless, his heart twinged from whiplash, the abruptness nearly suffocating. It hurt, he had to admit, to be rejected by a face so familiar. Who was he to have assumed simplicity when that barely existed anyway?
His chest was clenched. He averted his gaze to an arbitrary plant. It was almost laughable how quickly the hues had lost their magnificence. He had apparently forgotten the dullness of real life. How naive.
Sound returned in a wave of discretion.
“Hey, maybe we should head back soon,” Dale conceded.
Isaac laid back down. “Yeah, alright.”
Dale was frozen in place, eyes now refusing to stray from the insipid green managing to ground him. It was disconcerting, he decided, to endure the passing touch of a fleeting moment. It was cold, detached and impassive, flaunting a singular, maddening objective of affirming the existence of what could have been and what now could never be.
And still, mingling among the lilacs and coaxed inclinations were traces of past sublimity, like fragmented remnants. He clasped a shard from where it had pierced his perception, impartial to its ragged edges, and debated pocketing it.
Maybe that’s why Isaac did it, that glassy sheen of perfection that couldn't have been real but somehow was. An opportunity to try the impossible in a facade of impossibility. Naturally, impossibility was subjective.
Then again, seeking incentive arose in vain, for a culprit stood obvious. His chest throbbed with the unmistakable stutter of a guilty heart.
Maggie Curtis currently attends Springfield High School in Springfield, Pennsylvania. She enjoys listening to music and exploring life’s intricacies through her writing.
In A Moment
It felt like a dream, a hazy, tinted, time-defying air bubble, for it didn’t seem real... lying side by side like that, bestrewn in a record-breaking amount of mosquito bites and feeling completely and utterly satisfied.
It probably wasn’t entirely real, amplified by the lilacs’ intoxicating perfume swirling generously amongst the high grasses and dozing eyelids, the shy rays peeking bashfully over the crests of the clouds, the humming of birds who had seemed to acknowledge the makeshift fairytale and let them wallow, possibly for amusement.
And so Dale, despite himself, braced for impact, donning a sorry yet indulgent grin stapled at the corners. The sun was bewitchingly balmy today.
“I kinda feel like that one Twilight scene right now,” Isaac said, sighing blissfully.
“If that’s your way of saying I sparkle, try again.”
“You know what?” The viridescent canopy overhead shifted in the barely-there breeze. Dale felt like submitting to the lethargic undercurrent trudging beside the cordial ladybugs.
“Indulge me.”
“The amount of times I save your life in a day by suppressing my urge to strangle you is heroic.”
Dale scoffed. “That’s not how that works.”
“How does it work then?”
He brushed an outstretched hand over the adjacent emerald grasses in thought, the teasing strands prompting, urging. He wanted to laugh in their faces, if only they had them. He was sure they wanted to do the same and probably already were. Whatever.
“Well, first of all, heroes have to actually care about other people.”
“That’s easy, as long as you don’t count.” Dale suppressed the urge to roll his eyes into the back of his skull.
“Second of all, heroes have to have useful skills. And being an idiot doesn’t count.”
“I can cook a mean boiled water. That’s gotta count for something.”
“It doesn’t. Unless your only ability is pouring boiling water on bad guys, which is lousy.”
“Isn’t everything lousy to you?”
“Everything that involves you and your stupid face, sure.”
Isaac’s blissful giggle accompanied his words, the vibrant, eruptive kind that bubbled from only the most flammable of sentiments, and nearly shocked him out of his enchanted stupor. That wasn’t supposed to happen, surely. Surely, this couldn’t be real.
Isaac was of calculated movements, a controlled chaos, nearly robotic. Everything was done with a purpose, pre-programmed in formalities and expectations—from the way he cast his fishing line with a concentrated frown on breezy days just like this one to the way he stared blankly at the floral arrangement on his kitchen table to avoid his father’s scathing, omniscient gaze. Isaac was not of spontaneity, of reckless, wracking giggles that spilled over like boiling sugars.
“Third of all...,” Dale continued, his heart gripping onto something raw and absolutely, hilariously real.
And then maybe it was because the clouds were parting again, light dancing across the tall grasses and rich greens. Maybe it was because he would be up in the clouds in less than a week, a one-way trip to somewhere that for some horrible reason wasn’t right here, right now. Maybe it was because the boy across from him seemed to enter the atmosphere he’d been orbiting since forever ago and for a millisecond appeared to be in reach.
Maybe, but for right now he was doing something as ordinarily unordinary, as inconsequentially consequential, as turning on his side, elbow propped, to face a half-asleep Isaac, whose eyelids were drooping, lips pulling a lazy smirk, and, as he suspected, guard lifted for once.
“Heroes have to be confident.”
“Oh?”
It was a lighthearted utter, contemplative and soft, playful and airy. A fitting match for today’s ambiance, if only everything were so surface level.
If only the silence that followed didn’t unearth a summer chock-full of subtleties found between the lines of the greatest friendship either of them had ever discovered, one that had become defined by its red ears and teasing grins.
Delicate moments like this were not reserved for mere best friends.
Then again, mere best friends probably didn’t go on picnic dates on overcast days where the sun seemed to break the clouds at just the right moments and watermelon colored their lips red.
They probably didn’t face each other on small baby blue blankets in grassy meadows, a world of meaning in the inches between them.
Isaac seemed to have perked up now, eyes alert and searching, hair ruffled. Dale would have reached over and flattened it out if he wasn’t a bit busy attempting to hide a very obvious nervous gulp.
Because this couldn’t be real, but it was. It was real how close they were, how Isaac was biting his very red lips, cheeks rosy with what he might’ve assumed a few minutes ago was just watermelon juice he planned to save for later, how Dale’s heart was attempting to escape his chest with each fracturing pound and the only reason he would have cared was because Isaac would realize how flustered he was.
The universe grew muted as if all that remained in existence was Dale, Isaac, and their baby blue picnic blanket. Time curled upon itself, seconds warped and humming distantly. The smile returned.
It was an offer coated in seedy red, flattering him in its candor and spared inane duplicity. After all, his contract with the stars indulged upon his eager ignorance, and so did he.
Dale stared at the puzzle across from him. Isaac’s lips were pursed in deep thought and Dale could only imagine the war inside the boy’s mind... Hailing shrapnel detailing disparaging glares, bullets bathed in poisonous utters, the sickening red of vulnerability, and stranded in the crossfire a boy waving a naked stick.
While he suspected his guard may be down for now, those wretched thoughts were probably gaining ground by the second.
Would Isaac regret whatever happened in the next few yielded seconds? However much Dale wanted, would it be worth it?
A million possibilities, a million scenarios, a million consequences. He wanted to scream.
His air was stolen, however, when Isaac’s eyes glazed in deliberate, familiar resolve.
It was a silent confirmation—details blurred, sure, but everything seemed to be a bit blurry in the moment. What mattered was the validation of countless agonizing fallacies and mixed messages he couldn’t begin to decipher and a resolve that calmed his frantic heart in its unbelievable clarity.
It was easy to reflect such clarity in his own thoughts after that, to let the insufferable lilacs permeate his racing, incessant mind, to ease at the idea of mutuality.
As long as Isaac wanted, he could settle with letting himself want too.
...Eyes tapering, yearning, reaching. The extension of a trust so pure, so new and delicate.
Delicate enough, it seemed, he didn’t deserve it. Or rather, a frangibility confronted with raw, overpowering intensity.
For eyes widened, faltered, grasped—a hesitation so clear it struck him breathless.
It desperately clawed through his own eyes, calculating initial impact versus a diminishing delusion, tearing further and further until it reached the stunned core, and wrapping its weary hands around clarity it yanked.
He supposed he shouldn’t have felt so robbed.
It was inevitable after all—the burst of an unbreakable juncture, the chipping of the stone, the apprehension awarded. A moment so perfect that it wasn’t, the forever dilemma of persistent, predictable imperfection.
He didn’t pity himself; there was nothing personal in the affairs of the universe. The painfully very real universe.
Nevertheless, his heart twinged from whiplash, the abruptness nearly suffocating. It hurt, he had to admit, to be rejected by a face so familiar. Who was he to have assumed simplicity when that barely existed anyway?
His chest was clenched. He averted his gaze to an arbitrary plant. It was almost laughable how quickly the hues had lost their magnificence. He had apparently forgotten the dullness of real life. How naive.
Sound returned in a wave of discretion.
“Hey, maybe we should head back soon,” Dale conceded.
Isaac laid back down. “Yeah, alright.”
Dale was frozen in place, eyes now refusing to stray from the insipid green managing to ground him. It was disconcerting, he decided, to endure the passing touch of a fleeting moment. It was cold, detached and impassive, flaunting a singular, maddening objective of affirming the existence of what could have been and what now could never be.
And still, mingling among the lilacs and coaxed inclinations were traces of past sublimity, like fragmented remnants. He clasped a shard from where it had pierced his perception, impartial to its ragged edges, and debated pocketing it.
Maybe that’s why Isaac did it, that glassy sheen of perfection that couldn't have been real but somehow was. An opportunity to try the impossible in a facade of impossibility. Naturally, impossibility was subjective.
Then again, seeking incentive arose in vain, for a culprit stood obvious. His chest throbbed with the unmistakable stutter of a guilty heart.
Maggie Curtis currently attends Springfield High School in Springfield, Pennsylvania. She enjoys listening to music and exploring life’s intricacies through her writing.