About Bloody Time.
Before I start properly, I should say: my bad, guys. Regardless of how many people actually read this blog, I enjoy doing it, and it’s probably good for me as “a writer”, and I’ve pretty much dropped the ball in not updating, so sorry for that 
(Furthermore, I am aware of how many blog posts I’ve started in this way; the embarassment of apologising every time should motivate me to update more often if nothing else will.)
Anyway, I have many many things that I’ve wanted to write about for a while now, so expect a rash of hastily thought out ramblings on a variety of topics, or maybe just about anime and video games. I’m funny that way. There may even be some creative stuff too, who can say? I certainly have something for you all today, so if my current writing bug keeps hold and clamps its mandibles into my central nervous system, I may well write more things of partial to actual worth.
That may well be the grossest metaphor I’ve ever run with. Ew.
At any rate, here is a story I wrote the other day, just a short thing really, but I’m pretty pleased with it. It’s kind of outside what I normally do, and there’s a lot of dialogue, which I’m not entirely sure I’m good at yet. Ignoring the self-analysis, I’ll let you make your own decisions. Have fun.
The Usual Spot.
There was always a specific sort of aroma Sam could smell to know when Chase was around. Nothing unpleasant, just a smell she knew was unique to him. It wasn’t that she had an especially good nose either, because it never worked when she tried using it to find anyone else. Although maybe she never really wanted to find anyone else all that badly. It was like throwing snowballs; when you really tried hard to do it, you could never hit anything.
As she climbed the sort-of-hill that led up to the usual spot, Sam could see a wispy trail of cigarette smoke that led her right to Chase. It was always an odd kind of meeting place, they never really planned to go there, but one always knew that the other would be there if they made the trek. The usual spot overlooked a large car park that belonged to a huge and controversial supermarket. A couple of times they’d seen crumpled up leaflets protesting the building’s construction roll by through the grass. It was ironic, or something.
Sam sat on the grass unceremoniously, to show that she was sort of maybe pissed off, a little bit. Chase ignored what he would have called her “amateur dramatics” and rolled a can of drink across the grass to her. It had some kind of icy steam coming off it in the warm evening air. Sam traced her finger up and down it, collecting droplets of condensation underneath her fingernail. She didn’t want to speak first, but she knew Chase, and knew he’d sit around in complete silence all night if he wanted to, apart from coke slurps and cigarette puffs, of course.
“So…” she mumbled, looking into the middle difference.
“So.” Chase agreed.
“It’s just… you’re so stupid! It’s a stupid idea. I don’t even get it.” Sam huffed, cracking open her can for added dramatic effect.
“What’s to get?” Chase stared into the depths of his own can, swirling it round.
“Well… where are you even going? Why are you even going? Are you coming back?”
“I don’t know.” Chase mumbled around his rapidly declining cigarette. “I haven’t decided on any of that stuff yet. I’m just… going, you know?”
“Yeah, I guess I know.” and then “is it because of me?”
Chase didn’t answer for a while. It was a stupid question anyway really. Then he said “I wouldn’t even be alive if it wasn’t for you.” Which was technically true, although it wasn’t a big deal.
“Whatever,” snorted Sam, and then wished she hadn’t. “Can I come too?”
“Do you want to come?”
“No, not, like, really anyway” This was a lie, she totally wanted to go along with him. But Chase had real stuff going on, and Sam didn’t, so if she went with him it would be like she thought her stuff was on the same level as his, or something like that. Sam’s thought processes were never exactly articulate, but she understood them, which was enough. She wiped her hands on her jeans, and then thought about changing her mind and going anyway, but she didn’t like to do that.
It was always weird when she didn’t feel like talking. Usually she talked and Chase listened, but she didn’t want to talk much, and he barely said anything anyway, so the silence was unusual.
A pair of tears formed in Sam’s eyes, against her will. “You’re such a spaz,” she said, by way of a distraction. Not that it worked, probably. He noticed pretty much everything she did, embarrassing or otherwise. She raised up a too-long sleeve to wipe them away, but ended up leaving the side furthest from him to run down her cheek, where it left a quickly-drying trail.
Chase dropped his cigarette butt inside the can, and threw it down the hill, where a small pile of similar leavings was starting to form. They’d been chucking their cans down the hill for a while, but it was really their little part of the world, so who cared what they did with it?
“What are you thinking about?” she asked suddenly, once again wishing she hadn’t said something so stupid. What was up with her today? It wasn’t even like he was gone yet, but she kept saying dumb things.
“Nothing.” he replied, which was pretty much the standard answer to whenever anyone asked him that. It was handy like that. Chase had learned early on that to articulate everything he was thinking was more effort than he was prepared to put in, and some things don’t even have words for them yet, anyway.
“You’re my only friend, you know,” Sam stated sternly, as if daring him to disagree.
“Whatever. Girls always have, like, loads of friends right? You’ll be fine.”
“That is such a cliché, or something. You’re a dork, Chase,” she scowled across at him, looking at him properly for the first time that evening. He looked kind of a mess, to be honest.
“Takes one to know one,” he retorted childishly, cracking a familiar grin back across at her. She smiled, despite herself. He really was a dork, though.
They both looked out across the abandoned car park.
“I thought there was loads of stuff we were going to do anyway. Can’t do it if you’re not here, can we?”
“So we’ll do it when I get back.”
Sam folded her arms, then let them drop again. “So now you’re coming back? Make your mind up, man.”
He shrugged in response. “Sounds like it.”
“Whatever. You’ll probably get lost or bored or something without me along.”
“Probably.”
She leaned across and kissed him then, sort of clumsily, somewhere between his cheek and the corner of his mouth. He didn’t respond as such, but he sort of leaned slightly closer. That was enough, and she was good at reading body language stuff anyway.
She stood up, feeling oddly confident for once, and started to trudge back down the hill. “You know you better get me a present, right?” she called over her shoulder.
“What? Man, I just got you a can of coke.” He shouted back to her sullenly.
“A proper present. See you.”
“Yep.”
He ended up coming back in something like four-and-a-half weeks anyway. Everything was so dramatic all the time back then.
