Dynamics of a Last Kiss
[Author's Note: This was written for my college Creative Writing class, in which we were to write a story that had ten detailed objects in it. The story itself is loosely based off of real events that happened near where I grew up.]
Immaculately ordered, yet covered in a fine layer of dust, the mausoleum-dark room warded off visitors. Serena Valicek, known on her Internet journal as “Lady Sanguine,” abbreviated to “LS” by those who do not know her, sits at her computer within her darkened room. She taps the keys, making a slight clicking noise as she updates her Internet journal. She writes about how her parents don’t understand her, and how she is made fun of at school, and how one of these days, she will formulate a hex so horrid, so powerful, that they will be talking about it for generations. Her current song is VNV Nation’s hit "Solitary." She has never purchased a VNV Nation album, but has an entire spindle of their CDs, burned, using her off-white chop-shop model computer. She could not point out the members of VNV Nation in a line up, and they probably could not point her out in one either. Her Internet journal has a black background and red text. She remembered reading in her Health book that red was an unsettling color, particularly blood red (Crimson: #DC143C). Using a thesaurus, she discovered other words for “blood red.” These she wrote in a small, bound book with a fairy (faerie) painted on the outside. The pages were pink. The handwriting clean yet jagged.
She did own three CDs. One was Aqua’s Aquarium. Two was Now That’s What I Call Music 17. Three was Apoptygma Berzerk’s Harmonizer. She liked Apoptygma Berzerk, except that French song. That one was too happy.
A red lava lamp sat on her desk, near the care of her computer. The wax within the lamp was black (obsidian). She used it as the primary form of illumination within her room, the regular lamp being replaced with a black light bulb, to illuminate the various posters she purchased at Hot Topic. One said something along the lines of “You laugh at me, because I am different. I laugh at you because you’re all the same.” Under black light, it reveals a laughing comic skull. Several million of these posters have been sold to children all across the nation, being the most popular poster sold at GothPosters.net.
Serena, as only her mother calls her, wears a mixture of pseudo-renaissance clothing, black, and fishnet clothing, also black. The only other color in her wardrobe is a type of neon pink, which is usually bordered by some more black. In her garbage can is an empty box of hair dye (black), manufactured by Clairol. Too there is half a bottle of platinum blonder in her top right desk drawer. The black goes all around her head. The blonde marks a small clump that she tends to braid separately from the rest, and wear said braid dangling adjacent to her right eye.
On her bookshelf are several books. Most of which are glossy-finished books found in the New Age section of Borders: Discovering Your Inner Goddess Powers, The Witchipoedia and The A-Z of Mystical Creatures. Below are some books by Anne Rice and Laurell K. Hamilton, as well as a DVD copy of The Lost Boys (1987, dir. Joel Schumacher). Stacked in a sort of disarray beside the DVD are several issues of Fangoria magazine.
Above the bookshelf is an animal cage holding a hairless rat. The rat’s name is Sir Chevalier. He is a familiar. He enjoys cedar bedding, pellets and running on his wheel. Occasionally, he sniffs the air loudly, showing an apparent interest in Serena’s latest incense choice (Melancholia).
Serena’s room is immaculate and dusty. She has her skeletons, however. Below her bed is a shoebox. In that shoebox are four items: her only non-black tube of lipstick (rouge), a letter written in the sloppy hand of a boy, a sketch of the author of the letter and a newspaper clipping. He is an average boy. Smart-looking, glasses, messy hair. In the pencil drawing, his sits on a stone. Below his image sits a neatly penciled statement: “Darren Nichols, 1985-2003.” The newspaper clipping reads: “Local boy commits suicide,” dated December 23, 2003. The letter expressed gratitude towards Serena. It mentions that he loves her and that he cannot wait to spend the rest of his life with her. He says that nothing can separate the two of them. He says that he can’t wait to talk more about “their plans.”
All lies, Serena would think if she ever chanced to read the letter again. The box used to contain photographs and baubles. These had long since been burned out of spite. All that remained was the drawing of him, the letter from him, the clipping about him and the memoir of the last kiss she gave him.
Immaculately ordered, yet covered in a fine layer of dust, the mausoleum-dark room warded off visitors. Serena Valicek, known on her Internet journal as “Lady Sanguine,” abbreviated to “LS” by those who do not know her, sits at her computer within her darkened room. She taps the keys, making a slight clicking noise as she updates her Internet journal. She writes about how her parents don’t understand her, and how she is made fun of at school, and how one of these days, she will formulate a hex so horrid, so powerful, that they will be talking about it for generations. Her current song is VNV Nation’s hit "Solitary." She has never purchased a VNV Nation album, but has an entire spindle of their CDs, burned, using her off-white chop-shop model computer. She could not point out the members of VNV Nation in a line up, and they probably could not point her out in one either. Her Internet journal has a black background and red text. She remembered reading in her Health book that red was an unsettling color, particularly blood red (Crimson: #DC143C). Using a thesaurus, she discovered other words for “blood red.” These she wrote in a small, bound book with a fairy (faerie) painted on the outside. The pages were pink. The handwriting clean yet jagged.
She did own three CDs. One was Aqua’s Aquarium. Two was Now That’s What I Call Music 17. Three was Apoptygma Berzerk’s Harmonizer. She liked Apoptygma Berzerk, except that French song. That one was too happy.
A red lava lamp sat on her desk, near the care of her computer. The wax within the lamp was black (obsidian). She used it as the primary form of illumination within her room, the regular lamp being replaced with a black light bulb, to illuminate the various posters she purchased at Hot Topic. One said something along the lines of “You laugh at me, because I am different. I laugh at you because you’re all the same.” Under black light, it reveals a laughing comic skull. Several million of these posters have been sold to children all across the nation, being the most popular poster sold at GothPosters.net.
Serena, as only her mother calls her, wears a mixture of pseudo-renaissance clothing, black, and fishnet clothing, also black. The only other color in her wardrobe is a type of neon pink, which is usually bordered by some more black. In her garbage can is an empty box of hair dye (black), manufactured by Clairol. Too there is half a bottle of platinum blonder in her top right desk drawer. The black goes all around her head. The blonde marks a small clump that she tends to braid separately from the rest, and wear said braid dangling adjacent to her right eye.
On her bookshelf are several books. Most of which are glossy-finished books found in the New Age section of Borders: Discovering Your Inner Goddess Powers, The Witchipoedia and The A-Z of Mystical Creatures. Below are some books by Anne Rice and Laurell K. Hamilton, as well as a DVD copy of The Lost Boys (1987, dir. Joel Schumacher). Stacked in a sort of disarray beside the DVD are several issues of Fangoria magazine.
Above the bookshelf is an animal cage holding a hairless rat. The rat’s name is Sir Chevalier. He is a familiar. He enjoys cedar bedding, pellets and running on his wheel. Occasionally, he sniffs the air loudly, showing an apparent interest in Serena’s latest incense choice (Melancholia).
Serena’s room is immaculate and dusty. She has her skeletons, however. Below her bed is a shoebox. In that shoebox are four items: her only non-black tube of lipstick (rouge), a letter written in the sloppy hand of a boy, a sketch of the author of the letter and a newspaper clipping. He is an average boy. Smart-looking, glasses, messy hair. In the pencil drawing, his sits on a stone. Below his image sits a neatly penciled statement: “Darren Nichols, 1985-2003.” The newspaper clipping reads: “Local boy commits suicide,” dated December 23, 2003. The letter expressed gratitude towards Serena. It mentions that he loves her and that he cannot wait to spend the rest of his life with her. He says that nothing can separate the two of them. He says that he can’t wait to talk more about “their plans.”
All lies, Serena would think if she ever chanced to read the letter again. The box used to contain photographs and baubles. These had long since been burned out of spite. All that remained was the drawing of him, the letter from him, the clipping about him and the memoir of the last kiss she gave him.
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