A Girl Comes Over Here: A Short Story

Trista had always been a normal kid except for her stories. It wasn't that they were disturbing or horrific, they were just unusual. Sometimes they seemed exactly like the kind of thing you'd expect from a kid, but other times, I'd have to look at her and wonder how she came up with such things. It started when she was four, shortly after our dad split, leaving the two of us on our own.

The few concrete houses had been built by families whose sons or fathers had gone south…” which made me feel like her village was a small cozy, beautiful place, but after the Taliban invaded it, its beauty had been destroyed.

The lights of the town were veiled in darkness, a mere inverted shadow amidst the gloom of the night. Distant thunderings, as those brought to mind with Dies Irae or the distant chattering of a great blaze could be heard, drawing nigh upon the trembling hands of the people frantically seeking a shade for the lights that would soon propagate should their brilliance stretch to the skies, but found difficulty locating even their hands at arm’s length, due to the cloud over the town, in the streets, as real and thick as the blanket of golden and crimson extending toward the town at a propeller’s rate, silencing the natural beauty of the countryside amid the sounds of death and destruction.

I'd get a job as a waiter and go on auditions during the day. Who knows? Maybe I'd be an actor. I just knew that my part-time job teaching karate to half-retarded kids wasn't exactly my idea of the life. Oh, and also I answered the phone and checked people in at the desk.

When I started the book I didn't enjoy it at all. I feel very bad for Nix that she lost her mom, and I understand why she wants to go back in time to save her. Everyone needs a mother figure in their life to teach them motherly things and the difference from right and wrong. Nix didn't have that, and she wanted it back.

The rain kept on hitting the top of my car as I drove down the old road, like how a woodpecker pecks holes into trees looking for bugs. The town of Tahlequah had really changed since I saw it last about 40 years ago. There were paved roads now and a bigger school. The small shops I remembered were now big Sears and Target stores. Busy people walked on sidewalks trying not to get rained on, and cars drove on, with so many miles to go. As I got farther out and the buildings started to trickle out into countryside, I noticed a new sound that rose above all the rest.

The stone streets were a veil at this time of night, with who knows how many menacing horrors hiding behind the curtain. The lingering gas hovering over the ground was timid, dispersing at the sight of anyone who strayed near. The moon tried to pry into the city’s shadows, but it was too thick to cut. The buildings were nothing but faded memories: gray, eroded structures that once boasted splendor and beauty. Street rats, both rodent and human, scuttled about in the alleyways, knocking assortments over and fleeing if anyone walked past, just like the gas. A dog barked in the distance. Car horns blared on 5th Avenue nearby. Tank sighed. No place like home.

A trickle of fear had her lying motionless with her eyes closed, straining to hear the slightest noise. A deep sigh of regret and the pressure of a body by her side made her acutely aware that she wasn’t alone.

From the moment Abigail is born, it is clear that any beauty she possesses must be on the inside. Abigail’s face and body are deformed, so much so that the nurses cover her so she won’t frighten the other patients. Bullied in school and shunned by the people of her village, Abigail nevertheless sees the good in life. Alone and isolated in her room, she anonymously

“In all his travels the Bishop had seen no country like this. From the flat red sea of sand rose great rock mesas... The sandy soil of the plain had a light sprinkling of junipers, and was splotched with masses of blooming rabbit brush,-- that oliver-coloured plant that grows in high waves like a tossing sea, at this season covered with a thatch of bloom, yellow as gorse, or orange like marigolds.” 94 Both women describe the land of desert with such vividness that one is not left with the idea of a barren, sandy soil but an environment that is rich with history as well as life. This life and history of the land are a part of the culture.

Please pause for a moment, and picture in your mind the washed away remnants of what used to be a seemingly insignificant city; it is rather difficult to recognize from all the earthquake rubble and debris that there once was a town here. Bits and pieces of what used to be homes are now scattered from one end of the view to the other. A gloomy haze of dust, smoke and ash have recently enveloped over the entire countryside. Sounds of screaming, yelling and crying are bombarding one’s hearing senses; a smell of unbelievable human decaying stench is so overwhelming, the odors stimulate the gag reflex and tear ducts to produce endless retching and a cleansing wash of foul air from one’s eyes. Hungry ownerless dogs are fighting over dead infant

The last rays of the sun gleamed off golden domes and then shot up into the sky to spark the first shimmering of stars. Then the darkness came. Swift it fell, as though a lamp were snuffed out, and the air stilled, and an eerie silence grew. This was no rowdy city; not tonight. It was a city under siege, and word of the dark sorcery of the previous night ran from district to district, house to house, person to person. Fear ruled the shadows tonight. The house doors were shut. The inns were empty. All the city’s windows were barred.

With a close-knit population never teetering over 400, a resident could barely sneeze without the entire village knowing within a matter of hours. This intimate knowledge of ones neighbors for the most part reassured the people of their safety - it was a seemingly picturesque place, carved upright and deeply rooted in moral principle. But like most villages accustomed to their solitude, an underlying distrust was present in the face of any outsider.

Making her way toward the sidewalk, she turned right on Doveland Drive. Without a car, Anita must walk two and a half miles to reach Forest Creek Lane, the predominantly upper-class part of town. As she walked, her stomach turned as if she had ridden a fast carnival ride and no matter what she tried to calm her nerves, her attempts were futile. When she reached the street, she couldn't help but stare in awe at the beautiful houses that lined it. Some had the latest car park in front, others had empty spaces while the owner was at work. Anita imagined handsome doctors carrying briefcases and housewives wearing wearing the latest fashions. Anita, at 22, still lived with her parents in the not-so-nice part of town, where houses where becoming dalapitated and the roads and sidewalks were cracked and never fixed. Always feeling as if she didn't belong where she lived, she often imagianed what it would be like to live as other

The aftermath of all this sent uncomfortable feelings down her body, but she was used to it, and they were only brief. The feeling was akin to strong jolts of electricity discharging throughout one’s body, only to dissipate shorty