Well, this certainly isn't my best piece of work, but I'd like to make it better. Rip it apart, if you please!
“You are probably going to fail English.”
Jamille let the words fall off her tongue and watched to see if they would drop to the floor. They didn’t, instead opting to hover effervescently in the air, like a shimmering soap bubble. She pondered the significance of the floating words, and then tried again with a more serious tone. “If you don’t write this paper, you are going to fail English.”
This time the words lingered in the air, as if struggling to stay up, then gently floated to the ground like a large feather. She needed to be much more convincing.
“You will fail English, and then you will never become an author.” That sentence clumped together like a bowl of bad oatmeal, then plummeted to the floor with a resounding barrump! A small smile waltzed on the edges of Jamille’s flowery lips as she rejoyced in her small victory.
Did she believe herself? Yes. She knew that if she didn’t sit down a write this analytical paper on The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, she would fail her English class. Did she care?
Yesno.
“Well, it can’t be both!” Jamille’s voice was indignant, fed up with her inability to answer herself clearly. “You have to choose just one.” She paused. “I have to choose only one.”
What made the least amount of sense was the fact that she wanted to write this paper, that she was looking forward to it because it was interesting. “In your own words, describe how your book limited Human/Martian interaction in the early years of the Discovery.” She had chosen The War of the Worlds, she had read it and researched it and gotten her Martian friend Auri-la to talk to her about it. Jamille had everything, except for the drive and motivation to actually do something about it.
“What are you going to do?” She sighed out loud.
“Yes. What are you going to do?” Jamille jumped at the new voice, though it was a familiar one.
“Go away, Tabitha.” She scowled at the robot, daring the machine to just try to defy her. It did.
“I do not think so, Jamille. Mr. and Mrs. Parks asked me to make sure you wrote your paper.” Tabitha moved swiftly forward to perch on Jamille’s blackly-starred bedspread with smooth and polished movements. Jamille wished, not for the first time, that robots moved more like they did in the old movies: with clumsy and clunky movements that didn’t rob humans of what little grace they had.
“Buzz off, robot.”
“I’m not a robot,” Tabitha reminded her. “I am a gynoid, the word describing a robotic female who is specifically modeled to look like a human. An android is a robotic male who is specif…”
“Oh, I know, okay? Willikers! I’m not failing my Technology class, too.” Jamille slumped in her chair, clearly frustrated with herself and Tabitha.
Tabitha cocked her head to one side, the perfect picture of human confusion. “Why do you continue to procrastinate? It seems simple: just sit down and do it.”
“It doesn’t work that way!” Jamille gritted her teeth. This was one of those things that she just couldn’t deal with today. She needed an escape, even a small one…
Tabitha daintily lifted her legs out of the way as Jamille launched out of her chair, diving underneath her bed. She scrambled around in the constricting space for a moment, sweeping her arms around in the dust. “Aha!” Jamille’s fingertips brushed against a square shape. She pulled it out. Her prize was a wooden box with a dirty lock keeping the top firmly connected to the bottom. Jamille contemplated the lock, then pulled a bobby pin out of her hair and jimmied the lock open.
“I do not understand why you choose not to use the key,” Tabitha observed, leaning over the bed to watch.
“Quiet, you.” Jamille threw the lock aside and reverently lifted the top of the box off. A wonderful aroma drifted through the air, nearly making her eyes roll back in their sockets from delight. “Ahhhh…”
Tabitha gasped, as Jamille knew she would. “You are not allowed to have that.”
“You think I don’t know?” She snorted with contempt. “Now hush!” With utmost worship, Jamille reached into the box and lifted a round piece of smooth and rich Venusian chocolate to her mouth.
And, oh! It tasted like rain and rosebuds and sweet melancholy. She savored every last note of the symphony on her tongue, much preferring it to the soapy taste of her sad attempts to motivate herself before. The taste was beautiful, it was wonderful, and she felt so airy and light-headed almost immediately. Jamille closed the lid, groped around for the lock, and secured the box again. She kicked it under her bed and unfurled herself out on the floor, letting the chocolate relax her muscles.
Before Auri-la had introduced her to the wonder she was delighting in, Jamille had used the darkest chocolate she could find to de-stress herself. It had been the type of chocolate that even professional cooks had to lighten with cream when using it. But Jamille had dropped her 99% cacao chocolate fix now that she had the drug-like wonder native to Venus.
The chocolate triggered a series of chemical reactions that caused her human body to release a sudden wave of endorphins and other happy hormones. She sighed, reveling in weightlessness as her troubles slipped away. She smiled as she began to feel like maybe everything could finally be okay…
The second wave of chemicals washed over her: hormones that caused excitement and energy and clarity. Why hadn’t she done this before? Jamille leaped up and flipped her thin computer open. Her screen showed a blinking cursor, an eager helper ready to fill the white page with script. Her fingers hovered above the keys. All she had to do…
“That will not solve your problem.” Tabitha’s lips were pursed together in disapproval, her glassy eyes showing more emotion than Jamille thought machines should be able to. “You will have the same problem next time, and the next, and you will continue to turn to the chocolate for help, and then you will end up addicted.”
These were harsh words that hit the floor without hesitating for even a second. Jamille flinched, but she still hung onto the vibrant feeling the Venusian chocolate had left. She looked back at her blank screen, suddenly helpless. “What do I do, then?" She heard the worry in her voice and the sadness, and the confusion. And with a thud, the Chocolate-high dissapated and Jamille’s worries fell around her again. She repeated her question. "What do I do?”
“You can try.” Tabitha quickly rose off the bed, coming to stand behind Jamille. “Just sit and write. You already know the what, so now you just have to do.” Jamille just stared blankly at the screen of her computer, motionless. The gynoid sighed, then walked to the door. "If you don't write this paper, you will fail English," she reminded the girl, and then swept out of the room.
Jamille put her head on her desk, and cried.
Gender:
Points: 890
Reviews: 9