Young Writers Society

"Why are you here?" Erika's mouth fell open in horror. "What are you doing? You're dating one of my students, aren't you? It's Catherine, isn't it? Tim, I know she wears provocative socks, but she's nineteen-" The words rattled out of her mouth.
"Provaocative socks? How can socks be provocative?"
"You obviously haven't seen them." Erika smiled up at me, her mouth wide and sweet. Her hair was pulled tight into a bun, strands strangling her ears, but one tendril fell over her shoulder like a loop of scythian gold. She was hands and knees on the floor, scrubbing the edge of her desk with a tooth brush. Her hands were encased in rubber gloves and there were paper towels under her knees.
"What are you doing?" I laughed.
"A student threw up in here watching some movie." Erika said grimly. "As charming as the smell was, I didn't want to leacture surrounded by a pool of a delicate student's stomach juices."

Isolda Vane

That girl's no good, they say, no good at all. They look at sun-bleached hair and bruised knuckles, ragged jeans and dirty shoes, and shake their heads, whisper no one's ever going to want her and her poor Da' and I'm glad she isn't mine, and pretend not to notice the scars on her wrists and the twists in her smiles.

Isa, she don't care about them. When she laughs it's loud and slow and sharp like bare feet on broken glass, and when she runs across town the boys can't help but look up, with a strange feeling like something was just there that they should've caught. Isa never stays at home long, 'cause she's got her father's heart and her dead mother's eyes; instead she stands above the seaside cliffs with her hair wild and her arms stretched out wide, on the tip of her toes against the precipice and with a mouth bloody and full of sky.


Emmanuel Sand

(I said 'Emmanuel Sand, who could he be?' out loud and my mum just invented a plot for me. So, this is a joint effort from me and my mummy, whom I love. )

Dana couldn't think of a better place to die. The warm sand so white, the sky and sea so blue. The grassy bank so green and the pohutakawa dangling oh-so-red flowers over her head. The cliffs arched around the bay, a curved wall keeping the world out.

Stepping out from under the trees, the sun hit her full-on. A few minutes and she would feel the burn-unless everything went to plan. She'd even worn her best white dress.

She wondered how long it would take for her to die. Drowning took about five minutes, she'd heard, but if the waves hit the rocks it could be much quicker. She definitely preferred the first way. But what did it matter, she'd be dead either way.

The sand was beginning to burn. She glanced down at her feet and saw something tucked beside the bank. One step forward and she knelt, sand warming her knees.

A baby. A real, flesh-and-blood baby.

What the hell? Dana thought, then shook her head. She didn't want any impure thoughts in her mind the day she died.

The baby had light brown skin, thick blonde hair the colour of dried flax, tiny clenched fists resting on its blue flannel jumpsuit. Dressed in blue-probably a boy, though you never knew. The only movement was the quickening rise-and-fall of his chest.

Why is he asleep in this heat? Maybe he's dehydrated... Dana shook her head again. She shouldn't be worrying about a baby on the day she was going to die.

But if she left him here, maybe he would die...

Then the baby opened his eyes. They were the same light blue as his jumpsuit, but clearer.

Dana realised, with a sense of relief, what she felt should have known all along, like she'd known it her whole life but only just remembered, that this baby was here to save her, and she was here to save him. Neither of them were meant to die. She was going to pick him up and take him home. For him to save her, she had to save him.

Dana reached out and took him in her arms, making sure she cradled his head. He fit perfectly, of course. It was where he was supposed to be all along.

My Saviour in the Sand, she thought, smiling. Saviour. Emmanuel.

Tanya Banana (Sorry, first thing I thought of.)

There are forty four people with the last name Banana in the United States.

It is ranked as the two hundred fifty eight thousand twenty sixth most popular surname in the country.

It is most prevalent in California.

It is spattered across the northeastern seaboard, despite the banana's inability to flourish in that sort of environment.

The most common first names for it are: Anna, Brazil, Flurine, James, Lisa, Lydio, Maria, Albina, Ana, Bobby.

Tanya Banana was not listed among them.

Tanya Banana felt particularly sorry for Bobby Banana.

She was somewhat jealous of his initials, B.B., which could make a decent nickname.

She was ashamed of her own initials, T.B., that is thought to infect one third of the world's population.

New infections are estimated to occur at a rate of one per second.

Tanya Banana felt that she was always growing.

She thought she had a weight problem.

She did have a weight problem, but it was quite the opposite.

She had been born premature, at twenty-six weeks, and weighed one point seven two pounds (twenty-seven point five two ounces, seven hundred eighty point one eight grams).

Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Banana, named her Tanya, the English form of Tatiana, which is of Russian origin and means "fairy queen."

She was so like a little, beautiful fairy queen to them.

She had been small all her life but filled herself with so many facts, so many figures, and so much responsibility for these facts and figures--that she felt like she had swelled to epic proportions.

She was an innate part of two point two six billion people, after all.

In each infected sneeze, she was floating in forty thousand droplets, hurtling towards her destination with no control over her fate.

This is how she felt when she was born--infectious, burdensome, and spiraling towards destruction.

Name:
Jarvis Henry Blunt III
(whether or not the "the third" means anything to you is totally up to you)

"Jarvis Henry Blunt..."
Jarvis frowned and stared at the computer for a while, feeling the blood rush to the tips of his pointed ears.
"...The Third."
He let out a sigh and settled more easily into his armchair.
"Computer, food!"
A panel opened beneath Jarvis' fingertips and four green pills floated to his open mouth.
"Computer, drink!"
"Storage tank fifteen empty," the computer purred lazily. "Request station or manual fill?"
The words 'station fill' were on the tip of Jarvis' tongue, but something made him change his mind.
"Manual fill," he ordered. "Suit me up."
As the restraining straps gave way and the latex-nylon suit began to envelope him, Jarvis wondered what had compelled him to visit the void outside his protective bubble. It had been ages since he'd last seen the stars, why now?
"Me and my bloody mind," Jarvis muttered, snapped the rubber gloves on tightly.
His armchair disappeared and a hatch opened beneath him. Jarvis rotated until he was facing the hatch, then took a few tentative steps into the void.

Mombasa Redgreave

I never thought I could be as attracted to such a... a poor person. She seemed to have nothing but the clothes- no, the rags, on her back. Even her orange hair, which could be so amazing and beautiful, seemed like a butcher hacked at it. Her sapphire eyes blended in with the water that surrounded her like a long, elegant cape.

A scream tore from her lips. I couldn't see what was wrong with her- she seemed happy as could be. Then, I understood it. She screamed with joy, not pain. Not that I, prince, would understand anything but pain. With the war and all.

"Come on, prince!" She yelled, splashing the water. "Come enjoy the sea with us 'commoners'!"

"N-no!" I yelped, trying to hide me attraction. "You're all... dirty! Besides, I don't even know you!"

Her face suddenly became solemn as she stopped trying to lure me into the water. "Of course. How foolish was I to think you would remember me? I had a sliver of hope that you would remember the tiny girl who asked to borrow a red crayon. I guess... I guess I was wrong."

"What? Crayons?" He asked.

"Little me, only six years old, was so upset that the prince wouldn't give her a single crayon. I even began to cry. Of course, you didn't care."

"I don't know what you're talking about. Who are you?"

"I'm a nobody." With that, she dove under the water, as smoothly as a dolphin would. I gave a sigh of confusion, than one of admiring.



I shook in my bed violently as I woke. "Oh. It was just a dream." I told myself. The flashing lights of my bedside clock said that it was only 6 AM. I couldn't shake the fact that the stranger seemed oddly real.

As soon as that thought crossed my mind, I remembered. As if it were that day. I do know her name.

Blossom. Blossom Quitseli.

Blossom Quitseli was not the most normal of people. From her waist length red and green streaked whitish-blonde hair to her abnormally large blue glasses, she was quirky. I guess she was kind with her dimples that were there even when she wasn't smiling, but I had only had one encounter with her. She was just carrying a small yellow notebook and a green sparkly pen. The entire time she was scrawling in it, her pen writing messy words in another language. I think Russian, she was probably from there, she did have a little bit of an accent. Our conversation consisted mainly of small talk, and I suspect that she was writing my words down in that disheveled little notebook of her's.

Her big whiteish eyes had peered up at me through the thick glasses with a superior look, even though her body was much smaller then mine. She always seemed to be in her little writing world. She clomped around town in those black moccasins all day, visiting the art store at least once a daylight hour.

I guess she is nice enough, but she never exactly struck me as one who could make friends easily. But nevertheless I tried. It wasn't easy, for she didn't warm up to me. I wasn't the most welcoming person, but this girl intrueged me. I learned that she was my age; fourteen. She had had a very sad past. Parents dead, and mean aunt.

She also gave the name of her parent's young murderer. Costos Santiago.

It wasn't, Costos argued, that he was, or ever had been, a bad person. He just knew a lot of bad people.

His beloved sister Maria used to shake her head at him, they had the same black, black hair, and say that he would end up in a bad place. He had always argued he'd end up in a better place than her. And he did. America. Even the word sounded magical, and Costos took it in with huge brown eyes in his tiny face, his scrawny body seeming so much smaller here where there were so many people he didn't know.

He didn't know anyone. How was he supposed to know the bad from the good? Nobody was there to tell him, 'Don't go near them' or 'Don't talk to him'. His mother didn't chastise him, his father didn't rebuke him. Maria was at home, and very sick. Even if she was here, she couldn't have shaken her head.

So he killed them, because that's what he was asked to do. He cried as he pulled the trigger. Apologised in Spanish over and over though the wide-eyed woman who had just watched her husband be killed had no idea what he was saying. He sat at home that night, and thought that she must have assumed he was threatening her. That he wanted to kill her.

Costos wasn't a bad person. He told himself again and again as he tried to wash the blood off his leather jacket. The jacket he had been so proud of when he bought it because it made him look so strong, so powerful. He put it on when the police rang the doorbell, and as they arrested him, he cried.

--

Luke O'Driscoll.

O'Driscoll wasn't a common name back in the Ol' West but, then again O'Driscoll himself wasn't very common either. Luke O'Driscoll was of Irish, or better referenced, "Paddy" decent. He was tall and thin. His pants to short for his legs and his shirt sleeves to short for his arms. His pistol belt sagged around his waist and his shoes cramped his toes. The only thing that did fit was the bandana he would occasionally tie around his sun dried face or the desperado hat he would where atop his oily, shoulder length hair.

Today, O'Driscoll strolled through the center of town, he squinted his eyes in the hot sun, while adjusting his hat so it wouldn't fall aloft. He walked with an esteemed pride, arrogant to his own outlaw kind. Shoulders back, feet picking up from the ground as his arms swung back and forth. Today, was the day O'Driscoll became famous. Today, O'Driscoll strolled into the Boffin City bank with his arrogance, and announced, pistol in hand, he would like, "Ald t'e money in t'e feckin' buildin'!"

T'e next name in loin will be, aaaahhh...

Kegmeister

Snow, huh? I wouldn't be surprised if she made up the name. She didn't seem to be lying, but the fact that she wouldn't give a last name was suspicious... She was very short, had very pale hair that if you looked closely you could tell was originally brown and incredible pale skin. I'd never met an albino, but she was probably just about as pale as one. At first glance, she seemed to be one, but upon further inspection, you would see how deep of a blue her eyes were. The darkest blue eyes I'd ever seen. Her eyes were wide, she was very alert, her nose was very small, and she seemed to have a very small mouth, maybe that was because she talked so rarely... She noticed me looking at her, panicked, and faded out of the visible world, back to the realm of the invisible...

I'll have something like that later on in one of my stories... If you're uninterested just ignore the spoiler since it doesn't have to do with what this post is supposed to be about, but it helps make sense out of some things, i guess...

Name: Snow
haven't thought of last names yet... I'm very poor with names, sorry!

IKnowAll, you seem to have gotten the premise confused. The idea is Writer A suggests a name. Then Writer B writes about Writer A's suggested name. Then Writer B suggests a name. Writer C writes about Writer B's name and suggests a third name. So on so on. So, I'll continue from Shamrock's.


Kegmeister was built like a keg, moved like a keg (laboriously, shifting weight from one side to the other, sloshing a bit with every step), and smelled somewhat like a keg.

After all, you are what you eat, right?

Or drink, I suppose.

Kegmeister's real name was Craig Mistarz, but he earned the name Kegmeister when he was merely 15 years old after his first so-called "kegger." He went from a perfectly respectable name...to something that he bore with pride in front of others but was ashamed of at night.

He had a drinking problem. An intense drinking problem. The idea flitted through his mind as early as age 17. Could he enter himself into Alcoholics Anonymous at 17 years old? He feared the cops would arrest him. Fine him. Send him to juvy. No, no, no. He'd never last in juvy. All those cruel boys would expose him for what he was and beat him with soap bars wrapped in towels like Gomer Pyle, as if they were tenderizing him.

He decided to face his problem himself. He had heard about therapists on television telling their patients to "face their fears."

So he did. Kegmeister made good on his name 5 to 6 nights a week. He faced his fear and never backed down. Especially not in front of others. He vanquished all beer in front of him. He drank himself into stupors and then swayed and rocked and waddled back to his room at night and cried big, fat tears befitting a teenage boy named Kegmeister.

But he had it all wrong, mistook the symptoms for the disease, and fought and fought and fought a losing battle.



Name: Julia "Journey" Presley

In the spring of 2008 Julia Presley was a tall skinny girl. She wasn't good at sports. She had horrible acne, but no shape at all. She wore clothes that were too big for her and she always had a toothpick stuck in her mouth. Her frizzy red hair never stayed in a ponytail and it always made her look like a deranged scientist.

When the last day of school arrived Julia left without looking back. No one saw her over the summer. No one invited her to parties. No one even went to her house to sell girl scout cookies. That is why when Julia came back to school in the fall they thought she was the new girl, and Julia let them think it because everyone was nice to her now. They asked her where she got her designer clothes. They told her how beautiful her silky smooth hair was. They even said all the guys would love her long legs. The same legs they used to make fun of daily before. But there was still mean girls. The ones that saw Julia as a threat. The ones that spread rumors and lies. The ones that got Julia in to the principles office for the first time.

But the guys came. The asked her out on dates; they asked her to parties. She loved all of this. Julia was different she had definitely grown since the last time they saw her. She had blossomed as her grandma said. What she didn't like was the touching. The hands that tried to sneak their way up her shirt, down her pants. The ones that tried to grab her. She always dance away laughing, but she hated being seen as a piece of meat. Deep down inside she wished she was still the ugly girl. The girl that was there. The girl that people came randomly to talk to when they were humiliate, because she could relate, and she would never dream of telling anyone what they had said.

New name: Desiree Carmen Burch

Sitting on the roof --legs crossed, binoculars, a notebook and a choice between hot chocolate or scalding green tea had quickly become Desiree Carmen Burch's pastime. She soon found out her little Utopia on the roof had grown so big like a cancerous cell and dissolved the world she had once lived in. She found herself thinking about it at school, over Simultaneous Equations and Logarithms.

Will the little girl walk past again with tear filled eyes and a pout to match? Will Boris the Russian sneak out tonight to smoke even though it's killing him? When will Granny Mae find out that I'm the one trampling on her roses?

She didn't seem to be able to escape it, and when she tried and finally succeeded. She could feel her devilish psyche running back to the rooftops, her eagle-eye on the world and it's mischief. Underneath her long dark hair, and her stylish glasses-- her eloquent words, and her numerous friends, she was a spy. Too involved in others to focus on life.

Name:
Candy Kane

"Your name?"
She stood frozen. The bright lights glared down on her with the strength of a hundred suns. Little beads of sweat were forming on her forhead. She tried to wipe her brow without being too obvious.
"Young lady? Your name?"
"Oh, Ummm, Candy."
She squinted trying to place the voice with a face.
"First and last. Please. We don't have all day."
Timidly she squeaked, "Candy Kane."
"Ok, begin."
Candy took a deep breath, letting the cool air settle onto her lungs before she exhaled.
'Just pretend you're at home. Nothing to it.'
She could see it all mapped out in her head. She'd sing and they would stand and applaud. They'd be so amazed they would make her the winner right away. If only she could get the first word out.
Candy opened her mouth wide, and she tried to sing, she really did. But nothing came out. Nothing!
That was when she felt the first tear slip down her cheek and the second. Before she knew it her eyes had turned to
waterfalls.
'I'm standing in front of a live audience, crying my eyes out, and I CAN'T sing!
It was all she could do to run off the stage before humiliating herself anymore.
She heard the judge call out, "Next!", as sbe flew through the double doors.

Aqua Jakobsen

I hurried over to the police station. They said my sister was there. Again. She always called me. I wish she would call Mom. I wish I was seventeen again so she couldn't call me. I was tired of covering for her.
But it wasn't my sister sitting there. It was some other person I'd never met before.
"Let me explain before you get mad," she said quickly.
"Who are you?" I said, annoyed.
"Aqua Jakobsen," she said, "with a K."
"Okay, Ak-wa," I said, putting stress on the k, "how do you know me?"
"No, the k's in the Jakobsen. I met your sister last time I was in prison."
"Of course you did," I said, my patience growing thin, "What did you do to get in here, anyways?" Aqua burst into sobs. I went over to one of the guards.
"Umm, why is my...sister here?" I said. yep, I was a pushover. Now I was covering for random strangers too.
"Her trial's on Monday," he said, "She's a suspect for the murder of Regina Gullikson." The color went out of my face. That was my sister.

Tania Storch