Nibble part 28

"So this is, what, your fifth time ordering pizza this week?" Harrison snorted, "Please," he grinned, "Third." I laughed out, "Oh, geez, Harrison, that's disgusting. Do you even know how much oil that is?" He shrugged, "Whatever." I shook my head, "One of you seriously needs to learn how to cook."

"I volunteer Harrison!" Jason called out. "Please, Jason. You're the food snob. No real food snob should expect their roommate to cook for them."

"I'm not a food snob!" Harrison laughed, "Yea, Ok, right- says the guy who will devour everything in the cupboard one day and will eat only pastas and cheeses the next."

"That doesn't make me a food snob! I just have food moods!" Harrison shook his head, looking back at me, "Ok, right. He has food moods." I grinned and asked, "And yet you can have pizza every day of the week?" Jason laughed and stuck his face right in front of my brother's tiny lap top camera, "Please, sister of Harrison. I can have pizza every day of the year." I laughed and Harrison pushed Jason away from the camera. "So," he said, taking another bite of his pizza, "How's your guy?" I rolled my eyes, "He's great. We're eloping to Paris this weekend."

"Already?"

"We figured, why wait?"

"Why indeed." I laughed and rolled my eyes again, "Ok, Jason, what about you, still got a girl on your mind?" He shook his head, eating his last bite of pizza and wiping his hands on a Domino's napkin. "Nope. Only got room in my heart for two lovely ladies." I laughed, "Oh yea? Which two?"

"My lovely sister, and my adorable roommate."

"Shut your pie hole, brother of Remi." Harrison grinned and the landline rang. I glanced at caller id and then moved back into the screen, "I gotta go, Harrison. Talk to you tomorrow?"

"See ya, sneaky."

"It's not a boy."

"I don't believe I said it was." I laughed and closed the lap top before grabbing the phone off the receiver and saying to Lindsay, "You've reached roadside services, how may we be of assistance?"

"Hola señorita. Dinner and a movie?"

"What, with me? Well, are we going as just friends, or shall I change my relationship status pronto?"

"I believe this chica is in a good mood. It'll be a double date." I narrowed my eyebrows, "What, double as in you're the hot shot and Gabby and I are your arm candy?"

"You are in a good mood. Good. 'Cause that was not what I meant." I sighed and lay on my bed, "No blind dates, please, you are no Emma."

"I am much better than Emma, thank you, but it's not a blind date. More of a...deaf date."

"A deaf date."

"Mhm."

"As in you're taking me to a heavy metal concert?"

"As in your date is Nick Angel." I squinted my eyes shut and breathed through my teeth, "You do know I am almost finished with my epic planning of your demise, right?"

"I never forget it. I'll be at your house in fifteen."

"Years, I hope."

"Shut up. Get dressed."

"I hate you."

"Ciao!"

© 2011

Me, Edward Sharpe, and the Magnetic Zeros

To All You Music Lovers,

I'm guessing you've probably heard this song before. And most likely this one too. Maybe even this one. Those would be Home, 40 Day Dream, and Janglin, all by the band Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros. As of a little less than a week ago, I'd only ever heard the first two, and I'd only heard them through someone else's iPod earphones or while driving with someone who played it on their speakers. But then I came across this video (on Dianna Agron's tumblr) and I fell instantly in love with this hilariously energetic band of whimsical-lyric-spinning hippies. I'll admit for the first half of the video I though Jade Castrinos (who is pretty much my new favorite person) was a young and most likely homosexual male, but I saw immediately that her and the lead singer, Alex Ebert (also known as Edward Sharpe, to people who assume the band is actually named after one of its members,) were completely in love, and when Alex sang "girl" to her, I became extremely confused. Upon further research, I discovered that she was indeed a female, and that she generally looked like one- but really, you can't blame me, her clothes in that video were pretty masculine, and her hair is very short. Anyway. She's actually very pretty.

So anywho, I fell in love and watched an endless amount of their exceedingly entertaining live performances, and so I felt I should share my love here. Also, Jade Castrinos and Alex Ebert, the singers who duet in Home, have the most inspiring love I've ever seen. I have honestly never seen two people looking at each other the way they do, except in the movies.

Now I just have to decide what book to dedicate to them.

Seriously go listen to them right now,

Sienna Sharpe

(professional wrestler in all 60 states)

P.S. Play this game immediately.

© 2011

Nibble part 27

"So your friend Lindsay's nice."

"Oh, geez." Nick grinned and leaned his head back to look at the department

store light, and I felt like nuzzling myself in right there- curling my body

against his torso, my head on his chest, resting my head on my knees. I thought

about it- but instead, I pulled my legs up to my own torso and rested my head

on my knees there, leaning against the couch leg. He saw this and mimicked

me, leaning against the opposite couch leg but sprawling his legs out in front

of him so that the soles of his shoes pushed up against the tips of mine. He

grinned his little half-grin at me and I smirked back at him, "Lindsay...I've just

known her forever. She's the type that wants to know every time a guy glances

at me for half a second when I trip and fall on my face."

"He was definitely checking you out?"

"Most certainly. Everyone's always checking me out. I'm just the sweetest eye

candy in the shop."

"Sweeter even than the tootsie pops." I rolled my eyes but smiled slightly as I

spread my legs out, on a whim, between Nick's. His grinned widened and I

watched as he leaned towards my feet. I watched him untie my shoes and only

pulled my legs away when I realized that he was planning on tying my laces

together. I stuck my tongue out at him and turned, with my feet on the ground

again, leaning over to retie my shoelaces. Nick got up and squatted in front of

me, intercepting my hands and retying my shoes for me. "Thank you," I said,

only slightly sarcastically. He grinned and stood up, offering me his hand. I

took it, and as he started toward the front of the store, he didn't let go.

Nick took me to the bar again and I waited while he sang, but when he was

done it was only 2:00. We started just walking down the streets-neighborhood

sidewalks, the walk outside of the stores in town, and finally to the park. I

strolled over to the playground and climbed up the stairs, sitting at the top of

the slide and resting my head on my arms over the dome there. Nick walked

over to the slide and pulled himself onto the end of it, sitting with his legs

crossed and looking up at me. I bit my lip and after a minute I said, "It's cold out

here." He nodded a bit. Neither of us had jackets. "I used to come here," I said,

glancing over at the swings, "when I was little, with my brother. He would bring

me here sometimes after picking me up from school." Nick smiled a bit, and

then shook his head. "I didn't. But I used to want to. Sometimes." I cocked my

head, "Why didn't you?" He shrugged, "No one took me."

"Ever?" He shook his head. I bit my lip again and looked off toward the parking

lot, wondering what we were doing. We talked, and apparently we kissed, but...

I hadn't even told Lindsay anything about what was going on. Maybe because I

wasn't sure there was enough going on for me to tell. I looked back at Nick and

scrunched up his eyes and asked, "How's the weather up there?" I grinned, "A

little on the chilly side." He grinned his half-grin back and said in an accent I

couldn't identify, "Come on down, the weather's nice." I grinned but did nothing,

so he pulled on my shoe and I slipped down, collapsing into him. When I stopped

laughing I looked up at him with a huge grin and saw his eyes fixed on my face. I

interrupted my incoming smile by biting my tongue and head-butted him. He

gasped and cracked up, and I squirmed with giggles as he buried my head in a

noogie. I laughed in protest and tried to push myself away against his chest, but I

gave up eventually and let my hands fall limp, and he kept me in that position for

another minute before moving his arm to rest on my back, tugging slightly on

strands of my hair. He smelled like shaving cream and Tootsie pops, and I

breathed him in before leaning away from him and lying on my back on the slide.

He remained in a sitting position and after a moment of silence I said, "Tell me

your middle name."

"What?"

"Your middle name. What is it?"

"What's yours?" I paused for only a second before replying, "Marie." I heard his

grin in his voice as he said, "Remi Marie. That rolls off the tongue quite nicely."

I laughed and kicked him lightly, "Ok. Your turn."

"Paul."

"Nick Paul." I thought about it for a moment, and then said nothing. Nick grinned

at me, "I know. Doesn't roll quite so nicely." I laughed and shrugged, "I don't know,

I kinda like it. Are you named after anyone?" He cleared his throat, "Um, my first

name no, but, my middle name, yea." I sat up on my elbows and said, "Yea? Yea as in

who?" He grinned, "Paul."

"Thank you for that. Paul who?"

"Paul Apostle. Paul the Apostle." He cleared his throat, "Apostle Paul." I rose my

eyebrows, "As in the one in the bible?"

"That's the one."

"Yea?"

"Yup." I lay back down on my back and looked at the bright stars, "Huh." I grinned

leaned up on my elbows again, "Paul the Apostle Angel." He gave me a half-grin and I

added, "Or otherwise, Nick." He grinned and looked away, and then stood up. "I

should probably take you home now."

© 2011

Where The Son Isn't (short story) part 3

I know I should've been freaked out that this random stalker guy showed up at my house and informed us that he knew everything about us there was to know and that he'd be living with us now, but, honestly... the sun was gone. Under the circumstances, Beckman seemed like no strange thing.

Beckman was leaning against my bedroom door when I left the bathroom, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Self conscious in my pajamas, I hurried to the other side of my bed and behind my dresser. "What are you doing?" I asked. Beckman sighed, "Sorry if I startled you. I'm simply supposed to monitor the weakest member of the family during the nighttime, if you sleep at different sides of your home. Which you and your father do." I stepped out from behind my dresser and narrowed my eyes, "Fine. But face the door, at least. You're creeping me out." Beckman smiled and turned, and I jumped into my bed and pulled my covers over my head, to block the light of the moon from my eyelids.

When I woke up, my dad was already at work, and Beckman was leaning against my door, staring at my skylight like I did. I sat up and yawned, "Good morning." Beckman gave me a sort of confused expression before smiling slightly and replying, "Good morning, Miss Currer."

"Dear, you may call me Leah. I'm not eighty yet." Beckman laughed, "Morning, Leah."

"There you go." I climbed out of bed and grabbed jeans and a loose shirt, smiling at Beckman before slipping into the bathroom.

"Fruit, Acton?" Beckman didn't look up from the phone he was staring at. I rose an eyebrow, "Acton?" Still no response. "Beckman?"

"Hm?" I rose my eyebrows again, "Dehydrated fruit?" Now Beckman's eyebrows shot up. He cleared his throat and then said, "Oh, um, sure."

After breakfast, I asked Beckman if he would play boardgames with me. He gave me a strange look and then agreed. Halfway through the game, he suddenly asked, "Why are you being so nice to me?" I rose my eyebrows at this, caught off guard. Then I scoffed. "Nice? I'm making you play tedious boardgames with me. I'd hardly call that nice." He shook his head, "It's just that, I've been talking to the other Parents, and their Children have all been-just awful. Treating them like they're the problems with our world right now, giving them nowhere to sleep, offering them no food, and ignoring them when they talk- they treat them like chairs that you don't sit on." I rested my chin in my hands and yawned a bit before replying, slowly, "Well... I mean, you're here, right? It's not like I can force you to leave. Especially not by physical force. So I might as well make the best of your presence, right?" Beckman smiled a little bit and then said, "You always have been interesting, Miss Currer."

"Leah. And thank you, I suppose."

© 2011

Where The Son Isn't (short story) part 2

I slept a lot. My family sort of fell apart- my father, who was in a high government position, spending long hours trying to help figure out what we should do; and my mother checking herself into a mental institution- something that would have happened in a matter of time anyway, if the sun hadn't set, so my father and I weren't really all that surprised. My dad and I didn't really talk, and I was usually asleep by the time he got home, seeing as I generally went to bed at about 7:30.

I was sleeping when Beckman came. My dad came in at about 2:00 AM and shook my shoulder, and I groaned and turned over, squinting to see him in the ever-present moonlight. He looked sort of confused, slightly nervous, and I sat up. "Yea?" I asked, yawning rubbing my eyes. "Who is he?" I glanced at my dad and rose my eyebrows, "Who?"

"The boy. In the living room." I gave my dad an do-you-need-to-go-where-mom-is look and pulled myself out of bed. My dad walked slightly behind me, like a little boy, as I walked toward my bedroom door and looked into the living room. And there he was, this giant of a boy with the body of a wrestler-soldier-basketball-playing-diplomat and the face of a boy about my age, sitting on my couch and looking out at the moon, his eyes narrowed at it like he expected it to disappear just as the sun had at any given moment. I pulled my bedroom door closed again and turned to my dad, whose eyebrows were raised. "Who is that?" I asked him. He laughed nervously, "I don't know, that's why I was asking you." I bit my lip and turned back to the door- and then I swung it open and walked into the living room, right in front of the boy, blocking his vision of the moon outside our windows. "May I help you?" I asked him in my best imitation of a reception-desk woman. He grinned at me and stood up. "Hello. I presume you're Mr. and Miss Currer." My dad stepped in front of me and nodded, and I took a slight step backward as he replied, "Yes. Mrs. Currer isn't here, she-"

"Yes," the boy cutoff my dad rudely, but with the best intentions. "I'm aware of Mrs. Currer's present circumstances." My dad narrowed his eyes, "How is that?" The boy cleared his throat, "I've been assigned to your family-"

"Excuse me?" my dad raised his eyebrows, as did I. The boy smiled at the interruption and cleared his throat quietly before starting again, "My name is Acton Beckman..." he paused here, seemed to consider a bit, and then said, "But you can just call me Beckman" to which my dad rolled his eyes before Beckman continued, "I'm a member of the Parental Unit. We're..." he trailed off again, and my dad's skeptical face turned on. "We're sort of an international emergency plan. We're trained from very early childhood to deal with extreme conditions and to counsel people who deal with extreme circumstances." He bit his lip, "We've... never really been taken seriously... but, I suppose, now that these extreme conditions we've been training to deal with are actually occurring, people have figured we're the only option left." He took a breath before continued, "We're assigned a family in our early childhood and, along with general training, we're taught about the family we're assigned with, we follow your transactions and learn you personalities so that in case this day ever came, we could... assist you." My father looks a mixture of unbelieving and horrified. "So you're telling me you're a Big Brother come here to counsel us back into calmness now that you have an excuse to make the completely illegal actions you've been taking part in since childhood seem reasonable?" Beckman smiled patiently, "I'm just here to counsel and protect you and your family, sir." My dad scoffed, "Please. You can't be more than seventeen. Fat lot of good you'll do us if the riots break out again." I spoke of the chaos that occurred when the sun first disappeared. The majority of that chaos was something the media called "riots"- really, it was just people losing their minds and attacking anything that moved. I didn't even want to think about how many people died because of those "riots". I told you I never left my house, except when the moon first came out. Well, I didn't really have much of an option. The rioters didn't usually bother with neighborhoods, but if you left your street, you were likely to get mugged. The riots were calmed down as mental hospitals were forced to raise their maximum capacity numbers and the one still effective part of the government- the army- took the majority of the population away to loony bins and left soldiers lining the streets like Buckingham Palace guards. "I assure you, sir," Beckman said with a bit of a smirk, "I would do you a lot of good if the riots should start up again." My dad rolled his eyes and fell into his chair, which sat opposite the couch, and I rested on the arm next to him. "This is all a load of loony tunes. You haven't told me anything to prove that you know anything about this family. Why should I trust you? Why shouldn't I throw you out on the streets?" Beckman smiled, "You're Phillip Currer, 52 years old, born March 3rd, 1959."

"Anyone could know-"

"Your parents were Barbara and Joseph Currer, your mother died in childbirth and your father died when you were four years, three months, and eleven hours old; in a fatal car accident. You were at home, with a babysitter, at the time- her name was Abby Sullivan, fifteen years old-" he paused here to grin and say, "technically illegal to be left alone with you- and you were raised from then on by Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, who had been close friends with your parents, and were your legal god-parents." My dad gaped at Beckman but said nothing, so Beckman continued, "Your wife was born Eliza Keating-"

"She was born Mary Keating," my father interrupted, sort of nervously, sort of triumphantly. Beckman shook his head, "No, sir. Born Eliza Keating, legally changed her name at nineteen to Mary, when she cut herself off from her parents permanently. She met you eight months later, at a World Market, where she was buying the ingredients for Italian Soda." My dad's eyes were wide now, shocked, as he whispered, "Mary's parents died in an accident when she was just a child, like my father." Beckman shook his head again, "No, sir. Eric and Jane Keating are alive at present, living in North Dakota. Both retired." He smiled a bit, "My cousin, Arthur Bell, is assigned to them." My dad stared at Beckman with wide eyes for a moment, in silence, before standing up and walking out of the room, toward his bedroom. We watched him leave before Beckman looked back at me and smiled that same polite smile. I slipped off the arm and leaned against the back of my dad's armchair, just staring at the ceiling. "What do you know about me?" I asked. Beckman laughed, "Quite a bit." I continued to stare at the ceiling as I asked, "Where was I when the sun set?" Beckman replied immediately, not needing to think for a second, "On the beach, with Camille Lauren, your best friend." I sighed and closed my eyes, remembering that day, remembering when things made sense. "What was I wearing?" I asked, purely because I couldn't remember, and I wanted to perfect the vision in my head, of what we would have looked like then, missing the confusion of the sunset, simply sleeping through the last hours of sunlight we would ever know. "A white bikini. With gold straps. And huge sunglasses." I smiled and remembered, and then sighed as I sat up and looked across the room at Beckman, "How do you remember all this? I can't even remember what I had for lunch yesterday." Beckman grinned, "Dehydrated fruit and a pudding cup." I grinned at him, "Ah, the joys of non-perishables." He laughed, "You'll have non-dehydrated fruit soon enough. There are ways of farming without the sun." I looked outside, at the moon, and asked, "Why do you think everything is so..." I didn't know the right word. "So...fine? I mean, why isn't the Earth spinning off its axis or something?" Beckman looked outside and narrowed his eyes at the moon again. "I don't know...maybe..." He paused again, and looked over at me, "Maybe the sun's still there, but we just can't see it."

© 2011

Where The Son Isn't (short story) part 1

It was summer when the sun went down. It was the middle of summer, when the weather is at its hottest and everything seems relaxed and school seems infinitely distant in both directions. Camille and I were laying on the shore, soaking in the sun, praying for the good fortune of getting tans without sunburns. We had both fallen asleep, and I woke up just as the sunset was finishing, as that bright orb of fire was about to descend beneath the horizon line. I watched as it disappeared, and we were completely blanketed in darkness, as the moon was unseen then. I sighed and pulled out my phone to check the time, trying not to think about the awful sunburns we must have acquired, if we'd been asleep long enough for the sun to disappear. But as I looked at my screen, the numbers in front of my eyes, I found that it wasn't night at all. I didn't quite register those numbers. I sighed and woke up Camille, figuring my phone must have the wrong time. She yawned and rubbed her eyes and when she sat up and saw the darkness around her, she groaned. I asked her for her phone, and she dug into her bag and pulled it out. I pressed the talk button and the brightness of the phone illuminated the sand as I looked at the time. I frowned- her phone said 2:34, too. I handed her phone back to her and she rose an eyebrow at the time. We didn't really except the time until we walked over to my car and the time that flashed on the dashboard matched that of what had shown up on our phones. Then we drove home in confused silence, and I had to turn on my brights because it was too early in the day for the street lamps to light up the road in front of us.

I remember wishing I could go to school, if only for the feeling of regularity, which was now missing completely from my life, as our town- and the whole world, really- slipped into chaos.

Everything closed. Not right away, but after a few weeks of the darkness, everyone was so scared, no one was working. So everything closed. I sat mostly on my bed and stared at my skylight, at the sky that was now dark, completely dark, and I listened to the chaos around me as I just stared at that sky and waited, waited, waited, for the sun to come back.

It was a month before the moon reappeared in the sky. It started as just a tiny sliver, but even that much light on all our darkness caused everyone to catch their breath and allow themselves to hope. I went outside for the first time since the sun went down then, and stared at the moon. Everyone else was filled with relief, but all it did for me was bring tears to my eyes, as I stared at that grey light and missed the bright yellow light.

It took about a year for everyone to register that the sun wasn't going to come back, at least not in our lifetimes. The moon started out slowly but then seemed to switch on like a light switch, and suddenly there was real light in the sky again, if only moonlight.

Now, there wasn't dark and light, there was just the less-than-happy medium of moonlight that wasn't bright enough for the day and was too bright for night.

© 2011