Part One: Church Reading
Last year Craig started the project of writing a novel that he would constantly update me on, got bored of and never finished. I think since then he’s given up on the novel and the amazing transcript sits in his computer for the one day when I believe a new wind will come over Craig and he will decide to finish it.
Well, I really enjoyed Craig’s novel and if I had the ability I would steal it off his computer and complete the work myself. I was standing in the kitchen of the Theta Chi house trying to pass time while I was making tea when an idea came to my head. I’m was trying to figure out something to fill my time for the week that Craig will be gone in Malta and I came up with this.
I am going to start writing short stories on my blog in order to encourage new readers and try something new and exciting. As I sat in the kitchen thinking of things to fill my time I also started thinking about getting some reading done in some of the romance novels that I had started at the beginning of the summer but never really got into…and that’s when the first part of this story came to me. Bare with me that I am a little rusty in writing stories, I didn’t want to type the story out at risk of the computer dying on me, so i wrote the whole thing in a notebook to type out later…please read, hopefully enjoy, and comment on what you think about the first part of this short story. I’ve thought of the first two parts already but I think that they both are a little long for me to include in one blog.
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SO HERE’S PART I of the short story that I have yet to have a name for:
Sury sat in the lobby of the old run down stone church reading her novel. Another glance at the clock and she would have confirmation that her mother never kept her promises regarding time and after church business. How long could the planning of the annual church picnic and outing actually take?…According to the clock; two and a half hours after when Sury’s mother should have had her back home.
She only wished she had the ability to drive herself home already. At fifteen she had begged her mother to allow her to register for drivers education for many months now in vain only to get the common default excuse which came to most things that needed money ‘there was none.’ So instead of being home doing something more productive with this beautiful Sunday afternoon, Sury finds herself in the lobby…reading.
This one though so far has been a good one…about two young children who discover the internet and through the internet each other. Creating characters and trying to make their alias’s seem better than the children are in reality the two children are growing to form a solid friendship. A friendship that is completely beyond the conventions and boundaries of theirs ages. The children are growing up and getting older and this story is bound to lead the pair into a loving and passionate relationship that knows no bounds outside of the thousands of miles that separate them. The traces and hints of love are already in the air for the two. The girl is already rushing home because she (as her alias never shares) has very little loyal friends outside of him.
Of course the story will lead to love it is technically a novel labeled ‘romance’ and it was technically in the ‘romance section’ of the bookstore that Sury and her mother had visited a couple of weeks ago, but so far its been the plot and character development that have been fueling this baby of a story…Yikes! Old ladies… Sury stirs and glances up at them as they walk into the room, three of them and all as out dated as the others.
“Good Afternoon Sury” the women say as they pass the novel engrossed young teen girl. They smile at each other as they take personal gratification from seeing a young lady preoccupying herself with a book….That is until they discover what kind of a book it actually is.
“What are you reading dear? We have completely lost your presence here in the ‘real world’” one of them asks
Half wishing that she was actually lost in the story and out of the way of nosy old ladies who interrupt and spy on her Sury reluctantly answers with a mumble “___________ of love”. The story title isn’t important all that is important is the conversation that continues to follow. Sury continues “…just a novel I got at the last bookstore sale my mom and I went to.”
Curious at the name of the novel the elderly women inquire about the content of such a mysterious novel.
“What is the story about?” they ask.
This is when Sury’s personality actually wakes from it’s boredom with the questions and actually shines. She loves telling her classmates at school about the romance novels she’d read. She’d become to them somewhat of a sexual aficionado. She’d read so much and they all knew nothing about sex from experience so she was her classmates go to gal.
“Well,…” Sury begins “It’s about these two kids who meet each other online and fall in love.”
She goes on “and how they try their hardest to get together, At least that’s what I’ve read so far…”
The old woman don’t quite understand the technology of the new generation so they inquire even more about what they, this boy and girl will be doing when they finally meet for the first time. After confiding with each other the three women decide to have Sury elaborate on the book a little bit more.
“Are they planning on getting together to begin dating Sury?” They ask.
Sury who wants to break it down to them so that they can understand retorts with this “Well, I’m not to it yet but I ton’d think they are planning on getting together to just date. I think they might be getting together to…you know.”
She let them have it easy and she chose her words wisely…well done Sury.
As the elderly women think about what activity the characters of Sury’s novel may be wanting to meet up and do, they stand perplexed in the stone churches lobby in a small huddle which reminds Sury of a football game. Until one of the women comes up with it, with a small “oh my!” and whispers it into the ear of her other companions.
The bravest of the women ask their last question to the young eagerly entertained young teenager. “Are you saying that they were fornicating”
Sury who has never called sex fornication says “Well yeah, they want to get together to have sex.”
Once knowing that fornication is involved with this book the women automatically begin a consensus of scolding looks at Sury as they try to set her straight.
“Those kinds of novels are inappropriate to read in a dignified church like this one.”
They continue on to talk about how she should be ashamed of herself then they dismiss themselves in a righteous huff. So with the women now gone and surprisingly not too phased by the whole thing, Sury begins to return to her book. Yet before she starts to find out more about how the characters develop love, she thinks and tries to sort out some of the thoughts that are now running through her head at the old woman’s response.
‘How is romance inappropriate in church?’ she thinks ‘…there is romance in real life and love stories in the Holy Bible, so why not in this innocent book? What does it have that makes those woman’s nosy noses stick up as they huff away? Is it the sex? Gosh in the Bible they talk about sex, and proper sex etiquette…there are even prostitutes and people who are many times more wild than Sury’s mother of anyone in her small town would ever allow her of her friends be.’
Sury glances at the clock only ten minutes have past since the last time…she continues to be bothered with questions.
‘Who were these woman to look down at her for her choice in literature, when their book of the month had a lot more ’sin’ and was actually true! Instead of scolding her they should be looking at the men and woman of the town cheating on each other. Or they should take notice of the old men of the church who make Sury’s spine crawl when they come up to her and pat the small of her back as they talk to her telling her all creepy like that she’d make a man a great wife someday. What about them?’
Mental rant over Sury gets back to her read. Sadly before she get once again truly invested in the written words the music for the second service begins to play in the chapel in whose lobby she sits. Sury was once again interrupted from her reading. Two minute after that her exhausted looking mother then walks in through the lobby doors and says “There you are I’ve been looking for you…hurry up we have things to do back home.” So after more than two and a half hours of waiting and her mother’s rushing her Sury dog-tags her book page closes her book, gets up and leaves the gospel music of the second service in the dust of the open parking lot as her mother pulls out to drive back home.
TO BE CONTINUED….
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So, tell me what you think of the first chapter but not before a sneak peak of Part II:
Part II Sneak Peak:
While in the car Sury asked her mother the question that she’d been dying to ask ever since the first time her mother had first rushed her out of the stone churches front wood doors before the beginning of Second service.
“Mama…” Sury began, “why are there mostly black people in second service with the gospel music when there are mostly white people in the early morning service with hymnals? Why don’t we stay for the second service? I’m half black.”
Who?