jacob24
08-05-2013, 08:45 PM
RAISA
By Jacob Higgins
Alone, up on the peaceful roof of the inner-city school, Jin rested against the cement railing and looked down through the low clouds and wondered what they felt like. She imagined they felt much like the fog, that settled fifty stories below, on the cold Korean city. Or maybe, they felt more like the cigarette smoke, that came from her mouth and drifted over the railing in front of her. Or maybe... The noise of the roof door being forced open behind her, broke her daydream...
“Raisa?” asked Principal Park, tilting his head as if to see if she was listening. “I see that your mind is in that pretentious London University already” he said, strait-faced, but joking. She looked up at him and forced yet another shy smile.
“Sorry Sir, I was just thinking of the... tragedy.”
“Oh, I see, I know... it has been a terrible problem for the school in recent years, I'm glad you have missed most of the... tragedies” He said as he looked down, confused for a moment. “Well I'm sure all your new friends will miss you, I'm sure Lee will.”
“Lee Sir... ?”
Lee stumbled down the hallway of the dormitory, slid against the wall and caught on to Raisa's door handle to gather herself. “Raisa?” her calmed voice called in to the room, but there was no answer. Raisa's bed was perfectly neat, she sat on one side and slowly waded on to the covers to prevent messing it up and outstretched her arms. Sweet, clean, the bed smelt like nice fragrant soap and sweet flowers. She picked her cross up off her chest, why would god create sweet flowers so poisonous? She pulled it off.
Raisa flew into the room, knelt down and and started going though the bottom draw of her wardrobe, she stood up with a couple of little boxes.
“Raisa...” Lee said faintly. Raisa turned, and looked at the teary and bloodshot eyed girl laying on her bed, she stared curiously at the pill canister that laid next to her.
“why are you crying on my bed, and taking the pills?”
A slow smile began on Lee's teary face, she knew she didn't have a friend in Raisa, no one did. Oh Raisa, her bored posture, it was as though she wanted to leave, but was kept there by some humanistic convention that she didn't fully comprehend. Lee continued to smile, but she had completely tuned on her. Your dead inside its like you don’t exist, your paint deep, your a character in a movie or book, completely fictional, there is no point even expressing this to you or saying another word to you for that matter.
“Could you cheer up!” said Raisa.
This made Lee's smile grow wider and she said “I know that you are new here.” Raisa started to leave “And why didn't you tell me you were going to London?” Raisa stopped for a second, then left. How did she know?
Candice had been dreading this for some time, but she just didn't care anymore. She started to peel her bandages off slowly, covered her scar with her hand and closed her eyes and let the bandages fall to the floor. She blurred her eyes and removed her hand, the reflection of her face slowly came into focus. My life is over. She stood there like a zombie while she squinted and gently prodded at it, watching how it moved. Eventually she broke down. Her Mum rushed in after hearing her cry’s, she let out a sympathetic moan as she looked at the scar on Candice's face for the first time. They collapsed on the bathroom floor together, “I want her dead!” Candice cried, “she's not going to like what I do to her mum, she wont!”
“Stop it Candice, we don't even know who it was.” ...I do mum.
Sky sat in the back of the car and followed a droplet of blood with his eyes as he tilted his razor back and fourth. His memories returned home to Ireland and to his fathers drunken voice: “London boy! University boy! Better than staying here and getting into all that trouble with all your rubbish friends, eh?” Oh Dad, if only you knew about 'all' the rubbish. “Would you have a look at his hair love, isn't it the reddest hair you have ever seen?” He remembered his dads fingers scruffing his hair while his mother laughed from her armchair. He looked up as his reminiscing was disturbed, he caught her cold black eyes looking at him in the rear-view mirror. That smirk on her face, *****...
Lee stopped playing when she noticed Q standing beside the piano, she looked around the auditorium and realized the band was almost fully in attendance. She picked up her violin case, backed away from the piano and clumsily smiled at Q. “That was beautiful” said Q.
“Oh… no” Lee said shaking her head and smiling. She looked back and watched him take his seat at the piano. As the class played she noticed by the harmony of the music, there was a new violin player. She lent slightly forward to take a look but couldn't see her. She listened to this mystery player for the rest of the piece. How graceful. After the final piece came to an end and the students were packing up their instruments, Lee approached her. “Hi...” said Lee.
The girl looked up and smiled then returned to her violin case.
“Are you new?” asked Lee.
She laughed, “no, well to this class I am, but I have been going here for some time now, I'm Raisa.”
“Lovely meeting you” Lee's said, but her attention was then taken by Jin, cuddled up behind Q as he tried to play the piano. Raisa laughed again, catching Lee's jealous expression.
“I know right, total *****.”
“How did you get a dorm room to yourself? Are you are rich?” Asked Lee as they walked into Raisa's dorm.
“I think its because this one's smaller.”
Lee looked around noticing that it was not all that smaller that the one she shared with two other girls.
“I guess I’m lucky, roommates can be kind of annoying.”
“Yes, mine are...” Lee said as she picked a book up off Raisa's desk entitled Chopin's Letters.
“you play piano as well?”
“Sure” Raisa nodded in the direction of her keyboard as she took off her shoes. Lee looked back at the book, impressed. She looked over to her trying to catch her eye but she was wiping her face in her mirror.
Lee collapsed below the keyboard taking off her headphones, smiling up at Raisa.
“Tired?” asked Raisa “You can stay over if you find your roommates, so annoying.”
Lee thought for a second, “they're all right, I can usually only sleep in my own bed anyway, I have trouble sleeping”
“I have some sleeping pills.” said Raisa as she pulled them out of the draw, Lee studied the canister.
“I have never really taken these.”
“I cant get to sleep without them.” She offered Lee some water and she hesitantly took them.
Candice waited for an opening in Raisa’s silky thick black hair, so she could see her face. Is that her/ She braved up and stepped out of her car then started following her. She had been following her since she, by chance, passed her at Uni and she was almost positive it was her. She slowed her pace when she neared the open gate, that she had seen her walk though and edged slowly along the brick wall fence. She saw her stationary shadow in the gate opening and without looking skittishly tried to continue walking, but Raisa blocked her path.
“Following me?” asked Raisa as she held her against the wall by her neck and caressed her short blond hair between her thumb and forefingers, examining it. Candice tried to push her away but she sunk within herself and gave in to Raisa's cold black eyes.
“Nice scar,” Raisa said as she brushed her finger lightly across it. Her mood lightened and she smiled approvingly to Candice and watched her pupils shrink into her blueish-green eyes.
“So what do you want sweetie?” Raisa asked politely. Candice gathered her self.
“I’m not following you,” she said.
“You sure? asked Raisa as she edged closer as if she was going to kiss her. Her lips grew closer to the scar, Candice fobbed her off and started to leave. “Was nice to meet you,” said Raisa laughing as she watched her walk away. **** Candice thought as she came upon a red-haired young man walking in the opposite direction, toward Raisa's house. He squinted his eyes as if trying to recognize her, Candice covered her scar side of her face and continued off, with out a doubt it her mind, that was the girl she was looking for.
Raisa and Lee ran out of the stairwell and into the corridor before they both collapsed at speed, Raisa got up first and firmly shook Lee by the shoulders.
“Stop Crying! Someone going to see us you little *****.” Lee tried calm herself and push Raisa away. Raisa let her go and said “I need to see the Principal, go to class, and shut up.”
Lee sat somberly in class, trying not to give her emotions away. Q appeared at the door and stood there for a moment looking at Jin's empty desk. He was destroyed, eyes dark and bloodshot, looking as
though he could barely breath and didn't know where he was. Lee looked away from him after a first glance, she couldn't hide it, his hurting tore her down, she couldn't see him or be in the same room, she left her things and ran out.
Somewhere back in Dublin, Ireland, at property he was protecting, Sky parked behind a dark gray van he had suspicions about as soon as he saw it. The sun had just risen and he wasn't in the mood for this ****. He retrieved his revolver from the glove box, chugged back some whiskey in the hope that it would wake him up and walked inside quietly. He couldn’t recognize their voices but he knew they were somewhat organized by the way they were talking. The man he could see, at the top of the stairwell, was wearing all black and a balaclava and also carrying some type of automatic hand gun. Sky's ears counted four of them, three down stairs and one up stairs. He peeked in to the opening of a door at the bottom of the stairwell and fired though it, creating a huge hole in the door and the man on the other side of it. He immediately fired up at the first man in the balaclava also hitting him. Knowing he had the upper hand he rolled behind the bowling cupboard, knelt down with his back to it and shouted.
“Now who the ****! Are you guys?”
Raisa stumbled inside. She fell back from the fridge, bottle of vodka in hand and slumped back in to the the base of the cupboard opposite. Feeling frustrated she she ripped off the lid and smashed down a quarter of the bottle. She breathed heavily almost passing out in a fit of exasperated laughter.
“****! Why don't you just **** off? Leave me alone!” her drunken yells echoed off that walls of her big empty house. She pulled out a rolled up ten pound note from within her jacket, managed to climb up to her kitchen counter and indiscriminately poured cocaine on top and started to snort it. It woke her up a little from her boozed out depressed state, her head stopped spinning and she focused on her car keys, she nodded to herself and took them.
Raisa laid in her car seat under the pure white sun. She straitened her purple necktie and took a photo of herself out of boredom, while she waited for Sky. She settled her head back and slumped down in to the seat before shutting her eyes, still not managing to keep the sun out. She sat like this peacefully for a moment, until the reddish orange color of her vision darkened. She opened an eye and sat up as the silhouette outside her car window began to define itself. Sky? no... oh no... now I remember you... In acceptance, she slumped back into her seat, settled her head back, and closed her eyes. Her thoughts began to spin, all the faces of the lives she ruined came at her in a chilling wave. She remembered clearly, the almost melancholic look on Jin's face as she picked her up and watched her sail down from the roof. She watched Jin's eyes close and her hands outstretch feeling the clouds between her fingers and take one last drag of her smoke. Her small relaxed figure pierced though the morning fog and turned red when it met with the ground below.
She remembered when she pushed past all the anxious students in the library and saw the Principal Park, crouched down, he looked up directly at her, his usual strait-faced expression was replace by one that looked seriously ill and almost horrified. Raisa's mind spun over all the details. That's how she knew I was new to the school, and about London, of course... Park was such a common name. Principal Park, Lee Park, the girl who laid peaceful and dead, between the stacks in the library. Raisa's Book from her dresser, Chopin's Letters hugged in her arms, eyes still open and a liver damaged yellow. She didn't have to do that … I was trying to do the little ***** a favor. Raisa heard the gun fire right outside her car window, the glass cracked, then it hit her, a life time of guilt, suffering and stress, held her and then relieved her all at once. The bullet stayed in her skull and she leaned over slowly and watched the blood trickle down from her nose and mouth onto the inside edge of the passenger seat. Is it over? “ ...Thank god.”
Sky stood there propped against his car, looking over, calm but paralyzed, watching the blond girl walk away from Raisa's broken car window. At first he was confused, at why he had made no move for his gun. An accumulative smile lit his face, as he remembered that night. He opened his straight shaver and picked at the dried blood on the edges. I remember, when they had just left a Pub in East London, Raisa was loud, laughing, walking unsteady and looking in the direction of whatever met her attention. Candice came into light, she was with friends, he remembered that they looked so fragile and pale, so naive. He felt Raisa's hand feeling within his vest and remove his shaver. Her fragile face was sliced open, blueish-green eyes shaking in shock as the blood descended from her face onto her pale dress. Raisa laughed at herself as she cut, she laughed as though she was laughing at a poorly done gore film. He remembered the screams...
Sky stumbled back and sat in his car and gazed straight forward. He slowly removed his revolver from his glove box, put it to his head and said “Good job Lass.”
###
© Jacob Higgins 2013
By Jacob Higgins
Alone, up on the peaceful roof of the inner-city school, Jin rested against the cement railing and looked down through the low clouds and wondered what they felt like. She imagined they felt much like the fog, that settled fifty stories below, on the cold Korean city. Or maybe, they felt more like the cigarette smoke, that came from her mouth and drifted over the railing in front of her. Or maybe... The noise of the roof door being forced open behind her, broke her daydream...
“Raisa?” asked Principal Park, tilting his head as if to see if she was listening. “I see that your mind is in that pretentious London University already” he said, strait-faced, but joking. She looked up at him and forced yet another shy smile.
“Sorry Sir, I was just thinking of the... tragedy.”
“Oh, I see, I know... it has been a terrible problem for the school in recent years, I'm glad you have missed most of the... tragedies” He said as he looked down, confused for a moment. “Well I'm sure all your new friends will miss you, I'm sure Lee will.”
“Lee Sir... ?”
Lee stumbled down the hallway of the dormitory, slid against the wall and caught on to Raisa's door handle to gather herself. “Raisa?” her calmed voice called in to the room, but there was no answer. Raisa's bed was perfectly neat, she sat on one side and slowly waded on to the covers to prevent messing it up and outstretched her arms. Sweet, clean, the bed smelt like nice fragrant soap and sweet flowers. She picked her cross up off her chest, why would god create sweet flowers so poisonous? She pulled it off.
Raisa flew into the room, knelt down and and started going though the bottom draw of her wardrobe, she stood up with a couple of little boxes.
“Raisa...” Lee said faintly. Raisa turned, and looked at the teary and bloodshot eyed girl laying on her bed, she stared curiously at the pill canister that laid next to her.
“why are you crying on my bed, and taking the pills?”
A slow smile began on Lee's teary face, she knew she didn't have a friend in Raisa, no one did. Oh Raisa, her bored posture, it was as though she wanted to leave, but was kept there by some humanistic convention that she didn't fully comprehend. Lee continued to smile, but she had completely tuned on her. Your dead inside its like you don’t exist, your paint deep, your a character in a movie or book, completely fictional, there is no point even expressing this to you or saying another word to you for that matter.
“Could you cheer up!” said Raisa.
This made Lee's smile grow wider and she said “I know that you are new here.” Raisa started to leave “And why didn't you tell me you were going to London?” Raisa stopped for a second, then left. How did she know?
Candice had been dreading this for some time, but she just didn't care anymore. She started to peel her bandages off slowly, covered her scar with her hand and closed her eyes and let the bandages fall to the floor. She blurred her eyes and removed her hand, the reflection of her face slowly came into focus. My life is over. She stood there like a zombie while she squinted and gently prodded at it, watching how it moved. Eventually she broke down. Her Mum rushed in after hearing her cry’s, she let out a sympathetic moan as she looked at the scar on Candice's face for the first time. They collapsed on the bathroom floor together, “I want her dead!” Candice cried, “she's not going to like what I do to her mum, she wont!”
“Stop it Candice, we don't even know who it was.” ...I do mum.
Sky sat in the back of the car and followed a droplet of blood with his eyes as he tilted his razor back and fourth. His memories returned home to Ireland and to his fathers drunken voice: “London boy! University boy! Better than staying here and getting into all that trouble with all your rubbish friends, eh?” Oh Dad, if only you knew about 'all' the rubbish. “Would you have a look at his hair love, isn't it the reddest hair you have ever seen?” He remembered his dads fingers scruffing his hair while his mother laughed from her armchair. He looked up as his reminiscing was disturbed, he caught her cold black eyes looking at him in the rear-view mirror. That smirk on her face, *****...
Lee stopped playing when she noticed Q standing beside the piano, she looked around the auditorium and realized the band was almost fully in attendance. She picked up her violin case, backed away from the piano and clumsily smiled at Q. “That was beautiful” said Q.
“Oh… no” Lee said shaking her head and smiling. She looked back and watched him take his seat at the piano. As the class played she noticed by the harmony of the music, there was a new violin player. She lent slightly forward to take a look but couldn't see her. She listened to this mystery player for the rest of the piece. How graceful. After the final piece came to an end and the students were packing up their instruments, Lee approached her. “Hi...” said Lee.
The girl looked up and smiled then returned to her violin case.
“Are you new?” asked Lee.
She laughed, “no, well to this class I am, but I have been going here for some time now, I'm Raisa.”
“Lovely meeting you” Lee's said, but her attention was then taken by Jin, cuddled up behind Q as he tried to play the piano. Raisa laughed again, catching Lee's jealous expression.
“I know right, total *****.”
“How did you get a dorm room to yourself? Are you are rich?” Asked Lee as they walked into Raisa's dorm.
“I think its because this one's smaller.”
Lee looked around noticing that it was not all that smaller that the one she shared with two other girls.
“I guess I’m lucky, roommates can be kind of annoying.”
“Yes, mine are...” Lee said as she picked a book up off Raisa's desk entitled Chopin's Letters.
“you play piano as well?”
“Sure” Raisa nodded in the direction of her keyboard as she took off her shoes. Lee looked back at the book, impressed. She looked over to her trying to catch her eye but she was wiping her face in her mirror.
Lee collapsed below the keyboard taking off her headphones, smiling up at Raisa.
“Tired?” asked Raisa “You can stay over if you find your roommates, so annoying.”
Lee thought for a second, “they're all right, I can usually only sleep in my own bed anyway, I have trouble sleeping”
“I have some sleeping pills.” said Raisa as she pulled them out of the draw, Lee studied the canister.
“I have never really taken these.”
“I cant get to sleep without them.” She offered Lee some water and she hesitantly took them.
Candice waited for an opening in Raisa’s silky thick black hair, so she could see her face. Is that her/ She braved up and stepped out of her car then started following her. She had been following her since she, by chance, passed her at Uni and she was almost positive it was her. She slowed her pace when she neared the open gate, that she had seen her walk though and edged slowly along the brick wall fence. She saw her stationary shadow in the gate opening and without looking skittishly tried to continue walking, but Raisa blocked her path.
“Following me?” asked Raisa as she held her against the wall by her neck and caressed her short blond hair between her thumb and forefingers, examining it. Candice tried to push her away but she sunk within herself and gave in to Raisa's cold black eyes.
“Nice scar,” Raisa said as she brushed her finger lightly across it. Her mood lightened and she smiled approvingly to Candice and watched her pupils shrink into her blueish-green eyes.
“So what do you want sweetie?” Raisa asked politely. Candice gathered her self.
“I’m not following you,” she said.
“You sure? asked Raisa as she edged closer as if she was going to kiss her. Her lips grew closer to the scar, Candice fobbed her off and started to leave. “Was nice to meet you,” said Raisa laughing as she watched her walk away. **** Candice thought as she came upon a red-haired young man walking in the opposite direction, toward Raisa's house. He squinted his eyes as if trying to recognize her, Candice covered her scar side of her face and continued off, with out a doubt it her mind, that was the girl she was looking for.
Raisa and Lee ran out of the stairwell and into the corridor before they both collapsed at speed, Raisa got up first and firmly shook Lee by the shoulders.
“Stop Crying! Someone going to see us you little *****.” Lee tried calm herself and push Raisa away. Raisa let her go and said “I need to see the Principal, go to class, and shut up.”
Lee sat somberly in class, trying not to give her emotions away. Q appeared at the door and stood there for a moment looking at Jin's empty desk. He was destroyed, eyes dark and bloodshot, looking as
though he could barely breath and didn't know where he was. Lee looked away from him after a first glance, she couldn't hide it, his hurting tore her down, she couldn't see him or be in the same room, she left her things and ran out.
Somewhere back in Dublin, Ireland, at property he was protecting, Sky parked behind a dark gray van he had suspicions about as soon as he saw it. The sun had just risen and he wasn't in the mood for this ****. He retrieved his revolver from the glove box, chugged back some whiskey in the hope that it would wake him up and walked inside quietly. He couldn’t recognize their voices but he knew they were somewhat organized by the way they were talking. The man he could see, at the top of the stairwell, was wearing all black and a balaclava and also carrying some type of automatic hand gun. Sky's ears counted four of them, three down stairs and one up stairs. He peeked in to the opening of a door at the bottom of the stairwell and fired though it, creating a huge hole in the door and the man on the other side of it. He immediately fired up at the first man in the balaclava also hitting him. Knowing he had the upper hand he rolled behind the bowling cupboard, knelt down with his back to it and shouted.
“Now who the ****! Are you guys?”
Raisa stumbled inside. She fell back from the fridge, bottle of vodka in hand and slumped back in to the the base of the cupboard opposite. Feeling frustrated she she ripped off the lid and smashed down a quarter of the bottle. She breathed heavily almost passing out in a fit of exasperated laughter.
“****! Why don't you just **** off? Leave me alone!” her drunken yells echoed off that walls of her big empty house. She pulled out a rolled up ten pound note from within her jacket, managed to climb up to her kitchen counter and indiscriminately poured cocaine on top and started to snort it. It woke her up a little from her boozed out depressed state, her head stopped spinning and she focused on her car keys, she nodded to herself and took them.
Raisa laid in her car seat under the pure white sun. She straitened her purple necktie and took a photo of herself out of boredom, while she waited for Sky. She settled her head back and slumped down in to the seat before shutting her eyes, still not managing to keep the sun out. She sat like this peacefully for a moment, until the reddish orange color of her vision darkened. She opened an eye and sat up as the silhouette outside her car window began to define itself. Sky? no... oh no... now I remember you... In acceptance, she slumped back into her seat, settled her head back, and closed her eyes. Her thoughts began to spin, all the faces of the lives she ruined came at her in a chilling wave. She remembered clearly, the almost melancholic look on Jin's face as she picked her up and watched her sail down from the roof. She watched Jin's eyes close and her hands outstretch feeling the clouds between her fingers and take one last drag of her smoke. Her small relaxed figure pierced though the morning fog and turned red when it met with the ground below.
She remembered when she pushed past all the anxious students in the library and saw the Principal Park, crouched down, he looked up directly at her, his usual strait-faced expression was replace by one that looked seriously ill and almost horrified. Raisa's mind spun over all the details. That's how she knew I was new to the school, and about London, of course... Park was such a common name. Principal Park, Lee Park, the girl who laid peaceful and dead, between the stacks in the library. Raisa's Book from her dresser, Chopin's Letters hugged in her arms, eyes still open and a liver damaged yellow. She didn't have to do that … I was trying to do the little ***** a favor. Raisa heard the gun fire right outside her car window, the glass cracked, then it hit her, a life time of guilt, suffering and stress, held her and then relieved her all at once. The bullet stayed in her skull and she leaned over slowly and watched the blood trickle down from her nose and mouth onto the inside edge of the passenger seat. Is it over? “ ...Thank god.”
Sky stood there propped against his car, looking over, calm but paralyzed, watching the blond girl walk away from Raisa's broken car window. At first he was confused, at why he had made no move for his gun. An accumulative smile lit his face, as he remembered that night. He opened his straight shaver and picked at the dried blood on the edges. I remember, when they had just left a Pub in East London, Raisa was loud, laughing, walking unsteady and looking in the direction of whatever met her attention. Candice came into light, she was with friends, he remembered that they looked so fragile and pale, so naive. He felt Raisa's hand feeling within his vest and remove his shaver. Her fragile face was sliced open, blueish-green eyes shaking in shock as the blood descended from her face onto her pale dress. Raisa laughed at herself as she cut, she laughed as though she was laughing at a poorly done gore film. He remembered the screams...
Sky stumbled back and sat in his car and gazed straight forward. He slowly removed his revolver from his glove box, put it to his head and said “Good job Lass.”
###
© Jacob Higgins 2013