Yeap, I did indeed decide to write for my own Challenge, if just for kicks. I actually did something like this years ago - quite possibly four, when I was a freshman in high school...just like the self I get to talk to in this. Strange how things go on a loop like that.
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The room held vast familiarity – walls hued in bright cerulean, frilly drapes still on the windows due to a mother wanting her daughter to be girly, a dresser spilling over with items ranging from a wallet to acorns. The bookshelf was less filled with objects of geeky reading and more with pieces of actual literature, though the former had begun to multiply at an alarming rate.
Perhaps the most major difference was the location of the desk and a freshly repainted coffee table, with the latter shoved in the back corner next to the bookcase and the other near the door, an old Gateway computer perched on its right surface and a TV on the left. A girl of relatively indeterminate age tapped the glass of the old monitor, smiling at the piiiing it made. Suddenly the screen clicked to life and the desktop fizzled on in a hum of static.
“Oh dude, Kurama, I almost forgot about you,” the girl spoke aloud before breaking out in a grin. “And this is why I never want Dad using this compy…I don’t need him asking what gender you are…”
A small dog started barking, causing the girl to casually peek her head out the door and into the short hallway. The front door closed and, with this house being a ranch house and therefore everything on a single story, the shadow of whoever walked in was clearly visible on the wall.
“Hey mom!” the person – a girl, young if judging by her voice – called out before a jingle of dog tags was heard. “Hey baby girl,” she cooed to the dog before slipping off her shoes, hanging up her jacket, and making her way to the territory that was her bedroom.
The girl already in the room bolted from the door and leapt onto the all-too-familiar full bed, her arms swinging and knocking a few books off from the comforter and to the floor. The younger girl entered at this point, closing the door behind her before even opening her eyes to survey her room.
But then she did.
“Woah, hey.”
“Oh hiya,” the older of the two girls greeted with a wide grin, speaking in an exaggerated Scottish accent. “I’m just plain’ a wee joke, can I call you back?”
“Am I really to believe a Scot is in my room?”
“No, but one day, you will fangirl over a Scot who feigns a British accent. Oh and dude, he also might try and do a Midwest accent! Maybe! Dunno about that one yet.”
The younger girl raised an eyebrow before taking a few steps forward, dumping her black messenger bag on the floor. “Don’t mind me asking but uh – who are you?”
“Oh, I was so awesome, not thinking I was on something – I’m you kid.”
“You’re – what.”
The older one grinned. “I am what I said. I’m you, just about…oh, four years in zeh footore, give or take a few days…maybe weeks. But yeah!”
“…Well okay.”
“Ooh! You bought that!”
“Hey, you look like me. Just – wait!” The younger slammed her palms on the bed, staring at the older, eyes wide. “My hair – my hair gets shorter?! What’s with that?!”
“Your hair gets progressively shorter as you go through school, but come senior year, you’ll get it lopped shorter than usual.”
“...Dare I ask why?’
“Dare I answer with the phrase ‘for a costume’?”
“…Wow. I’m awesome!”
“You know it.” The older flung up from the bed before whirling around. “Hey kid, how tall are you right now?”
“Five-one, I think?”
“Yeah well, get used to the fact that you’re going to be stuck at five-three.”
“What?!” The younger balked, eyebrows furrowed. “Dr. Darmon said I’d be five-five!”
“He lies. Still a good guy though.”
“Does he still have that mole?”
“Yeap.”
“Damn…” There was a moment in which the younger mourned her lost two inches before suddenly perking up. “Wait, if you’re – if you’re really me, then you’d know stuff about me, right? So just – just so I’m really clear on who you are…what’s my name?”
“You’re Katana.”
“…Okay, yeah, definitely me.” The younger paused again, stroking her eyebrows in thought. “If you’re me, then you’ll know how I do in school and stuff, right? So…care to tell me?”
“Well, bit of an issue with that,” the older replied, pulling out the desk chair and sliding into it. “See, it’s like this thing I put in a story. If I were to tell you your future and things that happened to me, they’d aspire you to be lazy and listless because you think they’d happen anyway, and then you’d just totally screw with things because you and I both know that when we procrastinate, we do it hard – oh, yeah, still procrastinate hardcore, by the way – and therefore crazy things would happen and wibbly wobbly timey wimey.”
“…I’m really happy that I understood what you said.”
“Wow, I really was awesome.”
The younger sighed, flopping into the full comfort of the bed. “Okay so like – what can you tell me? Or are you just here to annoy me?”
“Both, actually. But I’d like to tell you some things, if just for kicks. For starters – just hold on with science, alright? It’s going to suck, yeah, but you’ll learn some cool things, which is always awesome.”
“I’m in Freshman Honors Biology. I hate it. I can’t do any of it.”
“It’s not your thing, kid. Don’t sweat it.” The older began picking at her hands, rubbing three distinct marks, to which the younger took notice.
“Something wrong with you?”
“Many things.”
“What’s with your hands?”
“Oh – I got all sorts of nicks on here from the Exacto knife. Bloody thing likes to slice me up good.”
“Why were you using one of those?”
“3D class. You’re – okay, I’ll tell you one thing because you know it – you’re an art major. Vis comm, at Northern, like you’ve been wanting since fifth grade.”
“Ah, that’s cool. How’s that going?”
“I like it. My prof for vis comm, not so much, but eh, whatever. You do make some awesome friends out there.”
“…Does anybody come with me?”
“Pfft, no. Kid – by the time you reach the end of high school, most of the friends you have now won’t be with you. Two of them, three at best, but you’ll have different ones…people you’ve known but never known, really.”
There was a silence. “Uh…can I…at least, just ask, my best –”
“It’s still Lorenza.”
Her face brightened. “Really? We’re still best friends by the end?!”
“Dude…you have no idea.” The older smiled, her eyes softening. “That’s something really important. I really can’t tell you about that one, other than that you’ll be on this feeling of hardcore justice. Just…oh hell, I don’t need to tell you. She’s your best friend, you don’t need to know how to feel about that.”
“Damn right.”
“But it’s something big and something that’ll really solidify your bond for life. The two of you will go to different schools, but you’ll still be tight. And – this is what I like the best – you’ll totally understand each other despite being in different fields. You’re an art major, and she’s going to be a music major.”
“So she abandons the medical stuff?”
“Not really, but she realizes that her love and her passion is music – pretty much the same as you, but with art.”
“Good, I’m glad…Hey, older-me…”
“Yeah?”
“…Can you really just…can’t you just tell me stuff?”
“I can tell you cryptic and vague things, do you want that?”
“Hey, sure, why not.”
The older tapped her chin in thought. “Well –”
“Okay okay, first – what’s with your face?”
“Oi, the hell?”
The younger threw her hands in the. “I’m just askin’!”
“I know, I just like screwing with you. Okay – this is actually a great story, and you’re totally not going to remember the exact date to prevent it, so here. Come senior year, you’ll be the first bass drummer on drumline.”
“I get bumped off cymbals?!”
“You bet’cha. So you’re first bass, and then one day, the day before the opening game, you’ll run and fall over and knock your chin on the drum. But you won’t notice anything until Lorenza shouts out ‘code red, code red!’ And then you’ll be bleeeeding. Blood everywhere, man.”
“Ow…”
“Adrenaline, it’s okay. Doesn’t hurt that much. But yeah, stitches and stuff, and you get a gnarly scar.” The older pointed to the lower right of her chin. When she grinned, the skin around the mark stretched and folded slightly over it, showing the confinements that had come from getting the area stitched back together.
“Man…and I don’t use that scarf stuff or stuff?”
“Pffft. No.” The older cracked her neck, glancing at the monitor. “You don’t care. It’s cool. It makes you different. You just…you don’t care what others think.”
The younger looked away from her older counterpart. “I…I say that. But I don’t believe I’m as strong as I am. I just pretend I am. On the inside, I really do care, and I’m embarrassed after the fact. I’m not as defiant as people think.”
“Well, you’re not. Not yet, anyway.” The older brought her legs up to the seat of the chair, sitting cross-legged. “It comes gradually, but it really snaps into being come senior year. And I dunno exactly why, but man, you just become so much more…bizarre.”
“…Hence the goggles?”
The older chuckled, adjusting the lens perched midway on her hair. “Again, senior year, you get the urge to buy them, so you do, and they become part of your look. The goggles are awesome, man. Oh – hey, you and theOtaku, how are you with that?”
“I love it. Having so much fun, writing stuff, making stuff.”
“Stick with it, okay?”
“I didn’t plan on leaving.”
“Yeah yeah, I know, but stick with it. Awesome things shall come.” Then she paused, heavily contemplating on her words, her lips twitching whenever she thought of speaking. “And then…something else is going to happen.”
“I’m assuming it’s not-so-awesome.”
“You assume correctly.”
The fourteen-year-old started at her eighteen counterpart, head tilted in curiosity but also in worry. “Well – so what? You’re here right now, and you don’t look that bad.”
“Thick skin. Strong will. Listen, kid – you’re amazing, you know that?” Slapping a hand over her heart, she added, “This is who you will become. No drugs, sex, or alcohol. Nothing. All those ideas you get? They’re just yours. Your mind is a jumbled mess, but somehow, it’s all in order. It’s all perfect for you.”
The younger paused before nodding, a satisfied smile coming to her face. “I like that.”
Another silence passed before the older stood up, stretching her arms out. “Well, I ‘spose it’s time to get going.” Fishing around in the pocket of her fleece jacket, she withdrew a pen, though it was rather bulky with a blue marble on one end. She took a few steps towards herself from four years back, who just stared quizzically when the marble was pressed to her forehead.
“So what’s with that?”
“Sonic screwdriver, love,” her older answered, now sporting a rather poor British accent. “Have to wipe your mind now, don’t want to punch any holes in the universe.”
“So I missed twenty minutes of MythBusters to hear all this stuff and then I get to have my mind wiped? What a jip.”
The older gave a second’s thought before withdrawing the device, slipping it back in her pocket. Leaning down to her younger, she gave a tight hug. “Keep it to yourself then, mmkay?”
“…Alright.”
“Two more things. Geeks are better. Also, Detroiters hug like a vice-grip.”
“I – what?!”
The older smacked the younger on the back, grinning, before bolting out of the room and out the front door with a shtunk. Bewildered at what had exactly transpired, the fourteen-year-old flopped back on her bed, staring at the ceiling before smirking, letting out a sigh through her nose.
Four years from now…she’d be in college. That was so far away, she wasn’t even going to think about it.
[/End]
There is slight irony in that, when I wrote the part about doing vis comm at Northern, it was like a day or two before deciding I wanted to switch majors. Oh how things change.
