The Trials Of Arabella

The Trials of Arabella

By Tara Tsang

A bee was buzzing around a frizzy head full of dull brown hair. The bright pink flower that appeared to be growing out of her head was its target. She ducked and jumped and the bee flew in circles confused then buzzed away. The girl next to her hadn’t noticed a thing; she was still vividly describing her experiences of time travel. She disappeared when Arabella blinked and an old man was holding her hand. She looked down and found her own hands matching his. Her hands were intricately lined with papery wrinkles. She turned them over and was fascinated by how, unlike trees, a human’s age could be guessed by appearance alone.

She blinked again and she was back next to the girl. The girl was staring at her side on.

“Well? How was it? What did you see?”

She told her there was an old man and an old woman holding hands. Her friend stopped walking and stepped in front of her locking eye contact. Arabella looked back but drifted into a blurry state. Her eyes focused on nothing and her breathing became very loud in her head. Another sound suddenly interrupted her peaceful world and her friend came into focus again.

“You need to stop ignoring me Bell, or something bad might happen.”

Her friend’s new nickname for her sounded weird on her tongue and in her head. Bell…

 “I think we need to do this together. Tomorrow.”

“Bell. Bell…Bell.”

She muttered the new word letting it be tested on her taste buds. She then tried a nickname for her friend. “George, Geor, Gee…Gee!”

“Okay Gee. Tomorrow it is.”

Both girls’ mouths twitched at the ends and the beginnings of hysterical laughter followed. They fell about flailing their limbs as passers by kept a wide berth. Only one person, who was busy looking at their phone, tripped over a foot carelessly placed to stop Arabella from falling. In her place, the person fell and their phone battery ended up a metre or so away. The girls had disappeared and the person was turning around in circles searching for something, any sign of what caused the fall. Nobody turned to stare and the person got up and left never realising the truth.

The future didn’t change much in 10 minutes. He blinked and the girls stared at him. A unison apology was mouthed and they walked away quickly almost falling into giggles every so often. They were gone and he was still there. De ja vu sprang to his mind but he had to get somewhere so he thought nothing of it. He fixed his phone and organised his belongings, started texting and was gone in another few minutes.

Gee looked back knowing he couldn’t see them. She saw the shift in time as it had happened. As the fall was occurring, the light touch of her fingertips had caressed some hairs on the unfamiliar arm. It was the first time in a long time she had slipped up. Arabella was a recent venture, but not an accident. Accidents were usually purposeful and coincidences quite fixed. It wasn’t fate, but a way of creating lifelong moments. One of these moments turned Arabella and Gee into lifelong friends but another moment could as easily erase that forever. The cycle goes on.

Gee had chosen Arabella to feel and see new futures, which would only happen as long as she was with her, the passerby, would not.

Arabella was completely ordinary. Her ideals were revealed on the covering of flowers on her walls, kind letters to distant family members and friendly smiles to strangers. Her mind didn’t seem to have much in it which either meant it’d be easier for her to absorb new information or nothing would stick. She was a child whose mind was never focused on one thing but lots of other things.

Her age limited the information she could provide but what were you to do?

The only thing Arabella needed to know was that to time travel all you had to do was touch her skin. And however long you took in the future, when you returned, you came back to the same instant you left.

Gee quirked the ends of her lips up and acted as though nothing were going through her mind. She touched Arabella’s shoulder through the lace on Arabella’s sleeve and both were gone.

The future wasn’t altogether too interesting; it was like a mystery not worth solving. For example, figuring out which sibling lied about eating the last bit of chocolate. It happened and knowing who did it would not change the fact.

The future was a bright sunny day with fluffed up pale clouds. The buildings surrounding the lonely park overshadowed the colour making it look saturated and lifeless. There was a man with white hair sticking out of his nostrils and ears. His left leg didn’t hold him up well when he walked and his coat quivered every so often.

There was one square of sunlight that was vacated by a boy and a girl laughing and rolling around. Their hands were stuck together and occasionally their lips were as well. Then there was Arabella and Gee.

They had red lips from eating strawberries. One of the seeds had stuck to Arabella’s lower lip. She licked it constantly without success. They both had raincoats on, one yellow and one pink. The bright shiny plastic tried to catch what sunlight it could while the girls jumped up and down in star shapes.

“This is not warming me up. Can’t we just steal some sunlight?”

“If we interfere we might change something. The future can only be changed by the past.”

“But it’s freezing!”

Gee shakes her head and fists Bell’s hands in hers.

“Let’s breathe on them together.”

“Fine”

They blew out one breath and then took one step and were back in their own time. It was cloudy with various shades of grey tinting the sky. Their gumboots touched dry ground and the people around them bustled past like a raging stampede. They tried edging, clambering, sneaking, and other various forms of creeping to get out but didn’t move an inch. So they stood there by an empty chair and waited for everyone to stop.

They felt little specks of weight hit their raincoats and as Gee looked up Arabella sat down. She then proceeded to turn her gumboots upside down by sticking her feet up in the air. Her back was against the part of the chair her bottom was supposed to be and her bottom and legs were resting on the back of the chair. Gee looked down and rolled her eyes.

Arabella had had one of those miraculous ideas that came to you out of the blue and made themselves so amazing in your mind that when spoken out loud, the person didn’t realise how ridiculous they sounded.

She crossed her arms and sat there on her back. People started staring as they hurried along. Some people slowed. It was perfect. As the crowd slowed even more, they ran out of the spotlight and high fived the unplanned plan.

The adrenaline made Arabella spin, jump, whirl, and sing. It was a lovely combination but there were a few judgemental eyes here and there. Gee ignored her extravagant use of extra energy and stood nearby waiting. A policeman saw the commotion and wandered on over.

“Where are your parents?”

Gee, startled, looked hard at the policeman.

“Parents. What parents? Where?”

“Ignore her, she’s just a little hyped up.”

The policeman raised one eyebrow and frowned.

The two girls looked lost and lonely. They were dancing about and no one was there to stop them creating trouble.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to bring you to my supervisor. Come with me.”

He held out his hand and Gee, sighing, took Arabella’s hand, which kept jerking uncontrollably, and then took his.

The policeman pulled them along with his gloved hand and talked in his walky-talky.

“What’s happening Gee?”

 “We’re being taken to people who think they know what’s best for us.”

“Oh.”

Arabella blinked and her urges to run were subdued only by Gee’s cold fingers. As the rain got heavier she started shivering, a little at first but it soon turned into violent shakes and their hands were getting slipperier. The policeman’s pull was getting stronger and her hand was slipping from Arabella’s. She tightened her grip but on the wrong hand and lost her. Gee saw the shift in time just before she lost her. She was devastated and panicked.

She jerked her hand away from the policeman and ran backwards.

The policeman looked back and both children were gone, completely lost in the crowd. He had to make a decision; hope the children were fine or report them missing. He chose the former but stood there looking back for a very long time causing him to not see the wallet that was nicked sneakily from a woman. The wallet missing wasn’t noticed till much later. The woman phoned the police and incidentally, the same policeman who never noticed the robbery, picked up the phone. They met for the first time at his office and it went on from there.

Gee reached out, touched too many people, and finally managed to find Arabella sitting on the ground soaking wet inside her raincoat. She had a blue tinge about her and Gee quickly pulled her up and into her arms. She twitched as her skin felt Arabella’s outside pocket. It was so cold it burnt. She continued to rub her so she would warm up and closed her eyes. When she opened her eyes again the crowd had disappeared and it was darker. Arabella was still breathing and her eyes were open. She looked confused. She smiled at her friend and pulled out a melted icy pole where Gee had felt the scary biting coldness. Gee started laughing and squeezed Arabella tighter.

“You scared me!”

“I saw something!”

“Did you hear me? You scared me!”

Arabella, distracted by Gee’s words, grabbed her hand.

“I’m sorry Georgia. I am.”

Her demeanour had altered slightly. It had become more focused, more understanding, more…mature. She had seen something that had changed her, something no one can un-see.

“What did you see Bell?”

Arabella looked around quickly and then with all seriousness whispered,

“The end.”

Writing Exercise

Batman (Beowulf interpretation description[ basically a batman version of the prologue])

Hear me! We've heard of comic heroes,

Contemporary legends and the good they wrought,

For themselves, choosing fists over guns swinging mighty punches!

He travelled over seas to become master of all martial arts and travelled back to Gotham city alone,

An orphaned child, but changed his own fate,

Lived to be rich, and subtly admired in both mask and face. He rules Wayne Enterprises: wherever his employers invest

without debate. There was a rich man! And he gave them less than his time and more glory to himself

Than any ever realised, Became Batman by night, and fought criminals for justice

Carrying on his father's legacy. They had lived,

before his coming, justice free and crime filled;

Now the Dark Knight by sunset and spoilt rich kid Bruce Wayne at sunrise,

boss of Wayne Enterprises, bless them with the silent bat vigilante,

Whose power and fame spreads throughout the city of Gotham.

Adventure One Circus

I wake up in the circus.

I don’t remember why.

What letter does my name start with?

“Who are you?”

An inquisitive stare is directed at me; a man I think. I quickly list a few possible names that I like.

“Scarlett Stocking.”

He looks at me imploringly and I notice his chin is unshaven, his eyes have smudges of darkness underneath them and his physique hints at his everyday work. There is something missing from his gaze that once gave him that spark that makes men handsome.

“Look, I don’t know who you are or how you got here but you have to leave.”

“I came for the circus of course! Can’t I work here?”

He closes his eyes and sighs. He mutters something about lost girls always being so hard to say no to.

“Go pack up the tents then. Barry’s over there. Ask him about it.”

He waves his hand in a vague direction and shakes his head as he walks off.

I realise I’m sitting in the middle of a patch of green grass. Its swaying is dreamy and hypnotic. A noise so loud it bursts in my eardrums startles me and I grasp the logic hidden beneath my thoughts that someone is shouting in my ear. His voice is deep, and scratchy like he uses it all the time in this same manner.

“Will you stop shouting? It is disturbing the grass.”

I frown at him. This man has a jagged scar across his arm in the shape of a lightning bolt. His head is shaved really short to the point it’s almost invisible. He grabs my arm and pulls me almost jerking my arm out of its socket. His hand is hard like a smooth pebble. I let him pull me across the field to the striped tents. He has a kindness about him, almost innocent in contrast to how he handles my arm. Its stark contrast is puzzling and intriguing.

“Are you Barry?”

His grunt in reply tells me nothing. 

“Do you like the circus Barry?”

Silence continues to emanate from him like a light in the darkness. The ground is hard and biting my bare feet, like the hot coals people walk across to impress other people. I see the stars twinkle and something catches, a slight movement of light in my clenched hand. I ease the tension and find a paper star faintly flickering speckles of light dancing across my palm. Barry looks back but I quickly hide the star with a slight of hand trick that isn’t a trick. It disappears completely and I find it later in the folds of my velvet midnight blue dress that matches the colour of darkness.

A curl falls across my eye as I pull a peg out. I brush it out of my face and notice the small red drops of blood. Pulling pegs is hard work. I sit down on a frequently flattened patch of grass and will for the tent to fold itself. I close my eyes and imagine the universe and its infinite darkness fills with freckles of stardust sparkling. Colour ribbons across milky ways and the burning yellow and red of the sun spreads itself as far as it can reach like it’s trying to keep the universe from being swallowed up by the blackness that encompasses most of it, and in turn creates the shadows it wishes to eliminate.

I also imagine the heavy stiff tent in space floating toward me and curling in on itself in accordance with each gesture my fingertips make. I feel a power leaking from me and I see a golden thread trickle across space to the fabric of the tent. As the last fold is complete I open my eyes and surprise inhabits me and makes me jump. Two bright blue eyes are a few inches away from my eyelashes.

A little boy is staring at me with a knowing look and I look away uncomfortable. His soft delicate hands reach for mine and I unexpectedly meet them halfway. My hand looks much less innocent in his. As we skip to somewhere else, I glance back and wonder how long I’d been sitting there because the tent was gone.

He lets go and I am directly in front of the man who let me work here.

“I see you’ve met Leo. I’m Derick.”

He holds his hand out and I take it and feel the calluses he has collected over time. There are so many different hands. My hands feel different; they aren’t supposed to be here. I blink and the thoughts disappear.

“Nice to meet you Derick.”

I nod politely and begin a curtsey but he stops me.

“We don’t do that here.”

He looks sadly down at me and wonders why the pretty ones are always lost. I can sense it in the way our hands met just moments before. I feel the connection then, as if without him, I wither with mother nature as the season changes from spring to autumn.  I die as winter ends and I exist no more.

He isn’t old, but is aged with the experiences life gave him. He understands things I will never begin to comprehend. 

I wish he would smile.

I have made stars

I have made stars
for the sky

I believe they will sparkle all the more in the dark
They will float on strings of golden thread and each and every one will trick the sparkle in your eye
into the love you will feel.
The feeling won't go away for a very long time
but it will linger and linger away
causing a series of events that might end up tearing paper but it
will
carry you into a new world
a world where not knowing is how you live.
A life of ignorance is normal and 
simplicity is valued.

You will enter this world by catching a star

And each star will want its freedom back
but your greed will store away every single one

and they will forever be sad.

Sad like a starfish turned upside down.
Sad like a giant hand reaching for a hermit crab.
Sad like the clouds before it rains.

There will be fewer and fewer stars to share and fewer and fewer people to delight in the magic.

The magic of the colours in rainbows.
The magic of waking up next to someone you love.
The magic of fairy lights in the sky.

It will be dangerous.

Dangerous like nature.
Dangerous like man-made objects.
Dangerous like humans.

To keep so many stars in one place.

And so the adventure must begin.

It's time!

Dear Sky,

Please be more consistent.

Yours sincerely,

Human Bean.

Emotions

Emotions

There is a way in life

Where anger overtakes the soul and pitiful hints of the mind try to piece together

Something that will never form.

It is afraid and I am afraid

I cannot say and it cannot say.

Why oh why do these trytiptical words not make sense

Because they are not words

They are not words

But things that don’t make sense are nothing but the lucid horror of things that cannot be helped

The human bean is but full of these and cannot live without it

But to become monsters of the dark gloomy mists

The darkest shades of night

There loom something, someone, its lingering taunts

If these tyrannical rules do not break, there is fear, and fear can be felt

Not heard or touched

Not seen or spoken,

But felt like the smooth rough surface of felt.

It is fortunate for most but unfortunate for a few fiends or friends,

Soon the thoughts may consume, but

Not yet

Not yet

Not yet.

Ladybug Discoveries

Once upon a time, there was a girl. She loved to sit among the long strands of grass and wonder at the pretty words said to her in books. She found that those words were what made her understand and understanding was what made her intelligence grow. She was a thoughtful little girl and one day a mystery occurred; a bug the size of a teensy little button landed on her thumb. It was a lady bug with bright red and black spots all over its shell. She stared at it and it stared at her and spoke a word.

Buzzzz.

She didn’t understand this word so she tried saying it to herself.

“Buzz Buzz Buzz Buzz Buzz Buzz Buzz Buzz Buzz Buzz.”

She tried it in different pitches, different accents (of the few that she knew), different lengths of time, and accented different syllables. By then the lady bug had flown away. She looked at her thumb where the lady bug had been marching about and found microscopic footprints. She ran around looking for a magnifying glass to grab and used it and a camera to take a picture. The picture couldn’t see what she saw though. It missed the most important details of her discovery.

She thought long and hard about the cute little footprints and came to a decision. She decided to use her intelligence to investigate the mystery of the word by following the tracks and clues.

Shout, shout, shout, said her mother. She looked up from her right hand startled and realised that her mother was forming words.

“- are you doing? Would you please come in Jelly! I need your opinion on some cupcakes for your birthday!”

So she ran through the towering grass of her backyard and found herself in a much neater household as her mother licked her own fingers. She gestured for Jelly to try a cupcake so she did. She asked for a knife and her mother handed her one. She carefully cut the cupcake into four not quite equal quarters and looked at the pink swirls that were captured within the fresh white yellow cake of the cupcake. She delighted in the feel of how fluffy it was inside her mouth. She chewed slowly with a frown on her face making sure her mother recognised that this was a serious matter and not just her wanting to eat a cupcake. Each quarter tasted the same but also quite different. She then gave her verdict.

“Raspberries.”

She nodded her head and her mother smiled.

“Of course darling, but what colour frosting would you like?”

Jelly liked surprising people so she decided that the cupcakes frosting must be...

“Blue.”

She smiled righteously, very sure of her choice and proud to have made such an important decision. She would have liked to help out more but she also liked to be surprised and she knew her mother knew so she told her she would be back later and walked happily out the door and back into the jungle that is their backyard. She grabbed the magnifying glass and the camera again and walked into the adventure awaiting her.

As she slowly tiptoed through the grass, she suddenly felt her foot catch and ended up with her face squished into her magnifying glass which lay stuck between her right cheek and the green of the grass. She stopped moving suddenly and looked excitedly through the glass and quickly clicked the camera. She lifted the magnifying glass slightly with her eye still very close to it showing a magnified curiosity in one of her brown eyes. It was those footprints again! But this time, not on her finger. She was genuinely disappointed in the camera and how it couldn’t see what she saw. Here was evidence and she couldn’t even record it! Frustrated she threw it away (not very far mind you) but then realised her mother might not be happy about that so she quickly picked it up again and tried to clean it as best she could so that any permanent damage couldn’t be easily seen. She put it near the house carefully leaving a trail so she could find the footprints for a second time. She grabbed a pencil and notepad and decided she could draw it even though she knew it wasn’t proper evidence but it was still something more accurate than the stupid camera.

She looked for the magnifying glass and to her horror found it missing. The footsteps were still there though, this time, much bigger. They looked very peculiar. It hardly represented human footprints at all. But then again she guessed it couldn’t represent a human footprint as it was actually a ladybug’s footprint. She started sketching a line which turned into grass and then started on the footprint (or should she say ladybug-print?).

Thoughts that hadn’t occurred to her were: why had the footprints gotten bigger? And why was the grass much bigger than her?

As she sketched she heard a slow dragging sound that sounded like the friction of something heavy being dragged across paper. She didn’t want to get too freaked out so she ignored it until she was satisfied with her finished sketch. By then the noise had gotten fainter and she had to listen really hard if she wanted to find out what was happening. So she stood very still and located it as coming from the direction in front of her. She skipped half a step as she almost collided with a leg. Well it didn’t look like a leg but she turned her head upwards and found herself eye to eye with a pray mantis.

“How did you get taller than me?”

It looked at her and didn’t seem very interested so Jelly decided to walk on careful not to run into anything else.

The noise got closer and closer as she skipped merrily toward it. She was excited. She had never encountered such a crazy happening. She noticed that the footprints seemed to be headed in the same direction as the sound and she jumped up excitedly. The wind had picked up as if it urged her onwards. She rounded one more piece of grass and found to her astonishment, her magnifying glass.

It was just where she had left it. In fact she had ended up back where she had started. She stomped her foot in annoyance and frustration and then realised her mistake too late. A ladybug had been underfoot and squished to death. She gasped in horror. Tears fell down her cheeks. The footprints she saw before led to where the ladybug lay squashed. She knelt down beside the still red and black spotted 2D bug. It choked out one last word just gasping for life. One last word.

Its last meaningful thought before it succumbed gratefully to the unknown.

Buzz?

It didn’t sound like a statement but rather a question. It was a question that Jelly was quite well acquainted with already and had asked her mother many times before (to the annoyance of her mother).

“Good question Mr Ladybug. Good question.”

She said sadly as she tried to stop more tears falling. It was her birthday. But she had no right to do wrong just because it was her birthday. Just because it was the day she came to life did not mean she could end a life. Balance didn’t work that way. It shouldn’t! She felt like a murderer. It was terrible. Why did she have to get annoyed! Why oh why oh WHY?!?!

Her mother came out wondering what was going on and found Jelly curled in a ball with her eyes shut tight. She put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder and asked what was wrong.

“I-I ...I ...got a-angry and st-st-st-stomped and murdered a p-p-poor innocent life.”

Her mother looked around and couldn’t find anything wrong. Then she saw it; the small red and black squashed bug. She silently laughed to herself and hugged Jelly tight.

“Shhh Jelly. Don’t cry. It’s alright. Sometimes things happen that we can’t help and we shouldn’t dwell on it or else we’ll end up making our future our past. Ok? Jelly?”

“Ok.”

Jelly looked up and had stopped crying. What was wrong with this place? She thought. If dying leads to a better place why would you stay here? She let herself be lead into the house making sure she didn’t forget her notebook, pencil, and magnifying glass.

“Now why don’t you get ready for your birthday party? That pretty dress is waiting for a beautiful princess to wear it. So you should tell her to get lost and wear it yourself.”

“Mum!!!”

“Just joking darling. You are the beautiful princess of course. Now be happy and enjoy your birthday!”

Jelly, still not completely cheered, tried to be encouraged by her mother’s words but couldn’t find it within her. She automatically put on her new dress without emotion and decided to look through her notebook at the footprints she had. She looked through each drawing trying to understand what the word buzz meant thinking it might unlock some hidden message that could distract her from her now murderer status. On the last page she found a page full of proper footprints all lined up in a way that looked like words.

Buzz Buzz, Buzz Buzz. Buzz Buzz Buzz Buzz. Buzz.

She said it over and over again and thought, because it was usually what happened, that it would make less and less sense as she repeated it. But the opposite happened. Her mouth opened in an o shape and then transformed into a small smiled.

It was an accident!