My bee fly Karkat story that I’m not gonna write properly is about Karkat hiding out at Kanaya’s hive for reasons that aren’t fully explicated at this effort level. You’d almost think it was a mere friendly visit, except that Karkat, amidst the sunlit rooms and the bright colours and the zombie attacks, is growing very very hivesick, yet does not leave for home.
He’d tried matching Kanaya’s sleep schedule at first, but the result was him wandering through Kanaya’s tower in a haze of exhaustion and light-blindness, while Kanaya avoided his company in favour of frolicking through the desert. Now they meet each other crosswise, at gloaming and dawn, and make half-asleep/half-awake small talk over grubloaf seasoned with plants that Kanaya has harvested by chainsaw.
Ok so today I was on the bus with another trans guy and we were talking about how hard it is to get testosterone. The waiting lists, the price, all the doctors you have to go to, that kind of stuff. Except, we were calling it ’T’, like you do when you’re both closeted and in public.
Then suddenly the elderly lady sitting behind us was like ‘young men, either I’m going crazy or you both have never heard of supermarkets, they have shelves full of tea there! Do you need directions to one?’
To which my buddy starts to explain, because why not. ‘Well you see, we’re both trans, and… ’
The lady didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence. ‘Oh no, I don’t mind that at all! Now do you want to know how to get to a place that sells tea? I’m actually heading there right now!’
We let her take us to the supermarket. We let her show us, excitedly, where the tea was. We both bought loads.
This is beautiful
Confused elderly lady doesn’t care if you’re trans or not. She just wants to make sure you’re stocked up on tea.
do you ever look back at a childhood memory and think that it should have by all rights become a significant theme in your life and you wonder why the fuck those things/people haven’t come back around yet and then remember that your life isn’t a perfectly plotted out novel?
Aww shucks. It’s almost like I asked for this opportunity. (I did. Thank you for indulging me, @laughingthelaughiest) General warnings for the description of things involved with terrible car accidents – aka screeching metal and lots of blood. Happy ending though, I promise! Nobody died.
I am six years old. My father plows snow in the winter months, which means that bolted onto the front of his work truck is a very heavy snow plow that – when not in use – rests primly about a foot above the ground like a lady lifting up her skirts as she steps over a puddle.
“Hey kiddo, do you want to come to work with me?” my dad asks one day during a relatively minor* snowstorm.
(* minor my ass)
Because there was nothing more exciting to me at this time in my life than sitting in a warm truck and watching what is essentially a large metal trough push tons of snow from one end of a parking lot to the other, I practically yell, “WHY YES DAD, THAT SOUNDS GREAT!!!” and we get in the truck.
Only instead of arriving at our intended destination, we encounter a car coming from the opposite direction that spins out on a patch of black ice and manages to hurtle broadside at full speed into the plow.
I am pretty much just flung forwards, and terrible things happen to my face when my body continues on its general trajectory towards the windshield. Thanks, momentum!
Luckily (and novel-like), there was a nurse a couple of cars behind us who stopped to see if everyone was okay. She opened my door to find that I was very clearly not okay, and while my father did his best to staunch the blood that was streaming down my face, she tasked herself with keeping me conscious until the paramedics arrived.
Being six and probably concussed, she didn’t talk to me about anything complicated. I did not know who the president was. I sure as heck couldn’t have told you the date. But my favorite subject in school? I know that! Reading! My favorite color? Yellow! My favorite animal? GIRAFFES.
It’s important at this stage to mention that this car accident occurred on a street where people lived, and there had been a group of boys playing in the snow two houses up from where the truck stopped. Boys + crushed cars + blood = apparently just riveting, because a couple of them were staring at me/the vehicles from a couple yards away.
At my presumably slurred but very enthusiastic response of “GIRAFFES!” one of these boys split off from the rest and hoofed it through the snow towards his house. I was too focused on wanting to sleep and the nurse not letting me to notice this, but it for sure happened. As you will see.
Several sirens later, I am loaded into the ambulance wearing a neck brace and what feels like all of the gauze on planet Earth. My dad climbs in next to me, and the paramedic is just about to shut the doors when there’s a very small voice from outside.
We are all as so:
My father: probably still terrified that I’m going to die, literally could not care less what this other tiny child who is not his has to say, wants to get to the hospital, still has to call and tell my mom that I’m injured
The paramedic: good at his job, knows I’m stable, has a moment to spare, leans back out of the ambulance.
Myself: still in shock, staring up at the rows of medical supplies and disgustingly bright lighting, more concerned that my dad will crush my fingers than anything else going on in, say, the bleeding face area. (Severe head injury? Who’s she? DAD I KNOW YOU LOVE ME BUT PLEASE LET GO OF MY HAND THAT HURTS.)
The boy who had hoofed it home and then evidently hoofed it right back: “Would you please give this to the little girl who got hurt?”
Me now in the year 2018: wanting to cry because I still can’t believe this is a real thing that happened to me in real life and it wasn’t a dream it was real
So the paramedic says “Yes, of course. She’ll love it!” or something equally as efficient because I am still technically quite injured and they really do need to get to the hospital at some point. The boy leaves, the door is shut, the paramedic sets something on the stretcher next to me.
[pause for dramatic effect]
We tried to find the kid who gave him to me, but nothing ever came of it. In the back of my fully healed head I’m still waiting for the novel that must be my life to shoehorn that boy back into the plot. Where are you, giraffe man? I have to thank you for the best gift I’ve ever been given.
i'll apple your turnover 