January Writing Challenge: First Impressions

Best Friends Forever...Glitter Included.


Clarisse blinked down stupidly at the tiny box in her hand.

“Jackey…” She said cautiously. “Darling, you know its not my birthday today, right?” She added softly, as if explaining to a child that the Eastern Bunny or Santa Claus was not real. It was the twenty-ninth of June.

Clarisse was born on the sixteenth of December.

Yet very clearly, in Jackeroe’s insane chicken scratch, were the words “Happy Birthday.”
Jackeroe seemed in no way disturbed by this fact and simply continued beaming, crossing his arms proudly over his chest. “I know.” Was all he said.

Clarisse had to resist the urge to shake her head. She loved Jackeroe as dearly as she could love any friend, but he was completely bonkers on most occasions. And prone to pranks, if she could recall. She had never been victim to them herself, but what was to stop him from starting now?

“Jackey…” She said again, her voice trailing off in a warning tone. She peeked up at him from her chair with suspicion. He simply regarded her eagerly, practically vibrating with anticipation. “Please, please open it!” He begged, his voice sharp with glee.

The nurse shook her head. What harm could it do? Smiling up at Jackeroe, she pulled the dainty silver bow off the box and opened the lid.

First impression: horror.

Thank god it didn’t write all over her face. She simply stared into the box for a moment, unable to believe just what Jackey had come up with this time.

It was pink.

It was sparkly.

It had little rhinestone encrusted hearts dangling off it.

It had…god forbid…glitter. The offending substance settled at the bottom of the box like toxic dust. She squinted at it for a moment and discovered a small plate on the bracelet that read “BEST FRIENDS” in looping, disgustingly ornate, pink font.

Her heart softened. Jackeroe dangled his wrist in front of her face. Glitter fell onto her nose and
she laughed a bit. His bracelet read: “FOREVER”

“Jackey…” She picked it up (discreetly careful not to allow the glittery eyesore anywhere near her black pantsuit). Sincerely she looked up into her friends eyes and did not lie.

“I love it.”

There is No Other Love Like the Love From a Brother


Lani pouted with his daddy in the car. “Lighten up little man.” His daddy said reaching over and ruffling his blonde hair. “You’re big brother now, you have to be a role model for you little sister.”

“I don’t wanna!” He cried and crossed his arms frowning deeply out the window. All they had been talking about for months was that little bump that Mommy had developed. She loved pressing his hands to it so he could feel the weird movements inside. She didn’t want to carry him anymore and he couldn’t sit on her belly as they roughhoused before Daddy made him go to bed.

“Oh Lani,” Daddy shook his head, “You’ll see. You’ll be the best big brother ever.”

Lani made a face and wiggled down in his seat to show his discontent. It was a long ride to the hospital. He remembered the excitement and hustle when Mommy first started feeling bad. He was almost left at home in the rush and confusion. Then Mommy had been taken into a room and Daddy had held him closely as they heard Mommy crying. Lani hadn’t been able to see his little sister then but now they were going back to see here. Daddy had picked him up from school and he had been dragging his feet everywhere today.

The hospital was big and white and smelled funny. Like the dentist only not so minty. “You’re almost seven now Lani, you’re practically a young man now.” Daddy said reassuringly to the little boy taking his hand in the parking lot.

“Do I have to?” Lani whined and made a face like he was going to cry. That face used to always work but now he was pushed aside and not even that face got to them.

“Yes.” His daddy said bluntly and pulled him into the building and up the swooshy thing. Daddy let him push the button to send them up to the fourth floor. It beeped every floor and instead of the excitement he usually got it was heavy dread that filled little Lani’s heart.

“Lani,” his mother said with a smile as he peeked over the bed, “Come meet you little sister.” She showed him an alien creature. He wrinkled his nose making her laugh. It had short stubby limbs and a small scrunched face that looked altogether inhuman. It had little tuffs of blond hair on its head and pudgy little hands. Lani reached a hand up and poked the things nose.

It opened its toothless mouth and eyes making a confused face and looking right at him. It blinked and looked at him with bright green eyes. He gaped at it. It was unnatural. It giggled suddenly in a high screechy sound. He blinked shocked at the noise. Mommy laughed, “Do you want to hold her?”

Lani looked at Mommy in shock and Daddy took the thing from the careful cradle in Mommy’s arms and had Lani mimic it and placed the little thing in his arms. It was so little and light but bright with life. “Her name is Caroline, Lani. Be a good big brother to her.” Daddy said hovering nearby. But Lani didn’t care anymore this little creature had him captivated.

“Caroline.” He repeated and a smile broke out on his face as he rocked the little girl. “I’m your big brother Lani.” He introduced himself. It reached out a little and touched his cheek. He beamed and hugged her close. “I’ll always protect you.”

Since going to college, Sean had engaged in no fewer than 137 acts which would merit confession at Church and of which his parents wouldn’t approve. He kept a mental list because he couldn’t help it. And while he kept track in his journal(s), he used only vague descriptions since not all of the acts were strictly legal. But he knew that his parents would be more upset about how he lost his virginity outside the confines of holy matrimony – and about the box of condoms he kept in his room – than they would about the marijuana use, even though the former was legal and the latter was not.

This was why he didn’t tell them.

They would also disapprove of his friends and his other extracurricular activities, the ones that didn’t involve carnal relations and recreational drugs. The gambling – although to his credit he never cheated or took advantage of his telepathy when playing cards.

The protests, rallies, and petitions against the status quo. As a white, Christian – although Catholic rather than Protestant but still Christian instead of Jewish, Muslim, or Hindu – heterosexual, upper-middle class man, the status quo tended to benefit him. Just as it benefitted his parents. If not for being meta – if not for being a telepath – he likely wouldn’t understand its faults either. But his eyes were open and in good conscience he couldn’t keep silent. His priests would have approved of the anti-war/anti-nuclear arms rallies and likely the hunger petitions, but not of the others. His parents didn’t want him lowering himself.

Most egregious of all, the fact that on more than one occasion he’d accompanied a girl to Planned Parenthood; his size gave them a sense of security as people were less likely to try to intimidate a man who towered over them. His gentle spirit and quiet nature kept them from feeling as though he judged them for their decisions. The fact that he had a car of his own provided safe transportation. No, under no circumstances would his parents ever approve of that. He knew their opinions after Roe had dropped from the Supreme Court a few years back, and while this had been legal in New York prior to the case, his parents disapproved.

At any rate, they didn’t like his earring. They didn’t like his sideburns, and they didn’t like the bellbottom jeans he wore. But they valued higher education and thus they didn’t argue that he shouldn’t waste his time, although they occasionally made noise about him not going to Notre Dame. The fact that he wouldn’t have lasted a day at a school that big didn’t enter into his parents’ end of the equation.

Oddly enough, he fit at NYU. He fit better at NYU than he did at Hammel, but that was because nobody was afraid of him, and he was no longer afraid of his powers which allowed him to have more natural interactions with others. Instead of clinging to Robert’s shirt tails like a frightened child.

He was comfortable here, in the middle of the Village surrounded by other students his age, some of whom considered themselves radicals.

They’d sectioned off the lounge in the chemistry building for their weekly social justice meeting. The Pizza Wars had ended officially, yet occasionally some of the local establishments would get into a pricing competition, which benefitted his friends because most of them had no spending money. Their campus jobs didn’t pay well, and their parents had cut them off for their involvement in protests. Sean wasn’t alone in that regard. Pizza, chips, beer, and copies of the New York Times and the Village Voice. What more did college students need?

“Someone new is coming today. Do you think there’s enough food?”

Sean handed Greg a beer and eyed the pile of pizza boxes; there were four pies and enough liquor to get them all arrested for so much as breathing at a police officer. “Unless our guest is a black hole, I can’t see how we’d run out of food.”

“Good.” Greg smiled and popped off the bottle cap. “I don’t know much about him, but he’s a freshman. Lots of strong opinions. Cares about the cause.”

“Did you invite him?”

“Yeah. He came over to sign the nuclear arms petition and then we started talking. Really passionate guy.”

That sounded fine to the telepath. They needed all of the help they could get, and passion made for justice. It was hard to accomplish anything if nobody believed in the cause.

The rest of their small band of merry men and women began to wander in one-by-one, settling into their usual chairs or on the floor, drinking, eating, and talking. Yet the newcomer wasn’t among them.

“Did you tell him where to go?”

“Of course I did.”

“He’s a freshman, right? Did you check to see if he knew where this building was?”

“Of course I-damn.” Greg shook his head at his own mistake and then pushed up from the floor. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll see if I can find him. But if I’m not back in ten, start without me.”

As tended to happen when the well-meaning group of radicals got together, they spent a few minutes chatting about Jimmy Carter and how he wasn’t living up to their expectations, although everyone was happy that he wasn’t Ford, or worse, Nixon. Still no sign of Greg. Still no sign of a random freshman.

Sean was just getting ready to start the meeting up when the door opened and Greg returned with a triumphant smile. Beside him was a young man who just had to be the freshman; he was younger than the rest of them and he still had that new look about him, the look of opportunity before school bureaucracy and classes crushed his spirit.

He was short. Not extremely short, but shorter than six feet, and thin, and his glasses were thick – reminiscent of Buddy Holly at best, and Kissinger at worst. Perish the thought. Like Sean, he hadn’t been shaving, which was commonplace in college. But his hair was short, instead of the longer styles that most of the young men had adopted, and he dressed like he shopped only at stores in the Village. He looked a little intimidated. Likely because he was surrounded by upper classmen rather than being isolated as most freshmen were.

“Everybody,” Greg began, pushing the freshman forward to sit in one of the remaining chairs, “This is Josh, the frosh I told you about.”

There were murmurs of greeting and smiles, and someone tossed Josh a beer which he managed to fumble before dropping it to the ground. Thankfully it didn’t shatter.

“We have a lot of things to do tonight. We need to put the finishing touches on our proposal to the administration, and if they reject it, we need to plan a rally” Sean explained, once everyone was settled again. “Have you ever been to one before?”

“Plenty. My mom used to take me and my brother and sister to rallies all the time when I was growing up. She taught me all the marching tunes, and I’ve been making signs since I could hold a marker.”

It was the most astounding thing that the telepath had ever heard. A parent who actively participated in protesting? They had professors who participated, some of whom had even been radical in the 60s, but they were in the minority there, and they weren’t Sean’s parents’ age. He tried to imagine his mother: manicured hands, properly coiffed hair and all marching for anything, let alone against an authoritative body such as the university…or the Church. His mind rebelled at the thought, unable to reconcile his mother with something as radical as a rally.

“Do you have any tips?”

“Haven’t you ever planned a rally before?” Josh asked. The fact that the question was blunt didn’t occur to the freshman.

“A couple, but never against the administration.” They’d all seen their fair share of rallies and protests since getting to college, but many had taken place off campus in the middle of the City, and a few hadn’t even been in the City. The ones on campus had been for broader social justice issues that didn’t implicate the university; those were the ones they had a direct hand in planning so far. “We’re upping the ante with this one.”

“Upping the ante how?”

“They might have us arrested,” Sandra explained from the chair across from Sean. “For trespassing if nothing else. Or they might try to break up our club.”

“Really?” Josh seemed surprised, which was to be expected. Even if he had gone with his mother to protest, he was still on his own for the first time, responsible for his own actions. It had to be surprising to think that he could get in trouble so early on. Nobody had discussed that during orientation.

“Yeah. You should know what the risks are, getting mixed up with us. You’ve only been here a couple of months and it’d be awful for you to get caught up in all this without knowing the risks.”

“Well, what are you trying to get the school to do?”

“We want them to write out a formal non-discrimination policy, and we want it to be expansive,” Sean explained. Setting down his plate, he refilled through the pile of papers they’d brought with their itinerary. Finding the proposal, he handed it over to the freshman. “Ideally, we want it to apply to students and to faculty.”

Josh took the paper and read through it, a look of concentration on his fresh features. When he reached the end, he cracked a smile and handed the pages back to Sean. “Sign me up.”

Glad that they hadn’t managed to scare off the freshman – and feeling that they’d fulfilled their duty of giving him fair warning of possible arrest or other negative consequences – they settled in for the rest of their meeting. They bounced ideas off each other for planning. And Josh fit right in, airing his opinions about the government and his problems with bureaucracy, and how he didn’t understand why so many kids his age didn’t seem to care.

When all was said and done they had a game plan. Everyone was going to plaster a portion of campus with flyers and talk to people in their dorms or other classes.

There was pizza left over which Greg laid claim to, along with half a six pack. As the members dispersed, the telepath was eventually left alone with their newcomer. “Do you need help finding your way back?”

“I think so. I’m at Gramercy.”

Sean smiled at that and reached for his jacket. “I lived there freshman year too. How do you like it?”

“It’s different. I’m not used to being around so many guys.”

“It takes some getting used to.” Sean had been used to it, due to his years at Hammel, but he knew that people were used to living at home with their families, perhaps having their own rooms to boot.

They left the building and walked down the block. Sean knew this area of the city by heart, could navigate with his eyes closed. This was useful considering how dark it was thanks to the time change. They chatted about classes on the way. When they reached the building, Sean was prepared to leave him there, but Josh stopped him. “Do you really think we’ll get arrested?”

“Probably not, but if we’re enough of a nuisance, it’s possible. I can’t rule it out.”

Josh was thoughtful for a moment. Then he shook his head and said, “That’s okay. There are three lawyers who go to my synagogue. One of them will bail us out.”