Okay. So here is the start of the add on short story game. To sign up please see the sign up post here http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=261724 ALSO please put ALL comments in the sign-up page so we can keep this story flowing I will post first. Next up is Iliana (Autentique) Her name was Charisma. She could see her breath, a white steamy puff of air against the cold, dark sky. She gazed downward…hoping to see bare feet with dainty painted toes digging gently into the warm desert sand…but all she saw was clunky black boots sinking into the mud. Sigh. Charisma was a beautiful woman in her late twenties, but she was feeling like a child of 8; vulnerable, confused, and missing her parents. A path out of the woods led her to a painfully dark highway. She began walking and wishing without purpose. Four miles later Charisma saw a large road sign. 5 miles to Derry. With a gasp, she realized…she was left, dumped, abandoned…back in cold, rural New Hampshire.
Her steps were impatient. She was already outside but kept looking for the exit. Anxiety was slowly taking over as she took a cigarette out of her jacket. The fire close to her lips always brought back memories. A private conversation was taking place drag, after drag. "Cigarettes always make the best company", she thought and threw the pack away as she enjoyed her last one. Charisma was tired and filled with thirst. So many steps and it still like the same place, darkness, silence and loneliness all around her. She stopped suddenly, unsure of what she sensed. She bit her lower lip and pushed her hair out of her face as she looked to her left. Glowing in the distance there was a hypnotizing single light, she stared at it, without knowing for how long and finally shook her head and kept her journey. Not long passed before she stopped again. A sound crept into her ears and enticed her to turn around. Charisma's feet now danced with curiosity as she got closer to the distant light, forgetting completely that with every new step, she was getting farther from her destination.
It was then that she saw a beautiful unicorn coming out of the light, and the unicorn looked just like the unicorn posters she had all over her wall at home. She was such a beautiful person that the unicorn wasn't afraid, and together they frolicked in a beautiful garden full of wonderful hippies and one gay man.
Then Charisma woke from her dream of unicorns. She couldn't believe she had fallen asleep. It must have been all the walking she thought. And that light...was that a dream too? She looked around and saw no glow anywhere. After about 10 minutes of recovering from her nap, still groggy, she began her journey again...not knowing where she was going. Up ahead she saw street lights. A building. A PERSON! A mild smirk emerged from her lips and her slow walk became a light trot towards what she assumed was Derry, NH. She walked up to the stranger, unsure of what to say or ask...she was lost afterall. Stunned, she realized she had been staring at this man in disbelief without saying a word. "You okay there lil darlin'?" The hefty man asked. He looked to be in his 50's or so and wore a button-up flannel shirt, jeans, and boots. Charisma thought he looked like a lumberjack. "Uh. Yeah..no. I don't know." She replied. "Let's get you inside" the lumberjack man suggested softly. There was a kindness to the tone of his voice. She looked at the building he was gesturing at and realized it was a diner. WOW, I'm actually starving and haven't noticed she thought. After finished up her meal of chicken fingers, fries, and a diet coke, she realized she was so focused on her food she hadn't noticed her surroundings. There were two other people in the diner. They had watched her gorge down her food. "Do you have a phone I could use?" she asked the kind lumberjack. "Sure thing missy," and he pointed toward the counter at an old rotary-style phone. "Thanks." She approached the phone, picked up the reciever, and that's when it hit her. Who? Where? Charisma didn't know a soul.
That's the problem with the road... everything sort of gets internalized. Friends you believe to exist are completely untraceable. Running across them again makes the reunions even more emotionally taxing. She held the receiver in her hands and to her surprise there was no dial tone. Turning around she found not a table of kind strangers, but wasteland. Vultures and all. She realized for the first time in years that she was completely and totally lost. New Hampshire doesn't have deserts and vultures... perhaps pine barrens. Perhaps. Two steps forward into the empty plain returned her again to the lumberjack's table. That's when the questions started. Somehow she couldn't force herself to listen again but instead recited her lines like the broadway actress she dreamed of being when she was 8. "About 3 years" "I don't know... I just felt like it" "Not really, I make it by on the kindness of strangers" "Dangerous is really a matter of perspective... no more dangerous than walking down the street really... for a very long time..." "I don't think they know where I am... I don't know, we haven't spoken in a while" And the sadness welled up inside her like high tide into a marsh... life returning to her sulfur stinking soul, then the tears began. It wasn't every time, only when she knew for certain she was alone. There are times when it's not a wasteland but a glowing light in the distance, a destination far off that she was all but 5 miles from. With no money offered or expected she was in an old pick-up truck, sitting in silence... only 2 miles from Derry now. Did it matter? Somehow the light she was heading towards was fixed and variable, at times very close, unwavering, a mountain; other times cloaked in darkness, representing that place she can't seem to get to... the place it all began.
she looked at the face of the man behind the wheel, kind and worn. Charisma thought about where he might be from and where he was going before they crossed paths. she wanted to ask him, she wanted to ask him lots of things, but for once she just couldnt find the words. there were so many things to say but no right way to say any of them. just staring ahead kind of made her feel comfortable, that same kinda comfortable that comes with the familiar security of home and knowing the place where you stand like it belonged to you. For her that was her home....the distance. What lie ahead WAS what she knew as if she owned it, because she did. the future was hers to mold and bounce around in as she wished. Which was just the thing that made her smile and ask, "
Then she was five again and being dragged around by her mother. "Where can I get a job around here, where can I get a job" dirty panty-hose left in the sink, a strange man sitting on the toilet with the bathroom door left open, first thing in the morning. Even at that age, Charisma had to wonder why her mothers jobs, always lasted just a matter of days. So here she was years later, her mother, no use to anyone, in a bed staring at the ceiling, while a nurse, sometimes gentle, sometimes rough, depending on the mood, day and person, sponged her down, fed her and plonked her in front of the TV. Charisma was miles away and still she searched, following those clues, found under a cupboard, a letter in the back of the wardrobe, did any of it mean anything anyway and more importantly had she inherited her mothers madness?
She settled for the night in a motel called the Waves Motel. She was in Hampton Beach, NH now. She took out the letter she found in the back of the wardrobe and read it over. A few sentences stuck out in her mind, "Christine, every time I visit that spot, I think of the love we had. I think of the breeze kissing our cheeks as we laughed and drank on that little private beach we'd sneak into every night that summer. You know that beach is closed off completely now? Strange, how things happen. I can't even visit anymore. I sit in the parking lot overlooking the area by the tall grass that we used to set up our blanket and make love all night. I'd love to meet Charisma." Who is this man? Why did he write to my mother? Could this man be my real father? She thought to herself. She was so lost in her journey. What was she even searching for? She wondered if she should go back home and visit her mother-get these questions answered. She picked up the old, dirty phone sitting on the bedside table. She began dialing...1....836....she hung up. She couldn't bare to burden anyone. She couldn't bear talking to anyone at that moment.
She noticed on the back of the note that it was signed "Nikolai Virkurovsky". It all began to make sense. Charisma never knew her father growing up and she always wondered why she was much lighter skinned than her beautiful Indian mother. Whenever she asked her mom about her father, the subject was changed. Charisma gave up and stopped asking after she reacher her teen years. "My father's Russian" she muttered under her breath. "I'm half Russian?" she asked aloud, even though she knew she was the only one around" She eventually fell asleep and arose the next morning around 10:00. Charisma had decided that whatever amnesia state had struck her, it didn't matter. She only wanted to learn one thing anyway...one thing she never knew. Where was her father? After showering, dressing, and choking down the lovely continental breakfast the Waves Motel had to offer, she headed down to the public library to do some research on 'Virkurovsky". Superpages.com showed nothing for her area and it dawned on her that if her father lived in the area, she'd probably know him. After 3 hours in the library on the net, she had found nothing. Private detective? With what money? Charisma needed money..and fast. She realized she only had $20 in her pocket and nowhere to stay.
She came out of the library and settled herself down on a bench outside. Her head was spinning now. "How can there be so many questions with no answers to them??" she thought. She reached into her jacket for a cigarette only to remember that she had finished them yesterday. "Damn it." she cursed softly. Without hesitating, she got up from her bench and started to walk across the road to a convenience store. As she neared the store, she heard someone shout her name. "Charisma !! Charisma !!" Charisma stopped and turned to the left where she thought she heard the voice. But there was no one there at all. "Oh god, what's wrong with me? I so need a smoke right now."
"You know, these things weel keeel you." And she turned around and he was there. He had one of those big fuzzy hats--- what are they called? Like Arnold Schwarzenegger wore in 'Red Heat'. "Thanks! I needed a cigarette ever since I got drunk and threw up on my last pack." He lit the cigarette coolly. "I from leetle town in Russia call Perm. They call town Perm because many fossils from Permian era there. Many scientists too. It only place on earth have many creature survive Permian-Triassic extinction event." "Well, I've never heard of it." "It very famous in geological history field." "Sounds boring." "Ha ha ha ha. It is! It most boring place ever! But, my home, so I love." "You know, your accent makes me totally hot." He smiled like a fox in heat. "You American beeches like to fuck nice Russian gentleman, no?" "No. I was being sarcastic." "You rude little mouth one day wake up laced with caesium of unspecified potency." "Uh, whatever. Now... if you'll excuse me, I don't TALK to creepy old Russian men who look almost exactly like me." And she wandered into the endless forking of the streets, wondering where her father could possibly be.
It was then that she noticed that the elastic on her panties was broken. The panties had worked loose and were sliding down under her dress. This was not only uncomfortable. It would soon be noticed by passers-by. She needed a ladies washroom quickly, so she hurried into the nearest establishment, a bar called "Harry's". Going in to the ladies' room to strip off her panties, she reflected on how odd it was that, though the place was very busy, there were no men in the bar.
