Splattered Dreams

Tuesday mornings in the city lights were always filled with kids running around the infested streets. The stardust blanketed any traces of dimly lit shadows and illuminated any untold secrets of the night. Whispers bounced off the corridors of the alleyways, but no sounds ever emitted off the piano keys of apartment twenty-two.

There were no longer any screams entering through the paper-thin walls or murmurs heard from next door. Silence now deafened and the clock ceased to tick, making any words refuse to click together in synchronized harmony. Notes never made past the music sheets and the delicate keys collected dust as times clashed with one another.

With a final slam of the door, no more cries were heard again and the past lingered for a moment before it disappeared. Music from the piano never flew through the atmosphere again, for Grace Daniels was always too busy listening to the familiar keys on her laptop click as the words of her imagination appeared on the screen.

She took a sip of her vanilla latte as she checked the clock. One-twenty-six in the morning. Her English teacher would expect the first draft of her essay to be on her desk by eight o’clock, but she still had five pages of her imagination that she needed to transfer onto the blank Word document.

At the age of seventeen, Grace Daniels still had the terrible habit of procrastinating, until realization struck her like lightning and made her work in complete frenzy. She had acquired that habit when she had first discovered it in seventh grade, but had never learned how to let go of it, and in doing so, she was often careless when it came to time management.

She wondered how she was going to finish her assignment on time, but this thought should have been the last thing on her mind, if she wanted to earn a minimum of three hours of sleep and be able to function properly at school. She knew that she could always hand it in late, but she didn’t want to see the disapproving look she would receive from her English teacher, Mrs. Morrison.

Grace ran a hand through her tangled-mess of brown hair and sighed. She knew that she should have gotten a cup of coffee with an extra shot of espresso at the local coffee shop instead of her cold vanilla latte, but she hadn’t considered how late she would have been staying up for. The vanilla latte left a disgustingly sweet taste on her lips and made her cringe in discomfort.

“I’m never going to finish this on time,” Grace thought, as she began typing away the creative writing piece she should have written at least four hours ago. Her filed nails started stomping on the delicate white keys, and she cringed at the noise they made. She couldn’t help feeling resentment towards her English teacher; she had nothing against the kind woman, but the effects of a lack of sleep were beginning to affect her moods.

She knew that she would be entirely grateful if she were able to type a thousand words per minute, but if only she could do the impossible, then perhaps she wouldn’t have been trapped in this situation.



That same morning, Grace woke up to the blaring noise of her silver alarm clock. Her once closed eyes shot open in panic, and she noticed that she must have fallen asleep on top of her laptop keyboard. Remembering that she had never printed out her assignment, she frantically moved her finger on the mousepad to awaken it. As the five-page creative writing piece began to print, Grace ran around from room to room, looking for clothes to wear for school and completing the rest of her daily morning routine.

By the time she finished getting ready, her homework was printed and stapled together in a neat, thin stack. She grabbed the coffee cup her older sister left for her on the kitchen counter, and before she knew it, she was out the front door and bolted to the nearest subway station to get to school.

After Grace entered the school building and walked into the English room on the second floor, she was greeted by her dear friend, Kristy Anderson.

“Well, don’t you look alive this morning,” Kristy noted. “You certainly don’t remind me of death at the moment.”

Grace playfully glared at her friend’s idea of a joke and sat down on the seat next to hers. “Don’t start with me, Kristine. I had a long night.”

Kristy had a knowing smile on her face and stifled a laugh at her friend’s tendency to procrastinate, choosing to shake her head in mock disapproval instead. “Apparently, you did. Your eyes look more tired than ever, and you have a coffee cup in your hand. You weren’t staying up all night finishing the English homework, were you?”

“Maybe,” Grace answered, “but you already know the answer to that. I’m just glad that I’ll never have to go through something like that ever again.”

“Oh, yes, because starting your homework at one in the morning is such a terrifying experience,” Kristy remarked, the sarcasm evident in her voice. “I’ll have to remind myself to never stay up that late doing homework.”

Grace ignored her comment. “Are you doing anything after school? I need to go downtown and look for a new book to read.”

“Of course you do. You’re the bookworm of this friendship, remember?” Kristy prompted, smiling. “But I’m afraid I can’t. My brother is making me paint foam spheres for his science project.”

“Well, you can’t blame him for ‘making’ you do it when you volunteered to do it in the first place.”

“True. But you’re also the art freak here, not me.”

“Grace and Kristine, if you don’t mind disrupting my class any further with your endless chatter, then perhaps one of you would like to read your story out loud to the class,” Mrs. Morrison said, giving them both a disapproving look, but also having a concealed glint of humor in her eyes. After all, she remembered when she was seventeen and would always gossip with her close friends during class.

The two friends exchanged brief glances before declaring that the other would like to volunteer. They knew that this wasn’t going to get them anywhere, so Kristy, the more audacious of the two, let out a sigh before walking towards the front of the classroom to read her short story to the class. Every person in the room began to dive into her story as the plot started to unfold itself in front of them.

The rest of the day was uneventful for both Grace and Kristy. Classes had gone by in an insipid blur, but they were both glad that school was over. Kristy quickly bid her friend goodbye and took a taxi home, so she could help her eleven-year-old brother with his science project.

Grace ran down the stairs toward the station booth to buy a new MetroCard, because she had left hers at home. She swiped her MetroCard through the turnstile and walked through it before she stood alone on the platform, waiting for the local train to come.



The secondhand bookstore in downtown New York was unsurprisingly quiet in the late afternoon. Most pedestrians often overlooked the store, choosing either to walk into an overpriced boutique or to grab a bite to eat at one of the overrated restaurants in the area. Grace, on the other hand, preferred a trip to the bookstore over a clothing store any day.

When she entered the store, she heard the wind chimes clink together, creating a soft melody for a moment, before the song abandoned the atmosphere and allowed the silence to return. The scent of old paperback books greeted her as the nostalgia began to disappear, making her feel as if she was back where she belonged. She noticed that only a few people were here, but she was glad to find this place nearly empty.

She walked towards the bookcase on the other side of the store, going towards the corner that people often neglected. She raked a row of tattered books, until she found a captivating title. The book was in better condition compared to the others, but it couldn’t have been a terrible read if it had earned a spot on this shelf—she had noticed that all of the books on this particular bookcase were at least a decent read.

With the small book in her hand, she made her way to the cash register, noticing how the shelves of books faded past her. She laid the paperback onto the counter and looked through her bag for her wallet. “Hey, Kris. How are you?” she asked, still looking through her disorganized bag. It really was unfortunate that she had terrible organization skills; after all, it was extremely difficult for her to look for what she wanted when everything was misplaced.

“I’m great. Thanks for asking. But if you don’t mind, I prefer to be called Ethan.”

Graced looked up from what she was doing and saw a boy who was around her age or perhaps a couple of years older. He had disheveled dark brown hair that looked like he ran his hand through it several times and piercing blue eyes. He also had an amused expression on his face, but tried to hide the smirk that was undoubtedly playing on his lips. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were Kris,” she apologized, feeling a slight blush creep up her already tinted pink cheeks.

He laughed, unable to hide his amusement at her mistake any further and unknowingly making her feel even more embarrassed. It was tempting for Grace to just leave the store and purchase the book another time, when he wasn’t there, but she settled on playing with the hem of her shirt. After all, her cheeks were already a soft shade of crimson and leaving the store wouldn’t make much of a difference.

“I kind of figured that out when you accidentally called me by his name, but hey, I’m Ethan,” he said, ringing up the price of the book and placing it in a small plastic bag with the store’s logo.

“Hi, Ethan.” Grace finally found her wallet and handed him a crisp ten dollar bill before she placed her new purchase into her canvas tote.

There was a slight pause, until he asked, “Aren’t you going to tell me your name?”

“I don’t see the need for me to do so.”

He looked surprised by her answer, but still had that smile on his face. “Well, most people tend to reply back with their own name, so wouldn’t it make sense for you to do the same?”

“Well, I like to think that I don’t belong under the category of ‘Most People.’”

Ethan smirked, liking the girl already. She mustn’t have recognized him, but they had been in the same art class since last year. Of course, they had never spoken to each other prior to their encounter today, but he wondered why he never built up the courage to speak to her. She was harmless enough, after all.

“Good. I like people who don’t like to fit in,” he said before mentally slapping himself. I like people who don’t like to fit in? What’s the matter with you, Ethan? Pull it together, man, before you really embarrass yourself.

Grace sensed that he was struggling with something by his new formed expression, but couldn’t tell what it was and decided to shrug it off as if it was nothing, because she thought that it really wasn’t anything of importance. “Well, I better get going. I’ll see you later?”

“Yeah,” he said, biting his lip. “Wait.”

She turned around and faced again. “Yeah?”

“Do you want to go out for coffee some time?”

Grace looked surprised by his question. Well, she certainly wasn’t expecting that, but she smiled anyway. “I don’t even know you,” she prompted.

“But doesn’t that make it more spontaneous and enhance the mysterious aura?”

“Perhaps.”

“Well, we go to the same school, and we’re in the same art class.”

Damn. This guy is really persistent, she thought. But she couldn’t help but adore how straightforward he was. “Then, I guess you’ll find out your answer tomorrow in art.”