Beautiful Things Can Come From the Dark

Incoherent mumbling escaped the slightly parted lips of the sleeping young woman by the name of Josephine Charleston as she laid underneath a mountain of blanket in her king sized bed, every inch of her body, except for her nose and feet, covered by the thick blankets.

“Born of a broken man, but not a broken man, born of a broken man, never a broken man!” cried Zach de la Rocha, the lead singer of the band Rage Against the machine, passionately, his powerful voice causing her to stir slightly.

“To fucking early,” muttered Josephine, chucking a nearby pillow towards her nightstand where her iPhone was docked on its corresponding BOSE speaker system.

Ideally, the pillow would’ve smacked the speaker system off the stand and the intensity of the fall would turn off the speakers but her half assed plan didn’t work, it never did. Instead the pillow hit the wall behind the nightstand, leaving the music to grow louder with each passing second until Josephine could no longer stand it.

“Demonic noise,” mumbled Josephine groggily, walking towards the nightstand that was on the other side of the room to turn off the alarm on her phone.

Most people wouldn’t place their phone on the other side of the room. Most people would put it right beside their bed to better hear it but Josephine’s not most people.

She tried having her phone nearby but after destroying five phones by throwing them at the wall she decided that keeping them at a safe distance would not only save her money but would also force her to really wake up and not just press the snooze button.

Her index finger quickly pressed the off square on the screen of her iPhone, silencing the song that somehow always managed to wake her up at five in the morning. Josephine had gone through various songs as alarms and Born of a Broken Man by Rage Against the Machine was the only one that ever managed to wake her up.

Josephine scratched her wild messy dark brown hair with her right hand, flicking on the light with her left. She was momentarily blinded by the bright light that came on, but her eyes soon adjusted enough for her to rummage through her drawers for clothes to wear for the day.

Dark wash skinny jeans along with a faded Thrice band shirt that showed off the sleeve of tattoos on her right arm were quickly thrown on. Her green eyes darted towards her right wrist where the phrase, “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth,” was etched into her flesh in black ink.

A soft smile tugged at her lips when she remembered how much her mom had freaked out when she had seen the words on her daughter’s wrist for the very first time. Leonora had literally blown a fuse when she saw it; it had been the first tattoo that Josephine had gotten so her mom wasn’t to keen on it.

With time Leonora grew more comfortable with the tattoos that her daughter decorated her body with because Josephine explained the meaning that each one had and how they were a form of expression, an art form, if you will.

Leonora had a chance to see all the tattoos that adorned her daughter’s arm, all except for one, the most important one and most likely the one that she would have liked best for it was a portrait of her that Josephine had had done a little while after Leonora had lost her battle to cancer.

She soon snapped out of her thoughts and grabbed the keys from her dresser along with a black jacket that was resting on her massive reading chair so that she could head down to the bakery that she owned in Forks.

“Take me down to the paradise city where the grass is green and the girls are pretty. Oh, won't you please take me home!” sang Josephine terribly off key during her drive to Nora’s Organic Pastries.

It was a short ten minute drive that she could have easily walked but walking around the streets at 5 am in the bitter cold is not a pleasant thing to do, plus her cars a hybrid so it’s more environmentally friendly than the big trucks that the rest of the townspeople own.

“Good morning Joey!” greeted Caroline, a middle aged waitress from the diner across the street.

Josephine closed her car door, “Morning Carol! Are you heading home?”

“Yes, I am,” answered Caroline, clutching her hands to her body for warmth, “My shift just ended so I got to wake the kids up, cook them some breakfast and pack their lunch before catching some sleep.”

“How the hell do you manage to do all that? I’d sit down and cry if I had to,” joked Josephine, her nose turning slightly pink from the cold.

Caroline chuckled softly. “Well then it’s a good thing that you don’t have to. That reminds me! Did you hear what happened last night?”

Josephine shook her head.

“Well apparently there was a pretty nasty car accident out by La Push late last night. Your brother, or at least I think it was your brother or maybe it was Paul, lord knows that those two look like twins, I digress, well apparently one of them saved the person inside and brought them to the hospital and now they’re living with them,” gossiped Caroline.

“It definitely wasn’t Paul then, he’s a minor, he can’t take care of anyone but why didn’t Sam call me? Fuck. I'm going to call and bitch right now!” muttered Josephine. “Thanks Caroline.”

Keys were put in the lock by Josephine who was aching to get into the warm bakery that smelled of cinnamon and sugar. She quickly turned the doorknob and bolted in, rushing towards the thermostat so that she could turn on the heater.

“SAM ULEY, YOU BASTARD!” screeched Josephine into her phone.

His groggy voice came from the other line, “What do you want? It’s five thirty.”

“You know exactly what I want! Why didn’t you tell me that there’s a new addition to your household?! Of all people you should know that I love emergency room stories and if you didn’t want me in the room then you could’ve at least called to tell me! I had to hear it from Caroline! Caroline of all people! She’s always the last to know gossip,” rambled Josephine, not stopping to take a single breath.

Sam yawned loudly. “It happened really late last night; I didn’t want to wake you up because you’re a fucking bitch when you get woken up.”

“Oh hush up flea balls!” exclaimed Josephine, smirking inwardly because she knew how offended her half brother got whenever she told him that his balls were the size of a flea’s.

“For the hundredth time I am NOT taking steroids!” shouted Sam into the phone.

Josephine scoffed. “Then explain to me why you got all ripped overnight and have a nasty temper? Oh what’s that? You can’t because you’re on fucking steroids. Now I have to get to work but expect me for dinner.”

“Who says we want you over for dinner?” Sam joked, wanting to get under her skin like she had his.

“Sam, you can’t be a dick to me. I'm your big sister so shut up before I lay down the law via foot to ass.” His laughter filled her ears. “Ah nice to hear you laugh. See you later Sam!”

Shortly thereafter Josephine lost herself in her massive kitchen, getting together the different mixes for the various pastries that the bakery was famous for. Bakeries tend to have a staff of four or five bakers working at a time but Josephine didn’t like the idea of having to share her kitchen.

To Josephine her kitchen was her little slice of heaven, it was where she could blast music loudly, sing off tune, and put her heart into every batch she makes. Adding people to the equation would force her to take them into consideration and that would undoubtedly lead to changes in her system that would throw her groove off.

“Working at a bakery is by far the worst idea I’ve ever had,” complained Christopher, who works the cash register.

Josephine shot him a questioning look while placing a tray of muffins in the oven. “Why?”

“Because all the delicious food if making me HUGE! It’s like everything is so good so I, uh, you know? It’s so hard to not eat a little cookie here and a little there when there are delicious cookies EVERYWHERE!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “I am going to have to go on a killer diet in order to be hot for PRIDE in the summer and bitch you better not laugh because your ass is going on the diet with me.”

“Oh no, no, no,” Josephine placed her hands on her hips. “You may need to be stick thin to be happy but I am perfectly happy with this voluptuous figure! Plus, people expect their bakers to be a bit overweight because that’s proof that they know how to cook and make delicious food.”

“Hate you,” hissed Chris playfully.

Josephine shot him a kiss, “Love you, but you need to get your ass to the register! I heard the bell ding and our hungry patrons must be satisfied!”

“Work! Work! Work! It’s always work with you! I’ll go but you have to promise to make me that cake you made me other day, the one that made me have an orgasm and I licked off of Brian’s d . . .”

“Licked what off Brian?” came Mika’s voice from the doorway, her hazel green eyes glinting mischievously.

“Thanks for gracing us with your presence today; we thought you were only working weekends.”

Mika shook her head, “Nah, I changed my schedule so I only have class Tuesday-Thursday which means I can work four days a week if you let me.”

“That actually works out way better, now I won’t have Chris bitching about my overworking him.”

“I don’t bitch,” Chris placed his hand on his chest to show his indignation, “I simply say things that should be known.”

“Well then go say things to Mika out front. I have to finish this order for some company in Seattle.”

With that Josephine returned her attention to the batter she was mixing, eager to get through the day in order to meet the stranger that her brother had saved.