Connie Maheswaran: Distance

Chapter One -Books-

      Sitting on her bed with back against the wall, Connie Maheswaran wondered if she should do anything else after her hour long study session of the day. She had finished up her lessons for the day half an hour ago, and now she thought that maybe she should do something to pass the time.

     She didn't have her phone; her mom believed it best to keep it away from her for the time being, at least until the term tests were over.

     There really didn't seem to be much to do. All the books in the shelf by the door were read entirely. 'Maybe re-reading a book couldn't hurt?' Thought Connie hesitantly. (Being a firm believer in the 'if-you-read-abook-too-much-you'll-get-bored-of-it, she might not have completely been sure of re-reading a book, but if there's nothing to do, something must be done)

     Slowly she scooched off her bed and went towards her bookshelf.

     "'Emiliano runs again', 'Destiny's End'.. uh, no, not gonna start from the last book, that'll ruin it," Eyes searching for something good to read, it took a while to look at the top shelf, where a row of books were lined up further forward than the rest, because a row of books was stuffed at the back, "Hm, there could be a forgotten book in the dust."

     Connie pulled up the wooden chair at her computer desk, lifting it up and setting it right in front of the shelf. She got up on to the chair, looking at the books in the front row.

     "Read them.. read that, and that.."

     And the books were rooted out of their place, dust being scraped out from the uncleaned shelf as the stories and textbooks were thrown on to the floor by their owner.

     The first row of books were gone, and Connie could finally see a row of books stuffed into the back, dustier and older and less tended to than all the books in the other levels.

     Slim, short books limply curled in the middle of heavier, larger books, along with a mixing contrast of books of many sizes and colours. This was where the books were left in before, since they couldn't get the other books to fit in the same row. It was Doug's idea. He said that as a father he felt that it was his duty to get his kids' books to fit in a shelf, as his father managed to help him store all his old comic-books and classics in a two-rowed, rather small shelf.

     "'No home boys', that was Steven's favourite. He used to read them to me when I came over. And there's the old stories I wrote.." Connie found printed pages from Buddy Budwick's old journal entries. Thankfully, Steven never found out about how she'd taken copies off of the book. She wasn't sure of how he'd react to that.

     Old letters she'd written to Steven, one apology letter to jeff, older letters to people she talked to at school and felt shy around them and little essays, more books, filled the row of untended writings. Then after thinking about re-reading the 'Spirit morph saga' all over again, she refused to go with that idea, and reached out for a familiar looking book, the title, 'HOW TO SURVIVE, the punishment of nature', by Kate. "That old book.."

     Leaving the books scattered on to the floor and a shelf-row of dust the way it was, Connie, fully intending to clean it later, grabbed the survival book and pulled a small wet-wipe from a packet in her desk drawer. After cleaning up the book, she collapsed on to her bed and held it up in the air.

     'Introduction.. after my treks in the forests, my fellow team-mates and I got tired of hiking over the typical terrain. We then took the time to decide to look for other places to be. Being ready for a possibility of being forced to be in the wild was our goal-'

     'We were scared. I was scared. Fear may overtake us, but we will not give up.'

     '1/06/2004.. None of us were ready for being around wild animals. Shu climbed up a tree with a tiger running after him. It scratched him hard, yet he was probably pumping with adreneline, explaining why he ran and climbed up a tree with a large gash on his back.'

     'We weren't ready for this.'

     'Are we going to die?'

     'Martha distracted the beast and it ran after her instead. Now she had to escape from its claws and intense hunger for prey. Lionel, Gertrude, Jack and the others helped him get down from the tree-'

     "Wait.." Connie said, staring at the book again. "Didn't I.. say something like that before?"

      'We weren't ready for this.'

      "Well, I like to be prepared. When civilization collapses and this world ends, I need to be ready to build the new one." Connie remembered telling Steven on a mission.

      Snow. Mission assigned by Pearl. The pine-leaf tea, and..

     This book.

     Being prepared made her feel ready. Moments from that very mission went through her head. At one point, her eyes widened. She began to remember their snow mission.

     "What are you doing, Connie?!" Steven cried out, as the monster bounded towards her as soon as she'd hit it with a snowball.

     "I..I don't know! I.. wasn't prepared for this!" Connie froze, shaking, fear pulsing through her veins. The sword was in her hands.

     And she did nothing.

     Nothing.

     Staring at the words of her old survival skills book, not even concentrating on the words, Connie blinked a little. She was surprised to have forgotten that mission. She then shut the book and laced her fingers together to form an opal like shape with her hands, and she took a deep breath.

      "Take a moment to think of just, flexibility, love and trust.."

     She thought about pulling out the cookie-cat walkie talkie embedded in the snow, flicking it on and telling Pearl to help them out. It was out of their control. That was done, and it happened so long ago. Why should it bother her anyway?

     Yet still a heavy pain lingered as Connie got back to attempting to reading her book again.

     'I hope that Steven's okay, at least.'