My Walking Daydream

Chapter One: You Got Me Trippin' oh Stumblin'

Laurel watches in weary silence as her siblings place white peony flowers on the grave.

Beatrice Trent

1939-2015

Just that simple. The stone shows when the life started to when the life ended; it does not show who the person was between those numbers or how they lived their life. Nobody even cares who you were because when you die, all you do is rot in the ground. You are nothing but a corpse buried six feet under. Why should anyone give a shit about you anymore? Just that simple.

So, why should Laurel give any thought or care about the old hag buried under the piece of stone? She was a lousy guardian as well as a lousy person which explains why nobody but her own flesh and blood is here to see her off into the after life-if you even believe in that sort of thing. No wonder the Trent's father was a piece of shit, given he was raised by Beatrice. Laurel doesn't think anyone would grow up sane around her. Screw waving off her guardian with a good bye, Laurel would rather give her the middle finger and immaturely stick her tongue out at her.

"Can we go now?" Laurel breaks the silence.

Rory, her brother, gives her a hard look that speaks volumes of disapproval.

"She was our grandmother, Laurel. Beatrice took us in from the goodness of her heart. I want to respect that."

"What heart?" Laurel mumbles, earning another icy look. She sighs and looks back down. The flowers beside the grave catch her eye. Is it just her or are those flowers really dying? God, even nature rejects the hag being buried inside of it.

She glances up and sees her sister's dark head bowed, as if in prayer. Laurel knows better; Venus is probably hiding a smirk from Rory. Her sister hates Beatrice just as much as she does. Venus is simply more subtle about it than Laurel is. The only thing Venus is praying to God is to make sure he personally locks the gates of heaven, throw away the key; knowing the old witch, she'd just bang on the gates and nag until God got annoyed and let her in. Unless God is a woman then God would just simply bitch slap Beatrice into silence.

Birds break the tension hovering in the air around the siblings. Laurel raises her head into the air, relishing in the cool, soft breeze blowing in her face. She watches as a small flock of birds fly by in the air, chirping happily the whole way.

"They've got it made." They just fly, not having a care in the world. With just a few flap of their wings, they are free.

Movement flashes by in the corner of her eye followed by the sound of voices too far away to understand them but close enough to hear. Laurel turns her head away from their own gathering and focuses on the other gathering of people. A family of six are getting out of a van parked near the sidewalk. Laughter travels from them and up the steep hill to the Trent family. Laurel raises an eyebrow at that. Laughter in a graveyard- who would of thought?

"Do they have no respect for the dead?" Rory asks brusquely.

"Why should they?" Venus smirks. "They are dead after all."

Rory's blue eyes flash with irritation. He realizes his sisters just don't understand the situation they are in. He runs his fingers through his gelled back hair with a sigh, exhaustion settling deep within his bones. Turning sharply on his heels, he starts to march away.

"Let's go." Hearing those words, Venus' face twists into a victory smirk as she follows-not before she shoots Laurel a quick wink.

Laurel walks a few feet before hesitating. Her hazel eyes turn to across the cemetery. She silently stands and looks at the big family; they look so happy even as they stand in front of a grave. That person under the ground is not just a number of dates to them; they had meant something to that family.

She drags her eyes away when her foot cramps up. Grimacing, she lifts her left foot up to rub the aching limb. Laurel hasn't worn heels before in her entire life, but her brother made her wear a pair of black ones that, ironically, belonged to their grandmother. Beatrice may have been a big woman, but damn, she had tiny ass feet for somebody her weight and height. Laurel is dealing with the pain of having size 8 1/2 feet shoved into size 7 shoes. She exhales loudly; she has work after this, and half the reason she comes home so tired after work is because she never gets to sit down there. Her feet are going to go through hell for the almost 8 hour shift today.

Laurel's eyes shift over her surroundings as she massages the top of her foot, too lazy to take off the heel completely. As she scans the left side area, her eyes catch sight of a tall, lean woman. Her dark brown hair, almost black, waves behind her as she walks up the hill. The sun almost seems to bounce off her pale, alabaster skin. Laurel can't see the woman clearly, but she can already tell she is beautiful.

The woman pauses, and her head turns in Laurel's direction. With politeness practically engraved into her bones, Laurel begins to spread her mouth into a smile of greeting. The small smile is slapped off her face when Laurel makes eye contact with beautiful hazel eyes. Hazel eyes that are identical to Laurel's and Venus'. Eyes that belong to the woman that birthed the Trent children.

Laurel's breath catches in her throat. It can't be. Her body starts to tremble as the woman takes frantic moves towards her.

"What the fuck," Laurel breathes out quietly. That one sentence seems to have left her out of breath. Air isn't getting to her lungs anymore it seems. Thoughts aren't getting to her brain. She feels frozen.

She hears the words, "Laurel" followed by "Sweetie." It was the same sound that used to read her stories or sang her to sleep. Same voice, same eyes, same beauty. The same mom. With that thought, Laurel makes a break for it.

She tramps down the hill, stumbling slightly, feeling the sharp heel sink into the Earth, breaking through grass and dirt. All her thoughts are cut off, only the instinct to run is still intact. Her eyes make contact with Venus' and Rory's wide eyed, confused gazes. She can only imagine what her eyes look like; probably glazed over and scared.

She stumbles again, only this time she doesn't have the balance or energy to right herself. She becomes air born, lifted into the air for what felt like minutes but was only a few seconds. When gravity does it job, and she meets the Earth again, her head takes a blow that forces a grunt of pain out of her throat. It takes another blow, another blow, and another blow until she feels her momentum coming to a slow as the hill levels out into normal ground again.

She stops rolling, and feels the sun shine it's heat on her body as she lays on her back. Tears slip out of the corners of her eyes, and her head throbs to the beat of her heart which feels as if it is going to pop out of her chest. Laurel feels blood makes its slow path from the side of her head, down her temple, and begins to pool over her closed left eye lid.

The screams of her siblings calling her name along with the sound of an unfamiliar male voice is the last thing she hears before she goes into the darkness.