Lost in the Desert Wild

Chapter 1

I guess I should start off by telling you how exactly I ended up in this office, sprawled out on a leather chair, explaining what the ink stained pieces of art meant to me. The room was dull. It was dark, and lit only by a window, with it’s curtains sadly draped to it's sides. The carpet was some shabby design, probably from the late 80’s. Multiple certificates doctorate degrees, Ivy League University completions, and lauding awards were placed neatly on carefully dusted shelves, along with books about self-help, the human mind, and various types of mental disorders.

But instead, I feel that it is rather necessary to talk about my family first. The family that dumped me here on some unforeseen circumstances of mine. I’m an only child, and my parents are top-notch CEO’s of a company that owns many smaller companies. It's a company that no one cares to really know the name of, unless you’re a stockbroker. They bought this huge mansion, with neighbors nearly a mile away, and decided to call it, “home”. I was enrolled in a Preparatory Academy as soon as I learned to read. I’m an “okay” student I guess, yet for some reason, I'm constantly put in honors classes. I guess my parents trying to  keep the tradition of financial success going. I took up art at the age of 5, but was forced to quit around 11, when the school’s curriculum got more challenging. I also play the piano (because apparently it looks good on college applications). What I’ve learned from playing the piano, is that it’s not just a bunch of memorizing, like in school. Sure, you should memorize a piece, but to really master it, you have to feel what the composer is trying to express and dig into the depths of your soul to really perfect the piece. I’m still learning how to do this.

My story starts off the night I was sitting on my window seat in my room, just thinking-- thinking about life, my childhood, and my dreams. I thought of my friends. I'm not sure if friends are even the right word to call them. Maybe "strangers" is a better word? People change, and I guess the more they change, the more the friendship fades away. My friends and I faded apart because of reasons too tedious to even relive; not to mention retell. I could expalin my entire high school experience, but to be honest, I'd rather not. Anyway, the next day was a big day for me. I was sitting there, trying on my outfit for my high school graduation, in a baby blue dress that was too tight and too short, and heels that were too high. 

I remember looking up at the glazing stars. They were just so beautiful. The moon was full and it was so bright, that I could see the craters and the grayish hue of it’s surface. The window was open, and the cool wind blew into my room, causing the papers that were sprawled around on my floor (which consisted most of college applications that I failed to mail in before the deadlines), to dance delicately in the air. The wind softly touched my blush-indundated cheeks, and it’s echoes reverberated in my ears. As if it was singing a lullaby to me. A soft, sweet lullaby.  

“Swing low, sweet chariot

Coming for to carry me home.

Swing low, sweet chariot,

Coming for to carry me home.”

My eyes started to drift close and my breathing slowed into a sleeping lull. Sleeping is probably one of my favorite current passtimes. All I can do here, is sleep, since they don't let me out anymore. I just wish I appreciated my ability to go out and actually do things back then. But I guess it's too late now. Suddenly, I heard a chirping melody from where I was sitting. My eyes shot open, my whole body becoming tense. I don't know why i got so scared. It was just a bird.  I could have tried to go back to sleep, still sitting there on that window seat. But soon enough, another bird had started to chirp along, with a harmony of execrable dissonance. I tried to fall back asleep, but the chirping got more and more disturbing as time went on.

My mother always said to me, “They say curiosity killed the cat”. I’m not sure who “they” is, but without curiosity, how could the greatest mysteries, inventions, and discoveries of all time become realities? I decided to go see what all the ruckus was about. I tossed my legs over the windowsill and jumped onto the prickly grass, with a feeling of malaise arising in my stomach.