Views: 1,956

White - A Short Story

All > "Art" > Literature > Adventure > White - A Short Story by julian

640 800 Full

This is a short story I wrote for my 9th grade Language Arts (English) class.
Welcome to my imagination:

-White-

The boy looked around. Everything was creamy white, puffy, and bright. Where was he? He got up, and was met by an odd sensation. The ground was firm enough, but oddly smoky, and malleable. He took stock of his surroundings again. All around him looked normal enough; and if it weren't white, it would almost be the country. He could see hills, plains, and ravines. What was this?
The boy bent down and touched the ground. An imprint of his hand stayed for ten-twenty seconds. He pushed in again, harder. The hand sank deeper and deeper until he was up to his elbow in white. The child yanked his arm out and watched as the ground shifted back to fill in the hole.
'How strange.'
The boy shifted his weight, and sat, watching the horizon. It's moving! The boy stood and ran to the top of a rise for a better view. It was hard to get used to moving around on the soft, wispy, odd surface, but when he reached the summit his breath was taken away. There, sitting on the tip of the crest, was a squirrel.
''Sup Whitey?'
It was a ghetto squirrel.
'Uhm-good day, furry critter.'
The squirrel eyed him incredulously, then scratched its haunch.
'What's your name?'
'You can talk!'
'What?'
'I said 'you can talk.''
'What?'
'You can talk-'
'What?'
The boy sighed. 'Never mind.'
'No I can't.'
The squirrel and boy surveyed each other as the hill they stood on drifted slowly into another. Finally, the boy spoke again.
'Where are we?'
'Dunno.'
The boy looked out over the rolling hills and tried to recall the day before. It only came in flashes. He remembered a roaring noise close to his ear, a crackle, a bounce. Where am I? What is a ghetto?
'I didn't say nothin' about no ghetto!'
'I know...'
'So stop thinking it!'
'I was thinking about ice cream!'
'No, you wasn't!'
'Well I am now!'
The squirrel looked the boy in the face, and cocked its head, and sat on his foot. The boy decided it was time for a walk.
'Oof!' went the squirrel, tumbling down the hill.
'Sorry!'
The boy raced down after the whirling mass of brown and white puff.
'I didn't mean to hurt you! I just thought it would be funny!'
But the squirrel didn't reply. Having righted himself, he quickly shoved his head back into the white, and burrowed.
'Where are you?!' the boy cried.
'Relax, I'm right here.' The squirrel had popped a few feet to the boy's right. 'But seriously, you have to try this stuff!'
'What stuff?'
'This.'
The squirrel scooped up a handful of puff, and threw it indiscriminately at the boy. The child caught it against him, and cautiously took a mouthful.
'Beh! It tastes like cotton!'
'What's your favorite food?'
'Lamb tenderloin'Mmm! How did you do that?'
'See? It'll taste like whatever you're thinking of.'
'What's yours taste like?'
'It tastes like acorns; I'm a squirrel.'
'Oh.'
The boy couldn't help but marvel at this astonishing world he had found himself in-how did it all work? Everything he had been taught said that it couldn't-.but on the other hand, he could feel the wisps, and the squirrel, now back on his foot.
'You may want to find a pocket or something, to hold onto-'
'Oh, okay then,' replied the squirrel.
And the boy set off, with the squirrel on his shoulder, around the hill they had met upon.

As the sun set'for yes, there was a sun that day'the boy noticed that his surroundings slowly began to change. For one, they were gradually taking on a deeper, creamier pumpkin hue. Also, they seemed to move less. As they reached a turn at the base of the hill, the boy began to wonder again at how it was all possible. The mysteriously shifting, tasty-when-you-wanted-it-to-be ground that was always firm when you needed it to be, but soft otherwise, the odds of finding a squirrel in all of this, and the feeling of apprehension that was growing in him. He pushed it to the back of his mind. After all, he often did get anxiety attacks when he needed them the least. But still, if anything went wrong-well, it wouldn't. The sun was reassuring. It was the only real touch of sensibility in the whole world at this point, and it was still out of reach, unattainable....For the time being. Where had that come from? It was true, the sun really was unattainable.
But at the same time, I'm exploring with a squirrel.
They came around the bend, and saw, to his astonishment, a gigantic tree. Stranger still, was what resided under the tree.
'Good evening,' said the giant six foot blowfish.
'Hey.' It appeared that nothing phased the squirrel.
'I do hope that you are well.'
'Oh, yeah, we're pretty good,' came the squirrel's nonchalant reply. 'How're you?'
'Today, I fear, is not a good one.'
'Why-Why is that?' The boy was feeling courageous.
'You see, today is bad, for the horrendous cloud monkeys are about.'
'What-do they do?'
'The cloud monkeys steal ice cream from my fabulous, fabulous tree.' The blowfish looked very serious.
'Oh-I'm-I'm sorry-Why do they do that?'
'Young man, do you like ice cream?' inquired the blowfish.
'Yes!' replied the boy indignantly. 'Doesn't everyone?'
'Yes, they do, and that is just the problem.' The blowfish looked very sober indeed. 'You see, cloud monkeys love my tree ice cream so much, they swoop down, take it in their mouths, and spit it into the sun.'
'Is that even possible?'
'But of course.'
The boy glanced over at his furry comrade, who nodded his head sagely and said, 'Listen.'
'The cloud monkeys come whenever the ground turns pink. Some days you can see them hiding in the sun, waiting for it to turn everything pink. Then they swoop down and pilfer my ice cream and spit it at the sun!'
'Why'd they do that?' How could the squirrel take him seriously?
'The cloud monkeys take my ice cream and spit it on the sun to keep it yellow.'
'How would that help?' asked the boy.
'Above all else, cloud monkeys fear the dark.'
'Oh.'
The boy looked over at the squirrel, wondering what to make of the blowfish's story.
'Whatchu lookin' at me for?'
'Shouldn't we-well, shouldn't we help?'
'Yeah, sure.'
'I must confess, that would be splendid. Most splendid indeed,' trilled the blowfish. The ground was already a faint peach.
'We don't have much time.'
'What do we do to keep 'em away?' The squirrel sounded eager.
'When the cloud monkeys arrive, we must hide the sun with all of our might.'
'How do we do that?'
'We must cover my fabulous, fabulous tree with white; and we must be sneaky at that, for the monkeys will see from their lofty perch on the sun.'
'Right!'
The boy and squirrel were ready for action.
'Wait, how do we move the ground?'
Yet another impossibility, mused the boy. How do you go about covering a tree with the ground?
'Why, with umbrellas of course!' The blowfish was now exuberant, and glad to have help with the task at hand.
The squirrel leapt down off of the boy's shoulder, and snatched up a red umbrella from the patch beside the tree. There were three rows, large, medium and small. All had lime green handles, which were all that protruded above the white.
How handy. I wonder if anything will surprise me now-
The squirrel, boy, and blowfish all scooped up ground with their umbrellas, and plastered it to the fabulous tree. Whenever they could not reach any higher, they scooped more cloud, and formed steps with it. The boy marveled at how the ground would do anything you asked it to. He got sidetracked, and started making curlicues and shapes out of the white, and stacking them on one another. However, a gentle cough from the blowfish reminded him of their goal, and he set to work with renewed diligence.
Finally, it was done. But couldn't the cloud monkeys see from their seats on the sun?
'Those foolish monkeys shan't suspect a thing now that we have utilized our umbrella patch,' chortled the blowfish.
'Then all is well?' The boy was feeling very pleased.
'All is well.'

It cut off so soon since I had passed the word requirement, but at some point I want to add more. I wish that the squirrel wasn't so ridiculous, but I think overall I like it. Also, I was going to have him wake up in an airplane, but I did not. The writing could be better too, but my biggest regret is my lack of artistic ability and tons of money, because it would be a cool movie or book. Mostly I wish I could just illustrate it really well.
Hope you liked it though!

---