Magazine, Short Story, Camp and Chapter 2

The flying elephant held onto the bundle ever so tightly. She flew quickly, searching for a home for her child. As she flew, she spotted a room with all the lights turned off. She flew to that window with speedy hesitance. Her size made the task of remaining silent quite difficult,  but Mrs. Grey was not one to quit, especially when facing such dire matters. After twenty minutes of quiet struggle, she had managed to open the window, put little Timothy onto the yellow couch and close the window once more, but not before looking one last time at Timothy's white face. As she increased the distance between herself and her son, tears streamed down her wrinkled face. Little Timothy, who was asleep this whole time, sensed his mother's absence. Without him realizing it, his body began to feel hollow, and slowly he fell to an eternal slumber.  The next day the girl woke up to see a fluffy white blanket placed on her couch. Thinking it was her mom's doing, she wrapped herself with the cover and felt instantaneous love and warmth. She would never know it was not only a blanket, but little Timothy, transmitting the warmth and love he had once received, one that he'll hold with him forever.

 ...................

I couldn't go to sleep and I realized my blanket looked like an elephant, so I wrote that little short story about the warmest blanket in the world. It's my favorite and I would wear it forever if I could.

A lot of exciting news, the first of which is the publishing of the school magazine, The Eagle: http://madmagz.com/magazine/377013 which you can read there. They spelled my name wrong, but that's okay, because the editor is super sweet and it shows she put a lot of effort into the project. So please read it my dears. 

Another exciting piece of news is that we're extending the deadline for the story. Instead of Tuesday, it will be Sunday, so we can have the weekend to write it.

So, we went to the camp this weekend, and it was splendid! We went to Wadi Rum, and although we went to the same places as last year, I had a great amount of fun. The first day we walked through a path in Little Petra to get to . Then they gave us food and tea, which is like a little piece of heaven. 

Side note: Tea tastes so much better after hours of walking and hiking.

Other stuff happened, like singing in the middle of the desert as we were going back to the camp, and at night the stars were ever so clear. They all shined so bright, they looked absolutely gorgeous and I want to go up to the stars so badly. It's a true shame we have so much light pollution in Amman... I may write a blog post about that actually.

A couple of friends and I were such rebels that we "disturbed" some of the other girls, although it was only 12 AM, so they forced us to sleep at a criminally early time, which I am now thankful for, because the next day was super exhausting. We woke up at 6 then had breakfast. After that, we took an hour to get to Wadi Rum from Little Petra, and when we got there we did some hiking until we got to a waterfall-ish thing. We all soaked ourselves with its meager drops of water then one of the Captains gave us a demonstration on how we can tell if a plant is poisonous or not.

That was all to waste time until the other group finished their turn doing some form of mountain climbing, but downwards. I think I may have a picture below, because that sentence makes no sense. Anyway, from that exercise I got three bruises on my right thigh, because I kind of lost control, but then I did it so well, so it kind of evens out.

Went down the mountain to the bus again, to get to the next camp site, which had the most beautiful bathrooms I've ever seen in a camp. They kind of gave us a break here. We ate lunch and put our things in the tents and then they held a dance party. An organized fake wedding occurred and we danced around them and clapped for them, and we met an girl our age from India, who was traveling to Jordan with her family, and she taught us Indian dance moves. To add to that, I convinced two of my friends to dance, so that was amazing. Yay! VICTORY!

After that, we went on a walk in the desert, and three of my friends and I got seperated from the groups, so we were stuck in between the two walking groups, the guys behind us, and the girls in front of us, and all we could see was their flashlights. However, it was super fun, because we just talked and the stars were so beautiful. We finally reached a certain spot and an astronomy professor gave us a presentation about the stars, that was drowned out by the wind and the whispers of freezing students. They then gave us tea, also known as one of God's blessings. While we drank our tea they lit up two lanterns and set them loose in the sky, and they looked gorgeous with the stars as their backdrop. When we finally got to our tents, my tent-mates and I went to sleep so quickly, while the others played cards until 2 AM and got sick.

The next day we got onto the bus and came to Amman, where I showered, ate, then slept for thirteen hours. 

Visual evidence of the trip:

 

Me being amazing-Photograph taken by Nael 

Shunnar, 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope you liked this post! Until my next time...

-Yara:)

P.S: Nael is an amazing photographer, if you are friends with him on Facebook check out his entire album of this camp...He's so genuinely talented.

The Chronicles of Huge Eye - Prologue

Joan woke up with the sound of the alarm echoing in her nearly empty room. As she climbed out of the covers stapled to the old mattress, she thought only one thought: "Today's the day."

This thought was repeated over and over in her head. As she brushed her teeth, she thought of it. As she combed her long, wavy brown hair, she thought of it. As she placed the sole item in her room - the mattress - near the dumpster, she thought of it. As she walked outside to get on the bus, she thought of it.

There was a single instance when she ceased to repeat that thought in her mind. That single instance was the pulling at her earphones. She turned around to see the owner of the chubby hand, only to find him laughing with his friends about his silly little trick. She grabbed the hand by the wrist with her double-jointed fingers and twisted it backwards, causing the boy to yelp in pain. She glared at the boys with him with piercing purple eyes, daring them to respond to her action. No one did. 

Her train of thought continued peacefully, while an Arctic Monkeys song repeated over and over. She closed her eyes and smiled calmly. 

"Just seven hours my dear," she whispered to herself, "and then all of this will go away."

The bus came to a sudden halt, pushing her body forward, hitting the seat in front of her. Anger filled her instantaneously, but she breathed slowly, putting a halt to the rush of external thoughts that clouded her serenity and focus.

The first four periods went on for what seemed like centuries, and the lunch period seemed to be the darkest of hells, as Mrs. Trac forced her to go to the cafeteria instead of the bleachers. All around her, the voices of stressed, hyper and angsty teenagers flooded her thoughts, blocking her focus on the main issue.

Finally, it was an art lesson. She knew sweet Mr. Harrison would let her stay for the lesson following the art, and if he was in a good mood, maybe even two lessons. She took her sketch book to the corner near the window and sketched with vigorousity, almost ripping the page with her deep lines. Mr. Harrison looked over worriedly, but he kept her to her thoughts, which was a good thing, for if he was to see what she was drawing, the whole plan would have been spoiled. 

Finally, the last lesson came. Mr. Harrison did indeed let her stay for two extra lessons, which was what she needed to clear her mind for what was to come. Unlike other times, she took the sketch book with her, insisting it was because of her strong desire to finish it over the weekend.

In biology, the teacher droned on and on about neurons and dendrites, many topics they've covered before. As the some of the students around her dozed off, Joan took out the sketchbook and started sketching once more. However, her detachment from the lecture caused Ms. Green to snatch the book out of her hand, ripping the page into two, due to Joan's thick, forced lines. 

"You can have this back at the end of the lesson," the slim witch bellowed loudly, waking up all of those who fell asleep, "for now, I recommend you take out your biology notebook, and take notes, not draw scribbles."

Her cheeks turned red, but not because of embarrassment, because of fury. In fact, her entire face became a red color. Her blood was boiling and her heart was beating fast. 

"What if she opens it?" She pondered internally with understandable panic, "What if she already saw it?"

She clenched her fists, drawing slight amounts of blood from her palms and slowed her breathing once more. 

"It's going to be fine. She didn't open it," she mumbled to herself, desperately trying to restore her initial feeling of calm, "and she won't."

She looked at her watch and sighed with relief.

Fifteen minutes.

The bell rang, and it was as if her heart beat increased with every ring. She hastily packed her things, and walked to Ms. Green, to retrieve her note book.

"I understand you're not interested in my class Joan, but must you always take out this forsaken notebook and scribble like a mad man," she sighed with exhaustion, "or in this case a mad lady."

"I apologize Ms. Green, I promise, it won't happen again."

As she took the sketch book, she knew it wouldn't, because tomorrow, she wouldn't be here. She would be over there; over there where she really belongs.

She ran up the stairs, until she reached the roof. Panting heavily, she pushed the door open and glanced outside. She laid her backpack in one of the corners and took out her sketch book. As she stood on the ledge, she breathed once more. She could hear the gasps of the students below, she even saw a couple taking out their phones, planning to document a suicide at their school. Little did they know, they'd be documenting so much more.

She could hear faint voices. This was her only chance. With no hesitation, she leaped off the roof, perfectly diving into thin air. Many of the onlookers looked away as she came closer to the floor. Expecting to hear a splat, some closed their ears, but no sound came. A black void appeared out of no where and swallowed her up. She had simply disappeared, for Joan was no where to be found. 

She had vanished, once and for all, into the land of the Huge Eye.

************

Hey! Sorry this was later than I promised, was preoccupied with many other things. I really hope you like it and remember to check out throughmyseriouseyes.weebly.com next week to read the first chapter.  Super excited to see how Jad will respond to this, and also excited to see what you think, so leave a comment. 

-Yara :)

A New Project

Hey!

So much time has passed since I had last laid my fingers upon this beautiful keyboard to write...but alas, it is now time. The main reason is a new project I'm working on with my fellow friend and blogger. Before I share with you the details of the project, I will entertain you with some thoughts that I have had over these past few weeks.

The first of which is death. I know that this is not a pretty subject, but recently it has been crossing my mind a lot following two deaths of people that were close to me and my family, one of which is my friend Tala Dissi, God bless her soul. As I think about it more and more, I am constantly baffled by the concept. I understand that the soul leaves the body, but it seems so odd that someone's soul is there, then it's gone. It still confuses me the more I think of it. 

Another thought related to this morbid process, is the effect of death. Death is easy on the person who dies, but for others close to him/her, it isn't at all. Worse even, what if it was. What if I just go away, and I leave no effect on the world? As I was discussing this with one of my friends, we both agreed we didn't want our time to be up before leaving something valuable behind. Some thing like a life-changing book or an invention that will change the course of history, but it is a known fact that we have no role to play when it concerns the time of our passing, and that's even scarier.

On a less serious note, glitter is made of plastic. Henry Ruschmann found himself with a bunch of plastic, and after he decided to grind it all into tiny bits, he discovered glitter. Yay! It truly is spectacular, the way random things can occur from an issue. I guess a lesson can be learned from this. If you have a bunch of issues, grind them and get some glitter!

This left me thinking how glitter could be used as a weapon. As I was studying, I thought of how odd it is that Molotov cocktails existed. It's proof that humans can make weapons out of everything. At the very moment, I thought of how glitter and Steryllium could become a weapon, since they were in my peripheral vision. The end result is this: You add the glitter to the Steryllium then you shake it up. After you're done, you spray the mixture at your attacker. At this point, you can either run and be gunned down by a henchman, or laugh and be gunned down. You choose. If you can think of other ways glitter can be used a s a weapon, please tell me in the comments. I have too much glitter, too many enemies, and too little time.

Finally, I have stated in my previous that I joined the school magazine. On Wednesday, I sent the editor-in-chief my first article, and as soon as the school magazine is online, YOU WILL KNOW! I'm so excited about it! Yay!

Now! The project is a joint project with Jad, my friend and fellow blogger of the wonderful blog throughmyseriouseyes.weebly.com. The plan is to write a story with each other. However, I'm going to write one chapter, without telling him about what I'm going to write, and then he will follow suit on his blog. Each week one of us will write a chapter, until eventually we will reach the end. I don't know what we'll do then, but until then our writing will continue in this fashion. The first chapter will be written by me, so keep a close eye on this stupendous blog of mine during this Eid holiday.

Alas my friends, this is the end of our journey for now, until next time.

-Yara :)

P.S.: I bet most of you have realized the change in the blogs theme. Please tell me what you think in the comments! Thanks!