"Lawyers... hmph.!"

She knew she wasn't the only one thinking it. All the other moms in this class probably, no definitely, shared her sentiment as Stacy's mom just pulled the rug out from under her feet at today's parent-teacher meet. "Fine..." she thought, "if Mz.power-suit-$600-an-hour doesn't think two dads are good enough to pull off directing the kids play, she can pay for the guy she wants to hire."

It really wasn't how successful Cindy was that was the problem, it was how she seemed to be a total psychopath sometimes. As if it wasn't enough that she helped push through the company takeover that made most of the parents here lose their jobs and people resented her for it, she continued to act like she was the queen bee and everyone else was her minions. Never failing to make a derisive comment or put down and she always did it with a smile. It was a shame that adorable little girl of hers was also paying for the mother's sins. Not that the mother seemed to show much interest in her anyway. You never saw her at school unless it was absolutely required.

"All right then..." the teacher Mr. Medina was saying, as she jumped back to reality. "I think that's everything covered. So if everyone would like to go down to the cafeteria, we can have a bite to eat, which incidentally can also be your review of the cafeteria food. "

====================

"Mommy, I want some pudding too!" Sam began to cry out. 

"I know honey..." she started, "...but they were all out okay? See there's no more there. So you'll have to make do ok?"

"No. No. No. I want one, I WANT!" and she saw the signs of one of his tantrums coming on. "Sam, honey come on. Calm down. It's not the end of the world." she said as she tried to hold his arms and hug him. Sam just twisted away and stood up and screamed again. "No. No. No. I want one, I WANT!" She sighed and just buried her face in her hands. She knew that everyone else thought of her as the perfect soccer mom. Patient and kind, always helping everyone , always with a smile, staying strong for the kids. But this time she couldn't help it. It had been such a tough week and Joe had lost his job as well. This was just too much.

"Hey, Sam Sam, what's with the screaming?" she heard a voice speak out. "I want some pudding too!" Sam replied. "Really? Well here you can have mine. You know what Sam..."  She looked up to see it was the queen bitch herself. She hadn't even bothered to acknowledge her presence to her but she was talking to Sam like they had been best friends forever, and Sam was just happily chatting away and munching away on a pudding cup too. Smiling even. She couldn't believe it, so she just sat there staring, silent and dumbstruck.

====================

The meeting was over and they were walking down to the cars. She couldn't still somehow believe that Cindy who was, and still is, the meanest most obnoxious parent she had ever met, had been the sweetest friend to her son Sam for the last 15 minutes. It wasn't something everyone could do. Connecting with an Aspergers child was remarkable, even a high functioning one like Sam. Could she have misjudged her? Maybe there was some long lost deep dark secret that made sense of who Cindy was? Maybe she should give her a chance. Should she?

"Mom..." Sam spoke up "...is Cindy and Melissa coming to my birthday party next week. Everyone from class is coming right?"  She sighed, and was quiet for a second as her mind processed everything that had happened.

"No honey, I don't think they can make it."

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Written for the IIWC. I was challenged by Brad with "A trace of evil in every good person, a trace of good in every evil person." Check out Tara's awesome take on a sucky subject I gave her here

Here, at the end of time and reason...

He walked slowly along the treeline. His steps weighed down by the weight of his thoughts. It seemed to be the simplest of things and yet it was so complicated. He knew what he wanted and it was within his reach. But was he reaching for something that wasn't meant to be? Was it something that was never to happen no matter how hard he willed it, no matter how hard he was going to try? Would it all be in  vain? He was playing a dangerous game and his life might not be worth as much as the soles of his worn down shoes by the end of it. He was more than willing to give it all, his heart was completely in it. But this was asking so much. Wasn't it unfair? Wouldn't it be better if none of this ever happened? What was she thinking?

He walked in through the double doors and looked around. No one paid him a nickel's worth of attention, and those who did couldn't care less as the turned away. Except her. Her with her gleaming green eyes and long flowing auburn hair, she looked more beautiful than any goddess as she put swans to shame, the way she was gliding across the dance floor. She turned and saw him enter and she smiled. That smile that outshone the sun in day and outdazzled the stars at night. The smile that was as innocent as a newborn doe and as playful as a kitten. The smile that he knew with all his heart and soul, and yet always had a new meaning every time it came out. The smile that always said 'I know what you're thinking' and always had the answer he needed to hear. And so it did. He had his answer.

He knew they had all the time in the world because she would be there for him always. She would wait for him because he was the one in her heart.  Time had stopped, even ended for them. Maybe it wasn't meant to be, but that just meant that they had to make it be. The mere thought of it sent him laughing inside. They were mad to even think of the possibility here, where all these people would only be too glad to lynch him if they found out. They had to have lost all reason, but being madly in love meant that you lost all your reason anyway didn't it? It felt that way for him, for them, here, at the end of all time and reason.. and the beginning of true and undying love. 

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This weeks response to IIWC made to me by Cedar ,who gave me the prompt "Here, at the end of all time and reason..." Also do check out Tobie's brilliant response to my prompt. I'm not entirely happy with how I dealt with the amazing prompt. Gave me so many ideas, but I just couldn't voice any of them the way I really wanted. Hope this isn't too bad.

Waiting...

He had woken up in this dingy, but oddly spacious, motel room a few weeks ago. A little hungry and quite a lot confused. The last thing he remembered was the last test that they had him doing and he certainly didn't remember being let out of his contract. Aperture didn't work like that. This WAS the company that took homeless men off the streets in the '60s for testing with the promise of 60 dollars at the end of it.. if they made it that far. He knew that because he was already part of Aperture as a junior tech. He needed the money and they promised a substantial pay bump if he volunteered to be a guinea pig for awhile. Since this was no drug company, he figured he'd be playing around with some tech having some fun for the green. Well he certainly played with some new tech. Although being shot through interdimensional portals, shot at by laser turrets and drenched in kinetic gels with who-knows-what in them wasn't fun all that much. He wondered if it was just 60 dollars he was going to get at the end of the day. He was glad it seemed to be over though. That woman talking with through that robot voice was annoying beyond belief, and what was the deal with her and the cake?

When he woke up he was confused. What was he doing in this motel? Had they literally dumped him off the program? He went to the door and tried it.. and it wouldn't budge. He had pounded on it for ages to no avail. Then suddenly it happened. The groaning. It was so loud. It seemed to come from every side and every direction. Filling his ears and his mind with fear, confusion, and visions of Godzilla rising from the depths. He desperately looked for a way to get out of here. The door wouldn't work, so... the window! He rushed to the inner rooms and spotted a closed window. With a huge sigh of relief he ran to it and flung it open. A visions of bright green hills and a serenely shining sun above them greeted him. It was very nicely painted on the wall that was there on the other side of the shutters where the window opening was supposed to be. He didn't have time to worry about it though as suddenly a huge explosion of sound rose up from beneath him and suddenly the floor shifted, tossing him against the opposite wall. When he senses recovered he saw the floor tilted about 70 degrees and tilting further still. As he tried to comprehend what was happening, it happened again. A loud boom rocked the walls of his room, everything suddenly stopped working, the lights, the TV with no signal, the shower he had running, gravity. He was floating, he was floating! He flied around in midair as his room and everything in it swirled around him. He tried to enjoy the sensation but he was in testing too long and he recognized free fall when he saw it. Also parts of the wall had fallen off and the huge void with glimpses of steel girders rushing past was a dead giveaway. But then, he stopped.

Well it was more like crashed really. The biggest crunching sound he ever heard in his life suddenly erupted below him as the the south corner of the room suddenly shot up towards him. He twisted around in space to land feet first. He knew that the things Aperture put on his feet would absorb the impact. What he didn't know was that the impact would weaken the walls and he would crash right through it and land on the other side. The other side being a starkly white chamber with white neon lighting, filled three quarters with Cheetos that were dropping slowly from a vent in the roof, and a very shocked and scared young girl in an orange jumpsuit cowering in the corner. It was then that the groaning started again.

It took a little while to calm her down. But he made a friend out of her in time. She was a test subject too and had pretty much the same story as he did except she seemed to have been expected to eat a quarter ton of Cheetos in her room or something. They moved into his 'motel room' which had a bed and couches and stuff where they could stay reasonably comfortably and thankfully had also leveled out into a livable angle. But the pieces of wall that had fallen off the sides and the now opening door left nothing but horror to their imagination. They were hanging off the side of an enormous structure, probably miles in height and width, stretching as far as the eye could see. A contraption of steel girders and robotic arms and cranes with levels holding thousands and thousands of white metal boxes. Boxes like theirs. White and sterile on the outside, a dingy motel room, a plain white test chamber and god knows what else on the inside with some poor sap inside too no doubt. They figured out the groaning too. The structure was failing. Metal girders screamed in agony as they snapped and hurtled boxes into the bottomless chasm below. The noise was impossible to ignore but they shut the doors and for days they pretended it didn't happen. Death no doubt awaited them, coming crashing from above or letting them hurtle to their depths. But when? It already seemed like years.

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IIWC again. Prompted by Katri, inspired by Portal 2. Check out Amy who wrote on my prompt.

the long road ahead...

The long road stretched out in front of him. An endless hole of blackness holding god-only-knows-what and he was heading right into it. His headlights barely managed to pierce through enough so that he wouldn't fall into some ditch. The only other light came from the stars that were content to just hang prettily in the sky. At least it was cool and dry. Taking the top down turned out to be a good idea.

He was heading… where was he heading? Home? But then where did he just leave? He had to admit it wasn’t the same since Sue. Sure, high school was a long time ago but maybe that was why things never really were the same again.

She was the one true love and he hadn’t known it then. It had been a long time and a long line of girls since those high school days. But all of them were just like these telephone poles on the side of the road. Each one a meaningless skeleton compared to her, and if you followed the line far back enough, it led back right back to that little place fading in the rear view mirror. It wasn’t home. Not anymore. It was time to move on and find somewhere else. Maybe follow the telephone poles and see if there was a last one waiting for him. Find somewhere to love someone and be loved, somewhere to call home again, somewhere to be happy like he was then in his teenage years, the happiest time of his life. That’s what he wanted to go back to and he wouldn’t stop till he found it.

Suddenly he sighed, annoyed with himself for all the emo rubbish running through his head. His hand reached for the radio dial for some music to shake it all off.

♫ …I don't care if forever never comes 'cause I'm holding out for that teenage feeling… ♫

Neko Case sang softly through the speakers as he drove on into the dark road ahead.

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IIWC time again, and this was to the prompt handed to me by Jamelah, which was "I don't care if forever never comes 'cause I'm holding out for that teenage feeling. - Neko Case". A really lovely song. Do check out Drama Mama who answered my prompt here.