Short stories for House on Mango Street Assignment

 The rain was pretty today. It drowned out the sound of lions at war today. The thunder was stiff and loud. It broke the house down.  And now the flickers of beautiful hues of orange and red blanket the heavenly prison—the smell of ashes and cinder is like perfume to my nose. Lying on the floor waiting for bliss with the touch of a scythe. The hues of orange and red are getting closer now it’s time to say goodbye now, but the mortified screams of my name plead for my fate something God can’t change. The clomping gets louder. The door slams open. Oh wow, the firefighters are here. I let out a wail. It sounded like a whale. I was so close yet so far today and now the folks will grumble. The growing bills on the trees are ridiculous, they groan and complain. The government doesn’t care cause, after all, they weren’t the ones there when the fireworks flared.

Community  

There are many uses for the word community. Community pool. Community restroom. Community houses. Community bath houses. And finally the word Community itself. I don’t live in a community. I live next to a community. It’s like seeing a cluster of trees in one big spot and then 6 feet away you just see one tree all by itself. The tree is me. The cluster of trees is everyone else. They all fit nicely in the box as normal shapes and then I’m the one with an irregular shape that needs a separate box away from the others. And sometimes you get singled out like: 

Oh, why’s that the only one with no team? 

Oh her she’s weird everything about her is weird do you see her smile her teeth are crooked like a witch’s teeth, her hair is everywhere, as if she were struck by lightning, and her laugh sounds like my younger sister’s, and finally her personality is like the taste of water.

 It’s annoying. It’s isolating. It’s everything I hate all in one. Some people seem to like me but spending most of your life with the two biggest snakes makes it hard to believe things.

Lies

 Lies. I always lie.That’s why I can never understand why my friends say that I say I have this honesty. I don’t. I’m not. I’m a snake. A wolf in sheep’s clothing The things I do and say are mostly because I don’t want people to hate me too much. I don’t want more unnecessary problems for me because they require too much energy. So I say things I don’t mean. I make promises even though I know they’ll be impossible to do. I lie to my parents so that they won’t drive me into a corner and devour what’s left of my already strained mental health like a hungry pack of wolves who finally found its prey after hours of hunting. I lie to people so they don’t view me as a bad person because that causes more problems. I’m already viewed as a complete weirdo which is a hassle. I make up a fake personality because it’s easier to make friends with that personality. After all, no one likes a person with a blank personality that has a taste of spoiled brat in them.  Even though I think there are some aspects of that personality are true to me, myself, and I. In the end I’m just a person who doesn’t know how to open up without feeling like it’s wrong and who needs to get something off their chest.

The Windmill

The old mill was spinning today. The wind swirls around it like a bunch of fan girls surrounding the jock in those high school movies. The mill is dusty every day. Yet the wind still spun around the windmill. Pa checked the windmill and he says it won’t last for another year.

But I like the windmill. But it’s old, it’ll break and it’ll cost more money to clean it up and replace it rather than just replacing it now.

I liked the windmill. It had the faint beaten colors of red and the dirty white yet it spun around the dirty faint colors that would glow the same way as if it were a new. The way the mill looked like something out of an opening scene of a fairytale movie. The moss that painted some of the rocks on the mill green was more comfortable than the sweater Pa had gifted to Ma before she drew her last breath underneath the windmill as the wind comforted Pa. My friends and I would play around it as if it was a merry-go-round. The picnics of families sitting underneath the windmill were like photos out of a picture book. Mary broke her arm while running down the hill near the windmill and we joked that it was the windmill’s revenge for punching and kicking the windmill. My first kiss happened underneath the windmill with Olly before he had to move away. The old memories haunt me, flashing through my mind as I look at the windmill again out of the window of the small house saying goodbye. 

The Street Nightlife

The skateboard’s wheels are rolling against the skatepark just like how the earth spins. It’s always moving the skatepark is supposed to be empty around this time but because of how far it is from the police station makes it a perfect place for street night life to happen as I do tricks that I normally do in the daytime the smell of street food reaches my nose the smell of pure nostalgia rushes as I remember the first time I was here the neon lights used to be brighter then now. At that time the lanterns covered the alleyway glowing like guiding stars. I was with my brother. He took me here on his motorcycle that he would drive late at night with his friends to go here. I saw many people there. People with office jobs, people with families would come here, and people who wanted to hang out with their friends. Normal people. That memory is always a fun memory to remember. As people come in I hear the cars drifting down the west alley as if it was an actual showdown. The bustling of people at the food vendors. I take my eyes off of the skateboard and I see this guy standing and watching everyone skating at the skatepark. He’s a fish out of water. He’s got no skateboard so why is he here. The wheels are still spinning before I hear a faint crash and all the sudden I’m fighting for some sort of balance as I stutter in between in my steps like a baby trying to learn how to walk as I crash head first that’s gonna leave a bruise tomorrow probably a red tomato one though.