Month: May 2016

Happiness

~ mariasjostrand ~ Leave a comment

A/N: Okay, my brain has basically been fried for the last couple of days. (I just finished my exams.) But now it’s working again, and it produced this little thing. Like or comment at the bottom of the text. Enjoy!

If there was one thing Marcie had always known it was that she wanted to be happy. Her mother wasn’t, she knew. Her father wasn’t either, though he liked to pretend to. Not that she saw much of him. He always seemed to be working. But sometimes he would be home and he would buy something shiny and new and expensive, and his eyes would shine with happiness, but after an hour or so they would dim once again, and the happy look in them would be gone.

Marcie’s mother, on the other hand, found her happiness at the bottom of a bottle. Her kind of happiness was even worse in Marcie‘s opinion. It would stay for about as long as her father’s, but afterwards her mother would moan and throw up and look miserable, and Marcie decided she didn’t want that kind of happiness either.

Sadly enough those two were the only ones she knew, so she would have to figure out her own kind of happiness first.

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The Sisters

~ mariasjostrand ~ 2 Comments

A/N: Okay, so this week was crazy busy with the exam and what not, so… well, this is what I got to give you guys for this week. Please comment if you have any thoughts… about this story or just in general. 

Of course the oldest one was the prettiest. That almost went without saying. Diane was a cute child, who turned into a pretty girl, who, in time, turned into a beautiful woman. And she knew it. She was the type of girl, who knew very well the effect she had on men and she always had at least a dozen or so chasing after her. In time she grew up to be an actress, and suddenly the whole world was in love with her.

Annabelle was the second-oldest by eleven months. She was the genius of the family. Graduated with honours from Harvard University and went on to Yale. At the age of thirty she had several published books, was a renowned scientist, and there was talk of her winning the Nobel Prize for physics.

Kathy, born a year and a half later, was the second-youngest and the medal-winner in the family. She was simply just the best at everything there had anything to do with sport. She ended up as a swimmer for the Olympic team, and no one was really surprised there. After all; then success like that could only be expected from any sister of Diane and Annabelle.

That left me then. The baby sister. The youngest. The problem was that after Diane got the looks, Annabelle got the brain, and Kathy got the talent… well, there really wasn’t anything left for me. An average girl in every sense of the world, which really isn’t as bad if it hadn’t been because people expected so much more of me. They expected me to be prettier, smarter, better. Every aspect of me disappointed my family. The way I looked, my grades, my clumsy nature. How could I possibly be blood-related to my sisters?

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Scotch, Straight Up

~ mariasjostrand ~ Leave a comment

A/N: Another OUAT fanfic, which really became thrice as long as originally planned. Oh well. Belle is a bartender, Gold her costumer, and I have no regrets. Enjoy! 

“Scotch, straight up,” the brusque voice ordered and Belle willingly turned around with a cheery smile. She was used to rude costumers, and truth be told they didn’t bother her much. It was the insistent ones that meant trouble. The ones that had trouble understanding a no.

“Here you go, sir,” she said handing over the drink with another smile. The man merely grunted and handed her a fifty.

“I want the change back,” he told her. “All of it.”

“Of course, sir.” Belle watched the man with interest. A slight man, who somehow seemed bigger than he really was, somewhere in his early fifties. To her own surprise she felt herself physically attracted to him despite the fact that he was nothing like the men she usually took notice of. Not that she would go after this one. Not only had it been so long that Belle was half convinced that she’d forgotten how to flirt, but the man himself had showed no sign of a personality she would like to get to know. Still, she was a bartender, the man was her only costumer on a Tuesday night, and her job was as much to listen as it was to serve drinks.

“You look like you need an ear,” she said symphathetically with another easy smile.

The man merely grunted. “I don’t.”

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Isabella

~ mariasjostrand ~ 1 Comment

A/N: Another short story! Yeah!

I wonder, who do you guys think are the real you? The one you’re acting like, or the one you feel you have hidden away inside of you? 

Jessie Pitcher had never had a particularly daring life. She had gone directly from high school to college, where she had studied economics. Sure, in college she had gone to a party or two, but she had kind of just been standing at the edge of the party looking in, rather than really being a part of it. She had tried alcohol, but the only time she’d been really pissed a friend of hers had walked her to her dorm and put her to bed. Nothing had happened. She had been too scared, too smart, to try any kind of drugs or even just cigarettes, and when she left college four years later she’d been drunk once, missed a class twice and gone to a party eight times. None of it – the alcohol, the skipping classes, the parties – had been particularly thrilling experiences.

After college she had landed a job as an accountant. The money was good, and she was able to put a bit aside every month despite having to pay off her student’s loan. She got a pleasant two-bedroom apartment in the nicer part of the city, and was able to live of something besides pasta for a change. She never travelled. She never took any of the courses at the local night school she always wanted to try. She never… well, she never really did anything. Until the day she decided that she had to.

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Those Kind of People II

~ mariasjostrand ~ 1 Comment

A/N: My first ever sequel! Dedicated to Vipoul, who gave me this blog’s first ever request. A bit more romantic than the earlier one, but I hope you’ll enjoy it just the same!

Ps. I’m quite aware it’s called Islam and not muslimism, but I figured the speaker wouldn’t.  Anyway, Enjoy!

Janne Nielsen had had a crush on Zayan Hakeem for far longer than she cared to admit. It hadn’t taken long for him to catch her attention. Not only was he, at least in Janne’s personal opinion, extremely attractive with deep, dark eyes that always seemed to regard the world with an honest fascination, and thick, black hair that kept falling into those eyes no matter how many times he brushed it away. No, not only was he more attractive than what should really be allowed, but he was also extremely intelligent, though not boastful about it. That had actually been what had made Janne give in. She’d met intelligent men before, but Zayan was the first one who hadn’t seemed to think his intelligence made him better than other people. He was… humble. And sweet. And funny in an understated way. And a million other things, which all served to make Janne’s heart beat just a little bit too fast and the palms of her hand turn just a little bit too sweaty.

Palms that she was currently wiping in her favourite pair of jeans as she was waiting for Zayan to actually show up for their date. He’d offered to pick her up, but she’d declined; saying it would be rather pointless when she lived two blocks away from the theatre. Now she wished she hadn’t. Somehow she had ended up being there twenty minutes too early, and twenty minutes was really much too long a time to be nervous.

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Those Kind of People

~ mariasjostrand ~ 5 Comments

A/N: Okay, so this piece was written in quite the hurry! It’s about two elderly women having a conversation. I can’t say much more without giving away the story. 

“Would you look at them!” Bertha said, disapproval clear in her voice.

Lena followed her friend’s gaze. Not far from them two people were talking together, but that wasn’t what had caught Bertha’s attention.

If it wasn’t enough the two men were black, then they didn’t even had the decency to dress like real Danes. Instead they were dressed in what could only be traditional clothing from whatever third world country they had come from.

“Disgraceful,” Lena agreed with her friend. “We’ve been so kind to them as to let them come here, and how do they repay us? They won’t even try to be a part of our culture! They should be ashamed of themselves!”

“I bet their wives are at home right now, cooking dinner for them, wearing one of those things, where you can’t even see their faces. Don’t they realise how uncomfortable those make us?”

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Third Time’s the Charm

~ mariasjostrand ~ 3 Comments

A/N: Another 150 Words or less challenge! This one was supposed to fit the picture – do you guys think I nailed it or not?

Their first date had been a complete catastrophe. It had involved an escaped pet monkey, a black eye and way too much vomit. But he’d been charming and he’d laughed over his own misfortune, so she’d agreed on a second date.

Which she was currently very pleased about.

The little Italian restaurant was as taken directly out of Lady and the Tramp. That was minus the alley, the garbage and the singing Italian. A charmingly crooked table was standing in the middle of a pavilion, completely covered in leaves glistering with dew. Lanterns provided a feeling of fairy dust and adventures, and Susan inhaled deeply, imagining the air tasted like magic.

Everything was perfect.

At least until the fire in the lantern somehow got in contact with the leaves, and romance was suddenly forgotten in their pursuit to put the fire out.

Well, she supposed third time’s the charm.

A Locket

~ mariasjostrand ~ Leave a comment

A/N: Okay, so this was a challenge. I was given the first sentence to work from, and had a total of 150 words after that. It was fun, and I can definitely recommend taking a little writer’s challenge every once in a while!

The lock was still there, clinging to the fence, its shackle rusted from exposure.

“Just like us,” she thought, remembering with a cynical smile how they’d been. Her so trusting, and him so charming. She’d never had a chance.

“Here,” he’d said as he’d locked it. “This is our promise. We’ll be together for forever.”

They weren’t, but the locket was still hanging there, mocking her. How stupid she’d used to be.

Suddenly she felt two arms around her. Turning around she smiled at her husband, kissing his cheek softly.

“Darling,” he murmured, and she grinned at him. She could still cringe over how naïve she’d once been, but she’d been fourteen. Sixteen when it had ended. Thank God, she’d found someone better eventually. Someone worth a locket.

“Ready?” she asked, holding up the pliers.

He grinned at her. ”For doing something stupid and potentially illegal? Always.”

Oh, yes, this time she’d definitely found a man worth a locket.