Circles

mead1 · 12-7-2007, 10:47 PM

Chase Branford thought he had a pretty desirable life. He wasn’t wealthy, but he and his family made do. He had a job at the local high school teaching mathematics, a car and house he probably couldn’t afford, and a family that loved him. All in all, he had achieved everything he had ever wanted; all that his parents had said he would never have. He was almost totally unremarkable. He was middle-aged, of average height, had blonde hair and blue eyes. If you saw him in a crowd, you probably would pass over him immediately to look at his loving wife. Her name was Hope. Hope was tall, beautiful, successful, and cared more for her husband and children than anything else in the entire world. She was head teller at the nearby bank.

Hope and Chase had raised two children. One was a girl, the other was a boy, ages 10 and 12 respectively. The boy, Derek, wanted to play baseball when he grew up. He was star player on the local little league team. Ashley wanted to be a teacher like her father. She would arrange her dolls in a makeshift classroom and teach them whatever she learned at school that day. Chase couldn’t be prouder of his children. The world was going to be their oyster. He loved them dearly; he supported them in all of their interests, and never, ever, beat them.

They all lived in a large white house with cream-colored shutters. The door was large and black with a silver lock and peep-hole. It wasn’t a large house, it had three bed rooms and one bath room. It had just enough room for everyone to live comfortably. They didn’t have a back-yard, or a basement, but those things weren’t important, Chase figured, not really. Neither he nor Hope was much of a cook, so the meals were a little bland, but they came three times a day, and they were cooked with love. There was a lot of love in that house. Not like the one Chase had grown up in.

He thought a lot about his parents. He thought a lot about his child-hood. They weren’t happy memories. He had been kept in a small closet, about twice the size of his current home’s bathroom. There were no lights in that room. No lights, no windows, no electricity. There had been a cushion in the middle once. They took that away one day when he had spoken out of turn, and it never came back. Come to think of it, he thought, he never even actually saw his room. It was always dark.

That was why his house was always full of light. Even in the middle of the night, there was a light on in every room. Not something bright and obtrusive, but a small, tasteful, night-light, perfect for a late night walk around the house. A circular walk he repeated again and again. His family never questioned it. They were supportive of him and loved him. They would never question him.

Again he thought back to his past. During the day, his parents let him out of the closet and in to the basement. It was a dingy, unfinished place. The walls were bare, and the pale white of unfinished plaster. It was unheated, but it had a glass door to the outside world. There was no furniture in the basement, no pictures on the wall, but there was a set of drawers. In this, he kept his clothes. He had seven pairs of jeans, seven pairs of underwear, and seven shirts. He could pick out any combination he wanted. It didn’t much matter, as they were all the same. The time Chase spent in that basement consisted mostly of folding and unfolding his clothing. He got pretty good at it.

Chase woke up from his dream of folding laundry in the basement. The light in the center of his ceiling blazed down on him. He rose and went downstairs to the kitchen. Around and around the spiral staircase he went. He sat down at the table, and waited for Hope to hand him his morning meal.

“Here you are, Mr. Branford.”

She was always so formal. Chase loved that. That’s why she had made head teller at work, she knew how to treat people formally. She handed him the usual bowl of oatmeal and an orange on a brown rectangular tray, then went off to attend other affairs in the house. Chase dug into his meal. It wasn’t a five-star meal, but it was plenty. He polished it off quickly, and waited for Hope to return. She was back, exactly half an hour after she had left, to take his tray back before she ran off to work.

It was Chase’s job to get the kids ready for school. Around and around he went up the staircase to their rooms, waking them and telling them it was time to dress for school. They were responsible children. He knew he could leave, and they would lock up the house and get on the bus on their own. He rescinded that last thought. They couldn’t technically lock up the house, since the house had no locks. His house was always open to visitors, if they should so choose to visit. He had a camera encased in a gleaming black orb in the back right corner of each room of his house. They all recorded to the security room. Chase never even went in the security room, or watched the tapes. As far as he knew, the camera might not even be on. It did detract from any indecent behavior in his house though.

There had been so many locks in his basement. There were four doors aside from the glass one, all of them locked. Three of them were always locked. He never knew what was behind them. The fourth opened up three times a day so he could go to receive his food. He would sit at the table with his parents, and eat in silence. His parents wouldn’t look at him, and would very rarely speak to him. He tried to speak to them once without being spoken to, and that was when he lost his bed. Today, he had a large, comfortable water-bed.

Chase left the house and walked to his car. The lawn was a bright green, and impeccably well trimmed. There was a small pond in the center of it, with brightly colored fish shining brightly in the sun. He had a dirt path through the middle of his lawn towards the pond with circular alabaster stepping stones every foot or so. It was incredibly pretty.

One day, Chase had discovered the glass door in his basement slid open. It was supposed to be locked, but for some reason it wasn’t. He could get out. He could go into the world. The world was exactly as it had looked from inside. His back-yard was a barren wasteland of dirt and weeds. There was a wooden fence almost twice his height encasing the whole thing. Above him there was a bleached white deck his parents could access from the kitchen. The back-yard was interesting for all of about ten minutes, and then he went back to folding his clothes. He couldn’t imagine what his parents would do if they found him outside.

As Chase walked around his yard, he waved to his neighbor. She was a pretty red-headed woman to whom he never really spoke. They exchanged polite words now and then, but they didn’t really know each other. This exchange made him think about the other neighbor he had had.

One day, after folding his clothes, Chase had stumbled again into the back-yard, and was pacing in a circle to pass the time, when he heard a voice from the other side of the fence.

“Hey! You! Come here!”

Chase had stumbled over to the fence. There was an eye peering through a small hole just under his eye level. He waved at it.

“My parents said they thought there was a kid living over there. Are you homeschooled?”

“What?”

“I guess not. You look terrible.”

“Do I?”

“Haven’t you seen yourself lately?”

“No, how would I see myself? That’s the one way your eyes can’t turn.”

“With a mirror, stupid. Just a second.”

The eye disappeared for a few minutes then. Chase waited there for it to come back. It had been a very nice eye, and had spoken well. It came back, and shortly thereafter, a black circle came hurling over the fence. It landed a few feet from Chase. He picked it up.
“What?”

“It’s a make-up case. If you open it, there’s a mirror inside.”

He picked it up and turned it over and over in his hands. What a strange object. It was smooth, and had a dented area near the front of it. As he was examining it, he heard a sliding noise above him.

“Chase! What are you doing outside?”

Chase ran back inside as fast as he could. He slid open his drawer and buried the make-up case amongst his jeans. They didn’t know he had it. He could keep it. He’d just have to keep it hidden. The door opened, his father came downstairs. Chase knew where this was going. He closed his eyes, and waited for the belt.

Chase pushed away those memories as he unlocked his car, the sun beating away directly above him. He drove around to the school, circumnavigated the hallways, and settled in his classroom. After his first class came in, he got up and taught, circling the classroom pointing to the diagrams on all four boards in his room. He taught geometry. Once the period was over, he did this again, and once more before lunch. He walked to the cafeteria through the hallways, the old fluorescent bulbs shining above him every step of the way. He received his food on a brown rectangular tray. Hamburger and peas today. He ate quickly, and then circled back quickly to return his tray. After lunch, he entered the restrooms. He washed his face and hands.

After the beating, and after his father had left, Chase had examined the case. He placed his thumb delicately in the indentation near the front. To his surprise, it sprung open. He saw in the top half his reflection, and it terrified him. He thrust the case away from him, and it fell to the floor. The case broke in half, the mirror cracking into two half-circle shards. He picked it all up and hid it back in his drawers among the jeans.

It was payday. Chase picked up his check at the front office, and then made to leave the school. He danced his fingertips over the white, soft, walls as he left. The sun shining directly above him, he again entered his car. He circled around town to the bank. He walked inside to Hope’s window, and cashed his check. Through the slat below the glass, she handed him a cup of pills.

“It’s time for your medicine, Mr. Branford.”

He quickly gulped it down. She always had his medicine at the bank. He walked back out of the bank, the white walls almost waving goodbye. The sun was directly above him as he got in his car to drive home.

Hope looked back through the slat, Chase was walking around in a circle around the light hanging in the center of his padded cell, then looked away sadly at her friend Holly.

“It’s a sad story really. I heard he was abused as a kid. Killed his parents with a mirror, and now he lives in his own world, talking to himself and walking in circles.”

Aleste · 12-8-2007, 12:15 AM

interesting story... Not long enough for the ending to really be a surprise.. Maybe sprinkle hints throughout. But a good read anyway

i liked it.

sad_clown · 12-8-2007, 10:35 AM

This is a pretty good story. I liked it.

mead1 · 12-8-2007, 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aleste

Maybe sprinkle hints throughout.

clearly you didn't read it very thoroughly

**ogmsband** · 12-8-2007, 04:12 PM

very enjoyable and quiet interesting

**Jtehanonymous** · 12-8-2007, 05:08 PM

I really liked this story, and it kept me guessing as what was going to happen.

I was lame and couldn't figure it out until the very end.

Nice work. =)

**ShastaTwist** · 12-10-2007, 06:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mead1

clearly you didn't read it very thoroughly

I got it as soon as she called him Mr. Branford...

... Quite obvious.

ANYWAY.

Good read.

Chrissi · 12-10-2007, 08:16 PM

Oh man.

Mead.

ilu.

12-7-2007, 10:47 PM	#1
mead1 Cerebellumberjack Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: On a boat Age: 33 Posts: 3,960	Circles Chase Branford thought he had a pretty desirable life. He wasn’t wealthy, but he and his family made do. He had a job at the local high school teaching mathematics, a car and house he probably couldn’t afford, and a family that loved him. All in all, he had achieved everything he had ever wanted; all that his parents had said he would never have. He was almost totally unremarkable. He was middle-aged, of average height, had blonde hair and blue eyes. If you saw him in a crowd, you probably would pass over him immediately to look at his loving wife. Her name was Hope. Hope was tall, beautiful, successful, and cared more for her husband and children than anything else in the entire world. She was head teller at the nearby bank. Hope and Chase had raised two children. One was a girl, the other was a boy, ages 10 and 12 respectively. The boy, Derek, wanted to play baseball when he grew up. He was star player on the local little league team. Ashley wanted to be a teacher like her father. She would arrange her dolls in a makeshift classroom and teach them whatever she learned at school that day. Chase couldn’t be prouder of his children. The world was going to be their oyster. He loved them dearly; he supported them in all of their interests, and never, ever, beat them. They all lived in a large white house with cream-colored shutters. The door was large and black with a silver lock and peep-hole. It wasn’t a large house, it had three bed rooms and one bath room. It had just enough room for everyone to live comfortably. They didn’t have a back-yard, or a basement, but those things weren’t important, Chase figured, not really. Neither he nor Hope was much of a cook, so the meals were a little bland, but they came three times a day, and they were cooked with love. There was a lot of love in that house. Not like the one Chase had grown up in. He thought a lot about his parents. He thought a lot about his child-hood. They weren’t happy memories. He had been kept in a small closet, about twice the size of his current home’s bathroom. There were no lights in that room. No lights, no windows, no electricity. There had been a cushion in the middle once. They took that away one day when he had spoken out of turn, and it never came back. Come to think of it, he thought, he never even actually saw his room. It was always dark. That was why his house was always full of light. Even in the middle of the night, there was a light on in every room. Not something bright and obtrusive, but a small, tasteful, night-light, perfect for a late night walk around the house. A circular walk he repeated again and again. His family never questioned it. They were supportive of him and loved him. They would never question him. Again he thought back to his past. During the day, his parents let him out of the closet and in to the basement. It was a dingy, unfinished place. The walls were bare, and the pale white of unfinished plaster. It was unheated, but it had a glass door to the outside world. There was no furniture in the basement, no pictures on the wall, but there was a set of drawers. In this, he kept his clothes. He had seven pairs of jeans, seven pairs of underwear, and seven shirts. He could pick out any combination he wanted. It didn’t much matter, as they were all the same. The time Chase spent in that basement consisted mostly of folding and unfolding his clothing. He got pretty good at it. Chase woke up from his dream of folding laundry in the basement. The light in the center of his ceiling blazed down on him. He rose and went downstairs to the kitchen. Around and around the spiral staircase he went. He sat down at the table, and waited for Hope to hand him his morning meal. “Here you are, Mr. Branford.” She was always so formal. Chase loved that. That’s why she had made head teller at work, she knew how to treat people formally. She handed him the usual bowl of oatmeal and an orange on a brown rectangular tray, then went off to attend other affairs in the house. Chase dug into his meal. It wasn’t a five-star meal, but it was plenty. He polished it off quickly, and waited for Hope to return. She was back, exactly half an hour after she had left, to take his tray back before she ran off to work. It was Chase’s job to get the kids ready for school. Around and around he went up the staircase to their rooms, waking them and telling them it was time to dress for school. They were responsible children. He knew he could leave, and they would lock up the house and get on the bus on their own. He rescinded that last thought. They couldn’t technically lock up the house, since the house had no locks. His house was always open to visitors, if they should so choose to visit. He had a camera encased in a gleaming black orb in the back right corner of each room of his house. They all recorded to the security room. Chase never even went in the security room, or watched the tapes. As far as he knew, the camera might not even be on. It did detract from any indecent behavior in his house though. There had been so many locks in his basement. There were four doors aside from the glass one, all of them locked. Three of them were always locked. He never knew what was behind them. The fourth opened up three times a day so he could go to receive his food. He would sit at the table with his parents, and eat in silence. His parents wouldn’t look at him, and would very rarely speak to him. He tried to speak to them once without being spoken to, and that was when he lost his bed. Today, he had a large, comfortable water-bed. Chase left the house and walked to his car. The lawn was a bright green, and impeccably well trimmed. There was a small pond in the center of it, with brightly colored fish shining brightly in the sun. He had a dirt path through the middle of his lawn towards the pond with circular alabaster stepping stones every foot or so. It was incredibly pretty. One day, Chase had discovered the glass door in his basement slid open. It was supposed to be locked, but for some reason it wasn’t. He could get out. He could go into the world. The world was exactly as it had looked from inside. His back-yard was a barren wasteland of dirt and weeds. There was a wooden fence almost twice his height encasing the whole thing. Above him there was a bleached white deck his parents could access from the kitchen. The back-yard was interesting for all of about ten minutes, and then he went back to folding his clothes. He couldn’t imagine what his parents would do if they found him outside. As Chase walked around his yard, he waved to his neighbor. She was a pretty red-headed woman to whom he never really spoke. They exchanged polite words now and then, but they didn’t really know each other. This exchange made him think about the other neighbor he had had. One day, after folding his clothes, Chase had stumbled again into the back-yard, and was pacing in a circle to pass the time, when he heard a voice from the other side of the fence. “Hey! You! Come here!” Chase had stumbled over to the fence. There was an eye peering through a small hole just under his eye level. He waved at it. “My parents said they thought there was a kid living over there. Are you homeschooled?” “What?” “I guess not. You look terrible.” “Do I?” “Haven’t you seen yourself lately?” “No, how would I see myself? That’s the one way your eyes can’t turn.” “With a mirror, stupid. Just a second.” The eye disappeared for a few minutes then. Chase waited there for it to come back. It had been a very nice eye, and had spoken well. It came back, and shortly thereafter, a black circle came hurling over the fence. It landed a few feet from Chase. He picked it up. “What?” “It’s a make-up case. If you open it, there’s a mirror inside.” He picked it up and turned it over and over in his hands. What a strange object. It was smooth, and had a dented area near the front of it. As he was examining it, he heard a sliding noise above him. “Chase! What are you doing outside?” Chase ran back inside as fast as he could. He slid open his drawer and buried the make-up case amongst his jeans. They didn’t know he had it. He could keep it. He’d just have to keep it hidden. The door opened, his father came downstairs. Chase knew where this was going. He closed his eyes, and waited for the belt. Chase pushed away those memories as he unlocked his car, the sun beating away directly above him. He drove around to the school, circumnavigated the hallways, and settled in his classroom. After his first class came in, he got up and taught, circling the classroom pointing to the diagrams on all four boards in his room. He taught geometry. Once the period was over, he did this again, and once more before lunch. He walked to the cafeteria through the hallways, the old fluorescent bulbs shining above him every step of the way. He received his food on a brown rectangular tray. Hamburger and peas today. He ate quickly, and then circled back quickly to return his tray. After lunch, he entered the restrooms. He washed his face and hands. After the beating, and after his father had left, Chase had examined the case. He placed his thumb delicately in the indentation near the front. To his surprise, it sprung open. He saw in the top half his reflection, and it terrified him. He thrust the case away from him, and it fell to the floor. The case broke in half, the mirror cracking into two half-circle shards. He picked it all up and hid it back in his drawers among the jeans. It was payday. Chase picked up his check at the front office, and then made to leave the school. He danced his fingertips over the white, soft, walls as he left. The sun shining directly above him, he again entered his car. He circled around town to the bank. He walked inside to Hope’s window, and cashed his check. Through the slat below the glass, she handed him a cup of pills. “It’s time for your medicine, Mr. Branford.” He quickly gulped it down. She always had his medicine at the bank. He walked back out of the bank, the white walls almost waving goodbye. The sun was directly above him as he got in his car to drive home. Hope looked back through the slat, Chase was walking around in a circle around the light hanging in the center of his padded cell, then looked away sadly at her friend Holly. “It’s a sad story really. I heard he was abused as a kid. Killed his parents with a mirror, and now he lives in his own world, talking to himself and walking in circles.”

12-8-2007, 12:15 AM	#2
Aleste stating the obvious. Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: USA Age: 34 Posts: 337	Re: Circles interesting story... Not long enough for the ending to really be a surprise.. Maybe sprinkle hints throughout. But a good read anyway i liked it. __________________

12-8-2007, 10:35 AM	#3
sad_clown FFR Player Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 10	Re: Circles This is a pretty good story. I liked it.

12-8-2007, 04:12 PM	#5
ogmsband FFR Veteran Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Tampa, Fl Posts: 792	Re: Circles very enjoyable and quiet interesting

12-10-2007, 08:16 PM	#8
Chrissi FFR Player Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: The Game Age: 37 Posts: 3,019	Re: Circles Oh man. Mead. ilu. __________________ C is for Charisma, it's why people think I'm great! I make my friends all laugh and smile and never want to hate!

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