Work Text:
Hey, Jessie
Chapter 1: Green Fence
He looked at the fallen faded red of the tiles, at the chair that creaked in the wind, the window boarded and glass shattered. The half-jacked car that never moved, and the rusty windmill sitting in a dry bed, with a small ‘The caterpillar will eat too!’ standing in the same box.
Jessie and his mother lived in a crooked house. An old Victorian house that you’d think was abandoned. It was. Splitting wood and missing planks, grass that towered over Jessie himself when he’d weave though the plummets of rubbish. It was like any other old, trashed front yard anywhere in Austin. A tire, bags of rubbish, toys he’d never touched (but should have played with, considering his age), odd house parts, car parts, large rocks, tree barks- and Jessie never once thought of when it’d be cleaned, because they hadn't made this mess.
He watched past the (green) gate, a weak and withering fence of metal that went at his head, and saw the world(town). Drive way, footpath, Landstrip. He counted the things around him and felt his feet on the ground, bare. He could almost taste the air, polluted and thick with co2, sky bushed with blacks and grays. It was the clouds mixed with wastes going from evaporating water to dirt filled and murderous. The mountain past Cheadle avenue was cut flat like a man’s head after an odd razor. The town’s roads are pathetic and broken: wide cracks, flipped concrete, and old car prints swerving before danger.
And stray rocks, piercing his feet and scraping his toes.
Jessie had no shoes to fit his feet, except the extravagant pair his mother gave to him in hopes he’d listen for once. He never wore them, but he always stared. The worn out trainers were bright blue (that he’d never seen so bright) with a tiger’s claw tripe, black all around with a thick soul. Laces in gray, fraying at the ends.They’re the old owners' shoes. For basketball. The ones they’d left behind before The Move.
Jessie kept the pair alive, untainted and isolated. They’d sit in the pantry, below the storable foods and above the lone floor. Jessie dust them, sat with them, and cared for the pair.
But on the path, bare footed, Jessie walked, and walked and walked. The quake of fear rattled his tummy, and the snake climbed his throat. The world was large, he knew. From the way he could track to the store and the razored hill would move so little. The way the palm sized globe could be so big and his finger would cover his town, his mother’s hometown, and all the city too. But if Jessie could walk past the barren mountains and around whistling trees, maybe he could find life.
Jessie would hold life in his palm like the sun. For the time being, he counted the emptiness, the uneventful and dull of his town.
He ignored the snake rattles in his tummy.
Light Post, Electrical box, Stop sign.
“Jessie! I was just coming over, ” he flinched. A green jacket beside the green fence. Hailey was the same age as his mother and wise for her age, he thought at least. Jessie’s known her since he was a baby, and she’s been around ever since. She was one of the only things keeping his mother in this town, this house.
Jessie likes her. She rides her bike over the hill, and through the towns. Often, she’s gone again. He doesn't know what she does when she leaves, but she’ll go somewhere, far away by foot or bike.
He always wanted to ask, but the snake rattles overcome him like the fence. Green.
Jessie hadn't replied yet, and looked up to see Hailey’s worried wrinkled forehead. “When-” He started, then interrupted by Hailey.
“Come inside, it's so cold, where's your jacket?” She threw her hands under her armpit and fumbled with her bag. Jessie thought it was warm today.
He frowned. He wasn’t particularly upset about her worrying, it was what every adult would do, worrying. But his chest stung and brows creased.
He would need a jacket to go to the market, so what would he need for the…. World?
He could ask Hailey that, Mabey.
Inside the living room were small, low armchairs with a small table besides and a rug that covered the brown maple wood. The carpet almost looked Persian, but his mum says otherwise. “It's a Mongolian and inner Mongolia blend, it's above china Jessie. It's only second hand, you can tell by frills and pictures!”
Most of the home was warm. The floor was hardwood, but almost every surface was covered with rugs, beautiful red, brown and white rugs that were everlasting. Colours were just the same: warm.
Jessie always felt at home here, of course. The soft aesthetic, clicky wood and yellow-rust lightbulb.
He loves home.
“Jessie-
Jessie-
Jessie? Once again, might hurt, but it won't be as bad as your elbow last winter, right?”
A better alternative to this story would be. Jessie goes on a walk Barfoot then glass in foot. Jessie thinks about the new shoes. Over line the desire to explore, underline the anxiety of the unknown preparations. Next chapter brings us to Hailey, who is an adventure to Jessie but actually a social justice worker who helps people in all suburbs. Jessie doesn't know this, and his mother has a mental disorder and their home is filled with rugs. (Warm, the only things that keeps her to this town) Jessie can see that his mother is not okay in some ways but is still oblivious, tying to the fact he can see the visual problems in his town and yearns for something better, but can only slightly see the world black and white, not the small and real issue that effect his daily life because he is a kid. The anxiety that he can't identify comes from the fact he knows that there are larger steps and sacrifices he needs to take in order to gain freedom and adventure. Jessie might need a jacket, shoes. Those I hint on in the first chapter when he goes on the walk and when he passes out. He going to the store himself is debatable because it implies he has a sense of responsibility and freedom towards and in his own life, contradicting his thoughts about the preparation needed to be able to leave the town. If can take care of his groceries for his sick mother, doesn't that suggest that he is more mature than I've written him? He also likes to collect stock images of the world before The Move, would that reach into research from the local library books? (internet is down) Would Hailey be bringing him tips about the world… that means that there should be an established relationship with them about leaving town and seeing the world. Shit. Jessie physically shows his desire to explore the world as it was when he preserved the old owners shoes. Are they dead? Does Jessie know what happened to them? What does the dead and war mean to Jessie's morality, thoughts and aspirations? His character is very interesting to me now. A child knows death and war, but how? When he wishes to explore the world, would it be as the pictures before the move or would it be different? How would his emotions and feelings be hurt if the latter? When he grows to realise the mental illness his mother has, the kindness of Hailey and the horror of the world as it is, what will he do? Will Hailey become something of a deep aspiration? Jessie currently knows WHAT war has done. It made the old owners abandon their home, (who abandoned his mother?) The air is polluted and gray concrete, grey sky. Since Jessie can compare his life now to his fixation of the world before the move, he obviously knows of war, and had probably seen pictures of the new war stricken world from the librarian, though the librarian encouraged him that there still are good places on the planet. I'm going about this from a child’s naivety, which I'll have to learn how to play on and off better. I can see a scene when Jessie is a teen and balls up into tears about what damage humans have done to mother nature-then he causes the stone age lmao-
And that would be a breaking point of his. Would he take care of his town first? Would he travel to understand the depth of the world issues? Would he travel purely selfishly and accept the world for what it is? Would he try to find the old owners +and leave flowers but their graves)? I want him to learn about their world.
Document Edits: Age accuracy. Pollution + Hailey description + globe
Definitely keeping this chapter as a draft because I need the lore written but for a multi chapter story the actions and thoughts and characters and everything would need better placement.
Chapter 1: Will follow the same thought process of leaving home far away but being scared and unprepared aka green fence. Remove the shoes for third chapter insight. Jessie is walking and thinking then is stabbed by glass of the footpath, green jacket saves him and he sees the green gate as he passed out over blood, a (hopefully) clear parallel to him wanting to leave but being unprepared and scared for what dangers he doesn't know.
Chapter 2: (No lore check past this point sorry) Jessie sits in the library with the librarian checking out photography picture books. This needs to be an informal check point. But also solidifying poverty, hope, internal bottling, mutual understanding. He wakes up to rugs on the roof. Embarrassed. He has a bandage on his foot, his mother is next to him.