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January Boy, Part 14

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January Boy, Part 14

Setting: The Snow Forts
Date: June 20th, 1998
Time: 6:21 PM PST

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Snowball. Snowball. Snowball. They were stacked in a neat pyramid which was growing every few snowballs. The Snow Fort walls guided the maker of the snowballs from the outside world. He was content.
Franky had been making snowballs for at least a half an hour now. There was no real reason for his repetitive action other than the fact that he wanted to be able to defend himself if a creepy penguin approached him. After six months of waddling the streets, it was just occurring to him that it might not be safe to be out there all alone at seven years old. The nights had passed slowly, but the days had gone by quickly, crawling on and on towards a goal that he didn’t even know. He was just trying to get through each day carefully, and not to run into anyone from his past along the way.
So he sat in the Snow Forts, making snowballs and sitting on top of his guitar case.
It had been a long week. The days had been warm and he had only the wet, melting snow to keep him cool. Most of the buildings on the island weren’t air-conditioned. He felt like he had survived the two extremes-- freezing cold and boiling hot. Did it make him invincible? He had no idea. But he did know that he was hungry and wanted a place to sleep.
He rose, carrying a snowball in one flipper and his guitar case in the other. He had been searching for an igloo to station himself in for the past few weeks, but nothing was coming up. It seemed like every one was occupied. He only wanted a place to put his things, a place to sleep at night, and a place to live. He was tired of being homeless. It wasn’t just a matter of surviving anymore-- it was a matter of living, and he knew that there was a difference.  
As he waddled towards the path that would lead him to the igloos, he sang under his breath, a song he had written a few months ago. He wrote songs often now, at least once a week, but had to commit them to memory-- he could read a little, but couldn’t write. Luckily, he was very good at memorizing songs, so that’s what he did. They were all stored in his small, musical memory bank.
A penguin emerged from the path just as Franky was going down it. He had green feathers and short blond hair, and wire-rimmed glasses framed his eyes. He was carrying a load of binders and papers, and upon colliding with Franky, dropped them all.
“I’m sorry!” Franky cried suddenly, widening his eyes.
The teenager knelt down and smiled to him, then began to gather his things. “It’s okay.”
“Want help?”
“It’s fine.”
He didn’t feel satisfied, since it had been him, after all, who had caused the collision. So he bent down and gathered the stuff-- and that’s when he realized what it was. It was a collection of sheet music and piano pieces, marked with pencil, highlighter, and pen all over. The binders had more music in them, some of it handwritten. “Is this yours?” Franky found himself asking softly.
“Yeah, it’s mine,” replied the penguin, organizing the pile again and hoisting it back into his own flippers.
“I play the guitar.” He lifted his instrument to demonstrate.
“Cool.” He grinned. “I gotta get going. Have a great day.”
“Alright, bye!”
As the penguin left, Franky waved, and for a split second, he had a small feeling inside of him-- like he had connected with someone because of the common interest. Like, even if only for a minute, he had had a friend.
He realized, as he continued down the path, that it was pretty pathetic for him to consider the random guy he had helped pick up his stuff his friend. He had resorted to thinking that any verbal interaction automatically meant he had made a connection with that penguin. He wasn’t having very much social interaction lately, and it was taking its toll on him. He had forgotten how to have a conversation without blushing and stumbling over his words.
Many of the penguins’ igloos had their lights on, and he figured that meant that they weren’t available for him to slip inside and sleep in. He had spent many a night roaming the paths like this, looking for dark, vacant igloos to hide himself in. He only wanted a place to be, both literally and figuratively. He felt that he was slipping further and further away from his goal of singing with every day that passed, because he didn’t have anyone to talk to about it. Maybe that was just his twisted way of thinking about it because he was so isolated from society, but he thought about it a lot nonetheless.
An igloo with dark windows about ten minutes later looked promising. As if he had forgotten all manners and politeness, he approached it and cautiously knocked on the door.
There was no answer. He figured that was a good sign, so he waddled over to the window and looked inside. The room was empty, without furniture or lights. The only thing inside was a rough-looking blue carpet.
That would do. He went back over to the door and placed his flipper on the knob slowly. When he turned it, it gave, so he slipped inside and quickly closed it behind him.
“Okay,” he said, putting down his guitar and looking around. “I guess this will work.”

Within a period of about twenty minutes, he had laid out some of the things he had acquired over the past few months as well as things he had left home with-- a blue blanket, the clothes he had taken from home, his brother’s baseball cap that he used to remind him of what was happy about his past, the guitar, the coins he had earned by playing and the small pouch he used to keep them in, a bottle of water, a winter hat, and a warm coat. The only thing that wasn’t present was food, which he really needed. But this would do for now.
So he sat down on the blanket and looked around the dark igloo. He placed his guitar in his lap and took a long breath. He tried to remember what he had seen on the penguin’s sheet music, but couldn’t bring up the images other than vague circles and lines.
He strummed a chord and sang the note that went along with it. “Let’s do this…”
Another song written, another committed to memory. This was Franky’s life now. And he didn’t know how much longer he wanted to aimlessly wander the island looking for something to hold onto.
He couldn’t feel calm or happy or even safe.
He could only feel alone.

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I actually really want this story to be over. It's not that I don't like the idea behind it, I'm just having bad writer's block for the plot and don't really know where to go from here. Third person was a bad idea. And I know that I type that in every description I put up for these chapters. I'm going to do a first-person Cadenky multi-chapter story after this one is over, and it's going to be much more interesting. I thought Franky's backstory would be more fun to write than this is. 

So. 
A mysteriously fabulous and gay cameo was in this chapter. 

Until the next submission/journal/whatever else... Oldie out. XD

Franky and Petey K belong to Club Penguin
Story belongs to me! :D
© 2014 - 2024 oldpbfan21
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TheMadTrumpeter's avatar
I see what you did there 😉