The Yellow Line (edit #3)A Story by Sophie third person, past tense (up until the end) my favorite version The two children were never to meet, never to know of each other,
it was normal for the Somebodies and Others to separate themselves. It
was easy. The Others all looked relatively the same, straight brown hair
ranging from chestnut to deep brown and chocolate eyes, while the
Somebodies all looked different, but not one of them had brown hair or
eyes.
The Others loved rules, well, maybe not loved, love wasn't allowed,
it was too passionate and seemed to cause uprisings. If there was one
thing they were allowed to love, it was rules, regulation, and
organization. Music was not allowed, it also caused passion and emotions
that couldn't be held in. Books were, but only certain books, things
with too much love in them were not acceptable, because it caused
longing, another emotion unable to be controlled.
The Somebodies, however, hated regulation and rules. Everyone was
free to do as they pleased, if there was a crime, people shrugged and
said "oh, that's too bad." There was one rule, and one rule only, the
only thing the Somebodies and Others shared: never cross the yellow
lines in the middle of Main Street, and never speak to someone from the
other side.
This rule was drilled into all children since birth, put into
nursery rhymes and songs. The punishment wasn't spoken, but it was
clear. Then came the two children who challenged all they knew about their world.
Firstly, the Other girl, who didn't appear to be an Other at all.
When she ran about and danced with joy, her fiery red curls bounced and
her blue eyes shined with happiness. From a young age, her parents tried
to suppress her emotions as best they could, but she was too strong
willed, too stubborn. But even at the age of seven, she knew she was
different and that it was wrong. She knew her curiosity was frowned upon
and unwelcome, but she asked the questions anyway.
Her mother and father awaited the fateful day when the ultimate
question was asked, and it came three months after her seventh birthday
as she knelt on the window seat staring out at the empty street with the
two, forbidden yellow lines in the middle.
"Momma, why can't we go over the lines?" Elizabeth had asked, not taking her light blue gaze from them. "Because
the people on the other side are different." Her mother sighed. It
seemed her voice was a natural sigh, at least when speaking to
Elizabeth, because Elizabeth was always disappointing her mother in some
way or another.
"The Somebodies?" She asked again. "Yes! The Somebodies,
Elizabeth! Now stop asking questions!" Her mother looked ready to pull
her hair out, which was greying though she was only thirty five.
Elizabeth silenced the many things that badgered her for answers
and looked out at the street, wondering exactly what was so bad about
crossing the line furthest from her. Curiosity
was welcomed in the Somebody home across the street, but not about the
subject that Xavier wanted to know. He wanted to know if he could get a
library card.
"Xavier, how many times have I told you, books are boring, now why
don't you finally ride the motorcycle we bought you for your birthday
six months ago!?" His mother said, urging him toward the garage.
"Mother, I'm seven doesn't that seem and little hazardous to you?"
He asked, "Please? There has to be one book in the house you haven't let
me read yet, please?" He begged. "No! Steal a book! Do something that's fun and breaks the rules!" His mother urged, practically pleading.
"Fine, mother! If you want me to do something reckless why don't I
cross the lines! I'm sure they have books over there!" He yelled,
looking into his mothers green eyes without fear, but knowing she
couldn't help the way she was saddened by the brown color of his.
She slapped him. Hard, and right across the cheek. He nodded,
knowing he had crossed a line with her patience. He retreated up to his
room and flipped to the first page of his old, worn book about a young
boy named Tom who went on adventures with his friends and swung dead
cats, and laughed at how it all sounded quite like the things boys his
age were doing now.
Three years passed before anything of significant
wrongness was done by Elizabeth. Now ten, she still wasn't brunette, and
she still wasn't brown eyed, and she'd come to be happy with her
differences, at least to an extent. No teachers ever forgot her name in
school, it was hard to miss the bright tangle if curls that followed
behind her when she ran and danced, and then hid her face when she cried
for getting in trouble.
The thing she did wrong wasn't actually witnessed by anyone who
would care, which was good. But she made eye contact with a Somebody. Or,
she supposed he was a Somebody, he was on the correct side to be, but
his hair was brown and so were his eyes, from what she could tell. She
saw him through a window, but the glass wasn't tinted like the Others'
glass was, to keep anything that might be necessary for hiding hidden.
Not that you couldn't still see inside.
Once he saw her, he quickly disappeared from view, and once again Elizabeth was left with questions she couldn't answer. A
few hours later, she watched again from her favorite spot in the window
seat as many people arrived at the house across the way, and a strange
sound blared from the house. It sounded like a woman contorting her
voice so it went higher at some parts, and low on others, she drew out
vowels sounds and every so often words rhymed.
"Like a poem." Elizabeth whispered. After a few more lines of the
strange sound, she tried mimicking it loudly, and her mother rushed in. "Elizabeth! Stop singing this instant!"
"But momma, it's fun." Elizabeth whined, starting to twirl around and dance. "You want something to do? Why don't you go wash the dishes then?" "Momma! That's not fun!" Elizabeth protested.
Her mother looses it, her voice going scratchy and high as she
yells at the top of her lungs, "Why can't you just be like everyone
else?! Why can't you just follow the rules?!" Elizabeth sits back on the window seat, unsure of what to do.
She hated her hair and eyes from that point on. Xavier
was unhappy and very curious, usually not a good combination because in
his experience it leads to recklessness. He supposed his mother would
like that, but he wouldn't.
He was unhappy because it was midnight and being ten years old, he
was very, very tired, but he couldn't sleep because of the music blaring
from downstairs. He was curious because there was a girl his own age
across the street with red hair and blue eyes, when she was an Other and
should have had brown hair and brown eyes. But she wasn't the one
keeping him up, and he could wonder about her tomorrow. What he really
wanted was to sleep. He opened the door to his room, the music
immediately battering his ears. In his pajamas he walked through the
ground of dancing, laughing, loud people to find his mother.
"Mother." He said, tugging on the hem of her shirt to get her attention. "What, Xavier?" She asks, not stopping her dancing. "Can
you please send everyone home, I'm really tired." He asked, swaying in
his feet and tearing up a little bit, ready to cry he was so exhausted.
"No, Xavier! We're having fun! Why don't you just going us, it's not even that late! why can't you just be normal?" "I don't know, mother." Xavier sighed and went back up to his room and tried to sleep.
Elizabeth was fifteen when she saw the boy through
only one layer of glass for the first time. He was laughing with his
friends, all of them stumbling as they walked, laughing and talking
loudly. One ran back to the house and threw up while the others just
laughed. She watched a look of fleeting concern pass the boy with the
brown hair's face, but it was quickly replaced with the fuzzy look of
drunkenness. So he was faking, interesting. Elizabeth thought, watching
as they all stood a few feet away from the lines in the road. One with
pitch black hair stepped forward, and the brown haired boy followed,
over taking him. Then he took another step forward, now only one foot
away. The others didn't dare to follow him, too scared to go that close.
One boy with bright blonde hair who appeared to not be drunk at all
watched worriedly as the boy with the brown hair stepped forward again,
the tips of his shoes an inch away from the line. they all watched in
horror as he lifted his foot again.
"No!" Some of them yelled, though Elizabeth could barely hear. and
the blonde one rushed forward and wrapped his arms around the boy's
midsection to hold him back. The boy with the brown hair shook them off
and started yelling, looking angry and very, very sad. The boys looked
stunned and slowly walked back to their own homes.
The boy with the brown hair sat himself down right on the edge of
the line on his side and stared at Elizabeth's window, knowing she was
watching. Elizabeth tried to talk herself out of it, but her
curiosity is too much, her need for something rebellious is too hard to
hold back. She tiptoed to the front door, glad her parents kept it well
oiled.
Xavier watched in utter amazement as the girl with
the red hair emerged from her door and walked slowly, looking scared, to
where he sat. She sat down across from him, the width of the two lines
and the space in between them the only thing separating them.
He knew he couldn't talk with her. The only Somebodies and Others
who were allowed to talk were the ones who ran the government, and that
certainly wasn't the two fifteen year old misfits. They sat
there, letting their eyes tell their stories, of how they never
belonged, of how they hated themselves, of how they could never earn
their parents' love.
Xavier found his fingers tracing the boundary. What a silly thing, a line of yellow paint. It couldn't stop anything. Yet it did. Elizabeth
is seventeen, and for the past two years every night she has sat across
from the boy with the brown hair in silence. They have not spoken a
single word in the two years, yet they know each other better than
anyone else ever will. They have gotten as close as they possibly could,
when sitting criss cross, their knees would be in the middle of the
lines on their side.
She just wants to tell him something, she just wants to talk to the
boy she's fallen in love with without speaking to him. Her stomach
churns as she opens her mouth, and she watches the boy with the brown
hair's eyes widen.
"I love you." She says, her voice ringing out much stronger than
she ever though it would, for she knows the punishment for her audacity. He pauses for a moment, trying to find his voice, "I love you too."
They stand up knowing that that was the end of them, and using the
little time they have to make it count. Their feet touch in the center
of the lines, their arms wrap around each other, and their mouths meet
in a kiss.
Xavier knows what's coming, he knows exactly what
their mothers plan to do as the doors to their houses open in unison.
He doesn't break apart from the girl with the red hair, who's name he'll
never know. Not even when he hears their mothers c**k the guns. He
reaches for her hand and clasps it tightly. There is no way to survive.
He feels a sob rack her body as cold metal presses to both of their
heads, but they don't break apart, in their last act of defiance. They
are dead in the same instant. His blood and body on the Others side,
her blood and body on the Somebodies, and their hands still entwined in
the middle.
© 2012 SophieAuthor's Note
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Added on December 13, 2012Last Updated on December 13, 2012 Author
Sophie-, MAAboutI'm 16 in my sophomore year of high school, I started on this site when i was 14, took about a year break and now i might be back, im just fixing my description because i was annoying as f**k last yea.. more..Writing
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